Get your own Free Home Page
The world most surely comes as close to perfection as it ever will
at four o'clock in the morning. The only people on the road, out and
about are either bar staff or just plain crazy. Or in my case, both.
At four am, things are just there without any falsity. The shielding on
all things is simply gone. Faded away like the beers and tears of
the night before. Technology is amazing, but so is Joe, the guy working
at the 24 hour Max's where I buy a drink and a bag of doritos every Saturday
at this time. I talked to him tonight. I've wanted to for a while, and
tonight I did. You know what? He's crazy. He is. And thats okay,
because it's 4 am, and you're allowed to be who you are then. Other
people understand. Bar people... bar staff that is, are possibly the nicest
people on earth. Not necessarily the wait staff, or kitchen staff, or
managerial staff... but the bar staff. The bartender(s), and the busboy
that cleans up while the numbers for the night get crunched. These
people are often the nicest people on earth. They have to be to put up
with the hours and thanklessness of their jobs. They have to be to
handle the drunks.
They have to be to keep their sanity.
4 am Saturday
night is easily the best time of my week. At four am you don't think about
girls and the trouble you get into with them. At four am you don't think
about Kosovo or Littleton. At 4 am, it's so damn easy to thank God you're
alive it's almost unbelievable. You think about eating or sleeping. You think about
the paycheck headed your way on Wednesday. You think about going home
to the house as quiet as if no one were home in the first place, and about sitting down
on that porcelain throne and taking a very satisfying dump. Only the essentials come
into your head. You feel your feet throb, your shoulders so tense and
thick under your workshirt, you feel your hair frizzed and dry. And it's okay.
All of it is okay, completely okay. Again, I have to stress girls. You just don't
think about girls, and how you've been hurt. What you do think about them
is how one day... one day you'll be in love again. You'll be in love
with someone who deserves your love, and who will love you back just as much.
I sit here with strawberry milk and a bag of nachos, a parent snoring
on the couch, and for a short time out of the week... everything is okay. Everything
will find a way to turn out. And if it doesn't... well, then it's not your fault
because you tried. You tried and tried hard, so it's okay. Because someday,
someone will understand that you are different. Someone one day will
understand that you are different from everyone who ever lived and died, in
ways that even you don't understand. At 4 am the solutions to all the worlds problems
are at the tip of your tongue, and if you wanted to spit them out, maybe you could.
But they don't matter. Tomorrow isn't here yet, yesterday is far away... what you have is
now, and by God that feels good. At four am finally, finally, finally! you figure out exactly
who you are, without anyone sticking in their opinion, without tv telling you, and especially
without the past yipping in your ear. You begin to realize that maybe you could
put as much love into eating as you could into the opposite sex, and maybe things would be
better, for when it's not 4 am, and you're stuck being someone else. You realize if people
hate and avoid you, there's nothing you can do, so you can honestly say "Fuck it" and
truly mean every syllable. I guess what I want to say in this, as the hour
gets closer to 5 than 4 is that well... at four in the morning I get what I
deserve. I can say HOORAY FOR ME! because I do what I want to.
It seems like the only time I don't get criticized. Like the only peace
I can find. And thats not a bad thing. I just wish it was for more than an hour or
two a week is all.
At four am, you know everything is going to be okay.
Get your own Free Home Page