SATURDAY
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Rod & Sunny: Photo by Bob
Gentry 8/5/1999
A Thought for Today
Life is loud and so it follows that we
should accept each solitary day as some prized gift.
SOMETH'NG
for SATURDAY
Sheridan Square, ‘74 / A Diary in Miniature
November 1. Coming cross-country taking separate routes but
traveling in a parallel direction. First connected by a leaflet passed
from your hand into mine, eyes engaged for seconds only.
I thought nothing of that meeting, or whatever, if anything, might come
later. Besides, we only smiled, backtracked, spoke in double paragraphs,
smiled again and moved apart.
November 2. I came, and afterward came back. Here we are. Talking
at your eight o’clock till ten o’clock, except on matinee days, door. I am
quiet, show respect. There are truer words for that - overwhelmed, afraid,
polite. We talk. Has nothing ever been said so badly ? The vital
minute passes. I hesitate, then leave. Outside in the car I stammer,
stumble over words. My friends smile. They understand. I pretend to them
that I don't. Christ, it’s happening again. And I’m letting it happen.
Four A.M. Sylvia Syms has finished all her dead-end songs and I’m
dead-ended.
November 3. I missed my plane. I will never know if it was done
deliberately. London is put off another day. A reprieve. I come into the
night to see you. No luck. I leave instructions where I’ll be. An option;
you can call tomorrow.
I wait, I over-wait. You do not come. I am elated. I am relieved. I am
depressed. The jukebox owes me fifty quarters. I owe my friends a better
smile. I put it on, go out into the cold. Back to the hotel. I watch a
television movie, believe it or not, Secret of the Incas with Yma
Sumac. Surely you will call me up tomorrow. The tub’s filling up. I strip
off my clothes. Think. Fuck thinking.
November 4. Up noon. Breakfast. Write. I’m finishing a book, this
book. The phone rings with twenty-minute precision, every twenty minutes.
Three-thirty now. I run though the options: no message was delivered; the
signal passed between us were imagined by me; you occupy another man’s
bed; you are afraid. No, you are not afraid. You will not call.
Five. Darkness. London will not wait again. Anyway, what possible new
excuses could I make, even to myself ?
With no more knowledge of each other than a half-imagined look, I miss you
mightily. You have caused a void that you will likely never hear about.
Worse, I’ve occupied these hours we might have spent together writing of
the time as substitute for not living it.
I remember California. I know you thought that I’d forgotten. What I did
forget is that people seldom change their minds. Much as I dislike
goodbyes, I hate indifference more. Still, you were special. Waiting
tables, filling up a stage, sliding through a Friday night in Sheridan
Square, you were the prize. The mirrored ball spinning through the air,
that once lit up, sends flecks of light dancing, bouncing, all across the
discotheque. What I really thought was this - maybe you’d forgotten
California and me. Maybe I’d be new to you, as you thought you were to me.
New York in November, the event of the season for some. For others, the
pageantry and hope have to be enough. Though it would not, could not be
for me.
-from “Alone,”1975
Sleep warm and join me tomorrow for a flight from the past.
RM 11/01/2002
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