August

I

Crashing through some dream where for what reason I can't remember I
had been climbing frantically down some strange dark mineshaft
mysterious and cold and I didn't know where I was but a driving
importance made me keep going on and getting further deeper darker down
then all of a sudden I lose my grip and start hurtling through the air
hearing my own tumbling clanks of feet against rock come echoing along
with me and I realise now as I keep falling that really I'm not falling
at all - in fact I'm going up up up high in the shaft &; it gets
slowly lighter till I burst out into blinding light and am born into
the world and rise up high and see fields laid green below and fear
nothing and just feel confused cos never have I been up so high and
when am I gonna stop, what's to go on for? - and awake.

And awake. Feeling my lips stuck up and thick and a tongue that feels
fat in dry mouthed parched mouth and the faint light behind my eyelids
is enough to make me keep them shut up tight. Reaching for a drink
that's not there, tumbling out onto the floor upon my knees, with head
pounding and my brain feeling all dark and swollen. With great will and
effort I lurch to stand and fighting back illness move off downstairs
to the little sunny kitchen where the curtains are still open now
letting in a big full bright morning sun. After allowing the cool water
to run over my face, I fill up a glass and drink it all back feeling
sick but better for it, then pour another and head back to bed,
ignoring the day and what it means and absolutely everything I said
last night.

Waking the second time's always better. Refreshed and not so ill, a
bit'a hope I s'pose. A great stretch wakes me up to the day and I sit
up to see bright blue sky through the chink in the curtains, little
bird songs through the window which I open up wide to look out at all
the life and get some big gulps of air to taste the day. Downstairs the
little sunny kitchen's still golden with the sun streaming in, now I'm
just all the better for it and make a big mug of coffee and toast with
butter and munch an apple as I wait. 'What's wrong with a hangover?' I
think, 'it's a beautiful day to waste, eh.' I go open up the creaky old
backdoor that takes a great shove to get over its warped frame opening
with a loud screech and juddering back on its hinges - and the old
green grass and hot bright world don't listen to my door, the Judas
door in this morning - it's quiet and sleepy Friday noon and not even a
hammer bangs across the gardens. Sitting back curled sideways on the
slippy canvas of the deckchair I sip coffee and light the first
cigarette and dream gently on the far clouds and humming little insects
and just mornings in themselves. The grass long and dark-green shining
across its edges bright-white-light-beams and shimmer in depths of tiny
worlds off to the garden edges where bushes slumber in the shadow of
the fence beneath their branches dark places are hidden in cool damp
secret earthy words like mystery of the rainforest though to you I know
it's not the same but to me it is and all that nature mystery is just
as wonderful as you're gonna get - I love even the damp moss in the
winter and hope it doesn't mind being so dry in the summer, hmm.

Today being the day of course it had to be gorgeous warm and good for
travelling, like it always was it still remains perfect right up to the
end - a day to say goodbye and turn away - I drunk an awful lot last
night despite promising myself that I wouldn't - you see, already I'm
getting back to my old self and she's not even left yet, I'm dumb
and'll never learn - like the song I was listening to &; drinking
to, the world has turned and left me here just where I was before you
appeared, yep yep yep, too right, so what'ya gonna' do if you can't cry
or even decide whether you should be happy or sad? I mean everything's
gonna end sometime - now, tomorrow, makes no difference really - and
that's what I been telling myself - for all it's truth it seems I maybe
don't quite believe . . . I was thinking off getting rid of all her old
letters, burning them I thought then realised that's just for the
broken-hearted - anyway, now I'm glad, too good to burn, should be
published really in pocket-sized books with strange colourful names -
Six hours, eight hours, can't remember now what time she said the
bus'll arrive, not long to wait - and in your place an empty space has
filled the void you left behind - In the end I still think that we'll
meet in twenty years, like it's not really ever gonna end, do I want it
to? what's to know? and for all this I write now and this pointless
paragraph that says absolutely nothing I can't stop thinking about the
other week - August and I had been out just driving around with nothing
better to do - the radio up full and the windows open wide -

'Hey,' she'd said, 'I have something to show you.' And a little gleam
in her eye and smiling we turned out into the country to go and see
some sort of surprise or special place of hers and what a day with a
perfect little adventure and all when we knew everything was nearly
ended and for this reason I think she'd decided to confide in me some
secret - ah, so sweet &; I kept asking where we were going and she
wouldn't say just laughed and said, 'you've just gotta wait.' And then
so sad and an example of just everything, we saw two friends of ours
walking down the pavement and they waved over to us, I jumped out and
we started talking and laughing, getting on to discuss what all the
plans were for that night and before I knew it we were going off to get
drunk then and there, starting early, bah, and sweet and silent August
followed on behind and said not a word and oh sad and this is why you
see I'm no good really, got drunk and laughed and stomped out all the
little hopeful flames.

