Spectacles

I fix my glasses.
Normally I wear contacts, but during the long nights glasses can be better.
I hate wearing them. The bridge pinches my nose, the arms chafe my ears.
But they do give me a Clark Kent look, and women like a guy who looks smart.
He's driving, yearning for a drink. "Haven't had one since Monday," he says, nothing more than a career alcoholic. He makes you realize your morals haven't slipped that much. A bit crazy. Lives too hard. And only tolerable in small doses. But his conversation is good and his philosophies make sense and, in this town, that's really all you can ask for.
We stop at a bar called the Desert, or Dessert, I don't get a good look at the name, but it makes me remember of a place I went to called the Oasis.
The Oasis was in the middle of a forest in Germany, and you went there to get drunk. Really drunk. An American military bar, for soldiers back from down range on R&R, drunks who hadn't drank for some time, so typically things got out of hand quickly. When I left the Oasis someone was on the verge of beating another's head in with a bar stool.
The Desert isn't that kind of place.
There's a pool table in the middle and a blonde and a brunette playing when we walk in, each with a beer.
They stare at us like vampires.
Behind my lenses my eyes scan their curves like a Terminator. The brunette whispers in the other's ear, their chests rubbing close together.
I order beer, wait for the foam to ebb and they stare at me, the blonde with a shirt too small for her upper body that's more angled than the corners of the billiard table, the brunette with eyes that make you wonder if you're already drunk as she looks away from me, exposing her already exposed back in her tank top, a strap sagging as she leans over, aiming, positioning to get a stripe in the center pocket, arching for the perfect balance to avoid a scratch.
I think how great it would be to kiss up and down her bare back, the sound of cashing in -- "$", "$", "$", "$" -- ka-chinging with every touch.
The Desert is a bad place to be when you're thirsty. And I sip.
Purple cigarette smoke spirals from an ash tray beside me, and he asks if I want one.
"I don't think I'll go to church tomorrow," he says.
He's just come back from New Orleans and says it's really cleaned up since Katrina took care of it. I wonder if what they say is right, that God really wanted to wash all the city's sin away. I don't say it. It doesn't make sense, but neither did the Great Flood. And all of a sudden I'm flooded with a nervousness in thinking about it because God doesn't like you questioning him.
I wonder why God made me a journalist.
"I'm getting high and going to see my girlfriend," he says. "Get some."
I scratch my neck, a nervous tick, pry my eyes away from the vampires.
"You live a life," I say. "All sex and all weed."
"I don't think it's all about sex and buying weed," he says. "But it feels good. Feels so good."
I push my glasses up the bridge of my nose.
One of the vampires walks past, the one with the vertigo eyes, and she brushes my arm.
I wish she wouldn't fuck with my feelings. The beer doesn't help calm any part of me down.
I was on Facebook earlier and a girl wrote on my wall describing my life as an alcohol-induced sex rave. I don't understand what that exactly means, but, in contemplating it, I wondered if I was OK with my life being like that. The easy answer was yes. If only what she wrote was true. And I wonder if I give the wrong impression to people.
Impressionist paintings were really good. They made you think what you wanted to think, feel what you wanted to feel, see what you wanted to see. Not like that Baroque garbage.
The other vampire is bent over with the cue stick.
My glasses fog up in the humid Desert and I order a chocolate milk with hopes I'll get a sweetness overload. Like a cold shower.
We sit.
A band starts to play. They play good music. The vampires dance. Slowly. Intoxicating. I wonder what it would be like if they bit my neck.
"I haven't felt as boring as I've felt today," he lights another of his purple cigarettes, not a typical cigarette. "I kind of want to let you know. Do you think I'm getting too old?"
I see he's buzzed. "No. There's still some kid in you."
"I got to go see my girlfriend. She said something about bringing something. Fuck, I keep losing my focus," he takes a drag, exhales, his eyes pounding with the bass, captured by the vampires' gaze. "I need to let you know this is a fantastic guitar rift that they're putting together. Great song. My mind feels like it's in Texas right now, you know? OK, listen. Get these girls over here. But don't let them talk. I don't want to hear another thoughtless bitch talk. I'm reading this book with only one female character. Fantastic. You should read it. I read too much. Does that make me too old?"
"I read too much."
"OK."
"What?"
"Don't let them say thoughtless things?"
"Do you really want me to get those girls over here?"
"No. I'm blunted, but I'm driving anyways."
"What?"
"What were you saying?"
"Got to see your girlfriend?"
"It's our anniversary, so yes."
"What did you get her?"
"Isn't the relationship enough?"
"I guess."
"No. Wrong answer. So I bought her some sun glasses that she's wanted. Hopefully they fit."
I fix my glasses. Without them I'm blind.
I'm thankful for corrective lenses, but they really take the nature out of life.
If God had wanted me to see the fat girl dancing with a bar stool in the corner, right past the vampires, he wouldn't have hindered my visual capabilities.
"You want a ride anywhere?" He asks, standing.
"I'll text my roommate. Thanks."
"The one who beat you up the other day?"
"He had his hand around my neck when he was drunk. He never beat me up."
"Not that you'll say. I want you to know anyways," he puts his hand on my thigh. "That I've all ways thought you were soft."
My roommate picks me up at a quarter past the bus stop, shortly around midnight.
Rock and roll plays loud and his windows are open to de-fog the windows.
Streetlights are flashing green, orange and red and I can't hear what he said, what he's saying -- not over the music. I catch a glimpse of myself in the side view mirror. My glasses, the lenses, shimmer in the street light and I can't see my eyes. It's not so bad that I can't make contact with myself.
Just means I can't see the spectacles.

