Guitars and drums belting out well-loved compositions at the hands of small ones who, at one time, we could have never gotten to know. A facade of friendship is everywhere in our cloudlike bubble. We think we know when we cannot possibly know a thing. Alone in that sea of friends, we look for morsels on the ground as we lie in our bed, unable to move our legs and arms.
A life once lived in a distant memory. Formidable, warm, and influential, and now irrelevant. Why? I recall her smiling blue eyes. The marriage of those incredible desk clerks whose paths crossed mine in smokey rooms where ceiling fans did what they could do, and no one ever complained.
How do we sleep, or hold on, not falling out of bed? The ground beneath our feet trembles, and we just go on because we are used to it, we have acclimated to the unfolding descent. The gravity well is pulling us down, and we lower our heads, faces lit by a hopeless little screen, looking for electronic stimuli in which all of the people have been exterminated. Still, the machinery deceives the watcher into thinking he is not alone.
I feel obligated to pay tribute to the people who were somehow not captured by the lens of the camera. I worry that after I am gone, they will not come to mind. Somehow, they need to live on, here on this page, in the words of a song, but never in artificial intelligence. Sifting through the dusty microfiche attics, I find a simple mention of you. It is just a moment in time, years before our paths crossed. I could write a story of a day when that was the now, and I would be ok with that.
What is time? Is it but a unit of measure, kindly giving us coherence and breaking our hearts? Does it all happen at once? Does everything come to rest in velocity, and then does real life begin? The mechanics are nothing but speculation. Everything is really happening at the same time, even though that is not how we see it.
The bedsitter looks back, and it was just a day. Just one fleeting day. There was so much more to do, and yet, time's up. I can still feel the air coming through the screens at Beach Street Pub. I hear that a '74 Plymouth pulls in, and the taste of the pickle chips. The smells, the sounds, and my youth. Here and now, here and now. Perfect as it gets.
Nightfalls. It is Friday. We walk into the old bar room. Joe walks over to the jukebox, and within seconds, the room is filled with the expert guitar of Mr. BB King. "The Thrill is Gone" wafts through the smoke, accompanied by the sounds of talking and beer bottles clanking. Life is wonderful.
As I sit there, I have no idea how perfect this time is. I look across the bar, ask Sylvia for another, and she obliges. One dollar and twenty-five cents. Just right. The darts gleam in the dusty bar room, the floor creaks, and so does the screen door at the entrance. Could be good, could be bad, but no matter what it is, it all gets sorted out.
Upon waking, it is hot and sticky. The sound of music playing on MTV, Chicago singing Stay the Night. Fans are grinding away in multiple tones all over the cottage. Seagulls. I need coffee, although I can make it here. I will go to 7-Eleven to get some. I step on the floor to head to the bathroom. I feel the sand and salt grit on the linoleum. It's just another day.
It never rains here. The windows don't go up in the Chrysler. Even when there is a 90% chance, it doesn't rain. The southeast gulf breeze holds the front just inland. Sinton and Taft endure 6 inches of rain in less than an hour. The weather is relative. I am told that the winters are different. When they say, "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes, " in South Texas, they are not joking. A wintertime front can drop the temperature forty degrees in five minutes. It is really something to see.
I love my car and my life. I can't believe it is true. Of course, I think something is missing, but if I could go back 41 years now, I would tell myself that I was crazy for thinking so. A day in the life is spent, and I meet Andrew Jackson at the dinner hour, but we do not keep company for long. Lone Star and pickle chips await. Dirty screens, loud cars, and Charlie, Mike, Rick, Matt, Tom, Joe, and me. A stop at the Family Center to get food, or when I am lazy, Whataburger.
Some of the people I went to school with went on to college. Aggressive in plotting a life to live in the state in which we grew up. There, they would chase a dream, most likely that of their parents. People who live in denial and conformity until they drink themselves into obscurity and infidelity. One day, maybe some pulled the pin on the grenade, and others found contentment and comfort.
I was different. I teleported to this quaint little island in the Gulf Stream, spending every day with people I will never regret knowing. I had fathers and brothers and uncles and aunts in this bohemian paradise, where misfits all converged and lived wonderfully unique lives. It was a refugee camp of the strangest kind. I wish I could go back and savor how special it was.
My life has been like the movie Gravity, where the protagonist keeps jumping from module to ship to ship, just as things disintegrate under her. It has been a wild ride. I know in my heart that my wild life is not why I cannot return to these perfect places and times, even though at the time, they felt far from it. It is just the way the world is. I just did things more colorfully.
