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jobrookekarev · 3 years

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My Sweet Joy, Always Remember Me

Chapter one of one

Words: 8715

Summary: In the midst of quarantine, Levi convinces Jo to download Tik Tok, and she quickly becomes addicted. So when a certain trend comes around, Jo couldn't pass up the opportunity to poke fun at the man who left her. Back in Kansas, one of Alex's teenage patients shows him the video of Jo and Luna, and he instantly goes back to Seattle to meet the girl he assumes is his daughter, only to find that Jo has another surprise in store for him.

Fandom: Grey’s Anatomy

Relationship: Alex Karev/Jo Wilson.

Characters: Alex Karev, Jo Wilson, Levi Schmitt, Luna Ashton, Izzie Stevens (Mentioned), Eli Stevens (Mentioned), and Alexis Stevens (Mentioned).

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences.

Additional Tags: Angst and Fluff, Babies, Pregnancy, Tik Tok, The Intimacy of napping together, Rated T for swearing.

Read at AO3

Read at FFN

AN: Did I write a fic about a Tik Tok? Yes. Do I regret it? Absolutely not! Link to the Tik Tok this is based on: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMebyxQeQ/

A big thank you to the jolex group chat for once again distracting me from what I should be writing with ideas of what I could be writing. They supplied some of the lines and ideas for this story, and I am thankful for all of their help and support.

……………………………………………………………………

It was a slow June day on the Pediatric Ward at the Children's Hospital where Alex worked in Kansas City. Ever since the pandemic, things had slowed down, although he still had his regular surgical patients.

“Hey Marco,” Alex said, coming into the room of the teenage patient. He had assisted in a leg amputation due to cancer on the kid a few days ago and was eager to see how he was progressing.

“Hey, Dr. Alex, do you have Tik Tok?” Marco asked as he still looked at his phone but even bothered to glance at Alex as those little clips of music played.

“Nope,” Alex said as he checked over the kid’s vitals and pulled the bandage back to look at the incision. “Everything looks good. Are you having any pain?”

“Not really, you guys got me on the good stuff,” Marco replied, giving him a nod as his mask hid his smile, and Alex could tell that he was a little bit out of it. “Okay, but you have got to see this one. I think it's you?”

Alex's eyebrows came together. He didn't know anybody in his life that would make a Tik Tok of him. Except maybe Zola, but according to Meredith, she mostly just made dance videos. Nonetheless, he went over to Marco’s bedside and waited for him to pull up the video expecting to see Zola. Alex was, however, surprised when a video of him and Jo popped up.

“I'll never forget you,” the artist sang over the video. “They said we'd never make it.”

The video was of the two of them on their wedding day as they kissed and then turned to the crowd, all smiles, and the little caption read. “To the man who left me in a letter, thanks for the gift.”

The video changed and suddenly, it was a video of Jo sitting in a rocker in the loft holding a baby. She smiled at the camera before tilting it down to the baby in her arms, who looked up at the camera with newborn colored big blue eyes from where she was swaddled in a pink blanket.

“My sweet joy, always remember me.”

“Sorry, man,” Marco said, having read the expression on Alex's face. “The videos are funny but, it's a sucky way to find out you got a kid.”

Alex just stood there in shock as the video replayed again before he grabbed the phone. He waited for the video of her and the baby to play again before he paused it. He couldn't believe it. Jo had their daughter. She must have been pregnant when he left. Jo had gone through a pregnancy, and high-risk preterm labor, and now she was taking care of a medically fragile preemie, their preemie baby girl, all alone. All because he had made the dumbass decision to move to Kansas without even talking to her. Because he had left, Jo and their daughter were alone.

Their preemie daughter. The baby girl didn't look very big, she was definitely a preemie, and she was still on supplemental oxygen with oxygen cannula tubes in her nose. His mind filled with the possibilities of any health complications their daughter could’ve had, from brain bleeds, lung issues, hip dysplasia, or congestive heart failure, and so on.

Why didn’t Meredith tell him? Although, they hadn’t spoken since he left. Of all the people he thought would tell him if he had a daughter, Meredith was at the top of his list. He understood why Jo didn't want to tell him, although the fact that she didn't still hurt. The fact that Meredith, his best friend in the world, didn't tell him that he had a daughter, hurt even more. A sense of karma came over him as he wondered if this was how Jo felt when she found out about the twins.

He let the video reply again and stopped it on Jo and the baby. Jo was dressed in a tie-dye T-shirt with her hair thrown up in a bun. She looked tired but happy as she showed off the baby in her arms. Alex thought she was absolutely beautiful, as beautiful as she looked the day he said goodbye to her.

He remembered what she looked like when he turned back to look at her, one last time, after he made it through security. Her dark hair was flowing over her shoulders in beautiful waves, and she had a gorgeous smile on her face. She excitedly waved to him and blew him a kiss before the crowd surrounded him, and she disappeared from his view. The image of her smile as she blew him a kiss had replayed in his mind over and over again the past six months.

He just stared at the photo of her for a couple of minutes as the ache in his heart consumed him. He had a heartache, a longing for her since he left, and he had carried it around every day. He missed her more than he had ever missed anyone. He missed her more than words could describe. He missed her more than anything else in this world and every day, he fought the urge to go back to her.

Now he had a reason to go back because she had had their daughter. Their beautiful, wonderful little girl. She already looked a little bit like Alexis with her little tuffs of blond hair. Alex couldn't stop staring at them in the video. He tried to quickly do the math, he had left six months ago so, but she must have been pregnant before then, although the baby looked small, about 5 lb or so. It was June now, so Jo had to have gotten pregnant in November or October. Maybe she knew before he left, maybe she didn’t. They were so focused on arranging the witnesses for Meredith’s trial, and he was so busy working at Pac North before he left. Some days he barely saw her except for when he crawled into bed.

That was the thing that he regretted most, that he didn't spend enough time with her, which was why, the week after Meredith’s trial, before he left, he spent as much time with Jo as he could. He visited her on her lunch breaks, he was there when she got home, he made dinner with her, and watched TV with her on the couch, and he made love to her every night. At the time, he had lied and said it was so he could spend as much time with her before he went to visit his mom, but he wanted one last perfect week with her before he broke both of their hearts. The memories of that week, of Jo’s beautiful smile, were something he thought fondly of as he slept alone in his one-bedroom apartment.

“Can I have my phone back now? I can send you the video if you want?” Marco said as his words brought Alex out of his head.

“Umm yeah,” Alex said as he handed the phone back to Marco, still in shock at the fact that he and Jo had a daughter. “Please send that to me.”

He was absolutely floored at the fact that Jo had had their baby, as Marco sent him the video. Alex quickly clicked on it and downloaded the app as his feet carried him out of the room. As he waited for the app to download, he wondered if Jo had posted any other videos. As he found a quiet spot in the halls, the app loaded, and he clicked the link and followed the icon to Jo's page. There he was greeted with a handful of videos. Some of them were of Jo dancing with Levi or by herself, but there were one or two videos of their daughter.

One was of their daughter, which was a series of photos to the song, you're my sunshine. The photos started off when the baby was in the incubator, looking no bigger than his hand, and Alex guessed that she was about 26 weeks old. Alex looked over every photo, every video of the little girl. He was so distracted by the photos and the videos of the baby that he almost ran into a nurse. Alex quickly apologized before he came out of his daze.

He had to go back to Seattle. He had to see Jo and their daughter. He had to be there for them. He had missed so much of her life already, including Jo’s pregnancy and her first breath, her first days of life, and he was filled with guilt and regret. Alex ran over to the lounge to get his things, cleaning out his locker while he quickly called the chief of surgery and quit on the spot. Alex hated this job anyway, he loved the kids, and he wanted to make sure that his patients, including Marco, were okay, but he needed to go home.

Alex rushed over to the apartment he had in Kansas City. He had been staying there since the start of the pandemic. He and Izzie had agreed that since he was still working in direct contact with patients at the hospital, he would move out and get a separate apartment as they didn't want to risk transmitting this to the kids. Izzie had stayed home with the twins as with her job in oncology, she could do mostly remote consults, with only having to go on to the clinic on an as-needed basis with covid negative patients. Alex had been video chatting with them every single night and had distance visits with them at the park every Saturday and Sunday. Although, he had been considering getting his own place since before the pandemic started. He thought that he could make it work with Izzie, but the two of them were never in love.

It only made his homesickness all that much harder, and the urge to go back to Seattle all that much larger. The one thing Alex had realized during this pandemic was that he didn't have to be in Kansas to be a good dad to his kids. He could see them part-time and visit them on the weekend, and he could do that from Seattle. Lord knows he was rich enough to fly out every weekend. He had made up his mind as he packed up his car with everything he would need to move back to Seattle. Alex got in his car, setting his GPS for the address of the loft in Seattle. As he drove past the endless crop fields, he smiled in anticipation of soon seeing their daughter and his wife, it never did feel right to call her his ex-wife.

……………………………………………………………………

Going back to Seattle was like coming home. Everything was so familiar in Seattle, whereas everything had been so foreign in Kansas, even though he had been there for months. The drive over to the Loft was just muscle memory as he allowed himself to enjoy his surroundings. The thought of seeing Jo and his daughter filled him with excitement, despite how he knew that Jo may not be happy to see him. He hoped that she would at least let him meet his daughter, and then maybe they could work out a schedule where he could see her.

