michael as sheffield

breathe in, cool back on MJ, remember Billy Mays 

1958 - 2009

R.I.P.

Noises

            This girl I had met drinking free wine in a gallery beside Tesco, she and I had made plans to see each other again. I went in, in sweat, and hoped I wouldn’t have to pay any money. I liked art and didn’t have any money, so the drinks tended to help. Some tall man in a brown suit spoke in a language I didn’t understand for a few minutes and so this broad, this angel, she tells me what he is saying. It’s good news too, “he says all the wine is free.” This girl was smiling now and I was too, so we grabbed a bottle and smoked a couple menthols on the curb outside. The streets were crowded and covered with dog shit and the light from the fast food joint across the way bleed into our eyes and conversation. But all in all, it was just fine. I sat pouring white into her small plastic cup, I myself drank straight from the bottle, and we laughed a good bit. I hadn’t been laughing much in those days so I knew there was something. She asked me if I wanted to go drink some more and I got red. I reached in the back of my jeans for some half-dollar to appear from black denim, some random blessing, but instead this broad, she puts her arm on my shoulder and asks, “What’s your pleasure?” So we went for drinks, got kind of sloppy and I walked her across a few bridges before taking her back to the Metro. I don’t know what we said in that time walking across the water from commercial street to seedy block but it musta been something good because before she went down those stairs to her train she put her hands on my chest and said she wanted to see me again. Musta been something good. We made some plans and arranged to meet in two weeks, this time I would take Carolin Fink out.

            We met at a house not too far from where I lived, a place where we could buy cheap drinks and smoke weed and cigarettes. The house was called Utopia and I came there every so often when I needed to drink but didn’t want anything hard. When I wanted the hard stuff I’d go to the bar a stone’s throw from my apartment – it was just two tables and a couple big flashing machines. The scene was easy. I’d get up and gradually pull myself to a door four numbers away from mine and as soon as I walked through that door the Doc would go, “You in for a hard night Marlon?” And I’d say “As hard as you can make it.” He’d wind me up one of his fastballs and I’d be looking deep into the bottom of my glass if I wasn’t looking for a window to smash. Doc knew this and never seemed to care. I couldn’t take a pretty girl to place like that, so we’d go to Utopia.

             I never seemed to find that damn place the same way twice. I knew the streets, I knew the area, I had been to that goddamn bar dozens of times but I never seemed to find it the same way. I gave Carolin the address on account as I’d be purely red fuming skin if I were to try and take her there and got us both lost.

            That particular early evening I’d find it quick. I looked up from the street to the house’s porch filled with young someones; drinking beers, locking up their bikes, smoking rollies and talking to one another. At one point an older looking man pulled out a big sack of cocaine and passed it to a friend. He was white, bald and wore skinny sunglasses and a blue embroidered sweatshirt that looked Islamic. I made my way up the stairs to the bar, brought two arms full of Staropramen outside, leaned back on the iron rail bordering the porch and lit up a few waiting for Carolin. She musta felt the same indignation as I looking for the blurred place among streets carelessly shifting.

            I saw her walk up the stairs a few minutes later, a little winded, and it wasn’t long before she saw me and I handed her a few beers. We drank outside and only talked to one another, smiling some just as the first night we’d met. We talked about books and family and who the hell we’ve been since the last time we spoke. The peak of the sun glared bright from behind some tall buildings in the distance, the sky was dark save for those rays. We talked about time and how rarely people took real time into account in thinking about their lives.

            “Time changes you each passed moment, your past changes every single instant,” she said to me with big eyes.

            “It’s a miracle people get along at all if you think about. The only thing that could really keep people connected is some great cosmic coincidence that the passing of moments has actually brought them closer.”

            I didn’t know what I was saying but I could tell she liked whatever it was as she smiled at me.

            “I thought we could walk up Petrin Hill. I know a few places around there and the hill would be perfect on this kind of night…the end of fall.” I didn’t have much money but I wanted her to know that she meant something to me, or at least it felt like she did. She seemed up for anything and she was alone. So we threw our bottles down the sewer grate and walked to the closest tram.

