I find myself walking the streets more and more lately. It doesn't really matter which ones. A moment in Shanghai, another in New York, the next in Old York. Does anyone call it that? I don't know.

The point is, after so much time stuck walking the cosmic corridor you tend to find appreciation in the strangest things. I remember a time, not that long ago really, that I rejected those that littered my creation.

Their chaos. Their ever present need for attention.

Now they're the only thing keeping me from succumbing to the deadliest condition someone like me can suffer from.

Boredom.

But here...? In my world? The slightest permutations are all it takes to change what could have been a moment of weakness into a moment of hope. A moment of despair becomes a moment of strength. I marvel at these miracles, beyond even my ability to make. I covet them more than I'd like to admit.

I reach out my hand and strum the threads I weaved together an age ago, and off I go to the next.

You know the question that I get the most? "Why did you do it? All of it. Any of it." I never get the opportunity to answer because then it's off to the next. Always off to the next.

But if I did get to, answer that is, I think I know what I would say.

"What makes you think I thought any of it through."

I bet that would throw them all for a loop.

Don't get me wrong, I admire them in a way. If only they knew just how strong they are. They don't need me or my "answers" anymore. They haven't in a long time.

I need theirs. So it's off to the next. For as long as it takes to understand.

He cut the engine. Cool air

communion in a breeze, baptism

against my skin, his fever.

Daylight slumber, hibernating

with us, peace beneath an oak

hidden from eyes, watching

our pulse becoming one.

There were choices she made to avoid choice. A flight to the convenient, the easy, the pretty face. Longing for something untouchable, she reached wide and far touching it all.

He opened the door, laid the cash on the table, and she stepped into velvet. Swings hung with ivy rope taunted her from the rooftop, but she took the window before he came down.

She burned on an island watching communists send smoke signals with cigars. Then beneath the splintered oak and with a bottle of rum, she crawled into her destiny.

One day she walked in the footsteps of a dock and a crown, and by night she took cheap wine wrapped in flyers to the depths of her darkness. She lost count of the faceless but would someday write about it.

There were choices she made to avoid choice. And in those moments of rapture and escape, she saw the reflection of a stranger wearing her shoes.

show me how the sun / hides if you call it / and in every fold and river stretch of summer / every mote of white dust settling / in winter and its oiled light / i call the sun / i am aware of every mile of skin you cross to touch me / every mile made and every stone / river-stone / in these walls / is this the sun / is this what you wanted me to see / i cannot bear to think of you now / your steady gaze / your autumn love / like a flower your hands closing around mine / how could i / where was this black heart in me / i pull it out in pieces / show it to you like the sun like reason / please forgive me / please want me still / in summer in winter / touch the silk of my skin / cross these miles again and say you'll have me / can i be enough / though walls on walls / and though the sun cannot enter here / beneath the surface i am cold / i am the sun but when it strikes the frozen glass of dark water / i am the sun but without heat and my light is thin and wavering / i want you / in every shape my mouth makes / all the press and lift / press and repeat / the sun shies back but i long to see it / i long for you to show it to me / bright lines and rhythm / fading / you are out of reach / i reach / it is inconceivable to me / the sun now / how could i / how could i

{Audio and commentary linked below the story.}

A lot of ex-cons and drunks lived in the building. My room was the corner spot on the 3rd floor. The old man in the room next to me was deaf. The girl in the room across from me was a diagnosed schizophrenic. She almost never wore clothes. She was maybe 25. The government gave her 500 dollars a month. She kept her door open. Big black men walked in there and shut the door. It was a shitty place to live. The bathroom was never occupied when I had to use it. I was the only one in the building who showered regularly. But the toilet was well used. Every time I walked in there I came face to face with a bowl full of dead shit and sometimes a syringe on the floor. The bathrooms on the other floors were worse. I had a sink in my room. I pissed in the sink late at night. I was the youngest tenant, and the only one with a job. I had to walk past the landlord’s office to get up to my room. I’d walk in and deal with him.

“How was workin’ tonight, young man?”

“It was work.”

“Anybody asks you anything about this building you tell them you don’t know.” “Right.”

