At 7 A.M. I stumbled into the diner that was right around the corner from his grave yard. It was his now. No one else's. He spent long nights keeping order among the restless ghosts. He kept them settled. He kept them safe. And as the world was rattling at the chain link fence, he kept out the true horrors of death. What exactly they were, I don't yet know but I'm sure we'll meet again in a Kingdom of Sand. That's how I imagined it. That's how I wanted it.
After being seated in a booth at the back of the diner I just sat there staring at the juke box that was built into the table. Someone had been playing a Bruce Springsteen song. It was Atlantic City. It was no more than 45 minutes away. I've seen it a thousand times. I've seen White Trash Vegas in all of its filth and glory. I've seen dead bodies, I've seen the shitty boardwalk where you get the mix of performers and tourists all looking to hit it big. Where destitution meets the rich and famous. Yet, it all brings back so many great memories. Gambling our lives away. Saving up our pennies just to head to Atlantic City when we had saved as much as possible. We were so unintelligent. It was the best.
The waitress walked up and caught me off guard. I had wandered off into the remnants of my mind, searching for Gold. Finding nothing but sand. I wrote that down on a napkin with a crayon as I ordered a cup of coffee. "Watch as I turn Gold to Sand." Everything I do is bound to turn to shit. That's how I reasoned it. That's how I was to forever answer life's deepest secrets. It has a way of shitting on you. My coffee came, two creamers and a whole lot of sugar later, I was able to revive the body that was host to this mind. I didn't want to go home anymore. It wasn't home. It's not anymore. People that I love are there but it's not the same home that I left the weekend before. It's incomplete now and will no longer be a stable home. I had to find cover somewhere else. I went back anyway.
I used to walk in the door and see smiling faces, I now only got half-assed attempts at being pleasant. Like a knife that just keeps twisting and turning, the wound stays fresh. My mom shouted from the back room, "Greg called, he wants you to call him back. He left a message on the machine." No one has been able to answer the phone here because they knew that it'd be someone wanting to talk to them about Teddy. They just didn't want to talk about as much as I didn't want to talk about it.
Me and Greg have been friends for years, starting freshmen year of high school. We started our first band together that wasn't really good and played mostly covers. As we got older we just kept being in bands together. I couldn't picture myself in a band without him. Even at twenty-two, we're still being idiots and playing music together in a band that has a lot of potential. We started it a year ago last month and have slowly been gaining a following of good friends in New Jersey. Fast paced hardcore assault. That's what we loved. That's how we lived. That was something I did with my brother. That was ours. I had to decide whether I wanted to keep doing it without him. I guess that's why Greg called. He knew better then anyone else how close me and Teddy were. His phone rang three times before he picked up. He seemed pretty beat up himself, he loved Teddy. He loved Teddy's band. He loved Teddy being the fun loving, skull cracking, maniac that he was at our shows.
"Hey Gerald, how've you been doing?" came from the ear piece in a deep mundane tone.
"As best as life will allow me to be at this point in time. How about you?"
"I guess I'm doing alright." There was a long silence as if a thousand things were being said without moving our lips. We knew what we wanted to say to each other we just chose not to. If we didn't say it, it wasn't real. It just wasn't and couldn't be. We'd both wake up and laugh about it. Greg then quickly uttered, "Listen Gerald I'm sorry and," I cut him off before I finished.
"Stop. Just call me when the next band practice is. I'll be back next weekend as always. Keep me informed via email and I'll get in touch with you as soon as I'm feeling up to it."
"O.K. Gerald, I guess I'll see you next weekend. We have some new material and a show in two weeks. We all miss you and love you. Keep adapting and I'll talk to you soon." I couldn't say anything else without breaking down in tears so I hung up the phone.
It was here that I realized that fragile lives are left to the wind and I must learn to float with the rest of them. The rest of the day was a blur, nothing mattered. Food tasted murky, water tasted dry. The only comfort I found was in sleep. So I rested.
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