Lust on the 92 Bus

Hey, punk rock boy. I like you.

Your beautiful head bopped rapidly causing a red, six sided die earring to glint in my peripheral. Hair in vintage, Greaser blonde flopping, like feet dangling from a summer dock, over electric baby blues. Lips pursed. You look like Billy Idol.

I don’t write about boys. But, I caught my heart staring. I watched you. I watched you, an urban chameleon sinking into the city. I watched you feigning punk rock cool and young ignorance. But it was you, when the bodies were elbow tight on the 92 bus in the choke of Chicago rush hour, and not the business man sighing at his Rolex Presidential, who let a wobbly woman sit.

And that, makes you dreamy.

Oh, punk rock boy. I want to feel the crunch of your Motorhead, leather jacket against my cheek. Leave my skin red and stinging. And I’m not even into that. I’ll polish your spikes with Egyptian cotton and hopefully, you’ll leave me before the morning to catch 7 Seconds at the Metro. Leave me in tears, though I know I never loved you.

You're a loner. I want to be a loner too. I want to chain smoke with you and have nothing to say. I want to be late for work and not care. I want the dishes to pile up. I want to play guitar until my fingers burn. I want mosh pit bruises, perhaps a bloodied nose. I want week old dirty hair. I want to get used to the itch.

Why didn’t you sit next to me?

I wonder what music you are listening to. Will you be my mix tape?

Had Me Thinking

The glove, pummeled by the city, was frozen in a half waving droop. Someone had salvaged the thing from the street or sidewalk and propped it on the stabbing end of an iron fence. Maybe the anonymous savior had thought the previous owner would walk by, see it and take it home and tend to its wounds from days abandoned in the city.

But, the glove was one half of those ninety-nine cent gloves, the stretch to fit kind one buys at Walgreen’s when their legitimate winter gloves have been forgotten on the mantle at home. No one cares about the ninety-nine cent glove. Actually, it would be a forty-nine and a half cent glove, wouldn’t it? And in this case, most likely, no one would be back for it, especially on a warm June day. The glove, pummeled by the city, was saved and frozen in an almost beautiful, half waving droop high above the gum tacked sidewalks, lost parking tickets and smashed milk cartons.

There were better things to worry about today, like lost sunglasses.

The milk cartons were most likely left by the Boys and Girls Club kids who stood guard at the corner smacking each other on the bicep while making sly grins at women in teeny skirts and stilettos clicking by. Milk, always a good idea; but that damned expiration date can be tricky. I can never balance the milk in my fridge with the number of cereal boxes in my cupboard. Either the damned expiration date creeps up then passes and I waste ¾ of a gallon or I pour a bowl of cereal on a Sunday morning only to remember the milk was used up yesterday. Cry over spilt milk, no. But over spoiled milk? Perhaps.

“Cows?! WHY would they wash cows?” she laughed.

“Well, I don’t know. Before milking? Germs, you know?”

“Uh, yeah, dude. Right!” She was shaking her head at me.

Well, why not wash the cows, I thought. We were whizzing by pastures dotted with cows. Their coats glistening against the sun; white spots blinding and black spots shining and smooth. The barn was open and the concrete milking stations looked freshly wet. I assumed the cows had just been bathed; which, I thought, was fairly conscientious of the Farmer. But, maybe she was right. Why would they wash cows?

The Farmer. There is no rest for the Farmer, working the fields on days reserved for most folks’ barbeques. I want to be a Farmer; but I can’t manage to keep alive four flowers on my back porch. I can’t manage to keep much alive. Over water. Under water. Let nature run its course. It will rain and the rain will know what to feed the flowers. Well, fuck it. Two of them are dead. One is dieing. I don’t know if a resurrection will occur. Four lousy flowers and I manage to muck it up.

All this has me thinking that I hadn't looked close enough and I could, quite possibly, be the careless owner of that glove.

