This is the Room

Long and slim, about 16 feet by 10. Enter through a dirty door, No. 13.
Shoe-toe prints along the baseboard where you kick it unstuck after turning the key.
Step onto the paint-splattered, black wood floor.
It’s chipped and stained with decades of dirt that rises from it incessantly.
Sweep to your heart’s content; you’d have to rip the floor out to get rid of it all.
And maybe not even then. Just tear the building down.
There is a closet with no door directly to your right.
Maybe four feet by three.
In it are several brown bags of garbage
(paint-soaked rollers, plastic sheeting, beer cans);
a horizontal pole at eye level where others have hung their wardrobe;
an empty box; paint supplies.
The wall to your left is bare, freshly painted white, about 16 ft. long.
The wall that houses the closet door and the one behind you is orange,
the color of madness.
Directly ahead, the exterior wall is brick,
covered with a patina of old housepaint—currently pale, institutional blue.
A palimpsest of poor interior design choices
created by decades of tenants with innumerable purposes.
There is one window, largish
and sort of stuck, half ass, into the original brick archway of the building’s façade.
The old arch juts out above the rectangular frame.
Its exterior frame is painted white,
but the glass still slides along silver spray-painted wooden framing.
Rustoleum, I bet.
“Rustoleum! For when you’ve given up!”
The remaining wall, to your right, is red, deep red,
a little unsettling really,
but it’s too late now (I painted the damn thing not two weeks ago).
There is a waist-high table built into a corner and against the brick wall. It’s white.
A small stereo sits upon it with a few CDs; an old bottle of wine,
which I may still drink;
two small cups; and a well-worn, wooden, art-supply box.
A small shelf at knee-level beneath it holds a beat-up record player
with an ancient needle.

The only furniture is this old wood desk in the corner
where I sit by the window
and a silver floor lamp behind it.
There are a couple of chairs too.
I’d count them at 2 ½.
I sit on the sturdiest one,
which is incredibly wobbly and has no nails that function with any value anymore.
It holds me up (and itself together) by the perfect amount of counter-acting force.
Me against the chair, the chair against me, the chair against the floor.
The second one’s seat is supposed to be upholstered, and it is, I guess, on top,
but all the stuffing’s falling out of the bottom onto the floor
along with any support it once offered.
It’s got a bit of an old king’s court look, and I usually throw my bag on it.
Very regal—my shoulder bag.
The ½ chair is a stretch even within this questionable company.
It supposed to be a wood-slated folding chair
but it folds in far too many unintentional ways now.
Finding the most viable configuration is kind of like a really annoying puzzle,
and sitting on it is truly a gamble.
But it came with the place so I can’t bear to get rid of it.

There is one thing on the wall—a National Geographic map of the world
with prominent crease marks
from where it was folded into the subscription solicitation letter
in which it arrived in my mailbox.

How I get here:
I usually ride down here on the bus,
Number 131—one of the grimy, run-down buses that serve the south end of Seattle. Equality in public services my ass.
The seats are saggy and the upholstery is a bland and dirty gray
where it once was blue.
We roll out of downtown past shiny new, hybrid, kneeling buses
in which well-coiffed passengers are listening to iPods
on their way back to the suburbs.
This bus serves the industrial south-end
stretching south from downtown towards Boeing Field.
The low profile buildings house tire warehouses, shipping companies, metal works,
and occasional services such as out-of-place-looking coffee shops and delis.
Most everything is shut down when I come down—evenings and weekends.
Until you get to Georgetown, that is, where the handful of bars stay open
just like everywhere else in the city
and serve their needy clientele of which I am sometimes one.

The other day I rode my bike down instead.
It was sunny and warm for February.
The road was quiet as it was a weekend,
and I could concentrate on every pothole
without threat of an 18-wheeler bowling me over.

I come down here to get away.
At first it was essential.
When I was only just starting to visit, it was a need
that I suffered without all day and fulfilled come night.
It was a bit of a secret too.
Another place, a seemingly far-away place
that only a few know about yet was self-sufficient and vibrant,
and I was a part of it.
I would sneak away from my other life
of high-rise apartments and office buildings and conspicuous consumption.
I would buy cigarettes and roll down to the working-class world
that reminded me of my father.
Greasy shop rags and toxic orange hand soap
Orange Away!
just like I remembered.

Then it became a chore,
something I should be doing.
“Remember?” I’d have to tell myself.
“You said you wanted a place to think, a place to be alone.”
But it was intimidating.
I would be isolated and the place I came from was so comfortable.
The chairs weren’t even close to falling apart
and there was media in so many forms to numb me.

Am I just a fraud then?
Coming down here to this artist enclave
in this industrial no-man’s land
from my luxury high-rise complex
in the heart of this city—million dollar views and all.
Coming down here to my little bohemian studio,
smoking cigarettes and staring out the window
at the shuttered building across the way.
My bicycle is parked in the corner
(fraud on that count too?
I don’t even own a pump to inflate my own tires).

How would I measure on the authenticity test,
should this building of artists require one at signing of lease?
Semi-fraud,
cool-as-she-looks,
or hapless-attempt?
Fortunately there’s no one around to weigh in
except me.
Only problem is
I’m the only one I’m worried about.