December 20, 2004

• Knife
  

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  The cold has plunged its bitter shank deep in to my body.  I'm frozen in shock.  I can't seem to feel my hands.  I have been slapped numb like that time after class; I was hit so bad I shook and vowed never to tell anyone, even my parents.

  
  

  Memories warm me.  That small cramped space inside my head.  I recall College, living with friends and strangers - difficult to tell them apart, most were the same, in Buffalo New York.  Striding out one night to go to the local, Mr. Vics, I think it was called.  The temperature measured not at all.  Back then, '80 - '81, I was all cool, long haired, bearded, with a Frank Sinatra hat (Fedora?) sitting on my head complete with little feather; 2$ from the local Salvation Army, then my clothier.

  
  

  I remember the complete intrusiveness of the cold, the incredible squeak of the snow, the lack of any reasonable winter gear.  And we all headed out, walking abreast in the street, twenty something if that and in complete control of the universe.

  
  

  In those days, I don't know if I was trying to distinguish myself, or if I needed an oral fixation (easy there Freud!), I smoked a pipe.  Something Meerschaum and something cheap.  It was found stuck between my teeth when I was studying and given my study record anything that kept me at the books, vice or not, was not to be taken lightly. 

  
  

  And out we went.  The cold grabbed at us, the wind insulted us, and me and my little pipe was like the engine that could.  It made cracking sounds as I lit the bowl.  The taste of a pipe is good for about twelve seconds, then you are smoking ash and the runoff from the tobacco and spit; not very pleasant.  On we drove.  Laughing at nothing, mostly cold jokes and the fact we were without female company ... Snap!  It shook my teeth.  It had been so cold the bowl of my pipe had split while I was smoking it!  Now for a guy who lives on the $20 his father gave him per week to survive this was a tragic loss.

  
  

  And to this day I am reminded of that night with friends whose names I can't remember, that night of wicked cold, and the snap and crack of a pipe, every time the temperature drops.  Funny how memories are seared in to your mind ...

  
  

  I do recall Mr. V's.  This was a Holy joint to my college brethren.  Not close enough to campus to gather the "in" crowd, remember we were just recovering from disco back then, and way too small and out of the way to attract the frat boys.  It was sacred ground.  A single pool table to the left as you walked in, bar to the right, ten stools tops.  Then the jukebox, a shrine to us all, carried the hymns from the latter years; Frank S., Tommy D, McCoy T., Diz, Duke.  And to pay homage to the more "current" bunch The Dead, CSN&Y, Starship ... I suspect Mr. V, who held services from behind the bar in a tied-dyed T-Shirt, got his stripes from somewhere between Woodstock and Harlem.

  
  

  Have you had Beef On Wheck?  Have you been to a bar that had pickled eggs?  Do you know what a $1.25 beer is?  These warm memories come over me now and again.  They are just places I have been, but they are more than that, they are somewhere I ducked in out of the cold on my life's journey with some good people around me.  Somewhere I felt that I didn't have to have the right suit, somewhere the locals hung out. 

  
  

  And I was one of them.

  • 9:04 pm
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