Blue in the Corners

When I left El Paso, I was roaring drunk. The entire trip had been a frolicking detour to see an old Navy buddy and his wife. The visit had been too much of a success to some extent. I’d met up with Shara, fallen fast, and could not get up. 

Years later, an old Patti Smith song would start flashbacks. Because The Night is still not a song I can easily listen to, snatches of memory come back: Shara painting in her studio, me telling her that the portrait of me she was doing needed more blue in the shadows, and the bottles of tequila lined up like dead soldiers.

What came together so rapidly decayed just as fast—the fights and accusations. It was like nasty scenes from Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s movie Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf. I found myself drunk, on the road with only my pack and guitar. I headed back to the east coast in one fantastic hell ride with some dude who must have been transporting. But I was beyond caring.

So it was a surprise last week. I was hanging around the local Barnes and Noble, browsing magazines. I opened the most recent Arts Quarterly and found my face staring out at me. Shara had put more blue in the shadows.