Hanging By A Thread
There are some stories that just stay with you and hang there off of you, by a thread that just won't break.
“Sometimes there are no warnings. Things happen in seconds. Everything changes. You're alive. You're dead. And it all keeps moving forward.
We're paper thin. We exist by luck, between percentages, temporarily. And that's the best and the worst, the temporary factor. And nothing can be done about it. You can sit on top of a mountain and meditate for decades, but that’s not going to change. You can change yourself and learn to accept things, but maybe that's also a mistake. Maybe we think too much. You have to feel more, think less."
Charles Bukowski - The captain went out to lunch and the sailors took the ship
An (almost) True Story
I knew Terry from the Black Swan.
Regular guy, working stiff
who spent all his time talking
about his true love Helen.
Before Helen
I could put up
with him
but after it was
a continual spiel of
Helen this …, Helen that.
A smitten docile kitten - he was.
He spent most of his spare change
buying her presents and
taking her out to restaurants
he couldn’t afford.
That’s what love will do to you.
He loved her more than
she loved him.
You could tell.
You don’t need no college degree
to understand that,
you just had to look
into Terry’s eyes.
After a year, maybe 6 months
Helen
got tired of Terry’s
good intentions and moved on
to something more exciting.
You could see it coming
a mile away.
But Terry didn’t.
Terry stopped showing up
at the bar and I’d almost forgot
about him until the barkeep
caught my eye one night
and said,
”Remember Terry?”
- “Yeah. And?”
”Well, he’s dead.”
Turns out,
he just didn’t want to live
anymore after Helen
gave him the heave-ho
and he locked himself
in his apartment and never
came back out.
The Super found him
weeks later in bed
rotting, flies checking out
the little that was left of him.
I met Helen years later.
She was hooking in LV
outside the 7-11 down
from the Golden Nugget.
She told me she’d been
in a bad way back then
after Terry.
Drugs, sick, on death’s door
and then
hearing about Terry
she started to
live again,
filled with a love for him
that she didn’t have before.
She felt special knowing
a man would do that
for her.
I think of Helen and Terry
every now and then,
especially over Christmases
watching hokey movies
about miracles and love.
Their story
almost makes me want
to believe
in Santa again and
keep moving forward
through this
time and place,
a smile on my face.