Babylon

After more than a year of my occasional drop-ins and ending-ups at Me Olde Watering Hole, after months of listening to so many stories between Lou and Boone, it's to the point you don't know which parts are real and which are bullshit. Way past the point where it even matters, but just shy of what you really hope is true.

Boone had control of the music. Steely Dan, courtesy of the new mp3 juke hanging on the wall four feet above a permanent dust ring outlining where the old disc job used to be. He had downloaded their entire catalog and wouldn't leave it alone. Boone ordered another round in between the lines of a half-hearted break-up with some sweet young thing and an aging man's bachanalia in TJ. Lou joined us for a change, lightly gripping a shorty as he leaned his hip against the bar. Come to think of it, I don't know if I've ever seen him idle like this.

“I hate that damn thing” he said into the rim of his glass. “Now I gotta redo the whole damn floor. Ain't that a kick in the ass?” 

Boone pulled a James Brown maneuver to climb onto his stool and started tapping a Newport on the bar. “I played all of Gaucho. On random."

Boone suddenly found himself ducking Lou's dish rag. “You know I hate this shit, why'd you go an do that? Can't understand a word.”

While the two went back and forth about the complexities of art and the every day slob's ability to understand it, I faded into the woodwork. Faded to Babylon. Highway 89. 89 minutes with nothing to do but drive, swaddled in a valley like the ones you see sofa-sized at starving artist sales. Scorching my scalp through the sunroof. Listening to the CD she had made. Put a few days and a few thousand miles between me and the inevitable, hoping for the clarity that comes once in a great while. Suddenly I could hear her in the music, us in the lyrics. That music. One last plea that might be wallered in while away. She didn't have to talk.

“Dontcha think?” Boone said, then waited a few seconds for my response. “Hey, Major Tom. C'mon back.”

I snapped back to and got the rundown on the conversation that I'd missed. Boone's point was that just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it isn't any good. Lou thought that the minute you have to explain it, you've failed.

“This is the first cultured conversation we've had in here and you're miles away, c'mon now. Spill it.”

I felt my face go red.

“I was just reminded...I was just thinking about a friend of mine that almost died.”

Pause for effect.

“He was on a bike, hauling ass down this trail somewhere...really shouldn't have been out there alone. He was the last one out and trying to outrun some nasty storm clouds. He's so damn scared, no idea what's ahead and the black is bearin' down on him. Shit, he was just trying to hang on. He's duckin' shit, bobbin' and weavin'. He went over stuff that would've crippled others. The only sound was his own blood rushing by in his ears. Jarring bones and crunched joints.”

“The moment of clarity, right. Listen, we've heard this one.” said Boone.

But that wasn't the moment.

“Imagine the point when you suddenly realize exactly...what it is you want. In that moment, as the Larkspur whizzed by...as the sweat dripped down his face, he thought he knew exactly what he wanted.”

I leaned back, struck a cocky pose on the stool. Pause for effect.



"But he's not payin' attention, see? Suddenly he finds himself looking past the tips of his shoes as he dangles over the edge of the damn trail. Hair pin turn outta nowhere. Had to be...at least 200 feet down. Not a sheer cliff face you understand, but close. Eh, maybe the fall wouldn't have killed him. Maybe just break his legs or neck. Mangled to hell, but he'd live.”

Boone pointed at me and inhaled, but I interrupted before he could identify the moment.

“As he dangled...there was no picture show, no life flashing before his eyes kind of thing. In fact, he said out loud “so...this is how.” He couldn't say how the wreck happened...and he couldn't explain how he clambered back up. His brain redacted all that shit. So he stood there and got his breath for a minute or two...then started walking, just as he heard the first few raindrops hit his helmet. He took the helmet off and threw it in the bushes.”

Boone raised his eyebrows, I shook my head.

“When he crawled in bed...so damn sore, reaching down to pull up the sheet took a lot of effort. It hurt to breath in. Anyway, just as he hit the pillow and that sheet settled on him...he knew exactly what it was that he wanted. Not at all what he expected either.”

This pause for effect was too long. Lou broke the silence with a stern “What?”

“He was separated from what he wanted by a few days...and a few thousand miles.”

He got close to madness that night.