Lyrics by Elmore James, as performed by Jimi Hendrix. A new music video of this song can be viewed here on YouTube.
The bar, by Queens standards anyways, hardly stood out. Estimable attempts at sleek post-modern décor filled the space to the limit, thrashing any sense of minimalism originally intended by the designers of the individual lucite-and-vinyl barstools or bleach-white booths. But none of the guests seemed to care; eight dollar Heinekens taste the same here as in the hippest hipster stop in Brooklyn.
James - as he now fancied himself - gazed through his preposterously new horn-rimmed glasses clear past all the other patrons. He scratched at his nascent beard and squinted to read the teeny score box on the screen across the room. It was bad news:
NYK 108
SAC 112 F
Knicks loose again, surprise surprise. And to the Kings no less. Bleh. He took a hard swig and finished the first of several whiskey and rocks of the evening. He swiveled around and neatly released the tumbler onto the bar, which would have made a pleasing clinkthud sound if some miserable wretch hadn’t been belting out karaoke at the top of her lungs at that particular moment. She held his attention for a moment, amusingly drunk for this early in the evening but lacking any other sort of appeal. In particular her choice of music ruffled his sensibilities; even if chosen out of irony, Journey is inexcusable at this point.
“Hey buddy, you having some fun?” Matt slapped his back harder than he meant to and yelled directly into his friend’s cochlea. James raised his eyebrows and pulled his cheeks up, screwing his scrabbled features into a very poor poker face. “Aw man, don’t be like that! Look at these chicks! If Christina weren’t around I’d totally hit like half of them!”
“How very Chris Brown of you Matt,” he deadpanned back, then turned to gesticulate wildly in the direction of the overworked and under-clothed bartender for another round.
“Ha, ha, smartass,” he droned, adding a jovial punch at the shoulder. James managed to procure a refill before turning back to his pal.
“You know wha- -eans -eft -lone?” James’ depressive voice didn’t carry enough punch to outmatch the dreadful karaoke, now a heartfelt love ballad to ganja perpetuated by a dreadlocked Caucasian (via Bob Marley).
“What?!” Matt screamed for his friend to repeat.
“Do know what it means to be left alone?!” he screamed, his reddening cheeks hidden behind a wall of chestnut bristles. “My little girl left me,” he muttered to himself, eyes watering.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Recovering the Satellites
As this is a little longer than some of my previous shorts (and because now I know how to do this kind of thing!), you can download a PDF of this story for easier reading instead. Click here to download the PDF.
“Recovering the Satellites” by Counting Crows
For Joshua, mornings were certainly the worst. Some days he just lay in bed, often for hours on end if necessary, waiting until light finally crept its way through the slits between his yellowed bedroom curtains. During one of those dark pre-dawns, he half-dreamt he was caught in an endless cycling freefall from the ceiling to the bed. Other times he saw people’s faces in the blinking smoke alarm above, people from his past arcing across the room as his vision crossed and rolled uncontrollably. And always, he struggled bravely against his bladder’s false sense of need. It was a fantastic exercise in willpower, the theme for seemingly all of his endeavors these days.
On rare mornings - like today for example - he forced himself upright to get the blood moving a little, so as to initiate the skipping of the nasty tedium altogether. It took a few moments for the cobwebs to part, moments he wanly endured. His breath blurted out in wheezy bursts, mercifully clear of the cursed rattling for now. Thought it had been an impressively stifling evening in the valley following the yesterdays’ triple-digit August afternoon, he left the A.C. quiescent overnight. The searing dry air drew buckets of sweat out of him, but also performed miracles on his wretched lungs.
He slid his legs off the bed, testing his limp feet on the cold hardwood. He found a little stiffness in the knees and some pain at the mounds of his outer toes when he applied pressure, but no more. Better than usual. With a grunt he lurched to his full height before bending forward to spare his protesting back. A flash of pain spiked near his right kidney, earning another grunt. He felt for the source with a knuckle, but thankfully it dissipated quickly. What I need right now is a drink.
He cursed the thought and reached for his notebook and pencil on the nightstand. Six AM today, not exactly a new record. He stared longingly at the entry for July 16th, the outlier. Somehow he had made it past lunch without so much as an inkling of the stuff. He winced a smile through the pain to remember that day, one of the very few successes of late. Bill had actually called back for seconds, the first one do to so. That day he actually felt like he was on the right track.
After replacing the pad and pencil to their usual positions, Joshua shuffled over to the cramped bathroom and tried his best to avoid looking at his wrinkled old face in the mirror while he performed his morning rituals. Piss. Fist-full of pills. Gulp of water. Shower. Shave. Another fist-full of pills. Gulp of water. Etc.
“Recovering the Satellites” by Counting Crows
For Joshua, mornings were certainly the worst. Some days he just lay in bed, often for hours on end if necessary, waiting until light finally crept its way through the slits between his yellowed bedroom curtains. During one of those dark pre-dawns, he half-dreamt he was caught in an endless cycling freefall from the ceiling to the bed. Other times he saw people’s faces in the blinking smoke alarm above, people from his past arcing across the room as his vision crossed and rolled uncontrollably. And always, he struggled bravely against his bladder’s false sense of need. It was a fantastic exercise in willpower, the theme for seemingly all of his endeavors these days.
On rare mornings - like today for example - he forced himself upright to get the blood moving a little, so as to initiate the skipping of the nasty tedium altogether. It took a few moments for the cobwebs to part, moments he wanly endured. His breath blurted out in wheezy bursts, mercifully clear of the cursed rattling for now. Thought it had been an impressively stifling evening in the valley following the yesterdays’ triple-digit August afternoon, he left the A.C. quiescent overnight. The searing dry air drew buckets of sweat out of him, but also performed miracles on his wretched lungs.
He slid his legs off the bed, testing his limp feet on the cold hardwood. He found a little stiffness in the knees and some pain at the mounds of his outer toes when he applied pressure, but no more. Better than usual. With a grunt he lurched to his full height before bending forward to spare his protesting back. A flash of pain spiked near his right kidney, earning another grunt. He felt for the source with a knuckle, but thankfully it dissipated quickly. What I need right now is a drink.
He cursed the thought and reached for his notebook and pencil on the nightstand. Six AM today, not exactly a new record. He stared longingly at the entry for July 16th, the outlier. Somehow he had made it past lunch without so much as an inkling of the stuff. He winced a smile through the pain to remember that day, one of the very few successes of late. Bill had actually called back for seconds, the first one do to so. That day he actually felt like he was on the right track.
After replacing the pad and pencil to their usual positions, Joshua shuffled over to the cramped bathroom and tried his best to avoid looking at his wrinkled old face in the mirror while he performed his morning rituals. Piss. Fist-full of pills. Gulp of water. Shower. Shave. Another fist-full of pills. Gulp of water. Etc.
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