Joey Cloudy online

TRAMP: The Show Must Go On

“Now I’m naked

Nothing but an animal

But can you fake it

For just one more show?”

‘Bullet with Butterfly Wings’

-Smashing Pumpkins

Brandon. Do you ever get nervous when you read your stuff? Aaron inquired over the noise of passing Elm street traffic.

No. Why do you ask?

Man, Aaron went on exhaling menthol smoke. I don’t see how ya’ll do it. Every time I get up there to read, I get nervous, nausea, trembling hands, palms all sweaty, and shit. I feel just like when I used to have to walk through the student center when I was in high school.

I never noticed. Brandon replied. adjusting the half Windsor in his cobalt tie with crimson and grey diagonal strips.

You’re kidding, right? Aaron asked earnestly.

No. You hide it well. he replied, adjusting the gold SMU tie clasp.

I have to throw up damned near every time before I go out there. It takes me a while to psyche myself up before I can do it. Aaron replied, unbuttoning the top button on his long-sleeved tee shirt with 3 buttons. Then he tossed the shoulder-length dreads off his shoulders over his back.

Brandon Laughed. Well, I would never have guessed. It seems like you enjoy it. You don’t have any reason to be nervous, Aaron.

I don’t know, man. Aaron dropped the Camel to the ground and squished it under the toe of his black steel-toed work boots. He pulled a knife from the pocket of his black Dickies and flicked the blade open with a practiced ease one handed. and began to clean his nails.

Why do you think some of these people are driving all the way from Denton on a Tuesday night? Brandon continued adjusting the frames of his glasses as he spoke, Listen, before you started hosting this reading, I never used to hang out down here, and if you weren’t here anymore, then I would stop coming to Deep Ellum. You have what Rilke calls Duende, Spanish for spirit elf, but not elf, the spirit of a thing, a spiritual creature, a being of spirit. Here, he handed Aaron a book. The Duende Eulogies.

Aaron put the blade back in his pocket as he read the title aloud.

Trevor already gave you a copy of Letters to a Young Poet. I saw Ahmaad reading your copy of the Wasteland last week at the Salon.

Aaron thumbed through the pages as his young mentor spoke. Brandon was a blocky boy 5′ 11″, even in a blazer and tie, he looked more like a football player or a farm hand than a poet.

I prefer reading at the bookstore.

I know I really appreciate you coming down. I know this isn’t really your scene. Aaron said sincerely. Bandon looked up and smiled shyly at his friend. There was always a monk-like bearing to his presence. If anything, you expected Brandon to be reading a bible rather than 20th-century post-modernist poetry. He swept a lock of blonde hair from his square, bespectacled face. Before adjusting his tie and straightening his navy blazer worn over kaki pants, and placed a loafered foot on the edge of the fire hydrant as he continued.

Aaron, if you weren’t here, what would be the point of it? The poet’s soulless offerings are reams of maudlin tripe, devoid of either style or intellect, terrible writers all. And the girls, they’re all fat.

Aaron was shocked at his friend’s frankness. He was normally so reserved that this seemed almost out of character.

You got nothing to worry about, Brandon grinned, because when you’re up on that stage, Man, it’s your playground.

It was like this every Tuesday night when he had to get himself ready to take it to the stage at Insomnia. Aaron hated throwing up; it was one of the reasons, besides his ulcers, that helped him avoid excessive drinking. Aaron turned on the cold water, cupped his hands to catch the flowing water, then leaned down to fill his mouth with the liquid. After he rinsed his mouth with the cold water from the sink, he splashed some water over his face before he let his face sink into the pool that gathered in the bowl made by his cupped hands. With the water he captured in cupped hands, he washed his face.

With trembling hands, he slapped his cheeks a few times; the loud wet whack echoed in the empty bathroom. The only other sound was the running water. Then Aaron began to talk to his reflection in the dirty, cracked, graffiti-covered mirror over the sink, trying to psyche himself up so that his fear of public speaking and the anxiety he experienced whenever he was in a crowd would not crush him like the birds into silence. Most nights, he could do it, force the desire to flee the premises down into his gut, his energy refocused into his reading.

On a few occasions, the thought of what was coming overwhelmed him, and he ran out of the building before the event even started. On those rare instances, he always ended up at Tavah’s door. She would wrap her long arms around him and drag him inside, grinning as she padded barefoot back across the black painted cement floor in teal panties and a cropped ebony t-shirt that barely concealed her rather large breasts to her seat on the red camelback sofa. You’re not company, grab me a glass of wine, then come sit with me, Baby Boy, my show is on right now. Walker, Texas Ranger, is her hero and part of the reason she took the job clerking here in Dallas. She has a humongous crush on Chuck Norris, and Aaron thinks this is adorable.

