You don't know how lucky you are.

“Why are you going to Moscow?”

I turned slightly and stopped my assent up the boarding corridor at gate 121 of the LAX international terminal. A tall, pleasantly intimidating man with a badge of some kind and a holstered glock eyed me with the confident assurance of the cop who’d got his man. He repeated the question while what appeared to be a German Shepherd on threatening doses of HGH ran circles around me, repeatedly jabbing its nose into my crotch.

“Sir?” He went on, the case against me building as I froze, the likelihood of a large canine dispatching with my ability to have children increasing with each second.

“Why are you going to Russia?”

I said the first thing that came to mind.

“Business!” I proclaimed with delight, like a contestant on some kind of quiz show. Like I was announcing some fabulous new product at an expo, heralding the coming dawn of this fantastic new thing we call buying and selling shit.

“Business! my wife’s business it’s a business in Moscow. It’s business, why I’m going.”

“What business?” he continued.

It should be noted, if it hadn’t become obvious in the first paragraph, that I don’t do well with cops. I’m sure Im not alone here. I know other people who don’t seem to handle themselves well in the presence of law enforcement. Criminals, for example. Or, quite often, the “stoned”.

Paranoia plays a large part in this, the idea that something, somewhere you’re not aware of could somehow be discovered. Some errand weed in a coat pocket from a jacket you haven’t worn since college, a forgotten parking ticket, a body, anything really, and like that you spend the next ten years catching up on your reading in a federal prison, doing an unhealthy amount of pushups, and pretending to be a nazi so at the very least one third of the prisoners don’t want to shank you with a toothbrush. But I don’t want a tatoo. And this is why, around cops, I become a fountain of unnecessary information, spewing everything I’d ever thought of, or might possibly come to think of, in any future, ever.

“Well,” I paused, taking a deep breath. “Pastries. She’s in pastries, baked goods, puff pastries specifically like croissants and Russian pastries too and anything with a flaky crust, have you heard of peroshki? They’re like little balls of bread filled with an unknown meat, but she’s the manufacturer, she manufactures the pastries, well not her alone, she’s not sitting there making pastries all day, that would be exhausting! it’s a factory, a pastry factory, my wife has a pastry factory with machines that make the mystery meat balls....”

“And what do you do?” He stopped me, before he and I both had brain aneurysms.

“I’m an actor.” I said, somewhat apologetically.

“Really?” His eyes lit up. He’d been brought back from the brink. If he wasn’t going to catch an international criminal mastermind, he would at least get an autograph. “Anything I’ve seen you in?”

“No.”

And like that I was on the plane.

____________________________

There are things done by airlines to relieve some of the agony experienced when cramming your limbs into a small hot metal tube full of other unwilling contortionists for upwards of 12 hours. As you are propelled through the frosty upper regions of the atmosphere at ridiculous speeds, they offer you food and entertainment. The idea, of course, is that you are hopefully distracted by the clever packaging and flashy films long enough to forget the depravity you are being subjected to. You are served your meal, and 45 minutes later when you finally get you utensils out of the impenetrable plastic bag, you’re already over Iowa. Also, to somewhat offset the concept that you are paying for this torture at the tune of one thousand dollars, they do not charge you extra for chicken made of particle board. It’s a feat, really, a jedi mind trick of sorts to put a mob sized number of people through such an ordeal, charge them a large sum of cash for it, and not incite some kind of widespread, mid-flight mutiny, 37,000 miles over Iceland.

The secret, of course, is booze. I think I’ve always understood this, however this concept only came into complete focus as I tried to explain my drink order to the Russian flight attendant. Given that this was Aeroflot, a Russian airline, I’d assumed vodka would be circulating the cabin like so much recycled air. I imagined it came complimentary with a wet-nap as soon as the seat belt sign turned off. So you can imagine my disappointment when the complimentary drink menu was limited to orange juice and coke.

“What else do you have to drink?” I asked, slowly enunciating so as not to fumble this delicate international exchange.

“Juice.” She said.

“Yes, and...” I prompted her. Maybe she was new. First day on the job. Hadn’t quite memorized the menu.

“That is all. You want coke?” She said. It was more of statement than a question.

“No, I was wondering what you had to drink.” I put a little emphasis on the verb and made the international cup tip, “drinky-drinky” sign. She stared blankly for a moment, then called her partner over. A discussion ensued.

In Russian, most every verbal exchange takes on the appearance of a loud, bitter, often heated argument that could, at any moment, come to blows. I wondered how my request for a little drinky-drink could bring up the discussion of someone’s unforgivable transgressions. Had one of them slept with the other’s husband? Stolen a large sum of money? Murder? Murdered the other one’s husband for money after sleeping with him? My speculation was cut short by the second attendant as she approached quickly and shouted.

“You want the Scotch drink?!”

“Yes. I do.” I replied. I wasn’t sure if I did or not, but I got the feeling that it didn’t really matter. I would take the Scotch drink.

“You want two?!” She continued.

“I want two.” I echoed. This was a sensitive negotiation.

“That will be eight Euro”. She said as two small bottles of Glenlivet went flying by my head.

I found this curious, eight Euro, as we were on a flight originating in Los Angeles, heading to Moscow, and neither of those locations dealt in that particular currency. It would be like being asked to pay with Yen for a burger at In-and-Out. It made no sense and, even more importantly, it put the entire exchange in danger.

“I don’t have Euro,” I explained, cautiously. “Do you accept cards?”

“We can,” she said, making a face like she’d eaten a bug. “But we don’t want to.”

She stood there. Not taking my card. I wasn’t sure what this meant. Was that a maybe? She showed no sign of relenting. I moved to plan B.

“What about Dollars?” I asked.

“Nyet.” Her face an unreadable wall of nothing.

“Wompum?”

The joke flopped. I saw her eying my watch.

“I have Rubles!” I exclaimed.

She grunted in approval.

I handed her an unknown wad of monopoly money and she took it, counting. It looked like I was in the clear.

“This is too much,” she said. And turned back to me for an answer.

“Well,” I suggested, “Maybe you can give me change?”

“Yes, but it must be in British Pounds.”

“That’s...” I paused for a moment. I was looking for just the right word to describe how mind-bendingly absurd the entire exchange had been. Words failed me.

“...fine. That’s just fine.”

As she moved down the aisle, distributing a diverse array of Orange juice and Coke, I sank slowly into my seat and emptied two small bottles of Scotch into a paper cup. I needed a drink.

_______________________________

The disappointed man with the glock and the crotch jabbing dog had become a distant memory, replaced with an intensely annoyed sense of boredom, brought on, mostly, by the Sex and the City 2 / Avatar: The last Airbender double feature. But as the plane titled slightly, a mere 12 hours later, signaling our descent into Moscow, I was suddenly overtaken by a whole new wave of anxiety. I had to clear Russian Passport Control.

