transformedia

When she finally come down I could see even in that dusky light that Noreen was pinned. Wasn’t like her to not at least offer me a taste, ‘cept she knew I had a fight in a couple months and was weaning off. That must have been it. Hard to say how long she had been loaded but at least now I knew why it took her so long to get ready. That exact second Miss Matthews turned on the porch light and I could really see how fucked up she was. Holdin a burned out butt and saggy face muscles, my Irish baby was a fuckin mess. Was right then I knew I cared about her a lot. More than the others, no matter how good a fuckin I got or how much money they had. Also I knew the truth that maybe I was kinda responsible for lettin her get this far by not being stronger to her and lettin her get close to Stewie. I almost hated Al for even introducing me to her at Blowhard’s Bar just cause I asked about her. But Godammit, look at her. That porch light dancing off her jet black hair and the skin like a piece of flawless white china and the deep blue eyes. Even fucked up to the max and standin on the gritty stoop, I woulda dropped to my knees and kissed her Converse if she asked.  ” What the fuck ya starin’ at Pooch….lets’ split.” is what she said. Fuck it man, I was in love and didn’t even know. 

So I’m sittin’ on the edge of the foldout in Pops’ TV room in my skivvies with my head in my hands, rubbin’ my mug, just wakin’ up. I got scratches from my skidding across the floor at the Boss’ place, my hands are raw and my knees are bruised from who knows what and I’m very afraid that my eyes are gonna leak any second. Way deep inside the Kid is very sad and upset. Pops booms in the back door.  ”Paul, its all square. I seen who I needed to and talked to the guy that hires the guys”.It had started to rain last night right on cue. Never need to worry about the weather, it is always on time. He took off his jacket and shook it and the drops flew on my face and snapped me to. I looked up at the face that never changed.” Thanks Pop.” I started crying a bit, but if you didn’t know me you wouldn’t know it.” I love ya Pop….thanks”" Paulie, I told ya long time ago that I would love you whatever happened” He looked away for a cigarette in his jacket ” I ain’t always loved some shit you done, but you kid, always…always” Turning back he put the cigarette in his mouth and he smiled at me from his toes through his heart and on out the eyes. Then the old pug put that jaw-breakin’ right hand on the top of my head, felt like a fuckin’ warm blanket with fingers. Slowly he pulled my sorry blubberin’ head against his outside thigh and gently held it there while his baby son gushed out his grief and disappointment and humiliation, puttin a vertical puddle on the old guys trousers. The soul of good fortune was I right then with him next to me.

Spotlights meant for the beauty of the ancient Mosque lit a tunnel of Gulls, circling in the updraft. Hundreds of them, floating like a stream of cigarette smoke, lazing circularly and upwards. It was the call to prayer and the Muezzin chanted out his verses. His voice was hypnotic and unbroken; he seemed never to breathe. His verses were amplified by an ear – offending Public address system, penetratingly booming, sounding as if it went everywhere in this world. These two things created an effect so foreign that I became the one extraneous. I was now where they lived.

  I spotted the birds accidentally on the way back to my Hotel, returning from the Coffee bar that had a decent Internet connection and westernized Cakes. I paused to marvel at this sight and muse about what kept these spirits aloft and in that spot. I knew the physical principles of aviary floating.  Was it the presence of the deity? Maybe it was the streaming millennium of prayer, rising upwards to the place where I supposed a Deity would reside. My Christian instincts at this moment, were superfluous. These sights and sounds were enough to set off thoughts of things I had discarded as so much trash, time wasting and pointless introspection. What is, is, and that was enough.

 Prayers flowing from this place were from Muslims, and therefore aimed to the east. Another theory shot.

    Prayer goes where it goes, not where it is aimed. Mostly, it seems to go to somewhere to soothe some patch of ruffled spiritual feathers. One hopes it goes ultimately to somewhere other than to the penitents themselves.

 Still, on hovered the gulls, induced by the proximity of Bosporus and Marmara to live in this place and forced by necessity to survive on scraps and offal.

  My son was with me on the trip and in the haste of youth, only noticed the chanting Gull phenomenon when I had slowed him and pointed it out. He was not impressed. After 5 days of watching his ancient father embarrass himself and find wonder in what a young man considers  insignificant, He only wished to get back to his music and Turkish TV.  

It was a small spot on my ear. Nothing very big, I scratched it intermittently and once it broke open, yet soon covered over. But it never completely went away either. A summer later, bubbly looking growths appeared on my shoulder. These and the ear thing were on the same side of my body; the car window side. Old sawbones cut and burned and stitched, and I knew for certain. The tests confirmed it.

  Having been through all phases of the plague with both parents and assorted friends, my feeling was that once you had it and were diagnosed, it never went away. It was busily moving around through the body and mind of the afflicted until it achieved ultimate victory. The plague always wins.

  I witnessed the battles and self-help groups and restorative surgeries all with the same gimlet eye. The proud herbs and defiant trips out of country, and prayers all resulted in the long dirt nap. Wasted insurance money, ignored prayers, lit candles and bedside vigils, the stuff of blind idiots, dancing to the skeleton music of the long foregone conclusion that you’re dead meat, sucker, read ’em and weep.

  All this feels differently knowing it’s me that’s on the short end. Yet now it is just a matter of years, (that’s what they all say), it does not feel so bad. Finally there is a finish line of sorts and the guessing has gone out of the game. Am I moved to right past errors or somehow attempt to make up for lost time? No. Am I spending hours musing over a life that could have been lived differently, or somehow better? No. By what measure would better be better? Am I foundering in an ocean of self-pity, blame, rage or frustration? Somewhat, I suppose, but a taste of these normal human reactions are certainly to be expected. I am not down and wallowing uselessly in the mire of defeat or tearing my garmet over the unkind lack of fairness of lifes’ caprice. Pay your nickel and take your chance.

  There are a few things I mean to do, but they are not out of the ordinary, nor anything I would not do anyway. I have no affairs to set right, and the day for settling old scores has long past. Nothing is not the way it should be. Do I have regrets ? Of course, yet who does not and what difference does it make, since loss and regret are as much a part of life as happy memories and fond by-gones. I did not want to meet you now, though, as pleasant as it is .

Anne-Marie and I slowed down a little getting close to the corner where the alley let onto the street, and a gimped up fucker appeared from nowhere. By the time I realized it was Rudy he had shot Anne and was swinging towards me, him all bunched up and squinty and definitely hurtin. Something suddenly took him right off his feet and landed him in a lump and the pistol slid away, popping along the bricks. It stopped in one of those reflecting light-puddles near my feet, the barrel facing back at Rudy, who was deader than Kelseys’ nuts. Was then I seen how bloody my shoes were.  Fuckin shoes were ruined like my jacket. Lost half a cow in one afternoon.

  Looking over to Anne-Marie was something I came later to wish I had never done at all. Little Slats was a fucking mess. Skirt somehow bunched up around her waist like a Shriners’ sash, scarlet panties torn, and a round hole without a bottom square in the middle of her solar plexus. No blood in front, all of it running out, a red river in the sunset, fast between the bricks and water and shitty stuff on the alley floor. The cop came round the corner, riot gun first

 “ Hands, man, now !”

The business end of his weapon faced me and I raised my hands in the air, but not too fast. The cop was shaking so bad his shotgun was dancing, and if he popped me by accident I would have been SO fuckin pissed off, mainly because the record would have shown that I was at fault in some way, and fuck that. I had not done one thing wrong all day except show up at the Bosses place on time like a good soldier.