Here inside these days and days

of unemployment, disappointment, and drink



I maze out deep

on an Inner.



Some broken dog be toothfully working on a corner of a white bag of trash outside the door across the block. I shake another cigarette out for my buddy Solomon who's just entered the bar.



Soul Dog, I say, dragging on my butt, How's it hanging? And just as importantly, I say, exhaling smoke now, How you be banging?



Lowly, he says, black brow furrowing. I'm low...



His hair is wrong under the crushed cowboy hat. There's blood on his shirt and his sleeve is torn. His mouth is open and he appears to be hyperventilating.



This is all so typical, I think, and I don't even know what's happening yet. I already feel somehow involved and he hasn't even really looked at me yet.



I drink on my beer and stand up from our corner table. Now he sees me and looks right up.



You got a cigarette for me?



I hand it to him.



I can't fucking take this, he says. I am so tired of this fucking bullshit, man.



Here's a man over the age of 35 weaving in front of me, weaving as he's standing still, and the tears coming.



What's going on?



My insanity, man, he says, is my inner crutch, for a world that's outwardly disabled. I need a drink. Shit. What the fuck is this, man. What are you doing?



I tell him I just came in from Jersey and to be cool. I walk to the bar and ask for two beers and two shots of Cuervo. I walk back to the table with the two bottles of beer in one hand and the two shots in the other.



I sit down across from Solomon, who's sat down, and put his drinks in front of him. He's putting a tragic West Indian gaze out onto the avenue. There's a crust of blood under his triangular nose. He hawks a little phlegm and sucks at his teeth.



The nine to five people are coming back now, from the subway. We drink our tequilas and watch them.



The currency of no pressure, I say. Ease in to the evening. The night is the spice of this whole damn life. Are you feeling me?



Stop with the bullshit. This is serious. I'm having problems with my kid.



Sorry to hear that, man…



My wife is so fucked. She's…so fucking…fucked…



What?



She took him with her. He's gone. They're gone. I went to pick him up from school and --



Solomon, he starts to cry. I begin to think about cocaine. I also think that, though I love the man, perhaps he is not the greatest father material. Then again, I think, I may not even be the greatest friend material. Be that as it may.



Let's get out of here, I say.



And go where?



Nights where I existed outside of time a wisp of haze in the darkness of the kitchen. Two years I lived in this one fucked place and never owned a bed. What imaginings a lonely man may subject himself to. I have stories of drunken times unremarkable, typical, no less horrifying to me. Calamity always within striking distance. Like the friends you drink and run with, and lose heart's possession while in their company. Words falling out of you while you sit reeling at the bar, the stripes of wine and purple just visible in your face, in the shadows of the hard night. Rage and bitterness for everyone to see and some would partake of you. The soul's show for any to see, and to be had cheaply. Less expensive than your time at the bar. This is the story I'm here to tell you. Some stories too inner and complex to tell all at once