HomeYears, Afternoon, 4.24.2012.

Alan Ingus and I were shootin’ pool last night in Iowa City at a bar called Deadwood. A dark bar playing oldies from a juke box and half of the people were dressed like they were ripped off Broadway Avenue’s Lower East side in the 1940s. The funny thing was, Alan and I were hangin’ around that pool table, sipping our bitter ales and measuring up the cue ball and the angles and all that recreational geometry for hours. Longer than it usually takes a couple bull-jawed, red-blooded north American men to sink some billiards, I’d say. Of course I’m no expert. Saying a couple words every now and again and then hitting some conversational chord and talking for a good while about professors or doctors or other poets and writers we had met that weekend at the University. We kept sauntering around the table, just having a good time, buzzing off the beer and the weekend and that hearty dinner we had just wolfed down. The music ran dry off the stereos every once in a while and you could hear the clink and clank of beer glasses, the mumble of voices or drowsy chuckles from the college scene locals. A chill bunch, I wouldn’t mind a couple more pints with ‘em if I was given the choice. There was a whole cinnamon burger kind of feel to the place. So we just kept on hangin around that table, a few games in and we couldn’t sink the damn eight ball for the life of us, must’ve been about an hour, the only ball on the table was that elusive 8-ball. We cursed and fussed, took a sip from our beers and then scratched on the play again and again. It was a cosmic sign I began to realize. God keeping us there, making us work around our thoughts and enjoy the time set aside for friends you don’t always get when you grow older. Alan was working full time up in bear claw country and hammering away on computers and going through pages and pages of scientific research nonsense I could never understand. I was happy for him, he’s got the brain for it and he’s got the stomach for all those numbers too. I’ve been shadowed away like a recluse spider down in the outskirts of Chicago at my parents' house, driving myself mad with all that peace and quiet, drifting through nirvana like the air in the house just gassed you up to it, no problem. Anyway, we finally sunk in the 8-ball and what a celebration we had. I don’t even remember who got it, it didn’t matter at that point, we were bored to death and ready for some change. We split to a booth and got another round of dark beers. Talked for a long while about women and work and women and how much work it takes to get a real nice women for yourself. One of those nights, the blue sky coming in through the windows, and finally the townies were starting to fill up the place and I thought I knew a few of them, but reminded myself I was a stranger and none of us would ever know each other. We got out of there and grabbed a slice of meat-heavy pizza from a slice-joint right across the street, ate outside on a wooden bench and watched the drunks toss themselves in and out of bar doors and across the whole street. What a sight. We got out of there and hit the hotel pretty quick, watching some terrible movie until the television lights sedated all the activity in our brains and zonk. Snoozing like Iowa deadwood.