A Day on the Beach

At this juncture

Dreams only happen occasionally

And when I happen upon them

They are all electric blue.

I’m sitting on the beach with my big towel under me.  I’m on vacation because my boss eased up and let me take my week in the summer.  I’m in Miami.  Its very hot here and the sun feels very close, like I am actually about seven years away from it instead of a million or whatever that statistic is.  I chose this place because there are notoriously beautiful women and a lot of buildings painted in pastel colors.  The buildings are clearly second to the women though.  I’ve been here for three days already and I am starting to get a little lonely.  I realize that I am not in the shape I used to be, for instance: my jaw line is sagging at the rate of my body, so not even my face looks that great anymore, probably because I’m weathered from my job, which is doing HVAC stuff in Virginia.  It’s kind of the worst of both worlds in terms of weather.  It’s really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter.  I like it though, there’s always work and the strong sense of community in Fredericksburg really makes me feel right at home.  People are really helpful and I can really appreciate that.  I’ve been living in a little condo, one of those new jobs with the drywall that looks fancy but will probably collapse before I get a chance to move out.  It’s not half bad though, it looks nice and I have all of my valuables from the old place.

I’m watching waves crash because the tide picked up.  I guess that’s the real reason I came down here, for the beaches.  I have always enjoyed them for their meditative quality and the little spray from the ocean I get when they really start to pick up.  I like walking along the shoreline too, when the warm water caresses my feet and I catch little glimpses of the tiny life forms that scuttle along beside me; it kind of feels like being on an emergency room bed.  I say this because I have been on my fair share.  I used to love getting drunk to the point where I’d get alcohol poisoning and get driven to the ER by one of my friends who’d always play really soothing music and drive a little too fast.  The feeling was kind of like body surfing a huge, gradual wave, something similar to what is happening on this particular beach.  Then, when I would get to the ER, the orderlies would rush me up to an operating room on a gurney, quickly moving through the iridescent hallways that always looked something like the light on the shore.  It was always a blur after that, and I’d usually wake up all fixed, remembering some very light, gentle dream I had.  Sometimes I would even go strolling out of the hospital, feeling right as rain, and grab a burger somewhere.  Those types of hangovers will make anybody hungry as anything though.

I get up off my towel because I want to make it over to the water.  My green bathing suit touches my knees and my belly hangs over the waistband a little bit.  I see some very beautiful women playing on the shore line with a couple diesel guys.  The guys are picking up the women and dunking them in the water, they are playful but they keep telling the guys to stop.  I walk to a spot far enough away from them so I can’t hear the girls giggling or the guys shrill laughter and make my way slowly into the ocean.  The water is so blue that I can see fish swimming below me, I say hi to them, and I think a couple even look up and say hi back.  I’m laying upwards, looking at the clouds moving, getting pulled back and forth by the current, understanding that there is nothing to hold onto out here and being saddened by that.

I had to stop drinking a while ago.  My wife died about three years back and that’s when I decided to call it quits.  We’d only been married for about a year.  We were coming home from a party and my friend was very drunk at the wheel, driving too fast down some unfamiliar country roads with a lot of twists and turns.  I was pretty afraid for my safety (and that’s saying a lot for back then), until I saw my wife in the back, passed out with her legs coming up to her chest and her hands wrapped warmly around herself like she was happy with it, happy with the whole thing, happy with me.  I remember smiling and putting my head against the headrest and grabbing her exposed leg from where I was sitting.  It was softer than the beach itself.  I think you pretty much can figure how the story goes from here.  My friend and I, the two drunks, walk away from the wreck unscathed.  We weren’t even wearing our seatbelts.  My wife though, who was sober as a bluebird, hit her head so hard on her own knee that she died on impact.  I think I can spare you the gory details.

Considering the way I was though makes me think that she may be better off.  I was such a drunk that I could hardly do anything: missing dinners with her parents, breaking china, staying out all night, sleeping with bar flies, holding on too tight, letting go too fast.  I’m glad that part of my life is over though.  It’s good to have clarity and the ability to forgive myself and move on with everything.  I do miss my wife more and more everyday though. 

The ocean is funny in this way.  It deafens everything to the point where I can only think rationally like, I guess we were both the ocean for each other, she was just the day at the beach when everything was super good and I was the big hurricane that destroys the beach town.  I wouldn’t have changed anything though because I had her and she loved me for some inexplicable reason.  She was smiling and softness, I just wish she could be here with me now.  I’m starting to feel a little queasy from all the rocking back and forth in the current, the sun is also starting to burn my eyes so I make my way to shore, to my towel covered in sand, walking past a volleyball net that wasn’t there before.  A bunch of people are laughing and playing the game.  I don’t think I should have come here alone.

When I sit back down on my towel I try to think about my wedding but I can’t.  It isn’t because I was that fucked up either, I just simply can’t remember the thing itself: family, friends, location, food, etc.  I know she looked beautiful though, and I know I held her hand for a little too long on the altar because it felt like a wave through my body, not like a retarded wave that almost kills you, but a wave that eases you onto shore, a wave that gives you a taste of itself.

Guy On A Train

I remember when I was 45 and would ride the subway.  There were a lot of passengers at certain times and none at other times.  The times when there were passengers, at around rush hour, I liked to get a seat in the back that faced the entire car.  That way I could see everyone that would get on and I could make sure that there was no one on there that I was looking for.  The seats were this blue velvet-type material spackled with these little bits of color.  I liked the way they looked because they reminded of this store that I used to take my son to.  The rest was pretty metallic and looked like it was cleaned often.  The metal was mostly shiny except for smudges of grease from hands or little spots of what looked like food or maybe blood.

