Riverbed Red

Prepare thy palate for turmoil, for emotional blackmail, for failure. There's a part of the open could drop off tomorrow in an earthquake. Its delicate and dangerous powder-coated steel is rusting from the bottom up. Sturcturally similar to a brown robin, but metallic and hard. Criss-crossing shadows of leather and dirt-smoke disguise the interlocking clockwork of beams and ladders. One room opens onto the next, each skeletal, each permanent, each ticking towards habitation.
A slinky lounge singer introduces thick swaths of burnt umber and flesh. The glittering piano of chocolate strawberry doesn't distract from the sirens, 1,000 floors below, skating cross the thin ice of steel and glass, spotlight, billboard, military helicopter, and tinkertoy city.
The gifts of the rise come in almost on queue even. The great horned wine gives you a potch in the tuchus. The wine gives you a leather switch. The wine gives you a slap in the face. The wine gives you a collar. The wine gives you a promise. The wine gives you a reason. The wine gives you a blessing. The wine gives you a chastity belt. The wine gives you v.d. The wine gives you a folded paper with an image you're not allowed to see til you're on your way out of the tattoo parlor. The wine tells you all its secrets but it lies about its past. The wine leaves finger sized bruises around your gentle throat.
The flashing lights of tropical fruit and fresh inkstain thrill to a climax of firey aspiration, lick the the bellies of the steel grey clouds, the sharp angles of the sky, the dizzying heights of rushing, heart stopping loss. A disturbing finish of slow dawn without a safeword, without hugs, without.
A perfect accompaniment for a wet night of hiding a tree branch outside of town, doing your damnedest not to make a smell that the dogs could track. Burning plastic, rich green bud, midnight chicken wings. A wine to drown things out. Noisy, plodding, uninvolved, protect yourself from yourself. Imitate yourself by being yourself. Control yourself by giving up control to your lover, your frenemy, any authority figure. Fix your issues by embracing them. The grapes are grown in a country with a sheepish name known only to the uberwealthy, a bargaining chip in the fall of man.
Try the wine with hopelessness. Try it with gifts. Try it with elective surgery, barren construction sites, a filthy kitchen, steel wire shot from an arrow, a lifelong dream of doing something truly stupid. The bitter taste of wanting something more than a beer commercial to free you from the horrible why of youth, of old age, of timidity. Grown in low humidity. Force the boss into complicity. Anyone can take one of pretty much anything. Sip for the last time and try to see the slef that wears the mask as the real drinker, the self that wears the face as the bank robber, the steam engine bandit, the adulterer.

Varietal: Shame
Food Pairing: Ham and swiss on rye, lettuce and tomato, sharp mustard. Stuck through with an olive on a toothpick.