Modest Mouse put it very well.
You know what though? The times were good. Some of those times were times where it was real good. The best.
I drove down West Boulevard today and it was raining, but you could see the sun through this huge gap in the clouds. It was pouring in full light and it just changed the whole mood. Little things matter in the big movie of life you know, like lighting choices. So anyway this duck, one of those ducks that look like they should be on a wall, you know with a green kinda shiny neck that’s utter pointlessness queries evolution, yeah well this duck was just swimming around in a puddle in the road, totally carefree. I remember seeing footage in the rough days after Hurricane Katrina of this one guy going around in a little dinghy, paddling and bopping along to a battery-powered boom-box, like the flooded streets were the greatest thing since Christmas. This was probably the most fun this guy had all year, dancing a couple of meters above the dead. I guess we all are in a way. Anyway, this duck looked just like him, splashing away like a tiny-brained bird about to get flattened by some divorced truckie smoking Camels on his way to a drag racing meet.
Ok so that was today, ducks today, gone tomorrow. But this feeling, this utter contentment in the midst of carnage and the blind ignorance of the oncoming cars just like the cars that killed those before us… this was the happiness we had. It’s too easy to mope about stuff that’s happened, Mikey used to yell his head off sometimes when I sat around and got all nostalgic and sad. Truth be told, the times were all heaven made flesh.
Maya Guardian, who was this dark brown haired hippie girl with all the best music, sat on this tiny red carpeted stage in the corner of an uptown café-bar. She held this old acoustic guitar like a dying grandma, kinda half carefully half screaming “why!?” at the gods. She was singing like a mixture of high pleading for mercy and low lickings of love just casually breaking the hearts of the mid-50s speed freaks who were tired of their mining jobs. The night rang out the essence of being correctly lit. Mikey had Mod Philosophy 112: Intro to Ethics with her, and had fallen madly in love ever since she blew him a kiss when he got a question right after her power-point presentation. Now he’d dragged the rest of us out pitching for taxi fare to see her get underappreciated for a fifty buck player’s fee. And yeah, she was good, and she was beautiful. There were four of us: Johnny, Michael, me and this guy called Jackson Barker who was always so tripped out we called him Sleepy Jackson. Sleepy was trying to buy our round in his drawling whisper when Mikey got turned down by Maya. Which was a pity, for it sure was a sight to see. In all the time I’ve known Mikey he never got turned down by anyone, and when I think about it he only missed Maya because he went about it all differently. He treated her like an angel, like the greatest thing he’d ever seen, and tried to gush himself all over her. Sickening yeah? But I think it ended up bringing them closer together, and it certainly got her talking with Johnny, if only to avoid eye contact, which meant she was pretty much part of the group.
There was the thinnest moon I can remember this night, it was so barely there, you had to really look to see this slash of light across the ink sky. Maya was drunk by the time we got out, and shouting Auden at the night like an incantation. Behind me, Johnny and Mikey were arguing about whether or not men could get breast cancer, and Sleepy was quietly smoking. I stopped in front of the big window of a bric-a-brac store to stare into the cluttered host of other people’s lives when right out of all fucking nowhere this guy jumps out with a flickblade and grabs Sleepy, screaming for money or drugs or some crazy shit. Johnny hits the deck, scared of his mind and cursing in Italian, Mikey starts waving his hands going “whoa man, whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, whoa man, whoa” and I’m eyes wide open staring lost like crazy, when Maya walks right up to this guy, whispers something, kisses him square on the mouth and gives him a cigarette and a light. It was the maddest, bravest, weirdest thing I probably ever saw, and this guy is just left standing there, smoking, stunned, with that just-lost-control-of-the-situation face and a dash of satisfaction. Then Maya just grabs Sleepy, motions for the rest of us to get up and come on, and we all walk away. Sure, the look on this nutter’s face was priceless, but it was Mikey’s face that I’ll never forget. He went out and bought a knife later that week, but he never had the guts to carry it.
Many years later, I think it was just after the 2004 presidential elections, yeah it was, right when me and Flo hit a real crazy patch after we both first tried heroin and it got way, way too dangerous., years later I finally asked Maya what she’d said to that guy before she kissed him.
“Life’s short pal, and to dust thou shall return.”
Fuck, he probably never mugged anyone ever again. But Maya Guardian was like that, she made everyone so damn frustrated, but so damn in love with her. And she sang like the sun lit the pouring rain. I drove alone down West Boulevard today, and I saw some ducks.
