And, oh, when that last ounce creeps in I am edified. The tailored tuxedo, the rented dame, the sure-thing night-cap all culminate into a postcard I’d send to my father the third Sunday in June. He always opens his mail in hopes of vicarious documentation. He thinks himself the sire of a champion champagne thoroughbred. My only doubt is if I bought enough mirrors to see for myself. Sal, my tailor, stitched me three-hundred-sixty degrees of good sides. He’s eating steak tonight and Dad gets a card, but I’m missing it.
I’ve missed a lot lately but only in the night. Daytime I don’t miss a thing. My rooster crows the sports scores and the stock ticker, and my secretary calls in at 10 AM to tell me who was late to work. I don’t, work that is, so I am never late but always early to reviews, and promotions come my way like headaches to a lush. Never missed one and my life’s gone to the moon – but only in the daytime.
It’s the nighttime when my secretary let’s her hair down and the nighttime when the flower delivery girl sings karaoke. It’s the nighttime when I am in the office drinking gin, and squeezing limes into my eyes to stay awake. It’s the strangers that walk into the pool hall that keep them awake, opening their eyes to a world outside their own and giving another excuse to belly up for a gin and juice. I may be on the moon, but they blissfully dance under my barren moon rock tower.
I breathe filtered air but can’t move, can’t dance, can’t screw in my specialized, pressurized, tailorized suit - and for what?
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