Reprint written after a beloved friend said something that tickled my brain.
The song that inspired this piece.
Three AM is at least in the city the magic hour. The drunks gone home or wherever, the tweakers have scurried home, things settle into hazy orange light and the kind of strange quiet that pulls me onto the street. I don’t really sleep anymore; they used to beg me around 11 to lay down and I would oblige until three. I walk. I am out enough that the most strung out know me, “hey J. Stay frosty.” The man shuffles past me and I wave and keep going. I mutter, “O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen.”
After another four blocks, the night is quiet around me. I like it when I find an unlit stoop in front of a burnt-out house, there are enough of them in this neighborhood and I sit there and watch. Someone told me once that 3 am is the demon hour, I keep waiting for them but, all I have ae scurrying rats and the occasional junkie shuffle by, “shit J you scared the fuck out of me. Shit.” The man speaking skittered across the sidewalk when he noticed me sitting there, “sorry man.”
Everyone calls me J when they can see me. He called me J, honey sometimes, it gets hard to remember. Things feel weird and fuzzy, sometimes I’m not sure if it is really what happened or if I slept sometime and dreamed. “You need anything J?” The man speaking is dimly familiar, for a second when he looks right at me, I want to run away gibbering, but I don’t. “I’m okay.” I’m staring at him, I can’t blink, if I blink it will all change, something will happen, and I don’t want it. O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen.
He backs away and lights a cigarette, the smoke wafts across my face and I smile, I like it. He makes a funny little wave with his smoke and walks off but not before he says goodbye, “a’ight. NIght J.” I wave and think I’m smiling, “night.” The night moves on beyond me, one of the working girls walks by and puts an orange and a bottle of water next to my foot, she won’t look at me directly. “Dios te salve, Maria.”
I respond because the words live somewhere in my brain, “llena eres de gracia?” She looks startled and hustles away. It is getting close to 4 and time to move on. When I stand up, I can see the glow of eyes in the darkness, a cat likely. I used to love cats; I don’t really know what happened. “Bye kitty.” The cat stares at me, ears laid back flat and I walk away. I don’t like to frighten them. O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen.
By 4 AM I always wonder where the demons had been? 3 AM is not so different than 4, unless it is summer, and I can see the bare hazy tint of sunrise. It isn’t time for that yet and the night is as dark as it was at midnight. Sometimes I see terrible things, not tonight. I head East I like the long slow grade upwards, halfway up the hill is the overpass and I like to stop there.
A car goes by and I can hear it coming from two blocks away, a woman is singing a sad song and it makes something in me coil, a fist in my belly that I want to avoid, outrun, I just have to get away from the thoughts. “Don’t go, please J, please just-” I can hear his voice in my head and my lips pull back from my teeth, I grab my ears and hold on, if I can make myself speak maybe- “no, no. Not now. Not now. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.”
The stillness of the night can’t cover me forever. I am the disturbance, when I shuffle faster up the hill it is me displacing the air and disturbing things. Sometimes I care enough to slow down, I don’t always want to be an anchor but, tonight after I heard even just the bare strains of that song I have to move. I don’t look up, or to either side I just walk with as much purpose as I can muster. O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen.
Tonight, it is too quiet. I can’t hear my own footsteps, or the air moving around me. I think the things in my head are too full of everything for me to feel anything. That is good. There is too much to feel. Too much to know. Someone passes me going down the hill and I want to say something, but they keep going, head down, I think they can’t see me.
O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen.
O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen.
At the top of the hill I turn left then left again, the houses are dark except one. I know the candle in the window, I know the dim outline of the figure waiting for me on the porch. Their arms open and I tuck myself into their chest, “Joey, Joey, Joey-” their voice is gentle in my hair, against my cheek. I didn’t want to come here again; I don’t mean to but I’m here every night. “O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen.” I say it to them again, I know I should say more. There is no more.
“You can’t keep coming like this J. You have to rest. I promise it is okay. Just rest.” Their voice is so good, so warm. When others speak to me it is just more air to buffet me around, to ruffle the edges of me that float in the ether. At 5 AM I feel the sun coming up, the noise begins, and I fade out of their arms. I try to stay, try to hold onto them the way the night holds me, but I can’t.
O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen. O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen. O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen. O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen. O Mater Dei, memento-
They can’t hear me anymore and the tears on their cheeks shatter my idea of peace in the night. It is not peace; I know as I know every morning that what I have is not peace. I can hear them as I move back with the darkness, “J, I know. I know.” I know too. I never meant for it to come to this. Or that I would show up the way I do.
The next night 3 AM is at least in the city the magic hour. The drunks gone home or wherever, the tweakers have scurried home, things settle into hazy orange light and the kind of strange quiet that pulls me onto the street. I don’t really sleep anymore; they used to beg me around 11 to lay down and I would oblige until three. I walk. I am out enough that the most strung out know me, “hey J. Stay frosty.” The man shuffles past me and I wave and keep going. I mutter, “O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen.” Maybe, tonight I will forgive. Maybe in the morning, I can rest.