people say she's crazy
she's got diamonds on the soles of her shoes
The man at the bar has been there a thousand years. He is wrapped in his tumbler like it is a dead twin that he must now absorb and he has not moved from this position since I got here three hours ago. It's likely he has not really moved from this position since he got here as a young man. He is poised and ready to ignore the show that is about to start, the show that I am here to see, the show that I come for every week. The gospel. The Gospel, the show; the boys and Heather, doing what they do better than just about everyone I've seen. I'm watching them set up and I'm watching Johnny because, well, because you should watch Johnny whenever you can. I'm also watching this guy, though, the guy at the bar, because not only is he curiously permanent but I am afraid that he might actually be dead. This is a condition I know a little something about but I am always afraid of running into it in real life.
Gospel starts. Michael wants to know if I have been to Jesus. Jason forgets there are people in the room. Heather, clearly, is having a personal conversation with her savior and Johnny is making it sound sweet. Holy shit, Johnny makes it sound sweet. Dave and Jesse consistently make it all work and I forget the guy is there until I catch him on the corner. The show is going but he does not seem to notice that it is anything other than the jukebox, playing the same crap that the same crap have been putting out since..since...but it is not. It's the band and they keep playing, like they do when you're lucky, and his head does not move but his hands do. They move to the rag in his pocket, which he uses to cover his face.
I thought this was the rag that my dad uses to cover his face, you know, when he's been working especially hard. Or maybe I thought it was the rag that my brother uses, to cover his face, when his allergies are really bad. I thought maybe this was the same rag that my aunt uses to cover her face when she gets a migraine. But upon closer inspection, it was the rag that my grandfather covered his face with at my great-grandmother's funeral. This was no ordinary rag. Fitting, because this is no ordinary hymnal and this is clearly no ordinary man. He sits, for a while. Sits there, not moving, covering his face. The Gospel is working its voodoo and the man is quietly overcome.
He takes the rag from his face and uses it to wipe the side of his glass. It goes away. The rag is returned to its home to be replaced by a wallet that has seen better days. Probably not better, actually, but certainly younger. A moment's fumbling and the wallet is gone and the man is walking, the father? Grandfather? Great great uncle? The weight of the world is striding toward the stage and I am amazed, I am amazed at how it comes. How he picks himself up and he stands himself up and if you didn't see him sobbing under a handkerchief two minutes prior you would never have believed that I thought he was dead. He walks toward the stage and he is looking, what is he looking for? Michael nods at him and Heather makes him wish he were younger and I am wondering what I am missing when the bartender, doing what bartenders do best, appears out of nowhere with a tip jar and sets it at the front of the stage. The man puts something in it and goes back to his drink. I do not think that it is watered down; if it is I don't think he cares.
You know when you reach that point? That point where one minute you are sitting there with your whiskey and the next minute some punk jackoff playing Jesus music has got you sobbing in a dive? I wait for that point. I look for it, I smell it coming a mile away and when it gets here I am ready for it. Because it is liberating. Because it is cleansing. I am ready for it now, which is fortunate because I am on the down side of it this time. I missed it by the same mile because I was too busy trying to fix everything and everyone and juggle and rationalize and explain. Fuck a bunch of that, man. Fuck it. Explaining is for chumps and if I have to explain one more thing to one more person that really should know better I am going to cover MY face with MY rag and I am going to have a quiet nervous breakdown right in the middle of the dance floor, right at the foot of the cross.
I'm going to be happy. I'm going to let go of the shit that weighs me down, thank You. I've got ninety nine problems and a bitch ain't one and I don't think there's anyone quite as irritated with me as I am with myself when I go making shit hurt where it shouldn't. These things, these days, these are the only times I'm going to get, and what better way to spend them than in a doorway, by the bodegas and the lights on upper Broadway? Let it go, let it go, let it go. Diamonds, man. And everybody should know exactly what I'm talking about.
