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Volume 22 – still a work in progress
I don't really have a conclusion, or a final Volume. I still
work with the guy even though he's nearly two years dead.
I still smoke cigarettes on the picnic table behind the
building, except now I do crossword puzzles alone and
occasionally he will sit on my hand in the form of a black
fly. It makes me laugh, because he used to tell me there
was a hummingbird that followed him around. At night
when I edit these pieces, pieces that came out as poems
because the real stories were just too hard to write, I will
take a break and smoke a cigarette outside my apartment.
He flies a plane back and forth in the sky. It has a blue
light on one wing and a red light on the other and it flies
low. I'm sure it's the same plane that flew over the building
in San Pedro the first afternoon I read one of his stories
(Guilt) out loud to someone other than him or my wife. I
don't know what to do sometimes, whether I should admit
I've learned very little in the ways of taking care of myself
even after a close friend died of drinking himself to death.
On occasions when my head is clear, I understand. The
inner voice asks, "Why do you think he befriended me?"
And then it answers, "Here is your future, my friend,
if you don't clean up your act."
