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writings


Down Town


I tried to leave the house occasionally to see people and escape my dark chamber. I had recently moved out of the city, and was in limbo, staying in a town that didn’t have much to offer me. I was restoring a Victorian house that was almost one hundred and twenty years old, and in the beginning felt like a carpenter with a purpose, a person doing a good deed. I also lived there and it seemed as if I was reconstructing my life, fixing all the blemishes, all that was breaking. But now it was all weighing heavy, or should I say it seemed a trap, a heavy old coat I was growing out of, and I felt like a crab that needed to leave its shell. I considered selling the place half finished. The outside was three fourths in disrepair and the interior still had two rooms with falling ceilings and disintegrating walls held together only by layers of old wallpaper. But unfinished business always tagged along with me. If I left now, I new someone would buy my house and finish the task, and live in their paradise. But some other burden would find me; catch up to me, no matter how far away I traveled. I needed to get out, and see some living souls before I gave up everything.

The small town seemed empty. I t had twenty some odd thousand residents but I thought they all hid in their cellars. It was a river town and the downtown sprouted up along its dingy north bank and crawled up the small wooded hills that ran along down stream. It always had had trouble growing, and was like an old mangy dog going down the road looking for scraps and a new way. The town’s river was muddy and rather small. It became one big obstacle but the residents tried to enjoy it and were always thinking of ways to integrate it into their lives.

The hills along the bank were spotted with massive churches, some businesses and a few private residences. Big beautiful houses that were built when the town was young were now stuck, stranded near downtown amongst the dismal streets. Some businesses were now located around them. These homes longed for room to breathe; they belonged out in the country side and deserved the respect they once knew. The majority of the downtown shops looked clumsy; their outsides had evolved into nothing more than resurfaced boxes and their signs looked like they were giving up hope of ever evolving into something more. A few beautiful brick buildings remained but even some of those were covered in cheap facades that consisted of big grids filled with plastic squares. The facades were added years ago to represent progress, but they only served as big ugly bandages to cover up years of neglect. Everything seemed cobbled together and the rest was held together with thick layers of chipping paint.

A few people were restoring buildings and uncovering their raw beauty, those people were rare, and it gave me some faith in my neighbors. An impressive old hotel stuck out amongst the clutter and it represented what the town used to be. It looked out over the city like a parent keeping an eye on its sick children. It possessed an interesting bar and I went there mostly alone and watched people drag out their evenings, slowly turning into someone else, or should I say they watched me.

I parked my van in a dark alley created by the hotel and the building next door and didn’t bother locking it. The bar was on the corner of the ground floor and looked out over the street and a parking lot that I had to walk through. I went in through a side entrance to a hallway that lead straight to the main lobby. You could see who was working behind the front desk but just barely. I took an immediate right and entered a small stairway that lead down to the bar. Three or four steps and you were somewhere else. You weren’t here, or there, you were in another world that was always the same but it always consisted of different people. There were always the regulars but you always had strangers, being that this was a hotel.

You could always tell who was from out of town. They always were dressed a little nicer and looked like they were relieved to be away from wherever it was they came from. I tried to think like them. The bar was called the Wapello and it had a big mural above the bar that consisted of Indians circling a swirling campfire. The room was always dark and the mural was the centerpiece. It had been painted in the W.P.A. era and its colors were as bright as ever. It was lit by three recessed ceiling lights that were angled back towards it, so as to light only it. The gold and neon red highlights painted on the figures legs, arms and faces, to showoff the fires intensity, glowed eerily as if the light was coming from within their bodies. The figures were painted under a clear night sky and they were in the midst of some ritual dance. The smoke from the campfires flames spun and twisted towards the night sky like curly locks, and the energy it possessed made me feel like I was witnessing troubled minds exiting earth’s reaches. It was real, and reminded me of some hellish dream possibly dreamt by the hotel’s guests or by the locals who drove home just in time to pass out on their front porches. Eventually, everybody wanted to get out of town.

The bar itself was a perfect half circle that met the wall directly on either side of the painting. It formed a ring for the bartender to work in and it encompassed the painting and its flames like a curved hearth around a massive fireplace. We sat around it like people sitting around a stage watching a performance. The cash register and the majority of hard liquor was on an island built in the middle; the bartender was always circling around it, like the figures around the campfire, and she seemed slightly underground like she was in a glowing pit; that brought the bar to life, even if the place was empty. One side had chairs because the floor was higher, and one side had barstools because the floor was lower and it was there that the bartender could exit to the rest of the room, her porthole beyond the fires reaches.

