w i n t e r
advice ii
The corrugated tin roof of old warehouse dock number 11 is twisted and rusty. Over the years heat has expanded and cold contracted the roof so many times that the nails have worked themselves out about and inch in places. Sometimes, near the edges there is a break or tear, a piece missing altogether. Sometimes near the border it is rough.
The kid climbs up from the second story through a small hole barely visible across 75 yards of concrete. The hole is ripped into the side of the second story overhang and has been there as long as anyone who goes there can remember. Tonight, the kid slides his brown paper sack through the hole and drops it the few feet to the roof below where it lands with a high but hollow pitched rattle. About halfway through he gets stuck, snags his coat, and adds yet another tear to his already threadbare leather jacket. He rolls forward out of the hole, landing next to his paper sack with a slightly louder rattle of tin. He pauses and turns one ear to the wind listening. After a minute he heads up the left side, walks along three large terracotta tiles, and steps off onto the somewhat flat roof of dock number 11.
He leans against an exhaust vent and bites the bottle cap off a beer. He faces east. He takes a long pull on the beer and looks at the stars through the speckled filigree of a maple that's grown up through the dock floor down below. He cusses at nothing, pulls again, and finishes the bottle. He bites another cap off and drinks more slowly this time. He wipes the rough hair above his lip with the back of his sleeve. It's never been enough to call a beard, hell, the kid can hardly grow a decent goatee though why he'd want to is beyond him. He laughs to himself.
The city is to his left, just within his peripheral vision. Just enough light reflects off the JP building downtown to highlight the low cloud base that's coming down from Virginia. The wind has picked up a little, rustling leaves and loose metal in the scrap yard behind him. The kid turns up his collar and lights a smoke.
It's not safe where he is. Not anymore. One last time. This is it. One last stroll over the wooden bricked floor downstairs. One more trip to the huge boilers. One more hand run across the muddy steal treads of the crane by the tracks. One more solitary six pack on the roof of number 11. One more view of the city not many see. One more time.
The kid inhales deeply and looks over at the new billboard advertising the best in adult entertainment. Neon. Blonde, silver, red lips, and damned neon. He looks around and finding nothing but a few empty bottles, he picks one up, feels it for the weight and throws it as hard as he can at the sign. It falls harmlessly into the trees and brush below and on the far side of the tracks. The sign mocks him from a couple hundred yards away. Buzzing at him.
Time for a new place. New time. New things. He thinks of other rooftops and wonders why he always wants to be above everything like a cat on a fence post, tail always twitching. The kid's always had a need to be above it all. The perspective. Gotta be it.
Well, he pulls a piece of paper folded four times from his back pocket, tosses the smoke onto the roof, shakes out the folds and begins to read.
"Often ponder in your mind the multitudes of the dead..."
He lets the words echo and die then repeats them again.
"Often ponder in your mind the multitudes of the dead..."
Yeah, the kid's thought about that one and he's thought a little about old Marcus A. What constitutes a wasted life?
Easy.
A life that doesn't realize its one simple importance, being alive.
It really is that basic, but it ain't easy, eh? Have you put yourself in the shoes of the kid? Have you been the kid? Come on. We've all been the kid out of necessity. We've all torn our coats in the playground, we've all been lied to and we've all been hurt and hurt bad. It's made us skeptical.
The kid goes on, "Let me work out for myself why friendship is so important and I will love you with all my heart." He pauses, lights another smoke and reads louder this time. "Let me know loneliness so that I might appreciate the true value of your company." The he yells, "Let me drown in water so that I might rise to the surface and gulp you down like air into my lungs." He stomps one Doc Marten on the roof and that's it, he's done with the prop, done with the paper. He touches it to the cherry on his smoke and watches the flames eat the words. Watches the ash float up and over that same maple through which the stars shine so bright.
The kid knows the lines. Feels familiar. But he can't help but think about all the waste that occurs in the meantime waiting for those to work it out. And they have to, the kid has to, everybody has to, but after you have, to a degree, you run in place waiting for the others to believe you.
And how then can you truly take advice?
You must believe in the idea first. The kid must believe. We all gotta believe.
In something.
Hell the kid doesn't know. But as he bites off the top on a third beer and gets ready to head back down and out into the streets of his city, leaving number 11 for the last time he can't help but think that somehow along the way he has believed, been the better for it, and gotten some pretty good advice...
goodnight 11.05.98