the last picture show

outside, the four musketeers with their agro-fort set up are talking war under the faded table umbrella someone stole from The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. one of them is playing with a portable radio while sitting, rocking, on a skateboard, and doesn't notice that he almost rolls over Little Jerome, the man with no arms and legs who has rolled up on his own skateboard just to see what's cooking.

at the next trash can, there's a hopeless homeless man trying to move the bench that's actually drilled into the boardwalk. the rehab center next door is breaking from their nightly meeting, and twenty guys in white t-shirts and tattoo sleeves are standing, watching the guy with the bench. the same way they were standing, smoking, watching me earllier today, as i carried one box at a time from third floor to ground floor to lobby to car. half looking like they'd help if they were allowed that kind of contact with the outside world.

usually i get cold fast and have to keep the window closed and the world out since my space heater smells like a toaster when it's on. but tonight i want all the senses of this place to wrap me up and tuck me into my starcrossed sleep, so i leave it open. the man's failure moving a cemented bench is loud. the two chords strummed on a four-string guitar by the musketeer with eight fingers are grating. but the ocean is louder, and it warms me up before i head in for the last of everything here.

it's a kind of jilted feeling that i'm fighting, because i'm forced out and i just want to stay. it's one of the few times i've ever said that (hence my job as a professional vagabond). even with the freaks, because to them i'm just the same.
i do recognize the foolishness of this, it's a shoebox that i'm in love with, not an animal i'm putting to sleep or a husband that i'm leaving because our marriage means his death. it's just a little piece of faux-wood floor above an artificial beach full of people too real to be believed. maybe it's better i dont' stay or my search for progress might drift away to smoke pot in the fort with the talking heads.