As he pulled up to the Loft, he couldn't help but sigh in relief. He was home. For the first time since he left, he was home. He had stopped back at the hospital and had tested negative before he left for Seattle as he knew with a medically fragile child, he would have to be extra careful. Still, he grabbed a mask and hoped that he would at least get to hold her.

He ran into the apartment complex and took the stairs two at a time up to the metal gate that led to the laundry room. It was locked, as usual, so he used his key but stopped in front of the familiar red door. He paused and knocked because although it had once been his home, it wasn't anymore, and Jo earned as much privacy as she wanted. Alex heard wrestling and footsteps with muffled voices until the door slid open, but instead of Jo on the other side, he was greeted with Schmitt in a grey mask.

“Oh boy,” Levi said, before he turned around, and Alex followed his gaze until his eyes landed on Jo holding their baby.

For a second, he froze as he stared at her. There she was, standing before him, no longer a memory but real. She looked better than the photos and videos he had seen, even as she looked tired with her hair up in a messy bun. She was wearing his grey Iowa Hawkeyes t-shirt, which definitely had spit up on it despite the burp cloth thrown over her shoulder.

The little girl was dressed in a blue onesie with pink flowers and green leaves, and she had a matching bow on her head. She also had the oxygen cannula tubs taped to her cheeks and had the heart and oxygen saturation monitor wires trailing down to the floor. Jo’s lips were parted as she stared at him. Alex wanted to take a step forward, to go to her, to see their baby in her arms with his own eyes, but he kept his feet planted in the entryway as he just stared at them. The girl that was possibly his daughter and his wife.

As he thought about it more and more throughout the long drive from Kansas to Seattle, he questioned whether this baby was truly his. However, the video was pretty damning evidence. Then again, Jo had always had such a soft spot for the little orphan NICU babies, and sometimes he joked about her adopting one, so maybe she finally did. Somewhere in Montana, he thought about turning around and going back or just calling Meredith and demanding an answer, but he couldn't bear the thought of going back to Kansas. He knew he belonged in Seattle, regardless of whether she had Jo or a daughter.

“Is she, is she mine?” Alex asked, finally finding his voice.

“No,” Jo said with a shake of her head as she looked over at Levi. He went back over to her and she quickly transferred the baby into his arms. Alex was confused at first until Jo pulled up the T-shirt to reveal her rounded pregnant stomach. “But this one is.”

……………………………………………………………………

From the moment Jo laid eyes on Alex, all she could do was stare at him. She felt relief that he was finally home. He was finally going to meet the child growing inside of her. He would be there for her and for their child. Alex was finally home. Yet, the relief and excitement faded as reality set in. She felt so betrayed because he had left without a single thought to her, nor the child growing inside her.

He seemed to stare at her as she handed Luna off to Levi. She put a hand on her belly as she felt her baby kick again. From the moment she laid eyes on Alex, the baby had done flip flops inside of her as if they could sense that their father was near.

Alex still seemed to be in shock, but so was she. Jo didn't even know why he would assume that Luna was his. Nor why he didn't already know she was pregnant, especially after she had left so many calls, voicemails, and text that had gone unanswered. He was back, but only for their child, not for her. Yet, seeing as they were one in the same for now, Jo knew that she owed it to her child to allow their father into their life.

“We should talk,” Jo said as she finally let her shirt drop before she walked towards Alex.

Alex just nodded as he continued to stare at her. His eyes flashed between her face and her belly, looking at her and their unborn child. He finally seemed to come back to reality and looked around the room, his eyes glancing at Levi and Luna.

“Is this a good place to talk? I tested negative before I left, and I drove straight here from Kansas. I haven't seen anyone since I left two days ago,” Alex seemed so unsure and so worried as he looked at her. It was so strange to see it on the man she knew was always so confident even while groveling with her.

“I can take Luna for a drive, it might help her fall asleep anyway?” Levi offered, already moving around. He gathered Luna’s things to transfer her oxygen to the portable tank they kept in a backpack by the door and placed her in the car seat.

Jo knew the loft had changed so much since he had left. It looked so different yet still the same where his weights used to be there was now a twin bed set up with a dresser and a few other things as Levi had moved in. Where the dining room was, there was now a crib, a dresser with a changing station, and a rocking chair where his lounger used to be. Next to a rocket-shaped shelf, a rocketship carpet completed the space themed Nursery that Jo had set up for Luna and their baby.

Alex seemed to watch her every move as Jo helped Levi get Luna in the car seat and send her off with a kiss and a wave. Levi gave her one last look, but Jo just gave him a nod before he closed the door behind him. She had been so thankful to have him around. Even in the midst of covid with everything else they all had going on in their lives. Between being pregnant and adopting Luna, he, Meredith, and Link had all been there for her. Jo had still felt so lonely because the one person that was supposed to be there wasn't.

She put a hand on her stomach as she felt the baby do flip flops inside of her, so she rubbed up and down. It always seemed to calm the anxious baby inside of her. Alex took a step forward, and his hand moved as if he wanted to reach out and touch her, but then his hand quickly dropped, and he just looked down at the floor. She wanted him to feel their baby, but she could tell that he was hesitant to touch her again.

Jo went over to the couch, their couch. The one that she bought for him, that they had spent countless nights on together. She fell in love with him on this couch, she made love to him on this couch, hell she was pretty sure they made the baby on this couch. She sat down on one end and moved away the pile of Luna’s laundry and the extra pillows and blankets to create a space for both of them. She wasn’t sure she was ready to have him so close, but it was just instinct and habit and the love she would always have for him. Jo patted the spot she made for him next to her as he slowly made his way over to her.

He still seemed to be a little weary, and she could tell that he was nervous as he sat down next to her, and looked at her bump. “How far along are you?”

Jo knew he was asking just to be sure, but she guessed that he had already done the math in his head. “24 weeks as of yesterday.”

“Are you, are they, are you both healthy?” Alex asked as he rubbed his hands up and down his pant legs as he tried to find something to do with his restless hands.

“Yeah, we're both fine, she’s measuring big, but Carina says we've got the dates right. She looked perfect at the 20-week anatomy scan and at the ultrasound I had a few days ago,” Jo said with a nod as she continued to rub her belly up and down.

“She, it's a girl?” Alex asked, catching her words as he looked up at her with a little bit of a smile.

“Yeah,” Jo said, watching his smile as his eyes seemed to light up. “It's a girl.”

Alex looked so happy and his eyes were bright as he laughed. It was the expression she imagined he would have when she told him she was pregnant. She was happy to see how excited he was for their daughter. He reached out again and put his hand on her belly. She remembered the way that he pulled her in for their first kiss and the shock of electricity between them. It had been pulling them together ever since. She felt that shock now and she knew Alex felt it too as he looked up and briefly caught her eye before he looked down at his hands again. His hands on her body for the first time in six months were an instant comfort. She immediately relaxed as she moved his hand to where the baby was kicking. As his hand settled, his thumb absentmindedly rubbed her belly and Jo relaxed further back into the couch.

“Hi baby girl, it's your Daddy. I'm so excited to meet you,” Alex said, letting out a little laugh as she kicked his hand and he leaned down to kiss her belly without even a second thought.

This was how it was meant to be, the two of them, together for this pregnancy. For a moment, Jo pretended that he had never left.

“She's strong like you,” Alex said, looking up at her as the baby continued to kick his hand. “And like Alexis too. She'll climb anything and she runs all over the farm.”

At the mention of his children, Jo immediately froze up. She didn't resent them, but they were the reason why he left. They were a constant reminder that she was in this alone. Alex felt the tension in her body as his thumb stopped moving and he looked up at her.

“Jo, I know I left, and I'm sorry…”

“No,” Jo said, instantly getting up and putting some space between them. “You don't get to do that. You don't get to try and walk it all back with I'm sorry. You left me, Alex.”

The tears instantly spring into her eyes as she began to cry, and her breath hitched as she tried to inhale. She just felt so broken, so hurt by everything that he did. Alex just looked up at her with his big puppy dog eyes. He gave her the same eyes in the front yard of Amelia and Owen's house all those years ago after he assaulted Deluca. She knows that he had grown up again since then, but after what he did, she doesn't know how things could ever go back to how they were before.

“After everything we've been through, after you promised me again and again, every day that we were together, that you would never leave and then you left!” Jo said, her voice rising as she yelled at him. “You left me pregnant, and alone, and scared. I called your mom and I knew that you weren't in Iowa. You didn't return any of my calls or my texts. You didn't even text Meredith back. I thought you were dead or that worse, that you were cheating on me, and then to find out that you were cheating, it broke me, Alex! But I couldn't let it break me because I was pregnant, and I had to keep it together for our child, and I did. You left and I, I carried on. I went to work, I went to my doctor's appointment, I built a nursery, and I got support from our friends, but not from you. I did everything without you. I am so furious at you for leaving. I am so hurt that you cheated on me. I am so broken because you left. You ignored me and you ignored our daughter. I am more hurt for them than I am for myself because they didn't ask for any of this. I get you leaving to be with your kids, but you had a kid here with me, and you ignored her. I sent you texts and photos and calls and emails, I sent you a freaking letter Alex, and you just ignored all of it!”

