sixthirtyaughtsix

June 30th was a friday night, i know this because friday night was my church, for years i had gone out every friday night come hell or highwater, snow storm? fuck it i'm going out. No power? fuck it i'm going out.  Nothing to do? fuck it i'm going out. It was my night to chase whatever fucked up visions Jack Keroauc and Charles Bukowski and Nelson Algren and Henry Miller had filled my head with, i was chasing shadow and myth but fucking hell i was having a good time doing it, a fucking blisteringly good time doing it, but alas there comes a time when the party must end... or at least be put on hold for a while and that time had come for me, as my firstborn boyo was about to arrive in just three short weeks and this night, this last day of June was my send off in a way, a respite from of a life that had become a habit, oh and habits i did have back then but these last three weeks would see me somehow magically transform into some semblance of an adult type person, i mean that's what they were for, a test of domesticity, to ease into the waters so to speak... in reality i was about as prepared for fatherhood as the Jamaicans were for the fucking bobsled...

And so i walked out the door, wallet filled with cash, eight ball in pocket, pack of cigarettes, it was roughly 7pm, i drove down the street and pulled over and immediately keyed up some gear, lit a smoke, turned up the Happy Mondays and headed into Lawrenceville, first to play some foosball and then to close the bars... and close the bars i did, all my favorite haunts were hit and i ended my night in a certain Polish Hill joint where they'd lock in the hard cases so we could drink a few more beers and finish our drugs and talk while the jukebox was turned down to a reasonable level, it was always my favorite time of night at this place, i'd fuck with the owner, a great guy who leaned far to the right, and he'd laugh and call me a fucking hippy wastoid liberal and it was always a grand time...

It was somewhere east of 4am as i made my way to my car, slowly driving through the humid streets, the secret knowledge of city back roads leading me to Baum Blvd., past the strip club and my old apartment, past another strip club and my old place of employment, just past the all-night diner i took a left, circled the block once and then parked in front of my house, i crept in and listened to the girl breath, she rolled over but didn't wake up and i crept into bed and attempted to sleep, a hard night of partying put in, the girl had to work in the morning and i did my best not to disturb her, i lay still and tried to meditate, to shut off the mind that i had spent the night winding up, my last night, shit would be different in three weeks, as the sky lightened i finally began to doze off...

When the alarm went off i rolled and felt the hangover just peeking it's eyes around the door and saying hello, i closed my eyes and tried to get back to sleep as the girl got ready, she was moving about and i dozed back off when i heard her ask me a question, what? i mumbled, i keep peeing myself she said, you keep what? i said still keeping my eyes closed and hoping it was all a dream, i keep peeing myself she said again, it's really weird... it's happened like three times this morning, at this point now a strange sort of worry had begun to grow in my slowly pounding head, do you think maybe your water broke? i said, i don't know she said, it's just weird that i keep peeing myself. I stopped her and said, you need to call the doctor. Suddenly a flash from the night before came to my mind, standing in the stall and keying it up with a friend of mine who was laughing that i better enjoy this last three weeks of sleep, then he stopped and laughed, well not counting tonight of course, and then we both laughed and we keyed some more and now here i sat woefully unprepared for this event...

So the girl called and we immediately went to the emergency room and a short time later they did some simple little test, the nurse looked up and smiled and said, you ready to have a baby today? i probably still smelled like booze when i looked up and asked if we could push it off til tomorrow, she laughed as the girl told her the due date (july 21) and how dad here went out for the last time last night, the nurse chuckled again and said don't worry, dad will have some time to recover, this isn't happening anytime soon, heck it might not even happen today... while the women giggled i failed to find the humor, i was still proper fucked...nothing will straighten you up like fatherhood though right?I felt like the clueless fucking deer staring lovingly into the lights of an oncoming semi-truck... but alas i would be alright, i mean so would everybody else too of course, and soon various relation types would show up and there came a point when the girl finally gave up the hardcore shit and asked for the drugs and so when the doc came in he told us all to split cuz we probably didn't want to watch this shit and so i asked how long and kissed the girl's head and then bolted for the door...

I walked a block up to a sandwich shop, it had to be at least 90 degrees, i ordered my sandwich and sat down and watched Zinedine Zidane place a perfect dead ball free kick onto the foot of Thierry Henry thus knocking Brazil out of the 2006 World Cup, i walked back to the hospital and before long the main event got under way and by 6:47pm the I-mac had come screaming into this world thus sending his daddy's world into a dizzy spin, somehow since it was Saturday night the hospital's cafeteria had closed and since the girl was starving i ran across the street and got her some food, she wanted pizza, we lived in the city's Little Italy, i stood outside the pizza shop and felt the heat still cooking the sidewalk, i called Gulfboot and told him the news, i remember tears streaming down my face, for 35 years i'd been such a glorious fuck-up and now, suddenly, i had to attempt to get my shit together, i was surprised i could move, i was that fucking scared...

Needless to say the jury is still out on whether i'm still a glorious fuck-up or not, might depend on who ask, i do know that if the I-mac hadn't shown up that next morning i would never have remembered events of June 30 aught six, it would have just been another night in a long, long, string of nights where i roamed the streets looking for whatever grail i happened to be chasing that day, be it wine or women or song or gear, i smile when i think about how different today i am from those days and yet what's changed? nothing really, just these days i don't feel the need to run the streets like i used to, these days i'd rather climb the creaky steps and check on the boyos, years ago a few friends told me they thought the girl would save me, i used to laugh at them and explain that no woman was ever going to save me, for as horrible as it sounds a woman never stopped me from doing anything, i'd trip or go on a bender for days on end, i'd flirt and chase skirts and even with my wretched behavior in the end it seemed like there was always a woman who'd take me in, it was just more fuel for the myth, and in the end it wasn't a woman, the boyos have taught me more than i ever knew about myself and this world i so breezily had been floating through, it all started that night, my last so-called night on the town, i'm still waiting for that good night's sleep, though i have a feeling i'll be waiting for quite some time before i get one... and that's okay with me...