            It had been raining the whole day. We passed the stop we had meant to get off at and walked the rest of the way toward an opening in the tall marble-stone wall that surrounded Petrin Hill. It was pitch black out now except for the few sanctioned lights that illuminated a few of the bigger and older trees. The city wanted you to see those trees. We walked up and talked about our fears. I told her that I was scared of heights, even when walking up hills, but that my main fear was never being understood, of my meaning being completely lost on others. She looked kind of drunk now too and eventually put her arm in mine. We walked in silence for a while, up gravel and skinny dirt roads until reaching a more crystallized cement walkway. Carolin looked sad and told me the main thing she was afraid of was not being prepared; of being stuck in situations where she couldn’t have an opinion, of being alone without a reflex. I asked her if she had nightmares about this and she had to think. “ I don’t think so. My dreams are mostly just symbols. Symbols that I talk and talk and talk about but symbols that never get me anywhere.” The ground was wet beneath our feet.

            “It helps to think that there is some reason, that they are things that will help,” I said.

            “That’s not enough.”

            I told her I wanted to show her something so we ditched the manmade path and crawled up some mud and grass to a ledge visible in broken moonlight. We got up and soon she saw the pond. Water poured into the pond from somewhere higher on the hill and the ground was noisy. It sounded like a thousand insects crawling on to our feet and up to our ears for the ground was covered in small frogs. Carolin seemed repulsed at first but they were harmless things. They could fit in the palm of your hand; they had lots of bumps and ranged from a light sea green to a deep brown. They stuck out their long tongues every so often trying to catch the flies hovering around our waists. They were never scared. They jumped thrusting their chests up to the sky, long legs stretching and following their bodies, landing easy. They were small and all of them seemed to have innocent eyes. Eyes of a natural order, wordless eyes that would not move save for a few long blinks after every thousand or so moments.

            I picked one up and Carolin began to brush it’s back with her index finger.

            “We should name it,” I said.

            “This could be you Marlon,” she said before getting on all fours, catching another one. “And this one is me, Carolin - the Frog King.”

            We tried to make the frogs kiss but each time we brought them close to one another they would kick and fidget, climbing up our arms or jumping to the ground. We gave up on love and let our frogs jump away back into the water; the sky became waves with each frog’s entrance.

            I began to reach for her hand when I saw her eyes freeze and pop, her skin had turned blue. “What the fuck,” she said.

            I looked where she was looking and saw it. “Goddamn,” I said.

            On the ground was a large green mess. It looked like some weird plant at first glance but it became clearer the longer you stared. It was a big motherfucker. A large toad with a big potbelly was lying on it’s back, completely covered in other frogs who licked it and kicked at its sides. Its head was rolled back, its legs and arms seemed not to move and it was fat. Hideously fat. It seemed like its stomach was going to burst open and its chin bulged wide. Its eyes were closed. It made these cries too, almost human like, these deep cries that carried far above the other frog’s cacophony. And every so often, the toad would jump, carrying all the other frogs with it. It would jump two feet in the air without using its legs or arms; it was just in pure mobility. Each time it jumped a few frogs would be thrown off but new frogs would come quick and add to the weight. We couldn’t tell if it was pregnant, if they were mating, or even if they were hurting it. I wouldn’t tell Carolin but to me, staring at that freakish blob in the wet night, it looked like the frogs were eating it. After a few jumpless moments, you could barely make out the toad from the hoard of frogs.

            “Should we help it?” Carolin asked.

            “What can we do?” I asked. We didn’t know what was happening, it could have been nature. “That’s what happens in undisturbed nature,” I told myself. Still there was obvious suffering. You could tell by the noises.

