A few hours of my life

[jack_babalon]

The deranged midnight stalker says it
Garcia Lorca says it
The hit man, Walt Whitman
And the haliototic talker says

Babe, I'm on fire
Babe? I'm on fire"
~Nick Cave
Babe I'm On Fire

Couldn't go home yesterday. Not right away. Bad restless. Anger wires stripped and twisted in weird knots down the neck. Blood horny. I jail break early from the money zoo and hit the Southbound to Five Points, there I sit with the ghost men of Barbara Ashton Square, I listen to bootlegged Usher off a kiosk that sells burnt CDs, sick-sweet incense oils, black silk banners of Bob Marley, Bruce Lee and Dragon Ball Z characters that flutter dance in a light wind. Ghetto Saints of the Herb, the Fist and the Anime Chakra Rage. Pigeons hop around me, searching for crumbs along the concrete bed of the destitution garden. No one is screaming about Jesus today, and the sun comes down hard with omens of a vicious Summer to come. I get up and walk into the Wachovia that's hidden in a nondescript office building. A different world. Air conditioned corridors and security desks. Cameras swivel down the length of the hall and breathing mannequins stage whisper on their cellphones, for a moment you could almost forget that the Open Market of the Apocalypse is right outside those automated doors. I pull out a few $20's for walking around money out of the machine and decide to head East to Little 5.
Step off the train and walk into the photograph seconds, the sharp edge of the sunlight slicing the details out of the backdrop. Walk through the grass of the park by the Innman Park station, listen to the ringing of the church bells that chime for the faithful and damned alike, the skyline is a nasty tease, shifting the swaying of the leaves of trees to hide her modesty, a tye dyed teen hippy strolls down the road with a guitar slung on his back, he waits for the 60's to come back the way an orphan must wait for his real parents, and cross Edgewood and over to another park with a long snake wind of a bicycle trail that river winds around small islands of grass and benches for the homeless to watch the day settle into night, their endless sleep broken into intervals of hunger, and step between the rows of buildings now, ports of commerce in a sea of faces, each speaking without their mouths but rather with their dyed hair and outfits, walk to Criminal Records, a man in black rimmed glasses and sporting a training goatee counts out my comicbooks from one stack to another, adds the math and sings along to the perpetual folk song that they seem to play there, and not once does he ever look up from the register, not once does he have to see me. Next up and on a whim I go into Wax N'Facts, lazy browse, glance around, flip through the used section and pick up John Coltrane's Giant Steps, Victoria asks me how i'm doing in her dry South African accent that seems to fit the smell of old album covers and dust that filter through the air. I like this shop exactly for this reason, the same reason I like to go to thrift stores and mueseums, the smell of brittle dreams and second hand lives. I grab two slices of Pepperoni & Spinach over at the L5P Pizzaeria. Tweenagers blasting Black Sabbath, banging their heads while they wipe the tables off. I eat. I watch. I listen. One of them is saying how he's gonna hook up after his shift, air guitaring obliviously while his petite coworker empties out the ashtrays into another ashtray. Later i'm on the train listening to some grade schooler shout "Westside" over and over again into a nonsensical soundbite loop, to the embarassment of his other friends. One of which is doodling on the back seat of the MARTA chair. If anyone noticed they didn't say nothing. I watch Atlanta flicker out the window, my reflection looks back at me, i'm a glass phantom with the world rolling by quick.
Later that night, hunched over the Princess' laptop, I find an old friend from Yonkers online. She was my best friends sister, and you know how guys are with their best friends sisters, she was my first crush really, the woman I accidently imprinted on, but that's a longer story i'm sure you don't wanna hear. We talk for about two hours. She asks me if I still have an afro, if I have a girlfriend, if I have a job, and what the hell was I doing in the sticks? It's dark out finally and I reconfirm my flight with the folks. I lay on the couch watching the tube. Vaticans got itself a Teutonic Pope, Brittney the musical fuckbot is preggers, car bombs flare in the cradle of the Ur and it all hits me the same. Later waiting for sleep I replay their kisses in my head until I hit oblivion, at least for a few hours.

Comments

[soror-lvx.livejournal.com]

I thought I was your first crush..j/k

You know you only make it out to l5p when im not there!! Ive cut pizza out for my diet so it may be a while before i chance that way again, but I would still like some coffee and chatter when you have the time.