HomeYears, 9.12.2011, afternoon

Last couple days have been a real trip. Alan Angus came down from the snow-tipped bearclaw country friday night. We reminisced over three dollar bottles of wine and cheap dark spanish cigars, waltzing around half-drunk about the train station inside of town. The air tasted liked heavy molasses. Catching up is always about unraveling memory like a roll of tape without any fingernails to stop and pick at. The total unraveling: a cerebral flood of euphoria, nostalgia, and the ridiculous. Anyway, we got home early, finished off the bottles, drinking all the way until the pillow, hungry for sleep.

Next day, the breakfast we had was tremendous. Mother Maggie whipped up a storm of eggs and sausage, roasted hashbrowns and coffee. Once a couple hounds start grubbing, ain't no stopping them. I was fiendish, Alan always grateful and polite in his wildness. After, we dressed up, suit and tie, and headed to the racetracks for a day on the town. Chaz St.James and his lady, Ms. Whytecliff, met us at the tracks, waiting in lovely summer clothes, bright-eyed and smiling like the sun. The day was marvelous, though we lost all our money on the sinewy muscled horses with their toy-sized jockeys. Sweat stained our shirt collars the color of sand. Drove into the city, cigarette-lipped and rolled up sleeves, met Daniel Huron and David Hoyne for some Chicago style hotdogs at the famous dog joint off of Clark Street. I lost my car down some flea-walled broken bottled alley, city lights and pretty girls distracting me. It was also the drugs. Left me totally confused. Once we got back to the apartment, we chilled our throats with some mexican beers, laughed in the dim light of the bohemian room, walled with top hats and tapestry, incense, books, records, rugs and couches; the den of social scholars, of men that will never be seen.
After that we hit the VioletHour, swankiest bar in town. A line over two hours long and we snuck in with hat-tilted smoke signal charisma. Got to the back and swang to real jazz. Classy drinks Sinatra would have guzzled. We laughed like the bubbles of gin The Jefferson's would have danced to. You know what I mean? Sweet Bourbon with a sharp citrus zest in the gums, the finest of arts.

The next day was the same gravy. Slept until the sun woke us through the open windows. We had breakfast and meandered around the city hazy and smiling. What a scene for the sunday-primped pedestrians. Went back to David Hoyne's and took out the bicycles for a long ride to the lake, to show Alan Angus the depth of the city. He was drooling with awe, like a pita chip in front of a tub of hummus. Drooling. We rested at the edge of the lake, near the southern chin of the city, next to the museums, right out there on the grassy hill, gazing at the skyline as the golden sun began to dip behind the metallic silhouette of the skyscrapers.

Drove back home to the Willow residence and slept like narcotics reveling in the middle of a heroin fantasy. Stone still. The next day, a fine-toothed excuse for a day of work. You can't dig the dead man out of his grave. Even if it is just covered in day-old sleep.