Week 48 - One Night on Sunset

One Night on Sunset

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Step back or fly. Step back to fly. Either way, step back. Step back. Inside. In time. Or else. Or else fly. Cut the cord and fly. Maybe he wanted to fly. Ramsey wasn’t sure. Stepping back, going back, looking back was probably what was safest. Safe and easy and safe. Very safe. Very very safe. But flying? Flying sounded like so much more. More fun. More exciting. More possibilities and potentialities. Plus it meant escape. Did he want to fly or did he simply want to escape? He wasn’t quite sure. He wasn’t sure of much at the moment. Too many conflicting things happening and too many conflicting chemistry experiments taking place in his brain and body right now and not a clear or easy thought in sight.

Flying sounded nice. Flying sounded fun. Flap his little wings and fly free. It was the escape. That was it. He wanted to escape. To feel independent and free. Inside there be traps, pain and suffering. That he was sure of. That he knew. Inside was the past, the present, and possibly the future, all wrapped up in one. Ghosts. Of the past, of love and loss, and second chances. But he was no Scrooge and there was no spectral lesson being taught tonight at the stroke of three. There was the girl and the choices he had made. There would be no life or death revelation. Unless wanting to jump from a back patio and tumble into the hills off Sunset counted as a life or death revelation. It might possibly kill him, so there could definitely be some sort of life or death experience involved. But that was a different subject.

Ramsey loved the poolside patio at The Standard hotel on Sunset. The AstroTurf, the heated pool, the plush lawn chairs. It was a perfect place to sit and stare at the stars of the night or the stars that were also there drinking a drink.

Ramsey liked looking down the hillside at the city lights. L.A. just stretched out towards infinity. On a clear night he was sure he could see all the way to Long Beach. That probably wasn’t true, but that was how it felt. The street lights and red brake lights just got smaller and smaller and they got further and further away. Somewhere there was a coastline. Somewhere the water met the sky. All he could see were the shrinking lights. Somewhere they blurred and merged and got mixed together. Somewhere.

It was beautiful. Like a living work of art. There was that scene in Tron at the end, where the city lights turned into the computer lights. He loved that as a kid. The blur of technology, the speed of information, the day that we would all be living in the machine. Pure imagination. It was pure and beautiful and an escape. There was no chaos in the machine. Just order and virtual simplicity.

Ramsey would have taken a little bit of simplicity at the moment. There was nothing simple about The Standard. There was nothing simple about the situation Ramsey was trying to avoid.

The Standard was trendy. Too trendy for its own good. That’s the way it was though. No getting around it. Ramsey had been okay with that a few years ago. He had been okay with most of the bars on Sunset a few years ago. But not now. Not tonight. Maybe he was getting old. Or maybe his mind was just in other places.

The club was the hotel lobby. It was crowded. Always crowded. There was a restaurant there too, but Ramsey wasn’t sure anyone ever really ate there. The lobby had a few seats to one side, but mostly were just cushions pushed up against the wall. Someone somewhere had decided that cushions were a good idea.

A D.J. stood at the reception desk, spinning records. Sometimes it was Trans, or Hip-hop, or whatever the latest term was that stood for loud electronic bass and electronic drums. Ramsey didn’t know. It was all techno to him, but he was sure there were some nuances that someone else might understand.

Then there was the white room. Shag carpeting on the walls and ceiling. And a girl in pajamas sitting inside a glass box. Sometimes she would read a book. Or just take a nap. Ramsey had been sitting in the white room. His seat might be gone. He couldn’t be sure. It was a busy night.

But there in the white room he had left her. A girl. A woman. A lady. Ramsey had needed a breath of fresh air and he had said he would be right back. He stood outside, looking over the ledge, admiring the city, admiring the fall. There was a cool breeze that had been getting cooler each night. Soon he might actually need a jacket.

