The nurse said to me, you wait here. And being a compliant type, someone who really did not care much anyway, I said sure I'll be here. I watched her walk away and say something to a tall headed minion at the desk and then disappear into a room off the lobby.
I adjusted the braces on my halo and sat down on a dark brown luxury couch, feeling all the while that I might be invalidating or even assaulting it's deep leather appearance. All around on the sponge patted sepia colored walls were artworks hung like hooks for attention. The usual suspects - landscapes that made you envious - portraits that made you glad you weren't part of the family - knock off color schemes and grids painted with some ubiquitous big soft brush vying to be rainwater in an old school zen essay. A perfectly easy place to be. How to keep happiness was such a mystery, happiness being that secret machinery, a grandeur played out behind your back. Big empty dinning room in the formal sense, a magazine shoot. Alone among plush materials overflowing at the seams, swell chairs, swell tables, caching glass vases filled with affected purple flowers and sober window treatments, the first impulse I had while I waited was there's only so much opulence to be around before the unfulfilled hopes that it signified threw you for a loop.
Then a waiter showed up and served coffee and biscuits. And looking about with a nod, added a heft of vodka into the coffee. Best thing was he was silent and didn't call me sir either. Being called sir was like occupying an unvalidated position, due to the fact you're still alive but haven't yet left the planet. Like whoever calls you sir tacitly admits what a mess you are. Given that, what's left, an automatically turn invisible? Who wants to be called sir? That's so fucking creepy. You might as well have a dead life already as to be called sir in this one.
Why were we here was another question. The guy who owned the place was the nurse's cousin. Another cousin. The list of people she was related to seemed endless in its reach. But I was along for the ride. The chance that something happens always struck me as a fundamental default anyway.
So what else to do but wait. Scratch a thought like a ticket...
Walking home from the St. John's club you said, you should wear a hat. Cold windy air. Bright moon mid-November sky. Leaves blown through a dip in the street and left over from the brilliant fall were crowded against the rusty graffiti bridge supports holding the train rails. I did have a hat but it was crumpled into my coat sleeve. I suppose I've always feared being bundled. But you kept at me so I let go and got my hat on. Our footsteps echoed together in the cold air... Friday night... like it was easy.. away from the popcorn studded tables and spilled drinks and all those other people climbing over one another to be heard against the din freight of karaoke songs... it was the weekend... blessed at that... and I had this middle of the road feeling... like an appetite... a bit drunk... hungry for something... a sandwich and a plate of fries... someone to leave with... perhaps you were imaginary and that's who I slept with... guess what I mean was an invented person is very easy to talk with... laughs wonderfully... and has a near perfect degree-less set of time... heroic in a sense... tragic only if you examine it... that whispers lead to unknown creatures... light years apart... curling up besides the distractions were exactly what we needed... like terra-farming some unremarkable earth...
I stared out the many clean windows onto a village green outside. I'd like to say I was a gleaner and heard someone call my name...
