Transcript for the Piece Audio version of ...And I Have No Idea What Happened To Him After That

? AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM AFTER THAT

[?mama told me not to come?]

Everything started Friday night.

Pete had just graduated architecture school in Chicago and when he found out that his roomate Jimmy had been planning to take a road trip to New York City, he couldn?t think of a single good reason not to go. So that Saturday of the week before he called to tell me that he was coming, and that following Thursday (?) he and Jimmy and Jimmy?s friend Jaime, piled into a car with far too many cigarettes, and started that 12-hour burn across route 80 to the Empire City and by Friday night Pete and I were drinking margaritas and eating potentially dangerous fish tacos at a Mexican restaurant on 14th St.

Nell was on summer break from American in DC studying anthropology and she had tentatively planned to come up for the weekend, for our friends? annual Stroh Day party ? which celebrates, yes, the beer, and where we sing the Stroh Hymn, and watch the Stroh?s commercial, and things get generally out of hand, with dodgeballs and plastic table tennis, and a rubber chicken, and shirtless men and belly bumps, and genetically mutated slow-roasted carp. So it goes without saying that this is a party not to be missed and if Nell had any hesitations about coming, they went straight out the window, when she heard Pete was coming to town, and by 10 pm on that Friday night she was walking into a karaoke bar on the lower east side at just about the time I was starting to sing the first verses of ?Mama Told Me Not To Come.?

[?mama? chorus up then out]

And starting at about that point, those first verses of ?mama told me not to come,? we began about three days of excessive drinking, and immaculate weather, and picnics, and sing-a-longs, and NBA Jam, and slumber parties, and perfect places, and perfect people, and a building whose address was 666 and as if it was a kind of subtle joke, had just below it a sign that said ?sprinklers throughout building.?

[mama out]

There are people in this world that seem like your synonym. They see the world with the same clarities and the same distortions. They?re the kind of people who are always challenging you to dig deeper into the sense of self, because they are reflections of yourself, and time spent with these kinds of people is fast and long like run on sentences, nights without punctuation, and conversations with them are the kind that are littered with yes yes and yes yeses and absolutely and oh my god I totally know what you mean and for me, Nell and Pete are these kinds of people.

[track 9 appleseed?]

And it felt over the course of this weekend that the three of us spent, bouncing between people and places and picnics and parties, that by just being together a wonderful wind had cast itself over every inch of New York City, and I?m not ashamed to say that everything felt like love.

So by the time Monday came around, I started to feel that drop, that knowing that by the next day they?d be gone, and I?d go back to my one bedroom that was now empty without them, and in a way, even though I often thought it was a little too small, I?d suddenly feel it was too big. They were going back to the cities where their lives were taking them in directions away from me, where Nell was studying for a Phd and where Pete was making arrangements for his upcoming wedding,

I want to know that I?ll be able to see them with grey hair, to hold them through the births of their children and the deaths of their lovers, and be there in the room to exchange a last breath, whether it?s mine or theirs. I want to believe that I will be able to watch the movie of their lives from start to finish. But I know I can?t. We only have so much control on of lives, and things are always happening to take us suddenly in new and different directions, sometimes bringing us together, other times, sending us apart. And I hate the feeling that, like most things in life, I?ll probably never get to see the great climaxes of their lives, instead the film will probably run out half-way through, when everything will suddenly cut to black, and I?ll be left with that last image fading on my retinas, to wonder: ?what ever happened to??

Nell was the first to go. By the time I finished work at 10pm on that Monday, she was already getting ready to leave. She put her arms around me, and we literally crushed each other with hugs, and we smiled shyly at each other, like 7th grade dorks in love, and said goodbye and this is where goodbyes always become heart-breaking, because every time she turns away, it starts the process of her leaving my physical world, disappearing into my imagination, and until the next time we talk or see each other, I?ll have no idea what?s happening in her life.

Pete and I had a few hours left before I would have to walk away myself, back to work, and real life, and I knew that the following day, when I walked past this exact street corner, that I?d smell that aroma of memory, that scentless vapor of something gone from the outside world, that now existed only inside of you.

And with that thought, with how much we wanted to hold that moment in our lungs, Pete and I turned south on 6th avenue and headed to Washington Square Park. We talked about writing, and passed down those beautiful avenues of Greenwich Village, down those tree lined and brownstoned streets, passed Babbo, and the Washington square hotel[?] and into the middle of the park. And in the middle of the park, we met up Jimmy, Pete?s roommate from Chicago, the guy he had driven here to New York City with, and a few of Jimmy?s friends and cousins all sitting around on the park benches.

