The streetlight manifesto

The Street Light Manifesto


It is currently 1:13 in the Life of Jack (Hawk) Fantone, if my life where to end in 2 minutes, two minutes than it would be perfect. I would be complete, end of story. I am nothing, I should have been polishing the brass on the titanic, I should have lit the match on the Hindenburg, and I should have pulled my finger out of the Amsterdam dike, I wish I breathed smoke, and pissed fire. When I reach the front doors of memorial Monroe bank I think that girl who made me what I am. I am a wad of worthless cookie dough. I was carved out of rock once, that girl said the four words that broke me in two and flattened my soul, I don’t love you. That girl is heather, and I am nothing. I am me, my balding 35 year old self working a no pay job at globo tech, without this girl I am nothing. I am average. I die the death of a thousand lonely slobs all wanting what had slipped through my fingers. In that bank there is nothing. In that building where I used to sit for nine hours waiting to see heather, there is only emptiness. Brass handles of bank doors are always cold, that feeling shifts up my arm and takes the place of the empty hole in my heart. Why are they staring at me, those two men next to the door. They check there watches apprehensively as if waited for a time that would never come. I Know that feeling, waiting for a time that wont come is something I am a master at, a true Olympian of clock watching. Their blood shot eyes. Their hands are hidden in the coat pockets. The fine Italian suits cut wide in the shoulders so that one could holster a 34 caliber gas powered rifle. That’s only if one was so inclined to have that. If one felt the need to slip into the bank fire two warning shots into the air and demand every last hen in the vault hen house. Only though, if one was so inclined. I slip them a smooth smile, the same one I slipped my tool boss this morning after telling him in intricate detail that I had banged his wife Heather Watson every weekend in their own long island beach home. Then going into the oh so teary eyed acting session about how she told me that she would never love me. That brings me to 1:13 in the life of Jack (Hawk) Fantone. Its time to take all of the cash out of the bank account pack up my things and head to chapter 13 of my life. Blood shot eyes and his buddy both with the fine Italian suits cut perfectly in the shoulders don’t notice a thing. What pain full saps, they think they have it bad, having to rob a bank? Take a look in my life man, my god damn life. You are nothing compared to me. You are an ant desiring to lick my sandals and I am god. Don’t mess with me you are wood and I am steel forged by gods.


Don’t Fuck with me .
No matter what the bank has air conditioning on, no matter rain, sleet, tsunami, cheap hookers rampaging in the street and throwing our government in to a violent anarchist paradise, you name it, the AC IS ALWAYS ON. It’s the funny things that get me, Air conditioning on a cold day, pant dropping to your ankles when trying to take a piss, your coat getting caught on the ski lift, the little things. Seems Italian suits were so inclined to rob this fine establishment. How brash though, firing a slug straight through an old woman’s head. You control of a crowd of bank customers with respect not fear. Seems one of them goes to handle the vault while the other robs the masses. Foolish kids, one must clearly rob while the other guards the rear and keeps the rabble at bay by firing carefully placed shots into the air. He orders us down on the ground, and I remain standing.
“Sit your ass down grandpa!” He screams.
His gun is shaking and he hesitates. He’s greener than grass.
“What are you gonna do, cut short my already pathetic life?”
“I’ll do it, I’ll do it!!!”
“Nice stutter, Ph-Ph-Ph- please junior you’d have trouble shooting a squirrel”
“Do you want to die today Grandpa?”
“I’ve wanted to Die since I started smoking 3 packs a day since sixteen. I’ve wanted to die ever since I looked at the moon and realized that I would die another nameless dick on the scale of human achievements. I wanted to die since I realized I lived in world this shitty where young men can shoot down an old woman without giving two second thoughts about it. Now stop shaking behind that flimsy soulless piece of metal that gives you the illusion of power and grow balls and pul!”
BANG!
Somewhere a women screams, and a man cries out into the distance. My legs turn to rubber and shake like a rattle. I sink lower and I am gone. I raise my hand to the light and see the dripping red scarf that has engulfed it. Fine Italian suit is crying. Its 11:15 and the clock stops. The sunlight in the bank window glares at me and I am lost.
The blackness is slow to fade. It sticks like a bad head ache, only for a second though. Yet every second is dragged into an hour. I remember her walking across the stage fluttering as she went. She was beautiful. She had the kind of beauty that stops you in the street like punch to the face and keeps you staring for minutes on end. I was Brutus in the play and she was Portia, the beautiful elegant Portia. We couldn’t afford anyone to play Caesar so we bought a cheap statue and made someone say his lines while we wheeled him around the stage. Her name was Heather and I was simply Jack, nothing more, nothing less. I was average until she came, a speck on the scale of the rotting human history. A month later she married my boss behind my back. She ended it then. Four hours later I was shot. Not necessarily dead yet. The flashbacks have to finish then there’s always the long road with the light at the end and all that malarkey.
Jim Cross is on the Sasinska brook with his feet in the water smoking a blunt. It’s a hot southern day and we have our dress pants rolled up. He offers me a joint and I accept. We light up and a thick sticky coating forms to my throat, my lungs are stuffed with smoke, my head goes light and my eyes roll back. Jim stares at me for a good minute and mutters, “For once in my life I’d like my dad to say its ok Jim if you don’t do well in school. I’d love you no matter whatever you decide to do with you life Jim.” He stomps his blunt into the moss covered rock we are sitting on and loosens his blue tie and jumps in the shimmering clear water. I walked back to the school house and left him to swim. A day later I learned he then played Russian roulette with his dad’s gun, alone.

