billy sat beside me like the old days on an old, busted, green pavilion, piss-smelling  venice bench watching the gulls flyin’ into another sunset above the wide span of empty beach

i’m broken and sick now from too much livin’ here , he said i shoulda come up north with you and settled in some peaceful redwoods thirty  years ago when i saw the signs instead of believing that so cal could always redeem me keepin’ me here, thinkin’ that venice would always open her arms and hold me… instead, here i am with needle marks scarring my arms and feet, needin’ at least a beer or two with my morning fix just to keep the demons away…. dumped now outta my rent control shack into livin’ in my car, and chained to a place i barely recognize but for this sky and the memories… but, ahhh….  what a life we’ve lived, he said, staring off…and now, we’re all dyin’… i watched his right foot drummin’ the pavement  a million miles an hour it seemed, tryin’ with all he had to keep the inside opiate ants from crawlin’  up his calves… yeah, billy…what a life it was….we’re all just barely hangin’ on by a thread and remembering what we can day by day…what can i do to make it better?  aw, you don’t have enough as it is, much less enough  to be takin care of my ass too, he mumbled…you got your own to worry about…ol’ billy will be alright…..write me somethin’, put me in a story or one of those poems you usta write…think of me and say a prayer i make it outta here alive someday… who is gonna save us now, he whispered as he hugged me goodbye and staggered a bit as he headed toward speedway as the sun dipped beyond the horizon… yes, my friend…the clock is tickin’ and the answers ain’t comin’ to me either…who is gonna save us now?  salvation don’t come easy to us–it never has— and its kinda late…be well and i’ll see you next time…probably right there, on the other side of that horizon…