Espoir

When I woke everyone had left the theater and all the lights were on. “Rise and shine,” Cody said. “Dang I fell asleep again.” “Long day?” “Yea.” I helped him clean the popcorn and candy wrappers and paper cups from between the seats and aisles then he cut out the lights and we stood in the dark lobby of the theater. “See you tomorrow?” “What’s playing?” “The Divine Nymph. Old seventies Italian film. It’s one of my all times.” “Yea I’ll be here. Save my seat.”

I walked out the front door. The marquee lights of the New Beverly Cinema powered down behind me. The streets were dead. No cars, no traffic, no horns, no sirens. Not even any of those happy families walking around pushing their dogs in strollers along sidewalks so clean you’d find it hard to comprehend that two streets over there were humans sleeping in tents and digging through the dump covered in a filth that stuck to their skin like gum.

Every day I seen ‘em pushing their shopping carts and begging for money while the world moved on. Some of ‘em were high out of their minds others had just lost their way or been dealt too many bad hands. It made me go nuts when I thought about it. I tried not to but I couldn't help it. I was scared I was gonna end up like them. I couldn't see any way around it. I had nothing left in me. No energy. No dream. No hope. I’d failed before and I’d fail again.

Years ago I was right here, walking down this same street, with these same thoughts, after a long day at this same job. And not long after with a youthful dream in one arm and a gal in the other I left it all behind and took a leap of faith that almost killed me. When I came to there I was laying in a crater of my own making; prostrate, defeated, broken and alone. A failure as man, artist, writer, poet, what have you. I got up and dusted myself off and looked up to the mountain top that was once my dream. I cursed myself for ever having dared to ask for more out of life. Then I walked right back up that same damn mount that took me so many years to climb and here I was now at the top again only this time I was sure. Sure this kinda life weren't for me. Something else had hold of me. Something that didn't wanna trade its time on earth for the acquisition of money. And that meant life was gonna be real hard.

All of this and more did I think about when I saw the little black book sitting on top of the green grass beneath a dim street lamp on Detroit St. I looked around and no one was out. Probably someones diary. I loved reading peoples lost notepads and what not. Inner markings of a wandering mind. I reached down and picked up the book. It was old and beat and tied with a string. I slid it off and opened the pages and the world got real spinny for a moment when I saw what was inside. I snapped it shut and looked around then froze and put it in my coat. It felt like an eternity walking back to my car. I expected to be chased down and yelled at at any moment. Shot or stabbed or arrested or something. When I got in my car I took a quick peak just to see if I weren't dreaming. I wasn’t. Two fresh stacks of hundred dollar bills and some ID’s and credit cards that I was carful not to look directly at were stored neatly in a carved out section of the pages. I drove towards home in a daze. Somewhere off La Brea I pulled over and without looking or thinking I took anything plastic out and dropped it in a trash can. Some strong and defiant being had taken control of my system. All morals and ethics fell to the wayside. There was no more time for good or bad. No words like thief or stealing or dishonorable came to me. This was about survival. And survival knows nothing about morals or ethics.

Back home I shut the blinds and cleared off the table and took all the money out from the book. The money was mint. Crisp. Fresh outta the printer. It felt like freedom in my hands. I laid it all out. Ideas and dreams raced through my head again. One hundred, two hundred, three, four, five, six, seven, eight… With each crisp starchy paper bill I grew more and more incredulous. Sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight …

After I’d finished counting it out I sat back in my seat and ran my hands through my hair. I stood up, turned on the faucet, washed my face with ice cold water, sat back down, and counted it again.

Twenty-thousand-dollars.

Most money I’d ever had or seen all at once in my entire life.

A strong Los Angeles wind blew the branches of palms against my window. Any minute a bald guy in a suit wearing aviators would come in and shoot me with a pistol. I made sure the door was locked and drank another beer. “What do I do?” I thought. Then out of the silence an inaudible voice spoke to me and said,

You know what to do.

“Time to get?”

Yep.

“But what if I fail again? What if I ..”

Charlie, time to get.

“Where?”

You know where.

