Last summer I decided to build a house in my head. To make the prospect of construction less daunting, I began with my living room where I expected to spend most of my time, and resolved that I'd create additional rooms only as needed. I started with walls, leaving holes for windows and views, and then I spread the ceiling over top while hot and malleable. Because you can't build a house mid-air I figured the floor was implied and left it at that. The front door turned out to be a big production because none that I could dream up fit quite right. In a moment of genius I announced a casting call and cast a strong, broad man to play the part.
I arranged in the room the things you might expect: a sofa, chairs, a coffee table, lamps and shelves. Since I've had so much first hand experience with these kinds of items in real life, my imagined versions were impressively life-like. You might be hard pressed to tell my furniture from the real thing. Decorating was the real fun. I hung paintings that I've always admired, as well as several works of art that I have plans to make one day. The place felt cozy and warm when I was through and I was pleased with myself.
At this point I was thinking of myself as a gifted architect, craftsman and interior decorator so I sat down, content, and I relaxed. But before I could exhale my home's first deep breath my door-man's heart began to beat loudly. No, there was someone on my porch, someone was knocking on his chest. I looked over at him with a nervous curiosity but he just stood there silent and stoic, keeping the inside from the outside and vice versa. After a few hesitations, I stood up and asked that he kindly step aside. He obeyed and revealed us to each other. Because you looked especially harmless standing in the threshold next to my hunky door I thought it alright to invite you in. You came right in and took a seat in one of my life-like wooden chairs. I looked around with the fresh perspective you brought as a house warming gift and I saw the complete picture of my house for the first time. Doing this made me feel extremely insecure and I was relieved when you seemed interested in my coffee table. "I made it myself," I said as I sat down across from you. "I know" you said, "It's very convincing."
We spent the rest of the afternoon not moving from our seats, playing with the objects I had strategically left out on the table in the hopeful anticipation of your visit. I couldn't feed you because I didn't have a kitchen so you left in the early evening. That night I started construction on the kitchen and drew out plans for a bedroom.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Quick Fix
And I just couldn’t stop hitting it, pounding into that damn aluminum fruit dish. I watched it melt and make knuckles show along its frame. My dimpled face warped in its reflection. Until my hand was cut up, bloody and swollen, as if stolen rubies spilled from my skin and became glittering, new. Now not this old hand I had always known but this bright forming baby hand. Fingers curled by instinct, gripping onto a finger while still in sleep. Things work themselves into my skin so I beat out as many of them as I can. And what’s so fantastic is that aluminum won’t crack or howl.
And you know all that punching? I thought of you always. But I can’t fix you if you fall. I know that now.
And you know all that punching? I thought of you always. But I can’t fix you if you fall. I know that now.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Lucille Sits in the Chair
Lucille Ford sits in the chair next to the fireplace all day, drifting in and out of consciousness. She is 96, and looking at her frail, shrunken body is a potent reminder that people were not meant to live that many years- bodies simply were not meant to persevere though that much time. Like walking through piles of raked leaves in a wet autumn, her decay is palpable. You can virtually see her bones fracture and collapse an infinitesimal bit each second. She shrinks further and further into herself.
Her day remains structured by the most essential functions of her survival. The times she eats, the times she voids her bowels, and times she takes her pills. She struggles to rise from the rocking chair to take the afternoon dose, easing herself back and forth to build the momentum it will take to heave her small body up and into the waiting embrace of her walker. Laura reaches over her to help. At five foot eight, a hundred and ten pounds, Laura towers over Lucille like a redwood.
“Mrs. Ford, I like your perfume” Laura tells her at top speaking volume. All conversations with Lucille must take place several decibels higher than what feels comfortable for polite, indoor conversation.
“Oh?” she responds. “I put some on mah knees this mornin’. But my smellers are not so good anymore, so I can’t tell if this smells nice or not. I brought it from home, and I remember when I got it, I thought to mahself ‘it’s a nice smell’ but I swear I haven’t smelled it since”
“Is it a lotion?” Laura asks
“Yes, it’s a body rub Jenny gave to me for mah birthday last fall.”
Her watery blue eyes look out, and then in, and then out again; glassy pools which overflow and spill out past her lids and onto her bony cheeks every few seconds. She keeps a handkerchief tucked into her sleeve, under her watch, to dab at the little rivulets of tears that continually stream down her face.
Laura sits next to Lucille at the dining room table over Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone has finished, but Lucille continues daintily fumbling spoonfuls of mashed potatoes into her mouth. She sets her spoon down and softly sighs. Laura touches her right hand and gently runs her fingers across the diamond ring on her right middle finger.
“You’re wearing the ring on the wrong hand AND the wrong finger” she shouts.
Lucille slowly gazes up from her plate into Laura’s eyes “Yeas, Ay know. It’s too big for mah left hand on any of the fingahs. But I won’t get it resized,… No,” She pats the top of Laura’s hand. “It won’t be much longah now.”
