Jul
16
2008
Group of Three Walking
Just hopped off the 6 from downtown. I’m leaning on a post and notice my boots need some oil. The Tuesday hammers are ringing nice and loud, it’s been a fuckuva week already. Working really gets in the way of life. Sometimes I wish I still smoked. I dream about smoking. Unwrapping a pack nice and slow like a Saturday nightgown. Pasting a Zippo flame to a fresh cig and puffing away, pull some sweet black tar into the lungs. The first smoke of the day was always the best. It’d start at the crown of my head and inch through the nervous system to my toes. Fond memories of bringing a limp hand to my mouth and watching the sunrise. But no longer. I’m waiting for my transfer. Watching the summer parade.
Group of three taking the street with July shoulders, book bags and ipods – young long faces with nothing to bitch about but another fifty years of trundling through this insecure prairie town. The girl is out front: flatbottoms, plain navy tshirt, blasted skinnies. Cigarette hanging from a bangled wrist, like it took her a long time to get young. Long dark hair in the summer sun – seems there’s a bunch of time behind that makeup and dye. She knows the awkward boys want her and the hundred yard stare says she don’t care. Every girl memory is there. The boys trail with smokes and a walk only sixteen year old men possess – sure of their coolness and immortality. Major league hats and dirty Vans, two steps away from landing on the longboards they’re carrying. On the perfect night they’d land every kick with a smoke dangling from a Brando lip, bottle in one hand and a breast in the other. The night’s on, cobraheads stirring, cars on the line, bottles tinkling, denim and skirts in close quarters, heavy-lidded drunks, empty cases of Pil, crack of zippo catching one last reflection. Something’s hitting at just the right time, maybe it’s the music tonight, but they look bloody heroic. This crew have the right blend of arrogance and innocence, and at just the right time for me to appreciate it. Girl with two boys, I caught you for a minute and I wish you well. Take your DuMauriers and bus transfers, pour into the sun.
Laurie
fuckuva piece.
few write citygritmood like michael gravel, i tell ya.
# Jul 16 2008 · 19:48
Mike Gravel
Thanks, Laurie. The beauty of these kids just grabbed me.
# Jul 17 2008 · 07:32
Rich
I’ll second Laurie’s comment. Very nice indeed. I miss Streetrag.
# Jul 18 2008 · 13:40
sms
gorgeous writing michael, I can feel the relief of smoke (and I’ve never had one in my entire life), I now understand smokers’ grief
# Jul 25 2008 · 08:11
Rosemary
I used to dream of smoking as well….must’ve been from a former life in my case, never lit up in my life except for a movie role and it wasn’t niccotine, it was some vanilla herbal shit.
# Aug 14 2008 · 10:17
Paulette
Bonjour Michael – After hearing Thomas rant about you and your wonderous self for so long, how nice it is to meet you – page to page. Thank you for your poem on Friday – wondered who would pick up the slack. To almost die, well now, that is something isn’t it? I wonder, and if this is too personal I apologise, did you hear something out of the ordinary when your heart stopped? Did the colours change? Was there a smell? I understand pain sometimes washes the world hotwhitefurious, just curious to know what it was like for you.
Nice to read you – as Thomas would say, “Guy is fucking loaded for bear with talent.” Well, ok, not Thomas, me.
# Aug 16 2008 · 19:20