It's quarter after twelve and I have to be up in five hours for work. My girl just kicked me out of her apartment after a fight, and sitting here now I'm thinking about what kind of mess my life is and how much I hate every minute of it. The thing is I usually think that, it isn't a depression or a negativity issue, hell I don't really know what type of issue it is but I do know it is always with me.
The funny thing it is difficult for people to have compassion with my situation. And they are right to feel that way. Once a week I play golf at a private club that is 200k a year to join and I don't pay a dime. Every other day I eat and drink like a King at a very famous and elegant restaurant in Manhattan where a meal for two will run over five hundred dollars and I don't pay that either. I am my own boss and make my own rules. I have two cars in Manhattan one of which has a set of plates on it that lets me park anywhere and do anything without any consequences. Women hit on me even though I have a gut these days, I go to parties in penthouses. And when that gets lame I paddle out and surf (quite competently) a sport which people seem to take up and fail at constantly. Afterwards I'll take the Penn out and Striper fish. I know how to fly, drive a boat, played a professional sport....but even sitting here now reading it all doesn't cheer me up. Single, in a relationship and anywhere in between and I am still just numb and stumbling through life most of the times.
But there was one time in particular when I felt totally whole. When things could never get any better and I was living in the moment like an Alzheimer's patient looking for his slippers. In the moment. Not thinking. Not knowing. Not caring. Not worried. And while at that time I was not listening to this song it is all I think of when it is played.
I was driving on Route 98 or Lilian Highway on the outskirts of Pensacola. I just crossed the Lilian Bridge and on the left was two trailers sandwiched together making an adult book store. I laughed looking at it when I passed by thinking of the time my old roommate and I drove there at two in the morning just to check out the crowd, a roommate who was now long gone and never to be seen again. A man who had been a bike messenger, a veterinarian and a trader on the Chicago Futures Exchange. In short a man who was never at a loss for a good story. I continued to drive along barefoot with a bathing trunks on and a linen shirt unbuttoned. If Kiara Kabukuru and Manute Bol had a child I was darker than him at the time and my waist still fit into those Dolce & Gabanna 31 jeans I just gave away to the clothing drive a month ago. The carburetors in my 1988 Grand Wagoneer were ticking and sputtering through the early morning purple as the sun was about to rise at my back. There was no soundtrack except for those carbs and the wind noise passing through the triangle window on the passenger's side. I had forty three dollars, two twenties and three singles in my webbed pocket of my trunks, the last time I had been with a woman was over a year ago and there wouldn't be one for almost another year.
When I finally turned around the sun was dead in my face so I threw on my issued aviator glasses, turned the A/C off, rolled down the windows and smelled the sweet humid air of the south permeating through the old leather seats and mixing in with the coconut air fresheners I had scattered throughout the tan interior. Back past the adult book store, over the bridge and due south until I hit the bridge that lead into Perdido Key. Once a top the sun was cresting over the gulf on the left, on my right I could see far into Alabama. After the bridge I took the gradual right turn and floored the heavy V-8 for the three mile straight away that took me through the state park, through just empty sand dunes on the right and a glass blue-green sea on my left until I hooked a full right hand turn down Lafitte Reef where my house was the third on the left. I parked the Wagoneer under the stilt house, walked into the back yard which was a canal that connected to the intracostal waterway, jumped off the dock, rolled on my back and kicked around.
I climbed the decayed wooden ladder on the dock, walked the small boardwalk back to my house, sat on the wrap around porch and took a fresh pinch of Copenhagen. My mind was still blank, empty and effortless. Opening the sliding doors I passed out on my couch with the windows open and a small breeze wafting though the room.
I've had times like that before, and I've had times like that since. But I always keep coming back to that one time. They have always gone quickly, they have always been holy and man I was feeling alive right then and there. I don't think there is any message in that. It isn't something I lament over the passing of, it is something that just is and when it is it is perfect in every way. When lady luck is with you it is something you just can't explain.