Her day remains structured by the most essential functions of her survival. The times she eats, the times she voids her bowels, and times she takes her pills. She struggles to rise from the rocking chair to take the afternoon dose, easing herself back and forth to build the momentum it will take to heave her small body up and into the waiting embrace of her walker. Laura reaches over her to help. At five foot eight, a hundred and ten pounds, Laura towers over Lucille like a redwood.
“Mrs. Ford, I like your perfume” Laura tells her at top speaking volume. All conversations with Lucille must take place several decibels higher than what feels comfortable for polite, indoor conversation.
“Oh?” she responds. “I put some on mah knees this mornin’. But my smellers are not so good anymore, so I can’t tell if this smells nice or not. I brought it from home, and I remember when I got it, I thought to mahself ‘it’s a nice smell’ but I swear I haven’t smelled it since”
“Is it a lotion?” Laura asks
“Yes, it’s a body rub Jenny gave to me for mah birthday last fall.”
Her watery blue eyes look out, and then in, and then out again; glassy pools which overflow and spill out past her lids and onto her bony cheeks every few seconds. She keeps a handkerchief tucked into her sleeve, under her watch, to dab at the little rivulets of tears that continually stream down her face.
Laura sits next to Lucille at the dining room table over Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone has finished, but Lucille continues daintily fumbling spoonfuls of mashed potatoes into her mouth. She sets her spoon down and softly sighs. Laura touches her right hand and gently runs her fingers across the diamond ring on her right middle finger.
“You’re wearing the ring on the wrong hand AND the wrong finger” she shouts.
Lucille slowly gazes up from her plate into Laura’s eyes “Yeas, Ay know. It’s too big for mah left hand on any of the fingahs. But I won’t get it resized,… No,” She pats the top of Laura’s hand. “It won’t be much longah now.”
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Photographs of My Sister
I miss her how I remember her, when she was more mother than sister. I want her to be well and do well and love herself the way everyone loves her and I love her and the way—I know, somewhere in that heavy heart of hers—she loves me.
The way she handed me pre-packed snowballs to huck at Dad when we clomped through Christmas tree farms in the mountains.
The way we hugged each other and cried in empty rooms when one Thanksgiving some stranger had unlocked our front door before we got home.
The way she’d end dates, any date, whenever I grew bored of the boy trying to impress her; how beautiful she was.
The way she took me to a movie when we saw Dad throw Mom’s stuff onto the wet lawn.
And I know it’s selfish, but in my own troubled times, when I’m filled with doubt and rot, I miss her all the more for the jokes she made, the games we played, the security she embodied. She did it all to keep me from noticing, for as long as possible, that we lived in a house where two beasts battled daily for control, where love felt like a power play, where marriage shattered and fused again before the evening news. And she succeeded at this for many years. Indeed, I was raised comparatively well-off, for I had someone to shield my eyes from the frightening family cinema.
There exist two phases in my childhood: one characterized by the happy exuberance all children experience before they know any better, and the other reflected in my sister’s absence. When she slid south for college—for which I do not begrudge her—I became the sole lens of our parents’ violent radiation. Upon me they focused their mutagenic scrutiny—the resultant disease and dysfunction of which may someday require phonebooks to be written if I’m ever to die peacefully. Even so, it’s obvious to both of us that I got the better end of the childhood stick, having had the luxury of at least a confidante and at most a second mother.
In my sister’s childhood she had a doll with knitted wool hair. “Mommy,” she named it. She seemingly refused to be photographed without it. It was dragged through her toddler polaroids. It lied just outside the frame when she sat for her first school pictures.
In my childhood photos—in the salad days before my sister left for college—I’m invariably clutching at her hand; or, I’ve just let go, but she’s there, just about to move out of the frame; or she’s gone, but my face says she’s in the room somewhere, and—if you follow them—my eyes tell you where.
The way she handed me pre-packed snowballs to huck at Dad when we clomped through Christmas tree farms in the mountains.
The way we hugged each other and cried in empty rooms when one Thanksgiving some stranger had unlocked our front door before we got home.
The way she’d end dates, any date, whenever I grew bored of the boy trying to impress her; how beautiful she was.
The way she took me to a movie when we saw Dad throw Mom’s stuff onto the wet lawn.
And I know it’s selfish, but in my own troubled times, when I’m filled with doubt and rot, I miss her all the more for the jokes she made, the games we played, the security she embodied. She did it all to keep me from noticing, for as long as possible, that we lived in a house where two beasts battled daily for control, where love felt like a power play, where marriage shattered and fused again before the evening news. And she succeeded at this for many years. Indeed, I was raised comparatively well-off, for I had someone to shield my eyes from the frightening family cinema.
There exist two phases in my childhood: one characterized by the happy exuberance all children experience before they know any better, and the other reflected in my sister’s absence. When she slid south for college—for which I do not begrudge her—I became the sole lens of our parents’ violent radiation. Upon me they focused their mutagenic scrutiny—the resultant disease and dysfunction of which may someday require phonebooks to be written if I’m ever to die peacefully. Even so, it’s obvious to both of us that I got the better end of the childhood stick, having had the luxury of at least a confidante and at most a second mother.
