Virtual Life Metrics

I spend time with a friend well, a pseudo-friend an acquaintance of sorts no, I guess he'd be a friend, ****, who knows one of those types you never really share your heart that authentic trembling you I guess he's more like a radio station on a long lonely road trip in the night or late night cable when the kids have left a thousand channels bright flickering nothing we meet after hours in the deepest of dives I just sit, listen, curl myself into that hunching shape looking like someone piled old laundry on a stool and act as chaperone an escort of sorts, you know, like those fresh faced kids in college earning some bucks walking lifesize cartoons around for pictures and with a bar top slap, I know he's got one, he's revved up a steampunk machine running on old rye and spasms "know this! I have faith in our sacred family values, our brave military and our cellular plans!" (it's hard to not chuckle a bit, enjoy the aerating effect a good laugh does to spirits and your pallet, just avoid aspirating too much or you bellow and cough like an amateur drinker, good god don't show weakness in a place like this or the crows will circle and I swear the shadows lengthen under the bar) most times, as I sit next to him, removed from his sphere detached observer that I always find myself I notice he talks to that small sliver of himself seen between the dirty glasses piled up against the old mirror with faded silvering and the blackened spots frame his face like an old time picture representing a vast loneliness of a nation this goddamn solitude we find in crowded rooms "My opponent here is working with Chilean miners, violent video game makers and angry chefs, goddammit" once curse words are added, we'll be on our way soon the barkeep's tips weren't that big and the mutterings from the corners are beginning as his outbursts begin to chisel into the hazy bubbles of regulars I pull him out into the night away from cheap wine and leaded glass red faced, blustering, cool air confusing him for a moment and, lightswitched, he walks with a purpose, back to the maindrag and streetlights, calling it a night with a wave and one last holler: "I want an America where Somali pirates and Rupert Murdoch yes-men cannot corrupt our precious environment!" I just stand and wave back.