I drove down West Boulevard today and it was raining, but you could see the sun through this huge gap in the clouds. It was pouring in full light and it just changed the whole mood. Little things matter in the big movie of life you know, like lighting choices. So anyway this duck, one of those ducks that look like they should be on a wall, you know with a green kinda shiny neck that’s utter pointlessness queries evolution, yeah well this duck was just swimming around in a puddle in the road, totally carefree. I remember seeing footage in the rough days after Hurricane Katrina of this one guy going around in a little dinghy, paddling and bopping along to a battery-powered boom-box, like the flooded streets were the greatest thing since Christmas. This was probably the most fun this guy had all year, dancing a couple of meters above the dead. I guess we all are in a way. Anyway, this duck looked just like him, splashing away like a tiny-brained bird about to get flattened by some divorced truckie smoking Camels on his way to a drag racing meet.
Ok so that was today, ducks today, gone tomorrow. But this feeling, this utter contentment in the midst of carnage and the blind ignorance of the oncoming cars just like the cars that killed those before us… this was the happiness we had. It’s too easy to mope about stuff that’s happened, Mikey used to yell his head off sometimes when I sat around and got all nostalgic and sad. Truth be told, the times were all heaven made flesh.
Maya Guardian, who was this dark brown haired hippie girl with all the best music, sat on this tiny red carpeted stage in the corner of an uptown café-bar. She held this old acoustic guitar like a dying grandma, kinda half carefully half screaming “why!?” at the gods. She was singing like a mixture of high pleading for mercy and low lickings of love just casually breaking the hearts of the mid-50s speed freaks who were tired of their mining jobs. The night rang out the essence of being correctly lit. Mikey had Mod Philosophy 112: Intro to Ethics with her, and had fallen madly in love ever since she blew him a kiss when he got a question right after her power-point presentation. Now he’d dragged the rest of us out pitching for taxi fare to see her get underappreciated for a fifty buck player’s fee. And yeah, she was good, and she was beautiful. There were four of us: Johnny, Michael, me and this guy called Jackson Barker who was always so tripped out we called him Sleepy Jackson. Sleepy was trying to buy our round in his drawling whisper when Mikey got turned down by Maya. Which was a pity, for it sure was a sight to see. In all the time I’ve known Mikey he never got turned down by anyone, and when I think about it he only missed Maya because he went about it all differently. He treated her like an angel, like the greatest thing he’d ever seen, and tried to gush himself all over her. Sickening yeah? But I think it ended up bringing them closer together, and it certainly got her talking with Johnny, if only to avoid eye contact, which meant she was pretty much part of the group.
There was the thinnest moon I can remember this night, it was so barely there, you had to really look to see this slash of light across the ink sky. Maya was drunk by the time we got out, and shouting Auden at the night like an incantation. Behind me, Johnny and Mikey were arguing about whether or not men could get breast cancer, and Sleepy was quietly smoking. I stopped in front of the big window of a bric-a-brac store to stare into the cluttered host of other people’s lives when right out of all fucking nowhere this guy jumps out with a flickblade and grabs Sleepy, screaming for money or drugs or some crazy shit. Johnny hits the deck, scared of his mind and cursing in Italian, Mikey starts waving his hands going “whoa man, whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, whoa man, whoa” and I’m eyes wide open staring lost like crazy, when Maya walks right up to this guy, whispers something, kisses him square on the mouth and gives him a cigarette and a light. It was the maddest, bravest, weirdest thing I probably ever saw, and this guy is just left standing there, smoking, stunned, with that just-lost-control-of-the-situation face and a dash of satisfaction. Then Maya just grabs Sleepy, motions for the rest of us to get up and come on, and we all walk away. Sure, the look on this nutter’s face was priceless, but it was Mikey’s face that I’ll never forget. He went out and bought a knife later that week, but he never had the guts to carry it.
Many years later, I think it was just after the 2004 presidential elections, yeah it was, right when me and Flo hit a real crazy patch after we both first tried heroin and it got way, way too dangerous., years later I finally asked Maya what she’d said to that guy before she kissed him.
“Life’s short pal, and to dust thou shall return.”
Fuck, he probably never mugged anyone ever again. But Maya Guardian was like that, she made everyone so damn frustrated, but so damn in love with her. And she sang like the sun lit the pouring rain. I drove alone down West Boulevard today, and I saw some ducks.
posted by Cal Samson at 12:21 AM
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