*-(Outdated and incomplete)-*
Tender kisses wake the Singer. The sun is in the room. The clock: 9:43. He pretends not to have seen. He stretches, "What time is it?"
"Just past 9:30 baby."
"I thought you wanted to get up early, at eight wasn't it?" He rolls to his side to face her direct. She has returned to sit on a black wooden chair in front of a teak desk with one of two very sunny rectangles at her back lighting her like an ethereal effigy. The yellow sheer over her white tee makes her body near invisible, blending into the sun's glare, singeing his unaccostumed eyes. He can pick out her blue jeans, healthy legs defined, her handmade bag next to her bootlegged bottoms and her white keds. It is the bag she made from tan corduroy with colorfully embroidered white patches, purposefully made ragged, and furthermore embroidered with images of flowers and dragonflies.
"Well..." and she makes certain he knows she looks right at him, a smile withheld except at the corners of her already lipsticked lips, "my ever talented boyfriend got a little tipsy when he stayed up late making beautiful noise."
"Have you heard me sing?"
"Of course!" Her hands wrap around a pillow. She holds it playfully. The waves of her hair fall across his somewhat sickly face. "And...! You! Are! Wonderful!" She smothers him.
He muffles out abstract blats. Amidst the onset of psuedo suffocation the senses of his mind wrap around a different sound, one with an ironic pertinence to reality of the moment, one produced by and for his cognitive periphery. Like a slow alarm, one that does not rattle but emits slow low pangs. He associates it with a sick sensation, separate but symbiotic with the alcohol poisoning. He disconnects from the thought. She lifts the pillow. Noisily gasping, "Alright, I'm getting up."
She says, "What's the matter? Don't you get short with me!" She raises the pillow again, this time high above her head holding it there like she were a goddess statue basking in the morning sun.
His eyes widen a little more and he shifts out of the bed. With her he walks into the living room. He puts on his folded pair of black jeans starting to tatter at the left knee. She exits the apartment. He continues to dress, black socks, gray Vans, Leonard Cohen tee, casual blue button-up and a beet-brown pseudo-suede jacket; from the dresser, the closet. He puts away last night's laundry and inspects himself in the mirror, brushing his teeth.
The Singer is handsome. Dark-hair long enough to cover most of his ears comes from the Latino in him; thick, greasy clumps, like narrow petals pressed by the wind. A boldness to his eyes is only compounded by high cheekbones, fleshy and spotted with a few dark freckles seemingly to constellate his pair of opal moons. A thin but lengthy nose is present enough to distract one from them and follow its honed ridge to the earthy lips of a discrete mouth.
She waits on the bottom floor in the corner of the stairs and the front door; between wicky green polyester folds, each terrace uniquely stained and torn, and the door’s frame, a pacific blue waterfall (the texture comes from its many long but unpronounced white splinters). Gazing through the glaring glass panel and amidst the daff decor, she looks far too holy. She holds herself idle, just stares out at the active world. The singer finds her this way. He cannot see out the glass, cannot see past the glare, cannot see her face and cannot know what she is thinking. He can only see her body mirrored.
She turns having heard him. (descript.)
He stands one step down the staircase from the
immediate platform. "God… You’re so quiet!"
"I’ve got a light step."
"Maybe, its because you’ve worn the same shoes forever." He also wears gray
jeans and a button up blue shirt under a black zip-up hoodie. Inconspicuous by
way of plain.
"Maybe… shall we get in on some of this blaring world?" And, for her, he
opens the door.
The sun shines. The sky is clear and blue. It’s a warm pre-winter day. It
shines off the cement, dirty with gummy adhesions and blotched by chemicals,
either for the stomachs of mankind or motor vehicles. The birds are seen in
the skeletons of trees, many having shed most their leaves. Mostly, their are
sparrows, or finches, and seldomly, there is a blue bird (the pidgeons prefer
buildings). What the singer thought was clear blue is in fact sky covered by a
very thin sheet of clouds colored light gray.
The people are mostly of hard knock lifewalks. They strut alongside the road,
under buildings oriented for urban housing, and, they carry themselves lucidly.
More often there are immigrant laborers than there are gangstas. Some sit on
their porches, under baking brick buildings. Some sit on the sidewalk edges or
brown bag in shadowed avenues. Few are families dressed for God. But mostly,
Sundays here involve beers, already foaming, their white froth glowing in the
bright gray gley.
He asserted it would be noisy and it is. The racket of the road: cars
through trucks often whip past on the one side; and, less occasional: freight
bearing diesels leave trails of hot deafening wind. Intermitting the road there
was a current of living sound, of people walking and talking, of the morning
birdsong still sung by the joyous ones, the clamour (Sunday is more gentle) by
businesses’ various workers, and, music comes out from scattered windows and
from the shops (amidst their clatter). It comes in bursts from the cars bolting
by. A variety, organic or synthetic, undetermined or predetermined a whole
spectrum of instrumentation, of dialects, of production or lack of production,
of theme, of rhythmn, of language, all passing as snippets play stoicly as a
particular section of the street diversity.
"Thank you... by the way." He says
"For what?"
"For putting up with me. The stuff I pull seems to always slow you down and
give you extra, but, you never complain, you just keep everything in order."
"Oh… I’m nothing special. You have your thing to do and I so happen to love
you for doing it."
"Seriously tho’, you’re unbelievable."
She smiles, beautiful: Wavy blond, highlights accentuating her face and the
shape of her bones and the curves of her flesh
"How did the interview go?" he asks her. She’s finishing her university
studies and preparing to move forward.
"Really well," she says, "I’m excited as hell. They are bringing me right in
to help with the opening ‘Chianti’ gallery."
"Good. I’m glad. I’m sure you are, that’s so excellent! So sweet. I’m glad
for you… really."
"Yeah? Thanks, baby." She leans in to suck a few kisses from him, wraps his
arm about his trim waist and leans her head to his soft shoulder, still walking.
"I’m soo close to finishing… and to be honest, I’m nervous."
"What’s there to be nervous about? You are doing great."
"I think I’m just afraid of the change. I’ve really enjoyed the process of
learning, and, I’ve enjoyed meeting all the people along the way. I feel like
It’s going to be different, somehow, which is probably just stupidly silly."
