Sunday 18 August 2013

some action on the street

The wheels were spinning up there. The chrome was gleaming in the sun. The heat had the streets cooked. Melting the tar and oil into rivulets dripping down where the rainwater goes. The wheels were spinning. The spinning rims decided to spin the other way. The film and oil dripped off the grills embedded in the pavement. The fishtails of boys cars dragging in the streets, swept water in, through the gills.

The women in stilletos smoked newport smooth hundreds, in the streets. Their heels sunk an inch into the melting tar. The smoke swept into their lungs. Their heads got dizzy with the chemicals. They swung their upper bodies down over the bus stop benches, and around their hips. They puffed their lips out at the strangers. They pushed their middle fingers out at danger.

The alcoholics ducked into aa meeting halls, got lost in sweet anonymity. The addicts ducked into na meeting halls, to escape the blistering heat on the street. Their would be prayers inside open doors. Tears inside meeting halls. Tears of joy.

Women who were born in the thirties, came out with reckless abandon on to the street. Pushing their upper ages into triple digit heat. The older women were strong. The old men were very kind and sugar sweet. They came out with their canes, in their wheelchairs, on their walkers. They came out and talked to the talkers. The young women got quiet and listened. The young girls holding the hands of the young women, smiled and kicked up the dust. The young boys were satellites, who blushed.

The young men were not always around. Maybe somewhere working. Maybe playing cards. Maybe surveying. Maybe construction. Maybe surveying a location, on the job. Maybe hammering or drilling or connecting wires. The young men with hard hats on. Staring at a soft ass, on the street. Maybe hammering or drilling. Maybe talking to some honey, sugar sweet.

The smokers were kicking snipes into the street. Rolling embers off the end of a half-smoked marlboro. Rolling their own. Talking shit. Girls were gossiping. Men were boasting. Punks were smoking reds like joints. Real estate agents taking smoke breaks on the hour. Waitresses cursing into their smoke, before and after they had to get their asses inside and grab a fucking marinated mountain trout from the line, and sashay into the air conditioned dining room to their tables. Waiters got incensed by ten percents, and went down into the basement, to do whippets off the whipped cream again. Dropping cans on the cold cement. Then out to the street after they clocked the fuck out.

Katya 08/13