![\"LI-051121\"](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/LI-051121.jpg\")
\nStory telling time <\/p>\n
\nEditor\u2019s Note: Large Day today in the country- I am taking the momentous step of Leaving the Property to snag the Panzer, which is resting after repairs up in Arlington in the basement of Big Pink. This is also second shot of the vaccination week, so between actually leaving the Farm, there are all sorts of events impending. Meanwhile all the stuff you hear about is actually happening in this Great Nation, as if it was Dad\u2019s Delta 88 convertible out for a fun drive with a bunch of pals. It evokes a new way of life, one in which someone is always listening. We will see how this all goes. It is exciting- add to it Marlow\u2019s observations about changes of life and locale at a time when classmates are turning- a partially coherent 70 years of age. Wish I could still get my hands on that big Delta. That was a hell of a car!<\/p>\n
More on all that later.<\/p>\n
– Vic<\/p>\n
Author\u2019s Note: I didn\u2019t mean to leave you readers with questions about how I came upon my last story about the two old men. Its source waters\u2019re just an odd habit I found myself deep into during my heavy drinking, thinking and sinking days of sitting in my isle seat. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s sorta like listening to jazz . . . opening your ears to get the beat while off the melody, behind the notes, completely outside what’s expected, people are improvising off impulse. Nothing but “what’s next? . . . right now . . . in the moment” is what they\u2019re saying. I just open my ears. Others may hear it as just jibber jabber, but the speakers\u2019re “dialoguing” music with what\u2019s in their hearts over a drink. <\/p>\n
So, here\u2019s a bit of context. Or at least some local color. <\/p>\n
-Marlow <\/p>\n
It\u2019s Not Spying, I\u2019m Just Listening<\/p>\n
I have heard \u201ckiting checks\u201d referred to as \u201coverdrafting\u201d which made my cocktail enter but not exit my nasal passages. They weren\u2019t complaining, mind you; just saying \u201cthere ain’t no pancake\u2019s so thin it ain’t got two sides.\u201d Was able to resist the sprayer urge there on that one as well. Other nights brought prison life tales about how it\u2019s \u201cvery structured\u201d — way more than most people care for or its surprising \u201cspirit of camaraderie\u201d — again another cocktail almost sprayed upon the bar\u2019s polished wooden top. I caught myself before I could snarl as it shot out in the heat of the moment. I didn\u2019t want my palette messed up when I was trying the late shift bartender\u2019s latest new concoctions. <\/p>\n
(I was a trusted but unremunerated taster and advisor.) <\/p>\n
I always remember these narrators are individuals. Just like the rest of us. Each has had a day. Some of them have been good, some bad, but they\u2019ve all have had one. Many, most, if not all are unmoored ships drifting down the big brown river two miles north of us towards the dark, open sea. <\/p>\n
Each has a childhood, a body with aches. <\/p>\n
What do I say? Nothing. Do I ever smile while listening? Not even a lip curl, a snort or snuffle. <\/p>\n
I try for a blankness, while listening for what is special about each speaker and story — time here is limited by closing hours, inebriation levels, cash on hand . . . but to hear in these tiki and dive bars from speakers in Hawaiian shirts, fresh-from-the-diamond, red-clayed baseball t-shirts, chef\u2019s coats . . . <\/p>\n
\u201cmy fianc\u00e9 left me\u201d
\n \u201cfeminine wiles\u201d
\n \u201cnow hear this . . . ah geez, nature calls\u201d
\n \u201cgot my one call\u201d
\n \u201ca(h) missed homecoming\u201d
\n \u201cmy friends call me Dim\u201d
\n \u201cI got family somewhere\u201d
\n \u201csharp as a marble\u201d
\n \u201cboneheaded three-peater\u201d
\n \u201cgot my Valentine\u2019s Day drawers on\u201d
\n \u201cwe just got married\u201d
\n \u201cheard the crickets chirp . . . beautiful\u201d
\n \u201cI got the most f*cked up thing I\u2019ve been meanin’ to tell you\u201d
\n \u201cput it out of its misery\u201d
\n \u201cI was collaterally damaged\u201d
\n \u201cnever been out of Savannah\u201d
\n \u201cI ran outta minutes during a 1-900 call\u201d
\n \u201cI got a pornographic memory\u201d <\/p>\n
In a vast expanse of a human desert sit these tellers, some are still wearing sunglasses, looking out at these bars\u2019 dim neon lights. Maybe to hide their eyes, or bruises or scars, their delights or sadnesses or a mix of things. <\/p>\n
Maybe it\u2019s just me, but these soirees remind a lot of black and white photography from the 30s, movies from the 40s and TV during the 50s. <\/p>\n