In the movies Russia is grey, scowling, drunk, and always full of deadly KGB agents and or a fleet of Police cars that chase you through the snowy streets until you are cornered and forced to use some kind of ancient martial art to subdue them and escape to the next scene.

The next scene usually takes place at some industrial warehouse and almost always revolves around some kind of digital clock ticking to zero on something very important and combustible. Or perhaps aboard a leaking submarine, also equipped with aforementioned digital clock. Sometimes it’s a Siberian missile silo. In any case, red flashing alarm lights and a woman’s voice over the intercom giving you updates on the impending self destruction are a requisite. It always ends well, for the American at least, and usually his sexy co-spy, but you’re more than likely to suffer some sort of non-lethal bullet wound, to the shoulder, or the leg, and that can’t be pleasant.

Regardless of the end scenario, the beginning’s always the same. Some kind of check-point. Some terribly unhealthy looking police man in a furry hat asks you for your papers and it’s all to shit from there. Which is how, as I shuffled forward in line with what looked to be the entire nation of Armenia, I came to realize I’d seen entirely too many movies.

I’m an actor, and I had an audition once. Well, more than once, if we’re counting, but one particular audition about six months prior stood out among the many. It was for Canon (the camera company, not some sort of fantastic low-budget Pirate movie) and it involved a young couple on vacation in Egypt. He was bored, and stupid, and she was bright and interesting and interested in taking as many pictures as her little Canon mark V snapshot 5000, or whatever, would allow her. So she’s running around shooting the pyramids when suddenly one of the Anubis statues comes to life and starts smashing the place up. Without missing a beat, she springs to action and captures the whole thing in her miracle device, while he misses the whole thing because he was too busy kicking the dirt, or picking his nose or something.

The point is, I was perfect for it. And I got a call back. It was only going to be shown in Europe but I wanted this job more than anything because of one thing, Travel. The spot actually shot in Egypt. And this is really one of the greatest things that can happen, in my opinion, to any actor. To travel for anything, anywhere is great. To get paid to travel and then as a bonus get paid to act is really something else. I hate when I want a gig, as it shows in the room, but I did my best to be dull and shiftless and stare at the floor (not much of a reach, really) and after the call back, I drove away content that I’d done my best and there was nothing more I could do.

I was wrong, of course, as a phone call an hour later proved. Apparently I was supposed to wait after my read, and go in again with another girl. They liked me, but wanted to see me with the other girl for variation. This is a shit situation, as I’d already left, and they’d been waiting, with the girl, for the entire time, thinking I’d gone out to feed the meter or pee or something. For an hour. Eventually they’d called my agent.

It was a horrible sensation. To lose out on a job isn’t fun, but it’s such a part of this profession that you really get used to it. Like an old shitty blanket. It becomes comfortable to be rejected time and time again. But when you do something to lose the gig that is completely your fault because you’re a complete and inexcusable moron, that’s a wholly different feeling. It’s the very definition of shooting yourself in the foot. In my case I’d blown my foot clean off, and the feeling was only compounded when I arrived to a frustrated casting director. But the annoyance of casting paled in comparison to the venom from the other actress I’d kept waiting.

“You suck.” She spat, as I rushed into the room out of breath.

“Um.”

I didn’t really know what to say. I’d gone and shot her foot too. I really shouldn’t be given a firearm. But I had to go back in and audition with her momentarily and screaming at each other wasn’t in the script. So I sulked and shut up and waited. She brought that energy into the room, and turned my character into the ultimate fuck up of a boyfriend. As we walked out she pushed past me and stormed out to her car.

Figuring the worst was over, I headed out a minute later to put the whole day behind me. Walking out into the sunshine someone yelled from across the street.

“I can’t fucking believe you! I can’t believe how much you suck!”

It was the actress from inside. Apparently she’d gotten her second wind. She stood holding a parking ticket above her head. Waving the thing in the air like some kind of testament to my shittiness, she beckoned me over. I slowly walked across the street to her.

“Look, I’m sorry. It was a pretty simple mistake.” I had reached my limit of remorse but didn’t have the energy to tell her to go fuck herself.

“Well what are you going to do about it?” She demanded.

“Well, maybe you should have just walked out and put some money in the mete-”

She cut me short.

“You cost me $50. And probably the gig.” She said.

This got me, as I didn’t want to be the reason she lost out on Egypt. I did feel bad. I had fucked up. I took the ticket out of her hand.

“I’ll pay it. I’m sorry. Good luck with the call back”. I turned and walked away as she continued to mutter something about my lameness to herself.

When I got home I stared at the ticket. I didn’t think it was my fault, but I’d taken it. And what if I’d cost her the gig? In an effort to keep a clean karmic slate, I sucked it up and paid the $50, wondering if I’d ever see her again and get some kind of resolution to the whole thing.

And then, there I was. Just moments from a Jason Bourne standoff. Sweaty passport in hand. My wife had advised me to move quickly, and to not look at anyone. So my eyes drifted upwards toward a Samsung 40 inch plasma flat screen showing a stream of commercials for coca cola and orange juice. Then, as if on cue from some divine screenwriter, another ad played across the screen.

A young man in khaki shorts, a dusty backpack slung lazily over his shoulder, picked his nose and kicked the dirt next to some ancient Egyptian ruins. He looked bored and stupid. He also looked a lot like me. His beautiful girlfriend trotted around snapping endless photos. Suddenly an enormous statue sprung to life, and started smashing the place to shit. And she, the very same girl who stood cursing my existence on the planet because of a $50 parking ticket, ran gleefully after it, her Canon 4000 mark G blah blah blah blazing away.

Which really is how it was supposed to be. I knew in the back of my mind the whole time that if I did pay the ticket, she’d get the job. It’s how the universe works. My universe, especially. Things are in perfect balance when epicly unfair injustice runs amok. She had gone to Egypt, made 10 Grand, and avoided a parking ticket.

And I was out 50 bucks.

But no one lost, really. She got to go to Egypt, I learned to never pay someone else’s parking ticket, and ultimately I was standing in the Moscow airport off on a different adventure. It made perfect sense, and I was struck in awe by the wonder of it all. So much so that I wasn’t even paying attention to the man in the furry hat who took my papers without a word, stamped them, and sent me on my way. And then there I was, in Russia, with no chases, no flashing alarms, no kung fu or digital nukes. So much for the movies.

The first week was the best.  Wasn't it?
Was the best most beautiful week of them all.
Replete with endless rushed bike rides through
Cool cobble-stone back streets.
Naps under trees boasting of pre-autumn denial.
Where broad green leaves filtered sun
On our gentle napping bodies.

