he wants to do it without so much as a whisper. he wants to
do it without so much as a blink of the eye. he wants to do it
so much! with anyone. with no one. with gene kelly. with him
self! he wants to do it so much he could cry. and20without a hitch
or a care in this world. he wants to hurt someone. hurl a swung
bat into the crowd. hit the big one and hit it hard, break into his
homerun trot. break out of this damn hole. drink the flask of poison
down. wrestle the wreath to the ground. he wants to watch it fall
useless onto cobblestones. he wants the world to go round and
round and round the flagpole. he wants it to go another round.
he wants to be drunk again. every evening at half past eight.
he wants to enter this bar and empty it. this bar near this place
where he met this person he obsessed over for nearly thirteen
years. needlessly. he wants to drink at a table by that wall not
this one. he wants to sit and think things over. talk to strangers
about it and not talk to himself. he wants to listen to the music
weave out of and back into the darkness like a bat or a familiar
face in a cave. he wants to make faces like jerry lee lewis or
like a sleepy bear. he wants to see himself in the mirror. he
wants to think about his sister. she wasn't really a drug addict.
re: his father he is less sure but what the hell. there's a photo
of the man to go on. portly gentleman wearing a brown fedora.
he wants to think about a sports trophy in a closet. he wants to
think about that high school history teacher with the affected
manner and noticeable limp. he wants to think about james dean.
he wants to turn down the hea t, it goes down hard. he does not
want to think about his latest ex-lover. he does not want to think
about his mother or how he ought to give her a call. her with her
western face like fresh paint or an omelet on a china plate. like a
fresh squeezed grapefruit. give that one a call? ask her to explain
again why he's a gay man? the sour bitch. no way that's gonna
happen! he wants to sit at the piano bar for hours with a napkin
and a copy of a french novel. a gold cigarette case in one hand
and his forehead in the other. he wants to stir his cocktail with
a long graceful finger. he wants to sit alone. to get on with it.
get on with it. not get over it. he wants to be grace kelly. audrey
hepburn. when he stands up he wants to touch the sky. when
he sits down he wants to be in the back seat of a hot buick on
the road to the poconos. life goes on. life goes on. life goes on.