I liked to sit at the end with the chairs. The curved bar seemed to grow out from the walls and when I sat down I felt like I was at some definitive point on the road of life, the child or the old man, being born or dieing. This place made you feel warm and drowsy but it also carried with it an undercurrent of potential violence, which kept you a little on edge, even though it was the cleanest, classiest bar in town. The painting made your thoughts wonder in and out and you had to occasionally look out the windows onto the dimly lit street, or tap your fingernails on the cold marble bar, and tell yourself you were really there. I started to drink a beer and waited for more people to walk in. It was time for a change and I always thought it would happen when I least expected.

I organized the little money I had and set the bills upright on their edge in front of my beer to form some sort of a symbolic barrier between myself and the others. I imagined myself shrinking and hiding behind the money like I was a young boy hiding behind the living room curtains when guests came over to the house. A local walked in and sat two seats away. He was hit by a train a few years back and was held together by the grace of God. His name was Stewart. Stewart had the mind of a little child and for some reason the train accident didn’t seem to faze him much. He was always known to talk to himself and his crippled right arm, that was no more than a twisted scared stick, always shocked those who met him for the first time.

Stewart always wore moth eaten t-shirts {usually with holes around the stomach} with very short sleeves which exposed his entire mangled arm. He was always smiling behind his thick glasses which made his eyes look like two black dots. Stewart usually ordered a hamburger and fries and ate it all with his left hand. He wiped his hand on his napkin after every bite, after every single French fry. He was happy to have something to do. Football was on television with the sound off and the radio behind the bar played mindless jingles. I watched T.V. primarily to drown out the music and never even thought about the football game; I just looked at it like something abstract with no meaning, other than moving lights. Stewart was mumbling to himself and loved to watch football.

As I watched T.V. a lighter and pack of cigarettes landed beside me on the bar and the hotel dishwasher pulled up a chair and sat down. I never knew his name and his features were non-descript; he put both elbows on the counter and kept his hands around his face like blinders; that hid his face further. He was verbally combative when he drank, and he too started to talk to himself. He was already drunk by the time he sat down and was rambling about president Busch. “He’s a puppet and it’s a conspiracy, all a conspiracy to take over Washington. Busch sold the whole country for ten million dollars! Your life is cheap!”

Some people were starting to take notice of him and he talked to the liquor bottles next to the cash register like he was talking to his captivated audience. “All countries in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia in particular, have taken control of the United States. North Korea and Russia have financed them….. The two hundred years is up, it’s the fall of Rome!” I looked at the bartender for a reaction but she just stared out the window like a prisoner that knew her boundaries. The whole place was starting to taste sour and I resented it. “Busch is a zombie, and the C.I.A. has been the K.G.B. for thirty five years”…laughing… “The Russians and Saudi Arabia are the same, they have their own secret language, their own dictionary” … laughing… “We will all become Soviet factory workers and you don’t even care, you like it like that!”….laughing… “But you already are slaves, you buy things advertised on T.V; the god Nike!” …laughing… “You’re mindless pieces of shit, and you don’t even question it!”

He started to glow red-orange. He was still hunched over resting on his elbows. The dishwasher was a runaway roller coaster in my head and I wanted to derail him. If he had been arguing with a person that would’ve been different, but he was clearly speaking to inanimate objects and it seemed they represented everybody in the world. The bartender surprisingly put up with it because he worked in the kitchen but I was imagining blowing his brains out and burning his body in the Indian’s campfire. He was wearing a Bud Light t-shirt and I thought he should be the last one to talk about consumerism’s slave. My shirt said nothing and I didn’t talk out loud to liquor bottles because they weren’t talking to me.

The other customers started to leave and Stewart and I were the only other people there except for the bartender and a couple who was sitting in a far corner. I became as disillusioned with the world as the mad dishwasher and wanted this whole thing to stop. I always hoped some beautiful woman would come wondering in off the street, but if she did, he’d drive her away. I picked up my beer and my little stack of bills and moved to the other side of the bar. I walked down three steps to the lower level and pulled one of the barstools out and sat down. I watched the dishwasher out of the corner of my eye; I wasn’t going to try and ignore him anymore.

