It doesn't rain here tonight. It mists, the way patio's and fan's keep cool the patrons of a cafe cool on a summer day. This day, it isn't summer at all. It's cold, and the wind lies still enough to fold the gloom upon itself. Shadows dance ahead, milling this way and turning that way, undecided on directions, following the mutant compass which ever way it leads. This train platform reflects the lights of the towers above. I turn towards the nearest puddle and crush the tallest buildings as I head towards home.
Slate tiles line the streets with interloping rectangular patterns. One apartment building has an awning, suspended by wires, reminiscent of a 1920's balustrade, shadowed delicately beneath faux gaslamps. Instead of boutique's, this building offers banks. Instead of cafe's, this building offers fast foods; the era so longingly yearned for by architects bastardized by progress, which is of itself a pestilent verb. The rain, barely a devil's breath, trails the gutters behind me as I round the corner with expectations of the lights of Main Street.
This street, during more pleasant evenings, dances with the radiance of young life unknowingly ebbing into the sorrows of tomorrow via the viaduct of bars that line its concourse. Tonight, they are ghosts in the fog, echoes haunting the streets safely from the confines of windowed, smokey hollow's. Yet, two days ago valet's paced the influx of cars, women lined behind velvet ropes in short skirts with hopes of dance; their dreams of getting fucked tucked safely behind their veined purpose. Older couples in thin leather jackets adorned the sidewalks amid clouds of smoke sipping on wines, their laughter's echo muted under the diluted tone of ever-growing traffic. These finer nights find the staggering tipsy clutching themselves, arm in arm against the cool breeze carrying on with guile and mischievous devilry, barely noticing the police officers chatting above their bikes, the gargoyles of our Holy Naive. Normally, I would wave at these officers and they would return the gesture.
Tonight, the street is empty. The constant barrage of the same homeless people asking for the same thing night after night has even subsided. It's too wet, too miserable even for them, addictions basking in the glory of reason if only for this night, beseeching them to shelter and help. This is one of the largest cities in the country, and tonight, I am it's muse.
I turn left on Main Street and walk thirty or so yards and make another left and enter the sanctuary of my building. Built in 1903, she defied this time of relative poverty by towering 19 stories above a landscape still dreaming in fours. The marble floor I walk atop is the same the rich ladies stood astride the perfume counters that marked the original Department Store that occupied the first five floors. The elevators are ornate and appointed with gold designs etched into their doors. Mirrors on three sides of the cab encased in rich maple keep us enthralled with ourselves long enough to arrive at our floors. Tonight's elevator is marked by an accident in the corner, its foul stench drifting into the far reaches of re-flux, a subtle reminder that even our four legged friends have no love lost for the misery outside.
Tomorrow is a new day, faithfully delivering it's promise on its own terms. I spend the night relishing a cocktail among the ghost of those who came before; forlornly holding onto the lavish on a barely middle-class income in an eight hundred square foot concrete loft; a loft my suburban dwelling work compatriots believe to be Lavish. It's not. While they sleep soundly beneath the willows of quiet, I listen to the trains endless bells and whistles delivering empty cars to empty destinations. While I am fortunate and extremely lucky, I tire of the city. It's not what is used to be, back then, you see. The Grandeur has faded into the Grandiose. The polish morphed into the shiny. The convenience is now possessed by the wealth.
There's no point to this except to say I am DeepThroat, and this is my new journal.
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