Lucky

The bar was crowded.

But the chatter and general din didn’t distract him from her.

She was telling him about a trip to Europe she planned to take in the not too distant future.

“You should come with me,” she told him.

“Europe?! They eat people like me alive over there.”

“Oh bullshit…” she answered back.

The walk home wasn’t too drunk, more of a slow amble than a stumble, playing with any random thing they could find along the way.

She found a scrap of wood on the ground and told him, “here this is for you.”

He looked at it under the light of a nearby streetlamp, examining the brown swirls and small knots in the 1x3 chunk of wood.

He put it in the left pocket of his green woolen shirt and said “groovy.”

They were sitting in her living room, he had weaseled his way inside somehow using some horseshit excuse such as he needed to use the bathroom or wanted a glass of water, but there was no ill intent behind it.

He had found himself on her couch gazing at her records, thumbing through things like Simon and Garfunkel, Pink Floyd and other oldies.

“You have some really good ones here,” he told her.

She was sitting next to him on the couch and looked at him with a little smirk and said, “I know. Why don’t you pick something to put on?”

He had seen a Led Zeppelin record earlier and found it again.

He pulled it from its sleeve and put it on the platter.

He moved the arm over the record and when nothing happened she said, “hold on, it’s touchy.”

She moved from the couch towards the record player and stumbled a bit, but he managed to get a hand out for her to grab before she could fall.

He hid the smile that came to his face because he didn’t want her to be embarrassed, and let her continue.

She put the album on, and while it was still hissing and popping she flicked the lights off.

A very soft, romantic glow filled the room, its source being a single strand of white lights strung up above the couch.

They talked more and got comfortable.

Both slumped a little on the couch, sitting close to one another.

They talked more about what was going on in their lives and eventually she put her head on his shoulder.

A twinge of anxious excitement shot through him, but he managed to keep it all contained within himself, his demeanor still calm.

The music still played in the background and he finally got the gumption to reach for her hand.

Their fingers locked and they both smiled a little bit.

He leaned towards her to give her a kiss and she nervously buried her face into his shoulder and giggled.

He wasn’t upset by this and instead turned his attention to her hand that he was holding. He brought it close to his eyes and began to examine the wrinkles in her knuckles, the cuticles where her nails met her fingers, the lines in her palms.

He grabbed the other and proceeded to do the same.

Running his fingers through any line or ridge he could find on them.

Her hands were the absolute most beautiful things he could think of at that point in time.

He then turned his head so that he could look into her eyes, as she had finally brought her head up from his shoulder.

“You’re sweet,” she told him.

“No,” he answered, “your hands are just really lovely. More like artwork, really.”

She smiled again and he tried to kiss her once more, moving his lips to hers.

Another shot of electricity ran through him when they touched.

Soft kisses at first, but they grew stronger as they began to wrap their arms around each other.

Eventually the album was over and he had begun to doze off with his head now on her shoulder.

“I think it’s time to go to bed,” she told him.

“Oh I’ll get going then,” he said back.

“You don’t have to go.”

“Okay, well I can crash out here on the couch, the little lights out here are so nice and all.”

She smiled at him and laughed and pointed towards a doorway, “You’re fine, come sleep in there with me.”

He sat on the edge of the bed taking off his shoes, hoping she wouldn’t smell his feet.

Both of them were too tired and drunk to really take off their clothes so they lay spooning fully clothed.

He lightly walked his fingers up and down her shoulders.

He would take deep breathes because the smell of her hair was just a little intoxicating. 

Sweet and rich.

Finally he wrapped his arms around her and just let sleep come.

Before he even left her doorstep he considered why he didn’t get her number or something.

He had simply said,

“I have no idea when I’ll see you again…but if you’re ever my way, get in touch with me.”

How fucking stupid did you sound? he thought to himself.

But his defense was that he didn’t want to ruin one of the best moments he’d had in a long while; even if it meant possibly creating something new with her.

Hugging her goodbye had been the icing on the cake for him. And he wondered about how he could have had such an incredible evening, however short it had been, with someone as beautiful and sweet as her, but was still willing to let it fizzle before it could start.

With a walk ahead of him and the sun already toasting his shoulders he considered his options.

It was just a few hours spent laying in a bed with someone right?

He was just going to let the moment fade.

And not to let it haunt him too much the next few days.

random pictures from last summer.

The Theatre (allegedly)

I had asked Alex to meet me out front of the old building.

Such a badass, old place.

Some weird old office/theatre space, about three stories high.

