It takes a sweet little bullet from a pretty blue gun to put those scarlet ribbons in your hair.

Tom Waits

In Between Places

Before that rude awakening Harry’s head lolled gently back and forth with the movements of train –to the right when the subway pulled in and left when it pulled out, a jerky irregular pendulum.  Hiccups fought their way from his lungs, sporadic and violent, shaking his torso in spasms.  It sounded like a sprinkler, like water trying to touch everything, but it couldn't be rain, it was coming from inside the traincar.  The timid morning sun crept like a burglar through key scratched windows, replaced the artificial light and wrenching Harry’s eyelids apart.  But the D train is underground, he thought, trying desperately to determine where he was.  As he fought with the puzzle pieces a foul odor of ammonia and death pierced his nostrils.  He became quite sure the night’s whiskey was going to make an encore.  The splashing water and the stench’s source became apparent when he saw the vagrant standing in his bloodshot peripheral pissing on the floor seats and door.  Urine streamed on and past Harry’s shoes.  The whiskey anger in his gut bubbled to his eyes.  What… the… the HELL!?  You got the whole damn train, why you gotta piss right dere? 

            The vagrant mumbled as he wobbled uneasily, not budging as the puddle below him trekked down the traincar now soaking Harry’s shoes.  Without thought Harry gave him a sloppy right hook to the jaw and the vagrant was out the moment he hit the floor.  His gut rose and fell under a grease stained undershirt in perfect rhythm with motorbike snoring.  Only in America could a vagrant get a belly like that, Harry mused.  He smiled at the thought as he sat back down, grinning at the man asleep in his own piss while his own breath was short and his knees shaking.  The vagrant's hair a long burnt red like his cranium was licked by tongues of flame, by locks not locked, but more like matted dog hair.  Clumps connected like dead deformed snakes that varied in age, color, length, and disrepair, some hanging by strands, splitting and breaking off like tree branches.  He would absently scratch at his body and face somewhere between under cooked bacon and the dead leather of a catcher’s mitt.  His jeans were tattered halfway to becoming a kilt, but his Nike Air Force Ones were fresh and white as porcelain. 

Harry wondered what time it was.  Early morning was as far as he could gather before his brain began to swell, pushing his eyeballs out of his skull.  He looked out over the misty brownstone skyline.  Brooklyn he gathered.  Harry chuckled to himself looking down, past the vagrant towards what he had reduced himself to.  Brooklyn.  What was he doing in Brooklyn?  He must have been out cold for hours.  That well whiskey had done him in something terrible.  It raised the hair on his neck when it went down and the threat of each hiccup sent shudders through his spine.  He longed for his bed and the comfort of oblivion it brought with it, but that was no longer an option for him.  She probably changed the locks long ago.  It had been about a month since he moved out of his apartment, their apartment, her apartment.  He still saw her from time to time stopping by to pick up something inconsequential like a tie or a book or his mail.  He still refused to change his address waiting for a more stable place to live before he did so.  It would start with an accidental grace in the narrow hallway or an argument.  They would fuck without foreplay and sleep like two question marks back to back.  But alas, another night, or morning, on Mick’s couch. 

            The vagrant’s legs kicked and he let out little whimpers like some dreaming stray dog.  Harry eyed him lazily, the adrenaline leaving him and his eyelids were once again like iron weights.  He squirmed on the alternating orange and red plastic bench, but could find no comfort.  He readjusted himself through his jeans, cleared his throat, and shut his eyes, but the growing sunlight and whiskeysweat would not let sleep take him so easily.  He clenched his eyes shut, but it did nothing.  He cursed the vagrant and kicked him in the ribs, but the vagrant did not budge so he kicked him again, harder, feeling his toe sink into soft flesh.  There was still no response, still nothing but a haphazard pile of life drawing breath and letting out mumbles of nonsense. 

