Journey in Philadelphia on a Saturday Night

Photo Courtesy of Camarilla

It was late.

Me and my girlfriend left the club around 1:15 AM. Any chance of her coming back with me was gone, and since we both rely on public transit, the night was going to be a long one for both of us. My phone was as good as dead, so the warm embrace of Megadeth and Overkill weren't going to get me through the long and lonely ride home. My girlfriend was dressed to the nigh of goth club fashion, calling out for discrete attention from a mad gone world, as was I. After spending a ton of time getting dressed and ready, it was all destroyed within 4 hours at a club in Spring Garden while enjoying live music from techno bands on a warm and humid spring night. My 6-inch mohawk was down to nubs, while she looked as good as ever.

The show was great. She got to hear the lamination's of  a band from Australia gone insane on stage, while the guitarist attempted to undress me with both her hands and a come-hither look that said, "Are you ready for this?" We both wound up having a great time. The night was filled with kisses and loud music, a club filled with people wanting to both be seen and unseen, and the air was filled with light smoke and loud music.

After we left, we were stranded on Market Street waiting for a bus. I didn't want to leave her alone on a bench at a bus stop, especially since all the street lights were out around City Hall. It was weird seeing 13th Street in near total darkness, while the only thing illuminating the massive monolith of power is a lone spotlight on the highest archway with stone figures peering over a weary city. A shuttle bus passed our stop with fever as it was filled to the brim with lost souls trying to get home themselves. We were left to wait on a bench with a few random strangers while we stewed in our strangeness.

Wearing mid-calf black leather boots with red stitching and leggings, my girlfriend sat next to a man dressed in a pseudo-military outfit that looked like a cross between 1941 and 2012, and a hair style that looked like it went through the ringer. Together we were quite the odd couple to see at what was now 2 in the morning. After waiting a bit more, her bus finally arrived. We gave each other a loving embrace and a kiss, and she soon boarded the bus without me to head home for the night and sleep.

There's something that's always pissed me off; old guys who leer at young women. You know what I mean; The old guy, who most likely hasn't seen action since when Regan was in office, thinking in vain that he has a chance with any woman who walks the street, as if time had no effect on their otherwise repulsiveness. Trust me, I'm not one to dismiss fantasy or ideals. These guys... they leer like crazy, and in the most obvious way possible. Like staring at the back end of a Ferrari means' you have any chance of getting it.

As she and another woman boarded the bus, one of those old guys was standing at the front of the bus. The usual reaction happened, but this time... this time it went on more than usual. So I made the guy aware I was looking at him. He had the driver stop the bus. As he walked towards the door, I followed suit and awaited the doors to open. "What'd you say?", the old fart asked in a shocked tone. "I was saying keep your eyes up here and stop leering at women, especially my girlfriend." The guy walked away, so did I, and the bus pulled off. For me, it was the start of a long journey back to my house in Mt. Airy as I walked around City Hall to catch the Broad Street Night Owl.

Meanwhile, on the bus, the old man started mumbling about his now hurt pride. As my girl tells it, he was muttering around saying, "Girlfriend... man... I'd take his girlfriend. Over-protecting asshole! Need to show him.... " My girl is tough at nails, and has a sense of humor that sometimes puzzles me and also fills me with delight. Her reaction to all of this? "HA! Right! Like that was going to happen!" As she chuckled to herself, the entire bus looked at her, and back to the old man who was now silent.

The bus ride was otherwise uneventful for myself. I got to Broad and Olney around 3AM. It was vacant, damp from the rain that fell 3 hours earlier, with a few people shouting for a chance for a ride home in exchange for cash or drugs. I spotted someone who I thought was giving me an eyeballing, and I decided to confront him. "Hey, do you know what time the next bus is?" He did a big dramatic gesture and looked at his watch. "Should be here in 15 - 20 minutes." "Cool, thanks."

I walked into a 24 hour Dunkin' Donuts and grabbed a double-chocolate donut. The place was filled with both the vermin of the area and good folks just trying to get home. I put some newspaper on a bench to keep it dry and I took a seat. I was soon joined by a few others, and we made small talk to kill the time. An old white homeless man on crutches came by asking for cigarettes or change, and I politely told him I had neither.

