It's a Beautiful Day

A beautiful day. A perfect day.
It has to begin the night before.

When you sit at your desk. The whole night you sit at your desk. And you look at the blank page. Into it. The characters, they're all there. They're talking.
You listen more closely. You wait until it gets quiet.
You push.

And the characters tell you to go fuck yourself.
To hang yourself off the chandelier.
To beat your head on the radiator.

And you know it will be better in the morning. The arguments always seem silly in the morning. You just have to sleep.
But your body is already miles ahead of you.
"Sleep?!" It laughs. "Go fuck yourself!"

And you walk outside. You do circles around your house. You walk your feet numb. You smoke. You smoke your lungs tired.
You drink. You drink.
And drink.
You drink your body dumb. So it won't care. You outsmart it into falling asleep.

The arguments always seem silly in the morning.


And in the early morning you awake. That urgent wakeness. The hot and cold flashes. The whiskey, it wakes you up.
And you feel like a million bucks.
You shower. You eat.

You sit back at the desk. You smile coyly at the page. The arguments seem so silly.
But the characters, they want to have nothing to do with you.
You sit. You stare.

By midday you flee.

And in the train you can't read. You can't sleep. You think about having children. About nurturing them. About how they will do so much more than you. Because you won't do anything. Because you can't. Because you won't. Because it's pointless. You're pointless.

And you think about a carreer. You think about the future.
And it wants to have nothing to do with you.



The streets are flooded with people when you come out. In jeans in sunglasses, vendors, professors, models, bums, freaks, they all crowd the sidewalk. Bike messengers cut through traffic. Waiters smoke outside the cafe's. There's barely room to walk. They crowd around you.
And you're suddenly goddamn glad to see them.
Each and every fucker.

You've been using the same earphones. The same goddamn earphones, found in the back of your closet. Graham Bell must have used them. Last night, the scotch tape holding them together finally snapped.
You buy a new pair. It's not the top model, but it isn't the lowest one either. You've been wanting to do it for months.
And the muscles around your lips begin to spread within.
You don't really get it.

You keep walking.

And on the corner a brother is hustling rap cd's. He makes eye contact and you stop. He starts selling.
Last time you heard rap, Michael Jordan was playing baseball. But you listen to the guy anyway. His eyes are tired.
He gives you a cd. You hold it.
"Free?" you ask. His eyebrows narrow sadly.
"Come on, man," he stretches out. "At least spare five bucks."
And you shake your head. You give back the cd. "I can't," you offer. "I have no money on me."
He chuckles softly to himself. He grimaces. He's been hearing this all day.
"Why?" He snaps.
You pause. "I'm looking for a job. I'm walking around, looking for a job."
It's not the truth, but it's the closest thing to it you've said in a while.
And his eyes suddenly focus on yours. And all of a sudden the both of you understand each other.
He nods. "God bless you, man," he says.
And you nod back. And suddenly you feel real whole inside.
You don't really get it.


And a few blocks down a woman is yelling on the top of her lungs. Free samples at Ben and Jerry's, she screams. Go get yours, she screams. And she looks at you. You look at her. Her face is flushed red from screaming. Her hair is grimy. And for a second she smiles. You smile back. You get your cherry garcia sample. It's a milkshake. And it's a beautiful thing.

You go to Strands. This was the one thing you wanted to do. Because you want to check up on Fitzgerald. This Side of Paradise. You flip the book. You windowshop. You already know the pages. The jems you come to look at. The jems you don't yet have.
And you reread the preface. Begun during college. Completed at twenty-three.
And you nod to yourself.

You put the book back. Coming out of the isle you bump into something. You look.
Her face is covered in freckles and she has auburn hair. You don't say sorry. You smile. Like an idiot.
And like an idiot, she smiles back.

And the both of you stand in the middle of the store. Smiling.
And a huge mass of fat suddenly plops into both of you out of nowhere.
"Idiots!"

And you laugh. You laugh and feel something rising in you from below. And you suddenly feel about as light as a snowflake, even if it's August.


Somewhere below your belt vibrates. And somewhere below a hand reaches for it. You're not quite sure if it's your hand. You don't really care. You smile.
"Hey," an old friend says at the other end. She's calling from work and her voice is low and tired.
"Hey," you say, smiling the words into the receiver. At the other end there is a brief pause, as if she's checking whether she has the right number.
"What's up with you?" she asks.
"What?" You ask. Still smiling. You can't stop smiling.
"You're high or what? Got a date or something?" She's puzzled. And for better or worse, so are you.
You shake your head. "No," you say. "No date. Just a beautiful day out there, that's all."
"A beautiful day?"
And you nod. You're standing at the crossroads of the isles. Unsure of where to go, blocking everybody's way.
And you can't stop smiling.
"Yes," you confirm, taking a look around you. "It's a beautiful day."