Each place I have lived has been different from the others-a place like Philadelphia had a temperature ambience and a different vibe that was different than my college town Asheville, NC, which was different from New Jersey, all of which were different from where I grew up in Frankfurt, Germany.
But sometimes a strange night like tonight at 7:10 as the sun sets, the humidity dropped, the temperature stayed the same warm breeze tiptoed through the city, which for all the world as my witness reminded me of the Saturday nights in May and early June in my apartment in Philadelphia as I prepped for Goth night with vodka and soda water mixers, armed myself with a small flask for inside the club and hoped that life would be at least as good as the adjunct life that I was currently leading. Goth night was only good because it was a muddled reflection of Wed night Goth night in Asheville, which was also warm and soothing and fun.
That the goth scene itself is dead can be very much debated…perhaps it is a shadow of its former self…its kinda like punk rock, people love the IMAGE but don’t understand the meaning, not to say that I was punk rock or that I ever was one but nowadays everything is commercialized and the real meaning behind the lyrics of the old songs and the lot are thrown by the wayside.
Thomas Wolfe said you can never go home again, and why would you want to with all those loaded memories? Imagine looking every day at the same bed you lost your virginity or seeing the first place you got drunk. I would throw himself off the Washington Bridge if I had to see that frikkin’ bowling alley in Lumberton everyday on my drive to work at Red Springs. Better bitter nostalgia than watch yourself go grey and die in the same neighborhood where you used to drive past your ex-girlfriend’s house at 3 AM, or that’s what I keep telling myself. Strangely "Our North" has always been underrated. The closely guarded secret of its latitude is the age of the sky. With no effort I uphold my part. That’s the way it is all over New Jersey. For years I was indifferent, easy going indolent. I laughed at the passing streets. I wasn’t like one of those grins plastered on buses. Not that my outlook on life had soured but who do you have to blow to get a kiss around here? People comb their hair slowly in the pink light underground.
Years later the moon is still shining. Age isn’t all that bad no matter what they say. When you remember New Jersey, you shrug an apology for life itself. The horrors today are no different. One can’t help but offend the race with more shrugs, murmuring bingo This is the way we’re made. I would probably be caught up in planning a future but then get excited about something provincial, a new car. I’d been happy before (though not in Jersey) so innocent and self-satisfied. I am still working through this by the way having made very little progress over the years.
The world, especially South Plainfield, NJ was never saved from itself. Even a messianic rescuer needs a day off. Today was the day. Schizophrenia is the best thing that ever happened to me, with all its religiosity and shit. As for my absentmindedness it’s just a way of occupying a desk. So after raking the yard in the coming days I’ll sit down and write a letter to the editor of the Plainfield Courier in support of a noise pollution ordinance.
A small thing maybe. Once I saw a man in the Edison bus station with eyes that went deep into his head stretching on for miles. The next day while hitchhiking, a man with long hair and sandals offered me a ride, his eyes more profound than the other man’s. I’d already met God so it made sense.
I was someone set upon his actions. Though sometimes I missed drinking and sleeping around, I didn’t miss where it took me. My neighbor Steve was a fairly quiet kind of guy. We would say hello in passing but rarely speak at length. We were on the 15th floor in conventional apartments furnished with wardrobes, pictures, objects, etc. I can’t give you the exact location of the building but it’s under a dome of horizonless sky enclosing the entire state.
I am not into politics. I have never voted. Nature doesn’t interest me. I used to like sex. If someone would only point me in the right direction so I am not alone as in all the great songs thinking about what’s possible, not imaginary picturing all that grit before me. I called up an old girlfriend after twenty years just to say hi. Fort Hood was somewhere in Texas not that I gave a crap but that’s where Tess was living as a stay at home mom. We agree to meet. There’s a sense of muted tension wordless recrimination or reconciliatiation each minute a decision to exert or abdicate the self. I am nostaligic about Saturday morning cartoons. I like the themes of the late ‘80s video with a remote control on a long piece of flex, cars had manual chokes and only drug dealers had cellular phones. After I ruined one appetite another followed then another. Way too much to drink was barely enough. It was like that with sex never ending and if I knew what to say next this wouldn’t end.
I don’t need more friends. I like having the possibility of looking them up. As I sit in the morning sun sips coffee, crack my knuckles whisper words as I jot them down. Speaking of coffee my parents used to buy Chock Full o’ Nuts, it was terrible. I found a listing for a now defunct Gimbel’s where they took me as a child. If you came come over to my place you might find piles of funny stuff but I am is perfectly normal. I enjoy a good steak like the next guy.
When we were young the wind through a skeleton had no history and we didn’t either so nothing to lose. we could choose what we wanted without fear of punishment. In our conquest of total fortune life and production of finger paint Adonis
whereby we rebounded off the walls of our hotel rooms gaining an audience of critics, clerks and ponderers. . .but that’s too wet a distance. Complex notes (beige ash mote gruel loam) before the inevitable broomstick. I will never be successful financially
and I felt anxious about going on a date with someone I met at the S&M club but the second date went south. It’s as if I travel with clouds pulled around my shoulders.
The end of the trip left a melancholy aftertaste, like the end of a novel or reminiscences of disco balls and comets with powdery tails. I forget all the things I like about dead end streets. A glow. People who wander around as ideas believe they are drinking from glasses. It’s the water that moves the ideas, knowing them to be the dreams of the world. The moon is now a tangent, not a core. An opacity on someone’s distant horizon. You must never go there.
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