The Long Forgotten Prom Queen of Ridgewood High Class of '79

Another new, Sunday morning stare down with that old judgemental sun burning back at me like it's asking "what are you doing up so early?"
But I'm not alone standing on the platform while I wait for a train to drag me away from the same old stupid suburb and slither down the coast line.
First there's a nice, young couple dressed in perfectly neat jogging gear, surely on their way to do nice, young things. For a minute I wonder what I could have done differently to end up looking so nice and fresh on a Sunday morning instead of an unkempt mess who looks like he just crawled out of an ashtray.
Then a group of Mexicans ride up on their bicycles. They're laughing and rapidly shooting insults in Spanish at each other. I start wondering if it's racist to think that they're probably going to work. Then I feel like a shit because they probably are going to work while a brat like me is just trying to get home to sleep off the contamination of the night before.
Then a few small groups of people in black coats and baseball caps start filling up the scenery.
But there's one woman who sticks out in the forefront of the shot. You can tell she's pretty but she looks like she's been losing rounds against time. She's decked out in a short brown dress with black stockings, peppered with runs and a stray hole, that go all the way down to a worn looking pair of black leather boots that were probably expensive when they still had a tag on them. She's shivering a little and bringing her long painted fingertips to her fading red lips to take a drag off her cigarette. I make a bet with myself that it's menthol, I don't' know why. Then she runs the other hand through her black/grayish Brillo hair and flips on a pair of dark glasses that seem to cover half her face.
So the joke is that I may look the mess, hair tossed in ten directions, clothes wrinkled, and of course the stale taste in my mouth of a few drinks the night before. But otherwise I feel fine. I feel good. For once I'm waiting for an AM weekend train without any hangover or lingering doubts about things I might have done or said the night before. No frantic scrolls through the SENT MESSAGES menu on the phone to make sure I didn't accidentally end a friendship or scare off a girl. Nope, my conscience is clear.
Don't know about hers.
0

Drowning in the Atlantic (DeadFlowersPractice)

"So what's her name again?"
"Anne," I answered flatly.
"Anne Kennedy?" Calvin sprung up.
"Yes, it's Anne Kennedy, the girl you took the prom ten years ago who moved to Nebraska with her girlfriend, she came back and now works as a hostess at the diner, is somehow, miraculously three years younger than she was when she left, is straight now, and I'm trying to get a date with her, but I didn't bring up the fact that we went to school together for nine years because I figured it would freak her out."
"Oh yeah she moved."
"Yeah she's gone."
It was late and I was tired. I was always fucking tired.
Calvin couldn't sleep and he wanted to talk.
He was smoking and the blue plumes of smoke made their way over to me and all I could think about it how much I missed cigarettes.
"So what are you going to do?"
"Yeah, look I don't really want to talk about this because I'm going to think about it, over-analyze it, or it's going to sound stupid out-loud or whatever and I'm going to get embarrassed, so can we please just leave it alone?" I pleaded.
"Well I just want to ask one question," Calvin pleaded back.
"Fine, what?"
"I mean is this like something you just are thinking about doing, like asking her out or does it seem like she's into you?"
"Um," I had to stop and think about that for a minute. There's something to be said for living in your own little bubble where the only questions that surface are ones born of your own neurosis, "I don't know, man, can't we just drop this? What's going on with you? How do we always end up on me?"
"Well let me just ask you this.."
"No, no more just asking me this, let's just change the subject."
"Did you get her number?"
At this point I realized there was no point in arguing with him and the only defense I could think of was to be completely childish: "Well let's just say I'll never kiss a gun street girl again."
"What?"
"The minister's daughter's in love with a snake."
"What does that mean?"
"I'm just going to talk in lyrics until you change the subject."
Calvin retreated back to his cigarette and a creepy grin crawled across his stubbly face, 'Hey buddy, it's gonna be alright."
It was then that I came to the conclusion that from here on in I will only deal with people I know after first achieving a proper buzz.

six or seven

Chasing down the man in the rose colored glasses, lungs filled with smoke and random aches and pains.
"Hey man," he says "have a seat," and he sits down on a bench in the park.
Dim blue neons crawl across our faces.
"I can't sleep anymore. I feel like I've been awake for a month,"
"Yeah?"
"I think I'm hallucinating,"
"Hallucinating what?"
"Hallucinating everything. Seeing things, hearing things, feeling things."
"Feeling things?"
"Yeah, like aches and pains I think I'm dying."
"That's kind of weird."
"Yeah I know, and I can't tell if it's real or not."
"Well what do you want from me?"
"I want you to leave me alone."
"What makes you think I had anything to do with this?"
"I'm angry all the time, I cant' sleep, I'm afraid of everyone and everything, I think that is covered under your umbrella."
"I suppose that's fair."
"So if you would please leave me alone."
"I wouldn't worry about it."
"Why?"
"Well the old time thing."
"What old time thing?"
"Time is all relative, so this has all happened already, everything has already happened and is happening right now. You're alive in your best moment and your worst moment and being born and dying all at once. So none of this really matters. If it's even happening at all."
"Oh." I didn't really have anything to say after that.

