Maple

He told me he was born on the day John F Kennedy became president
and I know for sure he died on the day when the planes hit the towers
of bedlam. He was an ocean away from both incidents in other lands with
other people at those moments, but this is where I truly loved him,
where I stand here and now on the crossroads of Pacific and Maple in
Santa Cruz, the murder capital of the world with the oldest boardwalk
and hippies.

*

He was playing lazy bongos on a slab of swollen kerb on that road melt
Labour Day in late summer 1990, it was the day I first saw him. He was
a man in his prime, in falling apart jeans, a cut-off sweat-ridden
black rock and roll t-shirt and a dripping bandana. He had the most
beautiful eyes. The heat haze made the streets blood orange.

I did not speak to him then, just passed on to the bookstore, already
skipping in slow motion to his loose rhythms, I knew we would meet
though; I could wait. I bought two books and three new shirts and went
and drunk a little at the 'Red Bar', I danced to Steely Dan on the
jukebox.

*

It was the next morning of course, at Zachary's. I was eating eggs and
toast, reading Steinbeck and thinking about a bus trip to Monterrey
maybe, I liked the privacy of booth dining, almost romantic, unlike
England. I also liked the idea of endless coffee and I was relaxed when
I realised that it was he refilling my cup with a tight smile. The
place was busy, a Sunday morning, rammed with hunger and steam. He sat
opposite me.

'East of Eden eh?'
'Yes, I like him, very Californian.'
'He ok, Kerouac is better, he has the spirit of the road like me, what
star sign are you? When your birthday? When you born?'
'Pisces, 1964. What is that accent, should you not be serving?'
'This is Zachary's, this is Santa Cruz, and this is not grease spoon
London my friend. You are fish man.'

Within an hour he had been sacked and was on the bus with me heading
south.

'Anyways, the owner he from Rome, he do bad thing with eggs.'
'Is that right?'
'Scrambled eggs should mix with yoghurt and not milk, I show you one
day
'I from somewhere else.'

His name was Dominic Monaco and he told me that he was from Naples. He
was a cook, a musician, maybe even a hustler then. He claimed also to
be a poet, it was possible for when we sat outside the dilapidated crab
warehouses of Monterrey later that afternoon drinking ice cold beer he
spoke to me in a pulse, he spoke of the day he arrived in Santa Cruz
just three days earlier.

'I step off the Greyhound bus
on the corner of Pacific and Maple
sweating
humming of garlic
Al Green's 'How Can You Mend A Broken Heart'
fading but soothing
i would have to buy new batteries
for my beaten
bargain bucket
five-dollar
walkman
soon
I can not live without music
my road to Mandalay
there is shallow change
in my
well-fingered
baggy deep chino pockets
enough for coffee
and bread maybe
that was good
I carry the currency
of my multicoloured bongos
under my arm like a baby
on my back
a stuffed falling apart
journeyman rucksack
inside loud shirts from
'Frank's Thrift'
for one dollar plus two hours ironing
some picture poetry
a toothbrush
some hash
for sleeping
but for now
this crystal
sun charged
road melting
Santa Cruz morning

is a new town to take
a song to sing
a heart ripe for again
for breaking'

I wanted to breathe him then, feel his warmth, his life. He knew it.
Later we had sex in a run down cockroach thriving motel called 'Sweet
Thursdays'. A squall was moving in, rattling the windows, splintering
me to shards.

'So why are you here London boy, is it holiday?'
'No, I have been working at the theatre festival.'
'You actor?'
'No, assistant director.'
'So you make picture frames with actors?'
'I want to yes'
'I actor as well.'

I spent three days with Dominic Monaco in Monterrey and Santa Cruz. He
wore and kept most of my clothes and bled me dry of cash. We drunk,
eat, loved in outrageous places. He taught me about jazz and spoke his
sometimes beautiful and silly poetry. On our last night before I left
for London I gave him five hundred dollars and asked him to come there
soon, he said he would, very soon. He did not travel to the airport
with me but said he was already writing sheets of love to send
me.

*

I thought about him every day for six years. Not a word from the man
from Naples. I was deliberating then that maybe he had just been a
figment, a piece of fruit that I had once eaten that had ripened enough
in my heart enough to break it. I spent my time in London working on
non descript plays in the basements and back rooms of pubs with hopeful
writers and desperate performers. The money was poor and so was my
attitude. My sordid south London flat was a mess that occasional guests
clutched as bohemian. He was gone surely and I had to deal with it. The
music of John Coltrane was all there was left.

*

The pedestrian tunnels between Bank and Monument stations are a rabbit
warren for the commuter late at night, especially with red wine
psychosis. There is noise and visual loneliness everywhere. The
Northern line is a blast, riding shotgun with the braced, coked up
yuppies.

He was at the bottom of the escalator chanting a mantra with an African
trying to be a West Indian, he disappeared sharply when our eyes
locked, and he knew something was on and that it was out of his remit.
He took half of the change from the beret that was lying beside
Dominic's Cuban heel and headed for Mornington Crescent possibly.

