w i n t e r
hypocrite
Composure. Form. Tone.
Tuesday night after class I went to Aitch's. I forgot it was reading night. I hadn't brought a thing. There was no one there anyway. Tuesday's are slow to nil and I can't quite see why reading night is held on the very night no one is ever in the bar. Perhaps it says something about our reading, eh?
No. To be fair "reading night" never has gotten a chance to get off the ground. There isn't much of a scene for reading or listening to someone read unless it is within a couple of blocks of the university and has something to do with coffee. Another reason why I hate the damn coffee shops.
Poetry Slams. Fuck that.
I'd much rather hear someone read honestly with a gin & tonic in my hands and a smoke in an old chipped glass ashtray in front of me than have to deal with the coffee houses along Tate. No profanity. Not while reading. No smoking at all. No alcohol. Oh, there's one bar, but they do jazz and cheap pints, that's all. You can smoke have the right to be ignored by a bartender who mostly reads or roams, so you'd better get a pack of matches and order two pints straight away because it will be awhile before you see that bartender again. But I digress.
The point is none of this occurs at Aitch's place, maybe because there's rarely the crowd for it to happen to. But I can stand on a stage at Aitch's anytime and smoke and listen to Waits on the radio and order beer kept special for me and utter strings of profanity while sloshing said beer all over. If they're busy, I help myself. No need for a bartender. I can play pinball. I can learn magic tricks. It is afterall a magic bar.
Bottom line, at Aitch's anything goes, for anyone. For years I listened to people bitch about not having a place to go and now that there is no one goes. Heh.
Aitch's is an acquired feeling to be sure. Dark. Dirty. Old and settled. It is easy to be overwhelmed by all the shit piled everywhere. By the papers and tricks and props and posters and pictures...and the odd people. I love it much as I might every once in awhile give the place a hard time.
But back to Tuesday. On Tuesday I show up and the only people there are Aitch, myself, his daughter, and a young goth. It's still warm on Tuesday, 65 degrees maybe, and this kid has on a full leather trenchcoat and black leather gloves. The coat is fringed with lace. He's black from head to toe. I could have been looking into a mirror a few years ago. It was great. He was there to read. He had a notebook and a couple fresh poems scrawled in red ink on lined paper.
I was wearing the typical bullshit I wear nowadays. Usually jeans and a T-shirt, but what I'm getting at is that I have no "style" anymore. No scene to fit into. Not like this kid. I wear what fits and happens to be clean. I kind of wish sometimes I could dress like that goth again, but it was always too much damn effort and the only reason I'd really want to go back is for the difference. The change. So I was curious. Was he as insecure as I was at his age? His posture reflected absolutely no self-confidence. The way he spoke gave even less. He wanted to be accepted, even said so, but was ambiguous on purpose to avoid having to actually stand up for a point. To avoid planting his feet firmly anywhere. This was all self-admitted, I'm not pulling it from judgment. Plus, he had his notebook right there with over a year's worth of entries to back it up.
I asked him, "You gonna read from that?" I was eyeing the journal.
He slid it over to me. Past the one stool dividing us.
"It's all just misunderstood, incomplete, stupid, irrelevant shit." That's basically what he said. Not exactly, but close. Thing is the kid's writing wasn't bad. His journal was honest. Ever read someone's journal and they can't even be honest with themselves? I've had that happen before. Not that I get the chance to read private journals a lot, but in classes and writing groups years back during school I saw it quite a bit. The veiled autobiography. The glazed over half-truths.
The kid got to me. He knew "it", and by "it" I mean his attitude, his demeanor, was confusing and he wanted it that way. He wanted to confuse people to keep them away hoping that one day someone would come along who understood what he was really thinking and feeling, behind all the black morose writing and clothes. Oy.
Who hasn't been there? Raise your hands.
I was a Smith's fan too.
And still he was somehow different. Like he saw beyond growth and development and confusion and just didn't care. Not that he lacked hope, just that he had nothing to gain by putting it in his pocket. Well aware of its presence and devoid of its company.
We talked for awhile. He smiled too much at questions and would not look me in the eye. He moved from side to side on the barstool. He drank a soda, didn't smoke, and looked comfortable despite all the movements that said otherwise. He came there to read. Out of everyone in Greensboro he came.
He read.
I listened.
We talked.
He made me think. He made me remember. I didn't leave changed. I wasn't enlightened. That wasn't the point.
I didn't get it until the three of us, Aitch, myself and the kid were standing by the front door. It was tied open with a rope. Sometime while we were inside it had started to rain and now the lot across the street was filling up and water ran fast into the gutter at our feet. The awning kept us somewhat dry as we said goodnight.
It was then that I realized I wasn't looking at the mirror image of my exterior years ago, but rather a close interpretation of my own dark interior as it is today. The part I keep swept away. The part I boxed up, the part I stomp on. The me behind the panic. The me the comes out when the panic rises. My own glazed over autobiographical shit. The kid is the visual to the very parts of myself I gladly repress.
I couldn't help but think the whole night was one big misunderstanding.
goodnight 12.10.98