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Michael, tell me why life does this. Why I stop to notice raindrops that plop to the pavement outside the shell of the old Surf Theater & each drop sounds like a phone call from my past, faint echoes of the lost voices of FM radio deejays as their smooth growls fade to static. Of course, I stop to consider each one, try to configure their story, and mine, narrator of my own plot. And the old theatre, marquee now splashing CVS instead of the name of some Hollywood blockbuster, once hangout now metaphor. On the screen I can see you when Eddie and the Cruisers hit theaters. I was clueless, wandering like teens do, 19 and stuck in between, not child, not ripe, an unfolding libertine. When Streets of Fire debuted the next year, I saw it here too, and was sure you shared my obsessions with Springsteen, Morrison, too, holding shadows of both in your shaman walk and Seventeen-approved hair. I guess two years on top are more than most get. Warhol dished out 15 minutes, not enough time to find a rerun of Houston Knights on Netflix. Life does this, but I don’t know why. Back to 19: it’s a bloody age. That summer a kid who graduated with me rode his motorcycle into a tree and flung slingshot until he landed on the hood of a passing car right after we’d seen The Philadelphia Experiment, a different role for you. We killed a summer here, drifting through the cigarette-smoke glossed movie screens of Saturday matinees unraveling Eddie Wilson’s mystery before drowning our futures in convenience store wine. How does anyone die at 19? Speed our Kryptonite, I guess, once invincible turned invisible. Tell me why life does this. Tell me why when Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives! came out six years later, I’d forgotten you. Your cool side-mouth mumble still punctuated your stone-faced monotone, but Eddie was still running wild in sweaty Jersey nights, and I had a degree and a job and left bloody 19 behind like the silver slow roll of movie-ending credits. Tell me why your filmography is long, but your tally of awards is short. Tell me why life does this. Tell me why the rain seems to fall harder when the plot thickens, each drop a story with narration and plot, and tell me why one day the phone stops ringing with offers. Just wondering if you could let me know and w/b/s.
David Colodney is a poet living in Boynton Beach, Florida. He is author of the chapbook, Mimeograph and his poetry has or will appear in journals including rust + moth, South Carolina Review, and St. Petersburg Review. A two-time Pushcart nominee, he serves as an associate editor of South Florida Poetry Journal.