Damn good writing by Heather Minette. Took the words right out of my mouth.  Give it a read. You wont regret it. 

Wednesday

by Heather Minette.

Charlie’s here, talking about his story, about “how life’s an endless pit of chaotic bullshit, but every now and then it all makes sense, like there’s some kind of cosmic order, and that’s what makes life worth living, you know?” and Simon’s telling him, “it’s a substantial idea, but it’s already been done, man. It’s already been done.” It’s Wednesday so Joe and Chelsea are here – playing the same songs– she’s high on his guitar and he’s drunk on her voice and soon their composition will be careless and sloppy and they’ll leave as lovers and whoever is scheduled next, probably me, will be too plastered to perform, so the juke box will play Tom Waits. And there’s Alice, sitting by the piano again, that instrument she pretends to know how to play, wearing red high heels and matching lipstick, disguising her writer’s block and making herself available enough for another cheap story that will probably be published the same day she writes it. Michael’s on the patio with his legs crossed, rolling his own cigarettes, wearing that goddamn hat again like he’s some kind of fucking Hemingway in a French café. And Esmeralda’s pouring my drinks and I must say she’s damn good at her “transient position” and my disowned intemperance will miss her if she ever does make it to New York. Thank you, God. Here comes Olivia, being the ridiculously beautiful woman she is, dressed for a fucking Gatsby party, ignoring Michael, asking Charlie how his story is coming along, speaking Spanish to Esmeralda, pretending that she’s got somewhere better to go next. Jake and Allen stumbled in behind her, being assholes as usual. They’ve read so much existential and absurdist bullshit lately that now they’re convinced nothing matters, not even the fact that they’re fucking assholes. Jesus Christ, look at all these fucking assholes, all these goddamn beautiful fools. With their talents and critiques and theories and philosophies and hang-ups and bullshit. And I have to witness all of it. But really, I mean, really? Who am I to judge? I’m just some bastard, drunker than the rest of these bastards, sitting at the bar and scribbling about their lives on damp, used napkins. And in reality, now that I’m swaying on my bar stool, feeling all warm inside, and in such a state to choose my own reality, we’re no different from one another. We’re just a bunch of worried, hopeless, “starving,” artists and writers and musicians and fucking assholes that come to this wine bar for the exact same goddamn reason: it’s Wednesday.

Source:  http://www.backhandstories.com/fiction/

Journal Entry, Last Year.

I welcomed the flight, I needed something different to do, I needed to go somewhere, anywhere.  I went to the airport extremely early so I could sit at the restaurant and read a newspaper or a magazine. 

            I went to the same airport bar that I had gone to that July on my way to California to see my friend Jared, a bit had changed since then and to my surprise the same bartender, Simone, a very pleasant 40 year old woman was still working there.  She recognized me from months ago and to my surprise, gave me a smile, and greeted me, “How’s it going Mike?”.  I had only met her once but her kind face and charming southern accent caused me to remember her name immediately. 

After some common pleasantries I confessed the state that I was in, how it was eating me up, and my plans to go to Colorado to hunt with my dad and forget everything.  I expected no sympathy, considering the severity of her situation with her ex fiancé earlier that year that I recalled her telling me about in July, but she listened to me calmly, with a deep sense of understanding and concern which expressed itself  in her eyebrows and the corner of her lips. 

            I cant remember everything she said to me but after I finished rambling for 15 minutes she looked at me, reached her hand across the bar placing it softly over mine, and like a mother calmly said, “You cant stop what’s coming Mike, you can never see it coming…” She paused, looked off in the distance passed me. After a few seconds she settled her green eyes on mine and finished, “All you can do is find some love in this world that helps you stand against that tide”.  She patted my hand, “remember that kiddo” and shot me a grin before returning to her other customers.  I don’t think ill ever forget that.  

This song groans forward, and leaves you sitting at a dark pub, counting every mistake and regret in the cracks of the wooden stools and bar tables.   A haunting waltz that takes from you and gives nothing back.  Enjoy!   

