I wonder if this still plays…

Countless mischief seasoned with pungent perspiration. Endless laughter hanging on curtains while the fire escape beckoned with a burning heat. Kids kicking the can and then the bricks. Medical supplies sanitize the guilt and in a wheelchair escape we jump the fence.

Too bad Hardees’ weren’t keen on refunds. Detox brings another operation but this time it’s not convert. “He’ll be back in the morning” now that he’s slept it off in the laundry.

Swim in the Five Seasons because we’re just as classy as those people.

Security: You guys got a room key?

Brother: Yeah, it’s over there with my towel.

Me: Let’s just go.

Retox because Captain Denny is calling, way to make a first impression. Three of a kind for the Captain, condoms are okay for interviews kids! Unfortunately we held Alfie down for science. Abby, too.

Now and then the garbage went out the window. Well before the acid trailer, the fade-to-light wine coolers and the puking because it was just too much. “GET OUT.”

Alley gravel afternoon snack. The couch of holding fooled them at first. The blissful nod of old classic rock bullshit and then the bathtub dishwasher. The Flash is flashing outside my window and I got a pretty speedy finger. First ones at the bar, they were brewing coffee. Front porch parties midmorning, the concrete was comfortable in the early spring sun.

Just how many cold pills can you eat?

Lead pipes shattered plaster while her bloody fried chicken sizzled. The Indian upstairs didn’t care but the sloth over there called the police. Better luck next time Roger.

She smashed the glass in fiery hate while he just laughed it off. All fun and games until it wasn’t. A cell with a headlining rapist and curbside lawyers and the long tunnel walks of sentencing. 7&7 at 9am, the honorable presiding.

Ringing the man with round about directions. Abandon the wheels in the closet because the bumper pool bill wasn’t paid and rent came due.

Taste this sour twist of lime and the notion that these souls had barely begun kindergarten when they were stolen from grace and plopped down into residential anarchy like tin and glass in the Recycle Bin. Unfinished symphonies and dangling strings. Stab wounds, crumbled court papers, and a vacant apartment dormant in the afterglow. Three months of memories that hardly fade. It only takes a bit of reflection.

And all that could have been. Reality is more a stone that ripples the water.

Seeing the Rabbits was enchanting in the beginning. We could feel the electricity in the breeze but it ended with a sudden of a sharp guillotine. Smoldering ashes of poetry broke his back. Don’t leave those two alone.

That Cosmic Now was a Drunken Blur, not even a chapter, closer to a paragraph.

The Things Not To Do. Those sweet trumpets barely ache. Listen for the traffic and when it comes to mind, I don’t like it. If I over-ponder they ache a little too much.

And bless the kitchen rosary. And Neil Young’s praise of magnetic analogs, too. Three wandering a forest, two bound by blood. Funny how sometimes destiny appears as real as the cold wind on my feet during a midnight smoke and vanishes as quickly as the breeze wanders somewhere else.

—

The above is vague gibberish from events in 1991 when I lived with one of my brother’s for three months. Roughly in chronological order. I’m sure it’s all true.

Written in 2004, polished a smidge in 2017. The original events are over 26 years old and the memories have really faded now.

I kinda felt like George Lucas revisiting Star Wars. There’s some good stuff in there but it’s not quite what I want it to be. And then the more I fuck with it the worse it gets. Really, I just need to leave it alone.

#writtenword