“What? Wait, Jo, hold up,” Alex said, standing up and shaking his head as he closed his eyes. “What phone calls, what letters, what texts, I haven't heard from you in months. The last text I got from you was a week after I left asking me if I was okay and how my mom was doing?”

Jo paused, gently wiping away her tears as she just stared at him as confused as he was. There was no way he was lying to her. He looked so genuine and Jo knew that regardless, Alex would never lie to her. She knew him almost as well as she knew herself. Alex Karev was many things, but he wasn't a liar. He dropped everything to be there for his and Izzy's kids and she knew he would never ignore his daughter with her.

“When you stopped returning my calls, I got worried. As soon as I found out that I was pregnant, I called you, and when you didn't pick up, I sent you a photo of the pregnancy test and then later of the ultrasound photo. I left you voicemail after voicemail, and I kept texting you, right up until I got your letter and the divorce papers, back in early February. I sent them back to you with a letter telling you that I was pregnant. When you didn't reply, I thought, I don't know.”

“Jo, I swear to you I never got any of your phone calls or your texts, or the letter, look, check my phone if you don't believe me,” Alex said, as he looked at her holding his phone out to her and she knew without having to see it, he was telling the truth.

Regardless, Jo took the phone and opened it up. The lock screen was a picture of Alexis and Eli. She paused as she stared at them. She had never seen a photo of them before, but the second she did, she knew they were Alex’s kids. Eli was the spitting image of his father and Alexis had his eyes and his smile. They were so beautiful, and she knew that he had instantly fallen in love with them the moment he had seen them because she fell a little bit in love with them too. The two little mini Karevs staring up at her were absolutely adorable and innocent in all this.

Jo put in the password that was still the same and quickly scrolled through his text until she found her name. Sure enough, there was the text that she had sent months ago, asking about Helen, and then nothing. She clicked on the little sidebar and quickly discovered the reason why.

“You blocked me,” Jo said, crossing her arms as she handed the phone back to him.

“What? Alex asked, his eyebrow shot up in surprise as he looked at the phone. “I swear I didn't.”

“If not you, then who? Your other ex-wife or your current wife or girlfriend or whatever the hell she is to you,” Jo couldn't help the malice in her voice and the hatred she had for the woman who had torn them apart with her actions. She was so angry at them both, but especially Alex as he was her husband, and he had made the choice to cheat on her.

“Izzie, fuck,” Alex said as he turned away from her and let out a cry of frustration. “I knew it was weird when I hadn't heard from you. She said it was for the best, but I knew, I knew you wouldn't just stop texting me, but then I thought that maybe you figured it out already, and I don't know.”

He clenched his jaw and looked like he wanted to throw or kick something. Jo grabbed one of Luna’s stuffed animals from the couch and held it out to him. He looked back at her with soft eyes as they both remembered when they used to throw things at the wall together. That memory seemed like a lifetime ago. Alex grabbed the toy and threw it against the wall. It made a satisfying clunk as it hit the metal doors of the cabinet. Alex let out a heavy sigh, having gotten all his frustration out before he sat back down on the couch.

“I tried to teach that technique to Eli and Alexis, but Izzie blew up on me for it. She said it would teach them to be violent and throw things, but honestly, it's the only thing that ever calmed me down. You were the only one who understood my anger,” Alex said as he looked over at her before shaking his head and looking away. “This whole situation it's so messed up. It was all a mistake.”

Jo looked down at the situation in her belly as her baby kicked her hand again. This whole thing was a mess. She didn't want to put Alex in the same position that Izzie had, having to choose between the life that he loved and his responsibilities to his child.

“Look, Alex, we’re fine. We're both doing fine without you. When you left, I stepped up and I figured out how to do this on my own. I've done everything alone, and you know what, I'm pretty damn good at it. So good that when I fell in love with Luna, I didn't even think twice about applying to adopt her and becoming her foster mom. I'm good on my own. I can raise our daughter without you.”

“But you don't have to, Jo. I want to be there for you and for our daughter, for all of it, I want to be on the phone with you for all your appointments, and I want you to hold my hand while you're in labor and screaming at me for knocking you up. I want to be there for our daughter's first breath and when she starts walking and talking. From her first day of school to when she graduates and goes off to college and every sleepless night in between. I want to be there for you and for her,” Alex said as he pleaded with her, all but begging on his knees for her. “I am so sorry, Jo. I swear to God, I didn't know that you were pregnant. The other day this kid showed me this Tik Tok of you and Luna with a photo of me saying that I was her father. That's why I thought she was mine.”

Jo couldn't help the smile as she let out a little laugh and shook her head. “ I downloaded Tik Tok during the pandemic and kind of got hooked. I thought it would just be a funny video for our friends and I don't know. I guess a part of me did think that you would find it, or at least I hoped that you would.”

“If I had known and if I had seen your messages, I would have never....” Alex trailed off as he shook his head, looking down, still ashamed.

“Would you have left?” Jo asked, her voice just a whisper. She knew the answer, but she needed him to say it.

“Leaving Seattle was the worst mistake I've ever made,” Alex said, looking up with her voice and his eyes full of such hurt. “I love my kids, I do, but Kansas isn't my home. Izzie and I, we. I didn’t sleep with her while we were married, I want you to know that. However, once we were divorced, I did try to start a relationship with her, but we were so different she didn't get it. She didn’t get me, not like you do.”

As Alex talked just looked up at her, his eyes full of longing as he got up and came over to her. They were so close that Jo could smell the familiar scent of his cologne and she could see the sparks of gold in his eyes. Her body involuntarily relaxed as he got closer. She longed for him too. All she wanted was to be in his arms again, to wrap her own arms around his neck, to hold him and have him hold her. However, the distance they created between them kept them apart.

“And now, with the pandemic, I barely see them.” Alex continued with a shrug. “I live in a crappy one-bedroom apartment in Kansas City and it sucks. Izzie stays home with them and I only see them through video calls. They meet me at the park on the weekends, even then we stay six apart and they miss me, but they're okay without me. I'm not okay without you and I know you're not okay without me either.”

It's a bold statement, but they both know it’s the truth. Jo felt the tears collect in her eyes again as Alex mirrored her expression, looking about two seconds away from falling apart as well. Just the acknowledgment that she needs him, that he needs her, and that they need each other, was overwhelming.

“I never wanted to do this without you. Every time we talked about kids, I was so terrified, but I knew that I could do it if I had you by my side. When you left, I realized that I could do this regardless, but I don't want to do it alone. I don't want to do any of this without you.”

Jo dissolved into a mess of tears as they streamed down her face. Alex took a quick step forward and he wrapped his arms around her as she truly fell apart. She fell apart in Alex's arms and buried her head in his shoulder, feeling the warmth of his body and feeling his lips against her head. His arms instantly wrapped around her waist and it was everything she had wanted for the past six months. It was in that moment she realized that Alex was truly back. She cried even harder, especially as she felt his chest shake under her as his body was wracked with sobs of his own.

Alex pulled her over to the couch and she sat on his lap as he wrapped his arms around her. They just sat together and cried. Eventually, they cried themselves out and just sat together in silence. Jo curled her fingers into his shirts and pressed her forehead against his shoulder. Alex ran his fingers through her hair like he always used to do as his other hand rested on her belly, feeling their baby move under his hand. She inhaled the sweet scent of his cologne and felt completely surrounded by him. For the first time and six months, Jo felt like she could breathe again.

Everything was how it was always supposed to be. Even if it was just for a moment, it was like a spell had been cast upon them, freezing them in time and allowing them to have just this moment together. Between being pregnant and having a newborn, Jo was exhausted, and she knew Alex hadn't slept since he left Kansas. They both fell asleep in each other's arms on their couch, truly resting for the first time in six months.

They must have slept for a few hours as by the time they woke up, the sun was low on the horizon, streaming golden beams in through the windows. For a moment, Jo pushed away the harsh memories as she woke up in Alex's arms. She pressed her nose into his neck and he seemed to forget it too as he laid a kiss on her forehead. They heard the door squeak open and finally got up. Jo could feel Levi’s eyes on them, but he didn't say anything about it.

“So we went for a little car ride, but she took a nap. Then after she woke up, I took her to the park, and we just watched the birds and sat on the grass and hung out,” Levi said as he lifted Luna out of her car seat and Jo greeted her girl. “I had some ice cream, and Luna had her bottle. She ate about 3 oz and then proceeded to spit up all over me.”

“Oh did you have fun with Uncle Levi at the park,” Jo cooed at Luna as she held her close and pressed a kiss to her little head before inhaling her sweet baby scent.

Levi moved to transfer Lunas oxygen tubes back to her machine. They kept Luna’s oxygen machine next to the couch on the side of her nursery as the 25 ft. oxygen tubes allow them to move around her nursery, the living room, and even into the kitchen.

“Let me help,” Alex said as he stepped forward and quietly helped Levi set up the machine.

After they started a machine and sure that it was working, Levi escaped to the bathroom. He gave them one more look before he disappeared and turned on the fan as if to give them added privacy.

Luna seemed content as Jo smiled down at her oldest girl. Of all the hurt she’d had in the past six months, Luna had been a wonderful bright spot. Jo couldn't help but fall in love with her, especially after Val died. Jo felt the need to step up and take care of her. Besides, she couldn't imagine sending her into the foster care system, so she had started the process of adopting her. The baby in her belly made her a mother, but Luna made her a mom. She made Jo realize that she could do this, but as she looked over at Alex, she knew she didn't have to do this alone.