This came back to me last night over glasses of beer - I wanted to rush
and find August then and there, I felt so crazy - and what have I done
d'you think? - who knows it could have been some test I secretly failed
and poor August in her ruined plans can see even when we have just one
week together I race off and don't give a care - but it's harmless I
feel, I don't mean to break what I touch. Ah, but the birds are still
singing so what the hell, eh?

After another cup of coffee I rise up from my seat and start a slow
walk round the garden to survey up close the wild corners - it's far
better to let everything run wild I think, the weeds are just as good
as the flowers and I love big crazy overgrown bushes and grass as tall
as my cat so it can hide down in the cool stems, slugs and snails and
insects too, they all got a place and keep it alive I guess. - Yes, so
today and I gotta get ready now, make the most of what's left. After a
long cool shower I throw on some light clothes and settle back down for
a minute or two to smoke a last cigarette which is always good to
compose your mind, think a bit before starting out on the day cos that
day's gonna drive you mad whatever by the end just take it cool though
and you might get through it lightly, there brother, d'you hear?

Outside it's heat everywhere and glaring so I have to squint up my eyes
- lazy streets, sleepy and suburban, occasional cars cruising by with
the windows down. Three kids playing off in a gutter and laughing,
paying no attention to me. At the bus stop I sit down heavily and don't
even get a chance to light up another cigarette before one comes along
- shoom, engine rumbling and a grey thick smell of fumes to drive me
sick, and that bus-driver didn't care, didn't even look up at me as I
bought the ticket, no interest. Lets me off just the same, can't find
the energy on a day like today to look up, poor man to drive in circles
his life and always be the one to stay, I bet he wishes one day he
could just get off like everybody else. I got some lunch to get and a
present or something for August to say goodbye, though I'd rather not,
but that's what's done despite it making me feel like I'm saying
nothing more than 'look here, this is what you're worth to me -
wrapping paper and little gifts.' I can't argue with the way of the
world and it would be great to see just one last time her reaching to
kiss me with a big 'thankyou' on her lips, excited and smiling.

Just in the lunch-break I arrive so the streets are alive with
businessmen and women to-ing and fro-ing off for food and alcohol, or
coffee and cigarettes, mixed in with the ordinary shoppers and
whatever. So really I step off the bus into a big herd of faces and
every single one of them is like real cold and ugly to me as my mind is
thinking of August and how with her at my side I could see that all
these people really are just people and beautiful, their own little
problems to contend with - hopes, dreams, losses, loves, minds hiding
behind eyes, and that's why you can never judge a man by his eyes like
some people say, the best of the loneliest of the real tragic people in
this world hide whole entire lives behind those eyes - they'd cry if
they thought you weren't looking, believe me they would. - Hmm, I still
think that God ain't real though, we should all cry all the time in
pity for each other that we've only got this one chance that we
squander without really thinking twice, bah, like, you see, this is how
I think on nasty tired mornings like these, for weeks sometimes, and
now what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do come the end of this
day?

The pavement is baking hot as the sun reflects back full bright onto
the world. Gulls and pigeons flutter lazily in the blue on blue sky,
and some guy bangs hard into my knee with his briefcase. 'Sorry, oh!
I'm sorry. You OK?'

'Yes, I'm fine' I say -

It's more than made up for to see this poor buzzing rushing skinny guy
with glasses pinched to his nose spluttering out all his apologies and
looking really so sad for our little tragic accident in the midday
street - and now do you see? This is just what I'm talking 'bout. Never
would I have thought such an apology and truthful sincerity could come
from such a face, I would of thought that being so busy he would just
move right on - but no, ha, there, that's it, he stands and stammers
and back I smile and with a final quick 'sorry' trundles off again,
leaving me grinning and warm with a bump on my knee.

