“Shit, doesn’t the fucking heat ever let up around here?” I heard my
voice groan through the room, waking me up.
I
wasn’t looking for an answer to the question. I didn’t expect one. I hadn’t
heard a comforting word from the chair in weeks.
I
knew it was day by the shouts of the gypsy kids in the courtyard, screaming and
tearing around on their old bikes, the shouts of the mothers, the endless
yelping of the stray bitches.
This heat had started months ago and there seemed to be no reprieve.
Even the summer thunderstorms this year seemed too short and just a bit
impotent.
I
am dying.
Not
of old age, well maybe but not in the sense of accumulated years, no more like
old age of the mind. Burned out body, burned out will. The doctor had some word
for it… I forget. We can get to that later. What needs to be known now is I’m
dying. And pretty fast.
In
my waking hours I am attempting to put my life in order so that when it all
flashes in front of me there won’t be any big surprises. When I am not in
deliriums I try to do it chronologically, other times as the events come up I
remember as much as I can about them, catalogue them, and rest a bit easier.
The
beautiful rhythms of this language flow over me. I have lived here for 3½ yrs.
I know the basics. How to ask questions and understand the answers. Order food,
beer, and women. The essentials with a little icing added on top for good
measure.
Even Eastern Europe seems to becoming tame these days. I was talking w/
a couple gurls, (they are prostitutes who live next door), and they were
complaining about how the cops were starting to give a shit. That the cops had
begun doing their jobs and weren’t so interested in the little bribes of money
or trade which use to keep them out of trouble. Shit, you know somewhere is
going to the dogs when the cops are going straight.
I
want to sit up but feel no strength in my body. This happens. It will pass. For
now I look at the insides of my eyelids and attempt to centre myself. To create
a perfect balance, to find my centre and move from there, move through there. Weird,
peacenik meditation shit, but seems to work.
To
say nothing ever worked out right for me would be an overstatement. I should
say nothing ever worked out all the way for me. Never seemed to get to the end
result. Always getting hung up somewhere along the way.
My
mind wanders through the verdant landscape of my brain. Years come and go as
easy as the buses into and out of a station. I can feel somewhere deep in my
memory the feeling of a grey spring day. The trees had all blossomed, the
spring flowers were a blanket to the newly thawed earth. It had already been
hot and sunny enough that I had had to take care not to burn. But that day was
one of those throw back days. Ones that gets thrown into the mix to remind us
where we were coming from; the cold earth hardened winter.
The
wind howled against the windows of the apartment I was in. At that time in my
life it was like every other day. There was never any future at that time. How
could there be? The world was open to us like a flower. There was always a
couple of good friends, a few bottles and a stage set for crazy potential.
On
this particular day, and I remember this clearly, Jackson and Robbie were
there. We were talking shit. Complaining about never having enough money to pay
the bills, buy the groceries, that sort of talk. It was within that
conversation of continual woe that we struck upon the idea that has me lying
here dying. Jackson, last I heard, hustling the streets of Mexico City and
Robbie already having met his maker long before any of the pay-off even came
through.
What I can’t stand about this dying business is that I will no longer be
here. Sounds trite as hell but it’s one truth I’m not so looking forward to.
Shit, I mean I expected so much more out of life.
