So I've Got This Rocking Chair...

I think it was my grandfather's. I've got a desk, also my grandfather's. There are some boxes with my clothes in them, some electrical cords that will connect to things and make things work when I eventually come back home. There's a bottle of Jack on the bookshelf, where my books used to be, about 2 swigs are left. I don't think I'll finish it. There are backpacks, so many backpacks...clothes on the floor. A bike. A bed. European condoms. Tide...

On Friday, I'm gone from Kings Road and I think it's starting to settle in, finally. There's a race in San Francisco this weekend, Escape From Alcatraz that attracts 2000 of the baddest Tri-Aths in the world. I can feel it coming. I can taste it. My guts are starting to roll. After that, I'm here for the week before Vegas to meet the family for a much needed beat before a goodbye to Los Angeles before I get on a plane to Bangkok on May 15th, that Saturday afternoon. Flying fascinates me, absolutely. I have this talent of being able to shut off my body, to find stillness on a plane and sit for hours and hours and then it lands and I come back to life and step out into a new and bizarre and enthralling world. Then something takes over me, fucking invades me and I just breathe it in and let it in my brains and blood. I'm going to meet John Durban. We have some important work to do, such important work to do. The thought of it makes my life feel beautiful. The thought of it makes me hungry for the world, makes me want to spit my pretty poison out onto the world. Due time. Due time.

When I get there, that world is going to be fast and out of control, and I'll have to find a way to slow it, to find control of it, to take control of it, to set fucking fire to it. Me and John. Watch us, wait for us. Every day, I try to make certain that I am not the same man I was the day before. And when I go away, I don't just pull wires, I rip them, fucking tear them so that they never again fit the way they did, so that I'm lost until I'm not. Then lost again.

This is right, no matter what comes.

This is right, no matter what comes.

Because I Know He Reads This...

It's settled John.

I'm leaving May 15th. Check how many days I lose flying from Los Angeles and you'll know when to meet me in Bangkok.

Don't make any plans for three to five months and be ready to fucking work.

And sleep well brother, I know I finally can.

Tonight.

Durban...

Is in my head, hard, all the time these days. He won't relent - we have to go we have to go we have to go. When something creeps into his head, it becomes unstoppable. He knows me, all too well, knows my growing need to flee. I've been trying to keep things from him as best I can - not letting him in on anything until it is absolutely necessary. See, John has little patience. He has no patience. He makes me feel like I have an abundance, which is astoundingly not accurate. The thing about knowing John for as long as I have is that we have something of a shorthand. We've seen a lot of the world, been through a lot of the same shit. It makes this easier, our flow. He's been sending me pictures, one every hour on the hour today saying something like book it already motherfucker what are you waiting for...



I keep on telling him, keep on trying to explain my life, how he couldn't understand it and he usually says something like what's there to understand. Then, ditch your fucking crutches. Then, all you are these days are crutches, and weak. Then, writing bitch posts about fucking gingerbread houses and our book that you're trying to sell to New York. Then, fuck New York, they'll never understand us anyway. Then, that's not what this is about. Then, I thought this wasn't about that - or didn't need to be about that - that one would always happen without the other - that nothing is contingent and if you say it is, then you are finished my friend and not only that but that I might not want you as a friend anymore because you used to be so immune to traps - so immune. I usually take a breath and say nothing or say something like Mid May, over and over but for whatever reason, it's never good enough for him, as if I expected it to be - as if he expects me to leave tomorrow, say something like I'm on my way John, see you in Bangkok. I still have a couple ends to tie up in life or so I tell myself. No, I do. The point, I keep telling him is that someone has to sell this book - and he sure as hell isn't going to do it. Someone has got to give us weight, relevance. That's on me, and I keep trying to explain this and he doesn't seem to care, and there's really nothing I can do about that except tell him that my calendar is circled.

Our time will come again. It's approaching. Love you, brother, now leave me the fuck alone for a month. I'm trying to make you famous.

This Is My Graceland...

