A good man yearns for grace, a bad man for redemption. I\u2019ve never been all that sure which kind I am. I\u2019ve stood on top of mountains and I\u2019ve been inside of Charlie\u2019s at two p.m. with the rest of the dregs. That girl crossing the street, the bleach blonde who\u2019s seen better days? She\u2019s taken a piece right out of me. My real life didn\u2019t start until after I met her, and then it was forget everything. Home and faith, kith and kin, the old job? I threw it all away and started over. We did all kinds of pills in those days, just threw them all together, pills and booze, to see what happened. But it wasn\u2019t a rock star thing. We weren\u2019t rock stars. We kept on the edge of everything and fuck all else. This was back when you could live like that near the ocean. We slept on stripped beds, scratchy mattresses, got fleas and bed bugs but the beach was right there. Got into fights, got arrested. She was worse than me, if you can believe it. This was back before the Mexicans started showing up. Now the Mexicans are always waiting across the street from Charlie\u2019s, I don\u2019t know who picks them up but sometimes they\u2019re gone. Small household jobs\u2014someone moving furniture, building a shed. I\u2019ve got no problem with the Mexicans but sometimes they creep me out. All that watching and waiting, what they must be thinking out there, behind those ancient faces with that deep spirituality. Decent people, I\u2019m sure. Me and her, if we get together now we\u2019re still popping pills and drinking but it\u2019s not like it was before. Maybe because this is the twenty-first century and people like us are out of another era. We\u2019re old now. Everyone pushing buttons and reading screens, getting smaller. Those people we used to make fun of, the old vets returned from their world wars, not taking to life so well\u2014those people are us now. Everyone steers clear, plugs in. You can barely talk to anyone anymore, not like this.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been on top of mountains, but mostly I\u2019ve been inside of Charlie\u2019s, trying to talk to someone. Sometimes I\u2019ll walk into the ER at night and just sit there, watching people, mothers and fathers and their sick little kids, some guy with a red towel to his ear, another to his chin, somebody with a nail through his arm. Been waiting so long it don\u2019t even hurt, he says, and he\u2019s right.<\/p>\n
I do odd jobs here and there. I\u2019ve stood side by side with the Mexicans who don\u2019t bother saying one word to me. The beautiful thing about mountaintops is you see the world around you, every little thing except what\u2019s hidden beneath the trees. Everything wild. Like the whole world tells you that you\u2019re just another dumb animal but lookit here, lookit the world all around. She developed a pretty bad habit, it was those pain pills they gave her after she was run over. They got heavier prescriptions now. She\u2019ll pop those and swill some beer and then just lay wherever, with whoever, not caring about a damn thing. C\u2019mon baby, get on up, let\u2019s go to Charlie\u2019s, I\u2019ll say, and she\u2019ll look at me like she can\u2019t see nothing, or like I am nothing. Redemption, I guess. That\u2019s what I\u2019m looking for. Grace seems a little too much to ask at this point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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