And across from them there was a gathering of musicians. It was a sort of impromptu group, -- in the center there was a guy playing a guitar, and next to him a man playing the djembe, there was a man with what I think was a mandolin, and two younger guys sitting on the backrest of the park benches singing the songs that the others were playing. There was also someone was playing an electric bass, but I couldn?t figure out for the life of me where the amp was. And all through the time we sat there, different musicians cycled in and out, and other musicians showed up carrying instruments even if they didn?t play just to listen. There was a man with a Fedora and perfectly tailored suit, and guy who looked like Sam Kinison plus about 200 pounds, and there was a man that I heard the others calling Freddy, who looked like Miles Davis with glasses, and the here and there park?s drunks were bubbling their carbonated way past, and this one drunk, basically fell onto the bench next to us. He was plugging away at a handle of vodka, though I had no idea who he was talking to, he kept saying to someone: ?You?re a good guy, You?re a good guy?

And there were Pete and I drinking beers out of plastic bags, and the music like a room around us, sitting there talking about architecture.

?when someone mentioned the cops.

They were doing rounds, and they drove by the way cops always do, slow enough that you can heard the wheels creak across the pavement, and the small pops of asphalt chunks, slow so that they can look at each of us, face by face, sizing each one of us up.

They did this three times over the next fifteen or so minutes. Pull into the park from the street, part the crowd with their headlights, eyeball each and every one of us, then turn back out onto the street, circle the block, and do it again. And every time, Pete and I, and everyone would tuck their contraband underneath the park benches. It was a sort of ridiculous dance, because everyone knew what everyone else was up to. The cops knew that that wasn?t really a cigarette in Jimmy?s hand, and that the plastic bags we were drinking from weren?t really cream sodas. But they weren?t here to bust us for open container. They were here for a show of authority, as if to say ?We can do anything we want to you.?

And then just as suddenly as they had shown up they were gone, and I didn?t see them again for the rest of the night.

We picked up our beers from under the park bench and I said to Jamie and Jimmy ?Why is it cops are never there when you really need them right? You know what I mean??

And Pete and I went back to looking at the skyscrapers between the trees and hearing the makeshift band play ?Barbara Ann? and I looked at my watch. It was nearly midnight and I had to be up for work the following day at 6:30 and I really didn?t want this to end yet, everything had been so perfect for so long, and I heard someone say?

?You think you can fucking snuff me?! You think you can fucking snuff me??

[middle section: ?less than you think? wilco]

It was the guy they called Freddy and he was pushing around the drunk guy who was sitting next to us from before, and every time the drunk guy got pushed, his arms would windmill at his sides as he tried not to fall. It wasn?t that Freddy was pushing him so hard, but that the guy was barely handling gravity as it was, and every time Freddy put his hands on him, the guy swung across the pavement like an enormous pendulum. And all you could hear from the drunk guy was just these liquid sounds, just long wet vowels, and every time Freddy would turn away and leave him alone the drunk just kept following him, and reaching out his arms, and his words were so muddled and his movements so big and wild, no one could tell if he was trying to apologize or trying to start something. So The Sam Kinison guy put his hands on the drunk?s chest and said ?Just leave. That guy is gonna beat you up if you don?t leave, Just leave. Just go.?

And Pete?s friend Jimmy looked at us and said: ?Hey do you guys want go to a bar or something?? And by this point the musicians had stopped playing and we looked back at Jimmy said sure, and we grabbed the plastic bag with the beers and started heading out.

