When I finally arrived back home to Chicago on Monday, it was weird for me, and the idea of going back home to mommie didn't sit too well. I wanted to be away again as soon as I stepped off the plane, and somehow, O'Hare airport simply wasn't as welcoming as it had been when I'd left the last time for my father's wedding. Now I felt trapped, and I couldn't go home. My feet were tired and my legs cold. My head sore. My eyes were blurred and the miserable cold was annoying, so I dropped my bags just inside the house, and took off again. I didn't even speak to my mother. I raced to find something familiar, something I'd enjoy. Morley! I thought. Yes, that's it! Morley! I'll have to find him. He was an old Vietnam vet who didn't talk much, so when he did it was precious. He smiled, missing two front teeth, and part of his tongue at the end. He's scruffy, and homeless, lives in the open field of grass near the train tracks by the library. In exchange for hot meal and strong drink, he'd tell me a story, and I'd be alright. When I finally did find him, seated quietly on the 4th floor of Harold Washington Library, I handed him the sandwich and slipped him the cheap White Port I'd nicked from the store earlier. He gobbled it down eagerly, ignoring the "No food or Drink signs, and taking bites right down the librarians' faces. Eventually though, they told him he had to leave, and Morley, being a military man and all, never had to be asked twice. We took the party outside to a bench, and I began to draw weird and abscure pictures of him, and wrote little descriptions of his looks and snorts and laughs freehand and without mental restarints. When I had finished and gathered it all together, I titled it Chicago City Blues (in E flat) and it eventually became this:
Into these deep wrinkled lines, and crevices, on a sad sorrowful, face of a man and then ho! there it was I had found the thought pattern that led to this unnessecary VOID searching man scratching, old gray hairs at his chin and mumbling to himself; In his face I was listening to Frank Sinatra sing looking for, something more than just this thought But it was breathing against my skin this old man on bench bus stop; epitome of some underlying misconception of purity because of his many eyesecretsand night whispers a barrage of what it once was and what it could never be the sea of, wonderous continuations that spiral downwards and upwards and sideways and long and MY GOD ARE WE ALL INSANE THIS NIGHT!!! these old eyes his alone to hold the things that he had seen some 60 years ago a blos-so-m-ing beauty of the human disposition what a crock the life we all lived for he thought to himself rocking. Here I was some young piece of whatever and here he was this hoary ball of burning knowledge poor, and undepicted and I wanted; partially to decipher his mind tearing pieces from his brain to fill in my holes. The thin lips that made his speech and made his HAHAHA (cough in the middle of impassioned) and his battered tongue in the mouth of some hot ticket vaguely reminiscent of Betty Page, and the light, fire of his loins, burning BURNING madly sign my name on the dotted line folks my life was a collection of what it was never meant to be and I so I had to walk over to this man, in all my inconsistence and ponder him closely, oh! the things he could tell me softly in left or right ear and I reached out to him, slowly, in my drunken stupor. Vanishing in the night were the useless figures, victims of the VOID at play and, massive miles of burning insane people walking their beat like I had been, now stopped by some old face, a line of the greatest unsung jazzclassic or today Monet's masterpiece or possibly Van Gogh never knew nor cared to know and within moments of this man-touching it seemed his life had more purpose than to sit; broading as it had some many nights before and now to move away as does the moon at end of night, as does the sun at end of day, as does the buzz after several hours passing high off the life and Insanity of it all he walked away fast and came home slow and so I sat there. I sat there for hours nights to become this thing I was to become this creator I had already been too many years of unnoticed life and now look at me some monstorous drunk like humph, humph, humming chords from piano follow Billie Holiday's voice... like humph, humph, my life in 60 seconds like humph, humph mission to feed the VOID... like humph, humph... night was gone, and so was life.
I started having visions last night... about hope and sex, and enrichment. They all seemed to include a red-headed girl with freckles and the Devil's smile. But whose the Devil anyway? Is he Hitler, in a blue dress? Or perhaps "The Man" who "keeps holding us down". Then I thought for a moment it might be my mother,
but upon further inspection, changed my mind. Who is this fairy tale, I thought. Who be this apparition of my thoughts and why always dancing, dancing? Should I fuck this girl, I wondered? Is that what she's there for? Should I mutilate her and sell her body in bits and pieces on E-bay for 20 bucks a pop? No, too commercial. It's back to the dashboard baby, and we'll dream ourselves a good life. Wit gold and horse-drawn carriages an peoples that sang fer us whilst we walk upon the floor. And ah, good friend genocide was who came to see. Shirley and Hilda are dead and instead of buried we gave them head and then the old priest said, my hellians, please get thee to bed, all undergarments, please do shed, and little Maria, wrists she bled, all for a silly old boy named Ted. And then the visions stopped, they just, they, they came upon me and then stopped and somehow, I feared I was positively fucking insane and yet I... I still begged to be set free of nothing at all. So alone and cold, weasels closing in. It's 4:52 AM and it's cold outside so I took a walk with my head shaped in the clouds. Somebody pass me a cigarette and... sing the cosmic blues... yeah. I'm gonna break out in a hefty sweat... and sing the cosmic blues. Making love in old back seats, passing down those battered streets and listening to manic beats and sing the cosmic blues! And then there was a train I heard passing, and there was complete and utter darkness. Nothing to see but my computer screen. Then I knew... truly knew. I was alone
It is morning, yet it is night. The sky is dark, there are tears fallen on the bed, I'm not sure whereto they might fly. 6:12 or something, I think. (sigh) Here are those noises again, silent films have come to life and I am believed now to be dead. I have been wating so long for this life, and here it is, lying there, on the floor, bleeding to death. Fuck, man, somebody call the fucking cops or something! They've killed the wench and there's not a soul to wipe the blood! Fuck, man, don't take us in for it, we didn't slice her! (scream) I am ready to leave this place. There are evil men in big heavy suits and bright ole' eyes screamin bout noontime coffee and a board meeting at eight. And I'm trapped inside some poisonous womb, now somewhat matircidal and insane.
Who Put you here?
Nobody.
Who left you here?
The world.
What struck you down?
Religious indiscretions
What shall you do?
I'll die.
"She walked up to me so gracefully, a creature void of form. 'come in' she said 'I'll give ya shelter from the storm"- Bob Dylan
**Dunno if this is a memoir, or really a rambling, but whatever man, it's up here now, and filled with blakened lungs. I think I need a smoke. Word.