A six pack of Carlsberg.
Emerald gold.
Pockets bursting with kroner.

Giving way to days of solitude
Versus nights of heat from candle-light.

And mornings spent counting bricks out the window,  Chelsea Hotel,
You lamenting crumpled sheets in the corner.

While I’d sneak out and torture the corner store 
For extra foam in Danish.

and ring the bell like a child till you'd let me up.  

The second week, I finished my book, and writing was out of the question.  So I ran like something chased me around lakes of white swans, and my i-pod shuffled. 
Dodging the authorities due to improper lighting, our bikes danced around Arab shawarmas and H&M couture.  Chocolate from 7-11.

Payphones.

the shower was too small for two,
And spilled water everywhere. 

The third week I met a ghost of history. In a wooded patch of Northern coast. With waves crashing just out of ear shot.  Ancient churches.  Making love and fire till we burned all that we had. Elders sang like Elvis and rocks crashed while I carried you on my shoulders along a coast once all too familiar to Vikings and Astrophysicists alike. Same boat. Atoms crashing.

The third week I woke and couldn't, as hard as I tried, remember where I was.

The fourth week I walked under skies that emptied more water than the ocean. The rain pouring like a blanket over my head. Thoughts drowning in the tempest. Fish flopping on the sidewalk. We cleaned a classroom, you mopped, saying nothing, I emptied rubbish, and we both listened to Houston chop it and screw it. beats from a place I’d never been to, in a place I didn’t want to leave.  

The fifth week. 
You declined a taxi.  
So we walked through drizzle to the bus, windows blank canvases of steamy CO2, and sitting across from me, you swayed to the beat of municipal starts and stops.

Till I stood across from you and held my heart tight in my fist.  I stood across from you on a railway platform, and listened to the whistles, and listened to you stand, silent, and listened to my heart in my fist. As it hissed and bled, and begged to be done with it.  

I’m still standing there. Sometimes. Or.  Still riding with a bag of Emerald gold and chocolate, to a modest apartment, now empty or full of the unknown, but frozen in summer.  

Waiting for you to get home. 

And ring the bell.  

On Fire

Lights, like bright coins resting at the bottom of an inky pool, glistened softly 200 feet below the soft dirt lookout. A car, cool from hours of rest, sat perched above the sea of street lamps, traffic signals, neon all-night dinners, and red taillights blanketing the floor of the valley stretched out beneath them. And a song, soft at first, like it was playing in a distant room while you laid out half napping in the sun, whispered from the blown stereo speakers and floated up out the open window. He reached over and adjusted the volume.

Hey little girl is your daddy home

Did he go and leave you all alone

I got a bad desire
Oh, oh, oh,
I’m on fire

He laid his head back and rested it against the cool frame of the car door, letting his eyes roll up to the bucket of stars splashed lazily across the night sky, like spilt milk. Forever.

“Do you remember the first time I played this song for you?” he asked.

She sat. Unmoving. Unmoved. Her hands in her lap, eyes fixed on some unseen thing, just on the other side of the car windshield. Without fanfare she laid back slowly, carefully, and sighed with soft resignation.  

“I played this song for you”, she said, and fixed her gaze on some new thing. Some new thing unseen, and just on the other side.

Unflinching, he let the neutral harshness of her tone sink slowly into his skin. It stung, but with a sting familiar to his senses. It stung like an old ache you’ve come to love through years of rhythmic soothing. She always talked like that, at least as long as he could remember. This rumbled around his head for a moment. Had there been a time when that tone felt fresh, and painful? When did it all go to shit?

“I played it for you the first night we spent together. I played it for you after we made love, and laid in the wet sheets, and looked at the ceiling and talked about poets. For an hour. We laid and talked about our favorite poets and you said some pretentious shit about Yeats and I told you I like Neruda and then I played that song for you. And I told you it was the most sensual thing I’d ever heard. That is was sex and heat and bitter longing.”

She said all this without relenting. If she felt any emotion regarding the dredging of deep buried lust and memories of happy fucking she showed no sign of it. Happy fucking like the kind two know when the chemicals are still new enough to taste different and the smells still charge and the light still rests softly on skin in a way that makes you wonder if you’ve ever seen skin before.  

The way the light spills out from a small table lamp over piles of discarded, balled up sheets on the floor, bed-side. The light that hits bodies in the throws of incendiary formal informalities. Exercise in the writhing lust of two relative strangers abandoning all accepted inhibitions of custom and restraint and loving every inch of new found, until recently concealed, territory. Hot, fresh love in the pale lamp light.

“You remember that?”, he asked. And it was unclear, even to him, if he was referring to the song or the light.

The question dropped out his mouth with a thud and was met with silence.

“What ever,” he followed up with, quickly, to shake off the awkwardness that had settled on his shoulders. He felt exposed, vulnerable at showing his lingering affection.

“Look, it’s not important who played it for who. It’s not. It’s not important because it’s mine. I’m taking it.” he said, with an assertiveness that surprised even himself.

“You can have ‘Born to Run’, ‘The River’, ‘Cover me’, you know, ‘Philadelphia’…you can definitely have ‘Born in the U.S.A.’. But I’m taking this song. You gave me the Boss, you can have most of him back, but I’m keeping this one. Tough shit.”

“What about ‘Dancing in the Dark’?” she breathed, coyly, letting the impact of her words do their soft, subtle damage.

She knew, of course, exactly what she was doing. Her timing was impeccable, surgical, and his focus and resolve in taking the one song he desperately needed that night dissolved before him as his mind raced at the thought of having to choose.  

“That’s a stupid question”, he blurted in a moment of panic. “You know I get that one. You know that’s my song, Springsteen or otherwise, that’s my song. That’s my shower song. My ‘shit’s been wrong but I’m going out and making it right and it’s all because of this song’ song. It’s my karaoke trump card and you know that.”

Shooting a sideways glance that read as a healthy mix of pity and apathy, she sunk a bit in her seat and looked out the side window.  

“whatever” she relented. Gently so as not to instigate or push the matter and make the conversation go on any longer than it had to.  

It was too late. 

“And I want ‘Down bound train’…”, he continued.  

“Why? I don’t remember that one being a ‘shower song.” She chided.

“Because,” he said, gesturing wildly for sarcastic effect, his hands punctuating and orchestrating his every point, “because it perfectly articulates the epic, flaming, twisted-metal car wreck this relationship has become. And I want to be reminded of it.”

“God, you’re so fucking dramatic.”