Alex leaned against the couch as he watched them with curiosity. As Jo turned around to look at him, he smiled at the little girl in her arms. She walked over to him as he tentatively stepped closer before Jo transferred Luna into his arms.

“Alex, this is Luna, my little liver baby,” Jo said, smiling down at Luna with such affection as she rubbed her thumb over Luna’s cheek. “She grew on the liver of a patient that came into the ER. I operated on her mom, Val, and Carina delivered her. When Val didn't make it, I decided to adopt her. It was kind of impulsive, but I just looked at her, and I knew that she was mine. She came home with me a few weeks ago. She loves the little star mobile that I hung above her crib, and she only falls asleep to the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star song. She hates bath time and loves snuggles, so I babywear her all the time. I talked to her, and she just stares at me, but I know that she’s listening. I love her so much and she's just, she’s perfect.”

Alex just stared at her, taking in her words with a large smile before he looked down at Luna. She waved her arms up at him, reaching out for him as he reached down to grab her finger and shook her little hand. “It's nice to meet you, Miss. Luna. I'm Alex, I'm your Sissy's dad, but I look forward to getting to know you as well.”

“Autumn, I was thinking of calling her Autumn, Attie for short, since I'm due in October,” Jo said, putting a hand on her belly and feeling her baby kick again.

“Autumn, that sounds perfect, and I guess I owe you full naming rights,” Alex said as he smiled back at her before looking down at Luna again and sticking his tongue out at her as she cooed.

There was something about seeing Alex with her daughter that was just so perfect, and After everything that had happened today, Jo found herself falling back in love with him again. It was one of the reasons why she fell in love with him in the first place because he was so good with the kids, and he was kind to her after he found out about her past. He was gentle, and kind, and understanding throughout this whole thing. He never once blamed her or tried the force his way back into her life. He just wanted to be there for her and his daughter. He was the Alex that she had fallen in love with. Although she knew, he was still the Alex that had left her.

Luna fussed and began to cry as Jo stepped forward to take her back. She waved her arms around and reached up and pulled out her oxygen cannulas as Jo cursed.

“How well does she do off oxygen?” Alex said, quickly moving to put the tubes back in her nose as he looked over at her oxygenation monitor. He swayed back and forth as Luna continued to fuss and throw her arms around.

“Okay, for about 20 minutes or so. She had a branchial cyst, so they had to resect part of her lung. Hayes thinks she’ll have to be on oxygen for a few more months or so,” Jo said as she went over to Luna’s dresser where she kept all of her medical equipment and grabbed the extra tape and things so they could redo the tape.

Alex set her down on the bed as Jo came back over. They worked together as Alex used the wipe to remove the stickiness for the existing tape while Jo held Luna’s arms to keep her from pulling it out again. Alex put the nose part in Luna’s nostrils before he gently taped down both sides of the tubes on her cheeks, and Jo adjusted the tubes positions. It wasn’t the first time they had redone an oxygen cannula together, and they worked as a team so effortlessly. It was the same way that they used to work together at the hospital.

As they finished, Jo picked up Luna and bounced her as she calmed down. With Luna now calm and content, Jo set her in the bassinet at the end of her bed. She just looked at him and felt a pull to him as she took a step towards him. Alex’s lips parted as she pressed up against him, as close as she could with her baby bump in between them. She reached out to put her hand on his cheek as he closed his eyes and tilted his head into her hand. She knew that he missed her touch as much as she missed him. Jo couldn’t help but wrap her arms around him as she leaned in for a kiss. They deepened the kiss as he wrapped his arm around her, and Jo moaned into his lips. Alex eagerly pressed his lips against her, and it was like coming home. Nothing about the Loft, or the hospital, or anything in Seattle had felt like home since Alex left, but his lips, they felt like home.

They didn't break apart until they heard the squeaky door to the bathroom open again as Levi appeared. Jo turned around and pressed her fingers to her lips as if it would keep the kiss on her skin. She glanced over at Levi as he looked between them and instantly read their body language. For someone who could never figure out if a guy liked him back, Levi sure as hell read Alex and Jo like a book.

“So I'm guessing you're back,” Levi asked, raising his eyebrows and looking between the two of them. “Does that mean you're staying here? Do I have to move out? Like I know I could move in with Taryn if I needed to, but we're in the middle of a pandemic and her roommate is really mean!”

Jo wasn't sure as she looked over at Alex, who just shrugged. “It's up to you, whatever you're comfortable with. I can get a hotel room or maybe stay with Meredith?”

“Well, I guess you can stay. Besides, I need someone to send out at 2:00 in the morning when I get a craving for burgers or when Luna runs out of diapers, but maybe you should sleep on the couch for now,” Jo said as she bit her lip as she looked over at him, but Alex just nodded.

Alex moved around the apartments as if he had never left as he began to make dinner for them. Jo picked up Luna again and sat down in the rocking chair in her nursery space as Levi started to help Alex relearn where everything was after he had organized the fridge. An easy banter started up between the three of them and Jo put a hand on her belly as Autumn started to do flip-flops again while Luna was the opposite as her eyes fluttered close. Jo held one of her daughters in her arms as she put her hand on her belly where her other daughter was. She looked up at her ex-husband and baby daddy as he made dinner with her gay best friend and little brother. It was the weirdest family dynamics she had ever had, but she was content.

……………………………………………………………………

Later that night, Jo stared up at the skylights. She had just gotten Luna back down after a bottle, and now she was trying to return to sleep herself. Yet, sleep evaded her and part of that was due to Autumn doing flips in her belly. She was currently swimming around like a little fish and keeping Jo up as they pressed against her organs. Jo took a deep breath, which quickly turned into a yawn before she realized she had to use the restroom. Her quick trip to the toilet only made Autumn more active. Jo sighed as she laid back down and she rubbed her belly up and down. This usually helped to calm Attie down, but tonight she must have felt particularly acrobatic as she moved around. Jo wasn't sure what she did, but suddenly, she felt a twinge of pain in her stomach as Autumn kicked her, hard.

“Aw fuck,” Jo swore as she rubbed her hand against her lower abdomen.

“Jo, you alright?”

She jumped and sat up as she looked over to see Alex sitting up on the couch. “Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. It's just the baby moving around and she kicked a little too hard. I'm not used to having to be quiet as Levi usually puts earplugs in at night, and Luna will sleep through anything.”

To her surprise, Alex just chuckled as he got up and came over to her, sitting next to her on the bed and putting his hands on her belly. “Hey, Attie, you be nice to your mom, yeah?”

Instantly the kicks in her belly became softer as Attie quieted down. Jo raised her eyebrows in surprise as she looked up at him. Throughout her pregnancy, no one had been able to get her to calm down so quickly.

“Wow, I can't believe that worked,” Jo said as Alex smiled, he pulled his hand away, but Attie’s kicking started up again, and she got Jo good in her kidneys as she cringed and held her side. “Or not.”

“Lay back,” Alex instructed as she complied and laid back down as he adopted that adorable grumpy look that she loved so much. He put his hands back on her belly and leaned forward to whisper to Autumn. “Hey you, I thought we agreed that you were going to be nice to your mom? It's been a long day, and she agreed to let my sorry ass stay with her. I think the least that you and I can do is let her get some rest.”

Instantly Attie calmed down to the sound of her father's voice and Alex looked up at her. He seemed so proud that he had gotten his daughter to calm down and looked up at her with a smile.

“Thank you,” Jo whispered, letting out a breath of relief.

“No problem, besides, it's the least I can do as I’m part of the reason why she's kicking you,” Alex said, as a soft look appeared on his face and he just seemed to stare at her for a moment.

She could tell that he was head over heels in love with her. She used to catch him with that look when she was on his service as an intern, and it was that same look he gave her when she met him at the end of the day when he worked at Pac North. It was the look he had given her all throughout their relationship and even on the day he left. After he walked through security, he turned around and gave her that look before he paused and waved at her before he disappeared into the crowd. Jo remembered that day like it was yesterday, just as she remembered the hurt of the letter that was still fresh in her heart.

After a moment, Alex got up again, but the second his hands left her belly, Autumn started up again, and Jo scrunched up her face, and she beckoned for him to come back. He instantly came back and put his hands on her belly. Once again, Autumn calmed back down as her hard kicks and flips became light flutters in her belly.

Jo let out a sigh as she reached out to grab his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Could you stay?”

“Are you sure?” Alex asked as he tilted his head just a little bit.

Jo just nodded because the truth was that she wasn't sure that she should let Alex back into her bed, but he seemed to be the only thing that calmed down their daughter. He crawled in bed behind her like he had done when they were together. As he moved back to his spot in the bed and laid behind her before he wrapped his arms around her to rest on her bump. She had missed being held by him like this. They were never one for cuddling, but she liked knowing that he was right there next to her. She missed the way that he used to roll over in the middle of the night and hold her close just for a moment.

Attie seemed to have calmed down for the night and Jo closed her eyes. Jo didn't know where they would go from there, but she trusted that he wasn’t going anywhere. She knew she shouldn't trust Alex again, but somehow she did. She always knew that he would be a good father and that it would be one of his best traits. He left her to be with his children, but a part of her knew that he wouldn't leave her child and, by extension, her. Jo would always allow Alex to love their daughter.

