The blogs that you are about to enjoy in this series have been transcribed from various corresponding napkins and small scraps of waste paper, Mexican product labels and cigarette wrappers that I came across while uncovering new (old) material for Scabvendor. The first entry was written by a frustrated and bored young junkie named Jonathan Shaw shortly before leaving his Los Angeles home forever in the twilight months of 1974.
The ensuing entries follow the young traveler as he makes his way through Honduras and further into Central America by cargo ship, dropping anchor in little port towns along the way for a breath of fresh air, a drink, a whore and the occasional existential panic attack.
- AD
July 26, 1974
City of the fallen angel, with your glowing 3 AM streetlights that nobody sees, you lie too still, too still; it’s not a healthy sign.
Where are your street corner musicians, your sidewalk cafes? A truck rumbles by and gone down along the tiny block I’m on, intent on some great and important midnight mission. A cake to deliver. Where is your past, burned out young friend? When do you dream? Or am I but a dream, a figment of your unsure imagination, who is this ragged figure who walks catlike the line of your deception? Mourning the death of the unborn, I am a friend to your crazy ways, so don’t sic your mad dogs on me before I see you all lit up like a Christmas tree in apocalyptic fires of your earthquake Armageddon.
I stop to light a pale cigarette before moving on seeking the eternal fix, the answer to no particular question. Whispered conversations, lines to greater things zigzag your worn-out welcome mat like the directions of a suspended whistle. Where am I to go now? Please show me some sign that you’re alive. You are the great god of madness, gone disturbingly laconic tonight. It’s not right. Give me some great rumble of disaster in the distance, and I’ll leave well enough alone.
© Jonathan Shaw 1974, 2010
Yes! This is what writing is all about. Thanks for digging this up.
haha, submit to the will of the muse…or madness. very nice writing!
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