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applesanity.com > text > autumnal

Like a rhinoceros or a buffalo or just that
feeling you get in the spring sometimes.

It's about being young, and not caring about anything.

Like punching chipmunks.

Argentine Glimmer,

All the witty things to say, all the smiles to go along with all the jokes, scarves and mittens. You can find autumn in a can of orange soda, pot smokers staring at weed posters, their expressions intricate like the ganja bud, intricate like a woman's lies, too much paper and not enough crayons. Well, shit. Stuck here again, drugged up on prescription narcotics and muscle relaxers, Oxycodone and Carisopridol, after a pointless surgery (doctor's orders), and waiting for a something that I cannot define in words.... Three thousand miles away from the “love you lots'” and the “miss you too's.” We can wait another month (I can wait forever), but this waiting business - it sucks. Have a spicy tuna roll, drink a juice box of mango juice, smiles and giggles and overpriced chocolate, and we'll all be happy together as we wander aimlessly around in a New Jersey mall wasteland, beneath the serpentine glow of a wrathful God.

September equinox to Autumn.

Irene with a cocaine addiction and a selfish depression. She tells me that she's snorting an attempted suicide and sleeping with a satire. A fleeting seduction of 'up so many bells floating down,' brought on by an anorexia in her mind. Irrationality leads to rationalizations; apologies become excuses. Conversations, long conversations, lectures of a third degree, to talk of many things, reaching an understanding of an unconditional something. Tells me now that the “wake-up call,” that we've all been warning of, has finally arrived - along with the winter. In a few weeks we will see how one season has changed us both. Somewhere in between the lines, we are still the same, but with a few more wrinkles to add to our expressions. A few awkward moments between then and tomorrow, but we notice an optimism in the latter. No pain and no hurt; no words and no talk -

Walking on iron mountains beneath castles in the sky. To the lords of the eighth seal, the sounding of trumpets has begun, and the kingdom of old shall melt away like the snows of a forgotten winter. The machines of war are strong and they are fierce, and our souls are shivering as the leaves are changing colors, green to yellow, yellow to red, and red to brown. And such are the way of things, leaves crackling in our footsteps. This forest has surrounded us and we cannot see the way out. The trees, like pillars holding up purple sky, standing with the grace and dignity of centuries.

“He's only just a friend, Jimmy. You have nothing to worry about.”

Don't lie to me, woman.

Went to a reunion of J.E.B. Stuart's Confederate graduates, hosted by a lady teacher virtuoso extraordinaire. Through her aged veins ran a streak of the madness. In her eyes - the look of a wisdom that came at too high a price. We give her a beer, another, a few more; she's piss drunk. The vindictiveness, the vengeance (of too many years alive and not enough condolences, not enough commendation), was not there, was... never there - “why bother?” asks she. To which we respond, “if we were you, we would ourselves be pretty bitter.” What response need she give us, other than drunken laughter at our stupid comments. She almost offers us the rest of her beer, tells us that maybe she's had too much... or not enough.

This bitterness is a rage that I cannot forgive, a rage that cannot be forgotten. Driving to a destination nowhere, take the car keys, 'chirp chirp' goes the car alarm, shift into gear and burn a tank of gas... driving away from all such things that should never be avoided. Missed the turn off the exit ramp so I'll take the next detour. Dark and bitterly cold outside, driving into a late-night construction zone and I am utterly lost. Strange part of this Confederate Virginia that I'm in - too calm to be real; smells like an American dream. An argentine glimmer between the clouds. Light a cigarette, drink another beer. The cup-holders in my car fit beer cans, too.

Autumn in October, Autumn beneath the whispers of a Virginian accent, cold to the touch and a nervous electricity in the air. A period of maturity verging on decline. Raking leaves to sweep away the leaves. Raking dead leaves because they are dead. Autumn in mid-November and one thought blinds my eyes, narrows my vision.

Losing the faith; faith in myself.

Still driving to nowhere and the wind picks up leaves not swept away but left on curb sides, leaves swirling around like mudslides, wet, soaked with rain, smelling like a panic and flying into my windshield - it is too much, too complicated; I'll of none of this.... Calm down; have another sip of beer, another cigarette. Drop the clutch, crank the gears, and floor the gas pedal; the speedometer bleeding autumn colors. The leaves are spinning, no - the road is spinning, no - it's a deception in my eyes, There was no apology in her apology... just more excuses and more lies, because it was my fault. The feeling felt was not love, she says, probably not even attraction: the feeling felt was a fucked up kind of confusion because I was never the complication that nobody can define. Anger like a rage or a numbness at my fingertips; I was her substitute for a love lost but a love not missed, and now somebody else has that same burden. Have another can of beer, let us drink, and do not miss the love you lost; never was there any.

Flashback to two seasons ago, the springtime of one year sophomore. I have a flu, or a bad cold. Katie calls me three hours before midnight Saturday and one week into May. I am too sick to go clubbing, I tell myself... I am able to go in two hours, I tell her. The goth raver pants, the narrow black tie of an Eighties' cocaine fashion, white gloves and a white mask, spiked hair and too much eye-liner. A cough washed away with a concoction of equal parts Tanqueray #10 gin and Red Bull - my gin pre-gaming, my gin courage. Too sick to really get drunk; too sick to walk in a straight line anyway....

Stumbling past two blocks and six flights of stairs to get to her place. Stoners getting stoned across the hall, purple haze drowning the air; a comfortable silence. Left turn, right, left turn to her door. No need to knock; door is always open. Katie always looks hot. Long white dress hugging curves like a romance, hair done up in a manner too complicated to be copied, too sexy to be repeated on anyone else. Scent and smiles of a lady lovely; my best friend.

Subway ride: one hour to albion batcave downtime underground, beneath the streets of a Westside New York, of a New York wearing the gothic dress of a springtime midnight. No words to say, no words needed to be said. Short line, quick glance, frisk; no trouble with the bouncers. The bass line shivers, the voices of singers, dark like a gothic seduction. Still pretending not to be sick. Two, maybe three hours of dancing, a few cigarette breaks, a few more cigarette breaks. Pause to breath on a white couch. Katie turns to me, a face beneath and above shadows; she says, “Jimmy, remember a few weeks ago when we were at Club Arc and you whispered to me that you wanted to tell me something really important, but wanted to wait until the ecstasy wore off?”

I told her I was so lucky to have her as my friend. A friend unconditional and unconditionally.

She blushes.