Tonight, after I get off work, I'm driving out to Las Vegas. It's been a few years since I've been - stretching to my days of haze and black out. This time it's different or it's going to be different. I'm buying some new running shoes on my way out that I need to break in before January 17th. That means I'm getting up to run for 90 or so minutes both mornings - no matter what. Done are the days when I set myself up to fail because of the poison I ingest the night previous. I'm meeting a friend there who hails from the city of sin. He's going to show me around - my Graceland because we're going to the trailer park where Brandon Flowers used to write his music from - during the in betweens between his shifts as a bellhop. The Killers' second album, one of the greatest rock albums of all time is either named after the trailer park he grew up in or the casino he worked at - I'm not sure which is the truth. That's why I'm going - to feel the roots of one of the great bands and a frontmen who moves me greatly.

I'm staying at The Hard Rock tonight and Friday before taking in what I'm really in town to take in. About a month ago, I jumped on a plane and flew to Berlin, mostly because I didn't think these boys, the Muse boys, were going to make it over to the States...

On Saturday night, they're playing The Joint - at The Hard Rock. I'm there to take them in again - this time on my home soil. After the show, I'm driving home to make my 9am Sunday class. That's what the weekend is going to be like - something to look forward to. I put out an invite to Durban for Friday because I miss him and because I could use him and because we need to talk about these new book and life developments. He said he might show but I never know for sure. It's Durban.

Time To Put This Down...

I posted a picture on November 20th with a title that said something exactly like Trouble Coming. There was a picture of a boat in blue water. I had Google searched something like Thailand Beaches and it seemed like the best one to fit what was in my head. I used it as a flag, something of a nod to myself to mark the moment I decided that this coming April, when my lease in LA expires, I'm buying a one way ticket to live in Thailand for a bit of time. It's not an I've had enough or an expat thing, quite the contrary. In my mind, the one life I want to live sounds exactly like this: see the world, place your voice in that world, give it life. I've always had this notion of selling a script or getting an advance on a book and using it to wipe away the 10,000 I owe in debt and then escape to the world and live somewhere where I don't have to worry about that shit and just create. Bleeding artist, I know, but if you know any truth to me, you know that's my heart. That's what I've got to stay true to. Something happened to me recently, some sort of epiphany I always knew was there. I'm a slave. The job I work runs me in circles just to support me and allow me time to write and create from Los Angeles. I love Los Angeles - there's nowhere like it...and I live a good life, I do. My complaints are so petty but still, this notion that's echoing, and it is, is saying something like what the fuck are you waiting for what the fuck are you waiting for what the fuck are you waiting for? Maybe I would feel more chained if I didn't have an escape, but the truth and my great fortune is that I have a golden ticket - a piece of paper that could remove my debt and get me where I want to go - a land where I can rent a shanty on a cliff on a beach for 5 dollars a day, where I can eat all I need for 2, where I could stretch one thousand dollars forever if I needed to. What the fuck am I waiting for? I'm not anymore. I'm gone.

This Monday, I met with a book manager that Team Burn set me up with. We had drinks in Culver City and he said something like I read everything...fucking everything from unpublished authors and this is the best thing I've read in a long time. Then he said these two magic words that went exactly like this, maybe ever. Then he told me we were going to sell it in the new year, to be ready to storm New York in February. Two days prior, the Bestselling NY Times Titan I got the book to sent me an e-mail apologizing for the wait, but that he was nearly done and that it was exactly, really...really good...very impressive. Then he told me to check back in two weeks. I didn't tell him I close strong, that if I had him early, I'll most certainly have him late. In both cases, I don't know what I felt. I've always had belief. Maybe at some point, I thought some form of validation would come but now I don't think it ever will. None of this matters. It can't matter so I'm glad it doesn't. Whether I sell this thing or whether it gets published matters but can't. If my work never sniffs a screen or a hardcover matters but can't. I was in a pure place on November 20th, alone, me and my pen and what we came up with, me and my pen, was something exactly like, we know exactly what this next book is going to be about...we know what we want to say...write it...do it...make it happen. It's in Thailand, life and my story after the work that remains in-between. I find myself often taking breaths and thinking about that and it fixes anything in the world that could possibly ail me. What else could be the path if there is one...

Trouble Coming...

To place true value upon anything but that which is internal is at best a fickle fight, and at worst absolute self-destruction. I refuse to participate. Something will be done...

Durban...

This post has been removed by Team Burn.

Friedrichstrasse And Then...

