a matter of taste

The third elevator in the lobby is covered in grey cloth like the kind the dentist would cover you in before x-rays and rattles all the way to the 14th floor. If there was an elevator that ever got stuck between floors and forced the occupants to resort to cannibalism, this one would be it. Inside the steel transport box is just an older blonde woman and myself, both of us absorbed by our smart phones. As we ride towards the sky, I examine her from the corner of my eye, trying to determine if I could possibly eat her if my survival was at stake.

It is very possible, I decide.

I step off before her and exit without either of us acknowledging one other. I decide to check the ‘missed connections’ on Craigslist later tonight to see if she mentions me, and if so, wants to get coffee sometime.

Before walking to my office, I decide to fill my steel water bottle with cold water from the only good water fountain in the building. This works out, because after I stepped off the elevator, I had taken a wrong turn anyway. I am still getting used to the office building, and the location of my office.

After getting a couple hours worth of water I walk into the office, which, as usual, is unusually dark. No lights are turned on, and though we are on the 14th floor, taller buildings around us shroud the light from entering the floor to ceiling windows. Shadows give the beige carpet a vomit like color, which actually matches the pallor of my 4 co-workers who look as though they had not seen sunlight all summer. This is even true for the Indian broad—dot, not feather.

And though it is mid June, the two women have space heaters going which immediately causes me to start sweating through my cotton polo. Since my car’s power steering carriage essentially fell off while taking a sharp left turn near the mall that sells cotton polo shirts, I have begun riding my bike to work, and everywhere else in between. Though it is a short 2 mile ride to work, the sun is relentless in this climate and despite showering after my commute, I am uncomfortable.

I scowl and unpack my MacBook Pro laptop and plug it into the over crowded surge protector. As my 4 co-workers mumble good morning, and small talk inevitably heads towards the weather-which is always the same in this city-unchanging, sunny, hot, never raining-I make myself strong, black coffee from the Keurig machine in the kitchen. I toss my lunch into the fridge and settle into my chair, alternately sipping coffee and water, trying to rid myself of a slight headache and dissociative feeling.

It seems as though a very important nerve between my body and mind has been severed, probably sometime last night, and I drift through the day like a severed head trying to breathe. When the Indian girl asks me a question, I blink in response, and she takes it for an affirmative. At this rate, I may never speak again.

Around one o’clock, I am still Skyping with friends, trying to gather clues as to why I am so cognitively useless. The redhead awkwardly stands in the silence of the dark office and asks if anyone would like to get lunch.

When no one responds, she asks each one of us individually by name, as though that will make some difference, and I feel relegated to some type of dumb child, so I take pleasure in declining. As an excuse, I tell her that I’m meeting a friend for Thai food. She nods and heads towards the elevators, probably thinking that I’m lying.

In fact it is a lie, so I use the handy powers of Skype to rouse some people that I know are downtown and ask if they’d like to get lunch. I arrange the whole thing so that by the time I am heading to the elevators, it doesn’t feel like I lied.

I grimace as the light dings for the grey clothed elevator. It opens and I hesitantly step inside the empty steel box.



The Thai restaurant is called Silhouettes and the music from an up stairs Karaoke room drifts down slowly but not unpleasantly. I am early and head to the bar, briefly terrified that the red head from work will see me here, drinking, but I swiftly decide that this place is probably too risky for her. She is definitely a Subway or six dollar salad kind of person.

I order a Tsing Tao and look towards the window. I am a bit proud that I managed to gather four girl friends together for lunch, and am especially anxious to eat with one brunette in particular. It is a major upgrade from the red head.

After a minute, I get a text from Terri asking, “where are u?” I look around the restaurant, slightly dazed. Terri is not the brunette I am anxious to see, in fact she is a blonde, but I see her nonetheless sitting by herself in the back at a small table.

I leave the bar with my drink and approach. She smiles at me.

“Hey.” I say, and lean over and we hug. My eyes thud behind my skull and I wish I had sunglasses. Maybe Terri will let me borrow a pair.

“Hey there!” She says enthusiastically, returning my hug for a moment too long. I break away and sit down and delicately place the beer on the table, a bit hesitant, but then ask, “Where is everyone else?”

She smiles and tells me that no one else could make it. The other girls are really sorry, but Rachel is really busy, the other Rachel totally forgot, and the brunette I am anxious to see is a bit angry at me for something I had done the night prior.

This is all very understandable and even predictable, yet still leaves a bad taste in my mouth like the orange juice after toothpaste. I sigh, realizing that there is no way out of this now-I’ve come too far-and the notion that I probably should have accepted lunch with the redhead is beginning to gnaw at my stomach.

A half Asian, half European waitress comes by and takes our order. I get meat, noodles, a plate, silverware—whatever, and sip my water and beer, reclined back in the booth, my feet up and trying to relax.

Terri is peppering me with questions, not all of them boring, and we actually begin to have an earnest conversation. She tells me she is thinking about grad school, and I tilt my head, not ever expecting to envision Terri in the kind of light that is associated with academia. She tells me the girls are planning to have a wine and television night that evening, which upsets me because it is summer, and there is a whole lake a mile away waiting to be kayaked and worshipped. But I shrug, and mutter that it could be an interesting time.

“Have you seen the new Tim Allen show?”

“What?” I ask her in between sips of my water. I am looking around at the other clientele and am surprised at how slow it is. At least our waitress is mildly good looking.

“Tim Allen is still alive? And he’s still doing shows?”

“Yeah.” Terri replies casually. “He’s not half bad.”

“Did ya know he got busted trafficking cocaine into Detroit and escaped jail by ratting out his buddies?” I ask.

“What? Really? Wow—how is he still on tv then?”

“Huh?” My head throbs momentarily, and I wonder if I’m having a stroke like that girl Kelly Sherlock did in high school.

“No.” I mutter. “This all happened in like the 1970’s. His buddies are probably dead by now.”

When our food arrives, I scarf down the meat just to get something into my stomach, and my head begins to simmer down a bit, and I feel myself begin to strangely relate to the Karaoke music humming from up the stairs that I have never heard before, though it reminds me of the pacific northwest and the dismal year I spent living in the soggy trees.

Terri asks me a question about my future, and I dodge it successfully by asking about her summer. She seems to be innocently enjoying it, and I smile, happy for her. She mentions that she might leave work early and go swimming downtown, and urges me to come. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but regardless I need to be at the office all afternoon in order to keep up the appearance of a good soldier.