“Regardless. I’m taking that one. And ‘I’m on fire’. And ‘Dancing in the Dark’.” He sunk lower in his seat, folding his arms in a mirror of her. Mock imitation, like a scolded three-year-old. 

“Dramatic…please” he went on, taking advantage of her silence. “You’re the one who insisted on doing this up here. And I’m the one who’s dramatic? Like this place isn’t supposed to mean anything anymore? Drama. Please.”

“Alright, ok,” she said, turning quickly with a newly found interest in the negotiations, “you get those. I get The Cure.”

“All of it?!”

“Yes, the whole fucking catalogue.”

“I want ‘Just Like Heaven’.” He gulped, realizing he was in for a much longer fight than he’d anticipated.  

“And why that song?”, she shot back at him.

“Because I listened to it non-stop when I first met you. It reminds me of the afternoons and the open windows with the wind and summer sun. I need that one. It’s the last good memory I have of us.

“Pathetic.” She hissed.

“Fuck you.” He said.

And again the silence and weight settled slowly around his shoulders, causing his breath to come slower and with considerable difficulty.  

 Sometimes it’s like
 Someone took a knife, baby
 Edgy and dull
 And cut a six inch valley
 Through the middle of my soul

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This wasn’t the plan. And it certainly wasn’t the script. The script he’d so meticulously laid out in his head. The script where she not only acquiesced to his every chart topping demand but was so taken by his love of all their shared music that she’d begged him to forgive her, on the very spot, and take her back in his loving embrace. She’d never stray again, and he’d spend the rest of his days with her in an 80’s new wave, rock-a-billy, Beatles scented paradise. 

He’d imagined a little bit of bargaining to take place. He’d figured that there would be a song or two that had to be conceded for the greater good. But he’d not expected to fight for every last track. He’d not expected to fight at all, and he wasn’t in the mood.

“Take ‘em. Take them all. I’m done with it. I’m done with this.” He was bluffing. She called it.  

“Really?” she flashed an expression that read of unleashed glee. “Alright then. I’ll take it. And I’ll take James Brown.”

“ ’Try me’ ?!”  

Suddenly his heart raced and his skin went cool with a clammy unpleasant sweat. He felt like weeping. “Please don’t do this. Don’t do this to me. I can’t do it. I can’t, I won’t make it through this without ‘Try Me’.”

It was subtle, at first, the sense that the whole world around him was closing quickly and pressing all it’s weight upon his heart.  

His mind was awash with images of the two of them, sitting Indian-style, then splayed out on the cool hardwood floor of her living room. Wet eyes drinking it all in. Empty cardboard vinyl sleeves scattered about as if from some soft, well-meaning explosion of lyrical earnest.

Rubber Soul, Heart’s self-titled, The Cars, Seger, and numerous Boss plates made for a brilliant carpet under their budding intimacy. Laying back slowly in a warm bath of soft, scratchy acoustics oozing from the 2nd-hand, left-side Yamaha towering above him in all it’s faux wood paneled glory. And the very first tinglings in the bottom of his gut, or heart if he was to be so romantic. Those very first warning symptoms of an over-excited 20 something, slowly seduced by classic rock and an abundance of tight-jeaned, hipster chic.  

All he could think about, as his world spun and crashed around his ears, making them sting and sing until he was sure he must be bleeding, was walking up the red carpeted stairs to the balcony seating of the 100-year old theater for a midnight showing of Pulp Fiction. Staring up at the sacred space of skin showing between her jeans and a dangerously tight black and white striped cotton T. A glimpse at a glowing tattoo of flowers and reds and yellows and soft contours that would, for the next two and a half years, be all consuming.

It was subtle, this crushing vertigo, and therefore unnoticeable until it was almost too late.

Almost. But not quite, and he sprung to attention, wrenching the car-door handle violently as he tumbled awkwardly out of the vehicle.

When he’d regained his balance and felt both feet on the soft red dirt he straightened with a jerk. The weight of the moment, memories, and the spinning in his head made him forget to stand up straight. This was the last place he wanted to look weak. He couldn’t afford it. She was always on about his posture. Relentless. 

Making his way along the hood of the car, till he was leaning woozy against the grill, he fumbled in his pockets for a smoke. He didn’t smoke. But if he did, now would have been a pretty opportune time to burn one down.

“What about The Police?” She persisted.

He spun abruptly, unaware that she’d joined him outside. He hadn’t heard the door open or close and had thought he’d found a brief refuge from the onslaught. Her persistence grated. 

“You’re delusional”. He gasped, feigning casual disinterest as he turned away from her, pretending to focus on something down below on the boulevard.  

“What?” she quipped, squaring up with him as the insult took hold.

He continued, singing “youuuu… arrrrre… deluuuuuuusional, if you think you get the Police. They are the very embodiment of male angst, sexual frustration and unrequited love. I will thank you to keep your distance from message in a bottle, king of pain, so lonely, man in a suitcase, and every other song they ever recorded or conceived of recording, live or studio, in their entire careers.”

She recoiled slightly at this new found vigor.

“That includes all Stewart Copeland solos. Don’t even think about it.

And as far as Sting is concerned…”

But she cut him short of an even longer track list laden tirade on the merits of Tea in the Sahara and why Fields of Gold made him think immediately of the rain soaked Sussex country side and a nostalgic 180 km/h car ride at the age of sixteen. For the better, really.

“Alright, really, alright. Take all that shit. Walking on the moon is inane anyway.”

His heart cooled at the coldness of her slight.

“And hip-hop?” She continued. This last question was slightly pleading. She knew full well she’d only recently taken a liking to the genre. Mostly, if not entirely, due to his own vast and unquestionable knowledge of the subject and a stack of mix tapes crafted for her affection. “Can I have any of it?”

On this subject he knew he had her. She knew he had her.

“What do you want?”

“I really like Atmosphere.”

“Oh god”, he moaned, flopping back on the hood for dramatic effect. “Are you f-ing kidding me? Please. Take that shit. Atmosphere? The very epitome of all that’s wrong with the white, conscious rap scene. Speaking of inane, god. Him and all the other bitter, spoiled Midwestern M.C.’s who spend their entire albums whining incessantly about how their dad’s never really understood them and how fucking hard it must be growing up white and guilty in the middle of fucking nowhere.  

That’s when they’re not blowing hard about how sad and desperate they are about some girl whose gone off and left them alone. Bitching to anyone who’ll listen about how they gave her everything and in the end she left them all the same, and how fucking tragic that is…”

He stopped mid sentence, his words trailing out of his mouth and hanging momentarily in the cooling evening.  

The irony was butter thick, and begged to be cut.

She said nothing, and he said nothing. And the silence dragged them both into the darkness as their eyes refused to meet, scanning the network of lights below, like a massive computer microchip. Blinking in the infinite night.  

