Nocturna: The Midnight Man
(A GRAFFIC NOVEL)


It’s not easy to be creative when you are alone and shy. So I sit here for a while and listen to The Sounds that the new DJ is spinning. It’s fresh and clean and productive and new. I don’t want to be here, I don’t think. Beautiful creative types filter through the bar and I wait for Kevin to show up with the girls.

If she was invisible, I imagine Julie would be here, dancing on the stage. The stage is clear and I just sit there on the couch. Wine drinkers in black dresses stroll by with nary a glance. A Colin Ferrell type came through the door with a Katy Perry type in a satin shirt. Kids with hoods bounce around and get kisses. A lot of the kids here are tattooed. Does that make such a difference? I’m not tattooed myself but the thought crosses my mind, often.

A Greaser and his Betty Paige friends bop by. I am open to invitation but still, only a few smiles. Maybe that should count? Investment in my creative soul. Why then do I feel so bankrupt? I fear it’s the lake of My Hummingbird. I’m wearing the ring we picked out, but it ridiculously gets shifted to my thumb. Does it keep me safe or just hidden from sight? I’m not that cool. Not that cool.

With video camera setting on the table in the off position, I rest my hand on my head, it’s my thoughtful director’s pose. Taking in my surroundings with my flesh-camera. But alas, my body is like a couch potato. Is this really who I am? I’m not in agreement with this, it’s weak. It’s soft. She takes a swig of… what is that? Gin? I’m not in the Nether Lounge am I?

The guy at the door declines one of those Full Throttle beverages from this cute, slim, model girl. She shrugs and goes on dancing, ripped holes in the knees of her stylish jeans. I feel like just a wannabe in my sport coat and T.

My phone’s gone missing and I’m being forced to communicate in other ways now, I guess. It’s been so long.

A girl walks in with a Chihuahua under her arm and it makes me grin at her sense of fashion. If that’s even a word. Well, it is now. It’s an art show after all. It’s all art, isn’t it? Well, it is now. And I’m a consumer of said art, witnessed by the small photograph I purchased from one of the many photographers in the show. Five bucks. It’s a black and white sultry semi-nude. Maybe that’s all I’ll get.

The lyrics desperately spill “Just a little more love, just a little more peace is all it takes to live in harmony” from the speakers. The young, hip, European D.J. has been doing a stellar job. Just stellar.

Hey! I just got to pet the Chihuahua! That’s got to be some kind of good luck. His name, if I caught it right is Ben. I’ve always found it interesting when people name their dogs after human names. So cool. “He’s very shy” quips the dog’s owner as I pat his head, probably a little more heavy-handed that he’s used to. He’s just a little Chihuahua after all. “Yeah, just like me” I answer making the best of my communicative efforts. Not much dialogue after that. What am I?

Robert Downey Jr. at age 50 goes by, tattooed and covered in the soot of a thousand cigarettes. But he’s got friends there. Everyone seems to know everyone, they knuckle at the door. Jeff lives about a block away from this place and I can come and go with this stamp on my hand—
Whoa! Awesome black boots! You wouldn’t think so but, still eye-catching as all get-out! She caught my eye and made this amazing “he looked into the lens” grimace. So I try not to stare too much, but her fashion tonight is on-point! Even with the fur collar.

The thin girl by the door in the frilly off-white top is what Rob would call Model-Hot. Rebecca Gayheart when she was about 20. She’s the one with the rips in the jeans. That’s so 80’s isn’t it? Well, it’s due for a revival I suppose.

Yep, this must be what I call the Nether Lounge. The place between life and art show. And there’s that gal with the boots and the sweet bob hair cut again. A full cast in here. What I want to know is who’s giving the directions? I look up and check out the crystal chandeliers. Then an unburned candle on the table top. Kevin may not show.

Am I a piece of art or an artist? How do I show it? Is it time for me to go now? I’ve got some digital footage of the Artwork and some information from some of the artists. I think about going to get Chris.

There’s an amazing Audrey Hepburn print in the gallery, but it’s like eighty bucks. I think I talked to the artist of that piece about graffiti and how it’s mostly political. He was one of those dudes with the fat holes in his ears and lots of tattoos and grime. How can something so sweet come from something so tortured?

Who am I after all, an artist? A cinematographer? A writer? The spider- muse? Cinderella’s Pumpkin spawn? In the gallery I’m a tourist. In the lounge a couch potato. Outside I feel like the Midnight Man with nowhere left to go. I really need to work on that. A little out of order, but I’ve got the will to survive. There’s a media frenzy out there, acid rain from the fallout. Thank you for granting me shelter if only for a moment.


-2-

The aboriginal’s of Australia have something they call dreamtime. I’m supposing that fiction is kind of like that. But Harlan Ellison once gave me a fiction infection and now I’ve got these screenplays to write. To get it all out, you see. In the meantime, I’m being haunted by the “Technoratti”. Trying to learn my own Kung Fu in a post-apocalyptic, Warhol-funded parade of masks.