Is There More

I want to live down a hidden lane-way paved with bluestone cobbles. Large ones. They jut out at different angles and rise up to different heights. The way would be lit by a full moon, the sound of muffled dance music in the distance and the smell of dry champagne. As I walk further down the lane, the multi-level carparks bracketing me on either side get taller and taller. The front door is white and a meter and a half thick. The doorbell is stainless silver. The key turns easy and there is a Chinese butler waiting for me inside.

What happens from there is my business. You aren't welcome in and I have no desire to share any of it with you. Not because I dislike you. I don't know you - I can't dislike you. It's just that I don't want to have to worry if you like Louis CK or 'Before the Revolution' or Greek yoghurt. I don't want to wait for you to let me know how you feel about it all.

I want a hat like Mastroianni wore in black and white scenes from old films I sorta remember seeing. I won't wear that hat. That would be too much. Too much to dislike about a stranger on a sidewalk in the sun with a slouched Stetson pulled over the right side of his forehead. No, I just want the hat. To have. To hold. To fill up some space on the wall by the inside of the front door. I could look at it as I step back out into the cold air of my lane-way. It would make me think of all times we sat in the dark in cinemas in the Lower East Side and didn't speak. That was the best of us - the silence.

I want a mouthwash that tastes of Rye Whiskey. It should contain no alcohol. I don't want the mouthwash to get me drunk. I just want that taste - soft and sweet bread, malted with alcohol and spiced with delight - to linger in my mouth as I walk down the lane-way to your waiting car. When I get in your car there's a wave of relief and pleasure. It is comforting. As it now stands, that feeling is remembered with the burning, antiseptic, spearmint of the Listerine I spat out moments before in the bathroom. I'd rather remember you with the taste of Rittenhouse. That way, later on when we've both forgotten the why of it, it won't taste so bad.

Although, then - after you have passed over - every sip of brown liquor will remind of your car and your escape. That wouldn't be good. I don't want that. I don't want to drink after you've gone and remember that you were ever there. I'll have to let the butler know about all this. He could perhaps change my mouthwash to one that is Aperol flavoured. I could quit that stuff after we're done.

It'd be hard, but I could do it.

I want to believe you more than I do. I mean, you could lie less or more - I'm not asking you to change any of that. I just want to believe you more. You could tell you truth a little bit colder and your lies a little bit sweeter and I'd yawn, break back the dawn and believe you more. I want to shave to less. Not less hair - less often. I want to not understand your motivations. I want peaches in the summertime and apples in the fall.

I want to have a secret knock at the supermarket that gets me let me in a 3am. I want to shop when I can't sleep with you. Sometimes I want to shop when I can sleep with you - especially when I can sleep with you.

I want to fade out rather than leave the party early out your side gate. You wouldn't need to talk to me about it. You wouldn't need to warn me that I'm jeopardising the friendship with my premature disappearances. I'd be there chatting with you about why you need to divorce the father of your two children and then I'd seem to get lighter and less in focus. You'd squint and step a bit to the side to let more of the sun shine onto me. That wouldn't work. I'd get more and more opaque. You'd think your eyes were failing you. Or that you had drunk too much. You would assume it was a problem with you. You'd be too embarrassed to mention anything. So much so, that after I had completely dissolved out of there, you'd sheepishly turn to the next group and join their conversation.

You'd say nothing about it to anyone.

I once heard Bob Dylan say that he was waiting to find out what the price was for getting out of going through all these things twice. I want to know that price. I want to have enough to then pay that price. That would be good. I wasn't very good the first time around and this time I seem even worse. I have learned my lessons. I paid attention and understood it all. I just don't seem to have improved. I want to live like I write and write like I live. I want wear a scarf every day.

I want to take more time for breakfast and less time for lunch. I'm happy to keep dinner to the exact same amount time, but I'd rather it were delivered.

I don't want to see you out there with your umbrella and your crutches and the red shirt I once gave you. I say 'once' because after we broke up you threw out the one I gave you and went out and bought another identical one. You liked the shirt but didn't want to feel like you needed anything of me. I understand, for I often want to pretend that I always needed you.

I want my Chinese Butler to understand why I had to fire him. He was great. Perfect. Everything I ever wanted. But after I had revealed his existence to you here on this post, well...I simply can't have you knowing about anything what goes on inside of that solid, white door. So I had to let him go. I won't be letting you know about his replacement, for then he would have to be fired too. I don' t want to be known as one that changes butler every week and it is difficult having to learn new names so often.

I want to walk down crowded streets at dinner time on Saturday nights. There are dozens of groups of people standing outside restaurants deciding which one to eat in. Through my earphones, I'd blast Elmore James and Luther Allison songs at extreme volumes. I wouldn't care about the sounds of strained and broken Blues bleeding out. I want to not care about what you think of my noise.

I think I might just do that.

Pic: Jeffery Smart