“Hi penny its me chastity perkins how u been”
It all seemed so innocent. A mis-directed text. A chance meeting on a fibre-optic wire. More like a long-lost hex come screeching through the years to tangle my nerves. They were already a criss-cross of broken circuitry; a snap crackle fizz, a see-saw that just grinds and grinds.
“Penny I call you back but you don’t pick up your phone”
These strange communications like shortwave radio blasts, random in the night, but not random to everyone, no, not necessarily; you must only learn to read, no, that is wrong.
You must learn to smell.
Let the garbage and the mail pile-up. You’re gonna be away for awhile.
“Penny what going on out where I call you but you don’t pick up your phone penny what going on out where”
There comes a time when even the deaf hear the cries of their fellow human. A cry, a beckoning, who knows the difference, it doesn’t even matter anyway. It’s not about how you got there, it’s about what you did when you got there. Right?
“Peppy im so happy that your coming”
No. 17 bus Downtown to Murder Alley. That was my stop. A howling wasteland where the dogs hunted down men on bicycles and the former men stalked the shadows zoned out on wet, like glueheads who discovered crack. They blend with the sparse trees, the whirling trash, lumps of tires, burnt sidewalks, even the rare sunshine that cracks the smoke.
“Is that dead or is that a man?”
“what going on out where”
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Oh Penny, don’t you fucking get it. I was cruising public transportation to clear my head, yeah, crazy, who would ever have that kind of thought; even the idea of a “clear” head is a laugh. Haha. Staring out the window, tick tock, oh what’s this? A hand on my knee? Brush it away brush it away. Moment’s rest. Something clicked. Was it on the inside or far off on the out? Motion was set. Restriction.
Penny Penny who can I turn to?
