glendale

There is this tall building on the way into Glendale. I saw a gentleman fall from it tonight. It is the one on the right. The tall one. Before Glendale College. Before Glendale Blvd. Before the Glendale Freeway. Before the Glendale Medical Center. Before all of that there is the tall building I saw the man fall from.

The song on the radio kept telling me that life went on, long after the thrill of living is gone.

I heard a rumor, that up there on some desk, there is a note that explains all of this. Personally, I am hoping it is just a highlighted paragraph from a book a lover gave him a couple of decades ago. That would keep with the theme, the motif, and the whole motivation of the evening.

His coffee is still hot. There are little lines of steam forming some sort of tower to heaven, or at least someplace with more room to breathe. The picture frames have all been put face down. No witnesses. No explaining. He took his second favorite pen with him; no reason to keep everything nice to himself.

A red light blinks on his phone. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

He left his shoes. Light brown. Untied. In a drawer in his desk. That desk with the note, or the page from the book, or the matchbook with the phone number inside; whatever it was that we decided explained all of this. In that desk, where the folders alphabetized by last names used to sit, that is where his untied light brown business shoes stay. The left heel is worn more than the right.

He must have something wrong with his legs.

Otherwise he would have jumped.

But I am glad he didn't If he had jumped, instead of falling, I might not have seen him.

I might have kept driving home, to lay in my empty bed, to trace a route on a map, to start a book I started a hundred times.

Instead I turned the stereo up, stopped for dinner, a beer, and sent kisses from my lips into the air, that they might find the perfect cheek to land on, to keep safe somewhere else.