            Realizing the futility of violence and retribution he shut his eyes.  The change was apparent through closed eyelids, the weak light of overhead advertisements took over – the train was back underground and as if the train knew it was leaving the hood the air conditioning hummed back to life with a rattle.  The hot sticky sweat now cooled on Harry’s skin and he let out a sigh and reminded himself to wake when he reached the Bronx before embracing death’s cousin with open and eager arms.

            Before Harry’s rude awakening the vagrant came to consciousness with prey’s awareness.  With instinct he shook Harry by the knee with cracked elephant hands.  With swollen calloused grime cracked scarred and cut-up digits and corn chip fingernails, Wake up.  Harry was oblivious and the vagrant shook and squeezed harder, Wake up wake up.  He squeezed again, let go, and poked him in the chest and a cornchip fingernail dug through Harry’s paperthin tee shirt, vintage and more worn than the vagrant’s.  Harry’s head rolled back, he grunted, tired foggy eyes tried to focus on the vagrant.  It was a recurring dream or nightmare borne of his whiskeysoaked subconscious, waking up to that catcher’s mitt of a face so he pushed him away and flinched in shock of the resistance, disbelieving his corporal state. 

The vagrant stumbled back and caught the handrail.  Hey wake dell… Hey, don’t be pushing me, brotha.  Listen, I got sometin to aks ya.  Huh… what? Harry focused on the tunnel lights creeping along their orbits through the window, No.  Got no money.  
I know that I know.  I saw those two dopefiends rolled ya.

            Harry jumped to his feet patting his thighs and buttocks frantically then shoving his hands deep in his pocket – fruitless as he knew it would be expect for an inexplicable salami poking out of his back pocket; he ignored it for the moment and looked up and down the traincar, eyes red with rage.  Which way they go? 

Settle down there, I saw em on my last round of the train, eight or nine stops now.  They long gone.   

Harry sat back down cradling his swimming head in a defeated hand.  The vagrant persisted, No I got sometin else to aks ya.  Harry stood and stumbled to the other side of the car with weak sea legs and the vagrant followed Harry like an eager puppy, looking back once at his wrinkled Macy’s bag of bottles, cans, and a cut short 2x4 poking out. 

Harry stared at him incredulously, Not gonna shake ya, am I?

If you coulda gotten off you woulda.  Harry nodded his head, conceding.  Listen, you and I, the vagrant waved his dirty sausage of a forefinger, Do you think you and I are any different?

No, no, no, don’t start one them you and I are the same type rants.  It’s too late for you to spark my unlightened mind wit any your street wisdem

Oh hell no.  Same level?  Negative, We’re nowhere near it brother.  The Vagrant’s voice was briefly hurt, his elephant skin punctured.  You and I, uh, I don’t know, just wanted a talk.

Talk? To me? Well, by all means talk away.  Tell me ya story why don’t ya?  Harry gave up on sleep.  He felt the invincibility of his still heavy intoxication.  Sleep now would just ruin him for work in the morning; he could sleep past his stop, so he decided he would use the Vagrant to keep him conscious.  He widened his eyes feigning sincerity and exaggerating intrigue.

  It’s all because that bitch.  I still lova, but she set this whole damn fiasco into action.  If it weren’t for that woman’s love and affection you wouldn’t see the man you ogling at today.  She might as well cut dese ere locks off my head like dat broad in de bible.  Harry laughed despite himself as the Vagrant tugged at his hair and went on, She took everything, straight robbed me blind so slow I didn’t see it coming.  Like erosion or water torture.  Every nut a seed sowed of my own destruction, true story.

That’s the truth, man.  The tension in Harry’s shoulder’s slackened, dropping from his jaw and he let out a belly laugh with cynicism. 

They became two chums; their conversations flowed like piss, chuckling at one another’s witticisms.  Outlandishly they retold exaggerated nights.  Harry felt a bond growing with the man, but he kept it to himself.  He had the urge to slap him on the back in comradery, but he kept it to himself.  He blamed it on the stained shirt that stretched across his shoulders and hung loose across his budding breasts missing buttons.   He could reason it was the shirt or any multitude of sanitary issues he did not believe in, but regardless of any whiskey Harry still drew that line clear and distinct.  At any stop someone could walk on the train and not tell the difference between the travelers, between hobo and drunk, but for the time being Harry shook with laughter and shouted and cursed along with him.

