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| _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ |
| OUR OPERATORS ARE STANDING BY |
Early Morning Jazz, Early Morning Blues
by G. Rhydian Morgan
Saturday, December 22, 2007
by G. Rhydian Morgan
Saturday, December 22, 2007
| CONTACT THE LIZARD |
The music was loud in the room as I walked in. The
music was LOUD in my head as I sat down. It was good music.
It was fast music. It made me think of smoky basements, women
in red dresses and good whiskey. A long night with some body
you loved, at least then if not the next day. It was played
from the heart and your emotion piped it directly to that
part of your mind where it would do most good. Or most
damage. It depends. It was music to tap your foot to. Music
to snap your fingers and nod your head to. To drink, get high
and make love to. To your own beat that you are free to find.
It was last night’s music. It brought image laden memory of
the woman Joe wanted even when he knew he was a she, and the
blind sax man who played so sweet and so low that we all
wanted to cry. It was Last Night music.
This was this morning. The sun was a bright
thismorning yellow. My head throbbed with a dull thismorning
hangover. The beer was thismorning warm in the bottle and
thismorning stale in my mouth. And this morning I did not
want to listen to Last Night music. I opened a fresh bottle
of beer when the first was finished as first aid. I drank and
it settled in my stomach in a lake. The lake became a rock.
It did not move and it did not go away. I wanted to feel
better but I didn’t. And the Last Night music played on and
on. I stood up and the rock in my stomach shifted. It shot to
my head and threw me into last night when I wasn’t supposed
to be there and I didn’t want be there. I didn’t want to be
in this morning but I had no choice. I was being flung from
beer to whiskey, from hangover to drunk, from the blues to
jazz. I was swinging between last night and this morning and
right now I did not know where I was. I was somewhere, I was
some body in between. But what lies between last night and
this morning? And I fell to the floor, letting go of the beer
in the bottle and in my stomach. I lied to myself that it was
a controlled action. I had meant to do it. I lied so well I
believed myself and I stood up again. I didn’t care too much
about the vomit. It was on me and not the floor and these
were last night’s clothes. They had no place in this morning.
What I really wanted was another beer so I went to get one
and she came in and screamed, “EGGS?!”
I wished she wouldn’t do that and nodded. I flicked
through the records to see if I could find any This Morning
music. Howlin’ Wolf was in there so I took him out, grateful.
I felt a little better listening to some body sound the way
this body felt and I opened the new beer. She came in with
the eggs and wanted a beer too. I told her I didn’t have
enough. She told me to FUCK myself. I looked at her. She
asked whose apartment did I think it was. She asked who had
paid for the fucking beer in the first place. I looked
around. This wasn’t my place. I apologised and offered to get
some as soon as the store opened. She said that would be
fine. The Wolf howled and the eggs were good. We ate in
silence. It was a long slow silence that showed the proper
respect for dead people and hangovers. It was not a silence
to be broken. We finished the eggs and the beers and the
other beer we did not know about until she fell over it and
almost broke a rib. I left the table looking at the silence
that still hung over it. I wished I could put a ‘DO NOT
DISTURB’ sign on my mind, let my hangover hang over the
silence that hung over the table and go to sleep. The record
was finished. So was all the beer and she had been swallowed
up by the bathroom. The silence slipped of the table and
left. It wanted somewhere with a little more atmosphere.
