rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

DWAYNE

     As November ground to it's chilly end, a man named Dwayne died in the parking lot of the 'apartment complex' where I live. Just yesterday in fact. I put the words apartment complex in quotes because, in my little town of Fowler Colorado the Sunset West Apartments is more popularly known as the Heartbreak Hotel and is the closest thing this middle American panorama has to a ghetto. It's three one room bungalows and a small plaza of rooms, the Eastern most of which is the studio apartment where I live w/Buster, Bleeker and MacDougal. It's the kinda place where old drunks go to die. Dwayne didn't, to the best of my knowledge, drink, maybe in his past much like me he did, but there was no evidence of a current drinking problem. But the Heartbreak remains the kind of place  the decent people of Fowler choose to ignore.

     Set aside, as we are from 'polite society' we denizens of the Heartbreak form as much a community as our isolated natures allow. The family in Bungalow 5 surprised me by delivering a plate on Thanksgiving and the rest of us do what we can to keep each other in cigarettes and such as we each await our various paydays. As a matter of fact Dwayne came into the convenience store where I worked just last Sunday, spending his last 65 cents on crackers and asking if he sould get a pack of smokes on credit. Being the newest employee (as usual) I wasn't authorized to give credit, so I instead gave Dwayne 5 or 6 of my own cigarettes.

     I've been writing songs for the new record, as reported, one line of one songs referred to Dwayne. It read 'there's an old man next door dying slowly...' I had no idea. Dwayne was a decent sort, I can't pretend to have really known him,but have spent time listening to him tell tales of his past. Tales that reflected much of my own experience, Drunken nights, sleeping on the streets of various cities, tales of jobafterjobafterjobafterjob, ex wives, entire lives and families left and long forgotten. Dwayne spent much of the time I knew him in his bungalow reading Zane Grays, getting from sunup to sundown, waiting I guess, for that day when he went legs up by the mailboxes, the victim of a sudden and fatal heart attack. That day came yesterday for Dwayne.

     Change Zane Gray to Vonnegut and throw in the hours I work each week and my experience is much the same as Dwayne's. Keeping in mind that he was 72 and I've just passed 50 I start to see a little too much of my future in that 'old man next door dying slowly.' I can write songaftersongaftersong or long, laborious posts about the Afghan Whigs or the ghost of Lester Bangs in the attempt to impose some kind of revelance on my life, but after all, I feel I'm just next in line to go legs up by the mailbox. And I don't think I could stand another 22 years of waiting.

     Of course there's Buster, Bleeker and MacDougal to consider, but I'm sure I can find them homes. Rock and roll don't cut it anymore, not as a religion, reason to live or even entertainment. Pretense of genius or even delusions of adequacy can't carry me much longer. It's been just over a year since Lynn and I broke up and I miss her more than  I can say, but what really kills me is how I failed her. How I've failed everyone, especially myself. 50 years and I'm still living from paycheck to paycheck, too far behind in my rent, too far down in a hole of my own making to ever get out. Too numbed by life to feel anything more for Dwayne than the nagging suspicion that I'm next.

     Merry Christmas.

tb

Posted by: timbyrnes at 20:07 | link | comments (1)

Comments:

#1  30 November 2005 - 21:02

 

;(

ok, I'll save the pep talks for another time... but nonetheless, I'm here.... and don't you go....

burninglight

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