Part I
We talk in layers. I watched a workshop scene once, a dialogue between two ex-lovers, consisting of various layers that throughout the scene were slowly peeled away. Formalities and humor were shed and coats crumpled to the floor until the two characters stood stark naked before one another, bearing their souls. And only then, when these two beings were at their most vulnerable, were they able to connect again.
You once remarked on the futility of a young relationship. What’s the point? It’s all going to end. I feel like we’re going to get somewhere. And then you start talking about your cats. But that’s okay. It’s a start. We can come back to it later. I’ll book mark it, dog ear it. . So we’ll talk about your cats. Pull the layers back on, button up our coats. But in five minutes I’ll say something like:
“but isn’t everything futile in the end? I mean we all die, nothing lasts forever. Nothing is sacred. I read Bukowski once, a short story and these two guys are sitting in a bar talking and …”
You understand, you comprehend it all. Maybe now you’ll open yourself. Maybe
this time… But then you talk about your cats again. Everything’s futile.
The puddle of congealing paint blistered next to his foot as he stood staring up at the mural. A tale of urban squalor sung in hieroglyphs on the brick wall. The paint still wet, the artist long gone. A drop of rain landed on his shoulder, like the flick of a child’s finger and the clouds let loose. The mural began to run, the color’s swirling as they dribbled to the pavement. Tears laced with the running mascara of the crying sky.
Everything’s futile.
He kept walking, hitching the straps of his backpack with his thumbs. The water dripped. The alley blurred. His eyes stung.
…
Sitting cross-legged on the rough hardwood floor his wet clothes shed in the corner, he pulled the backpack over to him and reached inside, pulling out a thick ball of newsprint, and unwrapped it. In the soft golden glow of the desk lamp in the corner he carefully replaced the type wheel on his typewriter. He stared down at the keys. Sighed. And then reached into the backpack and pulled out the bottle. He wrote between swigs.
This is for you, dear.
…
The way your eyes glimmered, catching the glow of the traffic lights. That alone I could write a million verses for.
Part II
His eyes flicked open. Scanning. The lamp overturned in the corner. The bottle empty in a puddle of scotch. His tongue scraped across the roof of his mouth. He shut his eyes again.
I used to close my eyes, and listen to you breathe, syncing my breath to the tempo of your lungs. Your heart beat a polyrhythm I couldn’t match.
He inhaled. Tried to clear his mind. Submerge into nothingness. Simplify.
I am a spider, tangled in his own web. I have woven this myself.
He thought back. His memories of that evening swashed through his head, a turbid backwash, murky, silted, and unclear. He took the paper from the typewriter glanced at it and placed it in a ragged torn file folder in his backpack stuffed with other similar pages. He pulled his damp clothes back on and left.
…
Steam hung over the dead streets; the stoplights changed for ghosts. The evening storm had left the air heavy, adhesive, wrapping around his lungs like plastic. The thick clouds above reflected the glow of the city, smothering the burning moon. There were no stars. A dog barked somewhere. He crossed the overpass, a sedan hissed along the interstate below him. One headlight blown out.
The railway track hummed as he crossed. He turned to watch the train come around the bend. A freight. The cars read Santa Fe, the headlamp an orange globe, gliding along the earth in the night, lighting the way West.
He moved onward, making his way onto the footbridge that hung beneath the crossing to Southside.The lights of the skyline shone off of the river below him, like torches aflame in a pitch-dark canyon. He slid the backpack off of his shoulders.
This is for you, dear.
He headed back towards the train tracks, waiting to hop the next freighter to Santa Fe. The backpack made a dull plunk when it hit the water.
You once talked to me about futility. It’s all going to end, you said. You were right, dear, but when it does, we start again.
