1/23

I find myself engaged in conversation with a gentleman I haven't engaged in quite a while.  We speak of the current events in our lives.  Work.  Friday nights.  Future plans.  

And this is all due to the whiskey.  The ration bought for the incoming blizzard.  For a weekend spent wrapped in blankets in front of a book or favorite movie.  Or to simply pass the time.

But we're throwin' back the bottle and rattling off tales of misfortune and tales of great mirth.  Everything just seems to be flowing.  

Then the gentleman suggests a walk in the snow.  A walk to maybe get some food.  Maybe more spirits.  A walk to keep things flowing.  

So, out we go.  And the storm has only just begun.  An inch or two coats the pavement and we kick through it with our boots like children.  We stomp and slide and keep moving forward.  The conversation dwindles as we laugh and play.  

Soon though, I realize I'm gaining distance from the man.  I turn back and he's stumbling into lamp posts and parked cars.  Falling onto the cobblestones of Fells Point, rising, then falling again.

So, I grab his arms and hoist him up.  I wrap one around my back and tell him to grab, place my hand behind his hips and start pushing towards home.  Towards the end of our journey.  Play time is over.

And this works for a few blocks.  Till we get to this stretch by the waterfront when his legs turn to complete jello.  When he just wants to wrestle in the snow.  Like a child.  As we were before.

But I'm growing and sobering fast, and all I can think of is having some warm apple cider when I return to my apartment.  So, I try to grab him again.  Pull upwards.  But he just wants to roll in the snow.  To just spin and turn on the ground.

So I take a stand.  I back a few steps away, shout to him.  "I'm going this way," and point to my apartment.  Then I watch.  Try to see if any of this is registering.  Try to see if there's still a person in there.

After a moment or two there's vertical movement; he begins to rise.  And I feel a rush of hope; time to go home.  But it doesn't take much time, one may even describe it as the blink of an eye, before he stumbles. After his hips are in the air above his legs, when he's pushing his upper body up from the ground, he stumbles.  Crossing one foot over the other over the other.  And I see it so clearly.  If only my muscles would spring into action.  Be more efficient.  But he goes in.  Almost like a child on the first day the pool opens.  In a flash.  He's in.

And I'm on the edge of the stone boardwalk, yelling and screaming like a parent.  Clapping my hands and searching the gentleman's face for recognition.  For an acknowledgement of the situation.  For anything, really.  But there's no one there.  Blank.  Like that of a child.  And I'm cursing.  I'm cursing so much.  As he treads water.  As he treads less and less water.  I curse so much.  Then my boots come off.  Through curses and blasphemies the jacket comes off.  The workman's overalls.  The sweaters.  The gloves.  The socks.

Then I'm in the water.  It's cold.  And dark.  And nothing like a comforter, but I'm swimming better than I ever remembered, and I have an arm around his limp body in an instant.  When we get back to the edge, a newly arrived officer shouts down basic questions and bits of encouragement.  She tells me how great I'm doing.  Help is on the way.  I thank her.

Then there's flashing lights and ladders and ropes tied round rubber hoops and rods equipped with hooks.  And we're getting pulled and tugged and wrapped in blankets and all I'm thinking about is that warm apple cider.

1/17

I wind up on a dance floor again.  With motion and sweat and smiles, I wind up on the dance floor.  And this wasn't my intent.  I came for a beer and some light bar banter.  I came to relax, ease myself into a wooden stool, and think not of my worries.  Nothing too engaging. 

So, it's slightly surprising when my shoulders begin to dip and rise with the beat of the snare on Bowie's Rebel Rebel.  When my feet start to tap out the lead guitar on the hardwood floor.  When my fingers get drumming on the tabletop.

It's not too long before I'm surrounded by bodies.  Bodies bouncing up and bodies bending down, with arms spiraling out in electric fashion and feet that hop and kick and fling about.  It's not too long till the heat is rising and voices are joining in song.  Till everyone has embraced the infectious energy and pure passion that David Bowie left for us.  

And to think, I wanted to be home by nine.  

12/31

I'm seated in the theater.  I'm seated in the dark with a small bag of popcorn in my lap and a soda in my cup holder.  With dozens of other folk all anxiously waiting for the new Star Wars movie to begin.  To be taken to a time long ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Then the theater goes black.  John Williams' exhilarating composition fills the room.  The yellow script rolls up the screen.  And everyone goes wild.

But there's a girl a seat down from me.  A tiny thing.  Able to bring her knees to her chest and have the bottoms of her feet on the edge of the chair.  Adorable.  But she rises and leaves a few moments in.  The boy she is dating feebly protests but off she goes.

And I'm not too interested.  I'm focused on the fighter jets and the storm troopers and the energy blasts.  After a little more time the girl returns.  But she doesn't sit next to the boy, as she was before.  She approaches and sits next to me.  Pulls her knees up.  Places her feet on the edge of the chair, but at an angle so the tips of her shoes touch my thigh.

And I'm enticed.  Skin is tingling.  Blood is pumping.  My attention has shifted.  I'm no longer focused on which character is in danger and which plot device is being utilized.  I'm on the white tips of her black sneakers.  On the blonde hair she's rolling between her forefinger and thumb.

Then she's leaning toward me.  Leaning in.  Her hand is moving.  Slowly.  Toward me.  Down into my lap.

