Hanging with the Princess
Mar. 20th, 2015 02:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonThe Princess is the last of my remaining friends from the old days. The secret Jeremiah Sinn night club days. The sacred Johnny Law wild ride days. The now long gone Bud roaring defiant days. Days of drugs and guns, with nights spent drifting across the city in a series of bunker visits to refuel our buzzes, to disappear into a video game, to talk shit or spread drama, to get paid, to get a little piece of love where no one was looking, to get a moment away from the reality howling starved off the streets.
If not for the Princess to verify that these men did indeed walk the earth with us once, counting us as blood by trials and glory shared, then I would forget that they and the days they ruled were once our everyday reality. Nowadays the Princess and I meet up every other week or so for Operation Reload, the details of which are best left unsaid for reasons of this not being Cool-orado. But afterwards we meet up at the Yacht. She likes it there, I do too, as there are some pleasant ghosts here for me to look at and of course the Yacht has the best drink to dollar ratio in all Vampire Country. I never go over three Jamie's, as I've finally come to accept I'm not very pleasant beyond that, and she riding the wagon true sticks to her Sugar Free Red Bulls. From there we talk the tribulations of our lives, geek out over pop culture, rant a little politics (okay that's mainly me), and eventually we come to reminiscing about the old days.
Around us there's the other lives I've intersected with over the years. The Magpie's friend Contemptula and she's holding court around the Yacht's backroom round table with her Posse Riot. There's Helga the Stage Cowboy with some Cafe Perilous regulars over at the Yacht's front corner window wide table and talking some Grief Theatre business no doubt. At the bar is Tupelo Strummer who plays one of the meanest mandolins in Terminus and he's chatting up some young fellah in a beard. Even the Sex Hobbit drops by for a pick-up order from the kitchen.
"You know so many people, Mr. Celebrity." The Princess likes to tease me after I make introductions, ("This is the Princess... she's the Veronica to my Jughead.") .
"I've been a Chewbacca to many a Han Solo in this town over the years." I shrug nonchalantly, "As such there's a few folks who can put a name to my face even long after they're gone. Plus, you know, the whole Internet mask thing. "How I met your Mother'. 'The Continuing Crisis'. All that fun shit."
"You think that's all you are to them?" She looks at me with a little bit of confusion, a little bit of worry. I don't know why. Back when I hung around Sinn or the Magpie I could barely stand myself. Nowadays, I like myself just fine even if I'm aware I'm a presence best served in small doses around friends of friends.
Plus, the truth is one day I'll have the money to talk to somebody professionally and I'll ditch the black market buzz for some sort of personality adjusting meds. Walk this earth free of mood swings and black thoughts that pop up. Until then, I'm a flake yes, but one lost in a blizzard of his own brain chemicals. The slightest offense sets me deep in gloom, the slightest victory has me riding all superhero utopian. For what it's worth there's always a tiny me in there trying hard to balance shit out. But what can you do? Some people wear the soul wounds and the psych damage sexy. They command attention with it and make you want to burn with them. Yeah, you know who you are. Some of us though, we're astronauts trying to escape a black hole in our heads and some days that black hole sucks more than others.
Guess which days these last few days have been?
But what I tell the Princess is what I've told folks a dozen times over. "I'm learning to be like Bat-Man. Bat-Man doesn't need friends. Friends need Bat-Man. When everyone you love is gone or far away, the best you can do is be there for those who need you."
She laughs and then I remember what my Virtue Victoria would always tell me when I say that.
"But Baby, Bat-Man's an asshole!" She protests. "You're Nightwing if anyone."
"A sidekick?"
"An ex-sidekick, he quit remember? Because his boss was an ASSHOLE. Now you're doing your own thing in Bludhaven and dating Bat-Girl, may I remind you."
"Fair enough." I smile and so goes our many phone conversations. Long distance relationship or not, things have been so much better with her back in my life. Every full moon I thank Eris for second chances, true story.
Anyway, the Rage Fever is subsiding now. The temper dwindles, the grudges hushed. Friday tomorrow. I'm reloaded and the first smoke of the day is hitting smooth. Ambient soundscapes off the laptop. Payday tomorrow followed by the weekend. Maybe I'll go out and find a place to dance. Maybe I'll hole up and work on the Life Unreadable's second draft.