With all good intentions I decide that maybe I should keep off the
street for an hour or so, too hot and crowded. So the plan of action is
to wander round the museum in the cool and quite, a place I haven't
seen for years, I can sit back on soft museum seats, daydream away and
probably think, 'why'd I never bring August here, she'd a loved it, 'd
laughed at goddamn everything!'

Little beady-eyed security-guard type guy with a lot of suspicion on
his mind when confronted by someone like me looks me over as I go in. I
deliberately walk passed the box marked for donations - let him think
bad of me, yer, why not then I'll give all the change in my pocket at
the end when he's not looking and can feel good inside for my little
quiet understated act of charity. It's just as I imagined and
remembered. Musty, stuffy, though a cool and intense feeling of secrecy
round every corner. Silent as hell or a library and just the same sort
of whispery atmosphere in the air, ah, to hear August laugh and just
her voice to break away the cobwebby silence in here! There are a whole
heap of twists and turns, different ways to go, so I just take no real
decision in matters thinking I got time, I'll eventually see it all.
Skeleton lies in a glass case with papier-m?ch? walls to look like its
old earthy grave, little beads and flints lie around it, also plundered
from its grave - how long you gotta be dead before they come dig you up
from your own tomb, five-hundred years? - no, probably less - Exhibits
with life-sized models of ancient characters working in fields or in
dark reed huts, contemporary maps of how the town used to be like one
hundred years ago - all this and I don't see a single person walking
around like me. In the entrance I'd seen an old couple sitting in
silence, now in such a wonderful place I'm surprised to find that
nobody's in here to get away from the hot sun and crowds. I sit for a
while in a chair facing an exhibit on Victorian dress and think that it
would be much better if all the dummies had been given heads. Hearing
some footsteps I quickly jump up and disappear round another corner
enjoying being alone. Now in a maze of corridors devoted to prehistoric
animals, showing great beasts and animals, pretty exciting really.
Roaring tiger heads alongside pictures of green scaly old
lizards.

After a while I get bored of the museum and walk back out onto the
street. The sun's bright on my eyes after the twilight inside and the
crowds are just as large - they'll probably be this way all day and
it's got nothing to do with lunch-breaks or whatever. There's something
almost beautiful in the way of the town now, afternoon slowly edging
its way in, casting a warmer glow upon the everything, mustering up the
afternoon haze that's settled on the horizon hills and the world's more
pleasant and lazy. There are people sitting on nearly all the benches
and kids move passed occasionally, clutching ice creams, coming up from
the beach. Even the cars have slowed down as the heat makes it all too
hot to go racing around making a noise and revving engines. A bus pulls
up at the bus stop right in front of me and lets off a couple of
passengers - I think, just for one tiny moment, I could go home right
now and hide away and not have to meet August or worry about all these
terrible good-byes - and forget it just as soon as I think it, no place
to hide today - so throw my face into the faint-as-a-whisper breeze,
chin up and smiling, sun in all its glory burning my cheeks and think
of good and happy times drunk at parties laying back in grass with
August's head on my arm or laughing in other sunsets that seem now
worlds away; just the first time we met and what a sadness that gives
me in my chest though still I smile determined now to not be sad.

Thinking about what to buy her I look in all the shop windows and
realize that there's not really anything she'd like. I never really got
to know about the things she really liked, she'd never talk like that.
I settle on a little book that I love to read and think that maybe she
might like it too and a funny card that I know will make her laugh as
it's so lame, write a message in the cover of the book that was of no
importance and try to think of something for in the card but can't and
have to think for so long that I finally give up and write a load of
half-hearted jokes and silly words that she'll see straight through,
but she'll understand - awful really in light of the wonderful letters
she'd write me -

