My Happy Ending Story

-- I hate missing Live Bait, and my only penance is this--the story that could have been. I'm dedicating it to Phil, my story-telling hero. --

"The Parking Garage"

I want to tell you about the parking garage.
It's really all about the parking garage.

The top floor
Where I'm standing
And I can see the Biltmore
And I can see the Performing Arts Center
And I can't see my car
Because it's a few blocks away

And I'm trying
I'm trying really hard to see God

I should mention that I don't know
If I actually believe in God

I believe in something
It just might not be God

It's definitely something though
It might be a spirit
It might be a connection between souls
It might be a giant robot in the sky

But it's something
And that's what I believe

So I'm standing there
On the top floor of this parking garage
And I'm in a really lousy place

How I got to the lousy place
Fits into eight different stories

Family
Growing Up
Break-Ups
Death
Love
Disillusionment
Sobriety
Friendship
Ennui
Pizza

And all of these things
Combined into a tornado of melodrama
That sent me spiraling up

Up onto the top level
Of the parking garage
Where I could see Providence
But not the other Providence

And I wanted help
I desperately wanted help
I wanted to be rescued
Saved

I felt like it was beyond me
To save myself
And being the good little Catholic boy
And avid moviegoer
That I am

I knew this was when
The hero would show up
And save weak little me

...And I was wrong

I stood there
I stood there
I stood there

People retrieved their cars

(I should mention this was at night
Getting towards 'late' at night
And I should have been heading home
But I couldn't, I just couldn't)

I stood there
I stood there
I stood there

I thought I could force the universe
To come and help me
If I just stood there
As if to say--

'I can wait all night'

Well, presumably
The universe can wait a lot longer
It doesn't actually have a job
Aside from, you know
Being the universe

If this is where you're wondering
How I get to the happy ending
That's what I was wondering too
When I was standing on the roof
Of the parking garage

How will this ever become a happy ending?

I tried to play it out in my mind
All the ways that then could be now
And I just couldn't make it work

Which, I suppose
Is when you're supposed to throw yourself
Off the top level of the parking garage

But I refused to do that
Because I wasn't entirely sure I'd be mourned
And if nobody was going to mourn my death
Then I sure as hell wasn't dying

In fact, I would live forever
Just to spite all the people who wouldn't care
If I died

(My logic at this point was faltering to say the least)

But anyway, the happy ending

I went home
I got up
Time went by
I'm here now

Here being at a place
That isn't nearly as lousy
As the place I was in
Back on top of the parking garage

And strangely enough
I still can't connect the dots
But now it's reversed
Now I can't remember
How I got from now to then

I have vague recollections of doing it
But the connections aren't clear enough
Where I can say--

THAT!

That is the moment when I became...

Okay

But somehow I did
Somehow the universe saved me
It just wanted to do it on its own time

And the happy ending?

I went back to the parking garage
A few weeks ago
I stood on the top level

And I looked at the Biltmore
And I looked at the Performing Arts Center
And I looked at Providence
Both of them, this time

And I could see everything
A lot better