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Welcome, Ghosts

27 Aug

I hadn’t seen my grandmother in years.

She was standing by the lampstand in the small hallway 

leading from the living room to the back of the house.

She was so happy to see me

and gave me the warmest hug

I can ever remember receiving.

Then she said, “alright baby. It’s time to go.”

I smiled and I said

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here with you.” 

I was on my knees like an 8 year old,

clutching her legs, refusing to let go. 

And then I suddenly woke up in my bed

as a 39 year old man.

My grandma had been dead for damn near 20 years.

I sobbed so loudly that I startled my girlfriend,

who was sleeping next to me.

She briefly thought that I’d lost my marbles.  

~Bob E. Freeman

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Trading Cards

22 Jul

I started collecting baseball cards around 1989 to about 1994. I had about 5,228 of them, organized in rubber banded stacks alphabetically by teams A-Z, and each stack, the players were alphabetically ordered from A-Z–categorized by brand (ie Fleer, Donruss, Upper Deck). They were neatly kept in Nike shoeboxes. I wasn’t sure I would even have kids back then, but I knew if I did, this would be something cool to share with them someday.

Anyway, due to some funny stuff, I moved in with my dad and his new family around the age of 15. And moved out when I graduated high school. It was a depressing 3 years. My only outlets were music and Varsity baseball. When I moved out of my dad’s house, things were kind of rushed, and I was not able to get my baseball cards, which we’d put into the attic when I had moved in 3 years earlier (I had the smallest bedroom in the house and had very little room outside of a stereo, a tv, and a bed. My closet was teeny too) A few months after I’d moved, I asked about the cards, and he and my stepmom said they couldn’t find them. Two years later, they’d divorced and sold the house. I haven’t really spoken to either of them since.

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Yasmin the Light

23 Jan

I tried my best to focus on the show

knowing she was only a feet away

somewhere in the ballroom.

And I wanted to ask her what she thought

but she was already hanging out with

someone she’d met on Tinder

just a revolving door

of first dates

instead of really dealing with whatever she was going through.

I wanted to still be friends

wanted even to pick things back up after a bit of space

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see anyone else

but I was interested in the possibility of sleeping with other women

for a short spell.

I didn’t know what that meant

and wasn’t sure how to tell her

that I felt like I was suffocating

and that my life was moving in the wrong direction

if any direction at all.

ANd worst of all, I was homesick,

longing for a place that I wasn’t sure ever existed.

I felt , anchored to mediocrity, rudderless

and sometimes being with her only 

reminded me of everything else

that I wasn’t doing.

But I was open to trying it again

if she could just get her head straight.

If I didn’t have to drag her away from her comforts.

No one was rooting harder for her to do it than me.

But these were all feelings that I didn’t have words for.

But seeing how lost she looked

only brought those feelings home

when the band started playing Yasmine the Light.

It was already too late, but neither of us knew it yet.

~Bob E. Freeman

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Downtown St. Louis, circa 2011

16 Dec

We felt the hostility of the city the second we pulled into town.

Everyone was in on the grift and Adrian and I were the Marks.

The flophouse advertised as a hostel was straight out of a skid row novel.

Our baseball tickets were juiced up by about 50 bucks and we knew because

the patrons sitting next to us had sold them to the guy we’d bought them from.

No bar or restaurant was open past 9 pm on a Monday night in the middle of downtown.

This was no Wrigleyville.

As we meandered about just trying to find any place that would sell us food,

some middle aged Italian guy was halfway inside his car

yelling at some poor woman standing on the other side

sobbing loudly; head in hands

it was surreal

and I was mostly mesmerized by

a similar image from the night before

of me berating my own sobbing girlfriend

as she was halfway getting into her car,

because she had tricked me into

thinking she’d eaten all my weed brownies–a whole panful.

“HEY NIGGER!” The Italian man yelled in my direction. Snapping me out of my stupor.

“What are you looking at?”

My buddy gasped.

I laughed. “Nothing man. Just minding my business” is what I wanted to say.

Instead we just kept walking, laughing awkwardly at our luck,

stomachs growling.

It was really unfortunate that the Royals weren’t in Kansas City

until Tuesday.

It would’ve made for a much nicer trip.

~Bob E. Freeman

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Cuckold

12 Nov

I was at the casino the other night

when I overheard a man explaining point spreads to his lady friend.

They were an older couple, early 50’s probably.