On several occasions (allegedly), my friends and I would sneak in and have a look around. Usually blasted out of our minds, which in turn gave us the courage and strength to climb drainage pipes, up a story and a half, onto old rusted fire escapes which would take us onto a decrepit roof, where pigeons would make sudden moves and scare the shit out of us in the pitch dark night.

This most commonly occurred on evenings where the streetlights were blurry and seemed to be more drunk than we were.

As I walked towards where it was, I noticed that I could not spot the old awning that hung outside; the building’s beacon for those passing by on foot.

I remember (allegedly) one of our first trips into the musty old bitch. We walked right in the front door. Someone had broken in, or gone for the night but had left the front door wide open. Upon entering I remember coming upon an old hiking backpack, through which I immediately began to dig. Fishing a gloved hand, very slowly through the pack as not to cut or prick my finger on anything gross.

Which might as well serve me right for going through some random transient’s knapsack, honestly.

In it I found writings, done on the back of years old faxes, addressed to city politicians. Someone was proposing a plan to tear down the old awning outside, as it was a hazard due to its age and elements of weather such as falling water, ice and snow. They wanted to clean up the whole building, rework and repurpose it for good. The writer detested the amounts of syringes he found on his passings through the building. Decent arguments, all to be held accountable by the owner of these documents, as long as the city handed over the building to them.

I took the letter.

I took an empty notebook.

I took a piece of art done with broken glass and an old parking sign from the club that burned down next door.

I stole someone’s shit. (allegedly)

I think back on that sometimes and feel kind of bad about it.

I guess I wasn’t really thinking about it then, I just liked the things I found.

I was thinking they must have finally removed the old awning, probably a good idea really, before it fell and crushed some nice people coming back from the Rolex store at City Creek.

But then I noticed an orange porta-john.

Then some chain link fence, orange cones and what looked like the arm of a large excavator.

 The very last time I went it there, I was with three other friends. (allegedly)

And as we descended into the building on a service ladder we found on the roof and made our way down. We explored and took our time. Making our way down into the basement, I led the way with the light on my phone and my battery at 20%.

We followed red smears on the walls and floors for a while.

Honest to God we found someone sleeping in there. He was still warm, but too hammered, stoned, tweaking, whatever to even bother with 4 drunk assholes stomping around the place at 2am.

We consider moving in too. Why pay rent when it’s so damn easy to get in here anyway?

I remember after we left I checked my hip for my knife and found that it wasn’t in its sheath.

The Buck 103 my old man found 20 years ago working road maintenance in Vermont, tucked away in some grader. Covered in rust and grime, my dad had polished it up and worked the snags out of the blade and put it away in some box. Until about 26 years later when I mentioned I happened to be looking for that exact knife but couldn’t find a good price.

So of course, the musty bitch ate it up.

Suppose that might be karma for the things I took so many months before.

Truthfully, my heart sank.

The old building is no longer there.

I began walking the perimeter of the fence, looking at the piles of rubble.

I want to be mad at someone, but who can I blame for deciding that an old building needed to come down?

It was an old, nasty place. Flooded and boarded up long ago.

Forgotten and left alone while the city around it sprung up like cheat grass.

It was it’s time I suppose.

I burn one down in loving memory and flick my crutch into the twisted beams and brick.

And dammit, I really hope that my knife is in all that shit and not some bums backpack.

Belfast, Maine.

I haven’t written in a while, and I’m not going to apologize for my absence like I usually do because honestly, what does it matter?

Walking alone the dreary coast is humbling.

Dark and grey, much different from a bright, sandy western beach.

I ‘m looking at all the things that have washed up.

Drift wood. Nylon rope. Glass. Garbage.

Small things in a big pond.

I’m only a week into this family vacation and it has been very humbling.

I wonder where all this shit came from.

How long it was at sea.

How it ended up here.

I compare it to myself.

Driving across the country, through all these towns full of people.

People who are carrying on their lives with no knowledge of who I am or how I feel.

It’s humbling.

I realize that my problems aren’t as big as I think they are.

If I were to disappear off the face of the earth. If this sea were to swallow me up.

If the earth opened and I fell into it. They would keep on going on as if nothing had happened. Not to discount the people who actually know me, I know they would miss me and I would miss them because I love them and care for them as I know they love and care for me. But this world would continue without skipping a beat.

I get so caught up in my thoughts that I get lost.

Speaking with my father as we hurtled our way across America, I realize that he and I are not so different. He’s almost 70 years old now and he tells me that he still lies in bed at night thinking so much that he imagines driving himself mad with his own thoughts. That he has to somehow shut himself off from the inner workings of his mind.