White Stuff

Hot breathe twirls from his lips into the evening, like spiraling smoke from a cigarette.
He's standing under a street light, waiting, an orange cone surrounding him, snow falling through it, littering the ground.
White stuff everywhere.
The night is quietest when it snows.
I'm flipping the cover of a match book open and closed, flashing the phone number that she wrote on the inside flap. I could use a cigarette right now.
But I don't smoke and the thought of needing a cigarette right now makes me wonder if it's really been that kind of day.
A text message buzzes on my phone in my pocket, the phone beep ripping through the tranquility.
I flip open the phone: "10 min."
Reply: "Cold. Any faster?"
There's waiting. And white stuff falling all around. And after a minute: "No. Sorry."
He waits, the man under the light. And I wait.
I'm not sure he sees me.
And I start typing a message on my phone and start walking, thinking that I don't want to wait in this cold, that the walking might warm up my blood.
It's a soft snow, a powder snow, and the man under the light doesn't hear me coming. He's startled as I walk past. I don't really pay much attention, keep texting.
"Hey, man, have a light?" He calls.
And I throw back the matches I have in my pocket. "You need this number?" He calls back.
And I wave my hand no.
The streets are empty, like the snow is a disease no one wants to touch.
Walking, she calls me.
"I've been up since 5 a.m., honey." She says.
"Was it a good day or bad day?"
"It was a work day."
The moon squints from behind a screen of clouds. For a moment there is blue light, the white stuff shimmering with it. The dark silhouettes of the fingers of trees stand out in the night now, reaching up and clawing, then disappearing as the moon falls back under its blanket, lost.
"Tell me a story."
"What?"
"Tell me a story. Keep me awake."
"Long day?"
"I'm trying to make my way home now, driving. Keep me awake."
A car navigates a road of slush, makes a sloshing sound as it goes on, cones of light beaming from its hood. And I'm alone again, save for the electric wires forming a speaker in my ear.
"I don't know if I have anything."
"Come on." Her voice is fluid, soft, like milk, if a voice could be like milk. Like verbal white stuff: words falling slowly, carelessly, almost meaningless, but beautiful when they land, perfect, her tone pure.
I tread through the snow, ruining the perfect film in my wake.
"Maybe last Friday, that was strange."
"OK."
"I come home from class. Everyone is in their underwear when I walk in. Keep in mind I live with only one person. I have no idea who the others are and ask what the hell is going on. They say they'll be done in a minute. And I left. Went to a bar."
"That's it?"
"I'm not really sure how it ended for them."
"There is no end?"
"Nothing spectacular. I came back and the place was empty."
There's a pause and in the tranquility of the falling snow you could hear the silence. I switch hands to give each equal time in a warm pocket while the other braves the elements.
"I remember that I miss your thoughtless, meaningless stories."
I remember that I miss her.
"What are you doing?" She asks.
"Walking home, in the cold."
"We'll keep each other company, then."
In the distance I hear sirens. But it's only in the distance. I walk on the street, talking on the phone, because no one is on the street. It's 1 a.m. on a snow day. For me, the clocks have stopped. There's only white stuff.

