Thursday Night, Saturday Night
By: Steve Bagley
Thursday Night is a British explorer wandering in the desert with one of those "Mr. Livingston I presume" dispositions that remain firm despite the looming faceless figure of death following on his heels like a raincloud -- now the explorer, complete with sunburns, peeling face and lips, remarkably perfect mustache and deceased horse miles behind -- is drinking sand while declaring with great eloquence his perilous situation that is "quite the predicament" as he crawls towards pools of water and bending palms rippling on the horizon, an oasis that -- upon inspection -- supplies drinking water that induces the sinking feeling that the bloody awful taste -- might be sand -- but, for sand -- it is not so bad -- but if this refreshing water is not what it seems... then how about the butler over there with a tray of fine cigars, the belly dancers in silk... or the flying machine -- ? -- (styled, let's say to the tune of a Victorian era conception -- most likely a porcelain bathtub decked in copper tubing, wiring, gauges, a well-fastened steam engine, pipes, whistles, do-hickies, and big flapping wings no doubt). Surely that must be real.
Saturday night is scotch whiskey splashing three ice cubes clinking in a glass as footsteps clap down cobblestones into the American night—past dim bare bulbs in open-air cafes, where sweating bartenders with slicked hair and rolled-up sleeves stand before big smooth bars—rows and shelves of liquor bottles along the walls—amarettos, vodkas, whiskeys, rums, all along the framed ancient mirror that the deep drinkers must so ironically look into as they perch solemnly upon their stools—while lazy ceiling fans swoop overhead—as the eternal sufferer of good times, the balding man with sweat beads on his brow, unbuttons his collar and sips on a stiff drink—the waitress with Cleopatra eye-liner is beautifully aged before her time, and smells unbearably good when she glides by the balding man, who is holding the glass with a thumb and forefinger, examining the liquor swish over the melting ice cubes as a bead of sweat works its way down onto the tip of his nose. Voices rise up and recede on their way past the open-air fronts, their footsteps clapping towards unknowable horizons on warm and eternal city nights—breathing city lights in tenement-brownstones that bow down to you as you stroll past like a pimp with a cane, where every doorway on each crowded street is ten-thousand stories all in the process of telling themselves, forever complicated, complex and rapturous—forever being written in the disguise of sentient creatures; mashing along sadly, stoops with cigarette butts pressed down and flattened by stepping shoes—an old lady opens her window next to the neon sign, with flabby arms and shouts down to a gang of old men shuffling their way down on the sidewalk far below. And down around the bend are gangs of storytellers blowing smoke around by the stoops, and up the hill along this narrow path of cobblestone is the neon sign of a bar and ristorante, where tobacco pipes and wines comfort the lamppost shadows.
Thursday Night is a British explorer wandering in the desert with one of those "Mr. Livingston I presume" dispositions that remain firm despite the looming faceless figure of death following on his heels like a raincloud -- now the explorer, complete with sunburns, peeling face and lips, remarkably perfect mustache and deceased horse miles behind -- is drinking sand while declaring with great eloquence his perilous situation that is "quite the predicament" as he crawls towards pools of water and bending palms rippling on the horizon, an oasis that -- upon inspection -- supplies drinking water that induces the sinking feeling that the bloody awful taste -- might be sand -- but, for sand -- it is not so bad -- but if this refreshing water is not what it seems... then how about the butler over there with a tray of fine cigars, the belly dancers in silk... or the flying machine -- ? -- (styled, let's say to the tune of a Victorian era conception -- most likely a porcelain bathtub decked in copper tubing, wiring, gauges, a well-fastened steam engine, pipes, whistles, do-hickies, and big flapping wings no doubt). Surely that must be real.
Saturday night is scotch whiskey splashing three ice cubes clinking in a glass as footsteps clap down cobblestones into the American night—past dim bare bulbs in open-air cafes, where sweating bartenders with slicked hair and rolled-up sleeves stand before big smooth bars—rows and shelves of liquor bottles along the walls—amarettos, vodkas, whiskeys, rums, all along the framed ancient mirror that the deep drinkers must so ironically look into as they perch solemnly upon their stools—while lazy ceiling fans swoop overhead—as the eternal sufferer of good times, the balding man with sweat beads on his brow, unbuttons his collar and sips on a stiff drink—the waitress with Cleopatra eye-liner is beautifully aged before her time, and smells unbearably good when she glides by the balding man, who is holding the glass with a thumb and forefinger, examining the liquor swish over the melting ice cubes as a bead of sweat works its way down onto the tip of his nose. Voices rise up and recede on their way past the open-air fronts, their footsteps clapping towards unknowable horizons on warm and eternal city nights—breathing city lights in tenement-brownstones that bow down to you as you stroll past like a pimp with a cane, where every doorway on each crowded street is ten-thousand stories all in the process of telling themselves, forever complicated, complex and rapturous—forever being written in the disguise of sentient creatures; mashing along sadly, stoops with cigarette butts pressed down and flattened by stepping shoes—an old lady opens her window next to the neon sign, with flabby arms and shouts down to a gang of old men shuffling their way down on the sidewalk far below. And down around the bend are gangs of storytellers blowing smoke around by the stoops, and up the hill along this narrow path of cobblestone is the neon sign of a bar and ristorante, where tobacco pipes and wines comfort the lamppost shadows.
This entry was posted by Ben Myers, on
Monday, September 18, 2006.
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