Monday, February 27, 2006

Groundhog Day

The weather is getting warmer - downtown park and I find sleeping junkies underneath groggy trees as cool breezes rustle soggy leaf puddles. It's t-shirt season and I’m in torn 501’s, Chuck’s, and a black zippered hoodie. A green military cap pulls back greasy uncombed hair falling in frizzy curls around my neck hiding the white buds feeding Cat Stevens into thirsty ears. Wearing over-sized Willy Wonka shades that pitch the world in tones of gray I sit on a park bench chewing gum.

I remember when I was small my mom would tell me to chew gum as the plane took off rocketing us into space. She said it'd “pop my ears,” she'd say this, and I didn't have the faintest idea what it meant but I'd chew and chew. I'd chew and stare out the portcullis hole watching the world grow smaller and smaller to miniature proportions like a tiny electric train-set landscape. I used to think the roads and highways far, far below were the state borders as you'd see on an atlas or Rand McNally map. Naive thoughts of youth. I remember I also used to think the world was black and white back in the day and that's why Mr. Bogart, Mr. Gable, Abbott and Costello, and the l'il Rascals were always cast in high contrast shades of crackling gray. I asked my Grandpa this and I remember he laughed and laughed... and then he played along so I thought the world was black and white for another year.

And maybe it was... sure, maybe it was... except in Oz.

Gum chewing, neck jerking... nervous habits like biting my nails or always locking car doors. Headache coming on like a rider on the storm and I'm sitting on this filthy park bench waiting for some guy I met through a guy who's now an hour late with my eighth. Wad of cash burning a hole in my pocket and I'm starting to get nervous. Starting to trip hard as bums approach like zombies... a slow relentless advance. Tweaker jaw tweaking and eyes flicking about like a lizard tongue zipping 20 feet to swallow a stink-beetle. Cops lazily circle round and round staring hard through smoked glass, mustaches, and mirrored aviators.

And a tsunami quietly advances on a white beach somewhere.

9 comments:

Valerene said...

i, still love your writing even though it is still so encrypted and never tells the whole story.

you're mysterious.

emeralda said...

you make me sad

you write about the world that my boyfriend only knows.

LMB said...

Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.

Anonymous said...

digging the words on the screen more and more, the end of this one has quite the Kesey feel to it.

Adams Avenue said...

My mom used to give me gum on long flights. She also gave some to my brothers. Soon after take off they'd find a way to get it tangled in my hair.

Bastards.

P.S: Willy Wonka sunglasses are all the rage. You're so freaking metro trendy it hurts. :P

LMB said...

Oh, now my style is the ¨rage¨? What next, Hermes...shall I give you the web address to buy Toxix boy T-Shirts and black chinos with ankle high Kenneth Cole
Zipper boots?

http://www.goreydetails.net/show.php?alpha=4395

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002MHGQ2/102-9213549-6118516?v=glance&n=1036592

http://www.kennethcole.com/scripts/shop/product.asp?pid=6677&cc=KMBOO&title=&pw=thumbnail&var=84461%2084473&srchtype=&srcharg=&size=0

Hermes said...

Valerene. No mystery here... there's simply nothing to tell.

Piranha. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen cept Jesus.

Desolation. Like in Medeval times when the commonly agreed solution to all of life's ills was to be "bled"... by leeches.

Nomenclat. You look like Bono with those glasses.

Glad you like the words.

Colonialave. I'd just swallow it. I probably have a huge stone of hardened gum sitting in my stomache... like a tumor.

Desolation. I think I'll sport my "Johnny the Homocidal Maniac" tee instead.

Anonymous said...

what can I say, safety first, kept me from losing an eye more than once....

LMB said...

I gotta keep that wall wet, see! Gotta keep it wet with blood or that thing will bust through! Hermes!!! You understand? RIGHT?! RIGHT!!!???