"It’s silly, for sure. I mean come on, that’s all you’ll practically be
doing now: meeting artists, setting up galleries and exhibits; promoting music.
You’ll be learning all about those artistic needs prevalent to all kinds of
specific artistries."
"Yeah… I don’t know." She says, "I’m just going to miss everybody. These
last six years have been incredibly important to me. This whole time I'm
thinking we're destined to separate, you know? Mostly, I imagine a future where
I don’t have the time for the times like these. Or, I might just
plain forget how truly good it was." She lets loose her wrap around his waist
and holds her head solemnly, walking now, with more ease.
The streets, whereover the sun shines directly, become more dense. Leaving
the edge of their neighborhood they begin a transition into an environment of
small businesses. Amidst the usual franchise lines and corporate conglomerates
(from foods to shoes) every sort of person can be seen, from lower-class to
high, from Eastern or Western origins or those origins of the Earth’s southern
and northern hemispheres. They walk in a back to forth set of lines. The
singer and his girl became part of the tour de café, instead of those returning
to retail storefronts or visiting the rich variety of ethnic restaurants.
They cross the divide, entering a world of first world comforts, where, all
in all and especially compared to the streets before, there is a greater variety
of souls. Everyone seems to be in relaxing their mind by forgetting the stress
of the world while they shop and dine. The crowd’s sort of soaks: they soak up
the sun and luxury and freedom. The singer thinks they are sleepwalking,
hypnotized by a continuing conduction to consumerist code. However, he does not
envision them as this entirely. Instead, he sees people as incomplete,their
unfulfilled state coming from the world’s incompassionate stupidity, now, under
capatalistic entities; mega-maniacal machines engineered for the sole purpose of
profitability. "Look at all these poor souls spending money as if it were
nothing."
"Are you our beacon of light, my good singer?"
"Ha! Maybe, but that doesn’t matter." You know… I just wish people
recognized true potential. They spend all this money on all this completely
outsourced and meaningless shit."
"You’ve been spending time with David again haven’t you?"
"Hold on now, this is my own… because: I believe we could, and this is
within the actual realm of human capability, we really could organize an effort
for global affluence and peace."
"Oh, you poor soul." She chides.
They walk around a corner joining the primary throng. Here, every building
serves commercial purpose. Outside a café with umbrellas set and tables
stretched along a perimeter of metal spoked fence people sit about drinking
coffee and conversing. "Let me get it for us," he says and walks into the café,
returning with two waxed paper cups.
"Thanks. They sit at a nearby table, as metal as the fence. She puts her
cup on the gray corrugated mesh that makes the top surface. He does the same.
"Well, what are you going to do today?" she asks.
"That meeting with Gary and Tim."
"Gary, huh? Tim’s the Tennessee guy right?"
"Yeah… some Tennessee tycoon. ‘ Guess he holds the key to a record deal or
something."
"And… let me guess, Gary wants to send you to Tennessee on some kind of
residency?"
"Yeah, mostly, at least. He also wants to talk about the new album, the
thing that I’m obviously more interested in. Apparently, this Tim guy is an old
friend of Gary’s. He listened to some of our new demos and old recordings and
said he was willing to produce the new album at a reduced rate. Gary said he
wants to focus on promotion. I guess he’s some hotshot from Nashville that
thinks we’ve got what it takes."
"You mean he thinks you’ve got what it takes."
"You know how the other guys are. They’re too old for pipedreams. Rob,
however, seems to be peculiarly interested, which is surprising."
"Well, that is surprising!" She says with a little sarcasm and plaintively
sips her coffee.
"I can’t say we deserve the attention. Then again, I can’t say I deserve to
be sitting across the table from such a girl."
"Oh yeah? You can’t say it, huh?"
"Say what? Goddamn, you’re perfect."
"You know that means nothing to me."
"Oh, great…"
"Not a thing, darling." She smiles. "You tell it to me. Tell it as it is.
Everyday!"
"You’re worried… worried about my leaving, the consequences of my possibly
failing."
"No. I’m not. You’re worried." Her statement: a stretch of her usual stance:
compassionate.
A conflicting feeling comes over him. It starts, just as his true voice, at
the core, and it rises up to his heart where it is constricted. With his throat
blocked all he musters is his cerebral sight directed at the crowd moving past
them. It is as if they are fragments of his imagination. A stifled and
inaccessable imagination. It is a world made of ideas he knows, he engages with
and he, in every sense of the word, exists in, however, he exists with cynical
complacency, a constricting temperament that discourages his influence on
reality. Because: it is one he would never, at its primordial point, choose to
manifest.
She is some subject. He can’t tell exactly why she’s changed her tone. He
doesn’t care really. She’s right, in some ways. Of course, he is right too.
But, he can tell she is confident. Her heart and her voice are more pure than
his, perhaps not as true, but purer. He can tell she is empowered by her
intellect, which, in truth, outweighs her beauty. And, she glows for a hope she
harbors in her soul; sentiments of a progressive, tranquil and comfortable
world; a phenomena of enlightenment. He feels partly controlled, as if
armisticed by her ideas, preferring her view when caught between arguing over
two illusory worlds.
"Now, I’m stuck." He says. "Really. Stuck. You got me good too; drove it
in heedless of starting shallow." In truth, he isn’t worried about Tennessee.
Not about getting attention, promotion and a share of the market’s cash flow.
Not about the contents of his voice being widely shown. Not about none of these
actually actualizing.
"You’re just trying too hard…" It entertains her, this notion. His most
attractive characteristic is his unique willful volition. "You’ll be fine.
Everything is fine. The meaning is in their." She leans across the table and
presses a single rigid finger between his ribs. "Remember the summer when we
were lying on the beach sand? It was a cold night, for summer, but we layed
there forever, just listening to the sound of the ocean."
He remembers. It was then that he was certain her hair was the exact color
of sand. As the sun fell down on the horizon the light of it refracted across
the atmosphere. It reflected off the sea. And the turning colors were absorbed
by the shore, by her hair, and, despite the myriad of color chemistry they shone
exactly the same.
"That night I told you my darkest secret."
Raped. "I remember," he leans across the table and puts one soft fingertip
between her ribs.