I was just walking the city, fucking freezing because it's cold and again, I wander and float, often directionless and blind until things work out and I wind up where I'm meant to be. Not long ago, I had to get to the Gitte Weiss galley by 6 to rap with a woman I know through another woman that used to cut my hair before I started doing it myself and not paying 70 dollars - even if she was an artist with it, which she was. Now she comes to my spin classes, told me I had to go see Gitte. I told her I would, and made it sometime around 530 and we talked about the town and the things I had to see before I go, in the time I have left. The location was in a beautiful and elegant part of town and I tried not to take too much of her time, this incredibly kind and warm woman, maybe 50's, telling me about when to go out and to never rush it - that the good times don't start until well after 1. If I didn't have a date tonight, I would have taken her and her husband out, at least to dinner, made them tell me more about their lives and thanked them for their brief but memorable hospitality.

The following is a piece that caught me - a diagram of the human body we sent up or drew on one of the Apollo shuttles to explain to aliens what we're all about - made entirely of IKEA furniture. The implications are heavy and clever, the piece so beautifully constructed...

I had to say goodbye though, because like I said I've got a date with a German girl, so kind I'm not even going to talk about how beautiful she is. In spite of what you might think of me, the former trumps all. Always.

I met her today in Hackecher Markt so she could give me the ticket before running to get her hair done - because I think she's in the show and I think it's going to become very red. I honestly have little idea and it doesn't matter. All I know - she's looking out for me and taking care of me and pulling me along and that's not an easy thing to do - to step out of the tight lives we live and say stick with me you'll be alright. Fuck, the thought of it. She's better than I would be, I'm almost certain of that...and makes me want to commit to being better. Tonight, I get to be someone's American boy and I'm excited about that. I plan on honoring her for that. The place were going is supposed to be pretty infamous for Berlin and once her show is over, we'll stay or go and it won't matter and we'll see. I am free and things are right.

John is still sleeping somewhere across town. This behavior is pretty par for the course. He blows it out the first night, gets a little too deep and then rallies late in the game for night 2. I'll see him tonight, sometime in the 1's or 2's and he'll be sinister and he'll have plans to bury everything in our past with something epic and present. It's a lot to live up to, a lot. I know it, he knows it.

Things could be worse.

Easy...

The first point of order was to check in, to snap ourselves to life with pixie dust and then move through the city, everything, to eat it and consume Berlin. I had seen good bits of it but not enough. I told him we were going to go through my process, the way I take on a new city before the story can arrive. We walked and he bitched. We listened to people on the streets, watched the way they moved, observed their manners, the way they looked at us as we passed. Everyone looks at us as we pass. We are a hurricane on four legs, just moving. When Durban got cold, we stopped for a drink somewhere pretty and then moved on. When we got hungry, we stopped at an Italian place off Charlottenstrasse because John said look they've got big candles. There we drank wine and ate and met the owner of the joint and Durban just talked and talked with the guy. Endlessly. When I look in John's eyes, I can see inside him...know with certainty I am looking into a maniac. There is no other way to put it. John Durban is a maniac. He's unstable and moving and distrusting and brimming with acid. Often, I wonder what others see. I'm not sure why we work but we do, maybe because I see light in him where others see darkness. There is light, I'm sure of it, whether he will admit it or not.

From dinner, we moved. Bar to bar, stop to stop - every subway and stop in Mitte and beyond. We got cold often and stopped to drink often, talking the world, our next play, chasing beer with whiskey. Once we were walking straight, Durban began to get in the mood to grab a gal. He asked me if I wanted to wing him, spoke of the girls in Berlin to be all beautiful, something in their eyes. We met pair after pair starting sometime around midnight. Thing about Durban is that he's very discriminate, meaning that if he picks a pair, they're going to be worth it - at least superficially. For me the process is easy. Durban takes care of everything really, the approach and all that then comes. At some point, he looks to me and finds out which one I prefer and then takes the other...because 99 percent of the time, it doesn't matter to John. We're both particular but in a lot of surprising ways, I am more so...because I don't have an addiction like John. I don't need to have it, sex doesn't rule me like it does him. Last night, something was going on. John was having problems. He's been having problems ever since what happened happened - one foot in if at all. It meant that right out of the chute, we met two crazy young Berliners, 19 and 21 and taut and fiery. John pretended he was an American boy and they fell in love with us and I didn't need it but the older of the two took my hand and kissed my cheek for no reason and made me want her terribly. I was ready to leave, to see their apartment and her bed when I looked to John and saw him pulling back, walking out of the bar. I followed him and told my Girl I'd be back - because she had won me. John was walking fast and away down the street. When I caught his steps, he started spitting exactly they weren't right...not for me not for you. Then he said don't worry Burn I'll take care of you I'll take care of you.

