thirty, thirty-one. the end.

Thirty...

It all makes sense now. And while I have a hard time explaining to people where it is that I have been and what it is that I've been doing I know they understand. I can see it in their faces. They've heard enough to make up their own minds, form their own opinions, make up the stories they think are true. A few months have passed since I gave up the ghost, since I put aside the late nights in places I had once only heard about. Since I had last seen the inside of an all night booze can, since I had last seen one of the women, again old enough to maybe be my mother, who I had been having some sort of weird affair with. And while the smoking is still at an all time high, the drugs have stopped and I haven't downed more than a few drinks in the past week or so. Sometimes I miss the nights out and all the shit I found myself in. The nights lost in alleys of Chinatown, the phone numbers I'd find in my pockets days later after a few days away from home. But it's usually only late in the night that I find myself this way, when it's dark and all I have is my mind's eye to work with.
The work has been coming fast and furious, and I'm in love with it. Writing pieces for a couple of shows at the station for the kind of money I had only once dreamt about. The cafe takes up a lot of my time but it gives me contact with others that I really need right now. In some ways it's sort of pathetic how back in order my life is, how wholesome it is but it feels justified somehow. Some days some of the customers talk about the nights they've had and how they feel now because of it and I can only say that I hope they get over it.
Tonight after work I'm heading to Seattle for a few days to hang out, see a couple of shows and a couple of friends there. A guy needs a couple of days away every now and then. Sure I haven't been working that long since I gave it all up but rest is good as is a little time out. It's like recharging the old batteries and lord knows you can't fly without fuel.

"Tonight, tonight I say goodbye,
to everyone who loves me.
Stick it to my enemies tonight,
then I’ll disappear.
Bathe my path in shining light,
set the dials to thrill me.
Every secret has its price,
this one's set to kill"

Crime scene part one
Afghan Whigs



Thirty-one...

Storybook romance... Out of sight

There's a cancer in here tonight. One that's going to eat me alive. They sit at their tables drinking and smoking not looking for anything more. Everyone here has had sex with everyone else at some time. I've seen it, shit, I've been a part of it, from time to time. Each and everyone of them has taken a part of me at sometime and I, a part of them. There's a cancer in each of them, a lump practically sticking out of them. They have nowhere to go but here and I wonder how long it is that I will be a part of all this. I have taken pleasure in their pain for so long I can no longer remove myself from being part of the problem. Who will it be tonight? Who will I end up with?
I haven't fixed in days and I feel as if I may be on the road to giving it all up for good. Those around me, the few, have continued to load up, drink, fix and whatever else. The thrill is still alive and well for many, it may be dying in me, maybe the thrill is gone. Tonight I feel the urge to move on and see what else is out there.
I'm leaving this bar for the last time. The cancer's in here tonight, maybe it was here all along but I just couldn't see it before. The nights spent until closing, the drives to parties afterwards, the nights spent in the company of others that I had no real knowledge of. I've got to get out of here.
In my car I check my wallet and see that I have all I need to go. My credit card, a few hundred dollars, my bank card and all my identification. A quick trip home to gather up a few clothes and I should be set. I can sleep in my car if I have to for the first couple of days then I'll have a better idea of what's what. South is my only real option right now, down past Seattle and maybe on to California. I have a few relatives there who I haven't seen in a while and who, I assume, wouldn't mind putting me up for a few days until I figure out what I doing.
The streets are wet as I course through them and down Cordova Street to my house. Inside I pack up what I need and am of again but not before phoning a few friends and leaving messages on their machines. Messages to let them know that I'm going but that I'll be back but when I don't know. They've heard it all before as I've disappeared late in the night. I leave one message with a friend who has keys to my place and tell her to check on the place every couple of days and even stay there if she wants. Grabbing my ghetto blaster I'm off and down the elevator to my car.
The traffic's light as it's a monday night and all the regular humans are in bed resting up for the next day. I pass a couple of police cars at Main and Hastings who are in the middle of busting one of the many drug dealers in the area. As I make my way down Main I see a woman hitch hiking near twenty-fourth and decide to pull over and pick her up.
I tell her it's a little late to be out flagging down rides, especially on Main Street. She's young and says she's just trying to get home.
"Where do you live?"
"I'm staying near Forty-first and Fraser."
"Staying?"
"I don't live in Vancouver."
"Where do you live?"
"I've lived all over. I'm just staying with friends. I just came over from Calgary. I'm not sure what I'm doing next."
"You're not in school or working anywhere? "
"I left university shortly after the term started. I was having problems."
"Bad grades?"
"No. They were ok, I guess. I was living with my boyfriend and he started drinking alot and then I did. And before I knew it I was out every night partying and getting loaded. Doing all sorts of sick shit"
"So you decided to leave and see..."
"See what else there was, get away from it all."
Turning around to look in the back she spots my stuff and asks me about all of it.
"What's with all the bags in the back, you going somewhere?"
"You could kind of say I'm getting away from it all too."
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know yet. Maybe to find a church somewhere."
"You believe in god?"
"It's nothing like that."
She’s exactly what I don’t need right now. A beautiful young girl with nowhere really to be. Yet I couldn't help myself, like I had been unable to help myself in the past. I was being drawn into her. All the thoughts of the junk and shit I was trying to get away from left me and all I could think about was her right at that moment. I should never have stopped to pick her up but I was happy that I had, even though it was the worst thing I could have happen to me right now. I wanted her to come with me. All the shit could be cleared up by her. She didn't need to know what I had been doing, where I had been, just where I was going. In that instant I did it, the one thing that would change everything.
"You want to come with me?"
"Where? To find a church?"
"I don't know yet really. But maybe"
"I like that idea."
"Well...?"
"I'll have to leave a note..."
"You can phone them tomorrow. This will be great."
"I think you're right."

In the end it isn’t the cancer at all that gets you, it’s something else altogether.