"When I told you I knew I loved you, and, I was almost sure you loved
me. You listened to me, without saying a word. You just listened for the
longest time to everything I could muster, through every silent pause when I
strained for words." His hand just ran through her hair, withholding his sorrow
and his temper. "When I was finally finished, you said nothing. I cried and
cried and during that time you just sang; tones without words. They were the
most comforting tones I have ever heard. At the time your throat was all worn,
you hardly had your voice, but you made those tones pure. I remember just
lying, my head on your chest, listening to the vibrations. What I heard was
that through the weariness and my grief was the sound of you trying to make that
little pocket of sand a perfect place."
"You said you felt like you were dreaming."
"It was a dream, is a dream, and despite the initial darkness of it the whole
of it was trancendent. I trust you, I love you, I’ll share anything with you
and I’ll even tell you that I think you will do great. You are perfect for what
you do, mister musician, and you deserve this."
"Hardly."
"Baby, don’t say anything."
He sees her different from the surrounding population. She doesn’t fit into
any kind of spectrum. She is both modest and elegant, both humble and sure,
both kind and strong, just through and through a divine soul; a well established
indivual and one that gracefully integrates into the whole. He sees variety in
other people, many have the same traits as her, but, when he compares them
completely they always fall short.
Instead, he thinks, they meandor like errand runners, carrying memorized
words without a clue as to who is the recipient or from whom was the benefactor.
They are not unhappy, no not at all (some of them are a little stressed today).
Many are genuinely happy, ecstaticly absorbing the state of plenty. Most at
least pretend to be happy, mostly. They smile as they talk to their companions,
their partners, or their cell phones. A few walk a sort of solaced way,
especially, those of older face, with a slight twinge on one side of a hidden
smile. All try to relax even though the majority are considerably hurried.
And, all look glazy: The way the sun shines. A favoritism towards structures of
stone. The majority of the immediate world’s body a lackluster color but not
without a cast of gleams, some harsh as shines; Cars blanched in their
irradiant surroundings, black and white suits, black dresses, some dressed with
more color, more variety, but inescapably washed out by the type of day.
He feels completely separated an ostricized observer. There are those who
are dressed with color, but, they are typically women who enamor themselves with
silver and gold, grand earrings and glittering bags. It is not the people
themselves that give him the feeling of seperateness, rather, it is the make-up
they wear, the enamorance of gems set in gold and silver, or quartzite clocks
cast in the same. Its in the designer bags, the high heeled shoes, the
identical attaches the men carry and the conformitive look of their suits: all
the same except for minor alterations in color and comfortability of thread. He
admits to himself that this particular crowd in this particular spot is perhaps
not the best pool to be surveying, but, he can’t help but keep up his thoughts.
He sees a cover-up, a sham. He sees it in all the advertisements selling
with sex; the photoshopped face; even after its canvas is immaculately covered
by the finest oil based paints. The thing which disturbes him most is his
belief that, underneath this illusive illustration all these people sometimes
want to scream, sometimes wish to let go their voices and sing and bring about
an expose on everything that they are constantly covering.
He believes this provocation is present just by the intoxicated looks he
unaskedly and, perhaps assumedly, garnishes. As they pass their eyes over his
they reveal things, desires bewildered by the daily demands of wearing obedient
masks. He looks back with apathetic disinterest. At night, he knew, most of
these people finally let go.
"What are you dreaming about now?" She asks.
"Dreaming… well I was sort of dreaming about a lot of things, just thinking
about how strange the world is and the crowd."
"How strange the world is, huh?" Her smile shows and she lifts her gaze up
and to the side to look at nothing. "Strange world indeed, but one we’ve got to
assume some responsibility for." With that said she stands and slings her
handmade bag across her shoulder. "Well, my sweet boy, I’ve got to get
going."
He stands, smiles across to her, his eyes wrinkle, and he tucks his chin. In
a voice just loud enough for her to catch the essense of his words he says,
"God, you’re so damn perfect."
"Fuck you!" she clearly enunciates despite matching his volume. Her body
language draws him in.
He kisses her.
She bites his lip a little. "I’m serious now boy, you ought to come up with
some new lines."
"Sure thing, darling."
"Good luck with the Nashville hotshot!" She walks away as she raises her
hand like the neck of a crane. Her disappearance into the crowd is a sort of
release. The crowd absorbs her with the methodical delivery of their
deameanors. With them he feels more at ease.
He stands, steps out into the throng, and, absentmindedly, he plants his body
into a tall suitcoat talking on his cell phone. He thuds his face right into
the big man’s chest and bounces off like a rubber chicken, balance completely
lost, gravity pulling him to the hard ground. "Hey fuck you, whats wrong with
you, get an idea and get out of the way." The man’s voice returns to go lucky
chatty, "… some dumb shit just walked right into me, I know … ya, I
know...ha…right, some people are such fuckin’ shi…" The crowd passes by; some
of them look down with chides, some determine themselves undistractable, and a
few reserve laughter, empathetically looking at him for a single moment. He
stands himself up and sets again to the river, this time though, more
carefully.
An escalator leads down to a subway station which has seen recent renovation.
The walls of the escalator are made from one sheet of stainless steel, its
rivets hidden and its entire surface polished. The stone stairs are waxy except
where, nearer the center, they are exhibited to a constant pummel. Black framed
and rectangle LED monitors display arrival times and any corresponding delays.
In between the listed routes a public service message scrolls across: big
lettered gratitude for adjusting to the new fare.
On the lower landing platform the terminals are busy. Short lines build
despite most lanes being operational. The ticket dispensing machines accumulate
their own, less organized, wait. Obvious tourists take their time and the
remainder search their pockets to come up with the fare. Some move right into
the lanes leading to the waist high turn gate. He stands briefly in this line,
listening to the auditory effect made by the room’s makeup; the echoing of
voices, some dialectic, of the turnstyles rubbing and shuddering, of heavy
footsteps and of button pressing, of cards and fare tickets sliding into slotted
openings and popping up, readily retrievable on the other side of the gate. His
girlfriend’s student card lets him through.