I opened my computer and checked flights to Paris.

“Paris or death.”

Yep.

I’d dreamed of Paris for a long time now. Dreamt of walking the same streets Balzac had written about. Dreamt of being in the place that had cradled many of the greatest artists, poets, and minds of our specie. Whenever I talked to someone from there or who'd been there they'd all say the same thing. How it wasn't like that anymore and all the magic had gone. But I knew better than to take that as truth. I’d inundated my mind and imagination with the Parisian Poets stories. It changed me. Called to me. And nothing nor no one could take that away from me. And because so Paris had become my Holy Land. My Mecca.

A few weeks later I was flying out of Los Angeles and headed to Paris. I’d acquired my own place through a friend of a friend. No paperwork involved. Cash under the table. My kinda world.

On the flight I was seated in a window seat. Two obese grey haired pink skinned tourists took the seats next me. Husband and wife. I was squished. After take off the wife took out from her purse a plastic zip-loc bag full of lukewarm bacon. She began feeding it to her husband like it were a vine of grapes and he were a royal person from Ancient Egypt or Greece. Strip by strip she fed him over the next few hours until it was empty. At times a pungent aroma would fill the air around the two of them. She took out a small pink bottle of spray perfume and sprayed around their seats. I played solitaire on the screen that was imbedded in the back seat of the person in front of me and thought about the book I’d write one day and how this would be a good beginning for it.

When I landed I was lost and unable to speak to anyone so I fumbled my way through a strange, cold, and snowy series of events that eventually led me to my flat in the 18th. The room was on the sixth floor of a six story building that had no elevator. I climbed a set of winding stairs with a suitcase that weighed a ton. I had to take breaks on every floor. Snow melted on my jacket and sweat dripped from my forehead and I could hardly see through the fog on my glasses. My lungs hated me for smoking. My back ached and my wrists felt like they’d snap. When I made it to the top I took the old treasure chest of a key from my pocket and opened the door. It clicked and opened slow and dramatic. Inside was a twin bed against a wall, a desk in the center of another with big double windows on each side of it. I dropped my things and laid down.

Get up. No more sleeping,

something in me said. I went to the kitchen. It was nothing more than a small fridge and a sink and a stove top tucked away in a corner. Someone had left behind couscous and spices and insta-coffee. I made the couscous and added the spices then had a coffee. It woke me up. I went to the windows and opened ‘em and let in some fresh air.

Bells from a nearby church rang out. The neighbors newborn baby started crying, “Whaaa! Whaaa! Whaaa!”

I looked out onto the city then back to my room. There on the desk sat the little black book opened and glowing. A nimbus like ring surrounded it. I rubbed my eyes to see if it were real.

Then a cold burst of snow and air shot through my room and books and pages and papers and images and letters and words and numbers and colors and poems and stories and faces of everyone I’d ever known since the day I had opened my eyes swirled in the air around me.

The cry of the newborn child was saying something. With each wail it was clearer and clearer. "Timeee! Timeee! Timeeee!”

I walked over to the open notebook. The light emanating from it’s pages warmed my face. I couldn't believe my eyes when a quill pen appeared before me and began writing in gold ink the words Never Lose Hope Poet on the page. I read it out loud then the little book closed shut and rose into the air then spun around faster and faster turning all sorts of different colors until it were nothing but a sphere of white light so bright I was afraid I’d go blind so I covered my eyes. Then the sound of a divine harmonious music filled the air.

Then a voice from all around said :

Poet! My forgotten Child! You must not lose hope. For if you, Poet, lose hope your brothers and sisters are doomed. Arise. Again. Tell them what it is you are Seeing. They are ready to Listen. Remind them of the Poet within.

Then all at once just as it had begun it stopped and was quiet like the first quiet. The light faded and the room darkened. When I opened my eyes the desk on which the little black book laid was full of other books and they were all glowing. The Journal of Eugene Delacroix, A Confederacy of Dunces, Conversations of Goethe, Don Quixote, Time of The Assassins, Bouvard and Pecuchet, and a little black one I’d never seen or heard of before titled, Espoir.