It’s humbling, to know that I’m not the only one.

To know that I’m not the only one who thinks this country is going to shit and that change is a horrifying thing.

His comments on the change out East open my eyes up to what’s going on around me.

The small towns growing. The old restaurants and places we’ve visited so many times before that are gone and changing as the years roll on.

And all people can do is sit back and discuss stupid, superficial bullshit like “Deflategate” or thumb through Kim Kardashians selfie book.

What the fuck are we coming to?

I understand that this is the still the home of the free, as we are indeed free to involve ourselves in what we choose, but goddamn, this is definitely not the place of the brave anymore.

Hiding behind our online falsities and made up personalities.

I’m rambling now, but fuck you.

Remember when the Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island were on TV?

When the only drama portrayed was Marsha getting her nose smashed by a football or whether or not Professor was going to be able to build a robot out of coconuts?

Now every channel is littered, like this beach, with garbage.

False identities on reality television, who preach gossip and conflict.

And we worship it, we bow to it, we thrive on it.

The rocks poking through the soles of my boots and my hand rubbed raw from my walking stick are things I cherish. They’re real.

There’s a very big disconnect happening with the human race right now.

 And we’re too caught up in retweets to give a flying fuck.

But wait, you got 50 likes?

Good for you.

rant.

Where are my wife-fondling, swinger, hipster parties?

Where are my black curtained rooms, full of neverdowells such as myself, drinking and smoking and discussing introspective ideas far beyond our current comprehension? 

I suppose I could blame myself for not seeking these people out.

As Kerouac and Ginsburg and all those fuckers did.

Looking for adventure in the gutter with criminals and vagabonds.

Working terrible jobs, only to be endowed with great pride, crystallizations of self worth and work ethic.

Feeling fulfilled in their quests, leaving at the drop of a hat to ride in the backs of their friend’s broken down cars to see the country.

(I don’t know if this is going to be a rant about my generation, technology, my own problems, or all of those things… so just hang with me.)

I read the works of Kerouac and think about how it will never be that way.

We are so connected now, so contrived in our everyday social media posts, that we don’t need to actually do things. We can create the image with pictures and words. And this is a thing that tears at my mind.

Why are we letting ourselves get carried away with our handheld technology?

Do we not see the void being created between ourselves and others due to our telephones?

People argue that technology has made us more connected. Horseshit.

It’s made us lazier, more passive aggressive and highly sensitive.

We misinterpret textual word and then subtweet.

We see a post on instagram and like it because we don’t really like it and we are trying to take a jab at someone.

We’re passing judgment with the swipe of our finger.

I think what I’m trying to say here is that we need to take a page from the book of the Beat Generation and seek one another out. 
We need these experiences because they are the glue that holds our souls together.

We need to quit being this “plugged in” generation, this… 
Beaten Generation.

We’ve let our own self pity, angst and anxiety plague us into some sort of passive aggressive, hate-mongering douchebag generation.

We need each other, people.

We need to connect to each other, in real life.

Physical touch and spoken word are necessity.

cold love.

“Shut the fuck up!” she squealed with a smile.

He had just told her that her bangs reminded him of Cleopatra.

The self proclaimed reincarnation of Isis, the Egyptian goddess.

“Except,” he began, “yours are scattered and choppy. So you’re Miz ‘Patra, but only if she were a hot goddamn mess.”

She squinted her eyes and shot him a look.

He began to laugh and sip from his beer when she socked him in the shoulder. Spilling some of his beverage on his long, black, wool jacket.

“Hey.. what the…” he said, squinting his eyes back at hers.

“You always have to ruin it,” she cried.

“Ruin what?”

“You could say the sweetest thing, but then insult me in the same breath.”

“Oh baby,” he put his arm around her and looked into her big green eyes,” I fuckin’ love you.”
“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Prove it… dick.”

“Hey…” he squinted once more.

“Sorry.”

“Let’s you and I finish these beers and leave. Because I know neither of us have money to pay for them. Then let's see if we can dig up some change, huh?”

-

As she walked in front of him her long grey coat danced with the wind and the falling snow.

Her long hair flew around her head in a wild fashion creating tangles and small flurries of black web surrounding her beautiful face.

It was the cold winter nights like this that reminded him of the moment he fell in love with her.

-

“Are you sure we should do this?” she asked nervously, sitting next to him in his old Econoline.

“Baby we gotta eat… and I really want to snag some scratch cards,” he answered her with a nervous smirk of his own.

She sighed heavily.

“And besides, I want us to have a merry little Christmas.”

She smiled.

