1979 : ask alice

artwork courtesty of A. Andrew Gonzalez

Movement at my left distracts me.

Havasha.

I’d forgotten about him. He removes his wet clothes, hangs the heavy leather jacket from a nail in the wall. His worn leather boots, caked with mud, stand alone in a corner. A torn thermal shirt hangs from another nail. He looks up, watching me watch him and I hear “To dry”, in my head, but no one’s spoken.  We’ve gone beyond the need for speech.

I peel layer after wet layer of my own clothes, hanging them on nails, off shelves; laying them out in open areas on the dusty cement floor, until finally, we’re both naked.

Where is everyone else, I wonder at him. We’ve been waiting for hours.

Or minutes, he thinks back, I don’t know.

Minute or hours? I can’t tell.

Trapped in each others’ eyes, we ease down onto the blanket, floating now on the sky, now on the sea. Cross legged. Face to face, touching only knees & fingertips, heart & soul, past & future. The last two hits of mescaline melt on our tongues, sliding purple rivers down our throats, filling lungs with purple breath. The candles glitter like chandeliers through a violet haze that engulfs the three of us.

The tiny orange cat binds us further, soft apricot trails following her as she figure eights around, behind, between us. She settles in my lap, nuzzles into my pubic hair, cuddling safely into my nest of calves and thighs, my fortress of warm pink flesh. My chi, my soul, my brain, my heart, my fucking essence flows into Havasha, his into me, ours into her, this scrawny red cat. Giving her strength, giving her life, in exchange for the sanctuary she offered from rain and night.

Always I find myself looking for sanctuary and safety.
She closes her eyes and sleeps.

We leave our bodies there to keep her and then travel on to another level.

Physical boundaries dissolve.

Time and place liquefy.

We flow, caught in the eddies and whirlpools,
spinning  & dancing into oblivion.
Into darkness.
Into light.

Music fills me, buoys me higher, then escapes through my pours. It carries me away and drops me, tumbling through soft smoky white skies. I breathe and a thousand little bells chime. My heart.drum.beat. keeps the rhythm. I float and tumble, finding another heartdrumbeat–Havasha. Our drums beat together, our bells ring in harmony and we spin into a silky bright whiteness, cascade down a waterfall of lavender, splash into the brilliant emerald, the pulsing lapis of the blanket where we started.

The kitten hasn’t moved, she sleeps in my lap.

Our clothes are dry. My skin is slick with sweat. The air thick with the stink of sweat, candlewax, blood & urine. A few candles sputter, barely alive at their final inch.

My eyes burn, my muscles ache, my mind searches for a soft dark place to sleep.
My hair hurts.

I wonder if Havasha is as tired and sore as I am. I ask, without speaking, but this time I get nothing back. Our moment has passed. We haven’t spoken a word aloud since the accident that we’ve both forgotten by now.

I wonder, again, what happened to everyone else.

The sun is up, again, as we mount the bike. I close my eyes and we ride into the blinding white.

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Posted October 12, 2009 at 9:52 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1979, blink, dirty boys, drugs, East Village. Bookmark this post. Follow any comments @ RSS feed for this post.