The train went from Downtown Brooklyn to Manhattan and a quiet crept over them as the early morning workers filled the train.  The maintenance staff, sandwich makers, nurses, and construction workers eyed the two with disdain.  Harry told himself he was not ‘that guy,’ that in a few hours he would be riding back into the city on his way to work.  The ride through Manhattan passed in the quiet of tired mourning.  Newspapers rustled, doors hissed and bodies glanced silently as Harry fought sleep with his heading bouncing off the Vagrant’s shoulder. 

Seeing the morning rush made Harry’s heartbeat quicken.  Hey man, you got the time?

The Vagrant rolled up his sleeve and looked at his watchless wrist, It’s either 3:15 or Mickey’s got a hard-on.  Harry replied with a vacant stare remembering whom he was talking to.

Whatcha need ta know the time for anyways? the Vagrant asked with his head tilted to the side; time being a concept that goes along with associations and obligations, a concept lost on the man.

Can’t be late for work again, man.  It’ll be the third time this month.  I can’t get canned, man.  Panic rose in Harry’s voice, reality crashing through his weakening walls of whiskey. 

Oh that’s a good one, the Vagrant exclaimed.  That’s a good one, yea, this train’s a slow one, I don’t want to be late for work, either.  He adjusted his imaginary suit and tie, looked up and down the train frantically, and back at his imaginary watch before breaking into laughter like sobs.

It’s not funny ya bastad.  This is my livelihood.  Damn, I’m livin on a couch for Chrisake.  I haven’t even been workin for six months, I can’t go on unemployment.  This job is the only difference between me and a bu…  Harry bit his tongue, but the implication of his words already had slipped through the cracks between his teeth.  The Vagrant grew solemn and his eyes shrunk in their sockets.  They seemed too small for his face like an elephant’s.  He began sorting his bottles and cans; the red labels went together, the green bottles went together, and all the citrus flavors went together, but he kept them in the same bags.  Harry did his best not to stare, which is what the overhead advertisements are for that he looked up at with hands clasped like in prayer.

The two men, alone on the train again as it went uptown and into the Bronx, sat broken, ready to shatter if touched like cicada exoskeletons.  It was as if their souls had fallen out, but any attempt to fill such an unnamable void inevitably spilt on porcelain and concrete.  The repetitive and subtle rumble of the train made Harry’s mind race, running laps in his cranium around all of the things he could do nothing about sitting there on the D train in that ungodly hour of the morning.  He spoke to fill the silence, or maybe he cared a little, So your old woman, she cleaned house, huh? 

I tell ya brother, they evil.  Leave ya man when he at his lowest; only a low down dirty dog do that, biting the hand when it stop feeding.  That’s why I call her a bitch. 

Un huh, un huh, I gotcha, Harry nodded in firm agreement.  He relaxed, it was not one of those crazies, he thought, just a wino really down on his luck.  You cannot judge a man based on his hair style.  You do not have to give him a job, but you cannot judge him either.  Give him a dollar or two, so what if he is buying a bottle?  You expect him to put it in a portfolio?  Damn, we all have our struggles.

No, not no dogs, dey snakes.  See my old woman, de place in her name, so she can just trow me out in the street – just like dat – out on de curb.  On top a dat, she’s postin’ up pictures a me all about town, sayin’, ‘Deadbeat Dad’ with dis stupidass picture underneat, but I can’t pay no rent, bills, and child support for da two.  I go back to her and tell her I can change.  She don’t listen.  I show her I can change; she even more scared of me.  Goes and gets a restrainin’ order.  The Vagrant lifted his sleeve and showed Harry three aged scars, hesitantly dragged jagged across his bicep; raised skin raked bleached lines of penance across his flesh.  Harry drew back with a jerk, the sympathy for the man waning, draining from his face, and bubbling in the pit of his stomach.  

