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 ^{(it's beta!)}

This is South Saint Jude street. It's not much, but there's even less outside it. A block or two of concrete, but little else. Imagine those old ghost towns out in the West. Ghost town. Yeah. That might describe it. It's only night that we come out to play. We're not real ghosts, mind you, phantoms and the like. Us denizens of the street. It goes a little like this. Among the musk and fading lights of the sun, as the winds die down and a moment of reprive is had, the neon signs flicker on: Open late, only late. As our doors swing open, the nightlife (here we just call it life) strolls out, more limping than pimp walking from all that time we've spent sitting in our caves with the blinds closed tight, with old blacklights and cigarrete ends all we need to see until the sun sets past the hills off somewhere we'll never see. Here, on our little patch of this world, Citizen Kane opens to a packed theater every night, and the local band strums on a low G-chord at the chai tea shop, both named after the long slab of concrete stretching a rough mile they call home. A diner sits between a hospital and an empty lot, neither of which have been occupied by very many by very long. The diner is where everyone has lived at some time or another, and where more than a few have died. Strangely enough, in its half-century of service, only the N and R have flickered and waned on its prosaic neon sign. Most of us find that amusing. Its also that most of us that hangs out there. We never eat the food there, of course. Who would?

And right up to the wee hours of the morning, you can hear the bassman strum the low-chords of Freebird; you can hear the chorus of flickering neon lights, advertising the vices of our pitch-black day; and you can hear us, shuffling in the shadows of the streetlamps, down the little stretch called South Saint Jude.

The window rattled as a sandstorm buffeted the tenament. He flinched. Sixteen years and he still hated every grain of sand that wasn't stationary or in his shoes. Sixteen years. What a ride. He was still darker than the whole town, though. The wonders of melanin. He lit a cigarette Jeramiah had forgot on the windowsill, along with a pick and the keys to the El Dorado. Savoring the nicotine, he felt warmed by the glow of the cigarette butt. He had never liked the dark a lot. Sixteen years, still. Sixteen years of smoke and bass and storms with no rain and houses with no windows or lights and nocturnal motherfuckers. That does something to a person. He leaned his head against the pane, his cigarette pushing against its reflection. The glass was cool, calm despite the bashing it took nearly every day. Sixteen years. Sixteen years ago he came to town with nothing but a guitar and a rash from withrdrawl. He inhaled deeply. Sixteen years hadn't changed much.

Jeremiah sat on the roof of the El Camino, his too-long legs resting on a milk crate tucked in a corner of the bed. He had what seemed to be an introspective look on his face, heightened all the more by an ailing streetlight overhead. But as his friends knew, Matthew, who was sleeping in the driver’s seat; and Zach, who was under the hood, beating to death what looked like something resembling an antifreeze tank cap; there was no such mode to their Jeremiah. He was, in fact, contemplating the mystical depths of their performances. Specifically, C, C, pause, C-C, B-B, E, E, B, B, pause-pause, repeat.

Zach, who was finishing off his sixth cigarette of the night and fishing for number seven (actually Jeremiah’s) in his pocket, slammed the hood shut, rapped it sharply, and gave the thumbs-up to a very reluctant Matthew. There was just something about his oil-stained face and unstoppable optimism that unnerved people. That, or the fact that it had taken Zach exactly twenty-eight minutes to “fix” the El Camino. Too long to have just plugged something back in, and not long enough to get the mechanic. Matthew turned the key. Nothing.

“Try the radio.”

He looked up from his drowsiness. This had to be a joke.

Zach’s bottomless optimism stared back at him.

Rolling his eyes, he flicked the knob on the six-and-a-half-track player slash AM radio. The engine shuddered to life, rumbling ominously, but back to life. Jeremiah, shaken from his philosophical insights, fell off the roof and onto the window, furthering the visible crack on the glass. Matthew winced. “Let’s get going.”

His left elbow leaned out the window; his hand balancing a beer on the doorframe. The El Camino didn’t move very fast (gas was a commodity), thus it afforded Matthew some time to think. The sands had passed, and not a grain was left on the pavement; but the wind still blew, harsh and cold against concrete buildings whose facades had long since been worn away. He thought about getting out of here, like he always did. As the El Camino rolled down the street, he recalled the thousands of ways he had envisioned escaping the routine every evening. The night came at eight, and the morn at five. No later than nine the El Camino would trundle down the strip and Matthew would once again live life streetlight by streetlight. By streetlight. And at the end of these streetlights was a door that was never locked, behind which was a stage that was always set, in front of a crowd that was always there. There, the patrons knew not the music nor the people playing; only the bottles they nursed and cradled through their nights and sets. And Matthew and his band would play whatever they remembered or whatever they could coordinate to a crowd that wouldn’t care. Matthew thought about getting out. Thought about escaping another world that had become mundane to him, that was once so exotic and bizarre and surreal. Thought about stealing away again with nothing but a thermos of cigarettes and a shit-broken guitar. Thought about it. But his band played on through the night, with the low chords of Freebird echoing through their world. Because it was what they did. Because it was South Saint Jude.

Dawn. How long has it been? It's finally felt like a year, so it's probably been three. Doesn't mean much here. The weird thing is, I've stopped counting the days. Remember back in the daylight, back in Buttonwillow, how I used to count every damn day? I'd count the days 'till Friday and the days 'till my birthday and the days 'till I could go hang out with you. Now its kinda like how during a vacation, where every day seems like the next day and the previous day. Every night seems to blend together. Kinda like how every pack is just one long cigarette.

