Bilocate — part seven (lighten-up & go thrifting for subterranean stars)
The following are room-by-room notes taken several fortunate years ago when routine busyness was safely open for business. It was a tour-long self-assignment then that now comes off like daily afterthought-horoscopes I was writing to myself at the time:
You’re trailed in an old town trinket shop by born-again speculators where turquoise is gold. Alarmed by the blessed shopkeepers’ suspicion, eventually you buy something because they’re just so nice about their assumption of your depravity.
Arrive sphinx-faced with dry desert nostrils. Nomads alight to quartered songs on a bar juke dare. The moment is dancing.
Expensive imaginations parade between what they consider the help. Alterations in conjured reckoning lead to let-downs. Flee town with lead tinsel in your dually-cropped hair circles.
From an encampment of missed opportunities, take control of departure-time destiny & go rogue by using a concierge luggage cart. You’re scolded for borrowing, but out-the-door-euphoric from the plucky act. The morning sun departs. Go book hunting to lighten up. Find a Patchen chap! Bring a recently-acquired/future-mascot onstage for its first public appearance, which goes better than your own.
Celebrate backstage with scented beers & sliced marrow on ice that’s cherry-picked by donors, patrons & dogs alike. Be promoted to, “We didn’t think you’d make it . . .” Soberly agree then nearly leave your spokesperson in the wings. Load-out & head for the Grapevine as the construction-traffic crow flies. Coasting along, beach skippers park under curtains of nighttime wildfire domesticating above shifting lanes lined with experiments in edgy simplicity. Alight late in the land of milk-gravy & secure a lower floor where, upstairs, someone paces all night, maybe also wondering how it got to this. The chapbook is illuminating. The tooth sayeth nada.
This budget hovel offers economy wi-fi & room service consorts who promenade past the guest pool filled with discarded ganglia screaming to piss themselves as their forebearers decamp to gamble away their free-time doweries, all-involved passing-on their given-choices, already taken away & dying to win.
Somewhere between the restrained summit & the fallen shore, a judgmental churner gurgles in the uncomfortably perfect night.
The buildings here are close. The streets are tight. You knew someone for a night here once who used to be able to leave their apartment by going out a window & sliding down a traffic pole. Red-curb-park illegally in front of a taken metered spot. Behind, a lipsticked older sits passenger-side windows-up & wearing sunglasses, expressionless as if waiting for the inevitable. Get out & casually check their parking meter like you’re just stretching your legs. It's almost expired. The older watches as you patently inspect their time then get back in your car to surveil from the side view mirror. While counting down, watch a nimble suit chase a fugitive dollar bill escaping with looping waves in the breeze down a financial-district outskirts sidewalk. He steps big, legs spread, almost making contact each-time-but-not before leaping into an intersection, finally capturing the note with a stomp & a spastic bow — only then glancing up for oncoming traffic. Mirror-peep to spy a younger approach the car-behind & greet their waiting passenger with a raised-hand, all-finger wiggle before getting behind the wheel. Sealed past their windshield, they turn to each other briefly, lips moving silently, then laugh & face forward, both smiling as the engine coughs to life. It must’ve been good news, breaking some dire expectation. The car pulls out with rolling-down windows & grinning words spilling out. You back into the metered space hoping for the same relief. Tonight there is no room number, only a famously underground ceiling waiting. Play-along, below, in former-honor to its future & unaccompanied memory to come.