“Don’t tell them my name, neither.”

“I’d rather die.”

“And don’t bring no girls up there, neither.”

“Alright, Dave.”

“Fact, don’t bring nobody up there.”

“Got it.”

It was almost the same scene every night. I’d get in my room and shut the door. Then he’d knock. “It’s Dave.”

He’d sit on my bed. Dave was tall and slim and black. Dave smoked menthols. He was fifty. He had the job and nothing else. I never saw him laugh. The world was out to get him. He sat down and lit up. I leaned on the desk. “Feels like I just saw you, Dave.” He nodded to my typewriter. “You writin’ stories ‘bout me an’ this hotel?”

“No.”

“See to it you don’t.”

“Let me have a menthol, Dave.”

“Can’t do it. I have one every hour. I have the pack timed.”

“Bullshit. You’re on your second smoke since I walked in.”

“Still can’t do it.”

I lit one of my own, “Dave, and don’t take this personally, you need to get out of the building once in a while. This place is getting to you.”

“Can’t leave. One a you might try somethin’ on me.”

“Like what?”

“Sneak somebody in, move out without notice. I run a tight ship here.”

“The place is fucking destroyed, man.”

“You have any stories about me here?” “Seriously, Dave. Take a walk down 23rd or something. Ease your mind.”

The front buzzer sounded. Somebody had walked in downstairs. He jumped up and ran out of the room. I locked the door, closed the blinds and laid in bed. I listened to the street and the wind, the hours taken by the jobs and the rain, the repeating day and night varied only by a new tenant getting the boot or a new story that I would start and maybe finish. The winter and the cancer air of the hotel had become a morbid process, and my job was another tumor that had grown from it. I closed my eyes and thought about hot sand.

My manager was worse than my landlord. Her name was Shelly. Shelly was 6 feet tall. Once I called her Michelle. She told me she wasn’t a Michelle. I’d see her in Chinatown once in a while with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend worked in the kitchen. They lived together. She had to have a spotlight shining on her. She’d walk back into the kitchen with her long bird legs and long black straw hair.

“I wish these guys would leave me alone! I keep telling them: I HAVE A BOYFRIEND!”

Which she never did. She never told them. Her boyfriend was short and muscular. I didn’t like him. His brain was propelled by jealousy. He threatened me every other day. “Hey, man, when you talk to Shelly you keep it professional.”

“Give it a fucking break, Manny.”

“You just keep it professional.”

There was nothing professional about the job. I was either sick from the food or I was dodging the old gay men who lived in the smoking section. One time a professional basketball player stayed at the hotel. Shelly was on fire. She was going to his room and bothering him. She came into the kitchen. I had just turned in an order. Manny took the ticket.

“What the fuck’s this word?”

The word was Benedict.

“The word is Benedict. Eggs Benedict.”

“You sure?”

“Poached eggs over English muffins with hollandaise sauce.”

“Don’t tell me how to do MY job, motherfucker.”

Shelly came in around the corner. Her face was weak and crazy. A film of sweat formed tiny beads on her make-up. She was playing with her hair.

“Manny, can you handle things down here for a minute?”

Manny’s eyes lit up. He looked around and pressed his tongue against his cheek, “Yeah, I can handle it, baby.”

“Good. I’m taking Jamal Dupree a fruit basket. His team lost the game. I want to make sure he stays here next year.”

Manny was horrified. “Why the hell you doin’ that? He’s just a big dumb ape. He’ll get over it.”

She tossed her hair behind her shoulder. “Manny, I don’t appreciate your tone right now. We are working. I am the manager. I am trying to secure this account. You have nothing to worry about.”

She took off. Manny went to work. Half an hour later Shelly hadn’t returned. I walked into the kitchen and folded napkins. Manny was on the other side of the wheel. He talked to me through a skillet. It hung there between us.

“Don’t you say a fuckin’ word, prick. You so much as give me one of those smartass looks of yours and I’ll break your fuckin’ nose.”

I’d been putting up with him for two months. I never said anything to him because I didn’t want to lose my job. But the job wasn’t worth it anymore.

