Little Hegiras

U-boat dark, dials and gauges lit luminescent in a box of human breath, night pressing hard as a wartime ocean. Yeah, I watched those movies, wondering how they stayed so calm when the walls groaned at hiding depth. Now I know—

disappeared, and driving by the scope of headlights. They say you get self-loathing from your father. But, I think it's the fatigue. The hula doll shakes it on the van dash, her shoreline bombed with Marlboro boxes, paper napkins from San Pedro taco stands, cash receipts, matchbooks and notes to myself. 20 years as a housepainter, earning

enough money to be miserable. I open the window, and the night reaches in, just as the sea took exhausted sailors, dead lover back to caress your cheek, her fingers long and refrigerated. She wants one last fuck, and I dig the attention, but

I take the curve steady as a Rocky Mountain freight train. Sometimes, I laugh at the young, cocky with a blank check until they cash it, and find how little money's in the bank. Carla's crazy with depression for days at a time, slippers half-eaten by the damn poodle, a mildew smell haunts her radiated green bathrobe. At Spaghetti Warehouse last night, she hardly talks, as if loneliness and hurt attack your vocal chords first. Danny joined the army, when he was doing so good at Long Beach City, and I miss him, all of him, his bounce and crash in the hallway of our house. Doreen blames me for her teeth, but who the hell's got $10,000? She seems to hunt the saddest boys,

and I don't know why. This night, I'm gone to Vixens, aware of what I'm doing: a couple $20 lap dances just to take me somewhere distant, and still be home by 10 o'clock. Quit drinking after messing up the garage, and I'd rather go to jail than some tightass shrink. I worked hard, married, raised kids as best I could, and