January and Jazz

The weight’s back across his shoulders the second he opens his eyes and swings his feet to the cold wooden floor, gentle so he doesn’t jostle the bed and wake up his wife piglet snoring next to him. A shower and comfortable shoes, an untucked workshirt and coffee that will wait for the bodega, it’s quieter that way in the cavernous Bushwick loft with holes in the walls big enough to peer through. Winter comes calling often. Before he leaves he looks down at her sleeping form, the big green eyes screwed shut that used to captivate him once upon a time but now it’s all January and jazz in his head. Jazz reminds him of being alone and January reminds him of love and he wonders if bad coffee can mute nostalgia.

When did the ring on his finger turn into forty evenly spaced iron bars and her cunt a shackle?

His day job is sorting mail for a big company in midtown. He comes in the servant’s, pardon, the service entrance. Fluorescent lights and more bad coffee, frustration and paper cuts.

“Have you seen my package?”

“FedEx delivers at the messenger center, sir.”

Darkness comes down at five o’clock without any art at all, just mugs the whole city into an alleyway and he longs for the gentle grift of summer twilight. He changes into steel-toed boots and a black sweatshirt under his leather jacket, gets dinner at a burger joint before the second job he took after…

“We’ve gotta move you back to the mailroom.”

“But I just got married, I got a wife…”

“That department doesn’t want you anymore.”

The bar is sunny and warm, fake frost in the corners of the windows and he wonders if that was her doing, finishes his cigarette as he peers in the window at her. Fragile arms and a laugh like a crow with a bullhorn, tattoos and too much eyeliner, all blond dishwater, pale-blue eyes and swinging hips above her motorcycle boots.

He smiles and remembers that night in the basement. Cigarette gone, he drops his stuff in the back and waves to her, on his way back outside to stand at the door.

“I.D., guys.”

“Yo, for real? I ain’t got mine.”

“Then find another bar.”

“Yo, you’re a dick.”

“Yeah. Have a good night.”

Bored and aching feet, he remembers the night he fucked her in the basement and how smooth her skin was, even across the tattoos. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised but that flickers fast as she closes her mouth around him.

So warm. The basement has the boiler in it. She kisses his wedding ring with a sticky mouth.

A bum leans against the lamppost, two pigeons perch and peer down at him from on the yellow traffic lights.

“You gotta get right with all that, youngster.”

“What?” He asks the bum.

“You gotta get right with life and with god.”

“I’ll get around to it.”

“You got a dollar.”

“I got a cigarette.”

He lights the bum’s cigarette and they puff in silence.

“You gotta get right with god, young man.”

He chuckles. “Maybe some day. Now, do me a favor and find another corner.”

“No problem.”

The bum shuffles off, takes his winter-muted stink with him and the pigeons eventually follow. Eight hours later he hustles the last drunk out the door and gets his shift pay, his shift drink. She smiles at him and inclines her head toward the basement.

Why not? His shift fuck.

Fifteen minutes later he pulls out and cums on the empty Jack Daniels crate between her feet while she coos in his ear with what he can’t imagine and doesn’t try until after he’s put her in a cab without kissing her goodnight.

Grabbing a cab of his own, he unlocks the door of the loft and sees his wife as he left her as if the day had never happened. In the bathroom he washes his mouth and his dick, brushes his teeth and slips in bed next to her. She mumbles and he kisses her sleepy mouth.

“You brushed your teeth.”

“I was smoking.”

“Oh.” She settles back to sleep and as his head hits the pillow he thinks, yeah, I gotta get right with something, but I gotta get up in six hours.

I’d only wanted a quiet scotch but my ears got in the way. Life too, I suppose. I’d even avoided going to my regular place. A late night at work and all I wanted was the anonymity of the stool and the ability to leave without having to say goodbye, a place that wouldn’t remember me and wouldn’t let me run a tab. But life has a way of beckoning from the corners of my vision like a loud-mouthed whore with a lazy-eye, so I got my scotch neat, my glass of smoke and earth and moors, but I also got something else.

It was my ears fault, really. They hear things, like the couple outside smoking.

“Where did you lose it?”

“I don’t know. But who would steal a dildo from a gay bar?”

