Drinking and laughing and yelling and singing and fucking as if it were the last Saturday of our lives, free to sketch out fresh caricatures and disperse the energy that burns. Unbridled possibility in a sundress. Liberation from the chains. A distant memory as I plod along the sidewalk, on my way to a bar where nobody knows my name. Cars buzz by as I pass underneath a gun show billboard, bathed in the dead light from above.
The place is dim and the people hang over their drinks. We smoke, and ash in cups of water. A few guys in the corner sing John Prine lyrics and laugh, exposing broken teeth. The laughter feels as if it’s in slow motion, the picture blurred, pulsating, distorted. It is as nauseous and fuzzy as the last year or so. I meet a kid named Kenny about my age, and wonder how he came to be here. He has a ballcap, a square jaw, flip-flops and a joint.
“Let’s go chase some pussy,” he says.
“I only chase ghosts.” I don’t think he gets it, but I do, and that’s enough for me.
We drive to a party he knows of. The air is heavy with beery breath and sweat. The colorful dresses draped over shifting golden thighs do nothing. The nerve ends only flicker enough to power a few flashes of distant memory. There are no conversations worth recording. No thoughts of note. No clarity. I am alone in a universe of self-absorption, spending sixty minutes of every hour in a bleakness of perpetual regret and loathing. I can’t decide if I should roll my eyes or be afraid.
I take one into the bathroom, anyway. Seven of us smoke a joint in a cramped back room and I gulp down Solo cups as fast as I can and drop in the proper ear-catching stories and after a game of beer pong and a cigarette I’m smelling the entrance of her innards, a mix of oysters and vinegar with a hint of rot, my elbows cooling on the tile floor. She’s nothing special, but it’s this or that. The aforementioned bleakness must give way.
I am reliving the memories I pined for under the billboard, but there is no longer feeling or thought. There is only motion. The legs move, the lungs pump, but like a runner in the middle stages, my mind is entirely clear, dead to the world, observing this body in motion without emotion. Everything is a blur. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be there. I cannot become attached. I am unwilling or unable to adapt.
She tosses her hair and makes sounds and I try as hard as I can to come. I want to get out of here. I need another drink. I’m only doing this because my old self would’ve wanted me to and because Gore Vidal told me to never pass it up. I just want someone to hold my hand, and this bird isn’t that someone. Let’s just smooth out our clothes and get out of here.
I leave the party after being socked in the jaw by a beer pong opponent. I can’t quite recall the details. I ran my mouth, and the only thing that seems to come out these days is spite. Kenny attempts to mediate but the truth is I wanted to take a shot. I deserve it.
I grab a can of beer amidst the fray and head off into the mystic Kentucky night, using it to cool my throbbing jaw. I find myself back in my neighborhood, and through charm I manage to track down a few complimentary bumps of heroin. Sitting on my porch, I drink my icepack and stare at the same moon that we all see and lose myself in my own head. My soul has become punch-drunk. It is a shell of it’s former self.
I am unwilling or unable to adapt. Just hold my hand while I come to a decision on it.
