I broke down and bought a pack. Smoked one on the roof in the cold. I thought of her and her California. Missed her like I often do. It was the end of a blue day. At the end of a blue year. Nothing out of the ordinary for me.
I’d found a way to own my blues. They publish it, this publishing house. Back in my hometown. I could write about bullfighters tonight, or do my “fiction” about heartbreak. But there’s no magic left in it and nothing miraculous about the arena anymore.
There was a time. When as matador I could take it on. Sit behind the President XII and the bottle and work it out. But you get up. And you get over. Maybe look back longingly over the black canyons of Major Depressive Disorder.
I spent allot of time down there. With some true companions. They did what they could for me and I’ll never forget it. There was the other kind, too. Who kept a boot to it, their faces strangely masked. The vain and the cruel, their love was a false love. This ain’t about them. Their summer and their fun.
We’re heading into winter and the colder climes will strip the rest away. Leaves and petals shorn, cleaved and cut down from their pale once-coveted sun. The air out here is clean. And the sky is clear.
I come in off the roof. There’s a white page in the type. I sit down, write
Goodbye my old friend. Au revoir. I’ve no more use for you. There isn’t anything to fight against anymore. And everything to fight for.
Tomorrow her black Mercedes will cut like a bullet through that tabernacle of trees. Ginkgoes and high oaks, a bony penumbra of branches in the crystalline sky above us as we drive. We’ll snake around the museum and she’ll drop me at the station. I’ll kiss goodbye her sanguineous lips, her green eyes. To my lips I’ll hold her gloved hand. Then I’ll sink into the tunnel and be gone.
Twenty years on the outside entering Crescent City. Summer peeling offa me; their summer, their fun. Winter in New Orleans. Christmas in the Quarter. City mes amis it’s been too long. There isn’t anything to fight against anymore. And everything to fight for.
au revoir
Going for the Throat 
A matador will be knocked down many times in his lifetime. After each fall, he takes time to heal wounds and then puts on a new cape to perform another day. Things have changed, but it’s for the better. And he is now a better performer.
Aw, Candi thank you! You get it. You really do.
Reblogged this on Going for the Throat and commented:
Take two…
[…] Of course it was good to see Brother James and to drink a few with him on a rainy day in the Quarter. But I couldn’t rely on myself to keep it on a leash. I loved drinking way too much and […]
The size of the fight in the dog.
I’ll gladly call it a mid-life crisis if the gods’ll give me 40 more. Thanks for reading comrade.
[…] here to say that yes, it’s real. But not for long. My travelogues to Houston and Sequin and NOLA. My letters from the edge. My rope-a-dope with the blues. All very real. It’s hard to shut it […]