Suddenly he found himself back in the driver’s seat, one hand on the wheel, the other on the keys sunk snuggly in the ignition. He didn’t remember getting back in the car. It didn’t matter. He knew it had gone too far. He knew he wasn’t well, and he needed to get home.  

And then she was there again. Sitting patiently. Eyes fixed on him, and his hands, sweaty with anxiety and cold from the cold night falling all around them.  

“Why are you doing this to me?” He pleaded, letting his hands fall from the keys where they rested lightly in his lap. He felt like he would weep, and he grabbed a clump of jeans between his fingers to regain his balance. He fought. And his eyes stung.

 Oh, oh, oh, I’m on fire

“Why can’t you go. Why can’t you go like the rest? Fade softly, like a dream in those sweet 15 minutes, after the shower and before the coffee and toast. Why can’t you go like the rest of them, and leave me with the Boss.  

 Oh, oh, oh, I’m on fire

Leave me with Morrissey and Paul and John and George, and Neil and all the sweet sad sounds that will make you go. They will all make you go and you’ll just float and fade and sink into the night. And I’ll be able to sleep without waking and wondering where you’re asleep.  

Oh, oh, oh, I’m on fire

Why can’t you leave me and just go. Go.

“Really,” She whispered. She whispered with a subtle kindness that flew so bluntly in the face of the whole evening’s progression that he found himself momentarily fixed on her words. Transfixed on her words and the way her mouth moved so, as her hand found it's way to his. “Really? Is that really what you think? That I’m holding onto you. Keeping you here in this darkness, in this place, holding you hostage with these chords, these choruses, these songs?”

She leaned back slowly, breaking her stare, her grasp on him, to sink softly in the seat next to him.  

“You don't get it. This is all you. This has always been nothing but you. You’re keeping yourself hostage with nothing but your memories. I’m not even here. I’m. not. here.”

He held his eyes shut, anticipating the snap. He waited for the burst of emotion and loss to overwhelm him, as he always did, digging for that hurt. And when it failed to surface, he opened his eyes, cautiously, and turned he aching head to her side of the car.

And there, an empty seat, and the nights starry brilliance was all that met his searching gaze.

And with a motion instinctual and mechanical, he turned the key in the ignition, and drove the long dark road home.  

Up and over the mountains, in silence.

min sukkermad

Sand is in between my toes. In between my fingers, my legs, my arms and chest. It’s in my ears and my hair and it’s all up and down my back. I’m covered in sand like a coat of paint and it crunches, falling from my skin. How many grains of sand in my hand, in between my toes and fingers? How could I possibly begin to count?

Salt fills the air. And it’s in the smell of things as I take a lung full of air, letting my chest fill slowly with scents of dried rotted kelp and hot warm air and bodies cooking through thin layers of sunscreen lotion and salt. So much salt.

I can taste it when I lean in slowly, breathing in with purpose as I touch the soft, light brown skin of her shoulder with my mouth. It’s the taste of warmth and sweat and it’s sweet on my tongue. Her skin tastes like home, like something I’ve known all my life and never gone without. How can you make yourself remember flavor? How will I remember her taste?

Squinting in the brilliance of the blazing midday, I arch slowly to a seating position. There’s the rolling sound of shore break, a symphony of chaos and order that’s indistinguishable from the soothing noises of daily freeway traffic. It crashes in the periphery and causes my brain to trudge slowly through thoughts that would normally come with ease. What time is it? Am I hungry? What are we doing tonight? Will I wake up next to her tomorrow? How will I remember all this? How could I possibly hold on to it any tighter?

Where will it all go?

The sun coats it all. All of us, in this warm silence of afternoon and peace that’s so rare in a metropolis this size. Through the tint of my lenses I let my eyes roll out over the yellow grains, soft and hot from a day of exposure. They roll out over the wet sand in between where the children from Watts, Crenshaw, Culver, South Central, Torrance, Hollywood, Inglewood and any other number of urban landscapes, have come to bask in the glory of a place so far removed from their inner-urban boroughs, it might as well be another planet.

A slow smile forces its way along my face as I watch fathers in soaked baggy jeans with shaved heads gently lift little girls, screaming with nervous laughter and excitement, out of the breaking white wash and into their strong arms, riddled with gang tattoos and ink emblazoned barrio mantras. Love is universal and irreversible. How will I remember it all?

And the light, soft and imperfect like the filter of some seventies film, oranges and browns and yellows of every hue abound. I can’t see straight, it’s blurring, and I rub my eyes to clean the slate.

It’s all there, the pier stretching out into the sea like the lazy arm of some sleeping giant. The distant, mock screams of terror, drifting across the sand from the roller coaster atop the boardwalk. A Ferris wheel. Birds circling. A plane. Her fingers moving slowly up from the base of my back to my neck, touching my face like a new toy. Like a toy you get when you’re five and don’t quite want to ruin by playing with. I think I tell her I won’t break, but there’re no words so I don’t think she hears me. I want her to touch me again, and to let me lean in closer and taste her shoulder. I want her to know I can smell her salt and sun burnt skin and I love it all so much it aches. And I want her to remember how I tasted that day. And I want her to stay. How will I remember it all?

My Kind of Town

Everything's bigger in Texas.

I think to myself.

As I stroll through the automatic sliding glass doors.

I'm slapped across the face with a blazing "IRASSHAI MASEN TEEEEXAS!!!". I'm startled, and frightened, and completely unused to this, despite the fact that every business you enter in Japan employs a host of folk to exclaim that exact thing. A chorus of IRASSHAIs ripples throughout the store in a domino-like chain effect. Though it loses it's gusto the further it gets from the epicenter, until the final person to cough it up, a 16 year old kid stacking 20 inch Daikons, spits a disdainful "SAI". Or maybe its simply a *sigh*.

Everything's bigger in Texas.

Though I don't know if that applies to the Texas in my town. Or the Texases, plural, as there are two of them. Of course I'm not referring to the beloved state from which the U.S.of A.'s esteemed leader hails. No. I'm referring to the chain of discount supermarket/liquor stores in Northern Japan which sport the same moniker. Yes, in Hokkaido, there's an abundance of stores called Texas. And if you don't want to spend $20 for a package of grapes, that's where you go.

I go there to shop, of course, but not just to shop. I could shop at the store around the corner from my house, dubbed "Prosper", though despite the promise of impending success a name like that imparts, the store is just too normal, and actually falls short of its claim. Or, of course, I could go to the mega-super-market "SUPER OK CENTER" complete with 15 foot flashing yellow neon "OK" splashed over the entrance. At this point you're probably thinking I've made these names up. Believe me, I wish I had, but here in Japan quite often, a good 75 % of the time, businesses adopt strange dreamy adjectives and bold lofty promises as their place names. Ergo the local Car Dealership with the dubious name "NICE BEAVER BUY CAR". I don't know if it's a statement about well-mannered beavers, or a gentle but firm command to purchase. Provided you're a woodland creature.

