New Englanders on the West Coast
(originally published in The South Florida Poetry Journal)
New Englanders on the West Coast
Burger and I stood on a cliff over the Pacific. Across the way an amusement park scattered its lights on the water in colorful sparks.
He told me he’d gotten drunk at his best friend’s wedding, beaten up the groom. The bride cried. He ended up fighting half the wedding party.
Shortly after that happened he had moved out west. He started transporting, moving heavy weight. One night he had been driving with a trunk full, enough to put him away for decades. He saw lights in the rear view. He pulled over, prayed to the steering wheel and the crack in the windshield, prayed to that old catholic god, prayed to the road. They drove past, the lights hadn’t been for him.
He had been living in a house that was a sort of distribution center. One night he stayed over a lady’s house. When he returned to his place the following evening his house had been raided by the ATF. This was explained to him in Spanish by his neighbor. His name wasn’t on any paperwork or attached to any lease, the house was owned by someone higher up the chain. No sooner had the neighbor said what she said and he was gone. Burger laughed as he told me this and I laughed too.
He stopped for a minute. We listened to the water. We listened to people talk and
argue and clink bottles together. Cars drove past us. Burger started in again, said he lived in his van for months after the raid. There were a lot of stories after that of acid and hippies, of bikers and amphetamine, of bad choices and women, and women who were bad choices.
We took the highway back from the ocean. He sang country songs he’d written, with nothing but the air conditioner backing him.
The car pulled up to my hotel. He said he and his friend lived right over there, right on that street, down there, see the building? Burger still had a New England accent when he spoke. His friend had died of drink. Burger was sober now, drink almost took him too. I can’t remember which step he said he was on.
My hotel was across from two wrecked hotels (burned down, taped yellow with caution). I went back to my room and lay down. Cars drove by, a toilet flushed, pipes clanged, people called to people in the street. Thai Town, all bar lights and longevous hustle. Neon lapped at my window blinds.