He lost.



Ben Bombay and I are walking the block island beach dragging our feet along. I was staying at his ever so hip beach house with his aging parents.
This was after Jim played Russian roulette.
Max had been hit by a train.
Jon little or little Jon we called him had been pulled into boarding school.
Dan, well Dan simply smoked weed all day, and that was that.

Ben leaned down and picked up a shimmering white pinkish pebble. He looked me in the eyes and said “I wish we where like this pebble. I wish we never changed. You remember the time when we used to all rush to Jon’s house to swim in a pool not to light up and get high?” “Do you remember the day that forte fell into the pool and we laughed for a good hour?” “We can never be this pebble we always change, always.” He was crying hard now “Why Jack, why did this happen?!?” “Why did we do this to ourselves?!?!” “I should have been hit by the train!” “I should have played Russian roulette!” He turned toward me and hit squarely in the mouth I taste blood emidiently. He curled into a ball and sobbed endlessly all the time muttering why. The endless ocean crashed on the shore and I ran away from Bombay, from my troubles, from my pain. Two days later Ben Bombay was committed to the institute for psychiatric care.


I never saw him again.

I am six in the Oxford hospital senior citizens wing. He is reading and confined to a bed. Only reading of war, twenty four seven. Alfred commanded troops against the Germans in al alemain. He has the look in his eyes that makes me wake up 20 years later. I cried because Alfred the Lord of war who defeated Erwin Romel has been caged by old age. The Fire that was in his eyes when he looked at me and saw the future of the family, was extinguished two weeks later. I couldn’t force myself to go to the funeral.

I’m walking a long tunnel its night and there’s a streetlight on the other side. The street light cuts through the darkness like a knife cuts through butter. Seems it’s foggy too. I would guess I’m in England if I was anywhere. My dead grandfather Alfred is walking next to me.
“Dave its time to go” Alfred mutters.
“Good thing to I was starting to get a little teary eyed.”
“Seems you’ve got your fathers humor, wish you had his voice too, I hate that Damn Yank accent.”
I couldn’t stand it anymore I screamed to the empty tunnel at the top of my lungs “God it’s you and me now. No more memories. You make my life flash before my eyes to see my mistakes. It’s now or never God decide what you want. I know that’s sound fresh and stupid but I mean it. I’ve lived far to long to notice that you’ve made man cower behind desks when he are meant to soar with nature behind us. I’m not a bad guy. I know that sounds defensive, unscrupulous, but it’s true. Just whatever you do don’t send me back to earth.”
“Dave who the bloody hell are you yelling at?” as we steeped into the streetlight.
“I’m not going to be judged by god?”
“Of course not” my grandfather says. I do a kind of shuffle with my feet and stare at my clothes. They are bloody and have a bullet hole in them. We keep walking and step into the all too familiar Yorkshire country side.
“So this is the plan for everyone? The grand manifesto for all of us after death?”
“Yea it is, I like to call it the streetlight manifesto.”
“That’s a snappy name.”
“God has a knack for naming things.” My grandfather says.
I suppose this is Normal, for a balding 35 year old man, walking through the English country side with his dead grandfather that is. I smile at myself and head off into the endless fog with Alfred.