In my sister’s childhood she had a doll with knitted wool hair. “Mommy,” she named it. She seemingly refused to be photographed without it. It was dragged through her toddler polaroids. It lied just outside the frame when she sat for her first school pictures.
In my childhood photos—in the salad days before my sister left for college—I’m invariably clutching at her hand; or, I’ve just let go, but she’s there, just about to move out of the frame; or she’s gone, but my face says she’s in the room somewhere, and—if you follow them—my eyes tell you where.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Me Lucky
And me making out with girl from ceramics class we drunk as skunks 15-year-olds behind school it nighttime her mouth tasted like wet carpet left in dark, smell real Bad and she lick my mouth no care where tongue go she got loose jelly tongue muscles just floppin and moppin it bad but me all tingly cause it first time I cheat.
-----
Walk through train station every morning and evening it smells like cleaner the same kind cleaner in that Mexico hotel 58 kilometers south of border where we run away together glorious nine days each day with surf, sand, sun each night some popsicles and sex we have books and fireplaces to unwind can’t unwind any further haha we damn near wound up other direction from unwinding too much but anyway every evening and morning I smell the cleaner and think of you tan, sunburned breasts, eating popsicle and smile, I smile.
-----
Ain’t seen you in months you skinnier every time but it never in a good way your voice sound tiny on phone but you talk tough, act strong I remember when you was tough and I was frightened child and they were getting mean at each other you said come on let’s go down the street to a movie you want to go see a movie? and you led me down street to safety and we did kid stuff and eventually forgot, forgave and went back they were done fighting but neither home both cars gone so you know they went separate ways she come back soon but me hoping he come back soon he always comes back you said, don’t worry and I tossed turned scared at night for days cause he not there to protect us and you put me in your bed said ok, ok, shhhh and I shhhed and it ok, ok and he come back sooner or later and when they both home they do fine and you go back to not raising me, just being kid cause that’s what you should been, not playing third parent, me lucky cause many kids only got one, I got three and you the best.
-----
Walk through train station every morning and evening it smells like cleaner the same kind cleaner in that Mexico hotel 58 kilometers south of border where we run away together glorious nine days each day with surf, sand, sun each night some popsicles and sex we have books and fireplaces to unwind can’t unwind any further haha we damn near wound up other direction from unwinding too much but anyway every evening and morning I smell the cleaner and think of you tan, sunburned breasts, eating popsicle and smile, I smile.
-----
Ain’t seen you in months you skinnier every time but it never in a good way your voice sound tiny on phone but you talk tough, act strong I remember when you was tough and I was frightened child and they were getting mean at each other you said come on let’s go down the street to a movie you want to go see a movie? and you led me down street to safety and we did kid stuff and eventually forgot, forgave and went back they were done fighting but neither home both cars gone so you know they went separate ways she come back soon but me hoping he come back soon he always comes back you said, don’t worry and I tossed turned scared at night for days cause he not there to protect us and you put me in your bed said ok, ok, shhhh and I shhhed and it ok, ok and he come back sooner or later and when they both home they do fine and you go back to not raising me, just being kid cause that’s what you should been, not playing third parent, me lucky cause many kids only got one, I got three and you the best.
ISO Mature "Special Friend"
ISO Mature "Special Friend"
About me: I am a slim, pretty, well educated young woman who is looking for a bit of adventure and excitement. The basic stats: I'm 25, 5'5 111lbs with long brown hair, blue eyes and a perfect body; I'm actually quite beautiful. I work at a prominent ad agency and in my free time enjoy running, yoga, theater and painting. Meeting men is the LAST of my problems.
So why am I posting?
I am bored with dating guys my own age and can't seem to overcome the feeling that they just don't "get" me. I find the depth of my experiences just can't be grasped by most men in their twenties and would like to meet someone a little more mature. I want someone who can share advice and wisdom they have gleaned through years living and growing; not some regurgitated cliche from a Scorsese flick. I've entered a new paradigm in my life, at work and at play, and could use a mentor and a guide. Additionally, most young guys are so needy. I am very ambitious, work long hours and am climbing the ladder fast. I have a variety of interests, both professional and personal, which consume much of my time and I can't spend the night over at someone else's apartment three times a week. It is utterly inconvenient.
Jealousy is so unbecoming- young guys (and really, men in general) tend to be too insecure, too possessive. I could be alone and relatively content, but I crave a personal connection with a man. Something that is built off of mutual understanding and respect; someone to talk to, share stories, ask for and give advice and assistance. Plus, I need to get laid on a regular basis. I am a highly sexual person and one night stands just don't do it for me. I need a lover who is also a friend.... passionate, uninhibited and attentive but secure enough to be able to give me my space and freedom.
