Chicago St. Patrick’s Day is a mockery of many things. Fresh fertile sloppy blondes, cleavage ablaze, marauding with zitty skinny tall twenty-somethings, downtown, beaded like New Orleans, depressed in green, the worst color in the world when it ain’t natural.
Late at night, after the yelling and the fight; beyond the overrun and the run around, through the forest of memories and parents, into the hallway of dealing-with-it, past the canary of what else-is-there, a wife happy white lace t-shirt innocent told me, “We went to the orchid fest today in Northbrook. Did you know orchids grow on trees?”
I did not, but had fantasized my pores pushing out fresh fertile yellow-green sprouts, from which cherries and blueberries and apples plumped, and from which orchids, droopy and heavy, tickling satin to the touch, hung, wavering, flirting, sashaying, in wind, warm wind, out of which nothing bad could come.
The patrons at the second oldest artist dive bar in Chicago were way beyond green. Inside the lemon, they dotted the curly bar and held their drinks. Why do you always love the one who fucks addiction? Barmaid beauty served two old-fashions, a plump cherry whisky saturated and wrapped in an orange peel push-up bra. Two nipples, fat and round. A lovely tease to get the old self standing right next to me.
Synchronicity? Angel Irish songsters dressed in Sinatra tuxedos approach. They suction energy. Away I turn from temptation. Away I turn from the drink. Have I seen the proprietor display his sea-saw, tulip-lidded, contraption? Yes. Tick-tock, tick-tock, drip liquid down Lady Justice’s scales onto petal pedals that make the absinthe bubble up. "Wormwood?" Yes. It is warm brown; it is beautiful; it is engineering; it is architecture; it is candle; it is potion; it is promise. Here is diesel smiling relief, toxins, petroleum. Here is the demon chant: Drink. Drink. Drink.
Ah, Sazerac. I betray her for the warm camaraderie of strangers. It is safer facing out. Thought it pushes my lover away, it holds me closer.