ten o'clock, racing toward midnight and morning after, eyes
leaden, burning orbs, lower "gi" plumbing awash with coffee and diet colas,
nervous, numb tinglings somewhere in the back skull, brain's medulla and
cerebellum protesting abuse, bar scene still early, couple of hours before
"last call," boozy souls, loud voices abandoning the tall stools, spilling
out curbside, to brawl or "taking it home," later butcher block, kitchen
paring knife angers, loveless bedroom rutting momentarily silencing hatred,
thinking of the young man earlier saturday asking about john's
restaurant "help wanted" -- cook job" sign in the front window, well
traveled face wearing his desperation well, designer jeans, flannel shirt,
GENERAL BEARINGS logo jacket, sucking marlboro, slowly sipping coffee,
making it last, telling SYL, "i'm available now, this is where i am right
now, eh,"
nighttime musings, wondering would i have made a good short
order "cookie," instead of the perpetual chase after bitch goddess
succeess, past life and times of college semesters, classes, accumulating
degrees, earning academic honors, could i have been a poet and also lifer
bellboy at the tuller hotel, BIG D, detroit city, or being a crosscountry
truck driver turning 50's route 66 highway miles saved me from years lost
to demon alky diriliums,
thinking about my special bardic loft and lit-nest aerie over
the art gallery, small backwater ghost mining town history has passed,
coming on morning quiet reminiscences, amused how easily i became used to a
small living space, no telephone, with bath at the end of the hall, walking
to neighborhood grocery for menu feast fixings, and, wondering what mother
and father would think, say about their son.
yesterday before tomorrow after
early evening, dusk settling over mining village ghost town,
shadows shrouding, slowly enveloping the "redding building" across the
street, poet quietly musing, third can gone, cold "old mil" tall sixer,
kaleidoscope of faces, voices flickering and whispering, ricocheting off
nooks and crannies in skull's bruised gray matter.
feeling warm boozy glow, thinking it's not every day you
discover you are dying, yet, still a bit premature to begin negotiations
with god, asking "what's happenin'" and, would she be free to do something
some weekend about six months from now, bardic casualty of modern medicine,
yeast infection diagnosis changing into e. coli very nasty business.
yesterday afternoon, hospital "walk in clinic" patiently
waiting for urologist, results of the urine culture testing, fucking horse
needle stuck up my pecker giving new definition, if not dimension to "ouch,
sum-bitch, that hurts!"
medico delayed, occupied with emergency surgery somewhere
else in the hospital, sequestered in small patient's waiting room, amid
old copies of READER'S DIGESTS, library staple of bathroom and toilet
intellectuals, recent editions of UROLOGY JOURNAL, and AMA BULLETINS, meds
and medical stuff, wal-mart pastoral landscapes hanging on beige walls.
anxiously wondering, would what was ailing me finally have a
name, and once identified, a cure, 63-year old graybeard poet, working and
writing in backwater exile, now seven years past the age dad had his fatal
big muscle coronary blow, dicey brave new territory with everything
unpredictable, mother and dad's old country ancestors little help
determining a clue to my sickness, living back in earlier times when they
just didn't talk openly about such things, using folk remedies, wisdom of
old wives tales, with different names for medicines and diseases.
clinic pa system squawking, "doctor terry is needed in surgery
to deliver a baby, hold all incoming calls," sudden interruption jarring my
thoughts back to splake children's birthings, watching robin lynn emerge
bloody and bawling, immediately passing out, pitching face down on
operating room tiles, later sons, ted and mike, daughter casey arriving on
schedule with planned caesarean sections, calling margaret on the hospital
pay phone, telling mom, "we've got a baby daughter now," last week ordering
the new harry potter blockbuster tome for twelve-year-old nearly teen, and
sometimes class-act brat, athena, daughter of the woman i love.
suddenly doctor sarayanian through the door, sitting on a
small stool facing me, collecting a deep breath and saying in his heavy
"new delhi-indian" voice, "tom, i'm sorry but i have to tell you it's
cancer of the liver, and, in my opinion any radical treatment or
concentrated therapy would be useless," his low whisper trailing off to
distant hum, adding, "i think it best for you to think seriously about
putting your personal affairs in order," telling me with present medicines
and out-patient care and treatment procedures, i would probably have six
months more, maybe eight, nine months max.
short termer and poet passing final days, gallery de la
omphale' loft on quai de trout dancing, still reigning professor of
metaphysics and episemology, with so many things to do, and goddamn fast.
ready writings, poetry, photographs, personal files and
literary papers for marcus, head of "archives," northern michigan
university, metro marquette campus, call baker JB in munising, let him know
his services as power of attorney will be needed very soon to close my
estate, check in with barrister jaaskelainen, tell "jassy," time to clean
up the "in sane mind and sound body" last will and testament, also, marry
my rascal polish lover, saving "us" the tawdry sounding obit i.d., "and a
special friend."
choosing not to end life with one grand and glorious orgy of
alcoholic stupor, instead fighting death inch by inch, second for precious
remaining breath, returning to and serious about finishing SLOCHING TOWARD
CALVARY, splake "magnum opus" memiors, wrap the odyssey with "snowy,"
faithful canine, and across the upper peninsula trekking companion, writing
a few more poems and short stories along the final journey home, literary
hors d' oeuvres, desserts.
with bardic body and brain skull cavity still in synch,
probing greater understanding of mother and father, learning more about
"who" was that man, emery, and the woman, margaret, the deep existential
"whys" of their lives before it becomes too late, grapsing better the
particular slice of time my sixty-three years have encompassed, the
accidental and real choices that could have led to something, someone
different, like the anonymous voice from a john's family restaurant back
booth last sunday morning, a not yet sober thirtysomething woman growing on
ancient, exclaiming, "yeah, it's strange, crazy as goddamn hell how life
sometimes works out."
critical gamble and decision, knowing when the end is near,
heading out to the CLIFFS an instant before despair turns to desperation
and paralysis sets in, trusty 357 "old maggie," chilled leg of lamb last
supper, warm bottle of "chivas-chivas" comfort and courage, willie on the
auto-tranny sound system crooning "you are always on my mind," pulling in
trailhead turn-around and parking spot, leaving note, letting survivors and
gossips believe you really made it to the top, instead, sparing as much
burden and embarrassment as possible for love ones, leaving less mess for
others to clean up.
likely little remembered in passing time, just that old
man, "who was quite a character," ratty jeans, funny black hat with small
tit on top, worn boots patched with duct tape, poet and bard becoming one
with things god made, blending with vital powers of the sun, moon, sky,
soils, lakes, streams, trees, wildflowers, ravens and beautiful trout,
turning into faint, whispery, "ghost of the CLIFFS."
(c) 2000 by -t.k. splake
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