And I'm riveted.  I'm shaken.  Lightening bolts are shooting up and down my body.  It actually takes me a minute to realize she's no longer next to me.  That she's seated back, next to the boy.  Knees to chest.  Feet on chair.  

And I've lost my popcorn.

12/30

Sneaking through neighborhoods.  Across backyards and around house sidewalks.  Avoiding windows.  Seeking out trees.  Bushes.  Swing sets.  Anything to obscure the view.  Anything to keep me invisible.

And I feel like a teenager.  This feels like something I did as a teenager.  Walking about the earth as if it was all mine.  Walking about as if there were no boundaries.  No conception of your side or my side.  No notion of: keep off.  

So I dart from this end of a porch to that end.  I hop this fence and push myself through that hedge.  But along the way I get this creeping sensation that I'm directionless.  That there is no true destination here.  Nothing more that lies ahead than behind.

This makes me pause.  By the bird feeder hanging from the pink magnolia tree, I pause and dig deep.  Prod and poke for an ember of reason.  An explanation as to why I'm moving.  Why I'm progressing through private properties.  

Then I lock eyes with a boy.  He stands in the living room by the sliding glass door.  Watching.  Observing.  His eyes are piercingly blue.  And nothing happens for a few moments.  There's no panic or fear.  No worry or trouble.  There's simply this boy and me.  Standing.  Breathing.  One outside and one in.  One older, one younger.  One guilty, one innocent.

Then he lifts his finger.  His arm comes up and he's pointing at me.  His mouth is moving and attention broadening and soon he's looking toward the kitchen, summoning someone.  

I'm gone by the time he looks back.  When his mother quizzically strolls up behind him, scanning the grounds for anything peculiar.  But there's nothing there.  Just another child excited by the great, big world.  

And another man lost in the maze of his existence.

Or in the maze of neighborhood backyards.

12/29

I'm under a blanket smoking cigarettes with a past lover.  Waves of grey fill the air on the light cast through the green comforter.  We breathe it in and out and in again.

And I'm pretty sure this is a dream.  It feels like a dream.

It would explain the other lady present.  The one that doesn't look like someone I've slept with.  The one that doesn't quite match up with any significant figure in my life.  Surely, no one with which I'd share my bed (this is my bed, right?) and my cigarettes under my own comforter (again, mine?).  

But I'm not completely sure, so we all simply laugh and puff away.  On the bed that stretches for miles.  Fire hazards?  Health risks?  These aren't concerns of ours.  Only laughter.  And we have that covered.  With the smiles imprinted so blissfully in my memory.

And there's some reason I must leave.  There has to be.  To part with such lovely and jovial women.  As I raise the blanket and watch the smoke plague the room.  Pour up and out.  Free.  So very free. 

And I travel to unfamiliar settings.  I move to terrains unexplained before being jostled awake.  Before alarms are buzzing and beeping and alerting and summoning me to a place where there might be less smoke - but surely less smiles.  And I want more smiles.

12/28

Cold feet this morning.  And I wonder of all the times I've had cold feet.  Of all the times I've stalled out.  Reversed.  High tailed it out of there.  Of all the times I've felt what I was doing was wrong.

The profession.  The hobby.  The apartment.  The relationship.  The focus; goal.  Perspective.  Motivation.  The faith.  The will to push past the failures and move forward.  Move on.

Cold feet every time.  

I've had it when receiving a raise in a vocational position or receiving more responsibility from a hobby.  When exploring a deeper level of intimacy with a partner or analyzing information for future decisions and debating the feasibility and benefits of those decisions.  When broadening the view of my life.  Changing.  Evolving.  Culminating.

Cold feet.  

And I suppose this allows for easy travel.  A possibility for more experiences.  Granted, they are more than likely less rich experiences, but there are more of them.  More waters in which to dip more toes.  More lakes to skim the surface of.  More ponds to ripple with a finger.  More streams to step above.  Droplets to balance on my tongue.

Almost seems like less and less.

12/27

Sounds emanate from below.  A new neighbor.  Another body.  A fresh occupant.

And I hear her cough throughout the day as she shuffles about beneath my floorboards.  Nailing a picture frame to a wall or maneuvering a desk across the room.  I lay and I let the sounds permeate my apartment.  I welcome the invasion.  The orchestra of moving in.  Getting settled.

It's only later when I'm greatly disturbed.  Only after I've taken the time to lay down and close my eyes for the evening.  When the smokey gentleman who haunts my consciousness chooses a new victim.  Chooses to leave my side and stalk someone else.  And though this seems a favorable event, maybe even an opportunity to obtain some peace, he chooses the girl downstairs.  He chooses this girl at midnight.  When the darkest of the world seeps from the shadows and into other's lives.

And she's unassuming and accommodating, the way his prey tend to be.  I hear her offer him a glass of water and a pillow for the place he chooses to sit on the floor, which, of course, he immediately accepts.

Then I'm being shaken by his grating voice.  By his nauseating rants.  By his anarchistic view of the world and his incessant urges to harm other people.

And she's oblivious.  She plays the part he's designed for her.  That he's laid out.  

And I can't listen to the slaughter.  I know it too well.  I've been around him too long.  So, I put on some headphones and turn the volume up.  I cover my eyes.  I even grab the bottle of whiskey for a swig or two.  Anything to create distance.  Anything to make a little room.  Maybe there's peace over here.  Maybe I can uncover it for just a few hours.  Hold it close.  Return it when I'm done.  Just long enough to cross over for a little.  Please?