May the devil know you're dead at least a half hour before you reach heaven

Friday, Jul. 11, 2003 11:17 pm

It's the the jazz bar again.

Fuck.

This is the spot for those trapped in the lonely hours. The bartender smiles. She's my favorite bartender. Takes care of me. helps the lonely hours pass. God bless her.
I watch my cigarette burn up to the glow of the dim lights over my head like souls leaving their bodies and floating to heaven. There's a comfort knowing St. Peter is standing high above me, but a feeling of dejection knowing I'm still down here. No, not hell. The middle ground. the jazz bar. The place you find yourself when you're too tired to fight the memories anymore that night. the place for cripples and succubi. Booze and static.

There's a girl a few seats away from me, pretending to smoke. She plays with the unlit cigarette like a lock of her hair. She teases it against her lips painted deep red, and looks at me.
Dark brown eyes and black hair. Soft cheeks and a sexy chin. She gets up and moved next to me. I watch her hips swivel as she draws close.
"Got a light?" she asks.
"You gonna smoke that of just let it burn?" I shoot back.
"What do you care?" she answers. Her tongue seems to massage the words through my hair and across my shoulders.

I light her cigarette.

She doesn't smoke it, just lets it burn inbetween her fingers. She taps it and watches the ashes fall into the ashtray.
"They're only corpses now anyway," she says flatly, still watching them smolder. I point to the smoke above her head and she nods with a twitch of a smile and a tiny wrinkle by her eyes.
"Come here often?" she asks. I stare at the bar and my beer. Then look away, to my favorite bartender.
"I don't know, but I find myself here a lot," I'm trying to be funny, play it like Bogart, but this isn't the place to play it cool. There's no hiding it when you're here. Only how much much you're willing to let someone else know how far you've sunk. She smiles anyway, letting the charade live. I'm grateful.
"I haven't seen you here before," I tell her.
She nods and looks back at her cigarette. A pathetic sight, letting that tobacco go to waste, but I let the charade live. Maybe she was grateful.
"Just distracting myself from a mess... for a moment," she speaks softly. I don't respond. I'm too beaten up from fighting with myself to undertake someone elses problems. She looks at me, a subtle hint of resentment behind her eyes. I suddenly feel like I did a terrible wrong to her. Maybe I did. I look over my shoulders on the sly, but everything is in it's place. Everyone else is minding their own business, frozen in their personal remorses. I turn back to her eyes and her laize-faire murder of a cigarette. She stamps it out, lipstick stains on the butt, but the cotton filter was still white as her teeth. She never was a smoker. Not with those teeth and nice skin.
She's older then me, I can tell, but my wrinkles are harder. My hands are calloused and my body scarred. My teeth are dirty, my eyes sterner. But she puts control over me. Her heart is stronger, supported by something I'm missing. I can see the scaffolding around hers, but I can't even afford the workers to build my rubble back up. She's not like the rest of us here. She's a tourist, but nobody cares. Not me. Not her. Not the other ghosts. the soft moan of Miles Davis' "In A Silent Way" pulls and sways in the space like ocean waters on the beach.
I glance up at St. Peter, then back at her. She's sipping a cherry red cosmopolitan and looking over the oscillating concoction at the rows of bottles behind the bar.
"What are you doing here?" I asked. Jesus, I didn't mean to ask that. I think I have enough to handle. But I'm not handling anything right now. This is the place you wind up when you've thrown in the towel for the night.
Why not ask?
"I told you already," she replies.
Did she? When? I look at her blankly, then light a cigarette.
"I don't belong here with you," she adds.
"We all say that the first time we're here," I counter with a grin. The bartender chuckles.
"What's the point of it all?" she asks scornfully. I shrug.
"We're all tired. Out there," I point to the door obscured behind smoke and shadow, "Out there's pressure. In here," I gesture to my glass, "there's just time to spend with yourself, and try to heal a little." The bartender smiles at me and refills the glass. I smile back at her, then look at the woman next to me. She finishes her cosmopolitan then stands up, pulling out another cigarette and holding it gently, sultry, against her dark red lips.
"One for the road?" she questions, holding her eyes on me.
"One for the road," I answer, exhaling smoke over top the wooden bar and taking out my lighter. She watches me as the fire flicks in front of her. The tip of the cigarette flashes red and white, then fades into a setting sun orange. She holds the cigarette away, letting the smoke rise and the ashes build. Her hand reaches over the ashtray and taps her index finger on the back of the cigarette.
"Just corpses now anyway, right?" I ask. She twitches a smile again.
"Maybe I'll see you around sometime," I say, turning back to my drink and slouching forward, resting my arms on the bar. She turns and evaporates into the smoke and shadows. I hear the door creak open and catch a scent of fresh air. The smoke whips wildly around for a moment in the chaos of the new wind, and some of the souls miss St. Peter's arms.
"I'll be here," I mutter quietly as the door closes itself. The bartender smiles at me and refills the drink. I smile back and watch my cigarette burn.

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dland exuant omnes your voice drifts away into lost binary alleyways it echoes photography

last five:
A Winter Letter - Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2007
almost but not quite - Wednesday, Mar. 22, 2006
rural times, blue skies. it feels so warm over my hair - Wednesday, Jun. 01, 2005
smiles and gone - Monday, Feb. 07, 2005
I caught my love in North Carolina - Monday, Nov. 29, 2004

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