Nick Johnson, twenty-something male from the mitten.

25th January 2011

Photo reblogged from Wasted Words with 21 notes

dyinginback: vacancies He tells me to meet him where the powerlines cross the interstate, there’s a sign, I can’t miss it, and I know exactly where he’s talking about, this old motel that must have been shit in the fifties and is a shipwreck of a building now, lilting into the earth, one of those forgotten places on the side of the freeway without any glass in the windows or furniture in the rooms and the roof’s all caved in and you think that maybe sometimes the homeless spend their winters there, but you also think that because it’s so close to the freeway, only hundreds of feet from a constant stream of people, that surely someone is taking care of it, that someone owns it and makes sure the cops swing by from time to time, and that’s what this motel was, a building that was always someone else’s problem. Anyway, he tells me to meet him there under the sign and I don’t like that idea, not necessarily, even though there is no one who owned the derelict, no one to make sure the cops roll out every few days to clear out the destitute. Hell, I suspect not even the homeless care too much for this place, but I say sure, because he’s the only guy who’s selling, maybe in the whole county, and I’ve lost the part of me that scolds every time I want to push off. He’s got the medicines and I’ve got good cash money.   I don’t like the guy, there’s a smell about him that’s particularly off, not that that should mean I expect him to be pleasantly fragrant but there’s a chemical queerness that I can’t quite shake, and first I think he’s some kind of chef, that he’s dabbling in more than just my particular brand of medicine, that he’s got himself a little operation deep in the woods with barrels and beakers and crystalline, tooth-rotting product. Maybe he is, and that’s his own business, provided it doesn’t impede in my own. Christ, those teeth of his are so brown, his eyes beady little knots. It’s like chemicals, but not exactly. It’s chemicals or cow hair. Not exactly.  The appointed time comes and I lean against the towers supporting the sign, much like I imagine the Marlboro men of the Old West probably leaned up against saloon porches before I remember that those men are the products of Hollywood and tobacco advertisers and I get a little sad but mostly frustrated because it’s cold and the guy is late, and my arms are starting to itch and my chest is starting to itch and I’ve been itching for some weeks now and that’s what drove me to find this guy in the first place, and I think about how when I was five my Daddy left me to sit in our yard while he trimmed a hedge row and he couldn’t have known that there’d be fire ants there, he couldn’t, and he came sprinting when he heard me, that wounded-wildcat howling. This guy is late and it’s cold and my only company is the shuttling of semis on the freeway. In my boredom I get to reading the sign, those faded and falling letters, and learn that the crumbling shithole to my back once offered such amenities as a pool, color television, and a cocktail lounge, and even more than the non-existence of the Marlboro men the thought of what lonely straits might drive a person to seek company in such a lounge drives a stake into my heart, how sad in this place where the sky is so grey like every winter I’ve known that you’d lock up your room and ask Sam the barkeep for a whiskey sour, and look around to see that everyone else (three other lonely gentleman and one suspiciously overdressed lady of the evening) also happens to be drinking whiskey sours. It’s a wonder there’s still wallpaper to be seen peeling in those rooms, for how much brains you know have had to have been blown across them. How can you not? I know I would. The guy’s still late and a whiskey sour doesn’t sound half bad to me, though I stopped drinking some years back, but it doesn’t sound bad, not by half, not by half at all, and it’s too cold to stay under the sign, and I have to think that even with all these weeds I’ll be able to see the guy when he shows up if I’m resting in the eaves, my back against the check-in like a Marlboro man, but I get uneasy with my eyes turned away from the place, and I get that mental imagine of a crazed homeless guy with white eyes and an Army penknife, slinking up in the dark to gut me like a fish and I whirl around and almost cry out but it’s just myself that I see in the window, this last plate of glass, look how white I am in all this moonlight. But the moon is veiled tonight, cut off. I’m so uneasy in all this openness, what if the cops come patrolling? I can feel the itching in my spine. I duck into the building. How am I supposed to think with all this itching? I’d love a whiskey sour right about now, and just thinking about it I swear I hear the tinkling of glasses, highballs toasted and maybe a grumble like laughter, or a boiler turning over, and it’s not as dark in here as I thought from the outside. It’s definitely laughter, but not the mad cackling of the destitute, no, by all rights it’s jovial, mirthy, uproarious. I’m thirsty, as thirsty as I am itching, and the guy still isn’t here and I’m starting to wonder if he’s ever going to show up at all, him and his chemical smell, his cow hair smell, and maybe I should find this party that I apparently haven’t been invited to, but the hallways aren’t quite leading me where I want to go, they keep bending, bending, and someone’s telling a joke but it doesn’t sound too funny, but judging by the responding laughter I’m the only one who thinks that, and damn these bending hallways, how is the guy going to find me all the way in here, not that it matters, that bullheaded bastard, and I have to laugh when I call him ‘bullheaded’ because of that fucking cow hair smell of his, and then I laugh because I think back to high school and the first time I ever heard a teacher swear, when the literature teacher called the Minotaur a ‘the bullheaded bastard’ of the king, the Minotaur in his labyrinth, and the laughter’s getting louder, higher, shriller, this itching is unbelievable, and how can there be so much moonlight coming in through the windows when I’ve climbed down so many stairs, and why did I think these windows were broken when I’m passing pane after pane of volcanic glass? My friend Jared is an incredible writer. I could read his stuff all day and never get bored. It’s manages to hit you right in the gut, and tug at those emotions you can’t quite describe.

dyinginback:

vacancies

He tells me to meet him where the powerlines cross the interstate, there’s a sign, I can’t miss it, and I know exactly where he’s talking about, this old motel that must have been shit in the fifties and is a shipwreck of a building now, lilting into the earth, one of those forgotten places on the side of the freeway without any glass in the windows or furniture in the rooms and the roof’s all caved in and you think that maybe sometimes the homeless spend their winters there, but you also think that because it’s so close to the freeway, only hundreds of feet from a constant stream of people, that surely someone is taking care of it, that someone owns it and makes sure the cops swing by from time to time, and that’s what this motel was, a building that was always someone else’s problem.

