podgnosticast

[Fiction] #BandName

4:00:00 AM

"#TwilightChildren or #TwilightofTheChildren? ... Band Name … with the hashtag and everything,” she said. “#TwilightChildren … Esquire!"

She was on a roll tonight, picking up handfuls of sand. It was past two in the morning. The sand spilled out of her long, delicate fingers partly on to my face.

"I like it.” I said with forced enthusiasm. “How about: ‘#ChickenOfTheSea’ — with the hashtag like you said?"

She looked at me with that scorn I had never managed to get used to or be able to brush off.

I began plucking on the nylon strings with gusto trying to conjure up some melody that might pass as part of that gaddamned demo she obsessed about getting together. Late night, “networking,” she said, for, “her career,” she said.

“Twilight children,” I howled a few times over the bar chords I strummed, back-peddling to that “good listener,” she and the couples’ counselor had been trying to make of me these last few months. The passion had drained away long ago, though; so, no matter what “good listener” I might become, I would, nonetheless, just be part of her band, and nothing more.

I had already found out about that producer she kept going on about — Ricky. I hadn’t mentioned that I knew because, fuck …. what would it matter anyway at this point.

She put her arm on my shoulder. I just wanted to stay on that for a while. Her arm around my shoulder — the warmth on the back of my neck; a whiff of her floral, French cologne infused with the oils her skin, alone, made.

I drifted into humming. My strumming played the chords slower and more sloppy. I couldn't tell if the breeze I felt along my arms was stillness. It was stillness, but moving. I just couldn’t tell if it was my arm or the ocean breeze that was moving or still. Then, I noticed the salty breeze and the mist from the sea-spray landing on my lips; a moving stillness, I thought — alive, the ocean's sea-shell song. And then, there were the whales out there in the distance; the breeze brushing past my arm while making a hollow sound in the guitar's body; I watched the navigation lights from the tankers in the distance — both solid and blinking — miles away … in the shipping lanes ... decorating the horizon. The light chop, dotted by the waxing moon, trying to feverishly reconstitute its shape for my gaze on it into that straight and unswerving road to heaven.

All of this happened in an instant.

“Be a good listener,” I thought, turning my attention back to her — to her arm over my shoulder and to the pitch, deep violet of the horizon. I wanted to stay on that — all of it — forever, but the scorn on her face — this one — finally broke my heart.

My soul just fell out of me. I couldn't tell if I had shit in my pants — the heartbreak washing over me so fast like an ancient memory washed ashore.

“This ain’t gonna work out,” I thought, and like the wet sand that the surf had made bubble before retreating back into the deep, I felt the hatred that bubbled in me for her.

I had always imagined myself to be a “great” listener. I wasn’t wrong about that; just wrong about her.

I considered whether or not I had ever taken a good look at her these past couple of years; that I hadn’t understood a goddamned thing that had come out of her mouth in all time we’d been together. All the bickering. For what?

God! I hated myself for wanting her still. I hated her for being so beautiful to me. I was disgusted, thoroughly, by my wanting her still ‘cause I knew I could only be a jerk to her from now on. Those last few months ... so full of contempt from her; it all landed on me like a pile of bricks, and my heart shattered.

I guess this shit happens all the time. It all happened, like I said, in a split second.

My chest heaved once. A sob came out of me in one, lurching heave, and then it was gone. I wiped the moisture that had pooled on my face from the last few gusts of cold mist.

“Shit,” I sighed. I used the guitar like a cane to stand up. I felt old and feeble. I walked through the sand towards the promenade’s lights. There was part of me that hoped I would hear her calling out to me. I was certain, though, that she wouldn’t. I should know her by now, after all.

I didn’t look back, but, probably, she watched me walk off from the beach-blanket, dumbfounded, thinking, “What the fuck, dude!?!”

I always wondered what happened to that beach-blanket — if she gathered it up and kept it or abandoned it right there and then. I liked that beach-blanket.

I cursed myself being a fool that night — a cold-hearted fool. I knew I was making a mistake, but, at the same time, I knew I wouldn’t regret it.

We didn’t ever talk again — not really. Sure, we exchanged pleasantries, and we took care of whatever business we had with each other, but we never strayed beyond that.

I still don’t regret it, but every night since, I’ve had a momentary, passing feeling that I hadn’t had a very good day today — not a very good one at all.

