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.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
Now why did you have to go and do that,
Dave? I'm lying to myself when I say that you're in a better place now—a calm place—because I know exactly where you are, and it's anything but calm:
I was in a meadow on a hike yesterday, relaxing in a clearing called Laurel Dell under the gaze of Mt. Tam(alpais). I went there to think; about you? Sure, at least in part. And to handle the things I knew I would have to do to forgive you, the things my mentor had told me to do to release all sorts of voodoo that's probably older than humanity, practiced in some strange primal forms among lesser evolutionary neighbors.
I felt you there and I was comforted. Then I realized I wasn't being entirely new-agey, that there was a statistical probability that atoms from your body represented somewhere near 1 ppo (parts per octillion) of the atoms buzzing around me, incorporating themselves into me with each breath—which inspires an estimated 1.3 x 10^22 gas molecules, or 13000000000000000000000 molecules, to give you a better idea just how much you physically change with each inhale and exhale. Each time you exhale, an equal amount of you leaves you and enters the ether; and as if that's not enough, you is constantly leaking out of your pores, sweat glands, menses, etc.
Your body decomposes, the atoms survive as fundamental dust. Eventually, I will inhale a molecule of elemental nitrogen that was an amino group in a glycine molecule in a polypeptide subunit in a protein in a muscle in your shoulder. Or your abdomen.
Your sizzling brain.
And these interactions—between my current atoms and your former ones—will continue. Forever.
Stretching, opening endless to the sea.
I was in a meadow on a hike yesterday, relaxing in a clearing called Laurel Dell under the gaze of Mt. Tam(alpais). I went there to think; about you? Sure, at least in part. And to handle the things I knew I would have to do to forgive you, the things my mentor had told me to do to release all sorts of voodoo that's probably older than humanity, practiced in some strange primal forms among lesser evolutionary neighbors.
I felt you there and I was comforted. Then I realized I wasn't being entirely new-agey, that there was a statistical probability that atoms from your body represented somewhere near 1 ppo (parts per octillion) of the atoms buzzing around me, incorporating themselves into me with each breath—which inspires an estimated 1.3 x 10^22 gas molecules, or 13000000000000000000000 molecules, to give you a better idea just how much you physically change with each inhale and exhale. Each time you exhale, an equal amount of you leaves you and enters the ether; and as if that's not enough, you is constantly leaking out of your pores, sweat glands, menses, etc.
Your body decomposes, the atoms survive as fundamental dust. Eventually, I will inhale a molecule of elemental nitrogen that was an amino group in a glycine molecule in a polypeptide subunit in a protein in a muscle in your shoulder. Or your abdomen.
Your sizzling brain.
And these interactions—between my current atoms and your former ones—will continue. Forever.
Stretching, opening endless to the sea.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Two Phrases
Two old saws have just made their way into my conscience. They're from two utterly different races that I nonetheless identify a lot with (even though I have no racial heritage to one of them).
The first is an old Irish toast: "May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead."
The second is a Gypsy saying: "When I die, bury me standing because I've spent my whole life on my knees."
The first is an old Irish toast: "May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead."
The second is a Gypsy saying: "When I die, bury me standing because I've spent my whole life on my knees."
Saturday, September 6, 2008
At some point my body and my mind became at odds with one another. My body says, "Eat, for I need nourishment," to which my mind retorts, "Smoke, for I feel pain."
I didn't notice the schism when it first happened; it's only becoming apparent to me now in the aftermath. The gap probably began widening once I first noticed that the measures I was taking to ameliorate the mind were destroying the body.
I didn't notice the schism when it first happened; it's only becoming apparent to me now in the aftermath. The gap probably began widening once I first noticed that the measures I was taking to ameliorate the mind were destroying the body.
Friday, September 5, 2008
And May Strunk & White Have Pity on My Soul
I am singlehandedly destroying the exclamation point. Oh, it begs me to stop, but I power through the whinnying pleas and mash that bruised combination of Shift + 1 until the paint has worn off the keyboard where my plunging little pinkie makes contact.