Soon, more people came to sit on the bench. The conversation was light, the folks seemed good, and while it was obvious one was drunk, another had a good heart. The homeless man returned, asking again for cigarettes and change. "You're a white man in America, and you have more chances to make it than I will as a black man!", yelled a man who took off his headphones. The other people on the bench agreed with him, much to my disgust and even personal disgrace. Its amazing to have come so far in existence to reach that sort of point where that sort of parallel is used. In a country that has proven anything is possible and the limits of your success are only up to use, that lazy and terrible excuse to not give a man on the edge nothing... I was disgusted at myself for not speaking out louder at this.

"Man, he could be anything he wants! He's too lazy to do anything else!", remarked the woman next to me. As he walked sadly away, she continued, "He could run for president and they'd STILL vote for him!" "Well, " I interrupted, "So could any of us. Anyone can run for president and win. Didn't we learn anything from Obama? Isn't that the best thing about this country?" There was a brief silence, and then another comment on the guy being lazy.

"Today's Easter, isn't it?", I asked her. "Why yes, it is. I can't wait to get home and see my kids!" "Well, it's good to know that Jesus died for our sins, isn't it?" She agreed, and I walked away from my disgust of it all.

A few minutes later, I walked to the guy from earlier who gave me the weird stare and we talked for a bit. Turns out he worked security at University of Penn and was doing a double-shift which mean double-overtime. I applauded him and went back to Dunkin' Donuts for some orange juice. That's when I saw the homeless man again, sipping on a coffee. "I'm sorry about what happened out there. In fact, I'm embarrassed." With a weariness that only comes from years of hard work and grief, he said, "I was only asking them for a cigarette, I wasn't expecting that." I noticed he had a recent tag from a hospital, and it turned out he went in for a check-up. I offered to get him a donut, and he politely declined.

I hopped on the bus and went home. It was a long and interesting night by the time I got home around 4AM. I got in, plugged in my phone, and got a text from my girl saying she was already home. I was soon in dreamland with her.

Another Rainy Night

The following is a short story. Is it based on real events or pure fiction? I'll leave that to you to decide. Its the second in a series that I hope to collect into a short book.

It's 9:55 on a Friday Night.

I've just spent the last 2 weeks busting my ass to get a ton of projects and things done, and all I have to show for it in a tangible sense right now is a pounding headache and this incredible need to sleep.

I've spent the day working at my full-time job and came home on a train filled with people who only seem to want to eat, shit, and breath as they trudge on to whatever goddamn thing they call a "life". I've found not using the words "life" and "existence" makes it a lot less personal and takes a lot of the humanity out of what is, in essence, the same phase. So I guess its only fitting to say that the people I'm surrounded with need an existence, because they sure as hell don't even have a life.

I spend my night looking at my bills, wondering how the hell I'm going to pay them like so many of my fellow American's on this too-damn-cold-for-July Summer Night. I listen to Rancid on a boom box that looks like its been through hell and is older than some kids who decided to make fun of me for how I look today. I order a pizza, my dinner for the next week, and drink directly from a 2-Liter of Sprite. Deadlines are looming over my head as I'm left to ponder what, exactly, this existence means.

The guitars and bass of "Damnation" drown through my house. While I need it rather loud next to me, the sound rattles through the rest of the house and down the hallway clear as a bell. The old boom box works as bad as ever. You need a boom box to listen to punk, especially something that's already ratty and beaten to hell as it is. It makes it more real, more human. It makes you feel alive.

As I eat my pizza, the crust just crispy and puffy enough as I like it, the pepperoni cracking as I take a bite from it as the carbonation of the soda tickles me like a long lost lover meeting her mate, I read the works of Frank Miller. I've read nearly all his work on Batman, and it was a ton of fun reading him take Batman past Year One and to a time where the tales that will unfold in The Dark Knight Strikes Back is still decades away. The book makes me feel like I'm 10 again and I run around my empty house like it.

I take a quick break and turn on the flat screen TV and throw on Sonic the Hedgehog and then Starfox to breeze through some levels just to laugh at how much fun it is again. The house is slightly moist and I still don't know. But right now, it doesn't matter. I ignore, no, forget that the reality of the world is that I exist simply to work and pay my bills and live in a nightmarish hell where I'm forced to deal with people with room temperature in winter I.Q.'s in a burg that seems to have forgotten that creativity and free expression are ways of life.