Gilfoy

A Nirvana Song

8:13:00 AM

I’ve never, legitimately, owned a firearm. I was never legally wedded, though I lived with her seventeen years and had a daughter with her … pets, plants, all kinds of pets. We were all pets about the place, I suppose. I didn't mind cleaning all their shit, though it was a thankless job and didn't pay any ... not even kindness or good-will.

I didn’t get any degrees or certifications beyond a high school diploma. Never, legitimately, bought a car or a home though the record might show I had gotten a loan on and paid off the BMW 325i; around the same time, I had bought a three-bedroom townhouse in the gated community of Aventura, FL called “Sailboat Bend.”

Much later, I think all of that was some perverse sense of "fairness" from my parents ... my father's ongoing affairs with women spilling into buying them homes and cars, too. I've always been the one they used to wash their hands of it, I guess. I pieced it together. I did have the assurance that my mom had hired a private investigator along the way, so, whatever I had imagined did have documentation and evidence.

It's not really the point -- what really happened. That was never anyone's concern, and my thirst to "know" really was just for my own edification since not even my closest friends or lovers ever believed me ... or, really, it only mattered to them that there would be hand-outs of cash-money indulgences.

Everyone of the Caribbean on every side, really exploited all the guilt. Everyone in that generation, ultimately, felt themselves justified and much, much better than God-himself, though they all think each other a jack-ass. I don't blame them.

Now, while I never “legitimately” owned a firearm, a few found themselves in my possession. I never fired one, though. I never had the occasion or the chance (much less any know-how or practice) to have been able to get a shot off.

The day I rolled into the strip mall in North Miami and brought out the load I had accumulated from my dad’s arsenal, there was an orgy of boys – mostly dishonorably discharged or, just doing their thing in Margaritaville – showing me how to operate them – the pistol and the shotgun. They were very happy to play with the weapons. It was some other kind of male lust … none of which I ever managed to indulge in.

A few weeks later, a sheriff from Broward County was typing into a laptop at my parents’ place – closing up a detail.

I told him I had sold all the weaponry somewhere in Georgia for gas money … but I hadn’t. Instead, I inviteid my dad to reclaim his pistol, shotgun and rifle, but, as far as anyone was concerned, those firearms disappeared somewhere in Georgia.

I don’t think I had become aware yet that Marvin Gaye was shot dead by his father from a pistol he had gifted him. I suspect, even still, my father has a chamber loaded just for me in one of those guns off the grid. I wouldn’t blame him. I ‘ve been an aweful son to him.

The other gun that came into my possession resulted from some weird combination of a loan and a drug deal and a guy I had recently returned from a road trip to Mardi Gras with. It was handed to me in a hardshell case, and I kept it in my nightstand for several years. I thought … if I’m really in a hurry to surrender to la lucha, the struggle – there it was: same place I kept a large ashtray – the top drawer of my nightstand. I had surrendered to la lucha several years prior. I’m no hero. All I know is that a three-day coma feels almost like blinking, or it felt, as it were, like all of the eternity that had occurred before my birth. So, there was the handgun if I wanted to expedite oblivion.

But, at some point … someone I had assigned to look over my home and my pets while I was on vacation … well, somewhere in that, the pistol in my night drawer dissapeard.

I never asked any of those who had keys to my place. Frankly, I was more concerned that they’d use it on themselves, though I think they had all conspired to do me a service. I’d already grown inured to the idea that fate oughtta decide my time of dying. I don’t think whomever took that gun – well-meaning, sure – really thought it through.

Wasn’t my issue any longer … none of that. I've moved on from all that.

Really, I think, a lot of people I've loved and/or who have, presumably, loved me are still under the opinion that I might fold one day. If they don’t think that of me, then they, at least, can attest that I had folded; and, so, really, I don’t blame them for thinking me undeserving a place on this Earth or if they don't care too much for me outside not being the one to ruin Christmas this year ... I don't blame them, but really, I think them more pre-dead (or in the waiting room in perpetuity) … and I feel sorry for them out of, really, the most obnoxious perspective possible.

I’m prescribed a lot of medicines. I’ve even been prescribed a dog. I’ve looked into the city code, and, turns out, I turned out a pretty well-behaved and “good” citizen. In addition, both of my grandmother's, at some point said to me, point blank -- as an adult, having known both their love well into my mid-30s -- "You turned out good, kid."

So, ya know: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Poem] Morning Star

[Poem] Torchie

Untitled, Aug. 10, 2022

[Fiction] #BandName

A Nirvana Song

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