There are two levels in the underground hollow. The first is a walkway
overpassing the boarding platforms. The lane is split for departers or
arrivals. It has several stairwells and a T at one end leading to the different
route lines. The second has bench lined platforms with posterboard
advertisements on those pillars which support the overpass. Alongside run the
rails. The walkway above is dense with people and below the crowd thins.
The whole of the chamber echoes emptily, its composition partly absorbs and
partly reflects its ambience. Voices, now more animate with their dialogue’s
content different from the turnstyled room before, dissipate into the reflective
void until they’re overlayed by the drone of train arrivals. Passengers
shuffle, the overall tone of conversation changes slightly, and as the new
arrivals go up they leave behind one side of a line briefly vacant, partially
silent.
As he waits on a shared bench the singer can’t help but eavesdrop. His
immediate neighbor is on the phone talking about the girls last night he coo’d
for. Having failed he reports his misery with satire. Standing against a
pillar behind, a young disgusted girl talks of her diet to a friend, also a
disgusted girl, who can’t stop her encouragement for running. A coming of age
man, (the singer sees his eyes dart frantically) talks to an older fellow about
how hard he tries with his slighted wage to gain any kind of momentum. A
teenage couple kiss between words: all giddy.
The train begins its arrival. First, its rails sing like electricity.
Second, the cars emit a warble roar. Thirdly and lastly, brakes hiss
hydraulically. The whitish yellow exterior looks like pale skin smeared with
oil. It’s even pattern of windows arrive initially as a blur then pan out to
their individual stances. Pointed like an airplane’s nose with darkly tinted
cockpit windows the engineer’s compartment hints at nothing more than some
shadowy automaton at the controls. The singer stands as the doors open and he
becomes part of the exchange, coming in where either side is lined with two
person benches; above are aluminum rails with suspended black straps for hands;
and, a line of panelled flourescents run above them. The color is the same as
the exterior, except now with a thicker smear of yellow.
He sits next to a big African-American gal (her face is pretty and reminds
him of a middle-aged Lady Day) dressed in a black petty-coat and black slacks.
She shifts a little in acknowledgement of his presence. Across from them is the
teenage couple now silent, withholding their energetic nervousness. They are
clearly counter-culture. The boy is pale and has an unspiked mohawk, gauges in
his ears, two piercings around his lip, and wears a punk studded jacket. She
lays her head on his shoulder. Her darkly dyed hair is striped burgandy and
falls across a face covered with piercings, two around her lips, one on her
nose, one through one eyebrow and a dozen or so across the ears. She wears
black and black with a long sheer overshirt: black. Just behind them and
holding to the handrail is a thin thirty year old man wearing a tight and navy
blue button-up shirt, clean white shorts, clean white shoes, and on his shaved
skull bold headphones burst with techno. There are several college students
listening to ipods and staring out the blank windows. There is a latin woman
dressed like a modern queen, her adornment coming from the highest among
fashions names. Her little girl is dressed in the same kind of clothing, her
arrangement matching. The doll stares down at little lifted shoes holding her
face with disdain. And, way down the line, the singer can see a burly and
completely broke middle-aged man. His fat belly fast becoming exposed as his
body sinks into the bench, his limbs fall away, and his unkempt head slumps into
his unshaven chin, drunk, again.
The metering of his gaze alots enough time for the singer to take in intimate
details that make each indvidual unique. He looks past what they wear and past
the ego that their faces presently contain. His intuition picks apart nuances
and sheds a light on the state of their emotions. They are all tired beings,
tired from work, from societal pressure and interpersonal relationships. Tired
from all the conciencious decision making they must make. In their core there
is lightness of being. A smile. A bit of joy constantly resourcing. But,
stress comes from an exoteric expectation and weighs down on their lightness.
It, too, is constantly resourcing.
The singer starts to hum. His voice: a solitudal exhibition of the train car
feeling. In her own display of vibration the woman next to him shifts. The
lids of the teenage girl's eyes lift a little to stare at the cieling only to
close. The boy remains motionless.
Another sound excites a deafening whir and the train comes to a stop. Doors
open and between their invisible borders: another exchange. Lady Day leaves and
in her place sits a young black haired woman about the singers age. She wears
black jeans and a black t-shirt with some local metal band's insignia. Skinny
and pale arms reach to gaunt hands and long fingers, nails: black. She's
tattooed sparsely on her arms with words and images, all colorless. The punks
remain. The drunk remains. Most others are part of the exchange and are
replaced by middle aged wage earners.
The traincar seems remarkably more silent with the new passengers. At most
the newcomers are text messaging, or flipping the pages of a paper or magazine.
Now, the singer's suppressed song is accompanied by another constant hum, the
airconditioner.
"I know you from somewhere?" The girl next to him asks.
The singer stops humming, shrugs and opens his mouth to prepare the "You may
have seen me at this show," speech.
"I know where!" She says, the exclamation nearly unrecognizable in her
monotone voice. She hardly turns her head to look towards him, just seems to
look forward (without emotion) at something suspended in the air, something
invisible. She says nothing else.
"Where?"
"Guess where."
"That isn't exactly easy. I've seen a lot of faces at a lot of different
times and many of them several times over."
"I've seen you four times."
"At the same place?"
"No."
"How about another hint, who else was there that night?"
"No more hints. Guess."
"Murphy's?"
"No."
"The Clubbed Spade?"
"No."
"Bourbon Barrel?"
"Hell? No. I can't believe you don't remember me." She chides.
"Well, you know its hard to see a crowd when you're under a bright
spotlight."
"Tch." She finally lets her head relax enough to look at him, her eyes
positioned with authoritative banter. "How is it? Being under the
spotlight?"
"Honestly? It can be overbearing. I don't mind singing, not one bit, but
when I've this omnipresent blindness sheering reality it kinda makes me
ill."
"I know the feeling..." Empathy distills a moment of silence. She returns
to her taught foundation.
He begins to hum again as he look out the window at the dark or dim
nothingness. From the continuum of blur he draws a peace of mind. He wonders
if he should tell her about the feeling emanate within him. He wonders if she'd
care enough to recognize his attachment to its being. He wonders if it is
better to be shadowed instead of in the light. Whether it is better to just
perform as an unkown, or pursue being known.
Just then, amidst his final cognition, the train comes out from its
subterranean tunnel and into the bright sun.