I looked up for a second, and caught her gaze

as she gave me a long, slow wink with her left eye.

I smiled back and focused on my kiosk parlays.

As I was making another bet,

she said something that made me laugh.

Then I heard her say,

“You sure seem like a lot of fun.”

I looked up and smiled, “why yes I am.”

Then she and her male friend told me who they were rooting for.

Let’s just say I wasn’t surprised when she told me she was an Arizona State grad.

It was only later that night when I was telling my brother about it

that I realized that she and her friend may have had an agreement for their situation,

which I wouldn’t want part of.

I’m not saying she wasn’t attractive, she was.

But I could never see myself being comfortable enough

to pipe down some guy’s lady

while they were in the room watching.

I would never be able to relax, much less perform.

If the guy even breathed too hard I would be done.

“Say man. You can’t be in here acting all weird. And zip your pants up man. What you think this is, Pee Wee’s Playhouse?”

“Hey man. You can’t be in here man. You’re ruining my concentration.

Here’s a dixie cup. You can listen against the door.

Or better yet, go in the other room and watch us on your laptop. I know you got a hidden camera in here. You weirdo.”

Bob E. Freeman

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New Years Eve, Circa 2012

5 Sep

Crowdsurfing in deep East Austin

at a Japanther show.

There is no way I

would’ve believed the

flip of the script

seeing my Parts N Labour

hat fall off my head,

A beautiful green trucker

hat with the state emblem

and a signature by the Gza/Genius

from the Wu Tang Clan.

It was the shifting of the pendulum,

this dip in the roller coaster ride

would turn out to be the biggest I had seen in

a long time.

And this was just the first sign of things to come.

~Bob E. Freeman

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The Metro, Circa 2013

22 Jul

Felt a lil bit like 1998

At a theatre not entirely like this one.

When I was in on the best kept secret

How do you describe the sound of something pure?

They played hard.

They played fast.

The Drummer played with the pace of a sled driver

pushing a team of huskies down a frozen snow trail.

They played Desire Lines four songs into the set.

The music tightened my eyelids pushed my head towards the floor.

I felt a splash on my shirt and face at the song’s apex.

The mega ending with the soaring guitars weaving into each other. 

Looked up and was annoyed;

not by the splash

but by the interruption:

Pulling me out of the music

Pulling me out of the moment

And pulling me out of myself.

And jealous of the bliss

on the drunk girl’s face,

Biting her lip, rocking out

with her long stringy hair twirling in her eyes,

as the beer kept spilling out her cup 

down off the balcony onto the floor below her.

~Bob E. Freeman

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Incel

18 Dec

There was a period of time

(between Post Office and Women)

where Bukowski reportedly was celibate

for ten years.

Ten years. No nookie. What the hell?

I woke up the other day

and realized I was almost halfway there.

Again. What the hell?

~Bob E. Freeman

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Connecting Flight in Phoenix

27 Dec

I found the change of scenery to be surprisingly uplifting, the heaviness that had weighed me down for so long was subsiding. Catching my connecting flight in Phoenix, I wondered about the chances of running into Charles Barkley, or Steve Nash.

Looking out the window, running along the conveyor belt, I wasn’t sure what to expect–what to look forward to.

Maybe I’d be able to get over her during this trip. There was definitely the prospect of other women, both young and old, but I was also going to get some fresh air, and a few early morning hikes would do me good.

An old friend was meeting me at the airport with the possiblity of revisitng old desires, harking back to a time when I made it all happen, yet was lucky if I could buy groceries for the week.

Things had completely changed, and for the better. With all the questions going into this trip, there was no question about the theme. Whether it’d be Eugene, Oregon, Toronto, or New York City, it was certainly time to move on. 

~Edward Austin Robertson

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Mr. Glancy Was Right

2 Nov

It hit me at that very moment

crumbling herb at some party

in my t-shirt and blue jeans

that maybe my Spanish teacher

was correct.

True I was not hanging out

at the local Dairy Queen

and P & S,

but I wasn’t that far removed

from that reality.

High School graduation was already

2 years ago.

What was I doing?

I took a look around the room.

Everyone holding a drink

was either going or transferring

to a big university.

I didn’t even have a plan.

Working as a parking attendant

at the race track wasn’t sustainable.

What turned out as a minor curiosity

became an escape.

That night was the first inkling

that my emptiness

was something I could no

longer afford to ignore.

~Bob E. Freeman

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