Someone's Final Song | Michael K. White

                                                                                                                                                 
                                                                “Oh, something’s gotten hold of me
                                                                This home is not the home it used to be
                                                                I’ve gathered dust like the dying flowers
                                                                And I’ve drunk myself sober-oh oh
                                                                 After hours and hours.”

That day, since it was Sunday, was quiet and lazy. It was late September and it seemed like there was one last bright summery day left before the fall began. The leaves were still green and still on the trees but there was just the hint of gold around their edges. There was a slight tang to the air, not cold exactly, but a dim sharp feeling that weather was on the way. Pete and I were hanging out at his studio hoping Jamie would come by with some pot. As it was a nice day, we sat outside on the sidewalk in lawn chairs.
Pete’s studio was downtown. He had rented a series of vacant office fronts and when he either trashed the places too bad or they rented them out to legit business, Pete just moved on to the next one. Downtown was full of empty offices and storefronts and Pete could usually swing deals for less than $200 a month, which he paid for by washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant.
I was excited because I had just gotten the new Unrest cassette in the mail the day before. We played it over and over that afternoon, especially the haunting opener, “Angel I Will Walk You Home,” a throbbing, humming, droning song sung in two voices.

“In the snow I found you far from home
Revelation turned your heart to stone.”

An old friend of Pete’s a guy named Jeff wandered by, looking for weed. He was one of many downtown regulars who circled the four blocks like it was a state fair midway, looking through trash barrels for cans, checking coin returns on pay phones and lingering near ATMs in the hopes a sudden gust of wind would blow a twenty dollar bill out of some girl’s hand.
“You guys got any pot?” he asked tonelessly.
We told him we were looking too and he seemed disappointed. He looked around at the ground as if maybe a bag of pot would materialize. Pete had grown up with Jeff, but I hardly knew him. He was a crusty schizophrenic guy who wrote poetry and liked to drink beer and huff gold and silver spray paint. He lived in a downtown apartment with four other schizophrenic guys who huffed gas all the time and argued about the German women in their microwave, talking about whether or not they had to reinforce God’s limousine to compensate for his heavy golden robes. On this day he didn’t seem any different than usual. His blonde hair was sticking out all over and his hands were black with dirt. There was a faint gold ring around his mouth and he licked his lips continuously. He wore a dirty dark shirt buttoned all the way up to his throat and bright red pants that not only seemed out of fashion but somehow out of time as well.
“Do you guys got any beer?” he asked, but again, being potheads and not drinkers, we said no, we didn’t. Jeff then bummed a cigarette off Pete and settled down to read his latest poem to us. He didn’t ask if we wanted to hear it, he simply pulled a folded-up paper out of his pocket and began reading in an odd, robotic tone, as if reciting numbers in a math class.

"The trees in the darkness swim through the light
A little spark in the breeze shows itself despite
A wave of clouds showering the sky
A brief flickering has caught my eye
The hope of brightness is coming to a close
The light will soon shine
Forevermore a new wind blows."

“That’s great man.” Pete said, looking at me. “Maybe Mike can help you get those poems published.”
Jeff looked at me emotionlessly. Then he blinked.
“Yeah, sure. I can write down some addresses for you. Let me write my number down for you. Call me this week and I’ll have some addresses you can send your poems into.”
I wrote my information down on the back of his poem and handed it back to Jeff, who looked at it like it was something he had never seen before. The Unrest tape started over thanks to auto return, and the song started again, slow and lugubrious, haunting and dreamy. Jeff stuffed the paper into his red pants pocket and kind of drifted away from us without another word.

I can see the river clearly
I found you far from home,
I have known you for so long
At least it feels so much

It was getting into the late afternoon and things began to cool down. A breeze was kicking up, not unpleasant but building slowly into a full wind. The quality of light changed to that slightly melancholy late afternoon Sunday glow that evokes something ancient in all of us. A dimly sad feeling of intense beauty. Something fleeting, rich and mysterious.
We heard the clatter and rattle of Jamie’s VW van before we saw it, and sure enough there he came, striding his Jamie stride, chest out, both hands behind his head tugging on his long ponytail. All alpha male.
“There’s no weed in this town boys,” he said in his loud Jamie voice. Too close to harvest time. But I did find this,” he opened up his hand and we saw a wad of foil. Jamie peeled it open and there was a fistful of moldy dried mushrooms in his hand. He picked up a small group and popped it in his mouth, handing me the foil. I did the same and Pete finished them off. The three of us walked across the plaza to Lincoln Park, and bisected a plot of lawn and trees with the occasional boulder. The park was empty and peaceful in the late afternoon.
Jamie wanted to talk about art, he always liked to talk about art. He was going to meet a new girl, and he was wearing his best shirt, the only shirt he owned with buttons.
“I better go before I start flashin’,” he said and left us to fend for ourselves.
Dusk was setting in and the breeze was picking up. Pete and I watched as the wind slowly started rolling through the tree tops of the park, like lazy air waves. We marveled at the golden hour whoosh of the still green leaves, sounding like the ocean breaking over our heads. Then the gloaming set in, everything electric blue and cool and the wind picking up more and then there was night.
We surrendered to it, the jaws of the mushrooms clenching down on our psyches, the eerie Unrest song flowing around in our inner ears, a thrum, a strum and sad vocals in the wind.

Coming over me like Rain
Taking,
Coming,
Breaking!

Pete and I separated in the park, each going on our own journey but staying within hailing distance in case of need. I could see him sitting like an Indian, slowly rocking back and forth, his hair blowing in the wind. I lay flat on my back, staring up and the trees and the sky, watching them sway and shake to the rhythm of the wind. The sound was enormous, booming and clean; but there began another sound, more harsh, like a giant sheet of metal too loose in the wind and banging frantically against something. The clanging came at odd moments. It didn’t accompany gusts of wind but seemed to come just before a big burst, bang bang bang, then whoosh.
“What is that?” I asked Pete who seemed only feet away when in reality he was at least fifty yards from me. He answered me in my head.
“It’s the trains.”
But it didn’t sound like trains. It sounded like old timey theater thunder, where they shake a sheet of metal. Except this banged. And the bang became ominous, almost threatening. White plastic grocery bags flew crazily around the park like swirling ghosts, dancing in the wind as if to tease us, to invite us to chase them, but the night was growing heavy and weird as the mushrooms wore down. I don’t remember going home.

The next morning, I was awakened by the phone. It was the police. It was just like in the movies. Staccato questions and monosyllabic answers. I was told that a person unknown had climbed to the top of the light tower at the high school football field and jumped off, landing head first. Since there was little left of his head, he couldn’t be readily identified. They were calling me because the only thing they found on him was a piece of paper with my name and phone number.
“Was he wearing red pants?” I asked.

Michael K. White wasted his youth as a member of the semi-legendary off-Broadway playwriting group Broken Gopher Ink. Their New York shows were Human Skeletal Remains, 1983; A Fall of Stones, 1988; The Black Blood of Angels, 1989; Stigmata, 1990; Men In Black, 1991; The Amazing Melting Man, 1991; Confetti, 1995; Clazion Catches Light, 1995; My Heart and The Real World, 1999-2001; Daguerreotype Dialogues (with Dianna Stark) Graham’s Law of Diffusion (with Dianna Stark) and Punk as Fuck! (with Dianna Stark.) His novels, My Apartment, Change, short story collections The Book of Dreams, The Helically Wrapped Circular Waveguide, Broken Gopher Ink's Four Plays, and Murder In The Men’s Store are available on Amazon.com and fine bookstores everywhere. A rockin’ audio version of Change is available at audible.com.