An American Prayer

Summer’s almost gone. I thank God for that. No more hot days like those that I felt on my own skin while I dared to cross the country among a Spanish caravan. Although some may think otherwise, it wasn’t an easy ride…
I’ve reached my new town. My new home town. Los Angeles. L. A. city. I was told to meet my new boss over a bar, but I couldn’t face that at that moment. My legs were falling apart, so I decided to relax inside some kind of motel ‘till the end of the night (anyway, isn’t that the time when the bars are open?). Later that day, I headed to Love street (what a name!), trying to find “L’America”. A bright yellow and red neon sign couldn’t mark it better. I walked down the old marble stairs, which ended at an entrance guarded by some kind of feminine doorkeeper. She was hanging a cigar in her mouth. She looked straight at me and asked “Would you light my fire?”. Not sure if that was a tricky question, I chose to simply say that I didn’t smoke. Trying everything to avoid that strange creature, I was able to make my way in.
Inside, I asked for Mrs. Maggie M’Gill. Someone spat something like that she was in her “soul kitchen” (never understood what the hell it was supposed to mean). Behind some piles of dishes, I found her. What a lovely lady she was. An iron lady I should figure later. After all the formal presentations and dirty papers that were to be signed, she led me to my new corner. To my new piano.
I’m a regular guy. I’m a pianist and I play jazz for a living. Last month I was invited to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. With nothing left that could stick me at my old place, I took the chance without even thinking (“take it as it comes”, I once learned at school). And now here I am, with my fingers laid on a couple of white and black pieces of wood, playing an Alabama song (at least it was what I thought it was written in the sheet when I first gathered these notes). The people are strange but I don’t even bother. They enjoy my music as much I enjoy playing it and that’s what makes me sleep tight every single day.
I was preparing myself to the last melody when suddenly I spotted you. I wasn’t sure if my eyes have seen you. Like a spy, I faced the entire audience just to fake that I looked at you once again. Only at you. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. Had I just fallen in love with that strange woman? With that strange L. A. woman? Oh God!... What else?!? I guess that my wild love was now in the hands of that wild child…
4 o’clock shouted the watch when I left the bar. I wasn’t feeling like going home so I just walked around town for a while. I wanted to tell all the people the sensation inside me, even if it was such stupid as it seemed. Yes, the river knows it. The peace frog that was jumping over some rocks on its margins too. So I sat on the top of a wall, with my feet hanging from there, not to touch the earth. I was flying so high and I didn’t want anything that could link me with the real world but my twentieth century fox. I stood there, waiting for the sun to rise and when I finally went inside my bed, I decided not to care about the running blue cars that hiss by my window. Not today.
Blues’ night. That’s what I liked to call to every Sunday night. “Blue’s night with Crawling King Snake” (everyone in the show business has one own nickname and this is mine, due to my tattooed snake that crawls from my left shoulder to my left wrist). As part of my routine, I said “Hi” to the unhappy girl at the door and moved towards my corner. I knew you would be there and that’s why I had it already planned all over my head. In my usual break between Shaman’s Blues and Roadhouse Blues, I was going to face you. “When the music’s over, you’re going to break on through every fear of yours and do it”, I wasn’t able to stop reminding it. With my own beliefs previously dealt, I approached you and I was only able to articulate “Hello, I love you”.

Today is Sunday. A blue Sunday. A very blue Sunday indeed. Summer’s back. An extremely hot Indian summer. Just like those we can see on television, when the native-Americans fought the cowboys. Now, that everything had reached the end, I’m moving west towards another continent. It’s dark outside. It’s time to take my moonlight drive along the deck of what we once liked to call our crystal ship. A ship that’s now only a ship of fools. A ship of the fool.
Strange days, those we lived together. The days of our wintertime love that marched in a soft parade to the only goal available to someone like you. You always thought that your generous breasts and your nice piece of ass would make you the queen of the highway of every man that passed, pass and will pass by you. Your body makes you such a wishful sinful. A changeling. I only asked you to love me two times and what have you done? You made me your backdoor man. I’m no person for that role. I can still hear your voice like a wasp whispering in my mind “We could be so good together because you make me real, alive, more perfect. We could be riders on the storm. For every storm that there’s to be beaten. We could be just us, as one.”. It still gives me the creeps every time you still touch me, even if it’s a product of my imagination. My body shakes of hate. I feel I was an unknown soldier fighting an impossible war, with a five to one disadvantage. A war that, of course, I lost.
I’ve been down so long that I can’t see your face in my mind anymore. Is that good? I don’t know. Until now, I love her madly without any question. Until now, I hate you badly without any hesitation. Although confused, there’s one thing that I’m right for sure: you’re lost little girl.

After days travelling over lots of horse latitudes and seeing lots of crocodile coasts, I’ve finally reached my new home town. “Land ho!” screams an old mad man somewhere in my back. Some moments later, I found my dream. My house. My hyacinth house. I looked closer. I got closer. Alone, I opened and pass through them. Through the doors.