Anyway, he tells me to meet him there under the sign and I don’t like that idea, not necessarily, even though there is no one who owned the derelict, no one to make sure the cops roll out every few days to clear out the destitute. Hell, I suspect not even the homeless care too much for this place, but I say sure, because he’s the only guy who’s selling, maybe in the whole county, and I’ve lost the part of me that scolds every time I want to push off. He’s got the medicines and I’ve got good cash money.  

I don’t like the guy, there’s a smell about him that’s particularly off, not that that should mean I expect him to be pleasantly fragrant but there’s a chemical queerness that I can’t quite shake, and first I think he’s some kind of chef, that he’s dabbling in more than just my particular brand of medicine, that he’s got himself a little operation deep in the woods with barrels and beakers and crystalline, tooth-rotting product. Maybe he is, and that’s his own business, provided it doesn’t impede in my own. Christ, those teeth of his are so brown, his eyes beady little knots. It’s like chemicals, but not exactly. It’s chemicals or cow hair. Not exactly. 

The appointed time comes and I lean against the towers supporting the sign, much like I imagine the Marlboro men of the Old West probably leaned up against saloon porches before I remember that those men are the products of Hollywood and tobacco advertisers and I get a little sad but mostly frustrated because it’s cold and the guy is late, and my arms are starting to itch and my chest is starting to itch and I’ve been itching for some weeks now and that’s what drove me to find this guy in the first place, and I think about how when I was five my Daddy left me to sit in our yard while he trimmed a hedge row and he couldn’t have known that there’d be fire ants there, he couldn’t, and he came sprinting when he heard me, that wounded-wildcat howling. This guy is late and it’s cold and my only company is the shuttling of semis on the freeway.

In my boredom I get to reading the sign, those faded and falling letters, and learn that the crumbling shithole to my back once offered such amenities as a pool, color television, and a cocktail lounge, and even more than the non-existence of the Marlboro men the thought of what lonely straits might drive a person to seek company in such a lounge drives a stake into my heart, how sad in this place where the sky is so grey like every winter I’ve known that you’d lock up your room and ask Sam the barkeep for a whiskey sour, and look around to see that everyone else (three other lonely gentleman and one suspiciously overdressed lady of the evening) also happens to be drinking whiskey sours. It’s a wonder there’s still wallpaper to be seen peeling in those rooms, for how much brains you know have had to have been blown across them. How can you not? I know I would.

The guy’s still late and a whiskey sour doesn’t sound half bad to me, though I stopped drinking some years back, but it doesn’t sound bad, not by half, not by half at all, and it’s too cold to stay under the sign, and I have to think that even with all these weeds I’ll be able to see the guy when he shows up if I’m resting in the eaves, my back against the check-in like a Marlboro man, but I get uneasy with my eyes turned away from the place, and I get that mental imagine of a crazed homeless guy with white eyes and an Army penknife, slinking up in the dark to gut me like a fish and I whirl around and almost cry out but it’s just myself that I see in the window, this last plate of glass, look how white I am in all this moonlight. But the moon is veiled tonight, cut off. I’m so uneasy in all this openness, what if the cops come patrolling?

I can feel the itching in my spine. I duck into the building. How am I supposed to think with all this itching?

I’d love a whiskey sour right about now, and just thinking about it I swear I hear the tinkling of glasses, highballs toasted and maybe a grumble like laughter, or a boiler turning over, and it’s not as dark in here as I thought from the outside. It’s definitely laughter, but not the mad cackling of the destitute, no, by all rights it’s jovial, mirthy, uproarious. I’m thirsty, as thirsty as I am itching, and the guy still isn’t here and I’m starting to wonder if he’s ever going to show up at all, him and his chemical smell, his cow hair smell, and maybe I should find this party that I apparently haven’t been invited to, but the hallways aren’t quite leading me where I want to go, they keep bending, bending, and someone’s telling a joke but it doesn’t sound too funny, but judging by the responding laughter I’m the only one who thinks that, and damn these bending hallways, how is the guy going to find me all the way in here, not that it matters, that bullheaded bastard, and I have to laugh when I call him ‘bullheaded’ because of that fucking cow hair smell of his, and then I laugh because I think back to high school and the first time I ever heard a teacher swear, when the literature teacher called the Minotaur a ‘the bullheaded bastard’ of the king, the Minotaur in his labyrinth, and the laughter’s getting louder, higher, shriller, this itching is unbelievable, and how can there be so much moonlight coming in through the windows when I’ve climbed down so many stairs, and why did I think these windows were broken when I’m passing pane after pane of volcanic glass?

My friend Jared is an incredible writer. I could read his stuff all day and never get bored. It’s manages to hit you right in the gut, and tug at those emotions you can’t quite describe.

Source: beautyineverything.com

  1. aastronaut reblogged this from dyinginback
  2. lakesidesunshine said: you’re amazing, thank you for this
  3. chocolatechippancakes reblogged this from dyinginback and added:
    an incredible writer....those emotions you can’t
  4. inchesgiven reblogged this from dyinginback and added:
    properly announce it,...Jared’s writing...fucking...
  5. dyinginback posted this