Amadeo L. Gauthier's Page

I am suffocating and I cannot breathe... but I can write, and my pen is full.


Ol’ Frankie Blue Eyes was croonin’ off in the quiet lone distance, his voice dancing in the stale cigarette smoke lingering from yesterday. Jazz bass moaning into a bleeding violin, from the first track to the last the vinyl grooves poured out that old world kinda nostalgic dreamin’ only lost lovers know about. Could be that I hadn’t noticed before but the drowsy late summer rain had started dripping in through the window down into the old chipped paint brushed of onto the floor. He was singin’ a song about forgetting now. Forgetting a long lost lover, singing proud and fragile bound ‘bout moving on. Springtime in New York City…

My cigarette ash spills out across the ragged off-white sheets and down over the mattress… intertwining with spilled sound, them long droning notes Frankie put down all them years ago.

The old LP cover lays sprawled out on the floor, a dusty old long forgotten record you come across sometimes at them used bookstores down Amsterdam Ave. or Broadway. …forgotten like the name scribbled across the front of it in worn down pencil lead – “Cassey”.

"I've forgotten you just like I should,
Of course I have,
Except to hear your name,
Or someone's laugh that is the same,
But I've forgotten you just like I should.

What a guy, what a fool am I,
To think my breaking heart could kid the moon.
What's in store? Should I phone once more?
No, it's best that I stick to my tune.

I get along without you very well,
Of course I do,
Except perhaps in Spring,
But I should never think of Spring,
For that would surely break my heart in two."

The record sounds grainy like my black boots. Gotta get my heel fixed I’m thinkin’ to myself in-between wondering about this town. I tell myself I’m onto something, smoke bellowing in the stale air, blue like Frankie’s eyes. Smokey kinda haze that tells you you been smoking too long, dreamin’.

I wondered about “Cassey”. Was she pretty like the broad Sinatra was with on the album cover? Who had she been? I picture her sitting around now, lifetimes past, in a concrete garden behind some home for the elderly lined with little green-brown ferns that never get to growing more then a foot in the summer. Aged very much unlike good wine and wondering what the fuck is goin’ on. An end to an end and a beginning somewhere down the line or lost and forgotten to that deafening thing we call the past.

Everything seems to go slower when I got Frank Sinatra singin’ out’a my worn old suitcase record player. Out’a time and out’a place, little late, and slowly losing count due to my ties to what ol’ Blue Eyes himself seemed to be after by the sound of it now.

What kinda color is indigo anyway? Mood Indigo, I hear what he’s singin’ about but ain’t too sure. Somebody once told it was purple I think, or was that turquoise? I don’t know, I'm colorblind. I see the needle on the record player pull up just fine though, weariness dragging me down and Frankie’s voice still booming smoothly round my head... I’m considering getting up to put that record back on.

My bottle of Dry Sherry is running dry. Light in color and delicate in flavor with nuances of roasted nuts – The label reads – leaving it out in the heat all night has left it warm and them nuances of roasted nuts seem stronger now. I’m a wishin’ I had me some absinthe and wonder what Blue Eyes over there poured. The rain and a rusty old metal rotating table top fan provides for some much needed distraction… being alone with my own thoughts is a dangerous thing. It’s too quiet in here.

Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! I thought I’d found out soon enough about the ways of the world, in comes a stumbling that Frankie Blue Eyes and sets the records straight. I drop the needle down into the vinyl groove and after a rustling beneath the tracks Sinatra fills these paint crackin’ dirty white walls once more.

There’s a wailing street below here, New York City. The barred window lets through a little bit of that smoggy aura that stretches well past the city limits. Across the Hudson there Jersey lies looking on. Street lights mask the stars down here, every time I think of it I’m reminded of that night the lights went out on Broadway. I don’t recall much of that night seeing as how a coupl’a side street Irish pubs were pretty much the only ones that stayed open after the blackout, dark in gloomy candle light, and well… leave it to the Irish. But the one thing I do remember is all them stars, you wouldn’t think it now lookin’ up past the skyscrapers and concrete hills now though. Must’ve been a while ago last time the only light round here were the starts above and candles in the window of some shady bar cozy with old world serenades.

A stale wind mingles with a strange breeze. Everything about August spells change. On the sunny side of Broadway, Fall’s come a’ knocking and summer’s left swaying in the ocean tide down by Coney Island. Around this time a year is usually when I’d be packing bags.

If I didn’t know any better I wouldn’t know what time’a year it was, seemed like fall out there now at the end of summer. Should be better in a day or two I suppose, though it won’t be long now before the cold winds come a rolling into town again mean and fiery like in an old John Wayne Western.

A lean silhouette looks up from aside the streetlight on the corner and leans in closer, waving up at somebody a coupl’a windows ‘cross from mine. Cars chase past fast and leave a trail of dust behind ‘em for the ones left behind. A rat scurries by out’a the garbage can and the silhouette looks back startled.

The record skips a beat and chimes me out of my reverie, charming me into that High Fidelity sound the record sleeve boasts about. The girl on the cover reminds me of her in some sweet way. Is it that unusual now?

What is it about leaving that always has everybody so enthralled? Everybody’s always heading off thinking they’re getting somewhere, riled up and ready to go, even faster in this city. Cant wait to get though them train doors down in the subways, catch a cab cause we’re gonna be late, hit the elevator button five times in the hope it’ll go faster, lock the door on your way out will ya? I’ve seen enough for a while, leave me with my records and fountain pen.