I've recently incorporated punctuation into my English lesson plans.

SUPER OK CENTER is actually quite tame. And although the title once fried every nerve in my English Grammar synaptic core, it's become a melodically pleasant comfort. At the Center, everything is super ok. How could that be anything but comforting. Well, until you get inside. And blasting through the speakers is a 14 year old Japanese girl's voice, shrill and hyper, announcing "SUPA OK CENTA!!!!!!" repeatedly until you fantasize about large explosions and violent happenings in the fruit and vegetable isle. It's massive, one city block, and sells Johnny Walker Black label for less than $20.

But you have to take out a second mortgage to buy a pack of grapes.

So it's back to Texas I go, because like most things here in Japan, simply being there is hilarious. Outright laughter in the dairy section. Fascinating products abound; strange meats at questionable discounts; Ground fish patties; Miniature hotdogs; Rotting fruit; Walls of soy sauce; rice piled like sandbags in preparation for an impending typhoon; boxes upon boxes of Sake; and Sauza Anejo, of all things.

So why do I come here? For the kicks. It's fun, it's like shopping on acid. And I've never done acid. So that's saying a lot. I stroll past shell shocked infants who gape and guffaw at the freakish foreigner, past 3 for 1 sausage deals, the cheese section (which for some reason consists entirely of camembert, I think I'm going insane), past garlic sporting the label "Happy Garlic from nice nature land" (I know I'm going insane), and the whole time, pounding through the speakers is a mix of some remixed sample from the Bonanza soundtrack, interspersed with the TEXAS theme song, which goes something like, no, exactly like…this:

"Lets have a good time in Texas, on a weekend daaaaa-te, lets have a ball in Texas, Lets get a-waaaaay, lets have a good time in Texas, on a weekend daaaaa-te, lets have a ball in Texas, my kind of town".

Yes, that's right, "my kind of town". I'd forgive such musical and geographic nonsense if they didn't feel the need to repeat such every 60 seconds or so making my venture to this land of madness and discount avocados unbearable after 15 minutes.

Needless to say. Shopping trips to TEXAS are short.

I'm out, with bags loaded, and my brain burnt all crispy around the edges. I vow to never return, but I know as soon as I'm low on rice I'll be back for more entertainment. It's cheap, relatively, and provides fodder for writing.

On my way out I pass a car in the parking lot, a spanking new Ranger Rover, no owner, running with the keys in ignition. This is common. When I first arrived in the heat of the summer, the humidity was horrid. Apparently the populace agreed, as it was commonplace to leave you car running whenever you stopped into a store. The idea, of course, is that when you return to your car a half-hour later, it's still nice and cool cause the air-conditioning's been going full blast while you picked through samples of raw squid and fish eggs.

So an $80,000 car sitting in a parking lot screaming to be taken for a joy ride doesn't shock me anymore. The infant baby asleep in the passenger seat completely unattended does. But the fact that people don't even think about someone stealing their car, let alone their infant, well, that's become a fact of life. I still lock my car, and I wouldn't leave it running, more for economical reasons, it costs about $50 every time I fill the tank.

And yes, I did write that a baby was asleep in the car. And yes that does seem like complete madness, or neglect, or just wrong on some societal level. But that, in addition to absurd trips to the store for milk, is one of the many things that makes this place special.

At times I think I've fallen asleep and am wandering around my imagination, the events so off color, or colorful, that they could only be real in a dream. But I realize that my dreams as of late have become tranquil and uneventful. Complacent in the face of such frequent absurdity experienced in my daily waking reality.

And then there are times, when something happens, or I find myself living and it feels more real than the life I've known prior to this place. They do things different in fundamental ways, but there is a logic to it. It defies our paradigm (that's for you Kiama), but that's the very essence of relativity. If no one would really consider stealing a car, then what really is the harm in leaving it running, fully available to anyone? Society keeps certain things in check. And therefore each society has different things to keep an eye on. Some places on this planet, you'd be careful not to look someone in the eye as you walked down a street, for fear of getting shot*.

Here, those responsible for me and my survival, or my handlers (as I lovingly refer to them), they genuinely worry about whether I'm getting enough sleep, or If I like Natto (fermented soy beans, which, while we're on the subject, is inedible, regardless of how much mustard is administered). They don't worry whether or not I'm walking in the wrong neighborhood at night. And I assume they don't worry about my car getting stolen.

I went to the wrong neighborhood at night, in Tokyo, by myself, because I had to see with my own eyes what these people considered dangerous and seedy. It's call Kabuki-cho. There was a bit of trash, nothing compared to Market in San Francisco, the homeless had constructed sound structures out of cardboard, wood, and had laundry hanging on lines drying in the evening heat. There were prostitutes everywhere, but in Japan, that's in every major city center, the sex trade is bigger than sushi.

So it exists, the real world dangers of foreign places. But these people try their hardest to resist. It shows, sometimes in negative ways, it's where their fear of foreign peoples comes from. It's why there remains a homogenous quality to most things here. . They think their life here exists completely apart from the world and it's sharp edge, and are amazed and in awe whenever I use chopsticks. They will visit it, the outside world, watch its shows, import versions of its culture and food for incorporation into Japan, but never let it get too close, lest it bite. And they never consider that their culture ever leaves this Island.

Funny though, I chatted with a fellow gaijin the other week who, after an evening of civil and responsible drinking (the Japanese don't DO sarcasm, by the way), stumbled out of a 7 Eleven in the wee hours of the morning with another ex-pat and right into a running, unattended car, parked, open, and inviting. They got in, and drove around. As their culture dictates one does with an opportunity like that at three a.m. when you've been on the sauce all night and you're 23 years old. They parked it, almost immediately, having realized the danger they were in, and subsequently sprinted home. No one's arrested, nor have they been deported. Probably cause they don't know who did it. They thought they'd left a wallet in the car, but found it the next day in the freezer…but may have left a digital camera, complete with photos of them at their work place, the city hall…

The authorities must know it was Gaijin (foreigners, though a literal translation is "outside person", implying some love of nature?), and most likely that was all the police had to go on.

Maybe, just maybe, the Japanese are right to maintain their barriers. With Barbarians like us at the gates. Though often, both sides keep their guard up. And here in Japan it's so easy to do so as most the time you feel as if you're walking around in some precious museum. Or Grandma's house, comfortable, safe, taken care of, but terrified to touch anything.