I get the same feelings from these high deserts that I got from riding my motorcycle into America\u2019s endless western deserts checking out the Joshua Trees (not really trees) and sitting quietly and listening for nothing ekse but what\u2019s floating on the winds. <\/p>\n
These scenes are rarely suffused with a warm yellow light and voices — more like amber or even greyish duskiness. Sorta like stories\u2019 moods and their shifts. <\/p>\n
Rarely did I see them face on, mostly brief profiles of their lawlessness, their emptiness, their joyfulness, their checkeredness, their playfulness, their weariness, their hopefulness . . . None of them really had my practiced deadpan. Their talk-storying rendered their faces 100% accurate polygraphs. Some read like three-page rap sheets, many just plain exhausted after a long day and in need of some get-off-their-feet rest and relaxing beverages, some with rightful claims that biology and the prejudices of others conspired to keep them luckless, and the very lucky few other desert wanderers finally deep in the throes of endless luck and bounty. They were the ones who bought their listeners or the bar a round or two. Funny though, each and every one of them had pizzazz. <\/p>\n
Some were messy in dress. None were listless or possessed of \u201cthe stare.\u201d None ever had their palms up like two dead fish. Always knuckles up or around their beverages. <\/p>\n
People say the most beautiful things about the shit they\u2019ve done or had done to them. <\/p>\n
Many of these stories were confessions — sins, foolishnesses, regrets, feudings, and, yes, crimes. Some very, very serious. With the benefit of hindsight maybe they might figure out that it wasn’t such a hot idea to talk about felonious stuff. <\/p>\n
Some tales start off in beaters speeding down long, winding roads leading away from trailer parks, kicking up dust. Their genesis had little to no plan, yet their destinations seemed like the solution to all their participants\u2019 problems, and to a few the answer to all their prayers. <\/p>\n
Like buying a big ole dining room table but having no chairs. <\/p>\n
Somehow, only the Lord knows why, they end up here, at this bar, with drinks in hand, sharing their life\u2019s parts with us. <\/p>\n
A few tales are so good that their audiences are seated staring from both sides of the tellers, lined up along the bar railing, like a small but distinguished panel on “Meet the Press.” <\/p>\n
Some tale gatherings come with a normal family background, just a quiet evening on the town together with entertaining strangers sharing distant thunder-clapped tales. <\/p>\n
What underlies most of their stories is the undeniable nonsense that \u201cthere’s what’s right and there’s what’s right, and never the twain shall meet.\u201d That one caused me to spill my drink and laugh out loud. <\/p>\n
Amazingly graceful and gracious of this river town to allow us all to be on such long, soft-collared leashes. And for a brief moment to be free of one\u2019s chest feeling pressed down and suffocated — just a runnin\u2019 and a gunnin\u2019 endlessly turning left. <\/p>\n
\nStory telling time <\/p>\n
Taken as a whole, it reminds me of a spoof of Dr Benjamin Spock\u2019s famous book retitled as The Bad Ideas Book of Adult and Senior Life \u2013 A Fools Paradise Guidebook. <\/p>\n
PS: When the mood is right, some work them to retell their stories in the hopes they\u2019ll share more details. These narratives are like routines, certain rituals we need. Like those of folks on the deep end of the spectrum — they\u2019re things we use to protect ourselves. Any long break from them leaves more than a few of us terrified. <\/p>\n
Time is fleeting. Life is short. Time is luck. One day it’s gone . . . you make it this far still out, about, and alive, you should go out and talk before your neon ceases to burn the bright sodium-lit magenta night sky. <\/p>\n
PPS: Do NOT drive or walk yourself home after one of these nights. Whether it\u2019s raining or not, a cab or an Uber will safely speed you home down past the dark, bumpy side-streets that await. <\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2021 From My Isle Seat
\nwww.vicsocotra.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Editor\u2019s Note: Large Day today in the country- I am taking the momentous step of Leaving the Property to snag the Panzer, which is resting after repairs up in Arlington in the basement of Big Pink. This is also second shot of the vaccination week, so between actually leaving the Farm, there are all sorts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-island-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21221"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21224,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21221\/revisions\/21224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}