and on and on and on

I feel like fashioning a giant stake to drive through the heart of this week. Rotten Sunday bastard bleeding slow. March. Warm enough to give you a little hope on the breeze but it's still cold.
I want to hire October to kill march.
I feel draining-ly miserable. It's like fucking exhausting.
I also realize I've been trying to describe misery off and on for the last 10 years.
It always feel like a brand new gut shot. Like there's something lurking and you spend the day trying to distract yourself from it but you know it's there but if you don't acknowledge it maybe it'll go away. Of course it's like trying to get through the day ignoring a gunblast to the shoulder, but maybe if you drive around or go for a walk or take off in the middle of the night it'll somehow magically evaporate.
But there's nowhere to go.
I don't want to be here but I can't really think of anywhere particularly better to be. Everything kind of seems sad everywhere I can think of. Can drive around the same old streets or highways sit and stare at the ocean or fantasize about that old midnight jailbreak airplane that'll land me somewhere far away and quiet. Where all the noise will be new. But it's all a fantasy.
I almost did it this week.
Almost.
It's always almost.
Freaked.
Yikes is this turning into a 17-year old's angst-ridden live journal?
I don't' know.
It's a rotten thing being constantly aware of how you sound or what you think or how you feel. Especially when you need to foolishly spout off about it.
Oh Jesus sometimes I can't keep it to myself.
Fucking weak willed ninny.
And sometimes you just aim for tearing everything down in one swing.
Wrecking ball.
Like somehow everything is going to be better on the other side of it.
But it's not. It's not yet anyway.
This'll all fade.
Sooner or later.
It feels like forever right now. I'm at least smart enough, now, to know this moment will get blurrier and there'll be fresh new hells on the horizon.
But that doesn't do a shit ton for me now.
Ugh and then it gets worse.
Then you try to verbalize it or relate it and it just sounds like the most boring minutia that's ever been spun and you realize you're living in some kind of glue trap lined with miserably grim pop songs and you can't tell anymore if they're helping you deal with something or if they're actually dictating how you feel.
But now I gotta figure out how to pull myself out of it.
I don't know how to do that, I thought working on something madly, all through the night would help, but it's still there.
At the very least I think I'm probably done trying to spew nonsense and drivel that sounds like a rational thought about how to climb out of this dizzy sludge pit.
and so on and so on.

Suffer All the Walrye

So I got home from nowhere in particular. It was late and I wanted to go to bed but my ears were ringing and my head had slipped into that weird desperation where every nerve is vibrating and your brain is sunk in some blue cocktail of frustration, confusion and love and whatever other deliberate emotions rear themselves when you can hardly tell if you're awake anymore.
Wow that bed looks good. I just want to drop my head into a pillow and wake up sometime in the future, and I don't mean tomorrow. Who wants to wake up tomorrow to daylight where the world slows down with enough time to analyze and compute and wonder. No not tomorrow, I mean some other era, where all these things have already passed. Some futuristic future world that looks like the future is supposed to look like. Where David Bowie is a prophet and walruses play an important role in everyday life. Maybe they have an ambassador. The Walrus Ambassador. Or maybe people just ride walruses around, maybe the world has sunk into the ocean and the only way to get around is hop on the walrus saddle and glide from glacier to glacier. Maybe the walruses can fly. A future of flying walruses. Maybe it's their time to shine all ruby eyed and white fanged. A world full of red-eyed Walrye gliding underwater, slashing through the skies and worshiping David Bowie.
Or whatever.
RIght now it sounds better than tomorrow.

Past Newark and Already Drunk

It's too late now pal.
I already feel like I'm made of glass and I'm just waiting for the inflated sense of self confidence to kick in.
No point in making this trip if I just came here to see sights.
The same old songs blasting in my ears.
Trying to stay interested in a book while the guy sitting across from me with the small kids flashes me a dirty look every time I lift the can shielded in a paper bag to my lips.
LIke somehow his kids are going to watch me sipping a beer and remember that "really cool guy on the train" and raid the liquor cabinet.
Fuck him, I put the book away and go back to the window.
I pick out a song: Fairytale of New York
There's still some Christmas lights out on some of the apartments and stores so it almost feels appropriate.
Like the end of a movie or something.
Or maybe the down turn before the happy ending.
I guess that's kind of what I hope it is.
Nah, this is too dramatic.
Something else.
Eh, just shuffle.
Any Dylan, Tom Waits or Nick Cave murder ballad about scary women and roaming will do at this point.
And I'll just keep watching the lights streak by and hope I don't get too tired before the night even gets started.
And just when everything feels right.
"Hey buddy, last stop you got to get off" the ticket ripper says slowly and deliberate just in case I don't speak English.
Oh well.
Maybe I'll get it right on the way back.

