Adam Fieled (Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania): Something Solid: The Nineties: "Trooper"

A steep-ceiling’d, spartan, red-painted basement—
here’s, down a flight of stairs, where La Tazza’s front-
room led Chris and I. Clandestine it was from Cotton Street
and Main Street. We shook off the autumn chill, tossed
around by holiday festivities as usual on semester breaks,
and slurped coffee from our mugs. Whatever made us
irresistible to Jeremy’s posse, provocatively attired in
army jackets, they shanghaied us into joining them on
a trek to one of their friends’ Main Street apartment.
Jittery karma around Jeremy— he was, I later registered,
uncharacteristically quiet. Within this tribe, he was
a defeated, banished aristocrat, who had been kingpin.
The classic quality of his already-completed Nineties
body of work— its Villanova composition, by then, a militant memory.

I envision— Jeremy walks down Main Street. In his hands
is a copy of “d” magazine, which he hopes to consign anywhere.
Rather, he hopes to dump in the river, a few blocks
down. The fame he wants is fast, or nothing. He always thought
he would make it someday. If he doesn’t, it’s not his fault.
Perhaps he should move to New York, after all. Or teach,
tutor, bartend, give up the architecture routine. His brain is
a jumble of low and high. It’s worth something to him, to be
big. Why starve? Why play pauper? It’s true: unless he feels
royal, royally protected, he can’t write. Main Street dead-ends:
it’s ruthlessly midnight. When Manayunk would lead to
Center City, Jeremy was destined to find me, not
backing up military minded, circle-jerk shenanigans,
waiting in a coffee-shop, to get operational on poetry.

© Adam Fieled 2021-2026