Tender kisses wake the Singer. The sun is in the room. The clock: 9:43. He pretends not to have seen. He stretches, "What time is it?"
"Just past 9:30 baby."
"I thought you wanted to get up early, at eight wasn't it?" He rolls to his side to face her direct. She has returned to sit on a black wooden chair in front of a teak desk with one of two very sunny rectangles at her back lighting her like an ethereal effigy. The yellow sheer over her white tee makes her body near invisible, blending into the sun's glare, singeing his unaccostumed eyes. He can pick out her blue jeans, healthy legs defined, her handmade bag next to her bootlegged bottoms and her white keds. It is the bag she made from tan corduroy with colorfully embroidered white patches, purposefully made ragged, and furthermore embroidered with images of flowers and dragonflies.
"Well..." and she makes certain he knows she looks right at him, a smile withheld except at the corners of her already lipsticked lips, "my ever talented boyfriend got a little tipsy when he stayed up late making beautiful noise."
"Have you heard me sing?"
"Of course!" Her hands wrap around a pillow. She holds it playfully. The waves of her hair fall across his somewhat sickly face. "And...! You! Are! Wonderful!" She smothers him.
He muffles out abstract blats. Amidst the onset of psuedo suffocation the senses of his mind wrap around a different sound, one with an ironic pertinence to reality of the moment, one produced by and for his cognitive periphery. Like a slow alarm, one that does not rattle but emits slow low pangs. He associates it with a sick sensation, separate but symbiotic with the alcohol poisoning. He disconnects from the thought. She lifts the pillow. Noisily gasping, "Alright, I'm getting up."
She says, "What's the matter? Don't you get short with me!" She raises the pillow again, this time high above her head holding it there like she were a goddess statue basking in the morning sun.
His eyes widen a little more and he shifts out of the bed. With her he walks into the living room. He puts on his folded pair of black jeans starting to tatter at the left knee. She exits the apartment. He continues to dress, black socks, gray Vans, Leonard Cohen tee, casual blue button-up and a beet-brown pseudo-suede jacket; from the dresser, the closet. He puts away last night's laundry and inspects himself in the mirror, brushing his teeth.
The Singer is handsome. Dark-hair long enough to cover most of his ears comes from the Latino in him; thick, greasy clumps, like narrow petals pressed by the wind. A boldness to his eyes is only compounded by high cheekbones, fleshy and spotted with a few dark freckles seemingly to constellate his pair of opal moons. A thin but lengthy nose is present enough to distract one from them and follow its honed ridge to the earthy lips of a discrete mouth.
She waits on the bottom floor in the corner of the stairs and the front door; between wicky green polyester folds, each terrace uniquely stained and torn, and the door’s frame, a pacific blue waterfall (the texture comes from its many long but unpronounced white splinters). Gazing through the glaring glass panel and amidst the daff decor, she looks far too holy. She holds herself idle, just stares out at the active world. The singer finds her this way. He cannot see out the glass, cannot see past the glare, cannot see her face and cannot know what she is thinking. He can only see her body mirrored.
She turns having heard him. (descript.)
He stands one step down the staircase from the
immediate platform. "God… You’re so quiet!"
"I’ve got a light step."
"Maybe, its because you’ve worn the same shoes forever." He also wears gray
jeans and a button up blue shirt under a black zip-up hoodie. Inconspicuous by
way of plain.
"Maybe… shall we get in on some of this blaring world?" And, for her, he
opens the door.
The sun shines. The sky is clear and blue. It’s a warm pre-winter day. It
shines off the cement, dirty with gummy adhesions and blotched by chemicals,
either for the stomachs of mankind or motor vehicles. The birds are seen in
the skeletons of trees, many having shed most their leaves. Mostly, their are
sparrows, or finches, and seldomly, there is a blue bird (the pidgeons prefer
buildings). What the singer thought was clear blue is in fact sky covered by a
very thin sheet of clouds colored light gray.
The people are mostly of hard knock lifewalks. They strut alongside the road,
under buildings oriented for urban housing, and, they carry themselves lucidly.
More often there are immigrant laborers than there are gangstas. Some sit on
their porches, under baking brick buildings. Some sit on the sidewalk edges or
brown bag in shadowed avenues. Few are families dressed for God. But mostly,
Sundays here involve beers, already foaming, their white froth glowing in the
bright gray gley.
He asserted it would be noisy and it is. The racket of the road: cars
through trucks often whip past on the one side; and, less occasional: freight
bearing diesels leave trails of hot deafening wind. Intermitting the road there
was a current of living sound, of people walking and talking, of the morning
birdsong still sung by the joyous ones, the clamour (Sunday is more gentle) by
businesses’ various workers, and, music comes out from scattered windows and
from the shops (amidst their clatter). It comes in bursts from the cars bolting
by. A variety, organic or synthetic, undetermined or predetermined a whole
spectrum of instrumentation, of dialects, of production or lack of production,
of theme, of rhythmn, of language, all passing as snippets play stoicly as a
particular section of the street diversity.
"Thank you... by the way." He says
"For what?"
"For putting up with me. The stuff I pull seems to always slow you down and
give you extra, but, you never complain, you just keep everything in order."
"Oh… I’m nothing special. You have your thing to do and I so happen to love
you for doing it."
"Seriously tho’, you’re unbelievable."
She smiles, beautiful: Wavy blond, highlights accentuating her face and the
shape of her bones and the curves of her flesh
"How did the interview go?" he asks her. She’s finishing her university
studies and preparing to move forward.
"Really well," she says, "I’m excited as hell. They are bringing me right in
to help with the opening ‘Chianti’ gallery."
"Good. I’m glad. I’m sure you are, that’s so excellent! So sweet. I’m glad
for you… really."
"Yeah? Thanks, baby." She leans in to suck a few kisses from him, wraps his
arm about his trim waist and leans her head to his soft shoulder, still walking.
"I’m soo close to finishing… and to be honest, I’m nervous."
"What’s there to be nervous about? You are doing great."
"I think I’m just afraid of the change. I’ve really enjoyed the process of
learning, and, I’ve enjoyed meeting all the people along the way. I feel like
It’s going to be different, somehow, which is probably just stupidly silly."