Alex seemed a little hesitant, but eventually, she felt him relax against her as he pressed a kissed her cheek just like he used to. Jo both loved it and hated it, as she felt a mixture of hurt and love for him right now. It wasn't something that she was unfamiliar with when she was with him. She knew there was still hurt and the need for healing, but the love was always there, and she wanted that love for her daughter. So she let him stay and fell asleep in his arms.

……………………………………………………………………

AN: This is absolutely just a one-shot, so don’t ask for a sequel.

#jo wilson #alex karev #grey's anatomy #jolex #otp: home and heart #grey's anatomy fanfic #levi schmitt #luna ashton #izzie stevens #alexis stevens #eli stevens #my work #my writing #my fanfiction #luna wilson

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kvetchlandia · 4 years

Photo

Dave Heath New York City c.1957

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz, who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated, who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war, who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull, who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall, who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York, who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls, incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the motionless world of Time between, Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind, who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo, who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s floated out and sat through the stale beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi’s, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox, who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge, a lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills off Empire State out of the moon, yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars, whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the Synagogue cast on the pavement, who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic City Hall, suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grindings and migraines of China under junk-withdrawal in Newark’s bleak furnished room, who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts, who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grandfather night, who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas, who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary indian angels who were visionary indian angels, who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy, who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Oklahoma on the impulse of winter midnight streetlight smalltown rain, who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup, and followed the brilliant Spaniard to converse about America and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship to Africa, who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees and the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fireplace Chicago, who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the FBI in beards and shorts with big pacifist eyes sexy in their dark skin passing out incomprehensible leaflets, who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism, who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed, who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons, who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication, who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts, who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy, who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love, who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may, who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath when the blond & naked angel came to pierce them with a sword, who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman’s loom, who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a candle and fell off the bed, and continued along the floor and down the hall and ended fainting on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness, who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling in the sunset, and were red eyed in the morning but prepared to sweeten the snatch of the sunrise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake, who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these poems, cocksman and Adonis of Denver—joy to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses’ rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings & especially secret gas-station solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too, who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in dreams, woke on a sudden Manhattan, and picked themselves up out of basements hung-over with heartless Tokay and horrors of Third Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemployment offices, who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on the snowbank docks waiting for a door in the East River to open to a room full of steam-heat and opium, who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment cliff-banks of the Hudson under the wartime blue floodlight of the moon & their heads shall be crowned with laurel in oblivion, who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested the crab at the muddy bottom of the rivers of Bowery, who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music, who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge, and rose up to build harpsichords in their lofts, who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded by orange crates of theology, who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish, who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht & tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom, who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg, who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade, who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores where they thought they were growing old and cried, who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse & the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors, or were run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality, who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer, who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of the subway window, jumped in the filthy Passaic, leaped on negroes, cried all over the street, danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed phonograph records of nostalgic European 1930s German jazz finished the whiskey and threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans in their ears and the blast of colossal steamwhistles, who barreled down the highways of the past journeying to each other’s hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude watch or Birmingham jazz incarnation, who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity, who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who came back to Denver & waited in vain, who watched over Denver & brooded & loned in Denver and finally went away to find out the Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes, who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other’s salvation and light and breasts, until the soul illuminated its hair for a second, who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for impossible criminals with golden heads and the charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet blues to Alcatraz, who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers to boys or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the daisychain or grave, who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism & were left with their insanity & their hands & a hung jury, who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy, and who were given instead the concrete void of insulin Metrazol electricity hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong & amnesia, who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic pingpong table, resting briefly in catatonia, returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood, and tears and fingers, to the visible madman doom of the wards of the madtowns of the East, Pilgrim State’s Rockland’s and Greystone’s foetid halls, bickering with the echoes of the soul, rocking and rolling in the midnight solitude-bench dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a nightmare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon, with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement window, and the last door closed at 4 A.M. and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply and the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture, a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination— ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you’re really in the total animal soup of time— and who therefore ran through the icy streets obsessed with a sudden flash of the alchemy of the use of the ellipsis catalogue a variable measure and the vibrating plane, who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space through images juxtaposed, and trapped the archangel of the soul between 2 visual images and joined the elemental verbs and set the noun and dash of consciousness together jumping with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head, the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet putting down here what might be left to say in time come after death, and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in the goldhorn shadow of the band and blew the suffering of America’s naked mind for love into an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years.

--Allen Ginsberg, “Howl, part 1″ 1956

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feverinfeveroutfic · 3 years

Text

chapter thirty-two: heart of gold

“i wanna live, i wanna give, i’ve been a miner for a heart of gold. it’s these expressions that i never give: that keep me searching for a heart of gold.” -”heart of gold”, neil young

Oswego was a rather tightly woven little dot upon the southeastern shore of Lake Ontario, at least according to Joey. He also explained that the nuclear power plant on the far side of town was so set apart from everything else that it seemed to come from another world altogether. He made a joke about the river waters being radioactive but it only made Sam wary of everything around there.

“Nah—they haven't had a meltdown up there,” he assured her, “that's just the whole joke about being from here is all. That we all glow in the dark like a buncha of glow sticks or sump'n.” But then he drove them back to his place down in a town known as Camillus, not too far on the outskirts of Syracuse.

“Hang on, I thought you lived closer to New York City,” Sam confessed.

“I mean, it technically is—about a half an hour less of a drive. Oh, you talking about my old place? I had to move back around here in March 'cause that drive was getting treacherous in its own rite and rent was getting to be too much. I would'a told you sooner but—you know. Things happen. I'm making a little bit more money than I was before so I was able to do it.”

“Right, right, right.” Sam flashed back and when she, Frank, and Charlie had to rescue him from the snow.

“Besides, I was startin' to miss this part of upstate, as you'll see here in a couple of minutes.”

Despite the darkness, the orange and yellow trees that lined the landscape made her think of fire or the cotton balls she would find a craft shop. The nondescript edge of town reminded her of California as well as the outskirts of Reno and Carson City. The two lane highway turned into a four lane main street and she spotted the faint line of lights over a ridge on the southern side of town: the brightest yellow light shone out from the top part of the ridge. Sam glanced about the block for anything notable to recall for the next time she visited.

“Not much here,” she remarked.

“Nah, there really isn't,” he confessed with a shrug of his shoulders. “'Swaygo is even worse as we'll see tomorrow. But every part of this is home to me. I was born in 'Swaygo and I grew up all around here. Even though I've moved outta 'Swaygo, I still call it home.”

They rolled up to a stoplight and Sam peered across the intersection to the long low brick building nestled next door to a fuel station. She recognized a paint palette over the front window and a line of big bold text right over it.

“Is that an art store?” she asked with a gesture out the windshield.

“It sure is!” he declared. “Given it's night time and we're a buncha hicks 'round here, they're closed for the night. But we can go in there tomorrow if you'd like.”

“Yeah, I kinda need something to make an artistic rendering of you,” she explained, “and even though I have plenty of things back home for that, it's still a four hour drive regardless.”

The light turned green and they lunged forward. They drove past the art store and a mere white light shone in the front window: she knew that tomorrow was going to be quite the eventful for them as Joey hung a right past the shop.

“Right down this way,” he explained as they drove down the dark side street to the very end. He reached the stop sign and he peered both ways about the dark neighborhood. No one coming.

He rolled forward to the low apartment complex right in front of them, such that it took her by surprise.

“Yeah, it surprised my mom when I brought my parents along when I moved in here,” he told her; even in the dim light, she could make out the sight of that lopsided grin upon his face. Even though he had just turned twenty six, he still resembled to a little boy with that smile on his face and that twinkle in his eyes even in the darkness.

They bounded into the driveway and then they posted up at the big cube of silver mailboxes.

“Gotta check it out first,” he told her as he unbuckled his seat belt and slid out of his car. He rounded the front end, and the headlights shone upon his slender body as he made his way over to the mailboxes. Sam watched him fetch for the mail but then she noticed the soft glow of the headlights on the back of his curls. It was right there she wanted to draw him and then to paint him out with oil paints. Not watercolor, not acrylic, but oil paints.

She hadn't worked with oil paints before, but she wanted to do it right there for him.

He returned to the driver's seat with a little pink sheet of paper in hand.

“Gotta care package from my aunt,” he told her.

“Oh, boy!” she declared.

“I can't get it right now, though—tomorrow is gonna be quite full for the both of us.”

He started up the car again and they made their way over to the building on the right. Right before their parking spot stood a little walkway that extended around the building and into the darkness. Joey led Sam around the corner to a low doorstep and a cold blue door: when he unlocked the door, he let her go inside of the dark and cool apartment first. When she was inside, he reached for the light switch on the wall. It was a small place: they stood in the living room right there, which consisted of nothing more than a small thread bare gray couch and a small side table with a black lamp and a low glass coffee table; an eggshell colored vent about the width of the door itself stood on the left side of the room. Right in front of them was the kitchen, a narrow sliver of a room rounded by a low table with three chairs. To her right was a stone stairwell which led up to the loft.

“I assume that's your room upstairs?” she asked him with a point to the stairs.