(video link below)

I raise my tired head from your chest and focus my eyes on your face, framed by the yellow linens and brown comforter.  You hold my chin, and your delicate fingers scratch at my half grown beard.  It’s late, but I don’t want to sleep, I want to see you and look at you, and know that you are real, because tonight, I need to know.  You look at me and smile as I suggest with tired eyes that we go to that pub in downtown, that one place we escaped to, that one time, when we were taking photographs and it started to rain.  But for once I am quiet, the one with a heavy story, the one who’s day dragged on endlessly to this moment, the one who sits in silence and wants nothing more than you, the balance that you provide me, the soft peach fuzzed nose that tickles at my cheeks and contrast my calloused hands.  For once I don’t saturate that moment with conversations on history, life, traveling, or all the fucking things that seem pointless to me right now.  My day was hard, and despite my laundry list of life’s pleasantries I am depressed, pensive, reflective.  We drive in silence, and you hold my arm from across the bench seat, and I can see you smile at me from the corner of my eyes, as the freeway lights shine across my dirty windshield.   I am tired.

                   The pub is desolate, and almost empty, and the old wood and green bottles wash into the dark walls.  The regulars sit in silence, looking past the dry limes in their Coronas to the mirrored liquor shelves, counting the bottles in their heads, as if every wrong turn, every regret was written across their labels.  I order a beer, and stare into it.  The brown, the tan, it reminds me of your eyes, and as your hand lies across my thigh, I think that I never want to leave this place, I never want to go.  The strung Christmas lights that hang from the bar catch your faire completion, and your left cheek glows green from the neon cloverleaf sign that hangs behind the bartender.  I kick the dust from work off my boots, and you run your fingers down my spine and ask how so and so is doing, but the tightness in my shoulders only reveals my desperation, only shows you that work was hard, and that the only thing that kept me going was the image of us here, in this place, tonight, that I need you here now, next to me, to balance my soul against you and this barstool.  I need you more than this foamy glass, and the nice things that the pretty girl at the bookstore said to me yesterday.  You look at me now and you don’t ask how my day was, or why I look so tired.  You don’t ask why I’m not talking, or why I’m grasping my beer glass like a garden hoe.  You already know, you’ve known since you came into my room, and I lifted myself from my chair and pressed you against my bed and kissed you like we were at a terminal, and I was leaving for weeks. 

                  The bartender asks if you want anything besides your water, and you order a BLT like it’s a glass of wine, and I am reminded of why I love you so much, that you would order a sandwich at 11 o’clock from the pub down the street on a Wednesday night.  And as unorthodox as our love we sit in the quiet and you wipe you lips politely clean with a napkin, like a classic movie actress with a long cigarette.  And for that one moment we aren’t college students in love with tuition to pay, for that moment we pretend to be blue-collar, to sit, middle class at the dark pub, and tell ourselves that its all temporary, that one day, travelers soil from France and Spain will stain my boots and your flats from that store you love so much.  You look at me, and I sketch your picture in my eyes, I place you nude on an old, burgundy fainting chair, and I paint you perfectly in my mind.  The pupils in your eyes dilate slowly, you kiss me softly, and say lets take the long way home past 7^th street, or whatever street, and lets sleep in my bed and pretend it’s ours.

                   We walk past the old shops and my mood suddenly changes as you smile and look through the old fashion barbershop window, past the closed sign, and point at the mustache and beard posters, stained and worn, imagining how I would look.  You wrap your arms around my neck, and I grab your waist and smile as we spin slowly, while the empty downtown street echoes horns and sirens from far away, off of the abandoned high rises and concrete.  I look up and see what few stars the light releases, and I see that constellation I pointed out to you, when we laid in the back of my truck on our first date, and you told me how much you love Black Holes and Space.  I look back into your eyes, and remember why I am so happy, here, with you, and how you know, how you always have known, in such sort time, how to make me smile.  We allow ourselves to dream, that maybe, just maybe, I will be the one, to see your tattoos fade, and you, that you may be the one, who will see me loose my hair.

by: Michael (me)

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