no more crazy woman blues

I cleaned out the old place. I was waiting on the 5 and sitting at the bustop next to a Mexican broad with a nasty cough. I had the Swiffer, a shower curtain&rings, and a loaf of barrio wheat bread&peanut butter in an old laptop case.
Just then a red Lotus Ethos pulled up.
“Get in.” the driver said “and leave those.”
She nodded towards the Swiffer and my hobo sack. I gave them to senora and I climbed in.
“I’m Lakshmi.” she said and the wind blew her curls toward me like tiny black arms in the moonlight.
We came down the hill from the barrio and the city gave rise. We were descending into all that blue glass&steel with the Frost Building up there like some frozen flower. We passed all the venues, jukejoints, barrelhouses and bougiebars. The young&the Rich&the dumb were out, all on parade, blazing in sex&greed&money&lust. Their musics blared. I looked at their faces. Their grins were permanent, no irony, a permanent pretense at happiness. We passed a yellow mansion on our right.  Pulled into the lot out back.
“That’s your place up there,” she pointed. ”Go in. Wash up. I’ll fix us a drink.”
The place was filled with clocks. Big clocks with Roman numerals and pendulums lined the walls and up the staircase hall. I reached into my pocket and I still had the old clock key. I opened the door to my apartment and it was a cathedral of lightboxes. They lit up the place in rose pink&bottle green. I smelled the Sandalwood burning.

There was a warm white towel on the toilet and candles burning in the bathroom. I stripped down. My clothes were grimy and stained. My hands were burned from oven cleaner&bleach. I took a luxuriatingly long, hot shower. I washed it all off.
I looked at the bruise in the bathroom mirror. It circled my Adam’s apple in a deep, blood-blue.
I walked into the bedroom. She was sitting on the edge of the bed. She handed me the chilled glass of clear white wine.
“To your new life here.” We raised our glasses.

We drank in silence like that. On the edge of the bed with me wrapped in a towel and Lakshmi in her colourful tresses.  The ticking of the old clocks.  She handed me a check for $1,580.
“This is from Mr.Fox.”

It took me 3 years but I had finally arrived in Hippie Town. Now I was on Easy Street, in an ex-Governor’s mansion on Judge’s Hill and riding in style.  Those sundry, piss-poor barrio days. Those raging warehouse nights and the bad bitch of Winter.  They were all behind me now. It didn’t matter who I thought I was or what it all meant. Nothing mattered anymore. There was the old life and now this one.

Outside they rallied and roiled down the drag, bowing down to their Fun God in the Live Music Capital of the World. We drank in silence like that. Sitting on the edge of the bed with the old clocks winding down on the first night of my new life here.