“It’ll be just like we planned, okay?” he assured her.

“Okay, darling.”

“Hey, do you trust me?”

“I trust you.” Trust was hard for her.

They stepped out of the old van and made their way towards the entrance of the convenience store putting on the ski masks they had shoplifted from a Wal-Mart earlier in the day, two towns away.

Upon walking into the small corner shop, they came upon the clerk who sat behind the counter, and a young couple browsing the beer cooler in the back.

“You grab them,” he told her. “I’ve got the register.”

She slunk to the back to take care of the couple.

He approached the cashier counter, gun raised, clerk unaware.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said with a friendly tone.

The lethargic clerk still had no idea of the young man in front of him, wielding a Colt .45.

She already had the couple face down on the floor, fearing the shiny steel of her Smith and Wesson 38 Special, they weren’t going to make a sound.

The clerk left his face buried in his dirty magazine.

“I said, excuse me sir!” he bellowed this time, finally rousing a response from the clerk.

“The fuck do you want, dude?” the clerk said, before his gaze was locked with the barrel of a pistol, leaving his mouth agape. “Holy shit man, I don’t want no trouble now…”

“Just keep your damn mouth shut and do what you know I want you to do or I’m gonna plaster your fucking face to all those packs of Marbs behind you there.” He said, motioning his handgun to the display behind the clerk.

“Alright, alright alright…” the clerk answered as he began fumbling with his register.

“Baby, how you doing back there with those two!?” he shouted to her.

“Just fine, my dear, just fine.” She called back to him.

He caught her gaze from across the mini mart; those goddamn eyes of her could put a spell on just about anyone.

With his attention across the shop the clerk realized this might be his only chance to get the upperhand on these two thieves. He began reaching for the short barreled shotgun he kept under the counter, slowly as not to distract lover boy from his lover girl. The clerk’s fingers found it’s way to the shotgun and he took a deep breath.

The clerk quickly raised the shotgun, but before he had time to even draw a bead, she sent his face through the back of his skull, all over the Marlboros that were behind him, with her pretty little .38. 

At first he had no clue what had happened. He had been locking eyes with her when all the sudden she capped the clerk behind the counter and a fine pink mist sprayed him in the face.

“Jesus Christ baby! WHAT THE FUCK!?” he yelled. She said nothing. She kept staring at where the clerk had stood, her gun still raised.

He grabbed the sack of cash the clerk had left on the counter and ran over to her and the couple that had been browsing the beer cooler.

“Baby…” he said calmly. “What. The. Fuck.”

She still stare at the counter, arm up holding the pistol.

He gently placed his hand on her wrist and brought the weapon down to her side.

He then carefully grabbed her chin with his thumb and forefinger and broke her attention from the front of the store.

Through the holes of the ski mask he could see her big, green, beautiful eyes begin to well up with large tears like watery, emerald diamonds. She had never killed anyone before.

“I… he was going to…” she started. “He was going to… to… to shoot you, baby.”

He hadn’t known the clerk was going to shoot him, he was too busy staring at her. And at that moment we felt a great, warm feeling well up in his chest.

“I love you…” he told her.

“What?” she couldn’t believe he was saying it.

“I fuckin’ love you.” He said again.

“I… I love you too.” It felt good to say it back.

He kissed her hard on the mouth through the holes in their masks.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

No one was supposed to get shot.

But he couldn’t believe how happy he was that someone had.

He took her by the hand and said, “we need to leave now.”

He looked down at the couple, whom had been face down on the floor for all through all of this.

“Holy shit, hell of a Christmas Eve, huh?”

“Yeah…” the guy was able to squeak out.

He reached into the bag of money and pulled out three hundred dollar bills and stuffed them into the back pocket of the guy’s jeans.

“Merry Christmas.” They told the couple on the ground.

“Merry Christmas.” They said back in unison, still with their faces to the ground.

They took off out the door of the small store, hand in hand, towards his old Econoline.

Peeling the masks from their heads, her hair was swept up by the wind, and her long hair flew around her head in a wild fashion creating tangles and small flurries of black web surrounding her beautiful face.

Freshly rich.

Freshly adrenalized.

Freshly in love.

-

Now they lay in the back of their old Econoline. Sharing a joint and a cigarette.

She sat near a side window, drawing pictures in the steam caused by their love making, while he checked the spoils from their latest liquor store visit.

“We should have enough for the next week or so,” he said to her with a smile.

“Whatever it takes to be with you, babe.” She replied.

He looked into her big, green, sparkling eyes and said,

“I love you.”

And she answered,

“I love you, too.”