Here and There, Then and Now

Yesterday afternoon, I sat outside a bar with people I work with at from factory on a sidewalk, in a town not my own, for a Holiday party of sorts.  I don't like to drink during the daylight hours, but it was unavoidable.  So I tried to sip.  I had plans to be back at my studio before the working day ended to receive some of my photos back from the framer.  But conversation led to conversation and the day waned, people left, some interesting people stayed, the stories grew more sordid and much more to my taste, and then there were two of us.

"I'll be back," I said.  "I want to walk around and see what this town is like."

It is a town I have always avoided, a town set in the "Land Time Forgot."  Settled on the banks of a river that was at the time the only trading route into this part of the state, it was once full of wealthy one percenters.  The downtown area, many blocks full of brick buildings from the era, should be interesting.  But the town had declined in importance as railways and then highways were built for commerce.  And so, like some dreadful Faulknerian hamlet, the town fell into disrepair.  The Opera House became a movie theater, then a hollow shell.  The houses of the wealthy were eventually divided up to serve as boarding houses for the poor.  Every time I drove through, I thought of the the description of the Grierson house in "A Rose for Emily":

It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps—an eyesore among eyesores.

 For years, the downtown area had been abandoned except for some clothing-by-the-pound stores and various junk shops.  But recently, I guess, though how long ago I haven't a clue, the place has made something of a comeback.  And it should.  It has everything and is only two blocks off the waterfront.  Strolling in the growing dark, Christmas lights illuminating the sidewalks and streets, I thought that I needed to get out of my house more.  Here were art galleries and coffee shops and restaurants and bistros and exotic emporiums.  On the surrounding streets, you could still find evidence of the 1950's, old open air laundromats and Dairy Queens that had not been renovated and yards full of what now on eBay are considered objet's d'art.  All this the same distance from the factory as my own town in the exact opposite direction.

I looked up into the dark purplish sky and saw what appeared to be a full moon.  Had I missed it or was this it?  Was this indeed the Full Cold Moon?  (I am loathe to tell you for my astrologer friend has an app on his phone that has won him legions of followers from those once-upon-a-time-night-club-occultists that usually contradicts my homeboy Farmer's Almanac which he so derides, but rumor has it that the full moon is tonight).  I felt out of rhythm with things, lost, out of touch.  I was.

Back at the bar, my friend had moved from the sidewalk inside.  I sat down on the stool next to him but didn't order a drink.  In front of me on the wall behind the bar was a sign: "Hey Asshole, We Only Serve Beer and Wine."  I nodded at it to my friend.  Just then, the woman behind the bar handed us two paper pill cups full of some weirdly fluorescent green liquid.

"Drink this," she said, "on the house."

"What is it?"

It was something I never heard of before.  She listed the ingredients which included creme de menthe and vodka and some other goofy things.

"Oh, thanks," I said, looking into the cup.  My friend threw his back and continued with his beer.  I stuck my tongue into the goop.  It tasted like a frosty green Pepto Bismol.  I wanted to read the sign aloud but refrained.  I set my cup aside.

What might have been a "regular crew" began to slink into the bar.  "Self-inflicted retardation," I thought.  Not everything had changed yet.

 In another minute, I stood up to say goodnight to my companion who had decided to make a night of it just to see what was going on.  Though I envied him, his endurance and sense of adventure and serendipity, and though I knew I would covet the stories he would have come Monday (he is a published writer of some minor repute), I could not bring myself to do it.  And so, with great remorse and shame, I got into my car and made the longish drive home remembering when I, too, would never have thought of leaving.  But I was determined to go back, I thought.  I would go when I was prepared, go with concentrated purpose.

And there it is in a nutshell.  It is the thing to be avoided which cannot be avoided.  It is the difference between then and now, between this and that, between. . . .  what you were and what you are.

(to be continued. . . perhaps)