            Carolin soullessly grabbed me by the arm and we walked away from the pond. We were shivering a bit, it had started to rain lightly and looking at her eyes they seemed like water. We made our way up from the trail circling the pond toward a dirt path about the width of a tire. The dirt was a watery mud and we nearly took some spills here and there. She didn’t seem to mind the mess but her face was shocked, still hearing the noises from bellow. We said nothing as long as we could, looking out through tangled bushes and wide oak trees. I took out a cigarette and gave one to her. 

            “I could use another drink,” Carolin said as if reading my mind.

            “I know this place a few stops away. The beer is cheap and there is usually good weed.”

            “Sure, I just need to think of something else right now,” she said and we started toward the tram. Coming back always seems quicker than taking off and past all the bushes and wet cement, past a few crushed frogs and long grass we made our way down. We were silent but she held me hard and I felt like she had found me. I leaned into her as she took long drags, never really taking the cigarette away from her mouth.

            So, there we were.

            Carolin huddling in her parka past closed bars and unlit windows as I walked next to her. It had gotten cold and it seemed near crazy to go anywhere. It was late enough that all the neon store signs were off but the streetlights were bright. I elbowed her knocking her off balance. She laughed with half-closed eyes and handed me a flask of vodka.

            “I’m much too drunk to go home at all tonight, it’s ok if I grab the metro tomorrow right?”

            “Oh course,” and just then, I was feeling perfect.

            “You are lucky,” she said, her mouth on my shoulder of my jacket.

            We made left at a corner and walked next to the highway, passing highway life; over-grown yards, a bunch of fences, a few cars parked on grass and some old factories.. Carolin stopped to look at some graffiti on the bottom of a factory wall. I did the same but the whole time I couldn’t stop looking at her. As if we had just landed here, together, on a shit glazed earth. A stream of cars passed us loudly and we edged as close as we could toward the buildings. I reached for her hand but she didn’t seem to see it, too focused on the cars and graffiti. I shook it once and reached for the flask.

            I looked at her creamy skin and her big brown eyes and I wanted to taste her. Till I had her waist and her warmth and those brown eyes pouring over me and propping me up. “Carolin, I wish you were everyday.”

            “What?”

            I didn’t really know what I meant, so I took another sip from the flask.

            A few more blocks and we finally get to the bar. More grass, rubble too and a dozen or so kids were sitting outside smoking and talking a bit. This one boy wasn’t wearing a shirt and had a wide sleeve of tattoos in a language I didn’t understand. A few stray cats were gathered around a fallen dumpster, soggy cheese and beer bottles poured into the parking lot. An iron-welded sign that read “The Lighthouse” hung above a steel door. I opened it for Carolin and she dragged me in by my coat.

            Inside, the place was hot. I asked her if she wanted a drink and went over to the bar as she tried to find some place to hide her coat. It was hot and from the ceiling to your eyes, there were clouds of smoke. Not that many people were inside, at least not that many at the bar. The bass from a top room seemed just fine, just enough to get our minds off the wet realities and into something else.

            I motioned to the bartender. He filled one cup and puffed a joint passed to him from another bartender. He dragged the joint slowly, taking his time and breathing smoke out of his nose.

            “What should we toast to?” I said holding up my glass.

            “To walking and smoking and constantly fighting sleep. To several pints and a great sleep,” she said with her eyes toward the ground.

            We sat there awhile and didn’t speak, sipping our beers in the thick smoke that poured over from every other table. Carolin looked like she was waiting.

            I asked her if she wanted to dance and she said was up for anything. We were both getting tired and as we got up, the bartender yelled, “last call.” We moved through the small aisle between the bars and the seating toward the dance hall. We hiked through groups of rolling teens and snow-blind tourists talking louder than the rest of the club. It wasn’t a popular place but it wasn’t hard to find either, if you were looking the right things.

            From the doorway, we watched the dance hall. There were only a few kids inside and most weren’t moving. The DJ was playing some reggae record and holding a bright green light that he moved all across the room. It was a dead show. I downed the rest of my beer quick and asked if she wanted to go home.

            “Yes, these buggers look half-dead. It really makes no difference to me. We should drink some more wine at your place, no?” she said.

