Women Woes Of White Wine Willie

My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.

I was sitting on a park bench
on the edge of humanity
on a weak day after noon

I saw no friends about me

The strange, warm autumnal sun and its muted light
made me reflect time and space misspent

I watched mothers with their strollers
lovers with their stroking
and others with their roaming
between the soft shadows
and I wondered:

"I have no life, no hope, no dreams
no family, no friends, no fucking
I know why I want to die
but why do they choose death?"

***

Waves of pain wash over me, swimming as an outcast from the ark of Noah as the heavy waters rise. My radar shuts down in moments like these and I had no fucking desire to talk as Willie plops down beside me in his usual unflappable way. My glassy eyes slowly turn to see the brown-papered bottle in his hand. I lash out.

"You weak bitch!"

"One tries!" he grinned, taking a gulp.

"The minute you get a little change in your pocket you run right out and get your 'medication'. It's fucking ridiculous!"

"Doctor's orders!" He takes another unrepentant swig.

"You're just a helpless bitch!" Last thing I wanted to see was another trapped, hapless human like me. Goddam him!

"You know, Harry, for guys alone like us, dying sorta makes sense, don't it?"

He knew I knew what he meant. For some "alone" means not being with someone, for wretches like us it means you can't be with someone. Willie was right. May as well die. At least he snapped me out of my reverie - which was a good thing?

So he goes on to tell me one of his usual female adventures - or attempted adventures more like it. He really came across a live one this time.

Motherfucking-asshole-son-of-bitch-FUCKER! Get outta my face!

"That's what she says to me and I tell her all I said was hello."

Motherfucking-asshole-son-of-bitch-FUCKER! You don't fool me! You just want someone you can just shit on and leave!

"So I asks her if it OK I say goodbye even."

Motherfucking-asshole-

"OK, I get it I say, but she then gets mad I cut her off."

You interruptin' me, you sexist pig? Hey, aren't there any real men around here? Who's going to be my guilty hero and beat this creep up?

"I'm looking around and shit if there ain't a bunch of angry looking dudes headed my way."

"I know what I would have done."

"Way ahead of you. I open up my hand and bitch slap the holy hell out of her!"

Oh, aren't you the nicest man! You have the strongest hands! Please shit on me in the worst way possible!

"Then she follow me around like a cat I just fed. Was 45 minutes before I could ditch her."

I'm shaking my head with a crooked smile from the corner of my mouth. "Willie, you ever think of hanging around a better class of woman?"

"Sure I do. All the time. Those women want nothing to do with me!"

"What about that Anna chick? She had an elegance about her."

Willie stared into his bottle absorbing the blow I had inadvertently delivered. Mentally I watched him crawl inside, trying to make himself safe from the pain. His eyes looked up ahead at nothing. "Didn't work out."

This was one of those times where silence offers the best consolation and we sat sharing the park bench in wounded woe: he thinking of Anna and me my reverie. I wondered if we looked as normal to the rest of the park goers as they seemed to me. Did we look like two friends enjoying the day in coordinated company as opposed to the two lost souls of happenstance we were? A dead leaf drifted down to our feet as if in answer.

"I can't figure it, Harry. I see these great women and I think: She's too good for me. I see these other women and I think I'm too good for them. I'm trapped in limbo land, unable to make a case for myself. I don't want the woman who says she's willing to be with White Wine Willie." Willie took an extra long dose from the bottle.

The answer was obvious. "Isn't there anyone who'd be happy with just plain o' Willie?" No note of condescension was in my voice. Willie bucked up, staring me in the eye, feeling his fiber.

"Anyone happy with just plain ol' Harry?" he offered.

***

We looked away to avoid black abyss

each alone with his miseries

as the shadows edged forward

I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.

- Dylan Thomas

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