We moved on and around, beer and shot, beer and shot, meeting girls meeting girls. Dozens of girls. Every time we approached we'd win them. Every time, like whatever we are and whatever we project together is impossible to resist. It just happens. It got stale for me real quick. I couldn't stop thinking about the Girl I left behind, the first girl. If I fall in a night...which I rarely do and realized I might have, there is no chance I'm going to fall again. After the 3rd pair, we were just going through motions. John would bark and I would be quiet and precious and sweet and they would do anything to take us around, to show us their town...anything we wanted. At the exact point, for seriously 6 pairs, John would bail and walk out of the bar, storming even, and I would excuse myself and catch up with him and say something like you know there's obviously some poison shit going on inside of you right now. He told me he knew and that was all he said, all that needed to be said. We were drunk, fucking drunk and it was after 3. My skull was pounding and my heart was failing and I felt like everything I had left was about to drain. I told Durban that I was going to bail on him...knowing it was what he needed. He stopped, stood in the middle of the street and started turning in the darkness, blowing breath from out of his insides, so amused by it...seeing his steam escape. Then he said exactly, alright Burn alright...I'll be on tomorrow. Then he turned and walked away into the darkness.

UPDATE ------> DURBAN SPEAKS, LINK RIGHT

John Durban Arrives...

Much unlike the end of the world, with a bang, not a whimper. He saw me standing on the balcony from at least a block away and began belting, fucking belting, hat on Burn...get it on motherfucker.

I haven't seen John for a long time. So long, I don't even want to talk about it. We both knew that truth and spoke words without speaking when he showed up at the door and said give me something to get me started I need a shower. That's where he is while I'm typing, occupied like a small child. We're gonna grab a bite and then let the night take us away. I told him we're going to need a new chapter and that it might have to come from tonight and that that is a huge fucking responsibility but that I'm up for it. Of course he was too. Every quarter day John Durban lives could be a chapter.

He was supposed to come in last night or at least claimed that he was going to try. It was absolutely a show he wanted to see. We don't have all of the same tastes, but Muse certainly floods both our canals. Still, I wasn't put off by his absence. In fact, I knew he wasn't going to come. He's been reclusive since the incident, even though some time has passed, so when I went alone, there was no surprise. Not at all.

Today he sent me a text and I told him not to because it's expensive when bouncing from the states and through whatever provider is swiping me out here. I told him to write me in an e-mail, not thinking about who I was dealing with...

H / i / B / u / r / n (slashes denote separate texts)
Are you serious? Stop
Yeah, okay / I didn't make it / are you there? / please don't ignore me / I'm fragile
Motherfucker!
I read / It looked good / Those boys can play / Sorry / Again
Alright cocksucker text me. Drinks on you.
Drinks always on me
You're coming?
don't know
Alright dude...
tone! that's a tone. why do you have a tone?
You should come.
You should talk
Halloween. I met a girl on the flight from NYC.
what's she do?
Fashion, runway.
Yeah?
Has 6 friends, same bill, edge beauty the cast type.
My type
They want to get righteous for Halloween.
Coincidence! so the fuck do I!!
You coming?
I always was. For you not them. Though I look a little false now.
Your MO. When?
7, already in the cab.
Alright.
Do you really think we need another chapter?
Yes. Maybe 2. One more push and they'll publish.
Let's make her famous / the city / maybe a pair of dames, too...

Aha, A Letter From John Durban...

In the morning, sometime around 5, super shuttle is going to come and take me away to New York so that another airplane can take me to Berlin. Durban has been living in London for as long as I remember, and though he can be absent for good stretches of time, he does come back when due. His words, not as eloquent as mine, go something like this...

