Dusk when he would go to work/February-March, 1995

“This is the lion’s den; I hope you knew that before you came in. This is where the Angels and Devils fight, and they’re choosin’ up sides tonight.”
-The Rainmakers, “Snakedance.”

June 1996

Stoned, walking into the bathroom, the window open and the wind blowing, and the light, the glow of the light really, casting the spell that, just for a minute, that took me from the now of the sweltering third floor brick walk up St. Louis studio, to the other existence, the windy temperate twilight that was Key West as sunset.

The apartment was small but airy. It was the middle apartment of a three-story Conch house on Elizabeth Street. The neighborhood was quiet and the neighbors rather amiable, for the most part, but a heaviness of undefined nature lingered when the wind was still. There were two decks (one a wide walkway, really) on the front and back, two bedrooms, one bathroom, and an open living room/kitchen.

He would be leaving for work when I arrived home. Always. We would exchange the day’s events, some pleasantries or sarcasm, maybe kiss but mostly not, and he would bike off to work. Then I would go upstairs and smoke pot.

The cat would be there sometimes, and she’d watch me from under the table or on the couch while I paced and smoked. The weed would kick in and my pace would slow, or maybe I’d sit and undertake some project like writing or making a collage. Or maybe I’d lie down and watch TV. The cat would sometimes lay on me, digging her claws into my stomach, the motion of kneading bread, like cats like to do.

If the day were still, the smell of pot would waft through the neighborhood, as a lot of my neighbors were potheads, too. The stillness made the residents of Elizabeth Street a bit louder, a bit more annoyed in temperament, a little smellier. But when the wind blew, outside distractions melted, making way for the dense rustling of the plants and trees, its calming sound a relief. The rush of the wind, the feeling itself, was physical comfort.

I would open all the windows in an effort to circulate as much fresh air as possible. Sometimes the wind would blow so hard that it would knock things over. The setting sun reflecting through the hanging prism, swinging bursts of glow bouncing everywhere the wind instructed. The show of light soothed my nerves as well.

And it was during this time that I would submit to whatever insanity might be running rampant through my mind, apparitions sometimes, sometimes situations, and heavy analysis of good and evil within my good and evil selves. Sometimes I was Jesus. Sometimes I was the Anti-Christ. Sometimes I’d be so fuckin’ tweaked on some major manic tangent, connecting all sorts of peripherally related issues really fast I didn’t know who I was.