Finally worn out through just moving through the town, hangover
catching up with me, I slump down on a small grassy bank beneath a tree
by the road, close to the sea, clutching the book in hand and suddenly
feel so sad, hopelessly so, I'm all of a sudden lost and dumbstruck
staring into the void with a desperate crazy look and for a terrifying
moment of clenched teeth I think 'how am I going to go on?' Great
rushes of loneliness hit me and I realize that I feel empty and
impossibly weary, heartbroken now truly and I'd never realized this
before and now all things are clear. The sun still shines sinking
further to touch high tips of buildings; the crowd still bustles and
mutters around me, oblivious; sky's still blue and everything's still
here - but me - I disjoint and sit crushed like a fool just waking from
a dream to some realization that maybe I'm dead or dying - suddenly I'm
mad - can't think and feel tears in my eyes and death creeping through
my shins. Like this I drift for a while, scared as hell for myself, I
fall asleep bit by bit until I'm sleeping meekly like a child in the
town full of strangers who through pity or just luck let me sleep and
go quiet around me so I can dream away some of the awful fear.

I awake how you always awake after falling to sleep in such a way. A
great empty feeling inside with a memory of all the emotion but now not
so bad feeling refreshed and lighter and stronger to go on with. Hope
comes back and I'm gladdened to see that my little book I bought, which
had slumped from my hands in sleep to lay on the grass at my side, had
not been touched even though anyone could have stolen it. I feel glad
that I was allowed to sleep when the world knew I needed it most.
Rising with a great stretch I see that the afternoon has worn right on
and I rush to get to the restaurant where I'm meeting August for our
good-bye meal. The shadows are longer the air's cooler with little
gusts swooshing in from the sea. Never have I dreaded anything more -
to see her sitting wonderful beautiful sweet &; sincere across the
table from me and to know that face is gonna fade in my memory till I'm
not sure anymore of how it was she looked. My feet scuff the pavement
and I slow down to listen to the faint hushes of music rising from
distant open doors and windows. A wry smile crosses my lips &; I
clench my teeth and think 'ah hell' and what's to worry really as
there'll be no more responsibility for me - everything's gonna end
sometime - makes no difference now or later. And in no time at all I've
sped up and strode through all the quiet back streets to where I end up
looking in a steamy restaurant window wondering what the time is,
realizing I never even bought any lunch.

August is sitting with her chin on her hands looking aimlessly through
the air; I take the opportunity to watch her for a while in secret
before going in. With a faint smile on her lips she looks up as I
approach, rises to hug me before we sit down - I can't think of a word
to say. The restaurant is kind'a gloomy and full up with people all
around us and I always feel strange in places like this as if I'm being
looked at or expected to run away without paying - hung yellow lights
beneath heavy shades set a mottled glow, loud voices, cutlery jangling
between sips of drinks and all those chewing mouths - I almost laugh to
see all the eating - large windows looking on to the street, a small
place with good food smells and good-looking waitresses so young and
bored. All with some sort of infinite sadness in the air that lumps my
throat taking away my appetite, like I'm sick all of a sudden and ill
with worry - seeing her now she looks vulnerable and especially through
the window when I looked she was sad I could tell and when she's gone
away what can I do for her anymore? - It'll be like the terrible
nightmare I had when we'd just met of her on a train and me seeing from
right the other end like four, six carriages away, something awful was
there and I couldn't get any closer and that bumping screeching train'd
throw me to the ground, empty and flickering in endless tunnels
rocketing like pure catastrophe and tremendous awful noise and to see
just in the faint snaking carriages distant like a tiny painting her
face and not a thing could I do and so as you can understand it was a
dream of such innocence and hopeless trapped feelings that I ain't
gonna forget it and haven't yet remembering it as a true sign that I
should do my best to protect August though now she's gonna be so far
away just like the train and all the disaster I can feel closing in,
lonely as hell really, whoa.

So we ate. So we talked. She laughed and I laughed and all the while we
found nothing funny - I could tell - and sun set through the window and
people came in and out. Strange that I kept recognizing people that I'd
never seen before. August wonderful with her hair down and the soft
brown eyes, landscapes in those eyes, teary, shining, like when I saw
heaven in the clouds on one spring evening. We kept referring back to
things we'd done in the past and all the funny times and whatever but
never said anything of any value or worth like 'hell, I wish this
weren't happening.'

