after Twilight

“The things you do Leo, the places you go,” and sighing, she says, “be careful of that one, nodding toward the card, it’s a dangerous one; illusions and madness or poetry and visions.  You get to choose.

“I know,” I say, while looking around the dimly lit room, at shadowy shapes and oblong shadows in waiting.

Another table not unlike the one we are sitting at, stares back at me from the other side of the room. On one side, an exercise bike that nobody rides, on the other, an open window from where I hear wind chimes tinkling through the curtain; their eerie secret… safe from me.

I feel a pain in my

right shoulder, like

a muscle pull I

decide, knowing

that later on in life,

the sensation will

not seem so foreign;

more like the

feeling one feels,

when hearing the

other shoe drop.

“What do the cards say? I ask.

“Do you want to know?”

“Yes, but I can wait,” I say as I pick up a newly rolled joint, from the table, and light it; hearing her say, “but I can’t,” as I inhale the room’s mixture of reality and fantasy.   

There’s something about the window; not that it’s raised, that’s a norm, but, different, something that I don’t know, and I think of Whit and his unknown unknowns, those we don’t know – that we don’t know.

“How can we know what we don't know, ” she says, taking the joint from me, our eyes meeting, caressing each other, wild thoughts running rampant, meanings unknown.

“Only by experiencing them, I say, glancing back to the window.”

“But you do... know.”

“It’s a familiar discussion, one that we’ve had many times before; what she calls dancing in the circle.

She plays with the ends of her hair, waiting for my response; her eyes, like the night, full of mystery and danger, as suddenly it’s no longer a familiar discussion.

I look at her in the gathering tension, and notice the new card lying next to the moon card; my awareness soaring past its artificial  zenith, my eyes taking in the beauty before me. 

Her dark complexion, matched with the hair, now gray not black, made maddeningly more intriguing by the occasional silver thread. 

Red lips full and perfect like the rest of her; long fingers, ...nails trimmed in black, with tiny silver blotches in the middle of each.

Why now, I ask myself, as I say, “you knew tonight would be the night?”

“Yes,” she murmurs, leaning back into the cushions of her chair, adding, “tonight, the circle becomes a straight line.”

A welcome breeze blows from the window, the curtain waving inward, exposing lights from below, like  stars above, and as it falls back, the tension follows it out the window.

The New Residencia

Established - 2005

Editor – Ice

Dep editor – Pup

Consultant – Edwina

Vice Pres. – Daze

Exec VP – Six

Custodian – Lucy

Scoop Reporter – Jonnie

Ace Reporter - Scratch

Slowly, very slowly, I slide onto my belly and crawl down the hill; reaching my horse I climb aboard with the feeling that I’m making more than enough noise to be heard by the war party.

Threading our way carefully, I hold Sawyer to a lope as we leave the cover of the trees and head toward to where the others are. 

They are a full 2 miles away and I realize that while I need to warn them as quick as possible, I also need to take it easy on Sawyer, and decide that holding him to an easy lope is the best course of action.

As I ride along on back of the big bay, my mind is splitting off in several directions.

The first concern is the war party of course, but I have other thoughts, and it is difficult to keep them out of my head, as I’m looking over my shoulder for anyone following me.

That the Apaches, if they are Apaches, may have scouts of their own, who are watching, perhaps following, is my biggest worry.

The others must be warned, but the last thing I want to do is to lead a war party to the wagon train.

Another thought, is, "exactly where am I?”  These “time switches,” as I’ve come to call them are peculiar in and of themselves, but they sometimes cast me into a time and place that is hard to determine. 

Obviously I’m in the “old west,” and although I’ve yet to see the wagon train, I know it consists of 20 wagons and roughly 72 men, women and children. But as to what part of the United States I’m in, or what year it is, or whether or not either is important, I have no idea, and other than the Indians, I have not seen a single human being. 

To say that I’m scared is simply to breathe, and I can feel the cold sweat in my armpits being evaporated by my own fear, while the “runaway” adrenalin rush, that is trapped in my head - screams for me - to put Sawyer into a dead gallop, and “get the hell out of here”!

But riding on, looking for the wagons, seriously wondering if I’m headed in the right direction, I can only hope and pray, that I will stumble onto them. 

Suddenly I do. There! Not more than a hundred yards directly in front of me, I see the back end of a wagon, a couple of men are standing  along side of it.

Gigging Sawyer with my boots, he breaks into a gallop, as if he too, is scared half out of his wits. Refusing to hold him back, now that I’ve seen the wagon, I dig my boots hard into his sides, and we race toward the wagon.

Through the air
I fly upon the air
Towards the sky, far, far, far,
O, ha le
O, ha le!
There to find the holy place,
Ah, now the change comes o're me!
O, ha le
O, ha le!

From a place I don’t know, the song has come upon me; it’s almost a chant instead of a song, and as I view the lone rider below, as he rides into the circle of covered wagons, I can only gasp in astonishment as I watch a small group of people gather around him.

For I know them!  They are friends of mine, I’ve known them forever, and now I’m leaving them, I’m moving on again, already, as it sometimes happens.

Fleetingly, as I leave, I know my name is John, and I see George and Tamson.  They’re looking at the rider, smiling, waving.  I can see Eddy and his wife Eleanor, and their two children.  There are others, and I know them all, as I know we are headed for Sutter’s Fort, and that we’ll make it, the Indians are not Apache, and they will not bother the wagon train. 

Then…. I know too much.