After lunch we head out the door, and start to go our separate ways.

“We should really do this more often. We work so close.”

I agree somewhat enthusiastically, but genuinely serious. I had unexpectedly enjoyed myself. Terri leans in and hugs for a second too long again, and we separate. In the sun I begin to sweat again, and curse myself for not asking Terri if she had any sunglasses. I look at my watch, and realize glumly that Terri is in love with me.



I leave the office some time after three but before four in the afternoon. I don’t follow my coworkers south onto Congress, but instead bid farewell and turn right out of the building and towards the parking garage. Just inside my bike is locked up. I ride it past the security guard and am out onto the street, in the shadow of the capitol.

The gym I go to is on the corner of 6th and Congress, and I weave my way through the thick traffic being roasted by the sun. I arrive at my gym and change clothes, the muscular Amazonian woman behind the desk giving me a strange look as I walk up the stairs and back out into the hot sun.

After riding a block or two west on 6th, I turn north on Lavaca. Lavaca eventually intersects with Guadalupe, and here I pedal past the university. What few students there are are mostly Asian and graduates pursuing some degree which will make them masters of the universe, cutting deals in smoke filled back rooms freezing pensions and making my 401K worthless.

I stare at them as they cross the street in front of me at red lights, and spit at cars driven by locals on cellphones that almost hit me. No one makes eye contact, and I ride one handed as I wipe the sweat from my forehead. Muscles twitch in the back of my hand and soon I take a left cutting across the busiest street in the city using a city bus as a shield from the traffic. I pass the bus on the side walk and end up in a residential neighborhood.

The stench of roasting meat on a grill fills the hot air, and though it's not quite still, the heat lulls the neighborhood into a tired summer trance. Some young people walking their dog turn into a blur as I speed past, and feeling untouchable I blow a stop sign. Childhood dreams are hard to break.

I arrive at Alex's house on the corner, a black Audi sitting in the driveway. After locking up my bike, I enter through the front door, welcomed by loud music and the air conditioning. Confer is sitting on a couch drinking what appears to be a Modelo for some reason, while Alex is changing into a new shirt. I wipe the sweat from my face and pour myself a large glass of water, making small talk with Confer.

"Sobriety is referred to as being 'On the Wagon' because in ancient times it was god damn hard to ride a wagon. You have to be sober for that." He says, finishing up his beer and opening another one.

"Bull shit." I say. "If you're On the Wagon, you're having a great time. You're along for the ride."

"That isn't accurate at all. What happens if you fall off?"

"Sometimes ya gotta take that leap, man." I head to the bathroom to change into non sweaty clothes. By the time I'm finished, everyone is already outside in the car waiting to leave. I bring my drink with me to sip on the ride down. There is no discouragement from my companions--this lifestyle has it risks, and it has its rewards.

We arrive downtown to drink dangerously. We want to move fast and break stuff. The dive bar serves cheap local beer, some horrible two bit concoction known as Lone Star. It is cheap, but we tip well. The waitress behind the bar is covered in eye makeup, her dress is way too short, but at least she doesn't have any horrible tattoos. As she hands us our drinks, I realize that I spoke too soon--on her left forearm, in black ink, the words: "Let's get started".

"What the hell does that mean?" I ask her, motioning to her arm.

"Ah, it's from a book." She tells me, brushing me off. I'm glad she isn't feigning manners in order to secure a better tip. The short skirt would do anyway. She leaves us alone and a pre-drunk silence falls over us.

Confer is watching the grainy B-movie that is playing above the bar on an old television. A scene with a naked woman flashes by, her 1970's breasts flopping in the black and white pixels. The caption below says, "He tried to make love to me, so I shot him."

"Do we want to order any food?" Alex asks.

I'm looking at the pool table. Two older people are playing. One of them is pretty good. It's a dude wearing a leather jacket without any shirt on underneath. I catch some Confederate flag patches and consider playing him. Maybe I'll be a hero. I watch him miss an easy shot and smile a bit, taking a swig on my beer.

"What is this music they're playing?" I ask.

Confer shrugs. "I don't know, but it's shit."

"It's not that bad." I tell him. "Bunch of Biff Lomans in here man."

"No theater references please." Alex says.

The dude in the jacket has left the pool table and I challenge Alex to a game. The table smells like tequila, and a stain of what appears to be water is on the center of the table but we play around it until we realize there are two 5 balls and no 8 ball.

A guy with a terrible haircut is sitting at a table with a lot of beautiful women. Alex and Confer go outside for a cigarette as I stay behind for a moment studying them, trying to figure out his angle. I order another beer when I finally get the bartender's attention and head outside to join them.

We're standing next to a table of women who are each looking at their cellphones. One of them glances up as I approach the area but then quickly looks back down again. I know one of them will ask for a cigarette.

Ryan offers me the pack but I decline. I haven't smoked since I broke my ankle the previous winter, and my doctor recommended that I quit. Cigarettes cause a lot of free radicals within the body, in addition to producing large amounts of the hormone called cortisol which can lead to bone damage. Not to mention damaging the blood vessels in the legs.

One of the girls comes over and asks us to borrow a lighter. Damn, I almost fucking called that. Ryan has a lighter and pulls it from his pocket.

"Wait, what's in it for me? Do you know any jokes?"

The girl looks at him quizzically. "Forget it." She says and goes to look for some matches.

"No humor in that bitch." Alex says.

"Nope." We agree.

"And humor is all we have to escape the nightmare of reality."

"Hey, no theater references."

We recognize one of the bartenders outside, or rather she recognizes us and walks over to our table to say hello. The girls looking for lighters leave and the bartender pulls up a chair. I can't remember her name, and everyone else seems puzzled as to why she's sitting with us. Are we friends with her now?

After her first sentence is something along the lines of "Earth girls are easy is a good movie," I realize she is extremely drunk. It must be her night off or something. She's using a lot of profanity and is talking about some bitch who she'd like to kill for some petty reason. Eventually she asks Ryan for a cigarette, and using this leverage we bargain for some free shots. She returns with giant glasses filled with Jagermeister and Whiskey.

"In life, love, and laughter." I toast, and we down them. The bartender burps loudly and leaves. We are in a momentary state of shock looking at each other.

"Is that chick pregnant?" Ryan asks.

