Never be friendly

I saw a women standing on the balcony of a tall high rise. She was too old for a cougar. Far too old to rock n' roll. She wore a frayed blue bathrobe and took long drags from a cigarette. To be friendly I waved and said hello. The women in blue dropped smoldering ash onto my forehead.

"I know who you are. You're Tortelli and I read your damn blog," she cried.

She shrugged her shoulders, let go of the cigarette, and hobbled back into her apartment. I shrugged my shoulders too, and hobbled back to the Square Corner, a small burn blister on my head to remember her by.

Nemesis

I've been coughing up indigestion. An onerous bile runs along my throat and into my mouth. This dyspepsia is the result of hard alcohol coating my gut after drinking too much, which I do often. When I get up my head throbs. My thoughts are cloudy. I get the shakes all the way down to the heels of my feet.

This time I found my knuckles scraped with a hurt in my right shoulder and a shiner hanging under my left eye. I likely took the guy, not that I remember what happened. I'm good with my fists, but I'm aware I'm not getting any younger, and like I said, I drink too much and too often.

Lately I've been going to this bar called the One Lucky. 'Beer Mugs' Moran is the bartender. But he doesn't know my name. I drink alone, mind my own business. Sometimes I'll sit at the end of the bar. Mostly I'll find a table off to the side.

There is a regular there by the name of Tortelli. He doesn' know me either. You're probably familiar with him as the alter ego of this blog. You and him are probably surprised to see me posting here. I'll cut to chase. I hijacked his IP. I got time and money to do these things. An inheritance came my way which I get doled out once a week. So I drink, and when I'm cold sober I play with my computer and act on nefarious ideas like cutting into the Square Corner. No real reason I do these things, it's just in my sinister nature.

I'm about to get drunk again. I might not remember what happens the next morning, but I'll know to keep Tortelli posted, if you know what I mean.

Sincerely,
The Nemesis

Light Bulb

I shone a small light into a night sky that touched a cloud. It was eerie and beautiful and Godly all at once. I closed the light, took a deep breath, and was illuminated in ways I never was before.

Zen Wall

I meditated to a blue wall. And the blue wall meditated to me. With some practice a calmness enveloped my rancorous soul. But the blue wall was out-of-sorts. Large cracks emerged from floor to ceiling. Water shot out of leaking pipes like giant teardrops. But soon the hurt left the blue wall and I heard it laugh as heartily as a Zen master. I did likewise and we became friends from that moment forward.

Sweet Tales

Believe me, if you will. I live on a street of bubbling marshmallows and cotton candy unwoven. My life is a carnival of the mind, an amusement of a wayfarer heart.

Eyes

We all do it. We all slip in and out of reality. We all elide the truth of our heart. Deny that we've broken others, our self, the frailness of life. We all do it. Dream of better days. Eclipse the fire of yearning eyes. Staunch the blood of a needful soul.

The Old Server

An old waiter sat in a new bar and drank to the past. He spoke to those young people who would listen. “I remember when,” he said loudly over the bar’s din, the constant beat of dance music. “I remember when they played live music. I was the waiter at a bar like that.”

He knocked back another whiskey sour and spoke more of his youth. “I served everybody. All the up and comers during those days, like Adam Ant. Like Psychedelic Furs. Like Joy Division.” He ordered another drink and bemoaned the present. “Now they don’t have anymore live shows. You kids. All you got is this dance music. It’s rotting your insides.”

Some of the young were bemused. Others felt embarrassed, even sympathetic to the graying man from the 80s. But others saw him as a creature to be mocked. They laughed at him. One boy gyrated aggressively along the floor. One girl shook her large chest in a circular motion and groaned: “Why don’t you dance to this.”

Laughter hurt the man. But in him was the sustaining spirit of the big haircut and spandex. The old waiter tipped his fedora and walked away slowly. He whistled a Tom Petty song against a noisy present he’d never call his own.