 Harry said nothing more.  The rest of the train ride passed in silence as he stared at a vague and skeletal reflection of himself in the scratched and opaque windows.  He followed his anxious legs to the doors as the train slowly chugged into the last stop, every cell in his body screaming for fresh air.  The speakers crackled and droned inaudible, but before the doors opened and the Vagrant craned his neck slowly and warned Harry, Be careful of Obama, he a Catholic. A stalactite of saliva swung from his lower lip as his empty glance returned to his Macy’s bag.  From it he pulled out a cut short 2x4 and sloppily swung at it Harry, missing his head by over a foot.  Harry stepped off the train onto the platform leaving the Vagrant for Brooklyn and back again.  Utilizing every handrail and I-beam for support, he walked through the turnstyle and ascended the staircase, sunlight descending down into the station from the top of the steps like a mineshaft, and walked out onto the street. 

 He looked down the waking block for the bus.  The sun had fully risen with no regard to his condition and he staggered and squinted and held his belly as if fire singed holes in his gut.  He saw no bus, walked around the corner, unbuckled, and let go of the whiskey fire with a heavy groan.  A darkened puddle of yellow piss stretched itself across the cracked concrete as he suspiciously and repeatedly looked over his shoulder.  He turned back around the corner and, as if on cue, the bus pushed itself up the street.  He reached into his empty pocket looking for his wallet, his short term synapses slow to spark.  He jammed his hands in each pocket frantic and repetitive, but the only thing his desperate hands found was vacuum sealed salami.  He stared at the deli meat, bringing it closer and further from his squinted right eye, trying to focus as if closer examination would explain its ridiculous presence.  The bus pulled in front of the confused man with a dying hiss.

Harry walked up the steep steps and discreetly held out the salami for the driver.  Just take it, man.  It’s good meat.  The driver stared at him from behind the protective steel bar, neither shocked nor at ease with Harry.  The driver grimaced and nodded his toward the back of the seats of the bus, told him to sit down, closed the doors and pulled off.  Harry shouted at him from a handicapped seat, keeping his mouth moving to stay conscious, dropping half of the syllables.  Grateful for the ride.  Grateful.  Ma pops drive bus too.  Da Q16 or sometin.  The driver only shook his head, eyes on the road unwavering as if his life depended on it; it did. 

Harry rose like Lazarus and got off the bus driven by instinct.  Passersby crossed the street to avoid his path as he watched his feet walk him home.  He missed the lock several times at the front gate of his building.  It became a game; he would let himself fall toward the door with the key pointing out, now bent, until it sunk in the lock.  Once in the apartment, he stomped through living room, holding onto the kitchen counter for support, and kicked down Mick’s bedroom door.  He hit Mick upside his sleeping head with the salami and walked out of the room laughing like a motorbike followed by Mick’s incoherent halfconscious curses.  In the living room he looked at the couch like a single serving homemade dinner.  He laid out his buttondown, tie, and slacks before sitting on the couch.  Harry let gravity take down his eyelids, just for a few minutes, a little shuteye before he got ready for work.

Harry slept.  

WINTER BLUES SPRING REDS

the creation of this blog was molded out of mere desperation-doh to burn the bitch of seasonal stagnation.
to be a motivating fountain of inspiration for not only vandaletos, but for the drifters wanders and dreamers.
the cosmos, the corner bodegas and crunchtime conversations at the crack of dawn have led us here,
 into an alert awakened state with no more time murder waiting for shit to happen.
fuck apathy, fuck apologies, fuck animosity.
 this is for the shapeshifters, the kinks, the elusive eratics.
we need to step with our skeletons or we'll just get all confused with locked knees trippin' all over the place.
this is our cyber tree club house for whatever manic manifestations that murky lurk in the dark corners.
in this space, there is no b e e f-- just some loons who met at rocky roads and looking for 32 flavors of their own.
we are the living dead: a reminder of who has been here and what is to come.
no membership needed.
just listen to your heart and jive with your soul; everything will fall into place,
as long as the write moves are made.