“Sure is. Bathroom's up there, too, and—I think I have a spare tooth brush in my medicine cabinet. I'll haveta check 'cause I know how sucky the aftertaste of coffee can be, especially this time of day. But in the meantime, make yourself at home here, Sam I am.”

He shut the door behind him and he darted up the stone steps. Sam peered about the small living room: right behind her was a tiny television with rabbit ears over the top; a long low barren bookshelf, barren saved for a small handful of books and a few stacks of vinyl; another lamp up top with a cream colored lampshade, and a small hockey trophy. She stooped down for a look at the bookshelf: nothing she had heard of herself, but it was in fact comforting to see that Joey did have another nuance to him. She eyed the vinyl records, at all the Journey and Led Zeppelin, Foreigner and the Beatles, Deep Purple and Rush, Kansas and Yes. She let her eyes wander over the record player itself, tucked behind the television and with the cable coiled up on top of the protective glass. She wished for her copy of Spreading the Disease to merely appear before her just so she could play it right then and there.

“Yeah, I do have a spare one,” he was saying as he descended the stairs, and he stopped right in his tracks. Sam turned her attention to his standing on the bottom step. Joey showed her another little grin.

“Ah, I see you found my music collection,” he proclaimed; he lay the head of the plain red toothbrush in one hand as if it was a club.

“Of course,” she declared with a beaming smile on her face. She lifted herself into an upright position and brushed herself off even though the floor was clean.

“I learned to sing by singing to songs from the Beatles and Journey, y'know,” he said as he neared her, “I literally would sit in my parents' living room and listen to records on their player and try to sing along to the Fab Four and Steve Perry. I'd also sing to Foreigner and Rush, and that was how my voice came to be so high and light.”

“Gotta start somewhere,” she added.

“Gotta start somewhere, right,” he echoed, and he handed her the toothbrush.

“Thank you,” she said in a soft voice as if he had just given her the best gift ever.

“I also hate to make you sleep on the couch,” he confessed with a shrug of his shoulders. “I just think back to how uncomfortable we both were in the cabin last year for my birthday.”

“No, no, no—it's okay,” she assured him, and she couldn't think of anything else to follow up to that.

“It is pretty comfy,” he continued on. “I've napped on it many times before. One time, I came home at three o'clock in the morning and I pretty much collapsed onto it face down ass up. I actually woke up face down ass up. That's how comfy that couch is—I slept for four hours in that position. Wouldn't use one of those pillows, though—it's hard on the neck.”

“Do you have a spare pillow?” she asked him.

“I do, as a matter of fact.”

“Do you have a blanket?”

“I have many. Sam, this is upstate New York and I've lived out here the twenty six years I've been alive—we gotta have a shitload of blankets and a warm place to sleep at otherwise no one can survive up here. You can use a bit of my toothpaste, too.”

“Good to know,” she confessed as she tapped the head of the toothbrush against the inside of her palm. “'Cause—I gotta get this taste of coffee out of my mouth.”

* * * * *

Sam jerked over onto her side there on the couch cushions. Joey was in fact right about the couch: it was comfortable. Almost too comfortable. She had a difficult time even so much rolling over on her side or onto her back. She had woken up twice throughout the night but she had fallen back asleep. Perhaps it was from laying in a bed different from hers that threw her off a bit.

The spare soft pillow cradled her head: she sighed through her nose and kept her eyes shut against the rich darkness before her. The only sound came from the pipes running in the wall and Joey's slow, gentle breathing upstairs.

She thought about the incident with Alex back at the coffee house and that little raise of his eyebrows. He had softened for her a little bit right there, even with Joey right behind her ready to beat him down yet again. She barely knew the young man and he looked at her like that because of her past with Cliff.

She couldn't stop seeing it over and over again inside of her mind. Not to mention that little sliver of gray hair over his brow kept reappearing in her mind.

She thought about the mysterious man and the stripe in his hair. No way that was him, even though he shared a lot of similar looks to him. The stripe was far too big and Alex had too soft of a face as well. And yet she wondered about him. One thing that baffled her about him was his referring to Joey as her boyfriend. As far as she knew, he only saw them together that one time, unless he saw more of what Joey was doing at the memorial than she did: it made no sense to her.

It was all so much to think about that she wound up falling asleep again.

No sooner had Sam fallen back to sleep when she woke up yet again, that time to the sound of a heavy rain outside of the apartment window right in front of her. Joey yawned upstairs and cleared his throat. She opened her eyes and soft bluish gray light shone through the heavy white blinds.

Joey cleared his throat again.

“Hey, Sam, you awake?” he called out to her.

She groaned and rubbed her eyes.

“Sam?”

“Yeah—I just woke up. Why? What's up?”

“Kinda hungry right now. You want some breakfast?”' “Please,” she said in a broken voice.

She heard Joey climbing out of bed up there, and then he padded down the stone steps.

After a brew of coffee and a bite of biscuits and gravy courtesy of him, they climbed back into his car and drove down the block to that art store right as it opened for the day.

There were only six aisles before her, but she knew it was all for the best with all the smallness of the town. She couldn't hardly resist that new art supply smell as she picked out a pair of paint brushes and some acrylic paints: she had considered those beautiful oil paints but she wasn't willing to bust down for a can of turpentine, nor was she willing to fill Joey's apartment with that acrid odor. A brand new medium for herself and for Joey as well.

Meanwhile, Joey himself checked out the little wooden blank mannequins on the other side of the room: he picked one of the smaller ones for a closer look. Sam watched him move the arms about for the perfect pose. He set down the mannequin and he posed in its wake, as if he was ready to pose for her when they got the chance that weekend. But she couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of him.

Once she had picked out a canvas and spent the rest of the spare change in her pocket, she and Joey made their way back out to the lake effect rains.

“I got a little something waiting for us back at my place,” he said once they ducked back into the car in unison.

“Like what?” she asked him, but he didn't reply to her. He never did reply to her as they returned to the apartment and she set her things down on the coffee table in front of the couch. Joey ducked into the kitchen for something: Sam took the plain off white canvas out into the open. She ran her hand across the heavy grain of the canvas: like a thick heavy rug right underneath her skin.

“Sam?” he called to her. She raised her gaze to the counter top, and the tall brown glass bottle right before him, right in between his hands. She spotted the label on the front side there and her heart skipped several beats at the sight of it.

“Joey,” she begged as she shook her head at that. “Joey, please don't.”

“Why?” He frowned at her.

“Because it has booze in it.”

“And?”

“Joey, please,” she pleaded as she stood to her feet and scrambled closer to him. “I want you to stay away from the booze for a time.”

He never changed his expression at the sight of her.

“Why? It's just you and me here. And it's a whole weekend, too. You've got time before you gotta mosey on back to school.”

“Joey—you don't want to go there right now.”

“What? It's just one drink, though.”

“Yes, and one drink leads to a second one and a third one. It happened at the restaurant with all of us there before—and it'll happen again.”

He nibbled on his bottom lip and she watched his hand as it rested on the bottle neck. His fingers stayed curled around the smooth glass. It was dead silent in that room: silent save for her own shuddered breath.

“What if I told you,” he began in a low voice, “that I feel better stripping down to bare skin with a drink in me?”

“Just one?” she demanded.

“Just one.”

“I'll stand here while you drink it down, though. I need you to be as clear as possible to boot.”

“Clear but also loose.”

“Exactly,” she said, reluctant. Joey pried off the cap and he tipped the bottle back into his mouth. She set her hands on the edge of the counter and watched him. He drank it down in four large gulps, and he ran his tongue around his lips like that of a snake.

He fluttered his eyelids at her and set the bottle down on the counter in between them. She scanned his face and at his brown eyes in particular. Even in a few seconds time, she could see the effects of it overcoming him. The canvas and the paints awaited her.

“Let your clothes fall to the floor,” she told him in a low voice. He stuck out his tongue at her, and then he cracked a little grin at her.

“Come on—let them fall right off of your body.

He unfastened the button on those tight jeans and he let them fall down his legs towards his feet.

“D'you take your shoes off?” she asked him.

He then stooped down and pried off his shoes.

“I have now,” he said as he kicked off his jeans and left them there on the linoleum. He then peeled off his shirt and lay it across the counter.

“Man, you do not hold your liquor well, do you?” she joked.

“I dunno 'bout that,” he admitted; he stood there in his underwear right before her with a giddy look on his face. Sam frowned at him and she set one hand on her hip.

“What's the matter?” he asked her.

“Take off your underwear.”

“Why?”

“Don't question it. Just do it.”

He sighed through his nose and then he slipped his thumbs inside of that elastic band. He let them fall onto the floor, right next to his jeans. Sam gestured for him to follow her.

“Right over here,” she encouraged him in a gentle tone; and she led him to the middle of the living room, right in front of the coffee table. “Hang on a second—”

She doubled back to the kitchen table for a chair, and she brought it back to him. A perfect fit in between the coffee table and the vent on the wall.

“Have a seat.”

Joey plunked down on the cushion and spread his legs out a little bit for her to see in between his thighs.

“Want me to pose for ya?” he cracked as he raised his arms over his head.

“No. Just sit normal. Let me see you. Let me see you in your entirety.”

Joey set those large hands on either side of his hips, right on the edge of the seat. Sam headed into the kitchen for a wash basin.

