the neighbor's porch

We should count ourselves lucky. How good the time is lasting. How time is lasting good. That means something right now. Nevermind kinetics. I'm self aware but it's of no consequence. I can do anything without any repercussion I'm willing to worry over. Like my neighbor's porch. I've never even talked to those old folks. But they're kindly, I know, everyone's kindly. Like me. Let's go.

It's somewhere past midnight and I'm beckoning you, and you're enough on my wavelength to come. That old fogey house, follow me, follow my lead, my lead sheet, like it's your bible. It's MY bible after all, it's good enough for me. The world is my home. I wonder, I loudly inquire of you, and I know your answer will be golden: What ethnicity is this old couple, the Edilizias? Sounds Italian to me. Let's go into the history and what it means for everything. No, pull up a chair, it's alright, I swear, these are my neighbors, even though I've never talked to them, everything is alright.

"Bring the NOISE!" I scream and you laugh. We're sitting on my neighbor's rocking chairs, on their porch. We wandered up here from downtown and made ourselves at home, in this beautiful sloped suburb, with casual haste, blood engorged dynamos. Night. A little nichtmusik, maestro. We crashed this quiet hood, immaculate, and I have just acquired three hundred things to say about their garden. Let's have a garden party, a luau in the strawberry patch. Teach me, you wizened depression era survivors, I have so much to learn.

Now I insist we do a vocal version of the Anthrax/Public Enemy rap-metal song Rick Rubin helped engineer. You oblige, gamely, that's why I keep you around, you beautiful person, I love looking into your eyes and seeing how I can appreciate how genuine your flesh basket is. This is Window. Bring the noise. It will fuel a thirty minute conversation I will compress into forty seconds. That's how things work here. After I'm done schooling you on Rick Rubin, some other subject will immediately occur to me.

Actually, forget Rick Rubin, don't you LOVE the WOOD of these CHAIRS? This is what they call Heaven on Earth. What are we going to do when our noise wakes up these italian neighbors, you wonder. Won't they freak out? What if they have a shotgun? I scream laughter. This is Canada. We're axe murderers up here. If there's anything to worry about, it's the hatchet. We will meld with their lineage, that's all. I know that's impractical, I know there is such a thing as reality, and this is not it, but that just encourages me. I'm incorrigible. You're in my entourage. It's okay. I'm loving it and so should you. This is the only time I'm capable of commanding an entourage. We'll tour the arbitrage.

Uh oh. You notice it first, but I swivel my head in the happy jitter of knee-jerk. Reaction. They're up. Mr. Edilizias, his wife hi pitching something in the catacombs of inside. He doesn't look happy. Well why would he be? It's okay, I can deal with this situation. No, I know I can't, because despite my best intentions, my impossible to control physical jitters will give away too much context. I'll let you do the talking and try not to look too crazy.

You say, "Hey, sorry, we were just hanging on your porch for a minute, we're going now, sorry to disturb you." You always know what to do. Maybe you saved my life.

We should hang, I think, we can work it out. But no, despite how low gravity is for me, I know we must go. And that's okay. Hey, heaven is everywhere.

Although the first crack is in my head now. The sink. The drain. There's no way to avoid the crash, I know that feeling. But wait. It's gone. The good is back. It's sweet again. I feel it in my body, the warmth. And it's lasting again. Oh good, oh God. I don't thank God for heaven, that's sacrilegious. It's a sin, like the spacemen said.

But it's swirling again, toward the death, the destination. Damnit. The way it goes down the drain is so sad, I don't know what to do. When you slowly, oh so slowly run out of things to talk about, a drawn out torturous death of night, when you have time to try and find some way to be upbeat, some way that will be forever elusive, but you try. You don't try though, you're more sophisticated than me. That's why I get higher, that's why I crash so hard. The ridiculous reality is that this empty ness, this grave is the price of regaining dignity. What good is that? It's the currency, it's how we buy fuel. We gave up happiness, but we didn’t give up gas. Dignity is dollars.