But I digress. And with only two months of this country under my belt I'm hardly an expert. I reckon most things I say on the subject should be taken with a grain of salt. Speaking of which. I'm low. Looks like I'm due for another trip to, yes, you guessed it.

TEXAS, my kind of town.

*an addendum.  apparently the "places on this planet, you'd be careful not to look someone in the eye as you walked down a street, for fear of getting shot" include the 7-11 on Santa Monica Blvd in Hollywood, California.  As I found out recently when someone suggested they do so after I happen to make eye contact with them.  No bullet holes to report.  But the year is young!

Three Months in NoHo

Man. It's cold these days. L.A. is cold these days. Inside and out. It's like I can't get warm. Teaching English in Beverly Hills, and living in the Valley, and I get up early, before dawn, and my apartment is just so cold. SO damn cold. And I scrub myself clean, the day's only moment of warmth found in the morning shower, and walk my cold ass down to my cold car. Drive to work, heater's busted, building's cold. The whole city's busted. The whole city's cold.

At least it's a dry cold. At least it's a clean cold.

I came home tonight, cold, and hungry to boot. Cold and hungry, feeling sorry for myself and the whole miserable cold city. And I parked, parked my car and walked right out the underground cave of a parking garage. Out into the evening. I walked just next door to the strip mall fortress that guards the corner of my street. Chinese take out on the mind. Not good Chinese take out, mind. Not even really Chinese. Sign says "Chinese", but the Mexican's who work there would tell you otherwise, if you could speak Spanish.

And en route, as I trekked across the hostile, busy plot of a Ralph's Super Market parking lot, I passed the Recycling bins.

All lit up. All lit up in the night, the recycling bins stood.

Towering over me.

Over the Parking lot.

And over a man hunched up against them, hunched way up as far as he could go against them. Face obscured by clever lighting and a hood. He lay all hunched up against the bin wall. As if he was trying to burrow inside. His wares spread about him: two shopping carts linked like train box cars, spilling out all the sides with cans, plastic, unknown garbage items, a clock, a heap of other things I can't remember, a shoe, and so on, and et cetera.

And I think I stopped. I can't remember, honest, but I think I stopped mid step and just took it all in. From somewhere in the stash, the mountain of rubbish, a small radio could be heard murmuring inaudibles from the land of A.M.

I stopped and paused and look ever so carefully at this man adorned in pieces of small clothing, like they'd just come out the dryer and were flung haphazardly at him, static clinging in all their chaos.

And had this thought almost immediately: Chinese take out. And so continued across the lot. Walking slow with head down and mind on fried food of the Sweet and Sour variety. Chinese was closed. I stood for the briefest of moments, cursing the Mexicans and demanding an explanation, all under breath and half assed I might add.

And so I found myself returning. Dejected. Hungry still. Cold still. Miserable. Bitching inner monologue attempting to assuage a shattered dream of chow mein.

Assholes.

And I walked past him again. Only this time I didn't stop. I'd seen it before. Tonight. And before tonight. And before, before tonight. Homeless man with shopping cart and funny clothes and shoe and clock and listening to radio would fade into every other image of the homeless I'd collected over the years. Relegated permanently to the periphery. Where everyone puts that shit.

Back home. My apartment. Cold as I'd left it. And just as disheveled. A healthy dinner of three Sierra Nevada Pale Ales and I'm taking a shower. A shower to warm. I'd given up on this day. This cold miserable day in this cold awful city. And, as per habit, I stay long in the shower. It's my one moment of warmth in the day. And I think this, dozing slightly, head resting against the shower wall, lungs full of steam and the day's coldness slowly fading from my bones, washing down the drain with a swirl and a sigh.

And I have this thought: that man is cold.

And I don't know where it came from. I really don't. but I know it's not going anywhere. Fuck. That man is cold. That man is cold. It snowed in Malibu today. Frost on the palm trees. That man is freezing. That man is cold. And the thought just stuck. It just stuck and it wouldn't come off, like a sticky piece of a label you try to strip off something. Like a little piece of sticky label paper, it just wouldn't come off, this idea. This thought. This thought of just how incredibly cold and uncomfortable and miserable this man must be.

I don't know how long I stood there in the shower thinking this. But it was too long. I stayed just long enough that I was convinced that when I got out, I'd have gotten rid of this thought. That I could just dry, and sleep, and wake, and march out into another cold day with a fresh dose of caffeine.

But it stuck (predictably, you're thinking), and I sat obsessed, staring at a pile of blankets on my bed. And I don't know if it was the fear of losing sleep, or a sense of philanthropy, or guilt, or boredom, or curiosity, or an abundance of blankets, but within a short amount of time I found myself en route to the recycling bins again. The second time this evening. Large blanket under my arm.

And I don't know if it's cause I've never really done this before. Or if it's because it was after midnight and my neighborhood is questionable at best and a scene from Warriors at worst. Or maybe because I truly questioned whatever motivation had brought me out there in the first place. But I was nervous, or anxious, about approaching this man.

So worked out a script, in my head, so as not to be at a loss for words on the occasion. All versions need not be repeated. It more or less all boiled down to "are you cold, do you want a blanket?"

And he did.

And his name was Russel.

And he was grateful

And he smelled like beer.

And I would too if I had to sleep out by the recycling bins on January 16th in one of the coldest recorded winters in the history of Los Angeles. I'd smell like beer, and vodka, and whiskey, and tequila, and pot, and anything else I could score in my situation. 30 degree lows. Snow in Malibu. Sleeping in the shade of a recycle bin. Fuck yes he wanted a blanket.

I found myself (apparently something I'm doing a lot in this piece) with a strange feeling as I walked back to the apartment. It wasn't a good feeling. A feeling of satisfaction or kindness. It was a nagging. It was a nagging in my stomach that I'd done so incredibly little. Should I have taken him to a shelter. Should I have invited him back to mine? "Here Russel, have a bite, have a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, check your e-mail," I'd prater on awkwardly "have a shower, it's warm."

I gave him a blanket. And even that at the time had seemed like a leap. What the fuck was that? A blanket. Better than nothing? Had I done it just so I could sleep better?

The nagging and doubt continued well into my journey across the parking lot. And it followed me down the street. And it persisted up the stairs, right up to my apartment door. And then I opened the door. And then I walked in.

And then I felt it. For the first time in a good few weeks of miserable miserable cold, my apartment was warm. And taking off my jacket, I sat down silently on my bed.

And then I felt something else, not for the first time, but for the first time in a long time: the true nature of relativity. Of my position. Of perspective.

Manhattan Memoirs of a Salty Dog

I'm 25 years old.