Untitled -5

The day I met you, I crushed my lungs into flour and sprinkled them, in handfuls, against the jabbing waves of Lake Michigan at Belmont Harbor. I was in no shape to be meeting you. So, imagine, I fucked up.

"So, what's wrong with you?" Asks my friend.

Me? I grimaced, "Fuck. Dunno. Is there? Something wrong with me?"

"Dunno." Says my friend.

"Why don't you tell me? Don't you know?" We are zipping by buses and bikers and cranky Cabbies along Broadway. I wish we were on Lake Shore Drive. The shimmer in the lake helps conjur peace, if not clarity.

"Did she hurt you so badly that you keep on at the ones you won't have?" Asks my friend.

She haunts me. She didn't hurt me. But, for once, this isn't about her.

My brain bobbled my friend's words like a half committed jester. Since, I have fumbled a few more relationships. Punted one. A safety would have been considerable horseshoes. To no avail, not even a fucking safety. But, that's fuckin' tomboy sports symbolism. Fug gin' boring. In real human English, I got nothing.

And then, "How's the love life, Bionic?"

The question, innocent enough. Some say when we don't know what to say, don't say anything. In some parts, they might say, don't say nothing. I kinda adore double negatives. I want to cuddle up with them, and sing them into a fuzzy sleep.

It is inevitable. I think about the day I met you. And how, now, I'm always at a loss for words only around you. How my eyes blab everything to you, even behind tight shades pulled over my face. Oh, you can't see. Do you? Do you? Do you?

And today, you ask, "How are you?" after some minor chit-chat. I'm cursing the empty space where my lungs used to be. The space, now filled with alarms going off, alarms vibrating through my blood and setting off little earthquakes in my knee caps. And my eyes are watering. Probably the pollen. And the chambers of my heart seem to be clubbing each other, fist to jaw. Must be the heat. You say, "Hey. How. are you?"

Today, I can't, like, lie. I squint. "I gotta go." My feet shuffle me away.

The day you asked, could I love you, all I could do was talk about Nimbus clouds and fairy dust. The truth is, I was a lungless bastard lapping at my wounds.

Fourth and inches. Hike. Loss of 11.

Today, I wish for a vice. I wished that I liked to drink tequila when I'm dry. I wished I could fall from the wagon in some fantastical binge. But all I have are the stage curtains, cut away the peripheral. Draw them down, just narrow enough to see the things in front of me directly.

"How's the love life, Bionic?"

I'll crack my shell against the frying pan, drizzle until the yolk drops heavy against a torturous heat. That's me.

Easy As a Shrug

My eyes, at first half-hovering over the Chicago Reader, notice the kid. He wears his early 20’s like a run down Honda, slinking along in a low buzz and slumping into corner store parking lots.

The kid was pondering his next move and coughing up some bug he’d most likely caught from the handrails of the Blue Line. Wearing exhausted black jeans, his jagged limbs cross and uncross and recross; legs yowling at each other over which one ached more, which one should take the weight.

Rolled out, an army of plastic, stoic chess pieces. The kid’s opponent was a graying, buzzed-cut cyclist whose chin seemed most at home cradled in his palm. They had acquired a mirrored sunglassed, over the shoulder know-it-all. Later, I overhear Know-It-All is a chess champ.

“Interpose the Rook!” Know-It-All urged.

“What?”

“Interpose the Rook!” He urged again.

“Then he’ll take my Bishop.”

“Then you’ll take his Queen.” Know-It-All, sure and sitting his straining body back against the coffee shop couch, smirked and cracked at a cube of ice with his molars, “Then, it will get interesting. There is nothing interesting right now.”

The cyclist, perking from his chin homey perch, “Well, sure it is. I’m downright, lovin’ it.”

Know-It-All shrugged.

It’s easy there, from the outside. Easy to dismantle, and attack, and be on the defensive, to interpose all to make things interesting. It’s as easy as a shrug.