Burn - so Berlin, of all places when you come to my side of the world. I understand the obsession with Muse, they can kick, but the last time I was in Berlin, I think I got in a lot of trouble. I was in jail, maybe, and someone told me I was the devil's son before they told me to never return. Wherever I go, someone is always telling me to never return. It hasn't happened in a while, and I suppose they call this growing up, but I'm fucking sick of it so you better come with your hat on motherfucker. With your hat on.

I'm bringing a stack of books from Frey to Burroughs to Bukowski and enough lift me drugs to power though anything that days of deprived sleep and hours and hours of cross world flying can take out of me. And then of course, there's whatever JD decides to bring to town. Look out.

Floor to ceiling. We're gonna paint it.

Excerpt #2 - Prague...

And if we're playing catch up, I continue to present to you John Durban. Getting closer to being able to drop the line, "buy the book," and with authenticity.


I woke up the morning of Christmas Eve on the hardwood floor of my Boscolo Carlo presidential, covered in cold, rank piss. There was a pounding noise shaking the room. I ditched my pants and opened the door to find the general manager standing with 2 brutes. He was holding a copy of my bill in his hand, telling me in shaky English that my card had been over-extended, that I was no longer welcome at their establishment. In Paris, or London, or anywhere in the states…anywhere but Eastern Europe, I could have made one call and been graciously accommodated. Problem with Prague, it was my first visit – no one knew of or gave a shit about who John Durban was. They didn’t know of my worldly status or of my worldly friends. To them, I was just a broke deadbeat who had recently pissed his pants.

I managed to negotiate 30 minutes for a shower and change of clothes, all the while trying to piece the pieces of the previous night into coherence. I’ve always found the shower to be an excellent avenue for thought and recollection, and right on cue, as those warm and resurrecting streams of water hit my face and ran over my scalp, everything came back. We were at Girl’s house the night before, somewhere just outside the city, having dinner with her family. They were serving Goulash of some sort – I think that’s what she called it in translation. I remember trying to eat it and my face being so numb from the cocaine – we had picked up an uncut key on the way over – that I couldn’t chew. I put a bite in my mouth and let it sit for what could have been either two minutes or two hours. Everyone was speaking Czech and fiercely arguing, I think insulted by my being there, some American boy who was fucking the life out of their overnight famous Czech princess, and I could see it in their eyes and feel it in their tones, not needing to speak their language to know what the conversation was all about. The family was well off, and they had found success through hard work and study and dedication. Her and I were the opposite epitome of that belief. This was a conservative family of doctors and lawyers and the thought of her jet setting, posing nude and shaking up with the John Durban’s of the world didn’t exactly ease their collective heart. In spite of my charm and devilishly good looks, there is a breed that sees through me, all of me…this was the breed. Looking back, I have no idea what we were doing there. The whole experience was grotesque. Maybe she wanted to smear her success in their faces, I don’t know. On several occasions, Girl’s father had to step between her and her two brothers because they were threatening physical harm to me or to her or to both of us, I don’t know. What I did know was that if they did touch her, or me, I was going to stab their eyes with my Goulash knife…not because I cared for her or because I felt the need to defend her, but more because I liked the idea of it, of chivalry, of masquerading as a guy who defends the honor of a girl whose name I should have known but didn’t.

There Goes The Neighborhood...

I can't say that Team Burn is going to be particularly excited about this one, but me and Durban finally broke ground on the novel we've been threatening. Okay, novella. Either way, it's going to be a bit of a departure. I can't quite wrap my head around a knockout script idea - and until I can, there's little use diving into something for the sake of. Since not writing or taking much of a break isn't a realistic option, I gotta keep moving...and in this case, I'm moving forward with an unstable collaborator. Today, he sent me a piece with an attached header, "crush back ut-fuck." Obviously, he meant to say nut-fuck but hardly believes in a one line proofread. The first thought I had, I had never heard that used before...nut-fuck. It makes no sense. None of this makes any sense and you can call me ill-led, but the thought of diving into senseless right now lights me up, me and Durban. I'm riding that. That's what I'm riding.

We both have this thing that's probably not very charming to anyone outside the two of us -- belief that we're literary gods in the ripening. I suppose only time will tell. But I can tell you this...the novel, the novella...anything that takes time and genuine thought to consume in this world is going extinct. We're ending. When our children's children rule the world, there won't be a world left to rule. I can't explain how that exact notion is going to relate exactly to our mighty pens, but it will.

