Hollywood Nights
Part One
I loved you so much.
I know that doesn’t matter now, the person you used to be is just as dead as I’m finally about to be. We are ghosts and ghosts have no sense of self, only regret, we are shades left to act out their simple play and then begin again fresh the next night. Entities who are never allowed to realize that they are stuck in the copier of life, being printed and reprinted in an endless loop only to be shredded once more before dawn comes along.
Shit, I wish it was all that simple. I wish I really knew what comes next. I wish I knew that I could sit here on this park bench, ready to become a real-life meme as I wait for this bastard sun to crest over the trees and make miserable ash out of me. I wish I could eternally haunt our old place off of Melrose along with the ghost of you. We could replay all our best moments just like all our favorite LP’s. Then again, you never hear about all the happy ghosts. No one talks about their run in with the transparent couple that meets up only to strut along the dance floor.
I’m not sure we could coalesce much or well in that bland old shit box, not without our records and I don’t think ghosts are allowed to keep their collections. Instead I guess we have to face reality, or I do at least. We worked together and well, just as long as we were both high and we never had to spend very long wondering what life would be like without that.
We worked because the money flowed and so did the booze, and the pills, and the parties, and the coke, we jelled because we were a well-oiled machine and maybe the greater part of my nostalgia for what was us is nothing more than the longing for better times.
Maybe I don’t remember us as well as I think I do?
No, fuck that. I did and I do. Us, is the only part of my former life that I am still sure of. What we were was peas in a pod, what we were was happy, truly happy, not because of the easy times and hard drugs, but in spite of them. I would have loved you in a shotgun shack without a spare dime to squeeze between us. I would have loved you, dry gulch and wet eyes. I wouldn’t have just gotten clean for you, I would have nine to fived for you. Sort of glad it never came to that though.
I got him. I thought you should know that. It took thirty-five years and a hell of a lot of killing but I finally got Dan. I found him hiding in a blacked-out trailer outside of Tucson. Stupid fuck picked a sun-bleached field of rocks to hide in. I guess he figured no one like us would dare spend all that time driving through the desert to get to him. It took twelve cans of barbeque black engine spray paint to get all the car windows and gum up the vents, I had to take my chances with getting pulled over by Arizona’s finest but luck was on my side for once. Four fucking layers of coats, doubled up gloves, rubber boots, snow mask and goggles and a floppy hat over that. I’m sure I looked ridiculous and I could still feel the damn sun working at me through all of it.
I wasn’t out of the car for more than two minutes, three tops. Just long enough to light a couple of rags stuffed into a few bottles of ever clear and toss them through the front windows. I was already in agony and trailing smoke behind me as I ran back to the car. I could hear him before I saw him, he was screaming in terror and yeah, I’ll admit it, I loved that sound. I loved it as I tried to get the car started back up, I loved it as he launched out of that shit box trailer covered in trash bags and smoking like a wet log on a fire. I loved it right up until I realized he was running full tilt for the car.
I barely peeled out of there in time. He fell screaming, the bags smoked until what was inside them started to burn through. Dan died looking like someone set their trash on fire. I could still hear him screaming even as I sped down the road and around the bend. Sunlight is a fucking awful way to go. I can’t wait.
You died better, arguably, and I know you wouldn’t care about me killing Dan, or even want me to it. I didn’t do it for you though, that one was all me. I didn’t spend thirty-five years looking for him, for revenge. I kept feelers out sure, but really, I spent most of these filthy years committed to nothing. Getting higher and higher, trying to forget you and failing miserably. Trying to forget this stupid park, the bodega on the corner that for some impossible reason is still here. The Naugles we ate at damn near daily is gone though, so is our old house. Fuckers tore it down and built condos. Condos for fucks sake!
Except for right here, this old park and the bodega across the way, I don’t think you would recognize the old neighborhood, the Whiskey looks like a fucking fern bar, the record store we spent most of our time in is a cellphone store. You can’t even see the hills anymore for all the high rises and clunky tenement buildings. I don’t like these times and I don’t belong here and maybe that’s what has me waiting for the sun to come up and do its thing. Maybe its also because ever time I try to remember those good old days, they don’t seem so good. Every time I try to remember how things used to be, I go back to the night you came home from seeing Dan.