I write internet advertisements called tags, each one no more than ten words long. You've seen them, oh, you've seen them. They glitter at the top and right side of every internet search you've done in the last four years. You've wondered if they're legit, if they're laden with viruses and Trojans, if they can actually deliver on their promise to make you a six-figure salary all in the comfort of your own home—and just in your free time too!—and your fears are well founded.
Anyone who hasn't had their head up their ass since the dawn of the internet age knows that those pop-up ads are replete with exclamation points. "Buy NOW!" and "1000s in Stock!!!" eventually gave way to more daring eye-poppers of punctuation like "$ave Ton$ @ BargainBa$ement!!@!!"; and it doesn't seem as if it will get any better soon.
I have now become one of those punctuation pimps, putting my exclamation-mark hoes out there in public to strut their stuff just so I can make a few dollars, when all they want is to edge up alongside someone, excuse me, something that actually deserves their presence. I am a copywriter working for a large internet advertising agency, and this missive comes as an admission of my guilt. I pray that this confession will expunge my blotched soul, that it will prevent the wanton exclamatory abuse of my professional life from bleeding into my hobby of writing prose. God knows I'll never be the next Hemingway—or even the next Crichton for that matter—if I'm littering the page with exclamation points like so many cigarette butts on my lawn.
I must admit, I'm scared: today I glanced at my to-do list I write every morning and found, to my horror, an erect dash over a dot next to, of all things, "Go to meditation class." Of all the activities on my to-do list, one as calming and serene as Introduction to Buddhist Meditation class was hardly deserving of the thunderous call to arms that an exclamation point brings. It's when things like this started happening that I realized it's only a matter of time before I'm shimmying down the street in tattered rags and barking every third or fourth nonsensical word to passersby.
I can see the future headlines in esteemed scientific journals and pop science publications alike: "Exclamation Point Surge in Internet Age Believed to Have Caused 4-Fold Rise in Schizophrenia Rates."
It's not my fault though—at least not entirely my fault—the way it's not Paul Tibbets' fault that he depressed the button that opened the hatch that dropped the bomb that killed 140,000 Japanese citizens in a flash of brilliance and stupidity. He was just following orders, regardless of how inane those orders were.
I am simply the Office Space version of Paul Tibbets. I follow orders. At least while they're watching. So I do what I was trained to do: I insert exclamation points when a period will suffice—nay, when a period is grammatically presupposed. Almost every ten-word blurb I write has at least one exclamation point, splattered helplessly next to half-phrases that make sense only to product-hungry stay-at-home moms and eBay profiteers lounging in their underwear at their kitchen table, desperately searching for that one possession that will make them whole.
I know that one day, my boss will come to my corner of the office, where I sit with three other copywriters who churn out the same steaming piles as I, day in, day out. He with the company car and the MBA and the same breakfast and lunch every day since I've cared to notice, he will look at us with a solemn expression and puffy, reddened eyes and say, "It's done. We've killed it."
And, as if waking from a long nap, I will wonder, has he been crying?
I write internet advertisements called tags, each one no more than ten words long. You've seen them, oh, you've seen them. They glitter at the top and right side of every internet search you've done in the last four years. You've wondered if they're legit, if they're laden with viruses and Trojans, if they can actually deliver on their promise to make you a six-figure salary all in the comfort of your own home—and just in your free time too!—and your fears are well founded.
Anyone who hasn't had their head up their ass since the dawn of the internet age knows that those pop-up ads are replete with exclamation points. "Buy NOW!" and "1000s in Stock!!!" eventually gave way to more daring eye-poppers of punctuation like "$ave Ton$ @ BargainBa$ement!!@!!"; and it doesn't seem as if it will get any better soon.
I have now become one of those punctuation pimps, putting my exclamation-mark hoes out there in public to strut their stuff just so I can make a few dollars, when all they want is to edge up alongside someone, excuse me, something that actually deserves their presence. I am a copywriter working for a large internet advertising agency, and this missive comes as an admission of my guilt. I pray that this confession will expunge my blotched soul, that it will prevent the wanton exclamatory abuse of my professional life from bleeding into my hobby of writing prose. God knows I'll never be the next Hemingway—or even the next Crichton for that matter—if I'm littering the page with exclamation points like so many cigarette butts on my lawn.
