It's Already Too Late

I could go into the convoluted circumstances that led to me spending many Saturday nights at the Plaza Bar in San Diego’s Westgate Hotel, but I don’t want that story to be the focus of this essay, at least for now.  But as I try to deconstruct the role that these Saturday nights--of which there were many over the course of four years--played in my inevitable destruction, I may just have to address how I, a then twentysomething college student from Rockford, Illinois, found himself sipping top-shelf Scotch while listening to live jazz at what was sometime, somewhere called San Diego’s best piano bar. For now, the music. Quite simply, it was magical. Lame, I know, but in the years since my last visit to the Plaza Bar, I’ve tried to find another way to articulate the effect that these performances had on me then and now, and I haven’t really been able to come up with anything that can better capture the essence of what Gregory Page did with his music during his residency at the Plaza Bar.

I’d met Nina at a show where my friends were playing. I’d never seen her before.  She’d stood out to me initially because of how tall she was--which I’d guessed was an even 6 feet--but I’d never fetishized tall girls. I’d thought that she was with Patrick, whose band was playing, so I didn’t make much of an attempt to talk to her initially. She looked intimidating, tall and fashionably harsh; she looked like a model. In those days she could have been accurately labeled a “scenester.” She had dyed black hair with heavy eye makeup, a look betrayed by her massive smile, which I remember thinking looked like Julia Roberts. Perhaps a benefit to my confidence, I’d only talked to her that night under the assumption that she was with Patrick and was off limits. In talking to her, I’d felt conflicting feelings of admiration and jealousy for Patrick because this mystery girl was proving to be ever so close to that elusive 22 year old man’s ideal of a woman: aesthetically feminine, but had the in

     A 2009 Dodge Caravan pulled into the lot, circled once through the inventory, then settled in an open stall in front of the showroom. Not enough gross in the world to eat up that negative equity. Next. Neil returned his attention to the solitaire game on his computer screen, made small enough to allow him to switch back the Customer Relationship Management program that the sales managers would expect to see should any one of the five of them pass his desk. Minutes later, a 2014 Honda Fit parked next to the Caravan; a young Indian couple walked through the door. Too much work for a mini. Let the greenpea get his dick wet. He continued aimlessly dragging and double clicking on cards, essentially letting the game play itself. For a moment, he considered following up on the leads in the CRM, but thought better of it.  Right on cue, Clark, sales manager #4 approached his desk. “Making your calls, Neil?” he asked. “You bet, boss,” Neil hadn’t made any calls, but did log a series of

He could feel it. His time was up. He’d managed to exist off of his reputation as a provocateur for nearly twenty years, presenting his brand in whatever medium held the attention of the Rockford creatives: music, writing, drawing, painting, blogging, poetry reading, whatever. His creations lacked finesse and skill, but he took risks that few others in a mid-sized city like Rockford would ever take. Still, he’d balk at being reduced to provocateur. Whatever you called it, his work earned him plenty of social currency over the years. Jeremiah would be one of the earliest victims of Rockford’s downtown revitalization, though he never knew it. Before boutiquey shops with designer skin products, before restaurants that forced knowledge of their ingredients origin upon its diners, before city market nights full of black-people-fearing white people, before the hipster pizza restaurant with its enchilada pizza, before the taco shop with the sashimi taco, before the sushi joint with the frie