Back in the old days when I wrote it was here and there between the madness. Bad poetry and LSD fueled observations. I couldn't imagine writing a page much less a novel that would get published. Heh... wanker. Those men I knew are gone to death, difference, and distance. But so was the man they once knew and like it or not he's gonna be here for awhile.
Well that's that I guess. Signing off then from one more shot at another tomorrow... 10-4, over and out.
If not for the Princess to verify that these men did indeed walk the earth with us once, counting us as blood by trials and glory shared, then I would forget that they and the days they ruled were once our everyday reality. Nowadays the Princess and I meet up every other week or so for Operation Reload, the details of which are best left unsaid for reasons of this not being Cool-orado. But afterwards we meet up at the Yacht. She likes it there, I do too, as there are some pleasant ghosts here for me to look at and of course the Yacht has the best drink to dollar ratio in all Vampire Country. I never go over three Jamie's, as I've finally come to accept I'm not very pleasant beyond that, and she riding the wagon true sticks to her Sugar Free Red Bulls. From there we talk the tribulations of our lives, geek out over pop culture, rant a little politics (okay that's mainly me), and eventually we come to reminiscing about the old days.
Around us there's the other lives I've intersected with over the years. The Magpie's friend Contemptula and she's holding court around the Yacht's backroom round table with her Posse Riot. There's Helga the Stage Cowboy with some Cafe Perilous regulars over at the Yacht's front corner window wide table and talking some Grief Theatre business no doubt. At the bar is Tupelo Strummer who plays one of the meanest mandolins in Terminus and he's chatting up some young fellah in a beard. Even the Sex Hobbit drops by for a pick-up order from the kitchen.
"You know so many people, Mr. Celebrity." The Princess likes to tease me after I make introductions, ("This is the Princess... she's the Veronica to my Jughead.") .
"I've been a Chewbacca to many a Han Solo in this town over the years." I shrug nonchalantly, "As such there's a few folks who can put a name to my face even long after they're gone. Plus, you know, the whole Internet mask thing. "How I met your Mother'. 'The Continuing Crisis'. All that fun shit."
"You think that's all you are to them?" She looks at me with a little bit of confusion, a little bit of worry. I don't know why. Back when I hung around Sinn or the Magpie I could barely stand myself. Nowadays, I like myself just fine even if I'm aware I'm a presence best served in small doses around friends of friends.
Plus, the truth is one day I'll have the money to talk to somebody professionally and I'll ditch the black market buzz for some sort of personality adjusting meds. Walk this earth free of mood swings and black thoughts that pop up. Until then, I'm a flake yes, but one lost in a blizzard of his own brain chemicals. The slightest offense sets me deep in gloom, the slightest victory has me riding all superhero utopian. For what it's worth there's always a tiny me in there trying hard to balance shit out. But what can you do? Some people wear the soul wounds and the psych damage sexy. They command attention with it and make you want to burn with them. Yeah, you know who you are. Some of us though, we're astronauts trying to escape a black hole in our heads and some days that black hole sucks more than others.
Guess which days these last few days have been?
But what I tell the Princess is what I've told folks a dozen times over. "I'm learning to be like Bat-Man. Bat-Man doesn't need friends. Friends need Bat-Man. When everyone you love is gone or far away, the best you can do is be there for those who need you."
She laughs and then I remember what my Virtue Victoria would always tell me when I say that.
"But Baby, Bat-Man's an asshole!" She protests. "You're Nightwing if anyone."
"A sidekick?"
"An ex-sidekick, he quit remember? Because his boss was an ASSHOLE. Now you're doing your own thing in Bludhaven and dating Bat-Girl, may I remind you."
"Fair enough." I smile and so goes our many phone conversations. Long distance relationship or not, things have been so much better with her back in my life. Every full moon I thank Eris for second chances, true story.
Anyway, the Rage Fever is subsiding now. The temper dwindles, the grudges hushed. Friday tomorrow. I'm reloaded and the first smoke of the day is hitting smooth. Ambient soundscapes off the laptop. Payday tomorrow followed by the weekend. Maybe I'll go out and find a place to dance. Maybe I'll hole up and work on the Life Unreadable's second draft.
Back in the old days when I wrote it was here and there between the madness. Bad poetry and LSD fueled observations. I couldn't imagine writing a page much less a novel that would get published. Heh... wanker. Those men I knew are gone to death, difference, and distance. But so was the man they once knew and like it or not he's gonna be here for awhile.
Well that's that I guess. Signing off then from one more shot at another tomorrow... 10-4, over and out.