Joey Cloudy online

TRAMP: Sunday, SundaY, SUNDAY

“This is the end beautiful friend the end.”

-the Lizard King

It was Sunday, June the tenth. Aaron got in the shower and let the water get as hot as he could stand beat against his skin. When the hot water ran out, he stepped out of the shower and dressed quickly in black jeans and a T-shirt. He was off today, but decided he would go to work and get some things done just to get ahead. Besides, it was useless to stay here all day, his thoughts tumbling, going crazy thinking about Mona. He was tired of thinking about her all the time. The fact that he couldn’t do anything about it didn’t help.

He’s tried staying away, but everything he did to distract himself failed to drive thoughts of her from his mind. Neither drink nor drug nor any other amusement brought him solace. He even thought about her when he fucked other women more beautiful than her and better in bed. Still, he found himself wishing it was her beneath him, her body he was inside of her face, inches from her eyes he was looking into. Always, he found himself wanting her and wanting her to want him. To hunger for him in the same way that she consumed all of his thoughts.

Desiree was waiting for him in the kitchen.

“Aaron, you have to move out. I have a friend from home, like a sister, moving down at the end of the month. I’ll help you pay off your tickets so you can get your license and open a bank account.”

Aaron filled his travel mug with coffee, his back to Desiree as she continued to talk, not sure if he heard or was ignoring her; she hated when he ignored her the way he acted sometimes when she talked as if nothing of any importance would ever come out of her mouth. It wasn’t anything he said or did; it was in his eyes. Maybe it wasn’t real, maybe it was all in her mind, but then he turned and looked at her, and she could no longer pretend that what was in his eyes was only in her imagination.

“You’ll be able to cash your checks without having to go across town to the auto-parts shop.”

Aaron mouthed a thank you in an exaggerated Texas drawl, his tone mocking her more than his words.

“Aww, thank ya, Miss Desiree. That’s mighty white of you, but don’t you go worrying your pretty head about me. I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself. This ain’t my first rodeo.”

Aaron grabbed his Alice pack and headed out the front door. Desiree grabbed another beer out of the fridge, walked out the back door, and sat down in one of the deck chairs as she lit a Marlboro light 100. Mavis heard her crying, trotted out from under the house, tail wagging, and sat down at her feet. She picked up the cordless phone and dialed the number. As the phone rang, she grew anxious. Finally, a familiar voice.

“Hello?”

“Hi Mom.”

Aaron walked down Belmont, crossed McMillan sat down at the bus stop. He wasn’t surprised; he knew that he was going to have to make a move after she figured out that he wasn’t going to ever sleep with her. It only made sense that the way everything was going that she would come to this conclusion today. He walked to the bus stop two houses down in a daze and caught the southbound bus on McMillan downtown, then the 36 north to the gallery. He couldn’t find his book of Ginsberg’s selected works; he wondered where he had left it, probably at Mona’s. He rang the buzzer to signal the driver to stop as soon as he crossed Royal heading north on Preston.

Aaron let himself into the empty gallery, locking himself in before he sat himself down at the large wooden desk whose surface was dominated by the computer’s oversized monitor. He logged onto the internet and searched for Allen Ginsberg online and found his New York Times obituary online. After he finished reading it, he picked up his notebook with the Egyptian motif that Monas’ twin sister Nina had given him for Father’s Day and picked up his pen, and began to write the poem.

By the time he looked up and it was already time for him to start heading towards the Salon reading at the Balcony Club. He locked up the shop and got on the southbound bus, still writing every moment. He arrived at the balcony club three hours later. He finished writing the poem. It was 7pm Sunday, June 10 tenth 2001. He sat at the Lakewood bar drinking and listening to the poets without ever hearing a word that any of them said. After they finished there, it was decided that they would all go to the bookstore to support the reading that Mona was holding now alone, since Aaron had long since stopped going ever since the reading had descended into nothing but a booty call for Mona and Trevor. Trevor and most of his crew stopped coming after he ended it with her, and his clique stopped going after he broke things off with Mona.

The half dozen poets all marched the two and a half blocks through the streets of Lakewood together, half-drunk, laughing, smoking weed, talking from bar to bookstore. Mona was surprised to see Aaron. She didn’t think she would ever see him again, especially after what had happened this morning. She was glad that he had come; she wanted to talk to him. She didn’t want what she had said to him this morning to be the last words that they ever had. It was the wrong way for it to end, she would talk to him after the reading.

Mona and Aaron had hardly spoken all evening before he pulled out the notebook that he had been writing in for the last thirteen hours and began to read to the dozen people in their uncomfortable tubular steel frames, cracked vinyl square seats, chrome paint flaking, faded and flat. Rust peaking out of the cracks chairs and lounging on the sofas in the room on the second floor of the used bookstore where he had read his first poem. After the reading, Mona asked Aaron why he had brought Nathan to the reading.

Mona wanted to talk to Aaron alone, quietly, about the new poem and the way things were now with them, but that would be impossible with Nathan around. There was never any plan to ditch him; they didn’t need one. They just told him that they were going around the corner to get some smokes, and they never came back. Mona and Aaron walked around the neighborhood for a while until they found themselves in a quite dark little Lakewood bar neither had ever visited before where they sat down to talk about the poem.

-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.