Off to the Races

1 a.m. Sleep is absent. Tasks and hypothesises flicker in schizophrenic streams of ticker tape beneath my lids, some damned parade gone haywire. Cut to: Vibrato drifting through the floorboards. The neighbors installed a television in their bedroom. Probably one of those flat screen deals. Their bedroom was above mine. At $ 675 a month, it’s what an office salary can afford. All divisions between myself and them, walls and ceilings, are paper thin. Ordinarily, cheap does not impose such fantastical annoyances.

Thinking back to the morning. The memory of his face is clearly etched. His blue collar-tough, bronze toned skin held hard lines across skeptical forehead and butressed a half grimmace. His boots were of manmade materials which almost encouraged the frigid moisture to seep through and set in. He would carry a slight shiver until the whistle blew for lunch. Later, he would be victoriously self-deceiving in his need to see a doctor once a cough set in; better that than worrisome over scratching up the copayment.

“Hey.” He was thumbing through items in his wallet. The green of small bills scrambled with soft-cornered business cards.

I nodded and smiled. My mouth smiles with suspicious caution in the mornings. I’m not myself. But then, who am I lately? Someone waiting for the fall? Someone waiting for the next set of lips on mine? Someone waiting for the victory banners to unravel? Someone calculating nickels and dimes until the next destination? Someone tinkering with how to put my brain to the world and move it? All these things. The ticker tape.

He pushed a business card toward me. “Look at this!” His peppered moustache hanging like an awning over his smile.

“Best Discount Inn – Hollywood, CA”

No shit. It’s what it said.

“I took my wife there once.”

I nodded and smiled. Cautiously. It’s not right to be so suspicious. I think about George Bush and his plan to add employer paid healthcare benefits to taxable income. I fret over what economic impact it will have on social security benefits. I wonder what Washington whiz kid came up with the formula for the poverty line level: $30,000 for a family of 4. I think about the cost of the war and where the sacrifice lies. The soldiers and their families, of the old folks, of the students from parents of the working class. Why can't we spend a few more dollars in taxes each, the entirety of the American people, so that the noticeable sacrifice does not lay soley on the backs of these people? I think about the Best Discount Inn – Hollywood, CA.

He pushed the card further into my hand. “Ever hear of it, huh?”

I shake my head. “No. Never been to Hollywood.” My voice is not my voice in the morning when I’m being so cautious. The tone bumps like tires across an old dirt road. I'm tired and bone dry of small talk.

What about his wife? Did she love him? Did she love the Best Discount Inn – Hollywood, CA? Did they get married in Hollywood? Did they bump into Leo and his people? She loved him. She loved the feel of that moustache against her forehead when she slept. It made her feel safe. I’d bet she made him a sack lunch of 2 turkey sandwiches for when the lunch whistle blew. And I think, if him, why not me? And I think, if her then why not me?

All this thinking and I was a bit dim. I handed the card back and retreated into silence.

Sink it someplace else. Passion. Love. Loyalty. Inspiration. Sink it someplace else. Fingers gripping hard. Sacrifice. Patience. Devotion. Sink it someplace else. Someplace. Someplace.

Mr. Carville: A simple doctrine, outside of a person’s love, the most sacred thing they can give is their labor.

So, to the victory banners, I go. Perhaps, the thought will subdue the ticker tape tonight. Perhaps, I will nudge the world just a half inch. A half inch is all it takes most times.