Writings of the Nomad Junkie

“Yeah I'm the type of guy that likes to roam around
I'm never in one place I roam from town to town.”
- “The Wanderer” by Ernie Maresca

She was a quote whore and had legs like a seagull, beautifully bent as if awaiting take-off, eager to follow the visiting ships.  We’d wheeled hypnotically for hours at a time once before in different corners of the world, often flapping in a cul-de-sac of frustration.  I had learned of her through a truncated message tossed from a virtual skyscraper and tried my best to reciprocate. 

I’d spent the better part of my life on the wing, but my wandering had slowed when too many of my fellow searchers were snared in world wide webs devoted to no one but the faceless spirit of the machine. 

She sat like a beautiful Spider Monkey cross-legged on volcanic stone, waiting at the wall. 

I caught a glimpse of her from above and behind, through the scalding chinks of the coppers’ chains and the dimmed windows of their Chevy Impala.  There were crumbs and old newspapers  and a crushed coffee cup kept rolling back and forth under the passenger seat.  They picked me up for rolling a cigarette outside of Central Park – I wasn’t even smoking, I was just rolling it.  They said I broke the law and was loitering and would have to be booked and they said they had witnesses.  They drove around for a while and went back to the park entrance where they snagged me.  My cigarette was still on the cobblestone.  They asked around if anyone had seen me rolling the cigarette.  The hotdog vendor just stared at them.  He must have thought it was funny. 

They shoved me back in the cruiser.  Now they were pissed. They drove a bit, then laughed as they blared the siren and slapped me around a bit.  I wanted to fight back -- but if my fury had gotten the best of me I’d never make it to the wall. 

They beat me so badly, a couple of the dead mariners' souls' tumbled out of me spilling onto the corroded seats of the car.  I began to wonder if they would turn my feet into tobacco pouches.
                                                                  }{

I wished they had dropped me off somewhere further East, under the Metro North, somewhere I could have tucked myself up or crawled in beneath the mangled cars parked in the lot next to the junkyard on Park avenue.  The circumference of my forehead about to explode, I was dripping in my own late-hour-last minute mistake and it was a long aching feeling that I would never quite make it back home. 

The evo and devo of life hung in the air, each fighting for control of the night not realizing we were way past both stages. 

Temple of Faith or Tempted to Fade – I couldn’t quite make out the sign over the junkyard, my eyes were so swollen. 

He said he wanted no trouble.  I said neither did I.  He asked me what I wanted, I pointed to his car and gestured if I could lay my head down on the hood (less chance of catching some creepy crawler that would make my middle leg into a night-stand in the morning or a hand grow out of my face.  Last I heard you could catch diseases from public computers, so the Internet cafes were clearly out of the question.)    He was a little leery of my situation. 

What's your game, man? 

I shook my head, shrugged my soldiers. It seemed he understood.  He asked if I spoke words and I muttered Yes right back to him, but he just stared at me waiting for something more to come out of my mouth besides crushed teeth...maybe it was the phonestomyhead he could not accept, my bloodied eyes or maybe I was just forgetting my manners.  I removed the phonestomyhead and he jumped back. 

Hey man, you need to take all that sonic stuff out of here.  You hear? This is for holy people.  You holy? 

I nodded because I was certainly was trying to be - I wanted to be that full circle, so I covered up the rip on my back pocket and the tear in my knee. 

I like them jeans, he said.  How much you pay for them jeans?  You not a criminal are you?  Huh?  Be honest now. 

I nodded meekly.  I pulled out a crushed apple “the cops had arrested me for – for stealing from the bodega -- "

(I had to lie because he wouldn’t believe the truth, anyway. )

“I figured if I were caught I'd get time and eat a few square meals a day in the slammer.  My plan didn't work because I'm stupid.  The cops beat me good and laughed when they said I ‘must have been really dumb to get a beat down over an apple.’ 

 Then I let the truth slide in: “ After they beat me,  they laughed and asked me where I got my jeans.  One of the cops wanted the jeans so badly he pulled at my leg and ripped my left pocket because as I was getting out of the police car, he was still grabbing on...” 