The subway was only underground for about 40 blocks and spanned the city from west to north, cutting through the downtown section.  People wouldn’t really get on at the aboveground stops and people wouldn’t really get off at the downtown stops.  This distinction is obvious, I mean, a lot of people don’t live downtown they just work there.  I didn’t though, I kind of worked all over the place and I liked that about my job.

I wasn’t a dick or anything; I was just a guy that was often commissioned to check on people who were ostensibly abusing their welfare checks.  I worked through this service that had a really sinister name: “Rick and Rays.”  They were some pretty bad guys because they really got off on hurting people that would just go out of their means with their stipend.  They liked me for some reason though, a reason that I couldn’t really understand, and the job paid the bills so I just pretended to get along with them and work until they realized that I wasn’t really the prosecuting type. 

I was supposed to do my job in a car.  So I would show up to the office in a sedan that looked like it would catch on fire if started too abruptly.  They always gave me shit for it and I’d just laugh it off because I’m not really the type of guy to take too much pride in possessions.  From the office, I’d drive my car to the train station at the furthest reaches of the northern section of the city, park it, and pay the $2.25 fare to ride the train back and forth all day.  Some of the people I was supposed to be looking for were known to ride the train.  So I’d keep an account of the neighborhoods they lived in and made sure that they got on or didn’t.  When I’d see them, I’d usually follow them off and just give them a talking to.  You know, like we were just two guys talking about something that really wasn’t all that severe but could be if they continued with their careless spending.  Mostly, people were understanding about my speeches because I’m known to have a very kind face.  Our interactions would usually end with a handshake and I’d be on my way, paying the $2.25 to continue west. 

I’d usually only see about two suspects while on the train.  I really just liked it because there was something soothing about it at all times.  I liked the blueness and how it looked different at various times of the day.  Like at 6-9, the blue would be dulled by the sadness of people going to work.  Then after 9 it would liven up again and I always liked to think that was because the train had time to breathe.  Then, when all of the people would be coming back from their jobs, the blue would look very vibrant, kind of like a cloudless day at the beach.  At night though, the dark and the blinding iridescent lights on the train intensified the blue.  Those weren’t my favorite times, but I still liked them.  Mainly because I could look at my own reflection in the mirror and think about how I wasn’t hurting anyone.

I lost my job eventually though because my numbers were just point-blank horrible.  Rick and Ray told me I hadn’t prosecuted anyone in about 6 months.  I didn’t offer a rebuttal because I knew that if I had to stay on and potentially ruin someone’s life, the process just wasn’t worth it.

Shortly after that my wife left me and took my son down to Florida.  I can understand why she did it, I mean I guess there is no sense of staying with a guy who isn’t willing to harm people, in the times we live in, it’s pretty impossible to make money without hurting some innocent person in the process. 

Now I live in a little apartment in Bucks County that is next to some open fields and right off the highway.  I like the contrast of the two because it reminds of my time in the city and the love I had for my family.  I’m working at a rest stop, filling peoples gas tanks.  I suppose the job could be more stimulating but that’s not what I really want.  

I always liked to think of myself as the type of person that held some sort of infinite care for others.  Like, I always had my perception and I always knew when I was hurting someone, so I guess it may just be better this way.

The Wind

I pulled up my blinds to get a better reflection from my neighbors bathroom light.

There were coffee cup silhouettes

And blue wire in piles over the floor of my carpet.

I only want whats best for you and.

I read a couple of poems out loud to myself because they sound like wind

And nothing is better than the wind

Especially when I’m afraid of being alone.

There was no sun during the week of memorial day,

And we all got scared that it may never come out again.

The air conditioning turned off in the house before the father could reach it

And we anxiously awaited the second coming from a guy named bob in the burning sedan who would arrive off exit 13 from highway 292.

You can make a weapon out of anything (I’m going to sleep)

But inevitably will wake up screaming,

Because I’ve killed myself again

And I don’t want to wake up dead.

There were a lot of men on the avenue

Who were making jokes about the infallibility of dog trainers and bad affects on the electric guitar.

The wind rustled through the trees.

I only feel scared anymore.

And I don’t mean scared by something.

I mean scared in the most general sense.

A complete and total fear of everything.

When we listen to each other we wait for our turn

So when we actually get through with our side

Its like it is only present in the air

And I like to think that that’s might what create wind

On the better side of the sun.

There is really nothing like the wind.

On Diameter

I see it all the time coming out of little bushels and packs and glove compartments.  Secret messages they carved in waxen liquid surfaces.  I used to hear it all the time by the river.  The sounds they made coming out of the river.  Bright little crystalline forms of evolutionary weather.  A very loud and sodden marketplace.  Totemic nightmares speaking through phone towers.  The weather is coming from down below.  It's spreading like diesel little dim buses where the mentally retarded commute to and from in bright and dark.  Or hepatitis in the sheetrock.  Music playing from the other side of the street.  Secret radio frequencies only heard by Jamie.  Nothing subliminal.  My mood.  Byzantine sewage systems respondent to tidal forces.  Disease spreading through irrigation and my mood.  Closets full of uncle's possessions.  Stairs with a lot of trash on them being navigated by one shoe in fluorescent light.  The room is always silent but vibrating to inanimate things.  Realistically it can go no further than that.