"It’s silly, for sure. I mean come on, that’s all you’ll practically be
doing now: meeting artists, setting up galleries and exhibits; promoting music.
You’ll be learning all about those artistic needs prevalent to all kinds of
specific artistries."
"Yeah… I don’t know." She says, "I’m just going to miss everybody. These
last six years have been incredibly important to me. This whole time I'm
thinking we're destined to separate, you know? Mostly, I imagine a future where
I don’t have the time for the times like these. Or, I might just
plain forget how truly good it was." She lets loose her wrap around his waist
and holds her head solemnly, walking now, with more ease.
The streets, whereover the sun shines directly, become more dense. Leaving
the edge of their neighborhood they begin a transition into an environment of
small businesses. Amidst the usual franchise lines and corporate conglomerates
(from foods to shoes) every sort of person can be seen, from lower-class to
high, from Eastern or Western origins or those origins of the Earth’s southern
and northern hemispheres. They walk in a back to forth set of lines. The
singer and his girl became part of the tour de café, instead of those returning
to retail storefronts or visiting the rich variety of ethnic restaurants.
They cross the divide, entering a world of first world comforts, where, all
in all and especially compared to the streets before, there is a greater variety
of souls. Everyone seems to be in relaxing their mind by forgetting the stress
of the world while they shop and dine. The crowd’s sort of soaks: they soak up
the sun and luxury and freedom. The singer thinks they are sleepwalking,
hypnotized by a continuing conduction to consumerist code. However, he does not
envision them as this entirely. Instead, he sees people as incomplete,their
unfulfilled state coming from the world’s incompassionate stupidity, now, under
capatalistic entities; mega-maniacal machines engineered for the sole purpose of
profitability. "Look at all these poor souls spending money as if it were
nothing."
"Are you our beacon of light, my good singer?"
"Ha! Maybe, but that doesn’t matter." You know… I just wish people
recognized true potential. They spend all this money on all this completely
outsourced and meaningless shit."
"You’ve been spending time with David again haven’t you?"
"Hold on now, this is my own… because: I believe we could, and this is
within the actual realm of human capability, we really could organize an effort
for global affluence and peace."
"Oh, you poor soul." She chides.
They walk around a corner joining the primary throng. Here, every building
serves commercial purpose. Outside a café with umbrellas set and tables
stretched along a perimeter of metal spoked fence people sit about drinking
coffee and conversing. "Let me get it for us," he says and walks into the café,
returning with two waxed paper cups.
"Thanks. They sit at a nearby table, as metal as the fence. She puts her
cup on the gray corrugated mesh that makes the top surface. He does the same.
"Well, what are you going to do today?" she asks.
"That meeting with Gary and Tim."
"Gary, huh? Tim’s the Tennessee guy right?"
"Yeah… some Tennessee tycoon. ‘ Guess he holds the key to a record deal or
something."
"And… let me guess, Gary wants to send you to Tennessee on some kind of
residency?"
"Yeah, mostly, at least. He also wants to talk about the new album, the
thing that I’m obviously more interested in. Apparently, this Tim guy is an old
friend of Gary’s. He listened to some of our new demos and old recordings and
said he was willing to produce the new album at a reduced rate. Gary said he
wants to focus on promotion. I guess he’s some hotshot from Nashville that
thinks we’ve got what it takes."
"You mean he thinks you’ve got what it takes."
"You know how the other guys are. They’re too old for pipedreams. Rob,
however, seems to be peculiarly interested, which is surprising."
"Well, that is surprising!" She says with a little sarcasm and plaintively
sips her coffee.
"I can’t say we deserve the attention. Then again, I can’t say I deserve to
be sitting across the table from such a girl."
"Oh yeah? You can’t say it, huh?"
"Say what? Goddamn, you’re perfect."
"You know that means nothing to me."
"Oh, great…"
"Not a thing, darling." She smiles. "You tell it to me. Tell it as it is.
Everyday!"
"You’re worried… worried about my leaving, the consequences of my possibly
failing."
"No. I’m not. You’re worried." Her statement: a stretch of her usual stance:
compassionate.
A conflicting feeling comes over him. It starts, just as his true voice, at
the core, and it rises up to his heart where it is constricted. With his throat
blocked all he musters is his cerebral sight directed at the crowd moving past
them. It is as if they are fragments of his imagination. A stifled and
inaccessable imagination. It is a world made of ideas he knows, he engages with
and he, in every sense of the word, exists in, however, he exists with cynical
complacency, a constricting temperament that discourages his influence on
reality. Because: it is one he would never, at its primordial point, choose to
manifest.
She is some subject. He can’t tell exactly why she’s changed her tone. He
doesn’t care really. She’s right, in some ways. Of course, he is right too.
But, he can tell she is confident. Her heart and her voice are more pure than
his, perhaps not as true, but purer. He can tell she is empowered by her
intellect, which, in truth, outweighs her beauty. And, she glows for a hope she
harbors in her soul; sentiments of a progressive, tranquil and comfortable
world; a phenomena of enlightenment. He feels partly controlled, as if
armisticed by her ideas, preferring her view when caught between arguing over
two illusory worlds.
"Now, I’m stuck." He says. "Really. Stuck. You got me good too; drove it
in heedless of starting shallow." In truth, he isn’t worried about Tennessee.
Not about getting attention, promotion and a share of the market’s cash flow.
Not about the contents of his voice being widely shown. Not about none of these
actually actualizing.
"You’re just trying too hard…" It entertains her, this notion. His most
attractive characteristic is his unique willful volition. "You’ll be fine.
Everything is fine. The meaning is in their." She leans across the table and
presses a single rigid finger between his ribs. "Remember the summer when we
were lying on the beach sand? It was a cold night, for summer, but we layed
there forever, just listening to the sound of the ocean."
He remembers. It was then that he was certain her hair was the exact color
of sand. As the sun fell down on the horizon the light of it refracted across
the atmosphere. It reflected off the sea. And the turning colors were absorbed
by the shore, by her hair, and, despite the myriad of color chemistry they shone
exactly the same.
"That night I told you my darkest secret."
Raped. "I remember," he leans across the table and puts one soft fingertip
between her ribs.