Agent Crowley and the Mailman

I knew something was wrong because I couldn't stop calling everyone "Agent Crowley" and I had no idea why. The mail man, Gene or Pat or something, I can never remember his name was the biggest victim of this curse. He'd hand me the mail and I'd say "thanks there Agent Crowley" and shoot him with my forefinger like pals do. I don't think he found it amusing but I couldn't really help myself. I also started referring to my cats as Agent Crowley: "Wattsamatta Agent Crowley? You hungry?" stuff like that, I figured I'd just picked it up from some television show or movie that I fell asleep to and didn't really think about it.

About a week later I went out to get the mail, and I should probably explain that I hate the mail because it's usually bills or some kind of bad news. Maybe, occasionally, like when Netflix comes, I'm looking forward to it, but usually it's just a credit card or a phone or car insurance or the town or the hospital looking for money from me. However, today I wasn't really thinking about it. Somehow my trip to the mailbox perfectly coincided with Agent Crowley arriving in his mail truck.

"Hey there pal" he greeted me sunnily, "you know that Harry Potter book and Richie Tennenbaum sunglasses you ordered are sitting by the doorstep over there," he motioned with his head, "they've been there for like two days surprised you didn't notice 'em since you've been waiting for them for two weeks."

"Oh yeah" I said casually noticing the small box drenched with melting snow, "huh," I turned back to Gene or Pat or whatever, "what you got for me?"

He handed me a heavy stack of envelopes, no junk mail in here, just envelopes that said things like 'Geico' 'Meridian Health' 'At&t' and 'Chase'. I rolled my eyes: "That it?" I asked.

"No, actually" he leaned out of his truck a little to get a look behind him and then cautiously whispered: "just to let you know, there's a monster roaming around down the street."

I looked at him for a moment waiting for the punchline: "A monster?" I finally asked.

"Yeah, keep your voice down, just so you know, be careful Agent Crowley" he shot his finger at me and drove off.

I thought little of this, too distracted by the bills and that sinking feeling of impending poverty that leads to other sunny thoughts like "Where did I go wrong?" and "How come my friends seem to be able to get on in this life so easily?" so I sat around and sulked until noon happened, and then I made myself a sandwich and read yesterday's sports page. The winter is a bleak time for sports. Writers ringing out every boring story from the last week of football like a slimy dishrag and trying to drudge up any possible stories from spring training. I didn't' even bother finishing any stories, I just chewed my sandwich and glanced over some story about job creation.

It started snowing. Again.

Everything was already covered in white, and it was the kind of grey-day that looked like it might start raining or snowing again, but this was a heavy snow, one that the trusted weather center at weather.com told me not expect until Saturday. "Well, they're just lucky I don't have anywhere to go today or they'd be getting a slice of my mind in their inbox" I thought.

I dropped the paper and gazed outside, there's something peaceful about heavy snow as long as you're not driving in it or walking in it, or outside in general I guess. Through the windows of the warm confines in a house you didn't pay for with a nice heat floating through the air though it's quite lovely.

Then I saw something. A giant black figure pass by the window on the street. It made my stomach sink because as soon as I saw it I knew there was something unnatural going on. I sprung from my seat and tried get a better view from another window but I saw nothing. So I sat back down and assumed it must have been a car or anything else. Then I saw a shadow float on the floor from the window behind me. I turned around to see a giant, and I mean like 12 feet high giant, hooded figure looking in the window. Well I'm assuming it was looking, I couldn't make out a face.

I sprang from my chair and out the back door, bathrobe wildly flailing in the wind, work boots ready to fall off my feet. The heavy snow dusting the ground the made it slippery and I fell and banged my knee on the cold ground. I thought about the cats I'd left behind in the house, but they were on their own, they were cunning enough to get out of sight for hours on end when the vacuum came out so I would assume they could fall into their emergency hiding spots now that an honest to God monster had presented itself in the middle of the day.

I made it to the woods behind the house and stopped behind a tree to evaluate if the monster was still coming after me.
"Agent Crowley?" a low voice droned behind me.
"Oh God" I turned around slowly, too panicked to take off again, "Yes?"
"hello," he pulled his hood back slowly to reveal a balding head with a shock of white hair towards the back of his skull, it was Gene or Pat or whatever, the mailman.
"How did you get 12 feet tall?"
"Nevermind that now, I'm here for a reason," he smiled, but in a way that told me he had regrettable news.
"what? What is it?"
"I'm here to take you to see AVATAR," he said somberly.
"But, but I don't' really want to see AVATAR" I answered nervously.
"I know that, but you really should see it on the big screen or else you'll never be able to properly judge it," he reached out his hand, "now c'mon let's go I'll buy."
"But, can't we, I don't' know, can't I just wait for cable? I'll make sure I watch it on an HDTV, I may even have one by then ya know?"
"I'm afraid that won't do, and besides we both know you'll still have that little shit box you're watching now until it breaks. No you have to see it in the theater I'm afraid, though, don't worry you may like it, you see it's about a primitive culture, you know like Native Americans."
We started walking off, the snow stopped falling but everything was painted white by it.
"Can't we just go to something else? Even that Mel Gibson movie that looks like shit? Just until after the Oscar buzz has died down at least?"
"Nope.Sorry Agent Crowley."