Sitting at the bar, I study the glass in front of me.  Music is coming out of the jukebox in the corner. I’m in Miami, and it’s late; there isn’t anyone around except the bartender and an old black guy sweeping the floor, and I can’t help but think of the song, “Old dogs and Watermelon Wine,” that Tom T. Hall had sung back in the 70’s.

But the song that’s playing is a ballad of a different sort, and though it sounds familiar I’m unable to recognize it.

The bartender saunters over to where I am, and as he dries the glass in his hand, with a dirty cloth, he looks at me and says, “closing time fellow, time to hit the door.”

The old man sweeping the floor is close enough for me to feel his presence, and as he leans the broom on the bar, he speaks to the bartender, “how long has he been here,” his tone of voice, as if I’m not there.

When the bartender just grunts, the old man laughs, and retrieves a pack of cigarettes, from somewhere in his pants, carefully pulling one out, and while putting it to his face, he mutters under his breath, “drunks and winos.”

But I know.  I know who I am.  My name is Leo, and the year is 2006, the month is June, the actual date, the 20^th.

Leaving the bar, I walk outside and feel the Florida heat massage me in places I didn’t know I had; a cab is sitting by the curb, and it looks un-used at the moment.  The driver, a Mexican or Puerto Rican, is slouched over the steering wheel, reading a comic book, by the interior light of the car.

“Shades of Abe Lincoln,” I think to myself with a chuckle. 

Getting in the back seat I toss him a $50 bill and tell him the address… and that he can keep the change.

Ten minutes later we’re pulling in front of the apartment complex where my humble abode is located, deep and secluded in the middle somewhere, towards the back.

Climbing the stairs, past the broken down Coke machine, which has no cokes, or money, and is probably out of here by this time tomorrow night, I kick a empty can, and pull the key from my pocket as I arrive home.

Inside I can smell the incense, as it vainly, and only half-heartedly try’s to cover the marijuana smell.

She’s sitting at the table, the small lamp beside her, the only light in the apartment. 

I reach down and pick up the tarot cards that are lying in the midst of a glob of silver jewelry, bracelets, rings and necklaces, and looking into her eyes I see that though she’s stoned, she’s still with me.

She’s looking good as a matter of fact, and her long gray hair practically simmers from the dull light of the lamp, and as I  watch her eyes come up to mine, she smiles at me.

Although at 50 she’s twice my age, she’s neither my mother nor my lover.

“My darling,” she says as she takes the cards from my hand, and continues to speak,  lightly shuffling them with one hand, “been playing Cowboys and Indians?”

“Don’t joke about it, please,” I say as I fall into a chair next to her, and watch as she pulls a moon card from the deck, and places it face up on the table.

“The things you do Leo, the places you go,” and sighing, she says, “be careful of that one, nodding toward the card, it’s a dangerous one; illusions and madness or poetry and visions.  You get to choose.”

THE NEW RESIDENCIA

ESTABLISHED – May 22^rd, 1931

Editor – Ice

Dep Editor - PuP

Vice Pres – Daze

Exec VP – Six

Exec VP Circulation- Earl Snerdly

Political Hack – I.C. Mann

Ace Reporter – Johnnie

Scoop Reporter – Scratchomo

Janitor – Lucy

Consultant - Leo

The First 15 minutes….

We were at the Hotel bar, the long day of “company meetings,” finally over.  I ordered  “Jack,” straight up like it came; he said, he’d have the same.”

We were both department heads; loaded with responsibility, neither drawing the salary we wanted.

I’d been with the company for 5 years, he, about the same although I wasn’t exactly sure. 

I was married, husband Jock, back home with our two kids; he was divorced, a kid or two maybe, again, I was unsure.

It was our 2^nd day in Chicago,

a city we’d been before, a

boring  place in my opinion.  He took a sip of his drink and commented that we’d been here three times in the last year.

I knew that already, and wondered how come we’d found ourselves alone in the bar.  Oh there were others, but nobody we knew, everyone else from our group, downtown getting dinner.

I liked him, and was admittedly attracted, though my marriage to Jock was, I thought, perfect.

Our history was strictly business and in fact, we had never been alone before.  I thought about the date; it was June 10^th, 2006.

Feeling him turn in my direction, I faced him as he spoke slowly and clearly, as if he wanted to be sure I understood everything he was saying,  “ten-thousand years from now we’ll be dead and dust, and no one will care whether or not we slept together tonight or not, so, what are we waiting for?”

To be continued in the comment section….. feel welcome to add your own ending, before reading mine.

Poetry attempts:

…Tag

there’s a person who’s tagged

though you don’t know you’re it

and the touch is agreed

to have been  - to where you sit

a mystery; a half-circle

the other half coming around

as I watch the miracle

not making a sound

clouds parting ways

a path for a brilliant sun

the great trees sway

while all is being done

birds fly away

small animals paw the ground

something clogs the airway

a cough, a sound

time to go

get on the horse

not fast – but slow

to the ground - falls a rose

Summer-time

summer - heat & humidity

a fire I’m unable to cope with

rages inside, with humility

my soul does writhe

sounds and voices trying to say

a season to be one to one

neath a tree we lay

and the sun shone

music plays in my head

words dart through channels

never explored – never heard

or read in how-to manuals 

you looked inside

to find the answer

but an aside

made you swear

the moment missed

not to be explained

so we just kissed

and remained the same

you’re it

come go with me

let’s not dither

just let it be

or would you rather

we stayed as is

not scarred or cut

slow spin on a axis

the quarry laid out

or was that query

no mind – get on with it

we shouldn’t tarry

not a good bet

storm coming

hot sun in retreat

this time – calming

tag – you’re it