“There's an empty pickle jar right there next to the sink,” he told her; indeed, there was, so she picked it out and filled it with clean cool water from the faucet. She returned to him and picked up the paint brush. The sole light came from the kitchen and from the window on the side of the room but it proved to be enough for her. A nice moody painting for the man himself.

Even with the cool lighting in that apartment, there was a bit of a sheen to his skin, especially right around his knees and his ankles. A healthy shine of sorts upon the rich darkness about his skin, and one that she was eager to cover with her paint brush.

She didn't have her pencil in hand, but she could have a good look at his slender nude body before her. He had eaten and drank down a bit of alcohol: he was full enough for her and those soft yellow and brown tones for his skin.

She thought about Alex and the little pearl of gray hair over his forehead. She gazed at the painted head on the paper, at Joey's head of black curls. A fleeting thought crossed through her mind that told her to dip the brush into white paint and make a little pearl over his forehead. And yet she flashed back on their scuffle back at the coffee house: she need not draw attention to that, even if it was art.

Such a small, slender little body. Much like Cliff, he had a little crease in between his waist and his thighs as if he had had a belt there. Maybe it was just part of the male anatomy, to have that little crease there near their thigh region. If there was one thing she needed to polish up on in her future drawing classes, it was all of that. The taste of the fundamentals and perhaps running away with them more and more in her own artistry.

She used that one brush for his whole body and his thick black hair. A touch of blue all over and she had a portrait of Joey, done with nothing more than her and him in the safety and privacy of his own home.

“May I see it?” he asked her.

“Of course! You are the subject after all.”

She picked up the canvas and she showed it off to him, and he brought a hand to his chest.

“I don't have a pencil on hand so I just winged the whole thing,” she confessed, “so it's a bit rougher than I like and what I'm used to, too.”

“No, no, I love it! And it's not just the booze talking with that, either—that really looks like a Native American painting! I wanna share that with everyone now.”

“Well, it has to dry out first,” she told him as she placed it back down on the coffee table.

“Okay. Should I get dressed now?”

“Please,” she encouraged him with a gesture to him.

“I'll get dressed and I'll drive us up to 'Swaygo 'cause the day is still pretty young.”

“As long as you're up to par,” she pointed out. “I'm not riding in the same car with a drunk dude.”

“I ain't drunk, though—just kinda tipsy. I can talk you there, though, if you'd like.”

“Yeah, sure, I'll take that.”

Joey headed back into the kitchen for his clothes and his shoes. He then handed her the car keys and they strode on outside, where the rain had backed off a great deal into a fine drizzle. She climbed behind the wheel of his car: it felt like a million years since she last drove a car with all the rides she had gotten, from Charlie as well as the subways. But she managed to drive them up to Oswego, the city by the lake, by Joey's direction. Even with the one drink in his system, she could tell that he wasn't up to par to drive any distance, but he was lucid enough to tell her about it.

By the middle of the day, and by the time they had cleared a low rolling hill outside of Syracuse, she spotted the vast black sheet off in the distance and she knew that had to be Lake Ontario. The gray of the lake hung over that small city like a protective blanket, and she thought of the towns back in California, all the ones that lined the coastline and beckoned everyone with beaches, but there was something else to it. The gray washed over everything and left it all muted in its wake: the sole black and white light house off in the distance only added to the feeling of it all.

“So this is Oswego,” she declared. “This is where you grew up.”

“Born and raised!” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “The lake looks so cold right now,” he added.

“I imagine the snow here getting crazy,” she said.

“Oh—the time you, Charlie, and Frankie had to come get me was only a little part of it. Up here, we really only got two seasons: winter and road work. If they aren't working on the roads, it's probably snowing a shitload. And we often get feet of snow down by the lake shore, too. Speaking of which, I think it might snow in a bit. It feels like snow and looks it, too.”

“Sounds like Carson,” she noted as they rolled up to the first stoplight. “Almost word for word. Except Carson and Reno are both in the desert rather than near a lake.”

“Huh. Wow.” He raised his eyebrows at that.

“Yeah, it's—kinda crazy to think about especially when I hear the same thing being said about a place that's still relatively new to me.”

He then turned his head in her direction.

“I think I like you, Sam,” he admitted in a soft voice.

“I have seen you after all,” she added.

“You've seen me in the buff. And—if I'm bein' perfectly honest, I kinda wanna see you do more of it.”

“You want me to do it again,” she stifled a chuckle.

“If ya don't mind,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders.

“I'll have a pencil next time. I'll also make sure you're genuinely comfortable, like I want to make you comfortable around me sans the alcohol.”

“You have a heart of gold, Sam,” he declared.

“Nah—you're the one with the heart of gold, Joey,” she said as the light turned green. “It's in there under all those proverbial scars. It just needs to be coaxed out.”

#fanfic #anthrax fanfic #fanfiction #anthrax #joey belladonna #joey belladonna x oc #chapter 32 #deadly nightshade #book two #fever in fever out #fever in fever out fanfic #slice of life #artistry #writing #also on ao3 #text

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newloverofbeauty · 4 years

Photo

Richard Avedon: Peter Orlovsky & AllenGinsberg (1963)

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural

darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,

who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,

who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,

who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,

who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall,

who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,

who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night

with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls,

incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson,

illuminating all the motionless world of Time between,

Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over

the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun

and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings

and kind king light of mind,

who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx

on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-

wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo,

who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s floated out and sat through the stale

beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi’s, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox,

who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge,

a lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills off Empire State out of the moon,

yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and

eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars, whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with brilliant eyes,

meat for the Synagogue cast on the pavement,

who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic City Hall,

suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grindings and migraines of China under junk-withdrawal in Newark’s bleak furnished room,

who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts,

who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grandfather night,

who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas,

who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary indian angels who were visionary indian angels,

who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy,

who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Oklahoma on the impulse of winter midnight streetlight smalltown rain,

who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup, and

followed the brilliant Spaniard to converse about America and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship to Africa,

who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees and

the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fireplace Chicago,

who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the FBI in beards and shorts with big

pacifist eyes sexy in their dark skin passing out incomprehensible leaflets,

who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism,

who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing

while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed

down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed,

who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons,

who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime

but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication,

who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts,

who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,

who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love,

who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may,

who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath

when the blond & naked angel came to pierce them with a sword,

who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate

the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb

and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman’s loom,

who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer a sweetheart a package of

cigarettes a candle and fell off the bed, and continued along the floor and down the hall

and ended fainting on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness,

who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling in the sunset, and were red eyed

in the morning but prepared to sweeten the snatch of the sunrise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake,

who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these poems,

cocksman and Adonis of Denver—joy to the memory of his innumerable

lays of girls in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses’ rickety rows, on mountaintops

in caves or with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings &

especially secret gas-station solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too,

who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in dreams, woke on a sudden

Manhattan, and picked themselves up out of basements hung-over with heartless Tokay

and horrors of Third Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemployment offices,

who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on the snowbank docks waiting for a

door in the East River to open to a room full of steam-heat and opium,

who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment cliff-banks of the Hudson under the

wartime blue floodlight of the moon & their heads shall be crowned with laurel in oblivion,

who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested the crab at the muddy bottom of the rivers of Bowery,

who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music,

who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge, and rose up to build harpsichords in their lofts,

who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded by orange crates of theology,

who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish,

who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht & tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom,

who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg,

who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade,

who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to

open antique stores where they thought they were growing old and cried,

who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse & the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments of fashion & the nitroglycerine

shrieks of the fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors, or were run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality,

who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown

and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer,

who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of the subway window, jumped in the

filthy Passaic, leaped on negroes, cried all over the street, danced on broken wineglasses

barefoot smashed phonograph records of nostalgic European 1930s German jazz

finished the whiskey and threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans in their ears and the blast of colossal steamwhistles,

who barreled down the highways of the past journeying to each other’s hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude watch or Birmingham jazz incarnation,

who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision

or you had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity,

who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who came back to Denver & waited in vain,

who watched over Denver & brooded & loned in Denver and finally went away to find out

the Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes,

who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other’s salvation and light and breasts, until the soul illuminated its hair for a second,

who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for impossible criminals with golden heads

and the charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet blues to Alcatraz,

who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers

to boys or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the daisychain or grave,

who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism & were left with their insanity & their hands & a hung jury,

who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented

themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy, and

who were given instead the concrete void of insulin Metrazol electricity hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong & amnesia,

who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic pingpong table, resting briefly in catatonia,

returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood, and tears and fingers, to the

visible madman doom of the wards of the madtowns of the East,

Pilgrim State’s Rockland’s and Greystone’s foetid halls, bickering with the echoes

of the soul, rocking and rolling in the midnight solitude-bench dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a nightmare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon,

with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement window, and the last door closed at 4 A.M.

and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply and the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture,

a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination—

ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you’re really in the total animal soup of time—

and who therefore ran through the icy streets obsessed with a sudden flash of the

alchemy of the use of the ellipsis catalogue a variable measure and the vibrating plane,

who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space through images juxtaposed, and

trapped the archangel of the soul between 2 visual images and joined the elemental verbs

and set the noun and dash of consciousness together jumping with sensation of Pater

Omnipotens Aeterna Deus

to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you

speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head,

the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet putting down here what might be left to say in time come after death,

and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in the goldhorn shadow of the band and

blew the suffering of America’s naked mind for love into an eli eli lamma lamma

sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio

with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat

a thousand years.