Tragic, romantic, ridiculous, fitting. Durban And The Burn, Sweethearts...Durban And The Burn.

Picking A Fight With Durban...

Lately, I've been talking with Durban, the possibility of a collaboration of sorts. He knows as well as I do, I've been circling wagons around the next project...

Three days ago, he sent me this e-mail. When it comes to Durban, there's no real need to paraphrase. He's always short and usually un-sweet. It said exactly, "Burn, you cunt. You need me. Let's roll."

I was thinking about writing something light and easy and funny after the weight of Kim and Val, something I could spit out and then sit back, allow my dancing words to woo. When Durban heard this, his reply, "Burn, if I could reach through this computer and fist-fuck your face. Stop running. We're the same."

I love that he uses a dash between fist and fuck.

He started kicking ideas and I'd kick back and he'd kick and I'd kick. Every time, every idea kept narrowing, coming back to the same place -- our world, as we know it...over, ended. Something about it always works for me, obviously always works for him. The end result of whatever comes of this will likely be the absolute opposite of what I thought my next step would be, but I'm on board, I'm gonna "roll."

I try not to think too long on logistics - between the benders he claims are over and the destructing women and the infinite travel itinerary. In the back of my mind, I know he's gonna be my polish - the yin to my yang, the sour to my sweet. We'll lay the groundwork...I'll write...he'll finish. And as phantom as he is, he always seems to be there when I need him. And I respect his words...even if he is absolutely the most ridiculous person I have ever known. Absolutely - and he'll read that last sentence and wear my words like a shiny new badge. Just don't ever ask him to admit it.

Fucking Durban...

Dear Durban...

Sound advice, chap. (In case you aren't wise to the exploits of my friend, John Durban, kindly play catch up link right).

Let's stick to themes here. You quote me, I quote you. It keeps going through my head, you, knowing some girl just touched me up, explaining the ways and woes of love. I want to play a game. Since your readers suffered the luxury of playing out my shit at home, let's turn a table, call the name of my game, "Consider the Source."

This is you in love. I know. I've been there...

"She took me into her mouth. I think it was the taller one, but I had lost track. By now they were both on their knees, double team revival. Nothing was happening. Nothing. Not a movement. I didn't know what it was. I tried to explain. I said things like whisky and blow and weed and that mystery yellow pill I dropped on Marnixstraat and fucking blue balls and double fucking two Japanese school girls and the combination of everything but they didn't speak a lot of English."

And that's what I always admire about you, John, your invested heart. You lay it out there. You delve, and deep. The authority by which you speak is warranted and staggering. I've found that only those in possession of a hyper-ripe moral compass can expect to dish beliefs by which I pay even a momentary mind. So let's put you to the test. Speed round, shall we Durbs?

"I didn't know anything about the pills we took. I didn't know what had brought me to the Italian coast, but I was driving, fucked out of my mind and she was screaming at me and I couldn't hear a word of it. Nothing was processing. I was winding the coast in and old Alfa Romeo - topless - trying to hit a hundred miles an hour screaming back I want to die I want to die I want to die."

Nice.

"Prague is good for two things -- hookers and cocaine."

Excellent.

"There's a very distinct sound that happens when you clear out a man's teeth with a rusted hammer, like breaking through an egg shell -- soft, delicate, yet there's enough fortitude there to actually give the metal of the hammer a slight ring."

Sensational.

"Let her go. You'll be fine. You'll always be fine. You're the fucking Burn, man. The fucking Burn."

Thanks, D.

Sigur Ros, Durban...

I'm sitting here listening to the new Sigur Ros. Very good. I was kicking around the web, to the song "Ara batur" when I checked Durban's site. Something about the timing of the song, so right and wrong. So terrible and beautiful. Kinda crushing but life. Fucking life. Fucking life.

This is Durban's post:

Something In Her Way.

I thought it then, knew it when she disappeared. This bird I knew when I was in Amalfi. Jennifer. Don't know her last name, didn't think to care. All I remember, her face, something in her stare that bled me. It ripped through me. All I remember, being inside her, watching her shake, feeling her quiver. Those eyes. Those fucking eyes. I was electric. For 2 weeks, we paired. In cars, in alleys, in bedrooms we would never leave. She was electric.