Little Speakers

People all around and talking, all around, and I have nothing in common with any of them, I realize, and I leave the scene.
An odd feeling, really -- to have nothing in common with your own. Human beings are supposed to be interactive people, people people.
I'm in my room, door closed, but hear them outside.
"Listen, um," she says. And I tune out. And think about thoughts that have nothing to do with the situation, or conversation, then tune back in further in. It's an unideal point in her conversation: "I feel like I just keep growing," she says. "I've never felt this way before."
It's strange. I'm a people person. A common person. A human being. An interactive being, someone who this wouldn't happen to. Man, what a twist, I think.
The little speakers keep playing from the stereo in my room, bass and all. Thumping to the rythem. I wonder what the neighbors will think of the noise.
I've lived in my apartment now for two weeks and the first interaction I had with the neighbors was a noise complaint. The man knocked on my door. I answered. It was 10:30 at night. He said he had to get up at 4 a.m. and the music was too loud. It was a good song, though. Can't he understand that it's a good song? And that it's 10:30 p.m., a resonable time? And that you play good songs loud? Weird. It's strange. Who gets a noise complaint at that point in the night? I wonder if he can't do something about outside noise. I have a fan to drown out sounds, personally, white noise to give me a sense of solitude. He may not have a fan, though, I think. And I turned down the music.
It never used to be a problem.
She keeps talking: "I think I got some wild growth disease, something wild. I never used to grow like this." And I think that I have nothing in common with these people.
Someone asks: "How are you dealing?"
The little speaker plays and I lean back to enjoy the music, savor it. I'm alone in my satisfaction. I never used to be this way, so singular. Always was a people person.
The broken piano plays on the little speakers in my room, bass and all.
My roommate comes in: "You're still up, right?" I have no idea what he is talking about and realize I've been out of the interaction picture for some time now. "Did you get these from around here?" He means the cookies, showing them to me, from where I left them on the kitchen counter. "What store? They're great."
I can't figure it out, the situation, too drowned in the music I am. The rythem.
I tune out. And look away. And start to think about nothing, start to go back to the sound.
That same sound that got me in trouble, I think.
The little speakers.
And they play.
It's a devilishly nice sound. Bass.
I turn it louder, because goods songs should be played loud and the neighbors should know that.
"You're feeling well, though," someone says to her. And that sounds great.