"Man, she sure looks like it."

We head inside to close out our tabs, and this time the bartender inside remembers me. The dude surrounded by women is gone, as well as the dude with the leather vest and no shirt. New faces all around, and I feel a bit set a drift. I give the bartender a generous tip and walk out into the night where Ryan and Alex are waiting, leaning against cars and smoking cigarettes.


The walls of the Kingdom night club are blood red, but take on a vaginish hue in the darkness under the neon disco ball. I'm standing at the bar, trying to get a bourbon from the slut behind the bar with the terrible tattoos. A woman next to me knows the name of the male bartender, and is asking him if she left her credit card there the night before. Confer is behind me somewhere, texting into his cellphone while Alex is somewhere in the back, most likely doing a drug in the bathroom.

The woman next to me leaves without getting her credit card, but now I know the male bartender's name.

"Yo, Jeremy." I shout, and he turns momentarily. I motion for 2 drinks but he turns back around, ignoring me.

"Fucking nigger asshole." I mutter.

"Yo man, what do you want?" Confer asks me. He's still looking at his phone, trying to reach someone.

"This one's on me dude. Where's Alex?"

"He went to the bathroom." He gives me a glance which confirms my suspicions. A couple of very drunk, young looking girls are next to us, squirming like speared fish. Confer immediately begins to talk to them, and they seem glad to get some attention. I turn back towards the bar, trying to get some drinks again. Across the way a group of people are staring back towards me, most likely looking right through me, but I watch them carefully. A young man surrounded by three girls. Two of them are quite good looking. Leather jackets on all of them, and some type of strange tank top on a tall blonde to his left gives the illusion that she is naked underneath. Our eyes meet briefly for a second, and she tilts her head, brushing back her hair like she was looking at her reflection.

"Hey man, do you have a lighter?" Confer asks me. I reach into my pockets then shrug.

He puts his phone away. "What the hell is up with this bartender? Do you think it'll be better out back?"

'I dunno man. They're both scum." I spit on the floor.

"Hey, I think Fatima is here. I'm gonna go try to find her." Confer walks away and leaves me alone at the bar, in the thickness of pulsating music and sweaty drunkards. My shirt sleeve is in a puddle of liquid as it rests on the bar, and I return my cold gaze back across the bar towards the blonde girl in the flesh colored tank top. I'm debating walking over there and asking her what she's all about, but quickly rule that option out. Their group seems too intimate for a stranger such as myself to infiltrate.

The bartender finally takes my order and I leave her no tip. I grab two bourbons and walk towards the back, avoiding drunk college kids and hipsters dressed like side swiped 1990 B grade movie stars. The strung out, dirty motherfuckers with greasy hair and beards, bad rockabilla tattoos and denim jackets line the back walls, leaning against stools with their thumbs in their pockets trying to look dismissive and apathetic. Cowboy Kurt Kobains and their braless girlfriends wearing oversized white tank tops posing for their fifteen minutes in case an internet blogger happens to come by and decides to take their pictures. I walk with my elbows out hoping to bump into somebody, hoping for confrontation.

By the time I arrive outside and see Ryan and Alex standing near the edge of the dance floor, I need a cigarette or some drugs pretty badly.

I step around some people who generally seem to be having a grand time dancing and swinging their arms around, and as I spill my drink slightly I turn to apologize but they don't even realize what has happened-- they keep on dancing, their eyes closed and teeth in full moon grins, so I muscle through them and finally reach my friends.

Alex slaps me on the back, apparently glad to see me, as I hand Confer his drink despite the fact that he's already holding one. He motions to a group of people we are all standing beside, and I don't hear him at first.

"What?"

"Fatima." He says, and points to a girl in the middle of the group.

"Oh, shit."

I walk over and say hello to her, and she seems glad to see me. Hugs are exchange, and she asks me something pointless like "What are you doing tonight?" I shrug and point to my drink, which almost seems witty, but is actually more sad and truthful than anything I had done all night. She smiles and nods, then starts to dance to the music before we can have any meaningful conversation.

Some heavyset dude with a beard and black rimmed glasses is dancing with her, and she seems to half heartedly be dancing with him. I realize that Fatima is also wearing thick, black rimmed Buddy Holly glasses, as are several other members of the group. It is clear that all these shmoes whom no doubt play acoustic guitar and serve coffee during the days have adopted the glasses fad in replication of Fatima. I finished my drink quickly, ice running down my chin and into my shirt collar, feeling rather glum about this whole situation. I could see Fatima joining this subculture and ruling these clowns, all of them in love with her as she was the well adjusted adult who easily shifted up several notches in the social ladder by joining their clique.

"Man, what the fuck are you doing?" Alex asks me, bumping into me. I can tell he's pretty drunk. "You need to get another drink--wait...do you know who this is?" He asks me, his thumb cocked over his shoulder towards the DJ table, "this is fucking Midnight Magic!" He starts to dance wildly to a song I dont recognize. I smile and nod.

Back at the bar, the dude pouring the drinks gives me immediate attention. He takes my crumpled up money and gives me strong liquor in return without hesitation. I immediate like him, and in this slim moment of interaction I imagine that perhaps we could be friends. I drink while I watch other people dance, and eventually make my way towards the sidelines where others stand in the shadows smoking and talking amongst themselves.

In this setting, I play an actor, and the painted smile on my face allows me to approach strangers and speak with them, and almost relate to them. It is so difficult to recall anything they say as I am concentrating on the next cliche which comes out of my mouth and everything seems so scripted that nothing is truly accomplished, just fragments that my intoxicated subconscious memory records and which I will recall the next day, trying to determine whether or not the moments were real or just a mere side effect.

I sit at a table outside and the nihilism is crushed when I check out a tall brunette and she keeps walking, trying to ignore me, but suddenly stopping. She turns to me and I recognize her--her name is Lena, and she is a mutual friend of a friend, and she is gorgeous.

More importantly she seems glad to see me.

"Hey!" She says, sitting down beside me, her long legs folded over and rubbing against me. She has a clear drink in her hand, and almost immediately she begins to dig through her purse for a cigarette lighter. I reach into my pocket and flick some flint for her, and she leans forward and into me to light her cigarette. She smiles brightly and thanks me, leaning back in the chair next to mine. No language is needed; somehow we have an unspoken agreement that we are completely comfortable with one another.

