It Rains a lot in My Town
It rains a lot in my town. The streets are desolate at night. The gutters are littered with damp leaves and old footprints from strangers. The sky hangs like a marquee and sometimes you can hear people in the distance, pointing out constellations inaccurately. You sometimes wonder where they learned these things. The city fixes the cracks in the streets by painting over them in a thicker black tar. It doesn�t make the cracks any less cracked. It just highlights them, to make sure everyone knows: these are our cracks. This is where we�ve broken things and this is our futile attempt to mend them. I drive over these cracks, listening to the mix tape I never gave to you. It cuts out halfway through the fourth song. I never really finished it. I couldn�t have. It reminded me of you too much. I try to sing along, try to find meaning in the lyrics, but they keep writing the same songs over and over again. They�ve found a formula that sells and they�ve exploited it. The songs just can�t seem to pinpoint the emotions I�m feeling. They try but they fail. I�m stronger now, I tell myself. Now that you�re gone, it�s made me a better person. I can be more independent. I can do the things you wouldn�t let me. So many nights I passed things up for you. So many times I compromised, sacrificed, bent myself to your will. And now, I still feel myself doing those same things even though you�re gone. I never knew it would be hard like this. I knew it would be hard. But not like this. 2. He calls me to tell me he�s gone. Moved. Can�t take this city. That�s what he said. �I can�t take this city.� �I understand.� �I don�t see how you can.� �How I can understand or how I can take this city?� �Take this city.� �I have ties here. You know that. I�m tied down. Like a boat or something.� �Or a misplaced simile?� �Something like that.� �Just cut the ties. Nothing here is important anymore. Everyone�s a piece of shit. Everyone is hurtful, uncaring, immature.� �It�s not that simple. I�m still trying to get my masters. I�m still trying to move up in the company. I have a life that I can�t just leave.� �I can.� �You did.� �I did.� �Where are you now?� �I�m far. That�s all that matters. I�m starting over.� �I�m empathetic and jealous at the same time.� �I know you are.� �My life is falling apart.� I didn�t realize it until I said it. It�s true. My life was literally falling apart before my eyes. A week ago, my dad had died. Two days ago, my girlfriend had left me. It was the worst week I had ever experienced. Sometimes, things go that way. My company is still downsizing. My job was safe, but I had the task of weeding out the expendable. I had to tell friends, colleagues for years, that they were being let loose. I was the bad guy and I was ostracizing myself from everyone. It was days like these that I had trouble finding the bright spots. 3. My girlfriend is out again tonight. With friends, supposedly. I�m home alone. I don�t like this paranoid feeling. I try my hardest to trust her. To put faith in her fidelity. Sometimes it�s hard. I type maniacally on my computer. I bang numbers, run spreadsheets, peruse portfolios. These are the things I do so I can afford to live. Ted Calloway makes $24,000 a year. The workers under him make 14,000. If we dissolve his branch completely, the company can save $150,000 in salaries alone. I never really liked Ted Calloway anyway. Fucker tried to kill me once. Fourth time in six days. I feel like I don�t know her anymore. Who has she become? Did my novelty wear out? Can she just forget? How can she just forget? It�s not a personal vendetta against Ted Calloway. It�s just that I have to pick and choose who to let go. I want to keep everyone, but I can�t. Ted, of all people, should be able to understand this. 4. My father just died. Bloodclot. Doctors didn�t even know until it was too late. What are these morons in pristine white coats doing with their time? They�re just letting people die. Letting the people that mean so much�don�t they know how much he means to me? Don�t they understand he�s my father?�fall to ruin due to carelessness. I hope they all die. I hope they all get bloodclots and spleen bursts and erupted pancreases. I don�t even know if pancreases erupt, but if they do, they ought to erupt in these glossy-eyed over-achievers. I�m really just looking for an outlet. Someone to blame for my never having told my dad I loved him, or always finding excuses to hang up when he called. I was a horrible son. I loved him, though. I showed it through my relations with everyone else, but never through my relations with him. I wish he could see that. I wish he could see how he affected my friendships. But he can�t see anything anymore. 5. Today at work, I was walking from my car to my office, minding my own business, and that dick Ted, from Human Resources, almost ran me over. And then, after he realized that running me over wouldn�t be in his best interest, he honks his horn and yells, �move out of the way!� Move out of the way? Fuck you, you thousand pound piece of steel. I�m trying to walk, here. I just get frustrated. It rains so often, I rarely see the sun. Even if I were to see the sun, it would just peek from behind the clouds like a bad James Bond villain. I suppose I�m glad I�m alive. Staring mortality in the face is always a drastic measure of character. It helps solidify lucidity. It helps drown the world out. It acts as a sieve. Yeah, that�s it. A sieve. 6. I�m starting to wonder if I can take much more of this city. I just get depressed reading the newspaper. They�re cutting education, throwing money down the toilet, killing, destroying, ruining people for the sake of lower taxes. It�s so conservative. It�s so ridiculously traditional. Yeah, this town has a long tradition of destroying lives. This whole country does. This whole world does. Moving would do no good, though I�ve thought about it. But people are the same no matter where you place them. People destroy lives in my cold, rainy town. They destroy lives in the sunny beach towns. The exterior doesn�t matter. The setting, the atmosphere, the environment. It�s all superfluous to suffering. 7. I�m becoming smaller and smaller. My world is becoming smaller and smaller. My friends are gone or going. Most are gone. It�s a sad existence right now. I�m lonely. I�m confused. 8. I let Ted�s whole department go. 9. Things will get better. 10. I can�t take much more of this. 11. Why? 12. � 13. Life is great right now. I love my girlfriend, I just got a promotion at work, and this town has a melancholy beauty to it. My friends seem not to be depressed anymore, as well. Things are beautiful. It�s a beautiful, beautiful world. Nothing can fall to ruin. Happiness and green lights from here on out. My father is coming to visit this weekend. He�ll see the rain he loves so much yet is so foreign to his life. |