13. Sheraton / Downtown Pittsburgh

...at the air, and my motion was restricted by a cold sheet which was tangled in with a furry blanket. For a few seconds I had no idea where I was... but then I did remember the strip mall. How I'd managed to make it back to my hotel room at the Sheraton was as confounding a mystery as Stonehenge.

I figured the room must have been stuffy when I'd arrived in, for the window was open and the sounds of downtown Pittsburgh wafted in on the January wind. This gently lifted the gossamer pink curtains which tickled the back of a lavender Victorian short couch.

I always wanted to be one of those people who were already awake no matter how early you got up; sitting at a tubular kitchen table drinking black coffee and smoking unfiltered Camels. But I detested cigarette smoke and had managed to drink a grand total of one cup-a-joe my entire life. Plus, like all abject failures, I hated morning worse than any other time of the day, and I dreaded every second on the clock.

If the room had been warm when I came in it sure wasn't now and I shivered and hugged my arms to my bare chest. I got out of bed and walked across the red tiles with just my briefs on. Once I reached the window the pink curtains rose past my face like a feminine presence and I looked out over the intermittent lights of the city and the windows of the skyscrapers like fuses on a switchboard.

I suddenly wondered if the wedding reception had broken up yet and a surge of panic and regret streaked through my chest. For I was now sober as a Supreme Court Justice and, in my awakened state, realizing that I'd missed my lone chance to dance with Katie Rose. For an adrenaline stricken second I even considered throwing my clothes on and still trying to make it to the end of the wedding dance, but these hopes were quickly doused when I glanced at the red eyed digital clock; 4:14. But that wasn't it either; I could have been standing right next to her or sitting at the very next table, hiding behind the floral centerpiece arrangement, and no matter how many noxious, putrid shots I gulped down I still would not have had the courage to approach her, even after she'd encouraged me to do so. And even if I had, wouldn't I really just be better off yearning. I was nothing but a worthless, foam sniffing, poem killing dreamer. Everybody knows that fuckin' poets are off their rockers. I didn't have the savoir faire to be with a woman like Katie Rose. It was better that I should always just relish her in a reverie. Fantasies were unchallenged. A dream could be controlled. No one could fuck up a dream.

So I closed the window, blocking out the ignorant noise of the traffic. This killed the wind and the dance of the pink curtain failed. Like a fancy handkerchief it fell neatly onto the arm of the short couch as if someone had tossed it there.   



< Previous chapter                           Contents