Endless tramp walked streets, waiting for the next fix. Waiting really for some god miracle, some murmured pray sacrilege and redemption seeking miracle. Waiting for all the accumulated messes of this world, this made world to seep into the gutter. Waiting for all past history, all past memoir better, all past sorrows, given and received, all pass two roads taken, wrong road chosen, all personal hurts, given and taken, all past vanities to break down in the means streets, and closure. No, not closure, relief. Waiting, ya, waiting but to no avail. And so all roads , chosen and unchosen closed, all forward turned back, all value devalued, all this ….
Five AM , dark turning to a shade lighter, after a hard ground under the Eliot Bridge bed night, cold October cold with all newspapers, Herald, Globe, upscale New York Times for a pillow used for ground cover yelling about some guy named Jimmy Carter and about how he is saved. Running for president too. The guy will need more saving that I need. Ironic though, just that minute when I need to be saved. Lord saved, mercy saved, some humble Joyell saved (although I did not know it, know it for a very long time, too long and too late).
Long walk along the Charles, supermarket double brown bag for all worldly possessions. A tee shirt, maybe two, underwear, socks, a half rank pair of pants (no childhood concern about cuffed or uncuffed now, or color even), another shirt to match the one I am wearing, a comb, and a bar of soap, Dial, and done. All worldly possessions reduced almost to grave size.
Long walk to safe downtown Greyhound bus station men’s wash room stinking to high heaven of seven hundred pees, six hundred laved washings, and five hundred wayward unnamed, unnamable smells, mainly rank. My street bathroom, a splash (unlike those ocean wave splashes on ancient dream Pacific nights now faded) of water on the face, some precious soap, paper towel for a wash cloth, haphazard combing (hell, I ‘m not entering a beauty contest, jesus, no), some soap under the tee shirt for underarms and done. Worldly beauty done.
Out the door, walk the streets, walk the streets until, until noon, until five, until lights out under some other Eliot Street Bridge bungalow (switched nightly to avoid cop riffs and fellow tramp rips). Walk, stopping for an occasional library break , for a quick nod out, really, and quick read, not some political book though, these days, Genet, Celine, Burroughs, Kerouac (not On The Road magic but Big Sur traumas), and such self-help books. (Ironic.)
And minute plan, plan, plan, plain paper bag in hand holding, well, holding life, plan for the next minute, no, the next ten seconds until the deadly impulses subside. Then look, look hard, for safe harbors, lonely desolate un-peopled bridges, some gerald ford-bored newspaper-strewn bench against the clotted hobo night snores. Waiting for the next fix. Desolation row, no way home.
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