II

August Rominy in those great faded jeans older'n her. Traipsing, idling
cross the street, skipping up the curbstone and straightening out and
down the pavement into the heavenly sun setting red gold hues of
violent fire up low on the horizon. Breakin for a second to spin and
wave and then cutting right back to it, pushing through the invisible
shrouds muting our parting - the shrouds of fine gossamer invisible to
the eye most'a the time, grey, sad, tragic, spectral. - I used to feel
like a ghost a lot of the time, not really there &; never knew why,
didn't understand that there's a great mass that floats in the air,
unscientific, strange, that beats our brows giving us funny moods that
we don't understand. Great bursts of happiness come when these shrouds
are lifted and you can raise up that proud happy face and just boom and
shriek for feeling free and alive. Make you feel alive. Spiderwebs that
keep us low and down and hem you in and give a heavy feeling on yer
mind and yer never know quite why until someone tells you and it'll
make good clear perfect sense and you'll carry your invisible scissors
everywhere for ever more. And that's what she told me and now I can see
them surrounding our little lonely parting scene and the sun don't do
nothing to break them up and she (knowing them for so long and being
truly the first to discover that these sorts of things really exist)
she just walks through them and THEY make way for HER, unstoppable as
she floats from view into evening crowds, just a fine gold light from
her hair in the midst of the other heads, and gone.

August Rominy like a little princess saintly figure like Jone of Ark
the first time I saw her. I told her afterwards that all I'd wanted to
do was get away from the crowds and the weekend revellers so we could
hold hands and walk down to the seashore, sitting and listening to the
quiet splashes and all the voices of the waves, her head resting on my
chest, the silence of the sea in the dark. She'd just smiled like she
does and tilting her head to one side said 'yes, I know, it's cos
you're so sweet and that's why I love you'. Now there's no more time
for that and she can't love me any more just a memory and I'm left in
the big yawning world in the sad scene of the street to shove hands in
my pockets and walk back down the same road that I can almost still see
our ghosts walking up past me from all of five minutes ago.

Little rustles shake down from the leaves as a breeze awakes in the
dusky evening. Low clouds burning the day away like red embers left
standing as a memory of the warmth; the other side of the sky showing
blue and cold with tiny pin-prick lights dotting out the night. The
restaurants are just filling up and cooking smells waft across the
street. I walk past a big crowd sitting out in the evening in front a
bar that's so small you couldn't imagine it ever owning so many shiny
tables and chairs - bellows, laughs, cackles, shrieks, chortles,
chuckles - all a whole mixture of sounds that make me feel good and
ready to go out and enjoy getting drunk and not caring for what's to
worry now? I got no more responsibility - I got nothing to worry about
but food and sleep - after all she was always gonna' leave and it makes
no difference now or later the same conclusion - hmm. I duck in an
off-license that's got no queue and not even anyone behind the counter
in fact I think after that I could'a just walked out with whatever I
chose and probably would have been fine but instead I wait for someone
to come out, deliberately stomping and shuffling and coughing, buy
cigarettes and beer all in a yellow plastic bag and step back out onto
the street now feeling better and light even happy I s'pose in the mad
sad June night.

Sleek cars cruise down the street all eager to get somewhere though
going slow as there's just too much to miss when everything's waking up
like now at the end of the hot day and the start of the hot hot hotter
night, whoop, yells to and fro cross the street as gangs of friends
meet each other and agree to stick it out that night getting all messed
up, but so, so what. Trip, skip, down the edge of the curb I walk, not
hitting the lines and even more importantly not stepping onto the
pavement or the road as what might happen every child knows. My little
dream for tonight is just to sit down on the stones of the beach,
nestled down and drink my beer and smoke slow cigarettes just looking
at the ships out in the big space of sea and dreamawhat they're doing
tonight out there - mebe rough handed poker games where they flick the
cards deftly from their hands to the rolling table beneath a swinging
pale light or drinking vodka in silence with the anchor let down, all
sorts out there - Chinese, sinister Russians, noisy Europeans.