About you: You're in you're mid to late forties and starting to feel the sting of age. You're still pretty robust, all things considered, and remain fit and attractive. But your identity has always been so intimately tied up in your masculine prowess that even those first prodromal signs of frailty, impending geriatrics and eventual death have left you feeling shaken and insecure. You've made a pile of money but the rush you used to get from being a ruthless perpetrator of financial violence doesn't do it for you anymore. The stuff your money buys bores you. Your old running crew has gone into old man mode; their idea of a wild time is golf and an evening at the strip club. It's fucking depressing even with eight ounces of Grey Goose in you.
Your wife still looks damn good. She does pilates three times a week and uses that face cream made out of the foreskin of Cambodian newborns every night. But she'll only let you fuck her once a month because you've spent the past twenty years working 80 hour weeks and sleeping with hookers when you and the guys went to Vegas. Plus, now that you're working less and seeing her around the house a bit more, you've realized she is really not very smart or interesting. In fact, she's a huge fucking bore. It's like she is allergic to fun (along with anything that isn't organic and dairy free).
You need an infusion of life. A young, vivacious woman to make you feel really alive again. Someone who can talk to you about Indian index funds , the latest installation at P.S. 1 or who can just listen while you vent about how difficult it is to have so many people depending on you. Then you can go upstairs and she'll fuck your brains out while she pretends not to notice the very first movements of your ass's unstoppable downward plunge. She is so sweet and likes you, maybe even loves you (!?) so much that she'll only mention that you hump her like a truck stop glory hole when you're both too drunk to remember.
And in return, you'll be a good friend to her too, helping her out as her career moves forward, lavishing her with gifts, financing romantic vacations together and you never ever not even once think, much less give utterance to, the idea that she is on her best days emotionally damaged, and on her worst, a whore. So drop me a line this summer while you're wife is in the Hamptons. Soulless, selfish hedonists need attention and affection too :)
About me: I am a slim, pretty, well educated young woman who is looking for a bit of adventure and excitement. The basic stats: I'm 25, 5'5 111lbs with long brown hair, blue eyes and a perfect body; I'm actually quite beautiful. I work at a prominent ad agency and in my free time enjoy running, yoga, theater and painting. Meeting men is the LAST of my problems.
So why am I posting?
I am bored with dating guys my own age and can't seem to overcome the feeling that they just don't "get" me. I find the depth of my experiences just can't be grasped by most men in their twenties and would like to meet someone a little more mature. I want someone who can share advice and wisdom they have gleaned through years living and growing; not some regurgitated cliche from a Scorsese flick. I've entered a new paradigm in my life, at work and at play, and could use a mentor and a guide. Additionally, most young guys are so needy. I am very ambitious, work long hours and am climbing the ladder fast. I have a variety of interests, both professional and personal, which consume much of my time and I can't spend the night over at someone else's apartment three times a week. It is utterly inconvenient.
Jealousy is so unbecoming- young guys (and really, men in general) tend to be too insecure, too possessive. I could be alone and relatively content, but I crave a personal connection with a man. Something that is built off of mutual understanding and respect; someone to talk to, share stories, ask for and give advice and assistance. Plus, I need to get laid on a regular basis. I am a highly sexual person and one night stands just don't do it for me. I need a lover who is also a friend.... passionate, uninhibited and attentive but secure enough to be able to give me my space and freedom.
About you: You're in you're mid to late forties and starting to feel the sting of age. You're still pretty robust, all things considered, and remain fit and attractive. But your identity has always been so intimately tied up in your masculine prowess that even those first prodromal signs of frailty, impending geriatrics and eventual death have left you feeling shaken and insecure. You've made a pile of money but the rush you used to get from being a ruthless perpetrator of financial violence doesn't do it for you anymore. The stuff your money buys bores you. Your old running crew has gone into old man mode; their idea of a wild time is golf and an evening at the strip club. It's fucking depressing even with eight ounces of Grey Goose in you.
Your wife still looks damn good. She does pilates three times a week and uses that face cream made out of the foreskin of Cambodian newborns every night. But she'll only let you fuck her once a month because you've spent the past twenty years working 80 hour weeks and sleeping with hookers when you and the guys went to Vegas. Plus, now that you're working less and seeing her around the house a bit more, you've realized she is really not very smart or interesting. In fact, she's a huge fucking bore. It's like she is allergic to fun (along with anything that isn't organic and dairy free).
You need an infusion of life. A young, vivacious woman to make you feel really alive again. Someone who can talk to you about Indian index funds , the latest installation at P.S. 1 or who can just listen while you vent about how difficult it is to have so many people depending on you. Then you can go upstairs and she'll fuck your brains out while she pretends not to notice the very first movements of your ass's unstoppable downward plunge. She is so sweet and likes you, maybe even loves you (!?) so much that she'll only mention that you hump her like a truck stop glory hole when you're both too drunk to remember.