I went to the shop and bought beer, crackers and
whiskey. I hoped that the bathroom would have coughed her up
by the time I got back but she wasn’t there. She was asleep
in the bath with a religious programme on the radio. That is
where I wanted to be. I went over to the armchair and sank
into it. My head had cleared a little and so I put the bird
on the record player and drank a slow beer and chewed a few
crackers. I drifted slowly towards last night and didn’t
regret this morning so much. I thought of her. I thought
whether I had met her last night or some time before that but
I couldn’t remember so I gave up thinking. She came out of
the bathroom with four aspirin in her hand. I told her I did
not want my share. She swallowed them all and chased them
with a beer. I told her she was crazy but I smiled as I said
it. She had big eyes that looked good without makeup and her
nose twisted half way down and went off on a tangent. It was
a very independent nose. I gave it a kiss that her mouth rose
and stole. I don’t know if I wanted to kiss her mouth. I
wanted to kiss her nose. She tasted of last night still with
this morning’s beer layered on top. It wasn’t stale though
like the first one so we kissed for a minute and a half. She
rubbed the back of my head and my neck. My hangover was like
a piece of cotton wound around and around my brain, pressing
from all sides. She caught the thread at the base of my skull
and very slowly drew out my hangover. She wound it slowly
around her slim fingers careful that it did not break and
some hangover shoot back in. then when she had it all she
rolled it into a ball and threw it in the corner of the room.
It lay there squirming and gasping and I looked at it and
didn’t care. I smiled at her and she kissed me on the cheek.
We held each other. Then we sat both in the same chair and
drank my beer and my whiskey when the beer was gone. We were
heading for the Afternoon, and fast. The Afternoon was the
traditional end of friendships like ours. We both knew that.
But there was nothing we could do. It shouldn’t have
mattered. We should have been resigned to it. But we weren’t,
and it did matter. We drifted into our final hour, our finest
hour, the Afternoon. We shared jokes, intimacy and whiskey
for I didn’t care how long and we hoped that the Afternoon
would take the day off and never arrive. Or that if it did we
would be too drunk to notice, too drunk to tell the time and
we would think this morning was extended indefinitely.
Time had passed. We could not hide or escape from
that fact. This Morning was where we had been young and
beautiful and in love. Now we were old. Grey-haired and
haggard we cheating ourselves and on each other continuing a
lie of love. Maybe in another smoky basement we would meet
again. Maybe there would be another night like last night.
And another morning like this morning. But there would never
be another time like this. The sun and my spirits began to
sink until both I and the night would finish black, and
starless. I stood up to leave. I crossed the room. I paused
at the door and turned to her. I opened my mouth to say…
something, shout some thing, SCREAM SOMETHING!, but nothing
came. What was there? I stared at her through whiskey tears
and the silence returned. It settled into the seat I had
left. It had found the right atmosphere.
music was LOUD in my head as I sat down. It was good music.
It was fast music. It made me think of smoky basements, women
in red dresses and good whiskey. A long night with some body
you loved, at least then if not the next day. It was played
from the heart and your emotion piped it directly to that
part of your mind where it would do most good. Or most
damage. It depends. It was music to tap your foot to. Music
to snap your fingers and nod your head to. To drink, get high
and make love to. To your own beat that you are free to find.
It was last night’s music. It brought image laden memory of
the woman Joe wanted even when he knew he was a she, and the
blind sax man who played so sweet and so low that we all
wanted to cry. It was Last Night music.
This was this morning. The sun was a bright
thismorning yellow. My head throbbed with a dull thismorning
hangover. The beer was thismorning warm in the bottle and
thismorning stale in my mouth. And this morning I did not
want to listen to Last Night music. I opened a fresh bottle
of beer when the first was finished as first aid. I drank and
it settled in my stomach in a lake. The lake became a rock.
It did not move and it did not go away. I wanted to feel
better but I didn’t. And the Last Night music played on and
on. I stood up and the rock in my stomach shifted. It shot to
my head and threw me into last night when I wasn’t supposed
to be there and I didn’t want be there. I didn’t want to be
in this morning but I had no choice. I was being flung from
beer to whiskey, from hangover to drunk, from the blues to
jazz. I was swinging between last night and this morning and
right now I did not know where I was. I was somewhere, I was
some body in between. But what lies between last night and
this morning? And I fell to the floor, letting go of the beer
in the bottle and in my stomach. I lied to myself that it was
a controlled action. I had meant to do it. I lied so well I
believed myself and I stood up again. I didn’t care too much
about the vomit. It was on me and not the floor and these
were last night’s clothes. They had no place in this morning.
What I really wanted was another beer so I went to get one
and she came in and screamed, “EGGS?!”