I'm not sure how or when this agreement was reached, but it is official. I mention something about the dirty Kirt Kobain Cowboys inside, and she laughs, reaching out to grip my arm as she agrees with my harsh criticisms. A dude walks by, and Lena turns briefly to watch him, then turns back to me.

"Did you see that fucking guy's shirt?"

"Yeah." I lie.

"Ridiculous."

"Typical."

We head to get drinks, and once again the guy behind the bar gives me immediate attention. At this point, it is like we are old war buddies--the night is long, and for however brief a moment, we were fighting side by side in the trenches of one of the bigger battles of the city. I ask Lena what she wants to drink and I buy two of them --vodka and Red Bull-- and we camp out at the end of the bar, swaying slowly to the music as she chain smokes cigarettes. Occasionally my friends come up to me and make small talk, seemingly not even noticing Lena so I do not bother to introduce them.

At some point we begin to feel drunk, and the general mob rule that makes decisions in that state of mind decided that it was time to go.

Some of us leave into the shadows of the dirtiest street in the city, while others wait out front for others while smoking cigarettes. I stand against a grimy brick wall with Lena by my side as we wait for more friendlies to pile out of the club. People bum cigarettes and spit on the street, and a man wearing a faded white "Save Darfur" t-shirt is talking shit loudly to a group of women.

Alex staggers out of the club, his hair in a comical mohawk and his face slick with sweat. He greats me with a slippery hug and gives Lena a quick "nicetomeetya" before his attention is focused on the man wearing the "Save Darfur" t-shirt. The man is yelling obscenities about something, and Alex's brow quickly furrows.

"I want to slam that dude in the fucking jaw." He says loudly to us. I laugh, and some of the people in the dude's group turn around. I smile at them, then give them a wink. They turn back around-no fight in them. Pussies.

"Let's find a fucking cab." I say, grabbing Lena by the hand. We begin to walk north, up Red River, kicking trash and shoving drunks out of our way. My hand is waving at any automobile with a white light upon it while my other is clenched in Lena's grasp. 

Alex is clearly upset about something. "What's your issue, man?" I ask him.

"I should've punched that asshole in the fucking face."

"What asshole?" I ask, craning my neck to the street looking for a cab.

"The fucking asshole in the Darfur shirt. Fuck it, I'm gonna go punch him." Alex swivels around and starts walking back to the club. Lena looks at me, I shrug and we begin to follow him back. No sense in trying to stop him-when his eyes gleam with madness it is best to let it run its course.

We get back to the club and push our way through a mangle of people. The guy wearing the "Save Darfur" shirt is still there, yelling about something which is not important. Alex pushes his way through the circle of onlookers and places one hand on the guy's shoulder. The stranger turns, and his eyes meet Alex's, and for a brief second everything is dangerously quiet. I hear someone cough behind me, and Lena squeezes my hand from somewhere. Then Alex swings his broad right fist around and catches the guy in the face. 

Suddenly, there is complete chaos around us. Other people start punching the guy in the "Save Darfur" shirt, and other people start punching them. Everyone is stomping somebody. Lena pulls me backwards and we push our way out of the riot. A girl grabs me from behind, and I turn to face her.

"Look what your fucking friend started!" She screams in my face. As I'm about to retort, Lena reaches over and puts her palm on the girls face and stiff arms her away, like how you would push open a door. I smile, and notice Alex is back at my side.

"How'd you get out of there?" I ask, incredulous. 

"Man, fuck those clowns. Did you see me punch that fucker in the face?"

I laugh. "Fuck yeah, that was amazing."

We manage to pile into a cab at the corner, and after talking shit to the cabbie about how much the fare would be, we decide to head back to my house to swim.

We arrive at my pad and join a several other people already inside my living room. I don't bother to ask how they get inside, but instead I begin to tear apart the kitchen for some booze. Lena wanders off somewhere with another girl-some one tells me that they're getting a cab, and I brood over the fact that she would not be passing out in my bed.

The overhead lamps cast a sick yellow film over everything and I yell for someone to turn it off, but the music is too loud and no one hears or cares. There is no beer, but plenty of hard alcohol. There is nothing to mix the whiskey and vodka and gin with, but plenty of ice and water. On the porch with a whiskey water I watch people splash around down below, my phone in my hand waiting for a phone call or a text or some kind of communication from somebody-anybody- and I really don't have anyone specific in mind, but I am infatuated with the idea of someone wanting to reach out to me.

To see how I'm feeling in that particular moment of time.

I swig back the rest of my drink, and Lena is smoking next to me, looking at her phone while I look at mine. More people show up, some are sitting inside on my couch doing drugs and I walk in to join and to smoke cigarettes inside. I can't find the ashtray so we decide to use an old Boston Redsox hat until it starts to burn and I go onto the porch and throw it into the pool.

I go to the speaker and play with the music for a while, trying to figure out a song that will perfectly capture everything that is happening at that fleeting moment, a tune that will get people to stop whatever they are doing on a meaningless August night in the middle of the Texas heat in the early 21st Century when the world didn't end when it was supposed to.

Instead I give up and take a piss, and when I come out of the bathroom some people have left. A girl is asleep on my couch with a pillow over her face, and a couple of people are outside on the porch drinking champagne and flicking cigarette butts into the pool. I stand outside with them, marveling at the half view of the city I have, waking up neighbors with our laughter and jokes, checking my phone constantly even though it is almost five in the morning.

When all the cigarette butts are in the pool and the bottle of champagne is finished and joins the cigarettes in a watery grave, a cab is called and the last of them leave. The apartment complex lights cast a haunted hue on the shores of the pool as the sun is starting to rise, already burning off traces of the night.

I head inside and turn off the music, the girl on the couch had already awoken at some point and is now sleeping in the spare bedroom. I lie next to her briefly, my head buried in her dark hair. I doze off for a moment somewhere in between dreaming and exhaustion, but awake quickly with a start. My vision is blurry and the sun is now pouring through the blinds. The girl had taken my hand in hers and holds onto my fingers loosely. I shake her palm off and rise quietly, walking out of the room and into mine.

My mattress sits on the dusty floor unkempt. My room smells like cigarettes and it is already getting hot. I close the door, but then decide to leave it open after all, and take the contacts out of my eyes and throw them out the window. I peel off my shoes but leave my clothes on as I collapse on the bed, my phone in my hand in case someone calls.