“Tell you what, you sorry sack of shit, after your girl gets done screwing that big black cock I might even take a shot at her.”

“Your fuckin’ order’s up, dead man.”

But after work he had a fight with Shelly. I was waiting for him by the back door. He walked by in a huff. “Your lucky day, motherfucker.”

I never got to fight Manny because he had narced me off to Shelly about what I’d said to him. Shelly kept me after work. I sat across from her in her little office downstairs. “We need to talk about what you said to Manny.”

I lied through my teeth, “Shelly, I only said that to get to him. I don’t think you would fool around like that. Manny’s just worried that I’m going to try something with you. I would never do something like that.”

Her face changed entirely. It was pathetic. “Why not?”

“Well, for one, you’re with Manny. For two, you’re my boss. And for three, let’s face it, you’re way out of my league.”

Her eyes lit up like Manny’s. They both had dull and dumb eyes.

“I was going to fire you. I called you in here to let you go.”

She raised an eyebrow at me. I sat back and lit a smoke. It wasn’t worth it. Her and her long bird legs and long black straw hair. But it was mostly her face, the way she needed attention. She would dry up and blow away without it. But sitting there facing the end of my job it occurred to me that I didn’t want to look for another one. It also occurred to me that I would have sex with her, if I had met her in a bar and I was leaving town the next day, some circumstance like that. For a second I thought of walking in Manny’s shoes. I’d rather eat a bullet.

She crossed her bird legs and smiled at me.

“I never knew you felt that way.”

“I’m just saying.”

We heard the back door open. A pair of shoes came running down the hallway. There was a slip, a grunt, and then walking. I shook my head at the desk. Manny peeked his head around the corner. She stared at him. “Sit down, Manny.”

He sat down next to me. She cocked her head at him, “I don’t want any more trouble between you two. Shake hands.”

I smiled at Manny and put my hand out. “I ain’t shakin’ his fuckin’ hand, Shelly.” “Manny, shake his hand.” He did it. It killed him. She told him to wait in the car. She had to tell him a few times. He left. I asked her, “How’s Dupree?”

“Oh, he’s fine. We had a good talk...”

I put out my smoke. “I guess I’ll be leaving.”

She uncrossed her bird legs and sat forward.

“I should go, too. Listen, you were wrong about my being out of your league. I want you to know that.”

“Thanks, Shelly. See you on Monday.”

She watched me leave. I walked down Burnside and bought a coffee. I walked the river and sat next to a sleeping bum. There was another bench empty, but it was covered in bird shit. A boat hauling a barge floated by. The bum shifted and made a loud honking sound. I got up and walked into downtown. I bought a drink and watched the people on the sidewalk. It had been a short summer. There was a week of frozen streets. It was getting ready snow again. I walked into Chinatown and ate a cheap lunch. Down on the street two cops were walking up on an old man with a string of shopping carts. He had the carts tied together. One of the cops nodded to him.

“This your train?”

The old man lit a rolled cigarette and smoked through his long beard.

“It ain’t no fuckin’ train. But, yeah, it’s mine.”

I heard them going back and forth behind me. Portland was soft but it was hard. I didn’t know anybody anymore. I had been there six years. There was sometimes a flurry of people, then it would die off, then there was a girl here and there, and she would die off. I hadn’t had a girl in almost a year. I mostly stayed in my room.

I opened the drapes and wrote about the job, the building, Dave and the schizophrenic. For some reason, I laid down and jacked off thinking about fucking Shelly. I had her on her desk and her bird legs were wrapped around my waist, her thirsty hair soaked with sweat. It was a good one. I shot over my shoulder.

The phone rang. It was her. “Hello, Kurt.”

“Hello.”

“It’s Shelly.”

“I know.”

“This is awkward. Listen, Manny just put his fist through our living room window and walked out. Apparently he was lingering by the door after he left and heard everything I said to you. Pretty low, if you ask me.”

“Oh, he’s a fucker.”

I wiped off with my sheet and pulled my shirt back down.

She sighed. “You really threw me for a loop in my office, what you said to me.”

“It’s alright, Shelly. No need for me to go back there.”

“Thank you, Kurt. I really appreciate that. Listen, why don’t I stop by for a little while?”