And in return, you'll be a good friend to her too, helping her out as her career moves forward, lavishing her with gifts, financing romantic vacations together and you never ever not even once think, much less give utterance to, the idea that she is on her best days emotionally damaged, and on her worst, a whore. So drop me a line this summer while you're wife is in the Hamptons. Soulless, selfish hedonists need attention and affection too :)
Monday, December 15, 2008
God's Green Earth
In the beginning, God created planets, moons, stars, galaxies...the universe. Although He loved all of His creations planet Earth was His favorite. It was warm, rich and dynamic. In fact, God loved His Earth so much, He wanted to give it a gift. He searched through His personal affects and came across a variety pack labeled flora. In one grand gesture He scattered the contents over the planet and watched life unfold. All kinds of plants erupted from the soil in a spectacular display. They were beautiful, quiet and peaceful, all while living growing and dying. It was perfect. God was so enchanted with His lush vegetated Earth He wanted to give it another gift. After looking long and hard through His belongings He found another variety pack, this one labeled fauna #1. With one more grand sweeping motion the fauna populated the Earth. Much to God's delight the contents of this package were beautiful, friendly and harmless. But a terrible thing happened. The new creatures started munching, grazing and trampling God's green earth. The plants that survived so patiently and peacefully were being destroyed by the mindless animals. God was heartbroken. In a moment of outrage He threw upon the Earth another variety pack. This one spread quickly and loudly began to devour the plant murderers. But God soon came to regret this decision, realizing that all of this brutality was only making matters worse. As He looked over the blood soaked terrain that had once been so innocent and pure He was deeply saddened. God simply did not know what to do; every move He made only seemed to cause more problems. So God did the only thing He could, He sat back and watched. He watched the carnivores hunt and feast and He watched the herbivores collect unknowing victims. But mostly He watched His beloved plants as they began to grow and change and adapt. Some tried to protect themselves, while others desperately spread their seeds. But some plants began to change in another way. These plants, left in the dark dreary corners of the Earth, began to take victims; tiny insignificant victims, but victims nonetheless. God learned to forgive the vicious carnivores, as they had no other way to survive. And He managed to forgive the herbivores for their destruction as their intentions were pure. But the carnivorous plants had betrayed God. Today the heights of heaven remain filled with a botanical bounty where all the animals of the Earth roam free. But there is no place in heaven for carnivorous plants. Carnivorous plants go to hell.
Monday, October 20, 2008
The Amethyst Hotel
The Amethyst Hotel
She gave monumentally bad head and it took him forever to come, though he eventually did gurgle out thick, desperate ripples. To repeat, alarmingly bad head (Exhibit A). He considered this along with the fluffy blond down on parts of her nape (Exhibit B) and stomach (Exhibit C), which ex facie suggested she had lied about her age. As he washed beneath his foreskin at the wet bar it dawned on him that she was some father’s little princess, a fresh entry into the club scene with a fake ID and probably no more than 17 years under her belt. The realization swept over him like a sentence.
He wandered aimlessly about the eighth floor and felt touched by its symphony of lives behind numerous identical doors. He wondered how many behind those doors had been shanghaied into mouth-fucking a minor. He imagined the knocking of gavels and the swish-swish of orange-bootied inmate shoes.
He rode the elevator to the lobby, feeling the electricity of resolution. Being an adult—he ruminated as he walked into Bacchus, the tastefully appointed hotel bar, for the second time that night—means dealing with the consequences when you fuck up. He had fucked up (abysmally) and now he would atone. He scoped the bar for the burliest corn-fed football fanatic he could find, preferably one who exuded martial arts training. Approaching his target from behind, he slapped this blue-blooded ox of an Amerkan in the back of the head, hard, and quipped, “Look a’ this lil’ faggot.”
There was quick action, the kind that required tenfold longer to explain than to observe. What did stand out to
Bacchus' patrons that night was the sheer malice expressed by the smaller man, as displayed by his acerbic harangues barked through clenched teeth (“Come on, you fucking terrorist!”). The motive for the smaller man's actions was hard for the witnesses to ascertain, at least while the punches were still flying, and—subsequently, as a direct result of the previous subordinate clause—while the man leaked forth onto the floor, checkered in different shades of purple.
But this was all easily explainable—reasoned the bar patrons seriatim, after mulling it over and swishing it around in their pints. After all, how often have we seen someone get a little brave, boastful? And how often have we seen a drunk flare up like a tinderbox and devolve into a beast?
And one by one, the stool-sitters and nut-munchers deliberated until their minds had dotted the "i"s and crossed the "t"s of the SNAFU’s unfolding, arriving finally at a satisfactory explanation they could take home to their wives or coworkers as proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, that they were “good men.”
But why—and this singular fact, forgotten by most in the bar that night, continued to bother the blue-blooded Amerkan ox until he found peace in a frenzied interaction between a ball-peen hammer and two underutilized fingers on his left hand—why, in all the depraved, sick lunacies of the motherfucking free world, why had that drunken instigator never once fought back? He had only chomped down—like someone getting dental X-rays—on an Amethyst Hotel matchbook, waiting for the punches to come, each one landing, making his eyes dial rotary telephones in the air.