Sweet. Sweet smell of the sea. I sit legs outstretched and face to the
moon. Big yellow moon already old up high in the sky and gulls streak
across it fromming from town to beach to sea not caring I guess. The
tide's stretched the water right out in the distance so almost it seems
a mile away, the faint white lines of the breaking laps of waves glint
in the distance, mysterious, across a big flat sandy shelf they swoosh
in and out, too far to even hear and secret I s'pose what they're
saying as there ain't no one anywhere in sight on this beach to hear a
word of it, they can talk about whatever the hell they like it makes no
difference. Crack open the first can and drink back a big deep gulp and
let it cool me down looking out into the air at absolutely nothing,
glazy-eyed and sad and happy all at once, no difference in it really as
they're the same thing and one's always gonna' follow the other -
better get used to it. Earthy smells linger in off the breeze of
seaweed and salty sand. I throw back my face and gulp the beer now fast
as it runs down my chin and I can wipe with my sleeveback like a pirate
all ravagey tired and mean surveying the waves from his beach just up
from the new dug treasure pit, argh. - Longing, longing, longing - odd
word though somehow sounds right and sums up good as any can. -
Treetops stick up dark heads across the way where the beach curls round
and the town tapers off to rows of beach-hut and B&;B's and though
they're there all that shows up now are dim shadowy tops a trees, hmmm,
painted quietly on the sky, nightening blue and gold, a scene just for
me and my eyes - you only see when you're ready to look. Faint shadows
of walking people move up above me on the promenade and they don't say
anything I can hear either, silent, so it's down to me to imagine it
all, crumpling the can in my hand and burying it under a pile of stones
then soon enough opening another and gulping back a great swig this
time so I nearly choke though don't just smile instead. 'HEY', shouts
come down from the road, 'HEY' again, looking up I can see two friends
joining up and walking together into the town, whhee, big night for
them I guess.

Tiny flies are still buzzing at the very end of the day, across messes
of seaweed and junk in grey twilight hightide piles and I wonder where
they buzz off to when the sun sets and even more I wonder what the hell
they do to survive on this beach that's all stones and sand? Two of
them circle each other halfheartedly, you can see it's the end of a
hard day, landing down occasionally so I have to throw tiny pebbles at
them to get them moving again - they're faster'n the pebbles as they
flit and glide back up skyward. Tiny boat speck lights up on the
horizon fulfill for me my boat dream I had for the night though now I'm
starting to feel drunk and can't care about what they're doing -
probably asleep in hammocks after catching thousands'a tiny silver fish
in their nets all day, bah, fish for supper, bah, hungry now though I
don't even like fish. The dead ones on this beach make good hang-outs
for the flies - I s'pose that's what they eat - must be - fish supper
for the flies tonight.

We all gonna die anyway, no time to mess about I say - sishshsh - as
the sun sinks finally last tip of its eye into the sink red waves of
the sea and that's the sound of it - sishshsh - as wets its face all
over and leaves just a little breath of gold on the lucky clouds up
high o'er its grave - 'don't cry for the sun,' says the moon, 'she
ain't gentle enough for your eyes.' A faint gull cry in accompaniment
to all this and it flies in circles down to sit heavy on a wood beam
skewed in the sand - turns over its head to grin at me and settles a
single black pearly eye on my brow and stares bemused by the sad-faced
stranger resting on its beach away from the town - how strange for it,
me ain't no bird, no place for me - and with a final squawk of
discontent it turns a fed-up head and looks long and hard and
thoughtful out into the sea.

Great boredom and feelings of unhappiness drove me from the beach and
left me alone again once I found my way through the door of a pub with
warm lights and crowds around the bar. I choose a table in a dark
little corner and sit back a minute to let the crowds subside and rest
up my feet - can't see out the window anymore as nights really come and
the lights just reflect back along with my own staring face looking
right back at me from the window glass. More beer and I feel good
again, like what does it matter it's always gotta' end - everything's
gotta' end - ha. Watch smoke drift to the ceiling from long slow
cigarettes and observe quietly the gentle ways of all the people in the
pub - a relaxing expensive place that serves good food to good
hard-working people - &; I'm sure there's a lot to learn from the
guy who never takes his hand from his whiskey glass though sips only
tiny drops every, what, half'n'hour? - &; the good conversation of
the old timers with heads full of stories, of course - &; the
efficient good-natured bar staff with the jolly old Landlord keeping
one eye on the door - yer, all good, but not for me I think and drink
one more quick drink and duck back out straight to a phone box, and
drooling a cigarette from the corner of my mouth, gangster like, bang
in the digits shouting down the phone 'where are you?', 'yer, well stay
there and I'll see you in a bit,' 'today, yes, about an hour ago - mebe
two - it's cool, everything's gotta' end man - don't you know?'