Early morning a friend calls announcing he’s leaving NYC. Self preservation made the decision. Taking a lung filled breath, I sigh selfishly, quietly. The town taking more than it once gave, The Big Apple’s now sauce. His flight is set South to regroup, reenergize, replace woes with renewed vision that the pavement beat out of him. As my day started on this path, the avalanche continued its ominous stretch, like a train wreck, broiling blue skies into tar with Murphy’s Law as an ally. Evening settling into night, heavy eyed, wrung out, thinking of him, I smile, “Phoenix.”
Image: Detail of a painting by David Cunningham,
oil on wood panel, private collection.
I found him crying by the phone moments after his brother had refused to lend him more money, so of course he asked me. “I’ll walk you to the bank,” he said in that anything-to-help tone they get when they’re beginning to worry their last chance might just back out the door. And don’t kid yourself, normally I would have, except that now I was his very best friend—at least as long as it took us to get there—and by then I figured it was well worth the money just to be rid of him for a while.
Early morning a friend calls announcing he’s leaving NYC. Self preservation made the decision. Taking a lung filled breath, I sigh selfishly, quietly. The town taking more than it once gave, The Big Apple’s now sauce. His flight is set South to regroup, reenergize, replace woes with renewed vision that the pavement beat out of him. As my day started on this path, the avalanche continued its ominous stretch, like a train wreck, broiling blue skies into tar with Murphy’s Law as an ally. Evening settling into night, heavy eyed, wrung out, thinking of him, I smile, “Phoenix.” 