I'm 25 years old and the windows are down and the sun roof is up and the music is on and it's all so fast. it's all flying by me so fast that I can hardly take it all in. the sun and the music and the cars and wind and life and the light. and it's a shame. a fucking shame that I can't take it in as fast as it's coming at me, and by me, and trailing in my exhaust. it's a shame because I love it all so much. it's so hot, and heavy bass, and pure love is all I feel. I feel it like something pouring over me as my head cranes back and the wind rushes into my ears and up my nose and my eyes fall on a sea of magritte fluff clouds splashed carelessly across the sky. blue.

a half hour on and I'm hopping excitedly, barefoot, on the cool black asphalt of Jeff and Kumi's driveway. jeff's inside and I'm out side and he checks and checks and rechecks his keys. and I'm still hopping, half-clad in rubber wetsuit, with my head full of belgian surrealist meteorology and my mind on the time, ticking with a violent intensity. My energy is fading with the daylight and I know it's only a matter of time before this whole thing is done. the whole bloody thing. how soon it will be that the whole fucking thing will tick to an end and I'll be left standing. where? in the dark? half-clad in a wetsuit waiting for a friend to stash his house keys? wondering what the waves are doing.

2 minutes on and I'm bathed in the sweet sticky aromas of sexwax and poorly washed neoprene. sliding the bar across the rough, bump-laden, stick of foam and fiberglass. fingering its contours like the parts of a fit, disrobed, young thing. and pondering the subtle honesty of the surfwax brand's nomenclature and my looming isolation from the opposite sex. my longing for something with full lips and minimal inhibitions on the dance floor.

and i'm struck into action by the sensation of coolness caressing my neck and brow. a breeze. a harbinger of sunset and the potential for disappointment in the face of poor lighting.

so like a shot we jog. along the shaded damp walls of stucco and down along the footpath to the hundred yards of soft, cold sand. white and refined and stuck between my toes like a field of sugar.

the sun is leaving us. it might as well be gone. hanging on the thin line of epic horizon like a parting lover. lingering in the doorway of the planet, on the cusp of a long cold night. lingering and waiting for you to say anything, everything, just so she can still turn and leave despite it all.

but we can't be hurt. not closely or remotely wounded. because at this point the wind has kicked off the back of the shimmering golden shore break and raced along the wet sand and up into my nostrils and it brings word of fast peaks and steep walls and deep troughs that suck out beneath and pull you down and tug your belly and shoot you straight up a face and round for a second helping of aquatic physics and giddying acrobatics.

and I could die tomorrow. or that very night. or that very evening, in the water and surrounded by kelp and leaping dolphins. so smiling slowly, like a shot I jog.

and I'm in and plunged and I dip my face and head and hair and all into the cold foam for a swift introduction to my new environment. it's brisk and inviting and I'm immediately better for it as my arms dig lovingly into the chopped surface of the salty water. pumping against wave dynamics and walls of white I'm drenched and then resurfaced. I'm hit again, and pummeled. I'm up again, and hit again. I'm drowned and then I'm resuscitated. then drowned again. then die a slow agonizing watery death. then resurrected.

and then we're outside.

jeff bobs silent, stoic with his back to land and his eyes scanning a rapidly disappearing horizon. The distant unknown growing darker and more distant in the encroaching night. as the temperature drops and the darkness takes hold of the light and slowly suffocates it into nothing, the approaching waves begin to loom out of a thick wall of vapor and fog. it moves soft and slow, growing with impeding and unavoidable speed like drunkenness. like that impending intoxication that you see a mile away and can't be bothered to step an inch out the way of.

I wait out a set. then another. then jeff's on one. and I'm on the outside still.

and then there's a wall, to my left, and it's dig or dive and I'm looking down a face that's a mile deep if it's a foot and i decide to stand on it and I'm pushing and I'm up and the natural forces of gravity decide to take hold of my 200 pounds of flesh and sinew, 60% of which is water itself, and hurl it along at some impossible speed. I don't react well at that speed and I turn into the wall and the contours of my vessel catch the face and sling me at equal speeds up the wall and up the wall and up and up till there's no more water, just air, and air and up, up, up.

and I'm flailing, ironically, like a fish out of water. the board is on another planet. and all I can think to do is cannon ball, reverting to some former self, like I'm five years old and I've been standing with my toes on the edge of the high dive withstanding jeers and cheers echoing off the concrete for a dive and a flip and in some sort of diplomatic maneuvering to avoid the ridicule of retreat, I've simply jumped and gone fetal.

it works. and I'm floating gently.

I wait for another set to greet me as I surface and am met only with silence and fog. and darkness. it's night now. full blown. and I can only catch the faintest dots of light from the shore. the city street lamps and beach front mansions cast small beacons out through the mist. the fog envelops us now, laying on fold after fold till it's all I see around and above me. and the water beneath, black now, as I roll along it's surface with a lazy stride and a slow pointless paddle. the set's are gone now. there's nothing now. no left or right. east or west. and I catch one last glimpse of jeff as he rolls up the back of a black watery mountain and down the other side, out of view. for eternity.

the lights are all but gone as i feel myself floating, aimless, out towards the night and the nothing emptiness. the ticking has stopped. all but vanished. and all i hear is a gentle lapping of sea chop against the rocker of my board. and i float, aimless, and weightless. no more water holding me down.

large ghost ships roll past me now. cutting through the fog like trains, they crest the breakers and slide past in quiet confidence. their passengers eye me with envy, jeering, and cheering, and demanding a back flip. and their contents spill out like overflowing beer suds, splashing it their wakes and sinking slowly into the silent depths. gone forever, with a sigh.

and I float aimless, now on my back. weightless. with my head craned back and soft bass reverberating in my grey matter. the board beneath my head fills with sugary sand and slowly dissolves to nothing as my head slips gently into the cold sea. and still i float. with my head craned and my hands trailing slightly in the wake of my body.

the ships are gone now and the shore is gone now. it's me and the sea. this embracing liquid.

and the fog, at first seemingly inconsolable, carefully and with particular grace and flair, parts like massive stage curtains. my eyes drift above my head, skyward, like a lazy drunk, and my heavy lids reveal a sky of milky endless starlight. stars, furious balls of incendiary gas and irate elements. stars, like unreachable diamonds in galaxies of ink, splash the heavens and beckon me on with promises of cool warmth and infinite space.

and so i follow. i'm floating now. above the water. above the foam and it's endless crashing. above the waiting, the time, the setting sun and the endless, maddening ticking. above the world and all it's weight. above it all and beyond it's gravity.

i'm floating now, smiling slowly, with heavy lids, my hands trailing through fields of brilliant stars. silent ships of pirate ghosts.