"When I told you I knew I loved you, and, I was almost sure you loved
me. You listened to me, without saying a word. You just listened for the
longest time to everything I could muster, through every silent pause when I
strained for words." His hand just ran through her hair, withholding his sorrow
and his temper. "When I was finally finished, you said nothing. I cried and
cried and during that time you just sang; tones without words. They were the
most comforting tones I have ever heard. At the time your throat was all worn,
you hardly had your voice, but you made those tones pure. I remember just
lying, my head on your chest, listening to the vibrations. What I heard was
that through the weariness and my grief was the sound of you trying to make that
little pocket of sand a perfect place."
"You said you felt like you were dreaming."
"It was a dream, is a dream, and despite the initial darkness of it the whole
of it was trancendent. I trust you, I love you, I’ll share anything with you
and I’ll even tell you that I think you will do great. You are perfect for what
you do, mister musician, and you deserve this."
"Hardly."
"Baby, don’t say anything."
He sees her different from the surrounding population. She doesn’t fit into
any kind of spectrum. She is both modest and elegant, both humble and sure,
both kind and strong, just through and through a divine soul; a well established
indivual and one that gracefully integrates into the whole. He sees variety in
other people, many have the same traits as her, but, when he compares them
completely they always fall short.
Instead, he thinks, they meandor like errand runners, carrying memorized
words without a clue as to who is the recipient or from whom was the benefactor.
They are not unhappy, no not at all (some of them are a little stressed today).
Many are genuinely happy, ecstaticly absorbing the state of plenty. Most at
least pretend to be happy, mostly. They smile as they talk to their companions,
their partners, or their cell phones. A few walk a sort of solaced way,
especially, those of older face, with a slight twinge on one side of a hidden
smile. All try to relax even though the majority are considerably hurried.
And, all look glazy: The way the sun shines. A favoritism towards structures of
stone. The majority of the immediate world’s body a lackluster color but not
without a cast of gleams, some harsh as shines; Cars blanched in their
irradiant surroundings, black and white suits, black dresses, some dressed with
more color, more variety, but inescapably washed out by the type of day.
He feels completely separated an ostricized observer. There are those who
are dressed with color, but, they are typically women who enamor themselves with
silver and gold, grand earrings and glittering bags. It is not the people
themselves that give him the feeling of seperateness, rather, it is the make-up
they wear, the enamorance of gems set in gold and silver, or quartzite clocks
cast in the same. Its in the designer bags, the high heeled shoes, the
identical attaches the men carry and the conformitive look of their suits: all
the same except for minor alterations in color and comfortability of thread. He
admits to himself that this particular crowd in this particular spot is perhaps
not the best pool to be surveying, but, he can’t help but keep up his thoughts.
He sees a cover-up, a sham. He sees it in all the advertisements selling
with sex; the photoshopped face; even after its canvas is immaculately covered
by the finest oil based paints. The thing which disturbes him most is his
belief that, underneath this illusive illustration all these people sometimes
want to scream, sometimes wish to let go their voices and sing and bring about
an expose on everything that they are constantly covering.
He believes this provocation is present just by the intoxicated looks he
unaskedly and, perhaps assumedly, garnishes. As they pass their eyes over his
they reveal things, desires bewildered by the daily demands of wearing obedient
masks. He looks back with apathetic disinterest. At night, he knew, most of
these people finally let go.
"What are you dreaming about now?" She asks.
"Dreaming… well I was sort of dreaming about a lot of things, just thinking
about how strange the world is and the crowd."
"How strange the world is, huh?" Her smile shows and she lifts her gaze up
and to the side to look at nothing. "Strange world indeed, but one we’ve got to
assume some responsibility for." With that said she stands and slings her
handmade bag across her shoulder. "Well, my sweet boy, I’ve got to get
going."
He stands, smiles across to her, his eyes wrinkle, and he tucks his chin. In
a voice just loud enough for her to catch the essense of his words he says,
"God, you’re so damn perfect."
"Fuck you!" she clearly enunciates despite matching his volume. Her body
language draws him in.
He kisses her.
She bites his lip a little. "I’m serious now boy, you ought to come up with
some new lines."
"Sure thing, darling."
"Good luck with the Nashville hotshot!" She walks away as she raises her
hand like the neck of a crane. Her disappearance into the crowd is a sort of
release. The crowd absorbs her with the methodical delivery of their
deameanors. With them he feels more at ease.
He stands, steps out into the throng, and, absentmindedly, he plants his body
into a tall suitcoat talking on his cell phone. He thuds his face right into
the big man’s chest and bounces off like a rubber chicken, balance completely
lost, gravity pulling him to the hard ground. "Hey fuck you, whats wrong with
you, get an idea and get out of the way." The man’s voice returns to go lucky
chatty, "… some dumb shit just walked right into me, I know … ya, I
know...ha…right, some people are such fuckin’ shi…" The crowd passes by; some
of them look down with chides, some determine themselves undistractable, and a
few reserve laughter, empathetically looking at him for a single moment. He
stands himself up and sets again to the river, this time though, more
carefully.
An escalator leads down to a subway station which has seen recent renovation.
The walls of the escalator are made from one sheet of stainless steel, its
rivets hidden and its entire surface polished. The stone stairs are waxy except
where, nearer the center, they are exhibited to a constant pummel. Black framed
and rectangle LED monitors display arrival times and any corresponding delays.
In between the listed routes a public service message scrolls across: big
lettered gratitude for adjusting to the new fare.
On the lower landing platform the terminals are busy. Short lines build
despite most lanes being operational. The ticket dispensing machines accumulate
their own, less organized, wait. Obvious tourists take their time and the
remainder search their pockets to come up with the fare. Some move right into
the lanes leading to the waist high turn gate. He stands briefly in this line,
listening to the auditory effect made by the room’s makeup; the echoing of
voices, some dialectic, of the turnstyles rubbing and shuddering, of heavy
footsteps and of button pressing, of cards and fare tickets sliding into slotted
openings and popping up, readily retrievable on the other side of the gate. His
girlfriend’s student card lets him through.
