Not the One who Leaves

Greenwich Village, 1958.

From where I sit, the devil is pretty brill. He doesn’t mess with the little stuff. He IS the little stuff.

Say you finish a meal and you really want that chocolate you’ve been saving for your baby. Devil says, go w’on, she won’t miss it. 

Say there's hooch in the kitchen cabinet and it's raining. Everyone's out and you think, I'll have a shot. Half an hour later, it's all gone.

Say there’s a hoochie woman sitting across the room giving you the eye when you’re playing a gig somewhere. Afterwards, you land at your friend’s pad and she’s right there, waiting for you.

Say you want to come home and all kinds of stuff tempts you not to. If I can just turn around, you say, turn around and walk out that door. If I don’t look. Don’t talk. Move away. 

Sometimes you do the wrong thing because it just happens and you’re feeling tired and weak. Sometimes it’s harder to fight it than just let it win.

I’m not saying this happened. I’m just talking about the devil here. How he knows you. How he’s ready for you, no matter what you say and do to get away.

Sometimes it’s winter, sometimes it’s not. It’s always later than you want it to be and your guard is down. Sometimes you end up doing something you’d rather not talk about. Something that makes you feel rotten in the morning.

All the devil has to do is wait, really. Because sooner or later, you’ll succumb. He knows you, right? He knows who you are, he knows who you’ve always been and he knows you through and through.

I’m not saying I did anything. Not at all.

All I’m saying is when there’s stuff for the taking, someone is going to take it. Some day, some way, something will happen and the bread or the chick or the bourbon or the chocolate’s gonna lay itself down right in front of you and say “I'm yours!”

Nobody’s immune, including my darling, who everyone thinks is an angel. I say she just looks like one. 

And yeah, I still believe in love. Most of all, forgiveness. What’s love without it? Aren’t we all human? Don’t we all make mistakes?

Devil knows all of this and whether you like it or not, you need to give the devil his due. He knows how to play us. And he's the House.

And by the way, most of the time I do shut the door on temptation. If and when I don’t, I try to think it through and if I can’t think, if I’m too far gone to think, doesn't that tell you something? It tells me I’m not going to remember it anyway.

Bottom line: I know what’s important and love my family. I’m not going anywhere. That’s what I told Ruby and I stand by what I said. I’m never going to be the one who leaves.

Say what you want, everyone knows how crazy I am about my girl and the kids. Maybe that doesn’t count or hold water. But I dare you to do better.

Any of you.

--Gary Tabeata

Fifties man in bar: Shallowend’s rendering of photo by Walter Watzpatzkowski

Red-eyed cat: mao_lini

Face of the artist: nowhere Zen New Jersey