'Have you got somewhere to stay Dominic?
'Squat in Stockwell.'
"Come with me.'
'Excellent, I make scrambled eggs.'

He still had some of my clothes in his rucksack. They fitted him looser
and his eyes had a look of someone battle weary. The sex was more
languid. The poetry was gone replaced with desperation.

I got Dominic work as a stagehand at a theatre where I was directing
'Waiting for Godot'; this production got me noticed and my star was in
ascendancy. At the first night party Dominic disappeared again. I was
furious, thinking that he had run off with an actor who was clearly
attracted to him. He had not done this, he had gone back to the flat
and this is where I found him curled up with the tools of a drug addict
on the sofa.

'I love you London boy.'
'Get out.'
'Tomorrow. I is fucked.'
'Sure.'

I couldn't have this in my world, not now, I was making waves and
Dominic was drowning. I felt no guilt. I left before him in the morning
to meet a producer who had plans for me.

He was gone when I returned along with almost everything I had of
value. I almost knew it was going to happen as I intentionally invited
it. I did not want to see him again for I was rising.

*

I thought about him every day, that beauty, the music in his every
move. There were other lovers of course, both men and women. There was
almost a marriage, but my impatience and her rigidity put a stop to
that. It was always Dominic Monaco if I was to be honest with myself,
for I was taken.

I was a name come the new millennium, part of the big time theatrical
establishment. I had directed shows in London, Broadway, Barcelona and
Paris. I had my own newspaper column and was a regular on late night TV
and radio

review programs. I was a loudmouth eccentric who perhaps drunk a little
too much. I was happy but loveless in that kind of end of the century
manner.

In the late summer of 2001 I was in Australia. I was there to for
initial meetings to direct my first opera for the international
festival. I knew bugger all about 'Carmen', not enough anyway and I
would have to pull it off by stealth and style alone. I liked the city
of Sydney. It was shiny and new, it looked outwards, and was giving and
tolerant. It had earned its right to be the most popular city on the
planet.

Such was my confusion about creating at atmosphere for 'Carmen', I was
advised to go and spend an afternoon in the Kings Cross district of
Sydney. This was the low-down part of the city, sleazy and vibrant,
fallen and decadent. Not to dissimilar to its namesake on the opposite
part of the world. Little match girls with attitude would be in
abundance.

*

He was lying asleep on a bench by the side of the road. He was thin,
ragged, ruined and dirty. He was wearing one of my shirts, his bongos
by his side. I bought us a cup of coffee and went and stood beside
him.

'Hey, Naples boy, Espresso with three sugars.'
'Grazie, how are you? You big star now, I follow your life.'
'Its, good, no more freezing cold flats in South London. So, what about
you, still living the road?'
'I sick for long while, still sick, always be sick, take me back, and
give me life eh?'
'I cannot do that Dominic; we are worlds apart now as we were then. It
was a very thin piece of cotton thread that held us together and that
snapped a long while ago. Are you still a junkie?
'I sick so who gives a shit what I put in my arm, I dying of AIDS you
understand?'
'How bad is it?'
'Not long.'
'I have got to go, here is five hindered dollars, enjoy it if you
can.'
'Help me, you loved me, help me!'

As I walked away at pace, sad with anger, a car screeched with screams.
I ran back, he was dead in the road; his bongos were still on the
bench. Ten minutes later a plane hit the World Trade Centre in New
York. A shattered world had arrived.

*

So, here I am on the corner of Pacific and Maple after those thirteen
years. I am the Artistic Director of the 'Santa Cruz Shakespeare
Festival', I live here alone,

but his ghost is always with me. I bury him here daily. I could have
given him more, maybe have saved him, at least comfort.

I was greedy.

*

Little Match Boy

Warm beer
rosary beads
clutched for nothing
but comfort
this arched man is undone
nightly

I two step the boardwalk
as if dancing to Basie
memories thrumming his head
a persistent moth

that finally settles

to a baseball card
on a back bicycle wheel
the road melt day in 1990
riding with my Dominic
to the lighthouse and beyond

Jesus Christ
he was something
wasn't he

legs of guilt
cinnamon kisses
a rock solid knee trembler
aching to be a man
of his time

times come

they go
like dimes

and denim

now the bruised mist

shrouds heavy

muffling the roller coaster
pulling a tarp over the day

I fall asleep

on blown popcorn
and dream cheaply
of moments

and of him floating away

*

It's strange writing so much poetry these days and taking long walks. I
recite to strangers, I suppose that I become a local character, I have
grown a beard and wear sandals. Zackary's is still there, serving bad
eggs. People still get murdered here but not so much as in the old
days. They will play the well-worn bongos on the streets forever;
rhythms never tire. The swollen kerb is no more; they fixed it
up.

I wish someone could fix me, for I am getting thinner and
thinner.

The End