Hemingway and I climb out of portraits of African chieftains in the museum after hours.
We survive rockslides and hand grenades in our dreams, then discuss how lucky we feel to be alive over morning coffee outside downtown cabanas, watching Italian women walk by. We hold our exhales as they approach then breathe deep the ghosts of their perfumed necks and say Ah with our eyes closed. In this way we are unobtrusive vampires, and the heavens appease us with more and more victims, unknowing and holy in red shoes and violet dresses.
We hang Wanted signs all over town with charcoal sketches of great revolutionaries on trees, on lampposts, on church walls. People stop to look.
“What are they wanted for?”
"For our revolution of course."
Hemingway is an Hopi bird god named after a long forgotten underwater town, and though often mistaken for someone else, he remains good natured. I’ve seen him forge indecipherable signatures, feigning an earnest air.
He says this is a funny universe.
I think I know what he means.
A fellow tried stabbing Hemingway once as we left The Astronomer’s Club, but the blade became a giant balloon as it touched Hemingway’s feathery breast, and the attacker floated away into the purple night.
"Will he be okay?"
I asked Hemingway.
"I’ll make some calls," he told me,
his kerosene wristwatch burning
so bright in the Kentucky night.
March 14th, 2007
12:07 a.m.
Portland, Oregon