No one calls and I sleep until it is late afternoon and it is too hot.


It was a week after and we had ordered expensive calzones. After much confusion and multiple phone calls, we had finally placed an order to the campus pizza joint down the street, convinced they'd lace our dinner with semen and spit.

Halfway through the first buffalo chicken, and everything was going according to plan. We had sent the beautiful Sweta to pick up our order so that at the very least she'd make them feel guilty for poisoning us.

A week prior my boss had sent me and twenty co-workers on an all expense paid trip to a resort hotel 40 miles east of the city. I had spent most of my time drinking warm J&B Scotch in the sun by the pool - complete with imported sand shores - and by falling in love with a Cuban girl who was apparently my co-worker.

It wasn't love, obviously, but I did enjoy the rhythm of our conversations and her body. I'm not sure what we even talked about, but the familiar sound of normal words being exchanged back and forth between two humans, one male and another female, helped to start put my mind back together again on that first day.

A long night out soaking the liver, and many stares and eye locking glances later, and I was quite certain she despised me. She was married, and seemed unwillingly to break that commitment so we worked our way past infatuation and a strange kind of brother/sister banter phase into the relative safety of disgust and mutual disdain.

Many cab rides and relationships of mine end this way.

The calzones were now just being picked at, and Confer was pouring champagne for the three of us. Sweta was talking about heading to the east side, but Confer and I had decided early that afternoon that her opinion would not matter tonight. We already had plans to shoot pool at a local college bar--we needed something unpretentious for a change.

Confer and I went to sit by the pool with our drinks while Sweta sat on the balcony smoking. We pull the chairs close to the edge and let our feet drift into the cool, clear water with the night's shadows moving slowly over the surface, casting eerie displays onto our submerged legs.

Someone had used the gravel to spell out "Alicia Sucks Dick" on the edge of the pool.

"Sounds like a fat girl." Confer mumbles.

Some of my neighbors were on the roof of their building, eyeing the pool from three stories up.

"Jump!" I yell.

A girl in a black skirt looks down at us skeptically.

"It's really deep." Confer assures them.

"Fucking jump!" I yell.

The girl calls back something that we can't hear. A guy with short hair and bad tattoos appears next to her, also looking down at the pool. We yell at him to jump half heartedly, then lose interest.

I had been onto that roof many times, and had vaguely wondered about the success rate of jumping into the pool from there. Once, while up there with a friend, I had asked her if she'd be impressed if I could land it.

"Not really." She had said. "Girls my age aren't really impressed by things like that."

What a terribly boring thing to have said. I had hardly seen her this year since she started dating some jamoke that worked in television. But it was really a perfect relationship for her, as she was addicted to all sorts of meaningless programs that I did not understand and he got paid for setting up the stage props for that drible. Or maybe taking them back down.

For all I knew he was a fluffer on a porn set shot in a panoramic bedroom on the west side.

"Why are people so boring?" I ask Confer. He is spinning his warm drink around in his glass.

"Because most people are morons."

I nod in the silence, and contemplate jumping into the pool. I'm beginning to sweat in the night humidity. Once, in Eugene Oregon, I had drove drunk to a friend's apartment complex just to jump into his pool in my underwear. The next day the management had closed it for 'rules violations', which seem to consisted of a ban on late night swimming.

"There's a wall to climb tonight. This is my fifth gin-champagne, and I'm not even buzzed." Confer sighs and finishes off his drink.

"It's gonna be a battle. For sure. I got pretty fucked up last night." I vaguely remembered dancing with a blonde girl in cut off jean shorts. I didn't recall how I got home, but remembered taking a cold shower after staggering through my front door drenched in sweat.

"Yeah." Confer looks up to the patio, where Sweta has stamped out her cigarette and returned back inside. The smoke rises up from the ashtray into the hot, still sky forever. "Maybe we should get some drugs." 

"Maybe. First we need good music and drunk women. Speaking of which - let's get moving."

"How are we going to get there?" Confer asks.

"Sweta will drive." 

Confer kicks apart the stone note. Alicia would not suck any more dick tonight.



Sweta takes us to a bar with a live DJ and dance music swarming through the atmosphere like millions of clumsy locusts blasting into each other. I try not to notice the music or the clientele, and instead head to the bar for a drink.

"Are the Zooters meeting us here?" Sweta asks me, grabbing my arm. I shrug. I hardly talk to those kids.

Confer comes back with three gin and tonics while we are still in line. "Hey the Zooters are here. Sarah Zooter wants to know if we need molly?"

Yeah. We do.

In the back room you are allowed to smoke and drink and fuck and laugh and love but not kill. That is essentially the only rule. The spray painted walls host years of graffiti and garbage on the floor, and some wooden benches provide the only seats. A busted television sits on a wall, the screen long ago shattered.

Instead, empty beer cans are jammed inside and Sarah Zooter and her boyfriend Rhine are sitting beneath it, chain smoking. Sarah's eyes are like black dinner plates and she enthusiastically hugs me and gives me a kiss on the cheek, taking the liberty to make sure I know that she loves me. That she misses me.

In these rare drug defined moments, we are a family. And we all belong. The silence of sobriety is lost to the warm glow of that green pill Sarah Zooter forced down my throat.

"I'd swallow anything that you put in my mouth, Sarah Zooter." I tell her, and she smiles deviously, her septum ring glinting under the disco ball as hip hop shakes the joints of my knees, and Sweta and Confer are dancing together. Rhine is somewhere else, probably trying to sell more green pills to strangers and meeting oddball individuals whom he will later invite back to our house where they will over stay their welcome and drink all our booze.

These are truly the last days of disco.

We decide to leave once we grow agitated and bored. We need a new establishment that it not only darker, but louder. More crowded and hot. Some place where we can move and dance. We're standing in line to Barbarella, voted best dance club in the city three years running. What prestige to be able to wait in line to pay ten dollars to pay five dollars for a beer and rub shoulders with the sweaty, unbathed masses of the city which never give people like me the time of day unless they see my dinner plate eyes and smile and feel the pheromones blasting off my skin and into their noises.

We ramble inside where my legs are vibrating at such an intensity that water is the only thing I could possibly drink, my hand shaking as I raise the cup to my lips and spill the liquid. I feel like people are looking at me, but at the same time I feel like I can relate to them, and I approach strangers and start conversations with them, mostly women but really anyone who catches my eye.

