Another chapter closing and a new one yawns from the ashes. Spring break ends. Spring Broken, it could be called. Should be called. Maybe will be called someday. Like a week long novel of doomed debauchery, bookended by that abysmal visit to the old folks home. Yeah, something like that. Someone should definitely write that shit out. Paralleling the traditional complexity of FLA convergence, a web constructed around the main character who is both catalyst and protagonist and eventual victim of a system designed only to destroy. Or some such nonsense. 

This, by the public restroom, at night, dim streetlight lit scene. Man on phone (30ish), buddy beside him, straddling a moped.

Man into phone: “I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t you know. I’d never do that.”

Man on moped (semi loud enough to be maaaybe heard in the background by whoever is on the other end of the call): “He has his fingers crossed!”

Man to phone: “No. I wouldn’t. That’s just Jerry.” He holds his hand up to his companion and anyone else who might be watching (little does he know…) fingers spread to confirm that he’s got none of them crossed, he’s sincere about this.

Moped man: “His other hand! Look at his other hand!”

Phone man, takes phone away and covers the mouthpiece and grits his teeth and opens his eyes wide at his companion in mock disapproval. Then, phone back to ear: “What? No. It’s Jerry. I told you. Look, I love you, okay, but I’ve got to go. Huh? I got to. Goodbye.” Hangs up phone, turns to his companion: “Let’s get laid!!” High five palm slap.

That sort of thing. Rings a bit hollow, wouldn’t you agree? Too much sun, euphoria, fakery and forgery, the whole jungle hacked back and hacked away and manicured down to the golf courses and the lawns that look pristine from a distance but, up close, have that rough crabgrass feel. And meanwhile the big birds circle over the surf calling, “where? Where is it? Where?”

And thus I woke today in a serious funk. Could have sobbed into my pillow if I had a pillow and had it not been so pointless. Pretty much everyone hooked up in their own way last night. Let’s see: P.S. already gone when I made it back to town, already on the shag (on the shag. Nice double meaning there and both of them accurate, one verb, one noun, you figure it out) in a crowded hotel room; already draped by a scratchy thin blanket, refusing to kiss the girl he was simultaneously trying to fuck, while her roommates milled over and around them and the TV (so he says) flickered from the corner. Chris, later, w/Julie, I guess, who I once wanted to want me back, back in her tent touching her braless breasts and wet sex while she lay not unlike a… I won’t repeat it here, suffice to say that Chris lacks a knack for metaphorical novelty. Even Andy! Vanquishing me from the car and condemning me to sleep not only alone but on the concrete in the pavilion. Insult to injury, that, while he got stoned with Eliza in the car and then passed out, then explored her body while she slept through the morning. I woke alone too, the obvious extension of all this. On the concrete. Crikey. Heat. Giggling from the Ohio faction. Alone, did I mention? Unwanted, certainly undesired, unloved. My ego popped and runny like an egg. I could have cried, as I mentioned, and if I had had a teaspoon more passion or ambition I might have. I might have also, the previous eve, pursued Jeanny to some logical conclusion on a blanket, by the water, while the sun pushed its way above the beach. But not. Exhaustion and hapless resignation drew me instead to my rightful spot on the cement slab of the pavilion. Alone.

But! Interestingly enough, these clouds soon cleared as the day progressed and I shared breakfast with selfsame Jeanny who I believe I mentioned more than once (she’s the one who spied me spying on the strippers, remember? An interesting notion in itself, because why did she notice, why was she watching me…? You might ask, and I have…) then an extended venture toward mopeds with Andy, Melanie, Sandra… to the beach where I promptly sacked out for several more hours… to sunset we watched the sun set huge and red and frustrated as the rest of this place, sizzling into the sea… to here where I sit and scribble.

So, Spring Broken (Chris B?) or Life of Sundays?

For now… more beer. Kick it! Tomorrow, journey home again, up the east coast w/Alex to DC, then hopefully, woefully, by some means or another, by hook or by crook, back to NYC.