He became more vocal and said everyone in the bar should be shot; we were all stupid sheep and he’d love to pull the trigger, and as he said, “...everyone here should be shot,” he looked directly at me and smiled like he would be doing me a favor. I wanted to physically assault him if he continued much longer; his rage was flowing into me. I imagined the police letting me get away with attempted murder; maybe they wouldn’t even be called. I would be doing the hotel a favor, the bartender would cherish me and all my drinks would be on the house.

Just then the manager walked in to ask the bartender a question. I interrupted and told him to fire his dishwasher and get him the hell out of here, he was annoying the customers. “He can’t handle his booze and he’s a waste, he’s a true psycho and everybody left. He doesn’t rent one of your rooms upstairs, does he?” “Yeah, he does,” the bartender said. The manager looked worried. The dishwasher eventually stood like an assassin, after the fact, and walked out trying to mingle in with the couple that was now leaving. He never came back, and I waited for something else to happen but it didn’t.

The dishwasher had driven me from my favorite seat and I collected my things and went back to it. Stewart had just left and looked a little upset the whole time the dishwasher was rambling. He dropped his napkin on the floor after he’d paid for his meal and walked out. I stepped over it as I walked back to my chair and picked it up for the bartender. It was covered in ketchup and I quickly dropped it on the counter. I grabbed something to wipe my fingers off and the bartender said, “Gross, for some reason this one looks different, it really looks like blood.” I said, “Yeah, I wish it was psycho’s, I wish somebody would’ve shot him.” “Oh, I know, he’s like that every time he comes in here, but if he doesn’t drink he’s just like anybody else,” she said. “Oh you can’t tell me that. He’s dangerous every minute he’s awake, I’d love to strangle him, I’d fire him in a second if I was the boss,” I said. “Yeah,” she said, “but he’d probably stalk you and vandalize your car.” “The fuckin bastard better not!” I grabbed my beer and thought of a strategy.

I was dreaming of a battle that wasn’t going to happen, I needed to relax. The bartender brought me another beer like my guardian angel and I hoped it would be a cure all potion. All of a sudden time stared to drag, things started to slow down and beer didn’t even taste good. The bartender wasn’t even moving; she wasn’t entertaining me. She was sitting on one of the beer coolers reading a fashion magazine because the place was dead. The foul music was ruining the atmosphere and the football game was getting annoying; the place was becoming defaced. I didn’t know what I was even doing in there anymore. I sat back in my chair and had a look around the room like I owned the place, and thought of the things I would do different. My fantasy continued and the front door opened. The place started to fill up and I watched the bartender perform around her campfire, under the glowing mural, and I almost felt lucky to be there. I’d write my suggestions down and discuss them with my employees tomorrow, I thought, I was a good boss. I walked to the bathroom and ran into the corner of a table; I felt better.

The bathroom was small and quiet, just enough space for one toilet and a small corner sink. The floor and walls were covered in ceramic tile. There was a mirror above the sink and I looked over my teeth. I had a filling fall out of my canine tooth and the hole was turning black. I pulled up my gums and growled at the mirror like the dog Dracula and tried to fix the cavity with mental telepathy; I hated the dentist’s chair. I felt like taking a nap in there and I was getting fuzzy. The tile floor felt like a skating rink for germs and the room started to smell bitter. I opened the door and walked back to the bar. The place was half full. On the other side of the room was a round booth filled with women. They were coworkers and were talking about their boss. As I walked by they felt like my jury. Some looked at me but I couldn’t tell what they were thinking. They let me pass without a trial even though they knew I was guilty. Their boss must be more interesting than me, I thought.

Halloween was approaching and I imagined everybody in costume. They were all devils and one girl was dressed as a prostitute. She was the best. A devil sitting close by had the utmost respect for me, and I appeared to have been his overlord. The bartender left and her replacement was Jennet who was two months pregnant but didn’t look like it. She was a desert I wanted to be lost in. I thought of the two months I had spent in Arizona and the blissful emptiness of the sun. My life was in her hands and she held the secret of who I really was. Every time she looked at me I thought I was talking to God and I wanted an answer. Somebody saw me look up at the T.V. and asked, “Do you know the score of the game?” and I said, “Oh no, I don’t pay attention to that, I don’t like sports.” I continued to watch the game and thought only of the bartender.