A woman sitting by herself and I ask her why someone so beautiful is sitting alone, because it is a well known fact that beautiful people are never alone. She is flattered and blushes, mumbling an excuse, brushing her hair backwards and I know immediately that'll we go our separate ways in a moment or two, but those brief seconds seem suspended in air like frozen rain drops and I can almost reach out and pluck them out of the thick night, but instead I touch her wrist and tell her I admire her smile and float away towards the edge of the fray.

I drink more water by myself, my friends dancing somewhere in the club, but I prefer to stand and admire all these blips of youth, their bad tattoos and style which looks like they just fucked and then kicked out of bed before a boyfriend got home writhing and pulsating like a giant mass of denim and white v-neck t-shirts. Someday their children will find their old cellphone pictures or Facebook albums and think what a ridiculous and fashionable existence their parents lived, dancing and smoking and drinking, riding bikes on bridges and going to Europe in the summer but they'd never see the solitary walks to work on Monday or the lonesome meals in the back of a sandwich shop or the emptiness which the night brings.

Finally I stand upright, my shoulders thrown back and spine cracking, fingers dancing at my sides like exploding stars. Feeling lonesome, I lurk around the dance floor looking for my friends, smiling at the back of heads and strangers looking past me. I head upstairs, taking two at a time, and find only other people enjoying themselves; I know this game well, and reckon it is time for me to leave.

I head out onto the street where the August air is surprisingly cool when compared to the heat of the club. People are milling around outside, talking loudly and drunkenly, smoking cigarettes and talking on cellphones. There are boys kissing girls, and girls kissing girls, and boys kissing boys, and everything in between. Fights break out at one point, and after a few minutes when no one I recognize walks out, I take off and head North, away from the madness.

Bikers pass me with their flashing lights and neon spokes, some pulling carriages filled with tourists or drunk frat kids. Girls in short skirts with their ass cheeks hanging out pass me holding hands, and hipsters with their bad tattoos and cut off jean shorts flick cigarette butts that my once new shoes now crush aside. Everyone has a place to go that is better than where I am headed, and it feels like even the winds know as it blows me wayward until I stop to take a piss behind a sufficiently dark tree.

I am hardly intoxicated anymore; the molly must've been shit because I think I'm already coming down and now I am just tired and depressed. I flip through my phone looking for numbers to call, some type of companion to bring with me on this exodus but most of them are likely asleep or several time zones away or having fun somewhere behind me--sitting on a patio bench smoking cigarettes and laughing with others, holding hands with a pretty girl and getting quick pecks on the cheek in between sips of bourbon and ginger ale.

I tried to perk up--after all, lonesome walks home have become a kind of weekend tradition to me, as though there is some type of shabby nobility within it.

I'm a few miles away from my apartment when a hipster on his bicycle begins to usher in a drunken apocalypse. He is on the other side of the street, but is making all kinds of bad noise, perhaps mistaking me for someone else. He's stopped his bike and is calling me faggot across a few lanes of traffic, and I'm not in any mood to fuck around with a bad haircut in tight jean shorts riding a fixed gear.

I laugh at him, and tell him his children will die from cancer, I promise. All type of vile language spill out from my lips, and everything that is cold and dark within in me pours out of my mouth in the form of words. All kinds of vile garbage-AIDs, racism, nazism, cancer-all of it ugly, directed towards this stranger on a bike who looks at me as though I had just crawled out of a swamp trailing green slime.

"Come over here bitch, let's fucking go." He screams.

Fuck it, this seems like something out of a god damn cartoon. I cross the road with no discretion for traffic, because when heading into a potential dance with death, why look both ways and play crossing guard?

"You pathetic drama queen piece of shit." I mumble, my hands already balled into fists. I'm not too big, nor do I know martial arts, but at this point the anger is flowing through me like blood in my veins, and I imagine all my friends dancing downtown still, having a good time and grooving away their pre-30 year old years, and despite the fact that it was I who left THEM, this angers me more than the fowl mouthed hipster who is getting off his bike and who hopefully is not pulling out a knife.

As he steps back and lifts his bike to wield it like a weapon, as the inevitable occurs and I accept my fate, I think of the woman sitting by herself in the bar who I had approached possibly another lifetime ago, and realize how all pretty girls must eventually go insane. The hipster swings his bike wildly and it connects with my left side, and I'm knocked back, suddenly feeling a little more intoxicated than I would have preferred.

This isn't fucking fair, I briefly think, as he throws the whole damn bike at me. I'm able to duck with the handle bars scraping the back of my neck, but regain my composure and approach with fists raised, my feet moving quickly like how my ninja roommate taught me freshman year. He swings wildly and we do the idiotic dance as I try to connect with an elbow or forearm to his neck.

No such luck, and at some point we become entangled in each other in weird wrestling holds, the sounds of our feet scraping the gravel very loud as he lands punches on my body and I attempt to get him to the ground. I vaguely remember how long this is going to last when suddenly he is on the ground, face down, and scrambling to get to his feet. He grunts as I rear back my leg and attempt a 50 yard field goal, connecting solidly with his face. Satisfaction like a first fuck flows through me, and he collapses to a heap as I rear back and deliver another solid shot to his ribs.

I climb onto his back and prepare to start working his face when I suddenly snap out of it and realize there are screams coming from behind me. I turn my head quickly and see two women in high heels screeching for us to stop. One of them has her hands on my back, touching me, shaking me, pulling me off the hipster scum and as I lose my balance I grab onto her soft arm and our eyes briefly meet, her azure eyes the deepest color of an Oregon summer sky, and I push her away and turn back to deliver a final kick to the man's face to an ovation of horrified screams.

I can hear sirens now, dangerously close, and now I am back in the moment, back within the sobriety of mortals and I realize I am really close to my apartment. One of the girls is crying and the other is trying to get me to stay, but I shake her off and turn to run. The police sirens are dangerously loud now, but fortunately I had recently watched a documentary on how NFL football players train for the 40-yard dash, and I put this knowledge to use, my feet attacking the empty ground before me and pushing it out behind me. I am fast, and despite a surgically repaired ankle I am bullet proof.