“You know what the secret is to not having your dildo stolen?”

“What?”

“If you never carry your dildo around with you, you never have to worry about losing it or it getting stolen.”

I asked the bartender to fill my glass again. A young guy sat on the bar stool next to me, the brim of his hat tipped up so I can see the underside, and let out a thunderous burp. I shot him a look out of the corner of my eye.

“Sorry, man.” He says and I nod.

Scotch. More scotch. Damn my ears.

“Oh, you think I’m playin?” She’s got a mohawk, a septum pierced with silver and a lisp. “Yo, this bitch gonna make me strap up.”

I heard buckles and looked because strapped up means something very specific to me. Not anymore. She was buckling on a rubber harness, and hanging from it is a small pink rubber cock and I wonder if this is the stolen dildo, or if this is a spare. I was more disturbed at how small it was, than its existence itself. Perhaps its a guy thing, and I don’t mean to be ungrateful for this chance to feel superior to a sex toy, but I figure go big or go home, right? I remembered a comedian I’d seen once who warned the female members of the audience never to send their men out to buy sex-toys unsupervised because they’d come home with something that ran off a Hemi engine and had a kick-stand. Personally, if I owned a rubber rock I’d want it to be heavy enough to beat somebody to death with.

My chair started to rock, and I turned around to see the girl with the strap-on humping the guy who’d burped next to me only moments ago. He had his hand on my chair, on my jacket slung across the back of my chair, and I peeled his hand off.

“Sorry, man. Sorry.” He said again. “But you know how it is.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the girl humping him and the harness holding her cock jingled.

A quick glance told me his trousers were still up, “Sure. I get it. You’re in the middle of something.”

Scotch. More scotch. I have a vision of drinking this same single malt while my grandchildren play around my feet, the oldest striking the middle one with a toy truck while the youngest shits his pants in the corner.

“Real live night, huh?” The bartender says, filling my glass.

I hear the man getting humped introduce himself to somebody I can’t see and a trio of obese women have come in from the back garden and are hovering around the scene.

“Hey, man. Yeah. I’m friends with her and him and him and the girl sticking her dick in my ass right now. Yeah, man. Nice to meet you.”

I nod goodnight to the bartender and just before I leave I see the obese women converging on the girl with the strap-on cock, still humping away.

Springsteen spoke and the rest of us answered like parrots.

Because I didn’t catch the bartender before she poured me another whiskey.

Because it’s independence day and the bar is full of born on the fourth of July.

All the lies are in here. Two Hasidic Jews with their fat black girlfriends. A night off from piety, clearly, and god bless them for that.

Raise my glass, L’chaim for the heartbreakers, Tom Petty and otherwise as young lovers fight at the end of the bar.

“I’m so sorry.” she says.

“why don’t you just listen to me.” he cried out and thank god they left the bar. Go ye who are in love, leave the bar and fuck for your sakes and your sakes alone. Glue the broken pieces back together because after a while it’s all broken pieces and you can see the cracks across both their hearts in the lines made by the grief in her face.

The drink too, makes lines strong enough to run parallel. To connect one to one and erase the fear of the future.

Fear of ourselves. Fear of each other. God bless the church pew and hymnal of the bed and that sheltered alcove on a nameless street.

God save and keep us all as we save and keep each other.

It’s a scandal-laced moment, though maybe just a private one, when you’re sitting at the bar with that favorite beer, that favorite bourbon, and they’re playing that good music.

And you realize you don’t have any Sam and Dave on your iPod. None. It ain’t even in your collection and you feel like you’ve misplaced the love of your life.

The worst part? You left that love cold, gave it a 20 for the bus and then you forgot she was gone. You forgot her name by the time the greyhound pulled away.

That’s the way it goes. Sometimes. Don’t go misplacing the love of your life.

Soothe me baby, soothe me. Soothe me with your eyes.

And yeah, I bet I got those lyrics wrong. But frankly? Fuck you. Those voices are two busy scraping down my soul for me to bother with consonants and vowels and correct arrangement of both.

I dropped my love off at the bus station and sent her away forever. And I ain’t a soul man, but I wish I was coming to you on a dirt road.

I ain’t got shit for you but a truckload of stories and I hope that when I find you we’re both ready.