And I then heard it again ?You think you can fucking snuff me? You think you can fucking snuff me?? And Freddy was in the middle of the circle with the drunk and I saw them there with Freddy staring at the drunk and his glasses caught the light in such a way that you couldn?t even see his eyes at all, and the drunk stumbling back and forth, and it felt like everything in the world had stopped moving except for the two of them. That?s when the drunk pulled back his arm to take a swing, we all stood there watching, standing there like a circle of ghosts, as he missed, and we just stood there, as Freddy came around, with his right hand, it seemed like minutes long, watching Freddy?s fist come around, and it was as if everyone of us already knew what was about to happen and could do nothing to stop, and then [loud squeal then pulsation] the sounds of violence are not dramatic at all, their horrifying in their silence, when Freddy punched the drunk in the face, it was barely even a clap, barely louder than a footstep, but what frightened me it was the fact that all of New York City seemed to have totally emptied of sound, [explosion or city sounds played reversed] as we watched the drunk reel back, that long slow-motion fall, like a tree falling, his arms reaching out and grasping at nothing ? he fell straight back, his head looking up for something to grab and we heard that wet cantoulpe sound as his head hit the ground first and didn?t bounce at all. And I put down the kick stand on my bicycle and headed over and this asian woman headed over too, and I was standing next to him and someone was saying ?stay down? or someone was saying ?sit up? but the asian woman had her hands on his back, and he was sitting up anyway, and we both knew what we were going to find underneath, because that quarter sized oil-black puddle of blood was already there on the pavement when he tried to sit up, and the Asian woman started to wail like crazy and someone was saying ?call 911, call 911? and Freddy was just back there behind this veil of cigarette smoke, and I went to the garbage and grabbed some paper napkins because I thought maybe we should try to clot the bleeding or something, and already it was dripping all over his shirt, like hot red polka dots, and another bum came over and drew back his arm to cheap shot the drunk and I stood up and said ?step off? and Jaime was on the phone with the cops who were asking him ?where in washington square park? and Jamie was like ?I don?t know just Washington square park? and they were just there, how could they not know, they were just there, and the puddle beneath the drunk was bigger than a fist now and I didn?t know what the napkins could even do at this point, and I thought about taking off my shirt, and I thought to myself, oh my god, is this guy going to die?, all of a sudden the drunk was up on his feet again and we were trying to hold onto him, to keep him here, here where the cops were coming, trying to get him to stay, and he was windmilling his arms again, pushing us off, and stumbling away, away from Freddy and smoke and the fight and the wailing woman, and the place the ambulance was coming, and his hair looked gelled from where the blood was clumping on it and the back of his shirt washed out pink from sweat and blood all across his shoulders, and someone said ?where?s he going?? and someone said ?wait here? and someone said ?we?ve done all we can, we should just get out of here? and Freddy and the smoke, and Sam Kinison, and the asian woman was still wailing and the blood just didn?t stop coming and?.

EPILOGUE

+++

And I have no idea what happened to him after that. He just took off, still bleeding, and who knows if someone found him, and if someone found him if someone helped him, whether he ever got to an ambulance, or if he just slept it off, or if he didn?t make it at all. At that point, we?d never find out for sure.

And so we left.

We did go to a bar that night, and we had one very short and silent drink. We were all just too lost in replaying the fight, and trying to imagine all the different things that might have happened to the drunk after he walked off, as if imagining them would give us some of the closure that reality wouldn?t.

And I thought how life doesn?t care about what you want, or what your plans are, that everything can suddenly just change directions in a second. And I thought about Nell and Pete, and how that even as much as we wanted to believe we could make this stay just the way it was, there was no guarantee, and none of us could predict where and how life would happen to us.

These quiet drinks, these were the last milliliters of the weekend, and, I knew in just a few minutes that we?d say goodbye to each other and goodbye to this incredible moment and that we?d crush each other with hugs as if our bodies would fuse if we pressed hard enough, and that then the three of us would walk off in three different directions, and we?d have no idea what would happen after that.

You know?I want to know that I?ll be able to see them with grey hair. I want to know what the faces of their children will look like. I want to believe that I?ll be able to watch the movie of their lives from start to finish. But I know I can?t. We?ve learned from how many films that it all wraps up neatly in the end, but in reality somehow it never does. Drunks disappear into the night. Childhood friends move away. Lovers move on. Of all the people we lose to time and to distance, who are we ever able to hold on to? Right then, standing on the corner of 6th Avenue and 14th St. I just couldn?t stop looking at the them, and trying to hold on to them as long as I possibly could, because I just don?t know if the film will run out half-way through, when everything will suddenly cut to black, and I?ll be left with that last image fading on my retinas, wondering?

?what ever happened to??

CHANGES
And with that thought?with how much we wanted to hold that moment in our lungs. We turned south on six avenue and headed towards Washington square park?

+++

And there we were drinking beers out of plastic bags, and the music like a room around us, sitting there talking about architecture?

+++

And we went back to looking at the skyscrapers between the trees and hearing the makeshift band their music and I looked at my watch. It was nearly midnight and I had to be up for work the following day at 6:30 and I really didn?t want this to end yet, everything had been so perfect for so long, and I heard someone say?

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