I run into the darkness, through a parking lot and down a small path. Then I am in my apartment complex, the pale lights illuminating the pool and I can see familiar faces night swimming. My friends-still high as kites- are naked and drinking champagne in the water. They see my hazard body booking it to the door of my abode, and I yell over my shoulder that it may be a wise notion to come inside now; it's probably time to call it a night. Up the stairs and thankfully the front door is unlocked, I rush inside and collapse onto my mattress as it slowly weeps.



The days drift by slow as sweat from my shaved head, but the months go by like the burning cherry of Confer's cigarette. We are outside on what I am almost positive is a Tuesday, the midnight oil dry as my cracked lips. The impending workday is weighing on me like an iron weight, Confer and his ability to do whatever wants has him dangerously drunk and partying like a moron. His nose is caked with cocaine, and he is rambling some type of nonsense, his cigarette hand flailing around like limp asparagus.

"No, no--that's what I mean." He insists.

The girl sitting across from him looks annoyed and mildly offended.

"I just think abortions are sad." She argues.

What the fuck is going on here. I stand up and head inside through a glass sliding door, into a small cramped apartment where a very attractive girl is sitting on the ground, a bag of plastic straws strewn about a coffee table, a pair of scissors laying about.

She insisted that we all pick our own individual straws in order to limit disease. I picked purple, but had lost it several times, and now no longer cared. A water color painting of a trio of a meditating buddha hangs enormously over the leather couch, where a black dude named Quentin and a dude with a very small dog sat.

Quentin had brought a bag of frozen meatballs and they were currently roasting in the oven, the thick small of meat and spice flowing through the small apartment while the loud bass of dance music played. The attractive girl cut up some more drugs on the coffee table, leaning over to grab her straw while being careful to not let her skirt ride up too high.

I wanted to go swimming. I pulled out my phone and checked it again, my legs shaking nervously beneath me. Too early for anyone to call, too late for anyone to care. I could really use some sleep, and I wondered if anyone at work would realize how faded I was, how burned out I was--but this was all nonsense, because I knew anything I said or did would quickly be forgotten. And not just in the office place, but anywhere, any place in this void of a city.

"Hey Alexa, I like your see through underwear." I said over the terrible music.

She put down her straw and turned to face me from the coffee table. With a sly grin, she narrowed her eyes and mouthed the words "thanks".

Maybe I wasn't invisible after all. All this partying could make one bitter.

I crossed my legs and tried to get in full lotus position but I had not been able to do that in years, and definitely not since I had broken my ankle. I watched the woman cut up her drugs into perfect little lines, so careful and gently caressing them with her little finger as though she was the mother of all creation. Confer had finished his cigarette and was back inside, wondering what the fuck was the deal with all the meatballs.

"You can't appreciate emptiness without form." I replied.

"Geez, he's strange." Someone said, their voice flowing in the wind.

"Fuck this noise, I'm going swimming." I stood up restlessly, barley staggering but knocking my phone to the ground. I bent to pick it up and could see Alexa's underwear again, and I realized that all of daddy's money had not actually bought her anything, just a sense of alienation and a need to belong, and that straw jammed up her nose was the only way she could express it.

"Man, don't leave, stick around." Confer mumbled with a mouth full of meatballs. He knew my true plan was to evacuate before things truly got gross and all time was burned.

"Where ya going dude?" The black guy - Quentin- asked.

"I'm gonna go take a chance." I patted my pockets to make sure I had everything. Seemed like it.

"A chance on love?" Quentin asked.

"Don't give me that bullshit." I walked to the door as Alexa called out her admiration for me despite the fact that I had known her for roughly five hours, though she had made a brief appearance at my birthday party a few weeks prior -before I had known who she was or what she was doing - and had some kind words. That first time I had immediately saw that her eyes were wild and hopeful, but so hopelessly wild. 

"Have fun entertaining yourselves in the void." I muttered under my breath, fumbling with the door knob and momentarily getting lost in the hallway looking for the exit.

Staggering into the hot night, I was ransacking my pockets looking for my car keys when I realized that I had given them to beautiful Sweta so she could drive home and get rested for her college classes the next day. I had completely forgotten that arrangement and was now essentially stranded four or five miles from my flat near campus.

I momentarily contemplated returning to Alexa's apartment, going as far as to actually take two or three steps up the stairs and towards the second floor, but quickly backtracked my way to the parking lot and then the street before I could angrily change my mind. To hell with this bullshit, I would walk home, maybe mutter 'om mani padme hum' under my breath the whole way and perhaps attain some type of serenity I had not felt since my stoned out college years. Besides, there was some type of shabby nobility in walking home alone at night.

The walk started off positively enough, with the first leg being downhill towards the river where I would eventually have to a cross a bridge into the glam lit downtown area which knelt before the capitol building. At this time of morning, there would be little traffic, as the bars had closed hours before hand, and there would mostly be nothing but the homeless and truly degenerate - 2 categories which I did not quite classify myself into yet.

I thought of Alexa in order to pass the time more pleasantly. I knew she was four, maybe five years younger than me and hardly educated formally or even when it came to street smarts. She walked around the city making friends with her short skirts and rolls of money tucked into her bra, never committing or truly smiling, but just fooling people's senses enough to get them to come her way and create some type of madness out of the sorrow I sensed in her home.

I, for one, was glad that something had come out of nothing, even if it did mean raking our youth over the hot coals in order to achieve any kind of stimulation. Hell, when we had walked into her apartment around midnight, her television had been blasting at full volume some type of reality T.V. show. She had immediately asked me if I had seen it before. I had quit television over five years ago, back when I still lived in a dead mill town up in New England and instead entertained myself with hallucinogens.

Crossing the bridge, the few cars on the road sped by my as if I presented some type of challenge to them. As if they had to justify their purchase and reassure themselves of the superior mode of transportation. I muttered insults to them, unconsciously rubbing my hip where a bruise once stood thanks to the bike wielding hipster whom I may have beaten into a coma.

Half way across the bridge the lamps poured over me and the city shone before me in its multicolored attempt at a heart felt glow with all its stinging lights. I paused and walked to the railing, looking down at the black abyss of the river which at some point ran through the Grand Canyon thousands of miles away. I could see the reflection of the solitary neon, wavering softly in the night heat and I recalled all the times I had jumped over this railing into the water with the madman Lamb.

