Zero sum : closing time

…Looks like freedom, but it feels like death

It's something in between, I guess

It's closing time (closing time, closing time, closing time)…

Route 66, the Mother Road, draws a semi diagonal across the United States linking Chicago in the east to Los Angeles in the west. Along with the unUnited States enduring a sweltering, stormy, sun burned and somewhat battered and weary 250th birthday, Route 66 claims to celebrate its centennial this year.

Since I live in one of the states which offered Route 66 a path, I have had opportunity, in recent years, to explore sections of the old highway, here and there and where it still exists,

Thus it was that, in April of this year, I put my wheels on a section of the old highway through the small town of Grants, New Mexico. You might remember I was on a little ramble of a road trip to Southwest Colorado in search of wisdom about small scale grain growing, written up here.

The 2020 census claims Grants to have a population of 9,163. I once, decades ago, even looked twice at a library director job in the town. But 2020 was a lemon year…and anyway who trusts government data any more. Certainly, just after 8 am on a Thursday morning in late April 2026, Grants seemed “dead as Heaven on a Saturday night” (thank you Leonard Cohen).

The lights were pretty much out.

Pretty much no one (alive) was home.

The remains of a herd of old Ford mustangs rusted behind chain link, surrounded by enormous piles of stinking dog shit. And flies.

I struggled, on this morning, chasing the ghost of my romanticism.

Struggled with what it means to have a front row seat on the end of an empire, the end of a social experiment: a front row seat on this zero sum game.

Wanting to contribute to the local economy in my small way, I followed some people carrying take away coffee cups.

It was totally forgettable and regrettable coffee, and cost big city fancy coffee shop prices at that. Not recommended.

Best part of the getting coffee experience was the sculpture by the railroad tracks out back.

The railroad tracks were a ruthless line of iron in the landscape. I wasn’t sad that I had not responded to that library director job advertisement all those years ago.

The desert sun was already a blinding, dessicating blaze, even in April.

I drove on, haunted, containing such a profound sense of loss, of decrepitude, of decay, disillusion. It has taken a quarter of a year before I am even remotely able to interrogate the experience, to find some release from the weight of it all.

Closing Time. Leonard Cohen (1992) (listen to it wherever you get your music. NOW)

Ah we're drinking and we're dancing

And the band is really happening

And the Johnny Walker wisdom running high

And my very sweet companion

She's the Angel of Compassion

She's rubbing half the world against her thigh

And every drinker every dancer

Lifts a happy face to thank her

The fiddler fiddles something so sublime

All the women tear their blouses off

And the men they dance on the polka-dots

And it's partner found, it's partner lost

And it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops:

It's closing time

Yeah the women tear their blouses off

And the men they dance on the polka-dots

And it's partner found, it's partner lost

And it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops:

It's closing time

Ah we're lonely, we're romantic

And the cider's laced with acid

And the Holy Spirit's crying, "Where's the beef?"

And the moon is swimming naked

And the summer night is fragrant

With a mighty expectation of relief

So we struggle and we stagger

Down the snakes and up the ladder

To the tower where the blessed hours chime

And I swear it happened just like this:

A sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss

The Gates of Love they budged an inch

I can't say much has happened since

But closing time

I swear it happened just like this:

A sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss

The Gates of Love they budged an inch

I can't say much has happened since

Closing time

I loved you for your beauty

But that doesn't make a fool of me:

You were in it for your beauty too

And I loved you for your body

There's a voice that sounds like God to me

Declaring, declaring, declaring that your body's really you

And I loved you when our love was blessed

And I love you now there's nothing left

But sorrow and a sense of overtime

And I missed you since the place got wrecked

And I just don't care what happens next

Looks like freedom but it feels like death

It's something in between, I guess

It's closing time

Yeah I missed you since the place got wrecked

By the winds of change and the weeds of sex

Looks like freedom but it feels like death

It's something in between, I guess

It's closing time

Yeah we're drinking and we're dancing

But there's nothing really happening

And the place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night

And my very close companion

Gets me fumbling gets me laughing

She's a hundred but she's wearing

Something tight

And I lift my glass to the Awful Truth

Which you can't reveal to the Ears of Youth

Except to say it isn't worth a dime

And the whole damn place goes crazy twice

And it's once for the devil and once for Christ

But the Boss don't like these dizzy heights

We're busted in the blinding lights,

Busted in the blinding lights

Of closing time

The whole damn place goes crazy twice

And it's once for the devil and once for Christ

But the Boss don't like these dizzy heights

We're busted in the blinding lights,

Busted in the blinding lights

Of closing time

Oh the women tear their blouses off

And the men they dance on the polka-dots

It's closing time

And it's partner found, it's partner lost

And it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops

It's closing time

I swear it happened just like this:

A sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss

It's closing time

The Gates of Love they budged an inch

I can't say much has happened since

But closing time

I loved you when our love was blessed

I love you now there's nothing left

But closing time

I miss you since the place got wrecked

By the winds of change and the weeds of sex.

It’s closing time.