There are two levels in the underground hollow. The first is a walkway
overpassing the boarding platforms. The lane is split for departers or
arrivals. It has several stairwells and a T at one end leading to the different
route lines. The second has bench lined platforms with posterboard
advertisements on those pillars which support the overpass. Alongside run the
rails. The walkway above is dense with people and below the crowd thins.
The whole of the chamber echoes emptily, its composition partly absorbs and
partly reflects its ambience. Voices, now more animate with their dialogue’s
content different from the turnstyled room before, dissipate into the reflective
void until they’re overlayed by the drone of train arrivals. Passengers
shuffle, the overall tone of conversation changes slightly, and as the new
arrivals go up they leave behind one side of a line briefly vacant, partially
silent.
As he waits on a shared bench the singer can’t help but eavesdrop. His
immediate neighbor is on the phone talking about the girls last night he coo’d
for. Having failed he reports his misery with satire. Standing against a
pillar behind, a young disgusted girl talks of her diet to a friend, also a
disgusted girl, who can’t stop her encouragement for running. A coming of age
man, (the singer sees his eyes dart frantically) talks to an older fellow about
how hard he tries with his slighted wage to gain any kind of momentum. A
teenage couple kiss between words: all giddy.
The train begins its arrival. First, its rails sing like electricity.
Second, the cars emit a warble roar. Thirdly and lastly, brakes hiss
hydraulically. The whitish yellow exterior looks like pale skin smeared with
oil. It’s even pattern of windows arrive initially as a blur then pan out to
their individual stances. Pointed like an airplane’s nose with darkly tinted
cockpit windows the engineer’s compartment hints at nothing more than some
shadowy automaton at the controls. The singer stands as the doors open and he
becomes part of the exchange, coming in where either side is lined with two
person benches; above are aluminum rails with suspended black straps for hands;
and, a line of panelled flourescents run above them. The color is the same as
the exterior, except now with a thicker smear of yellow.
He sits next to a big African-American gal (her face is pretty and reminds
him of a middle-aged Lady Day) dressed in a black petty-coat and black slacks.
She shifts a little in acknowledgement of his presence. Across from them is the
teenage couple now silent, withholding their energetic nervousness. They are
clearly counter-culture. The boy is pale and has an unspiked mohawk, gauges in
his ears, two piercings around his lip, and wears a punk studded jacket. She
lays her head on his shoulder. Her darkly dyed hair is striped burgandy and
falls across a face covered with piercings, two around her lips, one on her
nose, one through one eyebrow and a dozen or so across the ears. She wears
black and black with a long sheer overshirt: black. Just behind them and
holding to the handrail is a thin thirty year old man wearing a tight and navy
blue button-up shirt, clean white shorts, clean white shoes, and on his shaved
skull bold headphones burst with techno. There are several college students
listening to ipods and staring out the blank windows. There is a latin woman
dressed like a modern queen, her adornment coming from the highest among
fashions names. Her little girl is dressed in the same kind of clothing, her
arrangement matching. The doll stares down at little lifted shoes holding her
face with disdain. And, way down the line, the singer can see a burly and
completely broke middle-aged man. His fat belly fast becoming exposed as his
body sinks into the bench, his limbs fall away, and his unkempt head slumps into
his unshaven chin, drunk, again.
The metering of his gaze alots enough time for the singer to take in intimate
details that make each indvidual unique. He looks past what they wear and past
the ego that their faces presently contain. His intuition picks apart nuances
and sheds a light on the state of their emotions. They are all tired beings,
tired from work, from societal pressure and interpersonal relationships. Tired
from all the conciencious decision making they must make. In their core there
is lightness of being. A smile. A bit of joy constantly resourcing. But,
stress comes from an exoteric expectation and weighs down on their lightness.
It, too, is constantly resourcing.
The singer starts to hum. His voice: a solitudal exhibition of the train car
feeling. In her own display of vibration the woman next to him shifts. The
lids of the teenage girl's eyes lift a little to stare at the cieling only to
close. The boy remains motionless.
Another sound excites a deafening whir and the train comes to a stop. Doors
open and between their invisible borders: another exchange. Lady Day leaves and
in her place sits a young black haired woman about the singers age. She wears
black jeans and a black t-shirt with some local metal band's insignia. Skinny
and pale arms reach to gaunt hands and long fingers, nails: black. She's
tattooed sparsely on her arms with words and images, all colorless. The punks
remain. The drunk remains. Most others are part of the exchange and are
replaced by middle aged wage earners.
The traincar seems remarkably more silent with the new passengers. At most
the newcomers are text messaging, or flipping the pages of a paper or magazine.
Now, the singer's suppressed song is accompanied by another constant hum, the
airconditioner.
"I know you from somewhere?" The girl next to him asks.
The singer stops humming, shrugs and opens his mouth to prepare the "You may
have seen me at this show," speech.
"I know where!" She says, the exclamation nearly unrecognizable in her
monotone voice. She hardly turns her head to look towards him, just seems to
look forward (without emotion) at something suspended in the air, something
invisible. She says nothing else.
"Where?"
"Guess where."
"That isn't exactly easy. I've seen a lot of faces at a lot of different
times and many of them several times over."
"I've seen you four times."
"At the same place?"
"No."
"How about another hint, who else was there that night?"
"No more hints. Guess."
"Murphy's?"
"No."
"The Clubbed Spade?"
"No."
"Bourbon Barrel?"
"Hell? No. I can't believe you don't remember me." She chides.
"Well, you know its hard to see a crowd when you're under a bright
spotlight."
"Tch." She finally lets her head relax enough to look at him, her eyes
positioned with authoritative banter. "How is it? Being under the
spotlight?"
"Honestly? It can be overbearing. I don't mind singing, not one bit, but
when I've this omnipresent blindness sheering reality it kinda makes me
ill."
"I know the feeling..." Empathy distills a moment of silence. She returns
to her taught foundation.
He begins to hum again as he look out the window at the dark or dim
nothingness. From the continuum of blur he draws a peace of mind. He wonders
if he should tell her about the feeling emanate within him. He wonders if she'd
care enough to recognize his attachment to its being. He wonders if it is
better to be shadowed instead of in the light. Whether it is better to just
perform as an unkown, or pursue being known.
Just then, amidst his final cognition, the train comes out from its
subterranean tunnel and into the bright sun.