The landings were never soft -- always loud, with terrible water shooting through the nasal passage and a blast of hard water knocking into your balls -- but that mid air suspension would touch me forever--more so than the hollow caress of the strangers that would sometimes grace my bed and leave in the mornings with a kiss and vague sense of direction of how to go home, or the sour taste of bottled beer or the bitter teeth rattling highs of whatever it was that I had taken in a dirty bar bathroom. The railing was still warm from the summer sun, and I swung one leg over, then the other, looking down at the lowest water level in years from the drought.

Lamb had moved to St. Louis after ditching his girlfriend and in an attempt to run from the law. I didn't know much more about that city other than the baseball team and dusty rail yards covered in graffiti, but I imagined that Lamb was in some dimly lit back yard on so many types of drugs as a dark wind blew and his mumbling madness spilled from his lips as some beautiful but dumb and dangerous girl looked on in obvious awe.

With the sweat starting to bead on my head, and gathering under my shirt, the summer night pounded down upon me and I slowly slid my legs back over to the safe part of the bridge. I wondered if it was winter somewhere-some place cold and crisp where the trees began their silent dance with death. After growing up in the Northeast, I could still feel it, a vague memory like an old photograph tucked away in a drawer of my mind covered in dust. Walking north back across the bridge, I wiped my hands on my shirt, both still slightly smarting from the tight grasp I unknowingly had on the hot railing.

It had been too hot too damn long and I was sick of waking up feverishly disheveled on a sweat soaked yellow pillow. I wondered if I would make it in hell after all.


Days later and I am trying to pack for a trip back home to the outskirts of Boston. The old man had bought me a ticket back to the north, in an attempt to do the fatherly thing and try to relate to me for a few days for some reason. Bitter and apathetic, I could care less-my true family resided here in the dusty south and the vast empty towns in the plains of the heartland and on the other coast where everything moved sunny and slow. 

After I jammed several wadded up bundles of clothes into a leather travel bag, I decided that it was time to get drunk. Lena had called me earlier to let me know that she would be near campus drinking heavily at some pizza joint that I had seen music at once or twice. Despite the proximity of the restaurant to my apartment, I hitched a ride with a blonde girl named Katy who I knew through the madman Lamb.  

As I climbed out the door I invited her to join us for drinks. She eagerly agreed, and began to text some of her girlfriends to join. She was a sweet girl, born on the plains of Kansas to an old priest and dutiful mother. She wasn't beautiful, and only barely pretty, but she looked as if things would happen around her, and I liked her well enough even though all my friends hated her, and gave me wayward eyebrows whenever I mentioned her name.

Inside the restaurant I saw Lena and her group of friends, and headed over while Katy waited for her own crew at another table. I spoke with Sean, one of her good friends and a man from the Northeast just like myself. He asked me if I had ever read a particularly good Stephen King novel, which I had, and I declared it simply one of the best. 

The Moor

So he awoke from sleep, a heavy slumber of dirt crusting his eyes and cursing joints which had not cracked in many, many years. Staggering like a drunken infant, then back down to his knees in the thick darkness he slamed his head upon the ground shaking dank dreams and clouds from his head. Back on his feet to the heavy door where he placed both palms upon the cool stone and felt it merely give way like sweeping aside a curtain. Now there was nothing keeping him from the cool April air.

As he stepped foot upon the soft soil, the wind of a fathomless void closing whipped at his rags. Until now, he had shared the same aura as the stone and dead trees which had encompassed the coffin of his sleep. But now, the night had become his day and it was a short trip back to Eden.

The Moor glared skyward, towards the unfulfilled promises of a heaven he had once heard championed by old men long ago in his youth. How pitiful, he thought, that he would know more about death than they ever would, despite their obsessive lives wasted to the cause. The moon returned his downward gaze,  speaking rebirth, confirming what felt like destiny. The threshold he had somehow crossed, the jagged line between blank death and the sobriety of the mortals, a barrier few had crossed before, stood at his back as he wept without realizing it.

Twas mere destiny.

Wiping the hard spit from his mouth with the back of his hand, The Moor shakily found his footing as each step sank into the graveyard mud. Crisp winds whipped into his ragged clothes, once considered the best for a burial but now rotted through and crumbling. Clutching his aching chest, a thought raced through his head, not unlike a child hood rhyme.

"So here you are, now find your way back home."

The words echoed through his bones, from the back of his knees into his crotch and up his spine like a bitter orgasm. A somniferous wind passed through the jagged teeth and tilted tombstones, dead flowers shuffling slightly and through the breeze.

Wbat was this?

Years passed in stony sleep, and suddenly awoken and brought back to this land which had cursed him to an early death. Torn from the warm breathes and embrace--

Ripped from the embrace.

"Carina."

Carina.

The word cracked his skull like a hammer. Whatever flowed through his collapsed veins surged with new vigor like sun rushing through morning blinds. His hair tinged from an unwordly grey to a vibrant brown, pale necrotic skin gaining pallor and a rustle in his chest.

His first breath.

His second breath.

A second chance to walk among the living. The old tales were true, the bloody films he saw as a youth--bad dreams and feelings of being watched.

Sometimes death can not hold. Sometimes whispers become screams.

"Carina." The Moor whispered, recoiling at the sound of his own voice. The sound of death speaking in a foreign land, a place where it was not welcomed. A gated area where the dead were supposed to lay and rest in peace, not speak names tainted with memories.

White clusters of pain encircled the words as they left his mouth.

"I shouldn't be here." A sob racked his chest like the cracking of autumn branches. "I was dead. I should not be here. But Carina. I came back. Somehow I have come back and--and Carina is the reason why I've come."

He did not notice the dead leaves falling from his mouth as he spoke.

As the night fell and withered away to the dawn of the morning rise, The Moor retreated towards the forest, wrapping himself among the branches of the trees. From the shadows, he saw the blaze in the eastern sky--and the glow withered his desires like the wind snuffing a flame. The gnarled branches embraced him, the pine needles his blanket, as the forest became his home.

satellite

The first attempt to reach you

satellite

was in the blooms of early may

now the summer is dying fast

and i could not reach you

because it rained in my city today

even if the signal missed the mark

the outreach would've indicated

some type of emotion

and required a response returned

why couldn't you have just said

what you really meant

even if you just orbit around

the reflection of your own glow

satellite

we could've shone a little longer together

and if you had just said what you meant

then surely i would have known

outside the skies are bleeding

while out there your heart is beating

you don't even try to hide it but surely

you could have simply said

what you really meant