No, tonight I'm home alone with soda and pizza, video games and punk rock.

Tonight, I'm alive. And it's feels pretty damn good to be alive!

A Conversation About Eternity

The following is a short story. Is it based on real events or pure fiction? I'll leave that to you to decide. Its the first in a series that I hope to collect into a short book.

It was the simplest of greetings, an introduction done more times than anyone can recall to more people at more moments throughout their lives than they could recall unless they were allowed to view their life again and keep score. There are few times in your life where you will remember it longer than you can recall, but this I will remember until the day I die.

“Hello. I think its time for a talk.”

Its not everyday that you actually meet the Grim Reaper of Death, and even rarer that you live to tell the tale.

I write this in sheer terror of my life. I don't recall if there were any stipulations on this talk, if there were rules as to what to divulge afterward... if, by simply conveying these thoughts on paper, I forfeit my life. To, me, though... this, this is an opportunity you are rarely awarded. I do not know. I claim ignorance to my host that night if I may have done wrong, for in the realms of which I was in, one only remembers few details and embellishes the rest.

The man with the scythe greeted me, and unto him I was his guest. We began to speak of things that one, I imagine, would speak of when looking into the face of the abyss, of the land we all go to one day.

We spoke of existence and its very nature.

“Time is an illusion. This much, I am sure, you are quite aware of. Time is nothing more than what mankind has made it, a series of checks and balances of what is to be and what will be. No, not even that, how foolish of me to even say that! No, mankind makes dates and time not to create checks and balances, but simply to count the time he had and what he may have left. Calendars and time pieces chronicle his achievements, allowing him to neatly keep track of all he has done. Man chooses to believe in the illusion that he is, in turn, the master of his own destiny, that he can choose when the sun rises and when nations will fall and crumble.

“But, in the end... it is, of course, nothing but an illusion.”

“But Death, “ I said, daring to interrupt him, “I we both know I know of this. In turn, I've learned that to simply relish ones life, and the time he has, albeit short, nothing more than the blink of an eye in the history and grand tale of the universe, one must make his time count, to matter, to make an impact! If he doesn't... then, well, what's the point?”

Death was glad to see my response.

He then took me to a room. In it, a wall was covered with TV's, all of which were off. As we sat down, the TV's came on all at once, showing the Earth. “Tell me... tell me what you know of the future of your world?”

“I know of the end. I don't know the end of my species, but I do know that, in time, the Earth will die. The sun it circles around will slowly die and destroy the solar system. I know that even if the human race were to survive, if they were able to keep going, it wouldn't matter. The entire universe would, in time, simply condense, continuing onward to where everything that has ever existed becomes nothing more than a dot. Existence, even the afterlife, is gone and eliminated.”

“Existence is meaningless.”

“Yes.”

“Is it meaningless?”

Death looked blankly back at the screens on the wall. “Do you believe it to be meaningless?”

I didn't know how to respond. I had said it was... but did I even believe it? “At one time... no, I didn't. I knew of the end of the universe, I knew that in the end, all the triumphs of mankind were for nothing. Yet, I was OK with it. It was the afterlife that gave me solace. That, while the physical world would be gone and forgotten, existence was meaningful if you still got to exist in an afterlife and, who knows, possibly help shape a new universe.”

“So, what changed? Why do you now believe that even that would be gone?”

“After time... it just made sense to simply have everything condense into one spot... even the afterlife.”

“Look at the screens.”

On the screen was exactly what I had said, of the Earth dying with the Sun, of the black hole swallowing the solar system, and how the universe decayed as it was sucked into nothing more than nothingness.

“A man once wrote that, 'Stranger eons, even Death may die.' No... I will not die, but everything else in existence will. It will be sucked into a point, and you will not exist. You will be nothing. You will be as if you, nor the whole of humanity, existed.”

“So life IS meaningless? There is no point in living?”

Death turned to me. Part of me felt chilled, but the chill melted as quick as it came. “No. There is a meaning to existence. Tell me what you see.”