I didn't know anything about the pills we took. I didn't know what had brought me to the Italian coast, but I was driving, fucked out of my mind and she was screaming at me and I couldn't hear a word of it. Nothing was processing. I was winding the coast in an old Alfa Romeo - topless - trying to hit a hundred miles an hour, screaming back I want to die I want to die I want to die. That much I remember. The cliffs were high. I wanted so desperately to miss a turn, drive through the guardrails and fly away with her. I wanted that to be it. I wanted to fucking end it and at every last second, I'd pull away - some guardian guiding my hand, pulling me back to the road. I think she was egging me on. She wanted me to do it. I wanted to do it. Something in the pills, something in them bringing out something in the two of us, something vicious and exquisite and we both knew...everything too much.

We stopped. We had smashed into a cliff. Blood was running through her hairline, running through her dark strands. Two days later, I would learn three of my ribs had cracked. The car was fucked. We fucked. Her blood and my pain, everything so sobering and clear. She told me then she loved me, the first and only time I had ever wanted to hear it in my life. We hitched a lift to Positano, got a room and stayed there, in bed, our hands and bodies twisted as the rain fell against our shutters and I thought that was it, our apologies and the end of me and anything I had ever thought I needed.

When I woke, she was gone. No note. All I had left was the dried blood on her pillow. Fuck her. Fuck her, all I could think - I would kill her if I ever found her again. Those words, those fucking words how dare she let slip. I would kill her. I'd take her back to Amalfi and show her my might, that it could be done, that I could put an end to everything - and be content, being with her...I'd tell her it was all for her - kiss her as we fell until the end found us. I thought of the things I'd say, the things I'd do to touch her again, to have her there again knowing I'd never let go. To tell her I'm never going to let go.

But I never saw her again. I knew I never would.

-- From my friend Romero, a friend of travels...that I received today --

"Durban. I love you man. Know that before everything. I'm sorry. Jenny's dead, found her this morning. It was her. Her. Nothing we could do. Nothing she left. I'm sorry. We all miss you. Come back soon. I'm so sorry."

...

I shot back through my pictures, my records of travel, certain I had something of the two of them. I remembered her. How could I forget. All I found was this, from Pompeii, likely just before Amalfi, fitting...

John Durban...

So a year and change ago, I was sitting on the lawn beneath the Eiffel Tower, waiting for the lights to ignite. I had just arrived in Paris and was about to embark on 4 months of travel. I think I was reading "Fear and Loathing," had an open bottle of Bordeaux, a roll of Camembert and some fresh bread and this guy came stumbling towards me.

I say stumbling because I choose my words carefully, because he did seem to be stumbling...not from some form of intoxicant but rather a perma punch-drunk. In my mind, impressions gather quickly.

He sat down next to me, rather uncomfortably close, began to speak in a drawl that was English, but not exactly mine. I remember listening, watching as he took a pull of my wine without asking. He ripped off a hunk of my bread, used it to tear through my cheese until it was gone.

We watched as the Eiffel sparkled. At some point, he reached across himself to offer a hand. "John. Durban. John Durban." He said it exactly like that, breaking up words exactly like that. Immediately, I thought there was something wrong with him. There totally was. Still, something in his tone...too endearing to ignore.

He said he was working in London, was in Paris to meet some girl but it all went to shit. We got very drunk that night. At some point, we shook hands and parted ways. I don't quite remember.

Later, we made appointments to meet in Berlin, Amsterdam and Barcelona. All failed. When we met again, we met in Monaco. We hit the casino, got drunk...at some point shook hands and parted ways. I don't quite remember.

...

Tonight, I get an e-mail titled "John Durban." He does this with all of his e-mails, titling them with his name...as if to signal warning of his impending approach.

"You arrogant fucker. What's up I'm tired of reading your shit, tired of your not listening to anything I say so now you're gonna. Started a blog in honor of your limpness(you). Gonna show you how it's done. Tough shoes to follow - following a guy who changes his last name so "I'll be the only one. Reilly Winburn." You're such a bitch. Link me fucker. I'll link you."

...

So here's your link, Jonny. Top, to the right. May they jump at their own risk.