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jack_babalon"The Devils Beating His Wife!" Announces Todd, the gay redneck. My friend and I look at each other, exhchange uncertain looks, and then ask him to repeat himself. "I said 'THE DEVILS BEATING HIS WIFE!'" He repeats louder. His boyfriend giggles at this, and Todd asks "Ain't you boys ever heard that sayin' before? It's what my Daddy used to call a sun-shower". Ohhhhhh. Well, yeah sure enough there was a bright sky hanging over us, and the rain was coming down, not hard mind you, but steady. Steady enough for entire families to evacuate the enclosed deck around the pool and head for the safety of their Ansley Apartments. Only my friend & I remained, as well as this oddly matched couple: Think Tom Waits dating a young Tom Selleck. Since I was doing underwater laps I paid no mind to the downpour, and my buddy is a helluva lot more gregarious than I am so I'll let him do all the talking. The rain hitting the surface of the pool gives off a crackling noise, an organic static, I hold my breath and propel myself off the wall, pretending that I can not only to fly, but soar as well.
This same pool was closed Friday for chemical treatments. A bunch of us were supposed to meet up here but there's no one around. Just some janitor mowing the grass along the black gated pool. We contemplate the chain & lock and decide it's not worth jumping it. Suddenly two other stragglers from the wedding pull up. Some Collective friends. They ask where everyone is and all we can do is shrug. The partys been moved and no one told us. Fuck it, I can dig going back to L___'s and reading comic books for the rest of the day, but nope goddammit, my buddy wanted to go swimming and by Jesus H Baphomet, that was exactly what we were going to do. We hopped into his Fiat, dropped the hood and told the other two to follow us: My friend had a back up plan.
The world was beautiful today, for some reason everything looked like it should be photographed, preserved beyond the sentimentality of memory. There should be a record to hold against the procession of gray skies that have the color a hundred Mondays. One only would have to look again at the hundreds of brightly colored childrens bicycles spread out along an alleyway between an empty lot and a brick wall, to see the accidental wonder of the city again. A decrepit rail crossing sign, that hung like a forgotten scarecrow over rust colored tracks that no train has crossed in over a decade, stood with it's own unique dignity. The mural of Zombies, done up in manga-graffeti style, ready to march off the wall, the shells of buildings that basked in the sun like the bones of dinosaurs, the children all haning around the corner on MLK Blvd, laughing and dancing. All these should be catalouged. I should have a camera crew invade my brain ala Fantastic Voyage and find the necessary neurons that would rescue these images from the prison of my memory. We arrive finally at Dave the Directors neck of the woods, we drive by his pad and head straight to the pool. The four of us make our way to the pool and my friend sweet talks one of the residents into popping the lock for us. This pool is not as deep as the Ansley one, I can't dive really so I plunge in and propel myself underwater.
I come back up for air. It's Sunday again. I tread water and let my friend 'gab' away with the boys. I tread water and let my thoughts drift. I think of Saturday, yesterday actually, where I sat on the floor reading the collected works of Calvin & Hobbes while listening to Miles Davis & then Joe Strummer on the stereo. The rain was a lot meaner that day, black clouds and thunder that rattled the windows. At one point I turned up the music and went outside for a smoke. The tracks called Orinthology, Charlie Parker is backing up Miles. The sky is coming in closer. It's Bebop & lightning now and I stretch out my arms to greet the approaching storm.
I close my eyes and feel the rain on my face. I exhale and let myself sink, slow motion plummet, the crackle hiss of the rain above me, the weightlessness feeling good across my body. Deeper and deeper I go...
.. and I almost lose my short trying to cartwheel kick my buddy, accidentally mooning my friends. Enoughs enough. We gotta eat. We drop by the directors to see if anyones home. No go. We debate what to eat. We decide Desi Spice again, and I call L___ on a cell and tell her to meet us there. We eat like Raja Princes, and then make our way to the Independent for drinks & Boggle. I lose but considering i'm playing a French lit major & a liabrarian I don't do so bad. On the way back to L___'s I stop to sign up at VideoDrome where I rent Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain. Finally exhausted, tipsy and stuffed with the secret spices of Kashmir we call it a night.
"You about ready?" My friend asks when I float back up for air. I nod. We're off to Apres soon, to do some brainstorming. Later will be dinner and drinks at El Myr followed by heavy dosing of Cartoon Network. My Halcyon weekend comes to a close. I pull myself out of the pool and it stops raining. Tomorrow it's back to reality, back to the cube, back to the quiet marginalization of everyday living.