Sarah was a good woman. There was no reason not to go inside. Ramsey had every reason to go inside. There was nothing wrong with a girl like Sarah. He had known her for years. He trusted her. He liked her. Sometimes he loved her a little. Other times he loved her a lot. She knew him and knew his secrets. They had dated intermittently for years. It was a decade-old friendship at worst and a decade-long love affair in the making at best.

Sarah, poor Sarah. He had left her all alone. He had told her he was going to be right back. He needed to be right back. It was only fair. It was only right. And yet there he stood. Thinking and wishing for wings.

What was wrong with Sarah? Nothing. Nothing at all. He could laugh. He could tell stories. There were memories there. There was trust there. Convenience. But that wasn’t a word that sparked great love stories. There was no mystery to a friendship. He knew it was a juvenile thought, but he couldn’t help himself from having it. It was nice. It wasn’t fantastic. It was like, but not enough love. It was steady, but what he wanted was to feel alive. There was nothing grand about their relationship. It simply worked.

Maybe that was enough. For some people. For some goals. Maybe it would have been in a different city, a different world, a different life. There was nothing wrong with a friendship. Friendships were great. But nobody wrote epic love songs about friendships.

He had seen her across the room. Some girl he had seen before. Sitting there at the bar with her friend. He recognized her face, her smile, that glow of energy about her. He saw her face and he knew. He had seen her before. Some other night at some other bar on a night much like tonight. He couldn’t remember her name or if they had talked or if he had cared that night. But he saw her tonight and he recognized her and he knew. Instantly he knew.

He looked at her and then he looked back at Sarah. It was just a moment. A millisecond. Sarah hadn’t even noticed. But it had happened, and it affected him, and he knew his heart wasn’t in it anymore. That could have been okay. It might not have mattered. A million people made a million decisions each and every day and he knew he could make one too. He should be happy. He was happy. He could make that decision and stay and be happy. Happy enough. But he had looked and he had seen and he had realized he just wasn’t happy enough. Was not quite happy enough really enough to make things work? Could he keep it together and push through and then the moment would be gone and the night would be forgotten and things could return to their nice status quo convenience of before?

All he would have to do was push it out of his mind. Push it deep down. Forget it. Forget all about it. Just get past the moment. Just get past the night. It wouldn’t matter later. It would be over and lost later. Later there would be nothing that could be done. It would be a fanciful memory. A romantic moment. But it would be the past and it wouldn’t matter in the long run. All he had to do was get past the moment and then it could stay and live in the past all it wanted to, but it wouldn’t ruin the present or the future.

But it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t enough. He could talk and think and rationalize all he wanted to, but he already knew the truth. It wasn’t fair, but he knew it in an instant. How could he stay inside after that? How could he go back in after that? What could he say to her? What could he say at all? If he looked at her right now he might cry. He wouldn’t be able to explain it. Not adequately. Not satisfactorily. He would sound like a fool. A cad. An ass. He would break his and her heart alike.

Or so he told himself.

What was her name? He just wanted to know. If he knew her name, just something to attach to her face, something to make the memory real. He could look back years from now and remember those crazy Sunset Saturday nights. He didn’t need to do anything other than that. Just so he could have the memory. Just so he could have something of his own. Just a little secret all to himself.

Ramsey stood there and looked at the lights. He wanted to fly. He wanted to soar. To feel free. To feel like a god in the sky. Life was so plain and paled in comparison. It was all so ordinary. So plain and ordinary. It could never compare to the night sky. How could it? Convenience would never compare to infinity. It was madness, but he couldn’t help feeling the ways he felt. He just wished it could be different. He just wished he wasn’t about to break her heart and that his wasn’t already cracked.

Just a little longer. Focused on the lights. Focused on the stars and the street lights and how they blurred into one and the same. A moment, slipping away into the past. And a dream of flight. Step up and step in and be a man and do the right thing. And leave the fantasy for another dream on another night like tonight. In a minute. Just a minute. Just another minute. And then he would move. And then he would go. And then he would learn to fly.