Copenhagen Noir

It was just past three in the morning. I was standing there, minding my own business and a large draft, trying to ease stage-adrenaline out of my body. But: your wit, your speech, your repartee, impressed me almost instantly. I’d been present, really present, on that stage, had them in the palm of my hand, never better. And then it slipped in, ruined my night, day, week, month:

You fucking look like Keith Richards, you want a beer?

And me? Didn’t say a word, stood there gawking, didn’t mention your gut, your watery eyes, and your fat cheeks. Not a word. Not that I’m polite, I’m not, but words just wouldn’t cut it, no matter how ugly. And I lacked the courage for the kind of brutality it would take. Plus I didn’t have the time. I was way too busy watching my life fall apart.

You fucking look like Keith Richards, you want a beer? But if you’d just smile a little…

I’m not smiling, not at you, at any rate. If the show must go on, let it go on without you.

Bereaved of my illusions, I pondered whether it was the young Keith Richards, the one with the teen acne and all the scars, that you had in mind. The one who recorded people’s toilet visits on his tape player? Or the old sod with his Grand Canyon-junkie face, the silver skull ring and bandana and girlie crap in his hair? Is my face really already a map of the twentieth century?

And then I walked home. Not enraged, not enraged, not yet. Just speechless. It’s not easy facin’ up when your whole world is black: only seconds ago I thought I was young and beautiful.

When we pass by Kongens Have, in just a few moments, why don’t you go on in and run around in the dark a bit? To unwind, maybe? You never know, that fenced-in tar pit may hold people more bizarre than me, and honestly, I’d really rather not be Kill Bill tonight. Look! So gorgeously black and dark behind the grating. So seductively blue-black against the moon, so murky, too murky, just right for you. The ideal place to go up in smoke.

Right?

All right. But if I’m Keith, it seems so right to murder you tonight-not you, your ethereal remains, but you with the fat gut and the runny eyes who ruined my life with a sentence. Short and sweet. For we are both full of violence, separately and together. You may not know that I kicked a Glasgow bully in the head with the pointed toe of my boot. That I nearly strangled Ronnie Wood with my bare hands. Hammered my fist repeatedly into Stigwood. And why? Because he kept getting up. And for you I have a real buffet: blue and yellow and dead. In that order.

(But I’m still nice, given the chance. “I am a lover.”)

Ah, I see you stare at the park grating. Kongens Have beckons? Go! I’ll retreat. Tiptoe away. Ever so quietly. Cut diagonally across the street to where the shadows are even blacker. Hide in the crowd, blend into the façades, disappear. But the crowds have gone to sleep, the city is nearly empty. One couple walks by, like tears. Wrapped around each other, and her coat grazes me as they and their conversation slowly pass by, Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty girl, you’re a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty girl, pretty, pretty, such a pretty, pretty, pretty girl, come on, baby, please, please, please, I love you, are you cold?-yes, please! I’ll have some of that, thank you. For here or to go? No matter, just need to file off the rough edges.

Now you cut across the street, dear towering steaming rage, and catch up with me on the corner where I thought I’d faded into the bricks so you couldn’t see me. You glower at me, I can’t miss it: Go on, go on.