Huh. I remember I promised you I'd quit for your birthday. Christ - I can't even tell what month this is. What season it is. is this the price of living here? Is this the price of not having a painful past? Is this the price of apathy? Suppressing all the shitty times, have I lost the shining moments in between with you, Dawn? I'll come home one day, Dawn. I promise. Like I do every time.

for Dawn, 'with love and squalor',

PS - as I was writing your address I thought of something. How about since you've always hated Tuesdays so much I make each Tuesday your birthday, just so you have something to look forward to other than the morning comics. Let's make today Tuesday. Just your luck I'm writing this as I'm eating breakfast

PPS - sorry. I spilled some orange juice. yeah I still haven't quit that either.

Dawn.

Remember the night before I left, we got absolutely wasted in front of the old school yard after dark? Remember how we sat on those old-ass swings and we broke 'em and just lay there laughing and laughing until we were just looking at the stars? Yeah me neither. I found the Polaroids and the note you put in my book. God you're cute when you're drunk.

I remember what I said to you though, while we were getting there. I told you that I was leaving to find myself again. How young and pessimistic and stupid and Caulfield was I, huh?

Goddamn.

I've told you about this place, right? How upside down it is. The nights and the music and all the things Buttonwillow wasn't. How wrong was I, kid. Every goddamn thing here is monotonous, and nobody has a past. Nobody. Not Jerimiah, not Matthew, not the goddamn pianist and his painter wife. And I keep wondering why I have one. You, babe, I know. I know. But all the other kids are jumpin' off the bridge too, Dawn. They don't got a problem with it. But you always did.

I wish I could get out of this place for good. huh. you've head that before.

For Dawn, 'with love and squalor,'

PS - I didn't smoke today, babe. Aren't you proud of me?

He sat on the rooftop of the diner. The sand felt cool beneath is hands as he leaned back. He sat and he listened to the hum of the neon and pretended they were grasshoppers singing. He had begun doing this every night four storms ago, often to the slightest glimpse of the morning sun, -- not quite, but almost. South Saint Jude still had her claim on him. He closed his eyes and imagined each buzz of each light as a single instrument in an orchestra, each hum the tittering of a flute or the yelp of a violin. He closed his eyes and he was far and away again and he could see the lights of the hall dimming like the sun arriving west and he could feel the hush come over the audience that gave him the shivers as much as any standing ovation could and he could smell the parchment of the pages and the polish and the tension and the strain before it all began... and before it all ended.

He returned to reality with a start as he heard the door to the roof open. It was a woman, too pretty to be middle aged but too tired to be called 'young' anymore. With a warm smile she came over and sat down next to him, dangling her feet over the side of the building and tapping her feet against the unlit 'N' on the sign below. The lines under her eyes would have made her seem almost exasperated, but they were disguised under smatters of paint and the glow of the neon lights of the street below.

"Enjoying the silence, huh kid?"

"In a way, I suppose." he leaned back onto a wall, his hand absentmindedly making patterns in the sand. "No, no not really. I'm more like listening to a concert. It's weird. You wouldn't get it"

She laughed. "No no, I 'get' it. Cassius always told me he saw a bit of himself in you" She wiped a bit of paint off her cheek. "He always found music everywhere he looked. In the wind, in the sand; even found a little bit in the noise you and the boys make down in the tavern." She laughed, and brushed away a strand of hair that wasn't there.

Matthew gave up on being somber and smiled. He turned his head toward her and saw that she was sniffling a little. "My blacks and whites," he said, "I mean, the piano in the tavern. It's his, isn't it? it was there the first day I got here."

"Lord, is that thing still there?" she smiled, and closed her eyes in thought. "Yes, that belonged to Cassius. I remember the first day he got that, a gift from th' old bastard behind the counter... Cuellar, it was. Cassius was so proud, he did nothing but play the thing damn near all night. Now, the tavern smelled back then, though much better than it does now, and the piano reeked of God knew what; but when that man played his music commanded the room, and it cut through the coffee and the dark and the haze like a knife. The candles shone brighter, the air felt lighter..." She paused. "the coffee was still shit-horrible, but-" Matthew laughed, and thinking, realized he couldn't remember the last time he had done so. "but he was bringing life to that place, like it was the damn so many of us had avoided all our lives." She stopped. Matthew had closed his eyes as well, and for a while he simply listened to the chorus below. She finally turned to him and said "You know, the first day he met you, Cassius said to me that one day he would pass that piano on to you." He gave her an incredulous look. "The first time I met him he damn near broke his back throwing me out when I sat down and started playing Beethoven's Moonlight sonata on it."

"He told me about that, too" she replied. She smiled as she shook her head. "Cassius always disliked that song. Said it reminded him too much of himself before he met me in that tavern, back when he was still playing on nothing."

Matthew thought to ask her about nothing, but didn't. She had stood up, and was dusting off her overalls. She walked off, but stopped as she opened the door back to the diner. "Now, I know you and Zachary and Jeremiah don't do 'happy'," she turned back towards Matthew "but maybe you could do one for him. A solo piece, maybe. tomorrow would be the anniversary of when we met down in the tavern." Matthew looked up from the neon lights again.

"Really?"

Who knows, she shrugged with a smile, and closed the door behind her.

Matthew sat there for the longest time, and he stared out over South Saint Jude. And when the sun rose, there still he sat, leaning back on the wall, so still and deep in thought he was barely breathing. His hands were half in the sand, soundlessly composing a piece about a crisp night, one that South Saint Jude had not seen in many storms; about a long gone man and a tired woman who were once young, whose worlds and notes and strokes had been entwined in the dark and the smoke and the haze that was, and would forever be South Saint Jude.