–Allen Ginsberg, “Howl, part 1″ 1956

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fatedtruths · 3 years

Text

OLIVER VERSE OVERVIEW - AU : SMLLVILLE with a smile that could light up a barn

after defeating ra’s , and needing to get away from star city just to sort his head out , oliver travels around for a while before ending up in metropolis . it’s quite by accident . he sees the meteor shower and hears about it on the radio , he’s not that far away , then he gets a call from barry telling him about meta activity after some kind of meteor shower in the city and maybe he could check in on it ?

so he purchases a loft in metropolis , kitting it out in the only way he knows how , and realises that the green arrow is probably going to have to make some kind of appearance . after roy took the fall for him he hadn’t wanted to pick the bow back up but it felt like a good cause . the press get hold of the fact that he’s in metropolis and it’s the QC board of directors that asks him to deliver the proposal for martha kent’s campgain -----if he’s so serious about remaining majority shareholder . he meets clark , dates lois ( @exposestruth ) , and realises that there is more to the little quaint farm in kansas . ultimately he has to leave again , luthor is experimenting on metas and hive is tearing star city apart at the seams , so when thea and laurel come to ask him to come back home oliver does . he still find time , every now and then , to re-visit metropolis either in a professional mayor queen / ceo oliver queen basis or in a more green leather and bow and arrow type world.

tldr ; post-s3 arrw , after defeating ra’s , oliver takes off by himself and ultimately ends up in metropolis . coincides with his arrival in s6 of smllville

#[ VERSE OVERVIEW. ]#[ OLIVER VERSES — AU : with a smile that could light up a barn ]

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where-rooster-crows · 4 years

Text

Californication

20 years ago, I moved out to Los Angeles. I remember a few pivotal things about my decision, and there were some signature moments that told me right away, “your not in Kansas anymore”.

As any fool would do, I had never visited Los Angeles before deciding to relocate there. With one exception; upon being woo’d by a big entertainment studio, I was put up in a decadent hotel suite overlooking the Valley. Year upon year of immersing myself in animation and technology paid off - well, kind of. This one time experience really didn’t give me a realistic sense for what life would be like living in the Valley. How could a 5 star hotel really reflect any reality?

I remember how I felt as I got prepared for my interview that day. Rolling out of a plush king size bed and swinging open the sash to bask in the California morning sun on the balcony. For me, a little man from a little state, it was my Hollywood story.

The San Fernando Valley, often refereed to as The Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County metro area, defined by the mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it.

So I’ll be the first to let you know, all my trials and tribulations are completely on me. I did my research quite a bit on the areas that might be good to live in, and I had a list of apartment ads ready to visit. Little did I know, much like the popular real estate of New York City, good rentals in Los Angeles go almost just as quick. I lived in New York City a few years prior, and I remember forking over a few grand to a broker to locate a clean safe apartment in the Upper East Side. My standards were high; no rats, no roaches, and near a bar. I was in my 20′s, what can I say. Never having lived in NYC before (see a pattern here), upon walking into the apartment, the broker informed me I had about two minutes to decide if I wanted the place. I hadn’t even walked around the place to inspect it much yet! Just as I began to contemplate his pressure tactic as a scheme to get me to commit to some type of small overpriced loft, I looked out the third floor window to see a line of people walking down the sidewalk towards us. Being 6 AM on a Saturday, the sidewalks were still fairly barren, and it was obvious that the line was made up of clients and realtors. Over a dozen were making their way toward the place. Without further inspection of the apartment I reluctantly said, “I’ll take it”. And literally, just as I said that, the door swung open with potential renters. My broker belted out, “It’s already taken”, and immediate sorrow wiped over their faces. Later upon leaving NYC, I would find out I landed an amazing rent controlled piece of paradise.

401 E. 62nd Street New York. It doesn’t look like much, but I later came to find out that this rent controlled piece of New York paradise was a steal. $1500 a month and about 800 square feet. Huge by New York City standards!

Through my online investigation in digital dumpsters like Craigslist and West Side Rentals, I concluded that Studio City would be an ideal place for me to start. Pre-Reddit and Quora days made finding quality opinions and information hard, and my research through the digital underground highlighted Studio City and Pasadena as potentially decent places to kick off my West Coast adventures. So on my return to Los Angeles, and after the film studio had me in contract, I found myself living on my last relocation expenses in a modest Pasadena three star hotel. The realities of living in LA were now beginning. While I knew Pasadena was one of the safest and cleanest parts of Los Angeles, I desired a more authentic Hollywood experience. An experience that would limit my commute time to the studios and maybe up the ante of spotting a few celebrities from time-to-time. Studio City, known as an up-and-coming hipster hangout was at the top of my list. I had a list of apartments to check out, and I made my way over to the first stop off of Laurel Canyon. One apartment really sticks out in my memory that day.

This apartment building was hard to find. It all seemed like an utter maze of alleyways stemming off of Ventura Boulevard. The apartment was a two bedroom on the tenth floor. “$2,000 dollars” the landlord told me. At the time, I thought that was so much money. Looking back, it was completely fair. “You won’t find an apartment like this at this price. Not with a view like this.” The landlord was right. I though, didn’t have my rose colored glasses on. Looking straight our over The Valley was a terrific view, and I bet at night it would have been beautiful. Although I looked straight down and saw a bum pushing his grocery cart down a dirty dried water drainage canal. Given the potential for torrential rains to flood the area, these canals were really everywhere. Filled with trash, they weren’t the best thing to look at, but served as vital infrastructure to the city to alleviate flooding.

Being new to the city though, I still was looking for everything to be just right. Perfect is rarely found though, and I just wasn’t being reasonable. Later I would land a decent 2 bedroom apartment in the heart of Burbank. And Burbank really is where most studio employees live, so it suited me well. So now that I’ve lived in Los Angeles for an extensive amount of time, I get it. 72 degrees everyday, clear skies, beautiful! A little pollution, a few bums; you need to just look past the imperfections and enjoy your environment. Every place has it’s problems, and I couldn’t enjoy the city until I learned to embrace the city for all the positive things it offered. So if you decide to venture out to Los Angeles, just put on your rose colored glasses. It will be much easier to acclimate and start enjoying yourself.

#los angeles #hollywood #celebrity #burbank #animation #film #relocation #travel #studio city #california #californication

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englishlistwords · 4 years

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Howl, Parts I & II

Allen Ginsberg- 1926-1997

For Carl Solomon

What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination? Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks! Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men! Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments! Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb! Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities! Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind! Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch! Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky! Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible madhouses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs! They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us! Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river! Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit! Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions! gone down the flood! Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! Ten years’ animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad generation! down on the rocks of Time! Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!

#allen ginsberg #howl

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pleaseuseyourblinker · 5 years

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A life update, I guess.

Howdy! It’s been a minute, tumblr.

So, I think the last time I posted anything original on here was when I got fired from my IT job at my Christian alma mater for being gay. That sucked. But life has gotten a lot better since then.

After i was fired, I was unemployed for a month. In that month, I started a podcast called “The Queer Guide to Christian College” (check it out on soundcloud). On the show, I talk about my experiences of navigating non affirming environments and interviewing others about their experiences. It got pretty popular, surprisingly. I really didn’t think it would get past 3 episodes. It’s a project I’m proud of and I cant wait to see where it goes in 2020.

Between writing up episode outlines, I was also applying for multiple jobs every day. I dont know how many jobs I applied for, but it was a lot and it was pretty discouraging at times. I was underqualified for the jobs I wanted and overqualified for the ones I didnt. I was rejected by Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods in the same day. Towards the end of the month, I got a call from a start-up company that specializes in surveillance that I applied at asking me to come in for an interview. I went in the next day, and by the end of the week, I was their newest employee.

After I got this job, Mal and I knew we could make enough to move out of Seattle and back over the the Eastside where we went to school. We lived in the city for 5 months and absolutely hated it. Our loft was just a little bigger than a dorm room and parking in our neighborhood was a nightmare. We were able to score an apartment on the Eastside and moved out of the city at the end of September.

Since then, we’ve been gearing up for the holiday season. We’re going to my parents house for thanksgiving, and for Christmas we’re going to Kansas to see Mal’s family. My podcast is wrapping up for the year.

But most importantly, we’re expecting.....

A cat. In 2020.

#lifeupdate #girlfriend #seattle #washington #new beginnings #gay #jesus loves the gays

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alliwanttodoiscollectpoetry · 5 years

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Howl~ Allen Ginsberg

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powerandlightkc-blog · 6 years

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#luxury apartments kansas city #downtown kansas city apartments #loft apartments kansas city #downtown kansas city living #downtown apartments kansas city #downtown kansas city lofts #apartments near plaza kansas city

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johngoseyn · 5 years

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youtube

ALLEN GINSBERG

For Carl Solomon

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,

who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,

who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,

who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,

who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall,

who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,

who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night

with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls,

incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the motionless world of Time between,

Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind,

who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo,

who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s floated out and sat through the stale beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi’s, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox,

who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge,

a lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills off Empire State out of the moon,

yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars,

whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the Synagogue cast on the pavement,