Exit Nothing

Morning

Did you remember to love? She curses you by kissing you on the ear.

“I wrote a short story.”

“I read it. I thought it was terrible.”

“But there were lifelike images, realistic descriptions, dancing clowns.”

“All good. But you left the reader with a hardon and didn’t finish it off.”

“What?”

“Every story should end in orgasm.”

“You mean?”

“It’s true. After I put the story down I was able to forget about it, to move on with my life.”

“Horror.”

No matter how often I throw myself at her feet, Philadelphia won’t open her legs for me. She is a frigid city.

It’s Sunday afternoon and Frank is driving Mike and I around West Philly in his dying Dodge Neon. We’re looking for a copy shop. I feel like I’m back in Birmingham. All copy shops closed for Easter. But does anyone in Philly really care about Easter?

That’s when we notice the line of men and women (white) dressed in black on the other side of the street. A few of the men were carrying crosses on their backs, hunched over because of the imaginary weight of the thing. They really want to ham it up, exaggerate the suffering until it becomes a sort of Marx Brother’s routine. Looking back, I recall them chanting something, softly, in a stage whisper, though that might just be my imagination, my memory amplifying the beauty of the absurdity of it all.

Frank, redfaced, stuck his head out the window and bellowed, “He’s dead!” Frank, a former actor and a poet who often performs his work in coffee shops and bars where there isn’t a microphone, knows how to project his voice. Everyone in line on the other side of the street heard him. About half turned to see who had said it, just in time to see Frank speeding upwards of sixty miles an hour down the street as the light turned green.

This is the Philadelphia that I’ll always remember.

Philadelphia, where art thou?

Philadelphia, if you let me in, I could make you come.

But to come is to reach the peak. You’ve made me come. Now it’s time to push you away.

Afternoon

Visiting uninvited at the Mouse Queen’s hideaway. I staple a zipper to my mouth (a hand on the zipper, twitching).

To my sweet Mouse Queen,

I’d write you a love letter but I’m too afraid to give my hands to you, palms pointed toward the sky, shaking.

Ain’t many seen the Mouse Queen. She keeps secrets. I want to give her mine.

Cool Rhythms on a drunk Friday night. It’s the first Hydrogen Jukebox show of the summer. I’m in a sad mood. I drink anyway.

Everyone’s at the show. The Mouse Queen is here. Smiling Dave’s here (sits next to me, genuinely wants to listen).

Even Sci-Fi Clay is here (though a little late. The band’s already playing). Sci-Fi Clay is sitting next to a girl. He’s content. He’s listening to her and letting the music drive his pulse (a beating rhythmn). The girl is an angel but not the Mouse Queen.

I see Sci-Fi Clay sitting next to his girl and I stumble over to him. I put my hands on his head and kiss him rough on the cheek. One of my hands holds a lighter. Without knowing what I’m doing, I press the lighter into his other cheek.

“Ahhhh!” he says.

Night

I used to see Walt Whitman all the time. His bronze head sits on top of a pedestal in front of the K-Mart on Oregon Avenue. The entire statue is around eleven feet high. When I used to walk home from work I would usually pause for a few seconds to look at it. Whitman’s head. In front of the K-Mart.

I take the bus now and only occasionally see Whitman’s head as it passes by my window.

I started taking the bus because it was something different. It’s become routine.

This trip never ends, eh? I’ll start over, then, at the beginning of the line.

Somebody coughs. I turn around and see the man from my nightmares. He has a plastic, mannequin-like face. He points his finger at me.

“The problem with you,” he says, “is that you only pretend to be suffering. In secret, you enjoy the theater of it all.”

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