Cats

Half in, half out.

Ready to party, ready to crash, ready for the crush.

Pasts and pasts of pasts.

Lakeview is crisp on a late Fall after the first snow has melted. The truck could be parked closer to the redline, but this is an important part of the trip; the front of an old place to rest and reside.

The legs walk down Waveland. Redeyes from the night before drink it all back in. Welcome feelings flush in, wash out, leaving unresolved messes of: is this it or was this just some stopping off point.

The train drags on and phones don't work in the underground nor does the brain remember which station to get off on. The sick realization: “This might be a metaphor for it all...”

It plays like a greatest hits album as old haunts are stumbled through and old contacts are remade, touched. True happiness; fearful loathing. Insisting to friends that they must have vodka and juice. Comrades not missing a play from the deck. The happy couple making out on the couch then retiring to bed. A firm stance at the window, observing the construction across the alley, remembering all those evenings looking East, off a fire escape, towards the lake and Wrigley Field.

Sick realizations that drinking has become too much of a crutch when the sun comes without a hangover. More trains, more drinks, shots of V.O. line-up in front of text messages finally placed and sick results ensue. A friend writes a scathing message to another friend and another phone sighs an apology and maybe a surrender: I'm sorry, I understand why you did it, I did it too.

Screams, like a victim, erupt through the halls of 440 Plaza as a sober lawyer tries to deal potent law advice but has been humbled by the recent discovery of a projector that produces an image that humbles his recent purchase of a 48 inch, high def, plasma screen. A poor Russian from Brooklyn seeks directions and is accosted by derelict dogooders trying to help him find Dearborn then absconds.

The epiphany of being surrounded by that sweet happiness of a hug from half a dozen people at once. Final embraces as they leave to meet their boyfriends, for work, back to their apartment. And a redline train is boarded that makes every single construction stop.

Can I make everybody love me; is everybody capable of happiness? The waves of lake Michigan continue to crash. The great wheel of life rolls and everybody’s life continues to crash into its' rocks. I drank it all down and loved them all... it is a good run...