She gave monumentally bad head and it took him forever to come, though he eventually did gurgle out thick, desperate ripples. To repeat, alarmingly bad head (Exhibit A). He considered this along with the fluffy blond down on parts of her nape (Exhibit B) and stomach (Exhibit C), which ex facie suggested she had lied about her age. As he washed beneath his foreskin at the wet bar it dawned on him that she was some father’s little princess, a fresh entry into the club scene with a fake ID and probably no more than 17 years under her belt. The realization swept over him like a sentence.
He wandered aimlessly about the eighth floor and felt touched by its symphony of lives behind numerous identical doors. He wondered how many behind those doors had been shanghaied into mouth-fucking a minor. He imagined the knocking of gavels and the swish-swish of orange-bootied inmate shoes.
He rode the elevator to the lobby, feeling the electricity of resolution. Being an adult—he ruminated as he walked into Bacchus, the tastefully appointed hotel bar, for the second time that night—means dealing with the consequences when you fuck up. He had fucked up (abysmally) and now he would atone. He scoped the bar for the burliest corn-fed football fanatic he could find, preferably one who exuded martial arts training. Approaching his target from behind, he slapped this blue-blooded ox of an Amerkan in the back of the head, hard, and quipped, “Look a’ this lil’ faggot.”
There was quick action, the kind that required tenfold longer to explain than to observe. What did stand out to
Bacchus' patrons that night was the sheer malice expressed by the smaller man, as displayed by his acerbic harangues barked through clenched teeth (“Come on, you fucking terrorist!”). The motive for the smaller man's actions was hard for the witnesses to ascertain, at least while the punches were still flying, and—subsequently, as a direct result of the previous subordinate clause—while the man leaked forth onto the floor, checkered in different shades of purple.
But this was all easily explainable—reasoned the bar patrons seriatim, after mulling it over and swishing it around in their pints. After all, how often have we seen someone get a little brave, boastful? And how often have we seen a drunk flare up like a tinderbox and devolve into a beast?
And one by one, the stool-sitters and nut-munchers deliberated until their minds had dotted the "i"s and crossed the "t"s of the SNAFU’s unfolding, arriving finally at a satisfactory explanation they could take home to their wives or coworkers as proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, that they were “good men.”
But why—and this singular fact, forgotten by most in the bar that night, continued to bother the blue-blooded Amerkan ox until he found peace in a frenzied interaction between a ball-peen hammer and two underutilized fingers on his left hand—why, in all the depraved, sick lunacies of the motherfucking free world, why had that drunken instigator never once fought back? He had only chomped down—like someone getting dental X-rays—on an Amethyst Hotel matchbook, waiting for the punches to come, each one landing, making his eyes dial rotary telephones in the air.
Monday, October 13, 2008
For Those of You in the Exit Rows
For those of you in the exit rows:
It’s not worth jumping. Don’t even try. The windows are sealed with double paned fiberglass, sandwiching a pocket of inert gas and high-density polyurethane spines. The cabin door may look like it’s easy enough to open, but that’s only in the event of an actual cabin or systems emergency, when the pilot has activated the Emergency Maneuvers Button Console and flicked not less than seventeen attendant switches, only then does the automated clasp holding the emergency exit in place retreat into the latch housing and allow for unrestrained motion of the cabin’s over-wing doors.
So jumping up and heaving at the door lever will only succeed in revocation of your air clearance for the rest of your natural life, and no flight school will re-admit you, no flight attendant training courses will understand that you are a complicated and melancholy person. When you apply for jobs, men with sucked-in lips and furrowed brows will scoff at your portfolio, of which the only distinguishing characteristic is an FAA dossier clipped inside the front cover that bears a menacing, red-stamped "Aviation History Incident Report." You will become instantly never-remembered. You will have to travel to the international headquarters of a little-known Grecian island hopper and apply in proper so they can weigh your English proficiency against your sifted and porous resume (“Yes, that sure is all of it. I took some years off to become a homemaker”).
And make haste, lest your demons catch wind and clutch you before the wall of emotional security is mortared. You will have to act now, or risk checking into that motel off route CA-111 in the Salton Sea with its half-blinking “Bombay Beach Motor Inn” sign, except in the dark, when it reads “Bom Beach or Inn.” You know that if you go back there, this time there will be no return, no crawling back full or focus and resolutions.
No: you will stockpile your 401k’s weight in booze. You will cry while watching daytime television, searching for curatives, you will cry lamenting a bad lot in life and you will die thinking something’s broken in you, that something broke long ago, that something had never worked, could never work, as long as ruinous thoughts existed in your clanging head: coins shaking in a bell jar, rattling harder, sharper, crashing.
Then you will become pieces. And sink. And like a ripple, your memory will spread. Just the ripples now, lapping at what remains, reminding everyone. And they will have to guess, “What could I have done?” and “Is she at peace now?” and, in their own difficult times, “Where is my friend?”
