In Hell

by Joseph Grant

Nothing kills romance faster than routine and taking the other for granted, thought Juan as he stared out of his Brooklyn apartment window onto Atlantic Avenue. From there, he could see the ex-hippies and 70’s survivors sitting for their own deluded reasons on the benches, waiting for the city buses to take them to points beyond. He’d pass them by on his way home from the video store every day, their lives wasted staying within one mile of where they were born, the war having been the big seminal event of their lives and since then, their lives spent drinking and drugging, carousing with the other pelangoches and their existence being as faded and worn as their tattoos that some of the men and some of the women displayed on their arms, breasts or ankles. Another drink won’t kill ya, he thought, but it will sure get you to where you’re going, he smiled and took a big gulp and thought about how the band thing never happened for him, nor did getting any story published or shit, even written in the first place, although there had been many attempts and all of his dreams of getting out of this town, where he too was born just a mile away at Brooklyn Hospital never materialized although there were plenty of trains and roads leading out and some days he felt like Morrison during the L.A. Woman days being down so long, unloved and needing a brand new friend in the hyacinth house, but without Morrison’s looks, money, fame or talent. His girlfriend was coming over to break up with him; a girl fate had cruelly and tauntingly named Pamela, she had told him so over the phone and yet for some reason, he told her to come over anyway. Being in love with someone who did not love you or at least you thought you loved and who was always bitchy and did not reciprocate, Juan thought, was like almost reaching for the Gates of Heaven while you stood in Hell.