I hung up. It rang back and I unplugged it. I heard Dave knocking on the door across from me, yelling about someone being in her room after ten pm. It had cost me next to nothing to live there, but next to nothing is what it was. I sat up and found my sweater and pulled my duffel bag from under the bed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zkaxy2-7Jqc

I was sixteen and too high on myself and life to know the difference. She called herself Harlow and id questioned the name. Just another dealer in another town, i thought. Maybe id said it out loud. None of it mattered. She was pushing thirty, with an almost washed up smile.

Beautiful in her own right. Too old to say yes and too hot to tell no. We'd waded around in the pond of innuendos as we passed the blunt. But then her eyes got distant and she'd grown quiet. A nudge to the right and my last drawl.

She'd found herself in the kitchen, pulling something from a drawer. I'd followed on a signaled command. I watched her cut a line and cut her eyes.

Its wasnt pleading, it was certainty.

Her lips had turned into a smile at the final snort. She knew i was watching, she knew i was there.

Shed turned to face me as she'd propped herself against the marble counter. She'd nodded an "ok" and i moved closer. I could hear The Verve Pipe playing somewhere beyond our scene. Like an out of date fade to black.

Id watched her, cut it down and line it out. "some movie bullshit," I'd thought.

Why was i here? Why me?

She stood an inçh or so below me. The height didnt give me the power to say no.

I'd done a line and then three and rested my head on her shoulder. I remember looking at her eyes, dark brown and swimming with some flicker of golden. I couldnt say now.

But i remember how it felt when she'd taken my hand. A careful entanglement of fingers and my awkward stance. She'd pushed the hair from my face, tucked it consciously behind my ear and id instinctively moved closer. She smiled as i slid inside her grasp. "ready for bed?" She'd said, "or another round?"

I watched her cut out the lines. I could hear the voices of my friends a doorway away. Laughing. But...i was transfixed. Her hand on my breast as i inhaled.

Everything was here and there except for her and me. She'd leaned in and licked her collagened lips. I watched as her tongue danced acrossed them.

She was leading me, i knew and i wanted to be led. Her mouth had found mine with ease and id drank that in. She tasted like amphetamine drip and my innocence. And for a moment we were frozen. Just stuck in that moment with the verve pipe playing somewhere in the distance and her eyes boring into me and then her head had lowered and she'd pulled away and muttered something akin to "I cant " and id said "you can." And it seemed like forever standing there. With her coked out eyes looking through me, with hunger or need or confusion?

Id pressed myself in. Closer to her. In teenage arrogance, id traced the line of her breast through her shirt. Low cut and barren white.

She'd gently nudged me away and I'd reached for her hand.

It was on me before i understood. Fast, with a need i thought i understood.

I remember the fierceness in her motions and how i arrogantly accepted it as acceptance.

She'd let me lead. A silent trail from here to there to her bed. She was hungry for my touch? A touch? And she'd laughed as id thrown her down.

Ecstasy and aging hands. Too gone from here too far to rewind.

I was once in the right place but at the wrong time. I was once in the wrong place but at the right time. I can't seem to be in the right place at the right time, so I seek the wrong place at the wrong time. It's a double negative and will serve as my loophole. Double negation is a positive. Tomorrow...fractions.

I am left tongue-tied, ridiculous, red.

As though under a microscope and stark lights

I feel you look at me with your stunning, entire self.

Do you know how often your words have occurred to me?

Naked and plain - piercing...?

Fleeting eyes and words and feet that tease me with their clarity,

Summoning up my own shy truths

Begging to be whispered in your ear

Begging to hear more

Because you've got a direct line to my soul

And I am ready for an out-pouring of my own...

Suspicious, darting eyes,

That have seen far too many lies

Falling from lips of lovers and friends

Prevents me from saying "I am in love with you!"

In an Anais Nin/June kind of way...

Prevents me from saying "You are beautiful, and unafraid!"- and I...?

Am as a twelve year old girl discovering her warm, soft breasts for the first time:

Dizzy, and proud, and alive.

Forgive me if I cannot look you in the eye.

-JTW