It’s not worth jumping. Don’t even try. The windows are sealed with double paned fiberglass, sandwiching a pocket of inert gas and high-density polyurethane spines. The cabin door may look like it’s easy enough to open, but that’s only in the event of an actual cabin or systems emergency, when the pilot has activated the Emergency Maneuvers Button Console and flicked not less than seventeen attendant switches, only then does the automated clasp holding the emergency exit in place retreat into the latch housing and allow for unrestrained motion of the cabin’s over-wing doors.
So jumping up and heaving at the door lever will only succeed in revocation of your air clearance for the rest of your natural life, and no flight school will re-admit you, no flight attendant training courses will understand that you are a complicated and melancholy person. When you apply for jobs, men with sucked-in lips and furrowed brows will scoff at your portfolio, of which the only distinguishing characteristic is an FAA dossier clipped inside the front cover that bears a menacing, red-stamped "Aviation History Incident Report." You will become instantly never-remembered. You will have to travel to the international headquarters of a little-known Grecian island hopper and apply in proper so they can weigh your English proficiency against your sifted and porous resume (“Yes, that sure is all of it. I took some years off to become a homemaker”).
And make haste, lest your demons catch wind and clutch you before the wall of emotional security is mortared. You will have to act now, or risk checking into that motel off route CA-111 in the Salton Sea with its half-blinking “Bombay Beach Motor Inn” sign, except in the dark, when it reads “Bom Beach or Inn.” You know that if you go back there, this time there will be no return, no crawling back full or focus and resolutions.
No: you will stockpile your 401k’s weight in booze. You will cry while watching daytime television, searching for curatives, you will cry lamenting a bad lot in life and you will die thinking something’s broken in you, that something broke long ago, that something had never worked, could never work, as long as ruinous thoughts existed in your clanging head: coins shaking in a bell jar, rattling harder, sharper, crashing.
Then you will become pieces. And sink. And like a ripple, your memory will spread. Just the ripples now, lapping at what remains, reminding everyone. And they will have to guess, “What could I have done?” and “Is she at peace now?” and, in their own difficult times, “Where is my friend?”
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Too Few for Noodles
Leopold licks at ice cream, walking down a street. He sees a cat, which runs scared from him. Leopold steps one more block and sees another cat that is identical to the first one but can’t be the same cat because it appears in a different direction from where the other cat just ran—he can be sure of at least that much, that is certain.
This cat studies him and follows Leopold closely. When he guesses that the cat would like a lap of the ice cream, he holds the ice cream cone down to shin-level for the cat to sniff and lick. The cat judges it and instead weaves in and out of the space between his legs—coquettish—in a repeating figure eight. Leopold takes another lick of the ice cream and again holds the cone down for the cat to try. The cat’s tail goes straight up and his ears slick back, ready to attack or flee. The cat—Leopold names it “Poncho” in his head—stands stalk-still and positively charged. Leopold says —to himself and to Poncho—that Poncho is shy and holds the white bulb millimeters from the cat’s snout, its whiskers stabbing the white surface. Poncho juts a bumpy tongue in & out of the ice cream like a spring-loaded stiletto knife. Poncho’s tail lowers and it licks one broad swath across the surface of the cone, the rough tongue leaving a deep groove where it dragged across the cone’s smoothness. The cat lets out a low growl like gravel between sliding panes of glass, ears again swept back and tail aloft. It makes one figure eight pass darting between Leopold’s legs and then expires, its head resting finally on Leopold’s left foot.
Leopold croaks surprise and is too stirred to move. He lifts the cone and studies it, eyes the deep groove that telegraphed the cat’s end. He takes a taste to see if it’s poison that did the cat in—that evil grocer is always trying to poison Leopold; he made a mental note never to patronize that corner grocer again for fear of poison dairy.
Leopold lives after the lick, but he starts to cry. He drops the cone and the white muck goes plop on pavement and Leopold bends from the waist to pick up the cat and he sobs into the cat’s fur. It is—or, was—a street cat so the smells locked into the fur do not please Leopold and this makes him cry more. “I don’t understand,” says Leopold in between tears. “I’m yellow and he was just black like oak knolls,” and, after a few more breaths punctuated with staccato blurting, “we should have made bumble bees together in the shade of that sycamore against the back fence. Why do the ones I love get poisoned by that mean old grocery clerk?”
The other cat—the one to run away—is eyeing the scene from a spot of darkness where two brick walls come together to form a grooved edge. Leopold opens his eyes and sees the first cat through Poncho’s tear- and grime-matted fur and he drops the cat unceremoniously like mutton bones onto the pavement at his feet—there is a muffled thump of something tearing, giving way—its limp forepaws sopping into the drooling puddle of white cream. “You did this!” Leopold says to the recent arrival, which looks more domesticated than Poncho, entitled. The other cat—Leopold decides is “Drake”—is wiping his eyes with the top of his right forepaw, the way a human wipes tears.