Misdirections in a sunken economy

The newspaper man tells me that if I buy today, I'll be happy tomorrow.
"Know everything there is to know, all on one page." He showers me with a gleaming white wide smile.
I stare at him, the newspaper man selling subscriptions. I had been searching in my pocket for my grocery list and he blindsided me as I walked into the store. He looks like a newspaper man, or what I think newspaper men should look like. Parted hair, mustache, brown jacket. I expect him, almost, to be chanting, "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" Extra loud. With his extra white teeth. And extra wide smile.
"Sports. Politics. Crime. All for a low, low price. Today only. What'd ya think?"
I tell him I'm a newspaper man, too, leaving out that I'm not the kind he is. Not with that smile.
"And where do you work?"
I tell him.
"Well, than you need a newspaper, friend."
"I'll read it online. Can't afford print. Not in this economy."
"Now, that's a hell of a thing for a newspaper man to say. You need to support your own. You're doing your industry a disfavor."
I want to explain to him what the industry has done to me, what disfavors the newspaper business has done to this newspaper man. But his smile is disarming. Extra disarming.
"I'll read you online." I walk away. "Especially in this economy."
I buy the knock-off brand everything: milk, applesauce, sugar. I use my plus card and the register tells me I've had $1.57 in savings today.
I wonder if the store brands even taste decent and laugh because this economy is devouring me from the soul out.
Later that day I'm speaking to my friend the technology man. He knows a lot about this world, the circuits of it all, the wires. He's guiding me through the maze of the Internet.
Than: "I hate my job."
"You have a job," I say. "How can you hate your job? In this economy, you should be happy to have one."
"You don't understand." He tells me, followed by the pent-up frustration of the proletariat workman: the hours, the pay, the environment.
"But pay is pay. Everyday."
"I'm tired of not being happy."
It's always the one's who have the most who complain the most.
I cut him off, almost insulted and tone showing it.
"Stop bitching. Worry about something productive, like getting a girlfriend. You should really worry about getting a girlfriend. Show us you're straight for once."
He pauses and it's cold.
After we end the call I curl on my bed. My mouth feels grimy, dirty, rancid and I need to brush my teeth.
I really enjoy brushing my teeth. Gets the plaque out. It feels good to clean out the grime.I spit the toothpaste out, rinse, smack, meet my own gaze in the mirror and just stare. Then I wash my face.
It all makes me so angry, this sunken economy. The misdirections. The mismanagement. The mistakes. I never knew money could make me so frustrated.
My stomach suddenly feels upset and I get a glass of milk, two percent.
I stand at my window and look out.
On the lawn there is a peacock: shimmering blue, emerald tail with opal spots, evergreen feathers as a hat. The green sticks out the most in the gleaming sun.
What an odd thing to be standing in my lawn, I think, but think that it's not so odd when you think about it. Just another bird. Could just as easily fly away. Can they even fly?
It stands and stares and maybe it meets my eye; I'm not sure. Then looks the other direction, walks away, emerald tail rounding the corner of a fence.
What a beautiful creature, I think.
Outside clouds grow. The sun is bright but the gray glides over it.
The day light gets dim. Through the window I watch as the silky blanket devours the sun and I close my blinds as the rain starts to fall, echoing through the room with me in the middle.
I wonder if I paid the heating bill this month. The day's getting cold.

Midnight Mirage

The golden moon hangs high in the rusty sky.
Dusk, and I'm thirsty.
My eyes flutter once or twice and then there is dark and then there is light and the warm room around me and I'm somewhere else.
She hands me the drink and I drink.
She stares at me. And I lose my mind.
It's a spiral straw, neon green, like her eyes. I feel like I'm glowing. I take the glass and drink, falling. The white cursive ribbons that spell "Coca Cola" on the red can next to me begin to dance, then whip at me. Licking me up, I feel cool. There is a half empty bottle of bourbon next to her and she is smiling, consumed by it. And I consume it. And float with the fizz.
She's across from me, some pale princess poised and ready and I pinch myself to see if this is real and I don't feel a thing.
Drunk and dreaming and I'm riding in the desert sun, transitionless as it all is, face cloaked from the coming dust storm, eyes hard. Nomad. The desert was a place I've never been. The one place, really. That's where my dream puts me. The sun above is burning. And I'm burning with it. High from her.On the horizon something begins to rise.
Like a mirage she appears, walks to me, reaches out with glimmering eyes. And just as quickly she disappears.
I wake up in the morning and my mouth is parched. Somewhere along the night I lost my oasis.