Jennet made a mistake and gave it to a young man who drank everything. He changed drinks continually to feel like something exciting was happening. He looked at the mistake he’d been given but didn’t immediately take it. He already had two drinks in front of him and didn’t want to appear like he was hoarding something. I drank my beer like electricity, but with every swig I felt more dehydrated and punished. I wanted a priest to walk in and pronounce an alcoholic exorcism over me but hoped I’d still feel drunk when he finished. I didn’t have enough money to start allover again.

My chair started to float and my body felt like a sinking rock; we were a balancing act and started to fuse together. We became a single entity and were lost in the cigarette’s fog. Someone grabbed my shoulder and said, “Hey, what’s going on?” I didn’t speak and thought the word, “Nothing.” I wondered if he was witnessing my transformation. I wanted to rip up the marble counter, take it outside and smash it on the street, to feel what reality was like, but I didn’t have the money to pay for the damages; I probably wasn’t strong enough anyway; I didn’t exist.

Everything stopped. Jennet moved like my own dream. I paid no attention to anybody sitting around me, and only looked at those who were seated far away. It felt like I was a nick-knack on the window sill covered in dust. The new customers walking in couldn’t see me, but they felt my presence. They stayed away so I wouldn’t haunt them. They knew I didn’t appreciate their company, not at a time like this, but they drank in my world and felt the tremors. They must be foolish, I thought, they must have nothing left to live for.

I never took my coat off and it was starting to feel tight around my elbows. It eventually became my straight jacket that I could breakout of at any time. People were still ordering food and I thought they were pathetic. This place was for drinking; food only consumed you and you couldn’t trust it, it had its own agenda. I had Jennet change the radio station and I stared at the beautiful whiskey bottles and contemplated their various honey hues. They made me think of my grandfather because he always had a couple different types of whiskey in his private bar at home. I drank Coke when I was a kid because it was dark brown and when I held the glass up to the sun so it would appear translucent and whiskey like. It’s all the same, all candy, I thought.

It was midnight and nothing stirred in the sharp winter air. A single lantern outside a pub made the wet cobblestone street sparkle like scattered shards of ice. I had ridden all day through the desolate rolling hills wrapped in my black coat and feeling a strange sickness. My horse’s hooves broke the town’s dead silence and cast heavy thick echoes in the night air. I was cold and brittle like a piece of frozen glass wrapped in a blanket. If I fell off my horse I’d explode like a thousand windows and my shattered soul would strike the sleeping residents and draw blood as they lie dreaming of God’s bitter winter. I stopped outside the pub and tied my horse to an old wooden post which was near the lantern. The light hung from an outstretched beam six feet off the ground, and sitting directly beneath it was a large wooden barrel. This gave me the impression I was looking at a glowing being, perhaps a type of scarecrow that was watching over the dark streets. As I stared into its hellish burning mind, I felt as though it was trying to talk to me, but in the end it said nothing. I collected my thoughts and walked to the front door. As I went inside, my nose was hit with a rush of burnt air that smelled unnatural. A stone fireplace was giving off a beautiful roaring heat that quickly brought life into my veins, but the smell was unnerving. As I looked around the room I saw nothing but the dancing fire. There were no tables or chairs, and not a single living person was to be seen. This mustn’t be the pub, I thought.

“Do you know who’s ahead, do you know the score?” a man said, who had just appeared sitting beside me. He had apparently just walked in and the football game was taking a commercial break. “Ah, no, I wasn’t paying much attention, sorry,” I said. I leaned back in my chair and laughed as if to suggest I was embarrassed by my absent mindedness, but actually I couldn’t care less. I didn’t want to be an athlete and didn’t spend my energy projecting myself out on the field. It was pointless to sit and watch the outcome of someone else’s battle. “I’d rather loose at Blackjack or the Roulette wheel,” I said. “What’s that?” he said. “I’d rather gamble and lose than worry about sports,” I said. “Oh, so do you gamble quite a bit then?” he said. “No,” I said, “I try to stay away from that sort of thing.” The man agreed and then asked someone else if they knew the score. He then turned back to me and said, “Too bad they don’t have the sound on for the game.” Some teenage love song was once again spoiling the air, but I prayed they’d leave it on because the game would have put me to sleep. I needed to drink more, and quietly tapped my empty bottle on the bar. The bartender grabbed me another beer out of the cooler without even giving me a glance; she was always reading my mind.

to be continued...

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