whtnoise

II.

there aren’t too many nights now that lend themselves very well to sleep, so instead, i spend the hours with the window open, listening to the rest of the sleepless world, looking for faces in the speckled stucco on the ceiling of my hotel room. you tend not to wake up much; rather, you accept that any opportunity for sleep was lost in the last few minutes staring at the clock, waiting for the alarm to go off, crawling out of bed in time’s ringing, beeping, talk radio defeat.

outside, this morning’s parade of clouds march in over lake michigan. not too unlike a giant herd of pale-skinned elephants, they race to escape sunrise, soft and somber in their travels, misting this city and the next behind and below them, and in their wind, breaking the waves of blood-colored ivy that blanket the buildings surrounding, whisking away smoke and steam from accompanying coffee and cigarette.

to the south, about 2 miles in front of me, stands the sears tower, its top hidden in a thick blue-grey fog. i’m standing on a wooden deck, three stories up, on the side of a townhouse turned inn. the walls of the brick apartment building to my left form an alcove which leads down to a cement courtyard covered in fallen leaves, in the middle of which is a set of lawn furniture very similar, if not identical to one i sat at weeks prior.

it’s strange how scenes like this lend themselves so easily to memory, the places you recall in vain of escape, along with an endless library of others; rolling hills, long, isolated highways, a seawall over the pacific ocean. my wooden deck, my autumn-covered courtyard, my morning sky and its troop of cloud-like elephants.

i set my coffee on one of the supporting posts of the railing and throw my cigarette over the edge, watching as it falls. tiny glowing embers trail in the air behind before its impact in a puddle of small sparks below. for a moment, i think about following suit, but, i left the hot water running in the bathroom and i only have about thirty minutes to get ready for work.

into the shower. out of the shower. pull toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, and q-tips out of dop kit, use, and return them. having never seen the point in getting accustomed to foreign closets, i open my suitcase; retrieve one wrinkled shirt, one wrinkled pair of pants, one pair already-worn socks, last pair of clean boxers. make some attempt at fixing my hair, and stand there, in front of the mirror, accepting that this is, just about, the very best i’m going to do with myself today. now, run outside and jump over the fucking railing.

at eight-thirty in the morning, the fullerton station el stop is ridiculously busy. i understand the importance of punctuality, but not to the point of cramming yourself into a train that can obviously not hold any more people. i wait on the platform as another train comes, this one’s full too, but not to the extent of the last, and i manage to squeeze myself into the car. was it five, or six stops, grand avenue? i would look at the transit maps but it would mean raking three days of stubble through the woman’s hair in front of me.

the train slows as it approaches the next stop, shifting the sea of people huddled together in-between the doors, myself included, all struggling to hold on to the handrails. i lose my footing and find myself unwillingly thrust into the same woman, who already couldn’t have been any closer, and in this momentary if not somewhat perverted circumstance; she turns, and smiles.

off the train. down east grand, under michigan avenue on to the temporary office of my temporary job. in my temporary city. one more chapter, in my temporary life.