SCOTT TAYLOR

Scott Taylor is 30 years old, and lives in Denver, Colorado. He is a writer and a musician. Among his literary influences are Charles Bukowski, William Burroughs and William Vollman.

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PATERSON

Sitting in bathtub reading good book and suddenly my own slide show starts.
      Weekend getaway with a friend, we are jogging along the street a few blocks from the Jersey shore, very hot, breath coming hard to my out-of-shape and ragged self, blond and brown people milling all around, looking quite native to their current situation. Back to the shore house, ambitious young yuppies sitting in lounge chairs out by the canal, playing at aristocrats, investment banker and his long-legged pretty girlfriend inside, girlfriend asks me if I want to go shopping with her, giggling in a carefree, charming, empty-headed sort of way, and for a moment I get the familiar fantasy coating the inside of my skull that those running sneakers could come off for me when the young banker fellow hits the john later on. I go into the other room to eat lunch and read an article in a magazine about the best brawlers in the NHL.
      Some dead time, empty air, the sky gets black, I'm playing pool with Pete and his girlfriend, drinking, listening with one ear to Ted Nugent yelling out of the ancient stereo and with the other ear to Pete's girlfriend telling me that ELO is an under-appreciated band. I resolve to jump in the canal in the event that I am subjected to any further exposure and/or references to grating banal formula music within the next hour. Then off to some trendy spot bar or club or some such thing walking around aimlessly and getting drunk and watching the social soldiers practice their drills. Enough beer and mixed drink and I'm on the road again, having slipped out unnoticed, and now I'm sitting on the road near a bush broken and there is a cat consoling me. I am allergic, but I pet him. I think he knows what I'm talking about. His affection is welcome. My hands and arms begin to itch.
      I bust out a screen on a small window and crawl in, collapsing on the floor on the other side and knocking over an end table. Lie down in my own little room with my own little nautically-themed adjacent bathroom, and then to sleep on the mattress on the floor.
      Next slide, I am in court for drunk driving. I am there for about the sixth time, the clerks as of yet have been unable to locate my paperwork. Sixth time's the charm, so I wait my turn. Jittery girl in sweatpants and loose top sitting nearby, one of Paterson's locals, outdated feathered black hair barely keeping it together, blue nail polish peeling back. Heavy heavy heavy bags under wild blue eyes. Telling the guy next to her about the night she got busted. "Yeah, cop pulled me over, and I had like 10 little bags of crack on me, so I shoved them in my mouth. The cop tells me to open my mouth, so I swallow it. Haven't slept in like 5 days, it's eating holes in my stomach. That shit crystallizes in there, fucks you up real good."
      Next guy up for his hearing is a 20 foot tall black man with diminutive wife in tow. The crotchety old white-haired judge is a civil war veteran who is only being kept alive thanks to continuous exposure to inexplicably life-prolonging radioactive emissions generated by the nuclear waste daily being flung over the Paterson waterfall. He takes off his bifocals and glares at the man skeptically. "Mr. Jackson, you are here on a domestic abuse charge. Your wife has suddenly informed the court today that she has had a change of heart and would like to drop all charges against you." The judge shifts his gaze to the woman. "Is that right, Ma'am?" She glances up sheepishly at her husband, who is staring at her intensely. She slowly nods yes. "Mrs. Jackson, I suspect that your husband is coercing you in this matter. Are you really sure that this is what you want?" She nods yes again, staring at the floor.
      Then I go up there and they take away my license for six months, and I get the fuck out of Paterson