The Amalgamation of What's Tangible and What's not.

Chapter 2

   What a mess!  Such a fucking mess. The two turds sitting next to me got in a fight over some brainless argument no one could follow and the cops were called so I had to leave my well-worn barstool (frayed edges, stained cushion, rusted frame) and freshly served beer. Fuckers. Drinking a beer outside under 100 % fucking humidity sucks. So I rode on to the next indoor bar.
  I went into this cavern of a bar and ordered a pint of Guinness. Horribly poured. The aesthetics of the place were a mix of dollar store and the nearest landfill. The bar gal, looking about a hundred and fifty years old, was mixing something to kill a fucking horse. "The carnies are coming, we're gonna be busy", she said as I was trying hard to count a full set of teeth between the half a dozen dinosaurs sitting at the bar. Meat Loaf was playing somewhere and I was wishing I'd ordered a bottle of beer. My draft Guinness tasted like someone shat in it. Smelled like it too. Fucking gross. I asked for the check and was about to peace the fuck out when this gorgeous thing walked in, like a diamond in the rough she made the place shine like polished silver. I expected her pimp to walk in right after her but she sat at the bar across from me, unbothered. The dinosaurs as stunned as I. Where have you come from, my darling?
 
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  I'm not sure how long it took for someone to finally move in next door. A couple of months? A couple of years? No clue. Hopefully the smell of death and putrefaction was gone or maybe it still lingered and they didn't care. The middle aged couple that recently moved in. How unobtrusive their move. They shuffled in under the cover of darkness, not wanting to draw attention to their ersatz congeniality as if the accusatory eyes of their creepy neighbor lowered their moral code a notch or two. I was bored most nights, so it wasn't entirely prosperous of me to create little stories within my mind. I never did before. I think.
  At work , everything seemed elastic. The weather was the same everyday, hot as fuck, humid and every afternoon you get gorgeous thunderstorms. Working outside was lovely. Drenched in sweat by midday or completely soaked with rain by late afternoon. Clouds always graying away like the hairs on my head, which I kept cut short. Who cares? I always wear a hat anyways.
  She was in my dreams afterwards. But I couldn't keep Janet, the old barmaid, off my dreams anyhow. I kept the bar flies at bay as we drank the night and she sulked within, her eyes glittering ghost roses at me. Janet in the background, always in the background, left us unbothered as we grew impertinent of our surroundings and I asked her to come with me but she refused, of course. I will encounter her again outside my dreams, I hope.
  I met John and Claire at the grocery store. They recognized me as their neighbor and kindly introduced themselves. Another John. Funny not funny. Should I tell them? Maybe they already know. Claire seemed sweet enough and John liked cigars, the smell of mine as I smoked them on my patio tempting him every time. Did I invite them for a welcome-to-the-neighborhood drink? I couldn't remember but they showed up with a nice bottle of wine a couple of nights later. John had some cigars and some silly stories. Oh if he knew the ones I have.
  Someone's kid died at work. A real sob story, this one. The kid didn't actually die at work, it was someone from work, whose kid died. You know what I'm saying? An email was sent out and they were flyers begging for donations. Like I could give them my beer money as easily as that. No siree.
  John's cigars were stale but the wine was good. Not good for my liver but lovely for my brain. I can't remember what we talked about but all I could think of later was Claire's radiant face and the stale cigars. The symmetry incredibly obtuse. Who could correlate good sex with stale cigars and a 20 year-old bottle of Farniente? Someone should. Maybe Claire could. There's hope yet.
   

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  I achieved nothing by staying up late and waking up early. How many books can I read? How many more albums can I listen too? How many horror movies? How many dreams laid dormant can I rape unto reality? Such crass behavior. So much pain and pleasure. Too much stubbornness and decay. Too much soreness. Aye.
  At the library today or the grocery store or the 7-11, somewhere oh god, I found out about the open investigation on my old neighbors. Apparently, some snazzy new detective found evidence to maybe rule out murder-suicide. Someone was grasping at straws randomly or maybe they really had the evidence to go forward with this travesty. Poor John and Martha, can't say that a really missed them but poor them. Really poor them.
   I stood at the old place , waiting for a seat to clear out. I just wanted to sit and enjoy my beer but after wasting enough time and enough money I took my drinking to the home front. Nothing like drinking alone at home in front of the TV waiting for something to finally trigger your desire to end it all once and for all. Wrong. Not the desire, that was always there, but the courage.. C'mon Dan, you can do it.
  John mentioned something about the weird odor at their place which source they could not find. He came over for cigars and whiskey this time, my cigars, and told me how it was driving Claire nuts. I may or may not had said something about their place's past but I was still surprised when John asked me if I knew in which room they got murdered. I told him about their bad plumbing which he already knew. "Claire's got a guy on it", he said between sips, smiling at my lame attempt at dodging his question. I'm not sure if a murder indeed occurred at their place anymore. I'm not sure of anything anymore. Maybe it's all a big conspiracy. A huge cover-up. I should mind my own business. Claire and John should too.
   I thought I was off today but luckily I got up in time, had breakfast and got ready to go to work. Halfway there, I remembered I was off so I drove past it, unsure of my next move.
   I keep seeing Claire everywhere. At the grocery store, the public library, at my job. I'm pretty sure I even saw her exiting the men's room at Johnny's Pub. Weird. She hasn't made an appearance in my dreams yet but I'm afraid she will soon. I hate to see her replace Martha but I guess dead people have to move on too sooner or later. The crushing yet intrepid validation within swiftly masquerades as sweet, old dimples against the butt cheeks of my inhumanity. There's nothing left but raw animal effect and subliminal messages. Stupid fuck.
  The magic dissipates at work. There's no one there to mock anymore, no one there to condescend or briefly humiliate. I still do, sometimes, but it's not the same when alone. The fucking rain overwhelms everything. It permeates the aching souls.
  I woke up reaching out for that fleeting dream, slightly infatuated with the memory of it, the faded stain of it. The two empty bottles of beer on my night table were full when I went to bed. I'm pretty sure they were. It must have been a thirsty dream. I don't remember drowning.
  I came back from work and went outside to take the trash. I walked around the house to the back patio, searching for something, not sure what, an excuse maybe. Claire was at her patio watering some new plants they gotten the week before. I noticed her short blonde hair first that's how I knew it was her. Sometimes I had trouble distinguishing them from afar. That's why I looked for the hair. She waved at me and I waved back. I felt slightly threatened so I headed inside. It felt like a wine kind of afternoon but I was unsure of what to expect when I opened up the fridge. There were a couple bottles of Pinot Grigio in there, thankfully. I reached for a wine glass, trying to remember if Claire liked pinots. Have we ever talked about wine? The memory was blurry at best. Maybe suspiciously fictional. I thought about going over to ask her. I mean, who doesn't like a good Pinot Grigio?