I turned to the screen once more and I saw bright pink. It was stunning. It was one of the most vibrant shades I had seen in my life. It was bright and cheery, even more so against all the darkness I had witnesses up to this point. It soon zoomed out, showing itself to be an abstract shape among other shapes. Soon, the screen was a barrage of images of life. I saw birthday parties and people having fun, of bright sunny days in the park and great works of art. Of how humanity had evolved from a primordial ooze and into the dominant life form on Earth. Countless eras and places flashed before my eyes, yet I was not overwhelmed. I saw beautiful women make love and I saw plants bloom.

“Mankind, “ said Death, “Mankind is not the meaning of existence, nor is it a means to an end. Yet, within this solar system, within this universe, it has had moments that others have only dream of. It is a species of vast intelligence and design. It is a species that has reached out to the star and touched them, and has dared to dream, dared to question, and most importantly, dated to exist.

“Existence is pointless, yet it is not meaningless. These images prove otherwise, and your own existence proves it.”

“Are you saying, to put it simply, that existence is nothing more than what I make it? That since even reality itself is relative... that my life is, truly, in my own hands?”

“I haven't said anything of the sort. You! You have known this for as long as you have existed. You have understood these ideas, these principals, and these ideas for longer than you have known.”

We sat their, silently, watching the screens. Then I saw my life. I saw my birth, my first days in school, and of my first love. I saw my parents grow old and die, and I saw myself enjoying life.

“Death... I am afraid to ask this question, as I'm sure you have been awaiting for me to ask it.”

“No, you are not dead, nor am I hear to take you away.”

My heart skipped a beat, and I was relieved to hear the news. Death held his scythe in his bonny hand, not moving it at all during the entire conversation. It was wrapped with a long, torn, and old wrapper, as if to protect his hands. It was coming off, slowly but surly, thanks to old age.

“So... why have you come to speak to me, then?”

“I decided it was best to just show you this now. For you see... you will die, soon.”

Terror gripped me once more, as I quickly found my nerve to even ask a question afterwards. “If I may... WHEN, exactly... am I to meet you again?”

He gave me the time in as cryptic a way possible, giving not a date or time, but a matter of hours for me to puzzle with in my head. To himself he chuckled as I frantically tried to remember the number and figure out just what it meant. “I could be lying, of course,” he said rather amused. “Also, recall I did give you a big, round number. Isn't that rather convenient? Although, I am sure that once you come to your own conclusion as to when, exactly, you are to meet me again, you will realize that it isn't exactly as big and round a number as I said. Nor do I honestly think you'll remember the number correctly, what the number referred to, and what, in the end, is the actual result.”

Yet, I wasn't angry. I was not mad at knowing, or at least seeming to know, when I was to die. Yet, like anyone or anything told when they are supposed to die, I asked the question he already expected; “Why tell me this?” “You tell me.” To Death's credit, he didn't underestimate my intelligence.

“From what you have said... from what you have shown me, and from what you have even taught me... you told me I am free. That there is time to simply exist and enjoy life, to preserver and make life mine! That I have a chance, albeit brief, to take reality and shape it into what I see fit! Death, you are my liberator!”

“As you will learn to a higher caliber soon enough.”

It was then that Death and I began to walk and discuss my life. We spoke of nothing of consequence to you nor my friends. I asked him nothing of the past but of love and relationships, of the world at large, and he took a liking to my view. Yet in this world we came across my friends who looked upon me and not of Death. When I spoke to them of my conversation, they simply said that they were visited that night too, yet did not believe what they heard. “Death lies! He trick you! He speaks not the truth about your life and existence, only manipulates you into doing what he wants!” I did not argue, and simply would agree and move on.

As daylight embarked upon my room and my bed, my conversation was drawing to a close. I thanked him for allowing me to speak with him, and I thanked him further more not only for the time, but for allowing me to understand this in comfort.

“But what of my death? How will I die?”

“You'll be happy to know that it will be a natural death.” With that, he left.

Yet I write this story with dread. Why? Because I wrote down the number he gave. I wrote down the 2 variations of the number he gave. In a short matter of time I devised the three main ways it could be divided: Hours, minutes, and seconds.

It did not help to wake-up sick this morning...




Copyright Larry West 2009. All rights reserved.