            I loved how she thought, so I grabbed her hood and kissed her hard. She backed up, her cheeks turned red, “I think we should go home,” she said.

            As I led her out of the bar she grabbed my arm. She put her lips up to my ear and quietly moaned “Marlon”. I couldn’t even look at her, I couldn’t even bear to give the feeling a name or attribute the context; it was a new feeling. I wanted it everyday.

            We moved out of the bar and were on our way home, to my home. To this new dreamnest I could share with Carolin, even if for one night. I looked toward the highway, at the passing trucks and bodies that scraped by and even thought, maybe this is it. Maybe I could die. Maybe someone would swerve into me and Carolin and we would die in this. My last imprint of memory.

            We got to our cross street and ran across the highway. I grabbed her by the arm and she immediately began to sprint. I sprinted forward with her and suddenly we were racing, arm in arm, to the apartment as if being pulled by something. The few trees on my block seemed to have faces in their bark, branches and arms. We sprinted over some cobblestone, sharpening toward my apartment. But then we were taken a back.

            We couldn’t move.

            A man and a woman were on the lawn of the housing complex next to my apartment. The man was on top of the woman, the woman’s pants were down. They were screaming and they both looked really fucked up.  The woman was crying and the man was pounding on her shoulder to get her to be still. His waist was digging into her bare ass and she would not stop punching and screaming, ugly barely audible screams that seemed to come from a place deep in her stomach. They seemed wet and the man’s mouth was wide open as he yelled at her in a language I didn’t understand. Carolin grabbed me hard but we walked. The two continued to squirm and jolt and cry out, and the cries were less loud as we got to my door.

            “What do you think that was Marlon?” Carolin was frantic and we were both still drunk. She reached in her jacket, fishing for her tobacco. “Should we go help her, what’s going on Marlon?” She was hysterical.

            “I don’t know Carolin, it could be anything. They both seem really fucked up. Maybe she is having a bad trip or got some bad speed and is bugging out and he is trying to help her.” Carolin nodded but I could tell she was thinking something else.

            “Carolin, we don’t know these people and this isn’t a great place to be as it is. They are probably both rolling their faces off.” She nodded again but we both knew what we were seeing and still half-hearing.

            I told Carolin I would call the police.

            The lights were off in my apartment when we got in. I flicked them on, ran to the phone but Carolin took the phone from me, setting an ashtray on the kitchen counter as she lit up her cigarette and waited for someone to answer.

            “Marlon, Marlon. What should I say?”

            “Say exactly what you saw.”

            She thought out loud for a moment. “So we were coming home from the pub when we saw a man and a naked woman fighting on the lawn. How old did they look Marlon? What color hair did he have?”

            I couldn’t remember. Carolin looked scared, the most scared I had ever seen her. So I ran to my bedside window, unlatched the wood lock, rose the glass, peeled up the screen and peered out.

            And that was it.

            I looked out from my apartment at the man and the woman on the lawn, police sirens already moving quick down the street, and the weeds and grass growing in pitches in the cracks of cobblestone. The police would get there in a matter of seconds without so much as a word from our end. They would shine a flashlight in the man’s eyes before hitting the man, pushing him against their car and shoving him inside. They would put a large red cloth around the woman, trying to warm her up before putting her in the car. They would drive away, out of my neighborhood, back to the more crowded area of the city. And me and Carolin would sit on my bed, looking out the window. We would stare at each other, trying to find some semblance of understanding but eventually we would just settle on staring. She would roll a few every once in a while and we would drink the rest of the wine in silence before passing out, her on the bed and me in a chair. I wouldn’t see her after that day. I would walk her to the tram in the morning, a cup of coffee in my hand and I would say, I loved you darling without any words. And she would say the same silence to me as our hands broke and she made her way to the platform and out of this life and idea forever. But I do remember I watched her fall asleep, those big brown eyes caught with eyelids. Her eyes were closed but even then I knew no dream haze was granted, just a still memory, the memory of two bodies shaking on the lawn and of the officers who took them away.