I wished she wouldn’t do that and nodded. I flicked
through the records to see if I could find any This Morning
music. Howlin’ Wolf was in there so I took him out, grateful.
I felt a little better listening to some body sound the way
this body felt and I opened the new beer. She came in with
the eggs and wanted a beer too. I told her I didn’t have
enough. She told me to FUCK myself. I looked at her. She
asked whose apartment did I think it was. She asked who had
paid for the fucking beer in the first place. I looked
around. This wasn’t my place. I apologised and offered to get
some as soon as the store opened. She said that would be
fine. The Wolf howled and the eggs were good. We ate in
silence. It was a long slow silence that showed the proper
respect for dead people and hangovers. It was not a silence
to be broken. We finished the eggs and the beers and the
other beer we did not know about until she fell over it and
almost broke a rib. I left the table looking at the silence
that still hung over it. I wished I could put a ‘DO NOT
DISTURB’ sign on my mind, let my hangover hang over the
silence that hung over the table and go to sleep. The record
was finished. So was all the beer and she had been swallowed
up by the bathroom. The silence slipped of the table and
left. It wanted somewhere with a little more atmosphere.
I went to the shop and bought beer, crackers and
whiskey. I hoped that the bathroom would have coughed her up
by the time I got back but she wasn’t there. She was asleep
in the bath with a religious programme on the radio. That is
where I wanted to be. I went over to the armchair and sank
into it. My head had cleared a little and so I put the bird
on the record player and drank a slow beer and chewed a few
crackers. I drifted slowly towards last night and didn’t
regret this morning so much. I thought of her. I thought
whether I had met her last night or some time before that but
I couldn’t remember so I gave up thinking. She came out of
the bathroom with four aspirin in her hand. I told her I did
not want my share. She swallowed them all and chased them
with a beer. I told her she was crazy but I smiled as I said
it. She had big eyes that looked good without makeup and her
nose twisted half way down and went off on a tangent. It was
a very independent nose. I gave it a kiss that her mouth rose
and stole. I don’t know if I wanted to kiss her mouth. I
wanted to kiss her nose. She tasted of last night still with
this morning’s beer layered on top. It wasn’t stale though
like the first one so we kissed for a minute and a half. She
rubbed the back of my head and my neck. My hangover was like
a piece of cotton wound around and around my brain, pressing
from all sides. She caught the thread at the base of my skull
and very slowly drew out my hangover. She wound it slowly
around her slim fingers careful that it did not break and
some hangover shoot back in. then when she had it all she
rolled it into a ball and threw it in the corner of the room.
It lay there squirming and gasping and I looked at it and
didn’t care. I smiled at her and she kissed me on the cheek.
We held each other. Then we sat both in the same chair and
drank my beer and my whiskey when the beer was gone. We were
heading for the Afternoon, and fast. The Afternoon was the
traditional end of friendships like ours. We both knew that.
But there was nothing we could do. It shouldn’t have
mattered. We should have been resigned to it. But we weren’t,
and it did matter. We drifted into our final hour, our finest
hour, the Afternoon. We shared jokes, intimacy and whiskey
for I didn’t care how long and we hoped that the Afternoon
would take the day off and never arrive. Or that if it did we
would be too drunk to notice, too drunk to tell the time and
we would think this morning was extended indefinitely.
Time had passed. We could not hide or escape from
that fact. This Morning was where we had been young and
beautiful and in love. Now we were old. Grey-haired and
haggard we cheating ourselves and on each other continuing a
lie of love. Maybe in another smoky basement we would meet
again. Maybe there would be another night like last night.
And another morning like this morning. But there would never
be another time like this. The sun and my spirits began to
sink until both I and the night would finish black, and
starless. I stood up to leave. I crossed the room. I paused
at the door and turned to her. I opened my mouth to say…
something, shout some thing, SCREAM SOMETHING!, but nothing
came. What was there? I stared at her through whiskey tears
and the silence returned. It settled into the seat I had
left. It had found the right atmosphere.
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FIN
© lizardmagazine.com, 2007