by Nicholas Viglietti
Every minute is a fresh start. It’s a matter of perception – the thrill, the ache, all the pound on the human heart. The worst thing ever given to humanity was a chance.
It shouldn’t destroy us so much. Nothin’ to lose and keep goin’ kinda shoes, assured to be buried in the end, by dirt or misery, and we waste opportunities to smile, inclined to feel the blues.
Some point, along the roll of our run, comes the clang of comprehension…the highest rise & the deepest falls…the recognition that’s it all in our control…over it, in regards to it, and to not care when it’s clear that our effect can’t change it….the fear to have it, and the fear to lose it all.
We get up and suffer what we can’t stand every day. The universe calls us to expand, the annoyance it is to be more, the attention we must give, the care that we will never get reciprocated – how can humanity not get disillusioned, out on the fray?
Forgive me, big braddah, in my skull, I prayed, in the liquor store line – I was grabbin’ two airplane shot bottles – she won’t relinquish obsessive control, and these days increase the toll, and the weight makes me feel like a dollar bill, and I don’t know how many more creases I can take before I fold.
“Just the water,” the slender Indian bro-migo asked me.
“Nope, this night is too heavy, just for water,” I said, behind the tint of blue shaded glass, all style, revealing the chafed nerves in my dilated eyes.
He stiffened, my stare was worn to the bone weary, “give me two mini bottles of Makers Mark.”
“Uh…we don’t have that brand of whiskey in that size…uh…we have Crown (Royal), Jack (Daniels), J-Mo (Jameson)…uh,” in this cut-rate liquor store.
An interjection was needed to finalize an interaction that ran past the normal limits of buying liquids to numb pain that won’t ever seem to heal, “J-Mo is fine – never mind the brand – Ima drain ‘em too quick to care, anyway,” I said.
I was twitchy, the club across the parking lot bounced like a red rubber ball on the playground. The year just started; things were already falling apart, and they were never even together.
I needed air – a chance to relax – I left the wifey in that corner she wanted to sit in.
She had kept asking questions, she wanted us to have a good night, the inquiry wouldn’t relent, and she can’t hear, bodily functions on an early wane, consumed in the loud music, and my patience wore thin like a rubber band, stretched for too long, past its limit…we all snap in the end.
“Total is a flat fourteen,” he said, I tapped the card reader, he nodded a sympathetic farewell, a display of connection between men doing their best and failing to make any progress, a world with wives and unrelenting demands.
The people waiting in line parted like I was on fire, and I sliced through the door like a sharp knife through flesh. The unseasonably warm February night had sweat rollin’ profusely off my skull, and I removed my shirt, crouched in a corner, watched the scene in the parking lot.
Brain-boil, the thoughts gurgled like an overflowin’ pot: I’m fucked, but better to shatter alone, those performances are embarrassing with an audience present.
I was easy to spot in that joint across the lot of stylin’ cars on radiant gleams of rollin’ rims. I twisted the caps loose, dropped the contents down my gullet, I could hear the crowd observe me like a zoo-animal – stress turns whiskey to water, and I’m a performer, after all.
I slipped my shirt back on, downed the water bottle, rolled my eyes, and the bearded behmouth bouncer – bald, too, like me, and I thought, we could be Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito in our own version of Twins – could snap my neck as easy as a handshake.
He just shrugged to convey good luck sentiments, I took deep breaths, stalled stoic the appearance of confidence, choked down cotton-mouth nervousness, walkin’ to the wifey in the corner.
She glowered at me with steel, truculent eyes – my pale face stuck out like the jerky moves of my returning slides. I knew it. She already judged, conferred with the jury, sentenced me, for my crimes, and worst of all, I never got to order a dinner item, and now, my beautiful bumble, vision obstructed by the happy haze of stoned smoked, was bold for any inquiry by a man marked for death, “Should we get some burgers?” I asked, “at least, our belly’s will be full, some ying to the full rage of yang that is our balance.”
She got in the midnight Acura like an executioner that hasn’t missed a day of work in three years – so good at their occupation they turn it into an art. Words that would wreck my skull, and wrench our bond, were about to flow like the swift programmed frenzy of the ghosts that hunt Pac-Man.
Even though there’s a noticeable discord between our auras: exacerbated desperation, the attackers have cut-off escape routes, and demise in delay, ravages the brain in the recognition of empty space…strikes of words that affirm the shame in my good-time strife (lots of smiles, and laughter, but hell, P-co’s have been known to twist a man’s perspective in the neon), sleek music, fluid freedom that floats on the rhythm of the moment, let it roll on…the party is potent, and tomorrow, after tonight, the gallows will still be open.