The
Russian girl lisps when she’s on cocaine. Gives it to me subtly, in a sudden
tweak of daylight, and we trot off triumphant in our own unique way. Craving
scotch, loose and tipping over a bit, minus zero and suddenly in love plus a
few too. She speaks of her village and her grandmother’s pirozhki. We take the
temperature of parking meters and try to kill a few pigeons with just our
looks. She smokes Pall Malls down to the filter, and winks when she’s happy.
She spends the rest of her time kicking ass. Don’t bother me, buddy, with your
tips on fashion, with your raven-at-my-window-with-a-broken-wing sadness. I’m
settled and the score’s knotted at one. And that’s enough and all we want. The
bars are all calling my name. So, drink away the cabs and kick the pinball
machine down the boulevard. There’ll never be another way to scream, “Hotdog!”
out the window. Not like this. Not only and ever like this at all. She’s got a
mustache on her coffee mug and barbwire in her smile. Just trading mistakes for
pinwheels, tossing silver chopsticks at a bum who’s sitting Indian style in the
gutter while I tell an out-of-work fortune teller, “Everyone I know is either
splitting up or getting hitched.” We stand still under a streetlight and kiss
the frogs from the sewer grates while the wind sings our favorite song. It’s
closer to four in the morning than it’s ever been. Somebody whispers, “She’s a
walrus and she don’t like black.” We wander both sides of the street until the
moon’s sunk and all the stars have gone shopping for silverware. My nickels are
all spent. The Russian girl’s parlor hopping. Her hands find their stubborn way
through the folds of my attire. She’s outside the law and she’s honest as all
hell to boot. We stride with Stanislaus-County soda-pop-bottle mirrors while
white bats dart and swoop above. We get as far as we shouldn’t, and then keep
going. Nothing’s rushed or poignant but the plunk and drizzle of a little rain.
Napoleon’s on the roof. We get by with a bottle of decent scotch and marching
orders from Aristotle. It don’t matter. I quit staring at or in windows long
ago. Nothing proper. Nothing avocadoed to a mayonnaised bun. Bronze trumpets
and hirsute soldiers of the poor, born-late halfbacks and Tupperware salesmen
and Montgomery Clift dolls in a sidewalk trashcan. Sold my TV for another drag
of love. And nothing’s over. And nothing’s too much and not enough. But the Russian
girl’s moving on to religious material. She waves armies home with never-kissed
goodbyes. We stay up all night and shower at the Y in the morning. We cook
breakfast on the hot concrete. The stray dogs bark for more and get what’s
left, no matter what’s gone or far, or sleeping off the rest. We matter because
we don’t. Don’t get any ideas. There’ll be more than enough change left to keep
us the same. The Russian girl’s gone off to raise scorpions and leafcutter
ants. She gets phone calls from Istanbul, and St. Petersburg too. There’s
nothing left to steal. The Russian girl’s gone for bad. The Russian girl’s
boiling crude oil in coffee cans. The Russian girl’s drinking stale beer in the
morning and chewing nicotine gum. The Russian girl’s on the lam and in love
with a voodoo doll of who I used to be. And me? I’m just kelp floating off on
what just so happens to be her sea. Cue the piano music and shoot all the
marathon runners. We’re taking chances with computer-repair-shop junkies. And
the night’s still curdled with Debussy’s leftovers. And the nooses are all
undone. And the Russian girl, she’s twitching and yowling to nothing new under
the sun.
Posts
