Homeward Bound

Soaked through my own lather nearly half a century in the making, I slither down the block I grew up on, a bottle of Tanqueray in one hand and jug of Minute Maid OJ in the other.  I take a deep slug from each beverage and march on, my stomach blending the brew. Claustrophobia clouds my thoughts, though I'm not physically confined (it's more an emotional enclosure pressing in, clamping tighter).

The night has caught up with me on this particular stroll and I see a light flickering through the window of what used to be my upstairs bedroom, though the rest of the place remains bathed in darkness. I stand there transfixed near the driveway, drinking and dizzy: I haven't known the inhabitants of this hovel since my mother sold it almost 30 years ago.  The same is true of the neighborhood at large.  I have no reason to believe any of the former residents are still around, certainly their kids have since grown up with rug rats of their own now (some of my contemporaries may even have grandchildren).  Still, I have an overwhelming desire to run and hide, feeling the unseen eyes of those disco days following me from their perches all around.  I'm as nervous out in the open as I was when I lived here those last years (from Cuckoo's Nest to Raging Bull measured in cinematic time).

Terrified of ... what?  Or is it 'who?'  Anyone, everyone.  All those who see through me, past my calm facade into the madness within.  Who see my family and how we live(d).  I was taught well the power of shame, with a strength equalled by few other things in life, at least in my experience.  Mom was the headmaster for this lesson, Dad her fine example.

I reflect on this briefly before tossing the half empty gin bottle straight through that bedroom window where it explodes into a shower of glass and dull screams of confusion and shock from within.  Fuck 'em.  I'm the one out half a liter of booze.  You're welcome for the housewarming gift.  Drink hearty.

I resume my stroll on down the block, taking with me my orange juice still to enjoy.

And then the bottle strikes me squarely in the back of the head.  I turn passing out but there is no one there, no sounds of scuffling feet or other indication of life.  I see my bottle lying a few yards away as my knees buckle.

Fade to black.

Dad

He lay on the couch with the worn gold pattern,

his head hanging off, a death grip on his bottle,

drooling on the rug braids with 100 proof spittle,

heaving into mixing bowls when drowning from withdrawal,

his beauty burning bitterly, corroding through our family.

His gentleness metabolized in ways his body couldn't,

gestating into madness simply hating for existing,

giving up the ghost at last in a joyless plunge to bottom,

looking past oblivion on the way to a toe-tag gurney.

But there was light mixed into darkness from a man who treasured Christmas,

sharing powdered donuts and the love of Sunday funnies.

Teaching me to ride my bike and breakfast made for dinner,

buying kites and Uno bars and Birch Bay beach trip summers.

Past a 52 year old cirrhoses crippled body

lived a joyous spirit trampled into viscous poison.

Maybe I can ferret out the diamonds in the dogshit,

shovel past the toxic bits and scrounge for fonder memories.

Fond remembrances, they clearly do exist:

it's just the smell of the rest that keeps me away.

a wound of light

a wound of light so slight strikes my street's end, flashing

casting forlorn hues of effervescent color,

bleeds into the comfort of my achromatic hovel,

arcing down a lightning bolt of sickly solar yellow,

damaging the hand of stark dark raving nothing,

molten, melting into my chocolate snowflake memories,

that ornate glint, a hint of hardened luminescence,

morphs into a tailspin of melancholy menace,

viscous backwash! burning backlash! searing peptic!

hammering, yammering, "it is how it is."

pulling cold asunder from an overcoat wrapped tighter,

i'm sulking 'neath the stain of all these stilted distillations,

into the darkness, into the maelstrom,

into ghostly shadows of what might have been if only,

into the quiet breach of what never was or will be,

into make believe memories of baconesque nightmares,

through to kafkaesque daydreams that whisper sweet silence.

i grin, grim; relieved, resolved; resigned to what's necessarily not,

suturing dawn's bleeding into softly sightless healing,

i close my mind's eye to it all.

translucent. blackness.

bliss.