Tracks

[Chilimuffin]

(note: some adult language)

The center of the city is the warmest part. So that's where I huddle, chain smoking the cold away.

I'm hunting dragons tonight, armed with ash and fire. It sucks as camoflage, but chasing dragons isn't about fitting in. It's about connecting.

SingSong man walks by, mumbling crazed lyrics of old children's songs to himself as always. He's a tall frizzy birdlike castoff from the beginnings of punk rock, a Johnny Rotten refugee. I hear him drop into a tiny little voice, cracked high, as he stumbled by. "The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah. The ants go marching five by five....." I used to understand what he really meant by that, but I've been trying to forget for years. In a moment of lucidity, he asked me once if I still remembered screaming off the rooftops at three a.m. I did and told him, so he went on singing.

It's hard to scream off rooftops when you're too short to jump to the fire escapes. But aside from that, it's a good use of energy.

I smoke about three packs a year, and all on these nights. Each drag brings me a little closer to the language, words melted along eastern train tracks that never knew I was there. Sometimes, I think that if I smoke enough, I'll remember what SingSong man is really saying, and we can go screaming together.

The train home was always the two a.m. one, because it was easier to get under the fence at the steel factory than the gas company, even though the gas company's train left at three. The convenience was worth cutting the time short a bit. Besides, no one wants to be totally sober when they're train-hopping, at least not the secret chickenshits like me. SingSong man would laugh if we could talk, but somewhere I know his secrets too. I know how he stares at himself naked in the public bathroom at four a.m. and wonders if he'll ever get laid again. I know he jacks off before he slides the needle in, just to get the blood flowing underneath that withered skin. I don't think he knows I used to pay so much attention to him, but then again, all of us had someone we singled out to watch.

A thousand miles away, and I can still feel the rumble of tracks numb against goosebumped skin.

I watch the drunken frat boys stagger home bellowing. We must've won. Football is like a war in that respect. The team doesn't win, we do, as if they're defending their city, our city, against a foreign invasion of men in tight shorts and helmets. Some of them have giggling, bleached out women on their arms, just as drunk. Stubbing out my spent cigarette, I wonder how many of them will remember the bad sex of tonight when they wake up tomorrow morning. I wonder how many times these women will be able to fake it, put up with the alcohol breath and the the slick grunting sweat before they become dissatisfied p.t.o. moms who gossip about single mothers because they're too repressed to masturbate and feel good.

It's one of those nights. Cynicism is all part of the game.

If I weren't on this street corner, I could dream about your hands. His hands. But here on the street's edge all the hands are begging, and the only memory is metal, smooth and slick, driving into my arm like the frat boy into his girlfriend. But the pleasure is all mine, asshole. This time, at any rate.

I light another cigarette and drag away into the concrete at my back. SingSong man is cackling at the drunks, keening children's verses and pink floyd lyrics. Inside the language, I know he's lost the connection too, and is hunting dragons the only way he can. Smoke in my nostrils, I stare after him. In the center of the city, you can't live in other people's heads, you can only stay warm.

Hippies call it a higher plane, man. I know better. I know, still, that it's the only real plane, and you can get there any way you want. And once you do you'll get there any way you can. I grab the dragon by the tail. Tonight, I can see it, feel it tugging out through the top of my skull and clawing at my bone marrow.

I lean back and close my eyes. I can feel the smoke trail pulling at me, running words through my veins like I'm a Bell Atlantic grid. Conversations and arguments flow through me, and I can see everything, glassy. I'm still too far away.

SingSong man walks past and whispers, "I was always watching you." But to me he's still singing, I'm still smoking, and the city is getting colder. All the little drunken ants go marching home, and I'm marching right behind them. Home is all alone, but unwatched. No one will see me jacking off to the thought of your hands, or dreaming about cold metal numbness on a train headed west.

[JaceSan]

Wow! Nothing like the inner thoughts of an addict to sober you up real quick. I liked this chili.

[gollum]

i'm very impressed. i don't know why, but for some reason i see this as a b&w comic...it just seems very visual, yet very dark at the same time.

very good, in my humble opinion.

-g

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Sometimes i think everyone on this board is crazy. The rest of the time i'm sure. -Dan
somehow i see [gollum] clinging to a tower and rousingly calling for a new world order. -starky

Yeah, I'm a real prize. Tonight, I'm a bronze medal.

[Chilimuffin]

thanks. I wish I could draw, then I would put out b&w comics.... the thought is intriguing, tho, and I hadn't seen it before, but you're right.

[Branflakes]

That was damn good.

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Branflakes, the ninja lesbian milk getter bunny protecting flirt.
The one called "brain" and "brandiflakes" and....
I'm tired of the silent majority. Silence equals death.
Life is what you make it.
"I believe you can't control or choose your sexuality"-Savage Garden

When shall I hold my passion for you?

[jones]

I like the line about rooftops and fire escapes. I like the rest of it too, but that line seems to stand out.

take care

---jones