Sleepless Miles and a Child’s Perspective (Thursday Night Postscript)

How I do appreciate the perspective of a child. Em and I made an 8:00p liquor store run—me for Evan and wine; him for the complimentary sucker he gets each visit. At the intersection of Old Hickory and HWY 70, a guy on foot—30ish—crossed the busy road, and headed along the sidewalk into the dark. He looked tired and unenthused. My thinking was that poor motherfucker without a car. That’s gotta suck. While this profane reality trudged through my head, Emerson offered in a voice rife with innocence and sincerity, Ahh, dat man’s taking a walk…I bet he’s goin’ to see his Mommy and Daddy.

A guy on a walk trumps a poor unlucky motherfucker any day of the week. I think I have a bit to learn from Emerson.

The guy sitting on my porch last week wearing a Pussy Suit and drinking a tumbler of Whine as he penned an unintentionally melodramatic post has been replaced by me—melancholy, sleepless me. I’ve not been sleeping and I look more haggard than usual—frumpy in the face, circles under my once blue eyes. My thinker is still off and I’ve got no game. I think if you looked up dish rag in Webster’s, you might find an illustration of me (sans pussy suit, of course). Time to get my act together. Do some figuring. This may be a tough one as in my world, LOGICAL = X and not once have I been able to solve for X. Fucking algebra. I wouldn’t know the Quadratic Formula if it numbered up behind me and bit me on the ass. But I’ll write a five paragraph essay on the grand mystery that is Math. Since I was a child, I have had no concept or grasp of Absolutes. I suppose that’s why I adore the gray of interpreting literature and poetry—the utter beauty of possibility.

I feel the need to do something. To go somewhere. But I don’t feel it strongly enough to do anything about it. Isn’t that lovely? A wanderer who is too lazy to wander. What would Kerouac say? Maybe I’ll go to Clarksville. That’s near enough to be an adventure without too much effort. When does the last train leave, I wonder. Perhaps I’ll find the tallest Cyprus tree in the city, make my perch at the apex, squint into the stolen night of West Nashville. Become a voyeur and thieve the West and its wonderful rolling hills. Perhaps not. Perhaps that is a visit for another day. When something inside me recedes. But, of course, needing to do something and actually following through are two different things. I doubt I would make it much past Madison, nor need to. And once I got there, I would need about six months of sleep.

I’ve been listening to Miles lately—Kind of Blue mostly. I am forever amazed at how controlled yet all over the proverbial map that recording is. It is a fucking beautiful mess and I sense it could be my personal soundtrack of late. A misplaced piano key followed by a mournful horn. It is a musical novella that never fails to stun. It’s as if Raymond Carver made a move on Eudora Welty but ended up tongue-kissing Charles Bukowski at the track—and they set it to music.

Well, it’s not really like that, but that’s a pretty cool image, eh. Maybe it’s more like the Deer Hunter had it been directed by Jim Jarmusch. Powerful and about 6 ½ hours shorter. Maybe it’s like Jimmy Stewart in Harvey quoting the Iliad. More likely it is like Bill Murray in Lost in Translation being Bill Murray in Lost in Translation, his hidden whisper the very thing a real man would say to the woman he loves. Perhaps. Or perhaps it is simply Miles Davis being brilliant. Either way, I’ve been listening.

So the short of it is that I need to learn to sleep again. To prop two pillows beneath my ruined head, and put the cool, remaining beat up feather pillow over my eyes. I should pour out my drink. Cut short my Gran Habano #3. Fall to much needed sleep with Miles in the foreground, followed by Paganini.

But the reality is that I will mix a fresh drink, pace the hallway and kitchen, make busy by folding clothes, or loading the dishwasher or looking at my books, or thinking about work, or doing something else that I need to do. And then, a few minutes before two a.m., I will climb beneath my single sheet and run rabbits until sleep finally comes. And in the minutes, before sunrise, I will doze.

When I awake, I will recall like a scholar how my son saw a poor motherfucker without a car take a delightful stroll. And I will be thinking this as I wake him to start his own day.

Who knows what other treasures he will find in other people’s dismissal tomorrow.