Drake does this for at least six seconds, while Leopold seethes with rage. And Leopold decides to hurt, but not like the hurt he himself feels right now but he wants to make Drake hurt for abandoning Poncho, because Poncho would not have died if Drake wouldn’t have turned his back on Poncho when friendship was needed most. Leopold is making plans to bludgeon Drake and then he thinks of drowning him in a pot of water that he keeps for boiling many packages of noodles when he has guests to dinner. It isn’t clean right now; he would have to scrub the pot first to get out the leftover noodles and then he could fill it with water and push Drake in it—he would claw at first, but Leopold was prepared for difficulties—but Drake sees Leopold’s unkind plans through his eyeballs and makes various evacuation plans from his current coordinates to less-hostile territory.
But neither creature does anything premeditated because a Peugeot with all four hubcaps sputters down the street and splashes a puddle that startles them both and when Leopold regains concentration Drake is gone.
And Leopold’s rage at Drake makes the blankness come, and once again Leopold is with Poncho—looking at smooth-backed cockroaches skittering into the deep pits in his porch—dreaming of yellow and black and flowers thick with bumble bees. The cockroaches open and pour, the patterned divots and humps of their shiny brown backs catch light and pass it on, catch light and pass it on. Silent, except for the thump of wing beats pushing against the sky.
This cat studies him and follows Leopold closely. When he guesses that the cat would like a lap of the ice cream, he holds the ice cream cone down to shin-level for the cat to sniff and lick. The cat judges it and instead weaves in and out of the space between his legs—coquettish—in a repeating figure eight. Leopold takes another lick of the ice cream and again holds the cone down for the cat to try. The cat’s tail goes straight up and his ears slick back, ready to attack or flee. The cat—Leopold names it “Poncho” in his head—stands stalk-still and positively charged. Leopold says —to himself and to Poncho—that Poncho is shy and holds the white bulb millimeters from the cat’s snout, its whiskers stabbing the white surface. Poncho juts a bumpy tongue in & out of the ice cream like a spring-loaded stiletto knife. Poncho’s tail lowers and it licks one broad swath across the surface of the cone, the rough tongue leaving a deep groove where it dragged across the cone’s smoothness. The cat lets out a low growl like gravel between sliding panes of glass, ears again swept back and tail aloft. It makes one figure eight pass darting between Leopold’s legs and then expires, its head resting finally on Leopold’s left foot.
Leopold croaks surprise and is too stirred to move. He lifts the cone and studies it, eyes the deep groove that telegraphed the cat’s end. He takes a taste to see if it’s poison that did the cat in—that evil grocer is always trying to poison Leopold; he made a mental note never to patronize that corner grocer again for fear of poison dairy.
Leopold lives after the lick, but he starts to cry. He drops the cone and the white muck goes plop on pavement and Leopold bends from the waist to pick up the cat and he sobs into the cat’s fur. It is—or, was—a street cat so the smells locked into the fur do not please Leopold and this makes him cry more. “I don’t understand,” says Leopold in between tears. “I’m yellow and he was just black like oak knolls,” and, after a few more breaths punctuated with staccato blurting, “we should have made bumble bees together in the shade of that sycamore against the back fence. Why do the ones I love get poisoned by that mean old grocery clerk?”
The other cat—the one to run away—is eyeing the scene from a spot of darkness where two brick walls come together to form a grooved edge. Leopold opens his eyes and sees the first cat through Poncho’s tear- and grime-matted fur and he drops the cat unceremoniously like mutton bones onto the pavement at his feet—there is a muffled thump of something tearing, giving way—its limp forepaws sopping into the drooling puddle of white cream. “You did this!” Leopold says to the recent arrival, which looks more domesticated than Poncho, entitled. The other cat—Leopold decides is “Drake”—is wiping his eyes with the top of his right forepaw, the way a human wipes tears.
Drake does this for at least six seconds, while Leopold seethes with rage. And Leopold decides to hurt, but not like the hurt he himself feels right now but he wants to make Drake hurt for abandoning Poncho, because Poncho would not have died if Drake wouldn’t have turned his back on Poncho when friendship was needed most. Leopold is making plans to bludgeon Drake and then he thinks of drowning him in a pot of water that he keeps for boiling many packages of noodles when he has guests to dinner. It isn’t clean right now; he would have to scrub the pot first to get out the leftover noodles and then he could fill it with water and push Drake in it—he would claw at first, but Leopold was prepared for difficulties—but Drake sees Leopold’s unkind plans through his eyeballs and makes various evacuation plans from his current coordinates to less-hostile territory.
But neither creature does anything premeditated because a Peugeot with all four hubcaps sputters down the street and splashes a puddle that startles them both and when Leopold regains concentration Drake is gone.
And Leopold’s rage at Drake makes the blankness come, and once again Leopold is with Poncho—looking at smooth-backed cockroaches skittering into the deep pits in his porch—dreaming of yellow and black and flowers thick with bumble bees. The cockroaches open and pour, the patterned divots and humps of their shiny brown backs catch light and pass it on, catch light and pass it on. Silent, except for the thump of wing beats pushing against the sky.
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