The party was in full swing as beer and whisky were downed as if the world was ending.
I happily drank more than most and sat in the corner, the internal haze of my time
Gazing back at me through frosted glass and my smile,
Permanently plastered on this English face, for a while stopped beaming.
The noise outside the Manhattan window, the cars driving down 77th Street, the people
On the sidewalk, cheering in humour, some shouting in pain
At the arguments that fuelled the city. The sound of a distant gunshot
Ricocheting and reverberating and rebounding around the street leads
To a scream and the announcement of an ambulance arriving
To take the dead away.
Inside the relative safety that was inside the frosted glass, my hostess
Came over to me and raised her polished schooner, her smile I tried to match
As she chatted with happiness at having me in her home.
This young lad from England, a Cornish heart inside a Midland body
Who struggles with who he is; she actually toasted me and walked away pointing
Me out when people seemed to uncertain on how to approach me.
An oddity, a child who dared make his way on his own across so many miles
Just to witness life across a pond; was I really an oddity?
I made my way across the room, half looking for the door
That would lead me out of the company of whom
I knew perhaps knew only four…maybe five people in amongst the throng
Of what seemed hundreds! I reached the table
And found myself being poured another drink
And gratefully this time I saluted the girl behind the bar
And wished I could have asked her to dance at this party.
She came up to me then and threw her arms around me,
Sober but with the heavy hint of expensive perfume
That was wasted on someone like me…No taste.
To others though she was the idea of perfection
And in a way perhaps she was that embodiment, except
That to me at that time, there was no perfection but I still thought
About her on a daily basis and how she would deal with me
If she saw me now across the room.
I smiled once more and made a show of being surprised
At the show of affection. The girl
Who had served me the beer, hair in a ponytail, long and clean,
Black waistcoat with blue trim buttoned up in a stateswoman like manner, white
Blouse, black skirt and behaviour impeccable unlike the magpie she resembled,
Raised an eyebrow knowing full well that by the morning I would be making my way
Across town to Union Station if I had sense.
“Oh I must introduce you to blah, blah, blah, blah.”
I found I had no interest at her world or who sipped their drink within in it.
I liked her, the exotic nature of her very being thrilled me and just for a short while
I forgot about you.
But you kept returning to my mind and I let my thoughts wander
Down the street to the bar in which I first got drunk in New York.
The sound of a distant dropped glass
Ricocheting and reverberating and rebounding before smashing into a thousand
Tiny
Fragmented
Pieces
Brought me back to her telling that blah was big in something Downtown
I shook his hand and found
I couldn’t care less but her smile told me I should and I made
Conversation.
The room hummed with the sound of people who talked of words
That I understood but couldn’t follow.
I gulped my drink and made my excuse to get another
Still looking for the door that would lead me out and into the fresh air
And the ambulance that was parked up at the end of the street taking the gunshot victim
To an appointment that he was already late for.
“Beware of those you shouldn’t be around English”
She said with humour in her voice but with a hint of the warning that I should heed.
I raised my full glass to her and told her she might be right
But this is what I came to see, to witness life in all its unsettling glory
“Didn’t you come here to see the whole of life?” she enquired as I remembered
That she was right, fortune teller on the quiet perhaps?
“Your first night here, I served you in the bar. You were excited for it all
And what have you done since aside from sightsee?”
At that point she became my conscious and my internal haze for a while unfrosted.
Silently, I mouthed thank you, smiled properly and whilst it took a while
To get away from it, she remained the only woman I ever said no to.
I heard my heart ricocheting and reverberating and rebounding, beating fast
As I made my mind up to walk away and find the door
Leaving a life I didn’t want behind.
Ian D. Hall 2013.