She could see when he’d regained his composure enough, often by the time they had smoked out. Tavah always took him in as if he were a stray cat. She would talk calmly, sitting with him on the red camelback sofa, his head resting in her lap while she checked his forehead for fever with the back and palm of her manicured hand, a nervous habit. Oblivious to the barbell piercings, her nipples caught her t-shirt. Her breast swaying over his face, she’d caress his forehead and the sides of his face, and plays with his dreads until she can see it’s time to urge Aaron to get it together.

Some nights she knew Baby Boy was a mess and just wasn’t up to it; those nights, she insisted he ditch hosting for the evening and hang out with her while she prepared vegetarian pizza or stir-fried vegetables. They would drink bottles of merlot, listen to her CDs; Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Schneider, and whatever the CD player put on, randomly dance like no one’s looking because no one was, stand on the windowsill 8 stories high, arms out stretched, listening to the soundtrack to ‘Titanic’ flying.

She had learned to gently coax him into going back to the coffee shop, but first she had to get him to settle down. He wasn’t hysterical, but it was apparent that he had a tenuous grip on the situation at the moment. He reminded her of her little brother before they left Israel for New York when she was 14 and Milo was 12. He was a delicate boy, and the mortar fire would terrify him when they were kids. He was the reason her parents moved to the States; they knew he would never survive his tour of duty in the armed forces. Growing up in a Tele Viv with the random missile attacks and suicide bombers had warped his delicate psyche. It was decided, they moved to New York. Ten years later, and he still does not know why the family moved. At Columbia, he’s just Milo, another Jewish kid from Brooklyn in love with the Sopranos. She was accustomed to being the calm one.

It was in these almost maternal moments they shared when she was reminded of just how fragile he could be. These were the only times she saw him when he wasn’t on. The ultra cool façade cracked a little, and he seemed for the first time his truest self, the introvert, the quiet man, the vulnerable one. Tavah dug the self-assured way Aaron carried himself, the way he walked around as if he were royalty; it was one of the qualities of his writing that she loved most. This aspect of his psyche permeated every raw syllable of his poems; it was what provided its weight. She knew that even if she had the same talent that possessed him, she would never have the courage to write about things the way he did in his poems.

He wrote with the conviction of a religious zealot; he was mercilessly truthful about his experiences and observations beyond all questions of style and good taste. But when she saw him like this, weakened, drained of his strength by anonymous fears, she realized that performing was his kryptonite. It was nice to be able to help him on these nights instead of him in his usual role consoling her about another unfaithful boyfriend or a crisis of confidence at her law office or something else equally banal.

She “gives” him shit about his girlfriend’s just to keep him on his toes. She “controls” often forgot how shy he actually was and how much work it was for him to get up there. But on nights like this, she realized that while he was a natural as a writer as a performer, it was agonizing for him for reasons she sympathizes,” couldn’t understand, because he was so good at it. He seemed a natural on the stage. Sometimes she saw “speech” him disappear and reappear as something sacred shamanistic angelically manifested itself in this little tramp of a poet and in those moments he seemed supernatural.

“V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID AFTER

the torchlight red on sweaty faces

After the frosty silence in the gardens

After the agony in stony places

The shouting and the crying”

‘The Waste Land’

-T. S. Eliot

Tonight, he would not let his angst devour him. He stared into the eye of the semblance of a man in the mirror, pounds his chest, and begins to speak to the refection. You can do this, god damn It’s time. This is my house! This is my house! This is my Mutha’ Fuckin’ house! Begins to pace the cool predatory steps of a tiger caged, around the room that only the toilet contained, and the sink, occasionally stopping to grimace as a warped and distorted visage returns his gaze. Jagged mouths begin to shout

Show me your war face! He chanted.

Show me your war face! The desperation in his voice for now is gone. Now he is pure ferocity WHAM! He punches the stony façade tattooed with graffiti wall, with fist hard force enough to break skin over bare knuckles, devour the rage.

Show me your war face! WHAP! slam forehead into the cinderblock wall with enough force the Irish kiss nearly knocks him unconscious!

Show me your war face! He rumblings slamming his fist into his chest in a Roman salute. Then again, head TO the wall. wham! Finally, the rush of endorphins calmed now ready to go out to the patio, smoke settling his roiling guts.

The exorcism over, he had beaten the demon. You mother fuckers ain’t ready for this. He pushed his hair back out of his face with both hands, shook his head and rolled his shoulders. Now he felt the way he should, the feeling he had before he stepped into the ring, he bounced on the balls of his feet a little, rolled his head until his neck popped, he squared his shoulders, sucked in his gut, took a deep breath, then held out his right hand palm down flat in front of him, looked at it and smiled it did not shake. He opened the bathroom door. Something ancient stepped inside his soul and now wore him like a second skin. Now, He was in control.

I am.

-about the author JD Cloudy’s poetry has disappeared in the literary journals: Fatfizz, Mad Swirl, Texas Beat Anthology, Danse Macabre, Du Jour, and Death List Five. He has won no literary awards, entered no slam competitions, and never completed college. He lives to write in Dallas, TX.