I'm reminded of the great King who called forth the wisest of the Sufi mystics. He gathered these great men in his court and told them:
I demand a ring, one that will lift my spirits in defeat and sober me when in the thrall of my greatest victory. The Sufi confered, and confered and meditated and confered. Finally they gave the king a ring with this one inscription on it:This too shall pass. I pull myself out of the pool, ready for the next stage.
This same pool was closed Friday for chemical treatments. A bunch of us were supposed to meet up here but there's no one around. Just some janitor mowing the grass along the black gated pool. We contemplate the chain & lock and decide it's not worth jumping it. Suddenly two other stragglers from the wedding pull up. Some Collective friends. They ask where everyone is and all we can do is shrug. The partys been moved and no one told us. Fuck it, I can dig going back to L___'s and reading comic books for the rest of the day, but nope goddammit, my buddy wanted to go swimming and by Jesus H Baphomet, that was exactly what we were going to do. We hopped into his Fiat, dropped the hood and told the other two to follow us: My friend had a back up plan.
The world was beautiful today, for some reason everything looked like it should be photographed, preserved beyond the sentimentality of memory. There should be a record to hold against the procession of gray skies that have the color a hundred Mondays. One only would have to look again at the hundreds of brightly colored childrens bicycles spread out along an alleyway between an empty lot and a brick wall, to see the accidental wonder of the city again. A decrepit rail crossing sign, that hung like a forgotten scarecrow over rust colored tracks that no train has crossed in over a decade, stood with it's own unique dignity. The mural of Zombies, done up in manga-graffeti style, ready to march off the wall, the shells of buildings that basked in the sun like the bones of dinosaurs, the children all haning around the corner on MLK Blvd, laughing and dancing. All these should be catalouged. I should have a camera crew invade my brain ala Fantastic Voyage and find the necessary neurons that would rescue these images from the prison of my memory. We arrive finally at Dave the Directors neck of the woods, we drive by his pad and head straight to the pool. The four of us make our way to the pool and my friend sweet talks one of the residents into popping the lock for us. This pool is not as deep as the Ansley one, I can't dive really so I plunge in and propel myself underwater.
I come back up for air. It's Sunday again. I tread water and let my friend 'gab' away with the boys. I tread water and let my thoughts drift. I think of Saturday, yesterday actually, where I sat on the floor reading the collected works of Calvin & Hobbes while listening to Miles Davis & then Joe Strummer on the stereo. The rain was a lot meaner that day, black clouds and thunder that rattled the windows. At one point I turned up the music and went outside for a smoke. The tracks called Orinthology, Charlie Parker is backing up Miles. The sky is coming in closer. It's Bebop & lightning now and I stretch out my arms to greet the approaching storm.
I close my eyes and feel the rain on my face. I exhale and let myself sink, slow motion plummet, the crackle hiss of the rain above me, the weightlessness feeling good across my body. Deeper and deeper I go...
.. and I almost lose my short trying to cartwheel kick my buddy, accidentally mooning my friends. Enoughs enough. We gotta eat. We drop by the directors to see if anyones home. No go. We debate what to eat. We decide Desi Spice again, and I call L___ on a cell and tell her to meet us there. We eat like Raja Princes, and then make our way to the Independent for drinks & Boggle. I lose but considering i'm playing a French lit major & a liabrarian I don't do so bad. On the way back to L___'s I stop to sign up at VideoDrome where I rent Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain. Finally exhausted, tipsy and stuffed with the secret spices of Kashmir we call it a night.
"You about ready?" My friend asks when I float back up for air. I nod. We're off to Apres soon, to do some brainstorming. Later will be dinner and drinks at El Myr followed by heavy dosing of Cartoon Network. My Halcyon weekend comes to a close. I pull myself out of the pool and it stops raining. Tomorrow it's back to reality, back to the cube, back to the quiet marginalization of everyday living.
I'm reminded of the great King who called forth the wisest of the Sufi mystics. He gathered these great men in his court and told them:
I demand a ring, one that will lift my spirits in defeat and sober me when in the thrall of my greatest victory. The Sufi confered, and confered and meditated and confered. Finally they gave the king a ring with this one inscription on it:This too shall pass. I pull myself out of the pool, ready for the next stage.
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no subject
on 2005-08-15 07:35 pm (UTC)i couldn't figure how rain would fall from above
if it was the devil beating his wife...
no subject
on 2005-08-15 07:44 pm (UTC)