The man at the bar has been there a thousand years. He is wrapped in his tumbler like it is a dead twin that he must now absorb and he has not moved from this position since I got here three hours ago. It's likely he has not really moved from this position since he got here as a young man. He is poised and ready to ignore the show that is about to start, the show that I am here to see, the show that I come for every week. The gospel. The Gospel, the show; the boys and Heather, doing what they do better than just about everyone I've seen. I'm watching them set up and I'm watching Johnny because, well, because you should watch Johnny whenever you can. I'm also watching this guy, though, the guy at the bar, because not only is he curiously permanent but I am afraid that he might actually be dead. This is a condition I know a little something about but I am always afraid of running into it in real life.
Gospel starts. Michael wants to know if I have been to Jesus. Jason forgets there are people in the room. Heather, clearly, is having a personal conversation with her savior and Johnny is making it sound sweet. Holy shit, Johnny makes it sound sweet. Dave and Jesse consistently make it all work and I forget the guy is there until I catch him on the corner. The show is going but he does not seem to notice that it is anything other than the jukebox, playing the same crap that the same crap have been putting out since..since...but it is not. It's the band and they keep playing, like they do when you're lucky, and his head does not move but his hands do. They move to the rag in his pocket, which he uses to cover his face.
I thought this was the rag that my dad uses to cover his face, you know, when he's been working especially hard. Or maybe I thought it was the rag that my brother uses, to cover his face, when his allergies are really bad. I thought maybe this was the same rag that my aunt uses to cover her face when she gets a migraine. But upon closer inspection, it was the rag that my grandfather covered his face with at my great-grandmother's funeral. This was no ordinary rag. Fitting, because this is no ordinary hymnal and this is clearly no ordinary man. He sits, for a while. Sits there, not moving, covering his face. The Gospel is working its voodoo and the man is quietly overcome.
He takes the rag from his face and uses it to wipe the side of his glass. It goes away. The rag is returned to its home to be replaced by a wallet that has seen better days. Probably not better, actually, but certainly younger. A moment's fumbling and the wallet is gone and the man is walking, the father? Grandfather? Great great uncle? The weight of the world is striding toward the stage and I am amazed, I am amazed at how it comes. How he picks himself up and he stands himself up and if you didn't see him sobbing under a handkerchief two minutes prior you would never have believed that I thought he was dead. He walks toward the stage and he is looking, what is he looking for? Michael nods at him and Heather makes him wish he were younger and I am wondering what I am missing when the bartender, doing what bartenders do best, appears out of nowhere with a tip jar and sets it at the front of the stage. The man puts something in it and goes back to his drink. I do not think that it is watered down; if it is I don't think he cares.
You know when you reach that point? That point where one minute you are sitting there with your whiskey and the next minute some punk jackoff playing Jesus music has got you sobbing in a dive? I wait for that point. I look for it, I smell it coming a mile away and when it gets here I am ready for it. Because it is liberating. Because it is cleansing. I am ready for it now, which is fortunate because I am on the down side of it this time. I missed it by the same mile because I was too busy trying to fix everything and everyone and juggle and rationalize and explain. Fuck a bunch of that, man. Fuck it. Explaining is for chumps and if I have to explain one more thing to one more person that really should know better I am going to cover MY face with MY rag and I am going to have a quiet nervous breakdown right in the middle of the dance floor, right at the foot of the cross.
I'm going to be happy. I'm going to let go of the shit that weighs me down, thank You. I've got ninety nine problems and a bitch ain't one and I don't think there's anyone quite as irritated with me as I am with myself when I go making shit hurt where it shouldn't. These things, these days, these are the only times I'm going to get, and what better way to spend them than in a doorway, by the bodegas and the lights on upper Broadway? Let it go, let it go, let it go. Diamonds, man. And everybody should know exactly what I'm talking about.
posted by machine central at 10:43 PM
2 Comments:
"Well that's one way to lose these walking blues."
Awesome post.
I'd like to be invited along some day
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