5.11.98

Some randomness from my last night in Washington, DC.

Saying goodbye to a city is weird. Does it mean going through your time worn motions one more time before the monotone of suburbia hits? Who exactly am I saying goodbye to? It’s not my friends at college, who I’ll see soon enough, but instead it’s that curb that was never waxed but always seemed to slide, that waiter at Kramer’s who brought me an extra napkin to dry off my skateboard from the rain, it’s that eternal homeless man who sits on the bench in a half-slouch, but is sleeping, that faceless man covered in dreads whose face wore experiences that no words could tell. For the three months of summer, this is what I say goodbye to. I’ll miss lots of things that won’t miss me, either because of their simple lack of ever knowing me, or their physical makeup in the world as a piece of granite.

They serve breakfast at 3:46 AM at Kramer’s. People start this day in the city way before it gets around to giving them some light, or street vendors that tell them morning is to start.

how many languages do you need to speak before
     everyone stops listening?
before your cry is less for the pain of your being,
     and more a roar for mankind?
People are no longer human when they
     become this human.
They rise to a level of suffering
     unrealized by the masses.
And face their death by continuing to live.
     They are the city.

… in a couple of hours, it will be light, and time to leave this town. For now I’ll just sit here where it’s dry and make use of what I have, a pad, pen, stick-it note with an address, a wet skateboard, and a bit of caffeine-induced optimism that people are pretty good on the whole.

-Steve