I started to think that Holy Man was a cop himself.   I wouldn't be surprised, there was nothing to it.  Especially if you like guns and following orders.  And all throughout our exchange he kept warping his hands into all sorts of "gun shapes".   Anyway, my sordid tale didn’t impress – it seemed to only have furthered his fetish for my torn bloodied jeans. 

I slept in my black jumpsuit.

                                                                   }{

                        
I awoke around 4:30AM, the sun was still an hour away but for the first time in weeks I heard myself breathe and saw my own breath clamoring in the air. 

She said she'd try to write early so I figured I'd go over to the wall and see.  She left a couple of lines about friends not giving up in the Sahara of the new millennium.  I scrawled we might as well give up but does that mean we mustn't enjoy ourselves? 

On the second night, She replied in large black handwriting across the chipped-away handball court: 

I know you were there. And I know you didn’t care -- for the time sewed up in my pocket. Or the people standing around stuffing sightless sounds in eye sockets. 

I replied: 

Gypsy, better keep your chain. Gypsy, just like me – you’re gonna stay the same. 

One of the tramps on Lexington told me about a decent place I could spend a couple of nights while I rested my wings and let my wounds heal.  I walked into the place – right away they thought I was rich.  Pardon me, I said (this didn’t help—saying “pardon me”).
Que--?
I need a place where I can wash my clothes and sleep for a while.  I’m leaving on a trip in a couple of days.
Wha ‘appen to joo?
What?  Oh, nothing.  I fell.
Joo no fell no-where.  Police?
I shrugged.
Si, si…
The old woman knew the deal and was very kind to me.  I got the room  in the back of the church and hair salon that she cooked food for.  I indicated I didn’t have much money and the old woman was  disappointed and made me pay two days up front. 

I was anxious to wash my sheets and take a shower.  I wanted to see the response on the wall, I wanted to know where She was going next. 
I found a blank patch of wall and wrote in crayon: 

Preachers preaching in my doorway.
Preachers trying to show me the right way.                                                               But unlike them, I have a mind that thinks left-wards                                            When it’s on wind. 

Later that night she wrote: 

But can’t you see the vibes are green?
“Hate the sin, love the sinner.” – MLK, Jr. 

That gave me enough to chew on that night while I listened to the blood flowing through my veins as the preachers behind my wall collected money for a bus that was to be rented to go someplace where evil couldn’t reach. 

-  When are you flying? 

- As soon as we’ve painted the town red and covered the wall completely in love. 

And so we spent our nights writing on the wall - leaving messages for each other in the moonglow under the those nearly extraterrestrial croons and murmurs of broken down ballads and doo-wop singers.  The wall was nearly riddled to death with our love-bites.  It was a glorious full moon when I wrote:

I look forward to jumping into the sky with you.  I never had time to open up my mind.  Never had time to see what's mine.  Never had time to feel so fine…

Around 2AM, I glanced up and saw a reply I’ll never forget:

…And sunshine will ring through the window.
Sunshine will ring up Langston Hughes & Marlon Brando.
And the girls dressed in birthday suits all have eyes like candles.

 Then, beneath it: 

“Every new relationship is a new word.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

                                                                }{

 I went back the following day. 

The wall was gone.  And with it her message of hope.  The crushed rock spilled into the street like sand.  I sifted through the elements hoping to find the rippled writing from yesterday, or a scrawl across the back of a rock...Just concrete and gum. 

I threw a handful of asphalt into my pocket and walked to the Salvation Army dumpster.  I thought of throwing myself in - but could you imagine what they'd say?  They'd probably have me arrested or do tests or tell me this was all in my control, that I willed this.  With that and a converse sneaker, they'd send me on my way. 

I leaned against the steel leg underneath the metro north, its horn becomes a comfort in the spinning wheel of commerce and spoilt tears.
I touch the sand in my pocket and pull the corner inside out, letting the sediments of my memories blow out into the night, letting the magic of the words breathe... 

There's no museum here, folks, just telling time of day...which can last forever if you want it to..."What I do is what I say".

Take yourself and your dreams serious.
Your words may be the only gospel someone may ever read.

(c) 2009 by D.L.Kangalee