I must admit, I'm scared: today I glanced at my to-do list I write every morning and found, to my horror, an erect dash over a dot next to, of all things, "Go to meditation class." Of all the activities on my to-do list, one as calming and serene as Introduction to Buddhist Meditation class was hardly deserving of the thunderous call to arms that an exclamation point brings. It's when things like this started happening that I realized it's only a matter of time before I'm shimmying down the street in tattered rags and barking every third or fourth nonsensical word to passersby.
I can see the future headlines in esteemed scientific journals and pop science publications alike: "Exclamation Point Surge in Internet Age Believed to Have Caused 4-Fold Rise in Schizophrenia Rates."
It's not my fault though—at least not entirely my fault—the way it's not Paul Tibbets' fault that he depressed the button that opened the hatch that dropped the bomb that killed 140,000 Japanese citizens in a flash of brilliance and stupidity. He was just following orders, regardless of how inane those orders were.
I am simply the Office Space version of Paul Tibbets. I follow orders. At least while they're watching. So I do what I was trained to do: I insert exclamation points when a period will suffice—nay, when a period is grammatically presupposed. Almost every ten-word blurb I write has at least one exclamation point, splattered helplessly next to half-phrases that make sense only to product-hungry stay-at-home moms and eBay profiteers lounging in their underwear at their kitchen table, desperately searching for that one possession that will make them whole.
I know that one day, my boss will come to my corner of the office, where I sit with three other copywriters who churn out the same steaming piles as I, day in, day out. He with the company car and the MBA and the same breakfast and lunch every day since I've cared to notice, he will look at us with a solemn expression and puffy, reddened eyes and say, "It's done. We've killed it."
And, as if waking from a long nap, I will wonder, has he been crying?
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Tell me a story.
About what?
I don't know, give me a good one.
Did I ever tell you about the time my father very nearly pushed me to take my own life?
No. My God. What’d it happen like?
Like any other row in the kitchen of my childhood. The perpetuity of my parents’ fighting; I think I just wanted to top them somehow, though I was also the only chronically depressed ten-year-old I knew—which, by the way, only made the depression worse, you know, feeling no one could relate, yadda yadda yadda.
That must have been hard.
Yeah, well, steel is forged in a crucible or something, right?
I guess…
But anyway, there I was in the kitchen with my parents one summer day when I was ten or eleven and I had just told them about this horrible nightmare I had during a nap that day. One of those dreams where you’re falling and falling endlessly, but then all of a sudden I just went splat! right there on the ground and my viewpoint or viewfinder or mind’s eye or—you get the point—anyway it started panning out and giving me a wider and wider angle of my body just lying there with blood oozing out on the pavement. And then there was this overriding thought that started as a whisper, and by the time I woke up it had become a near-deafening mantra, You are nothing, you are nothing and so on over and over. I woke up with such an existential rain cloud over my head that I could just not fathom any value to my existence. So, naturally, I went into the kitchen where I heard my parents arguing and I had the plan of hacking myself to bloody bits in front of them to convey the message that their arguing and their fighting and their separations were all bullshit, just like my very life was.
Jesus. Then what?
Well, I can’t exactly remember what the chronology of events was, but it felt like all of a sudden there was a huge kitchen knife in my hand, and the next thing I remember I was holding it to my throat and yelling I want to fucking die, which was strange because I don’t think I’d ever said the f-word in front of my parents before. I mean, I was only like ten at the time.
What’d they do?
Well, I remember this stone-face look my mom had, like if a feather fell on her she’d shatter into a thousand pieces. She didn’t get out a peep the whole time except Oh and then, in a voice so long and low it sounded like my dad’s bellowing, no… But my dad was the real showstopper. This sonofabitch had the nerve to say, before anything else, That’s not even the right knife.
No!
Yeah! But it got better. He leaned up against the tile countertop real slow and looked me up and down like he was assessing each and every electron in my body, and then he said, Do it.
What? No he didn’t. No way a parent would say that in those circumstances.
Look, did you want the E! True Hollywood Story over here or did you not? I’m not gonna sugar coat anything for you. Do it. Do it. DO it already, for godsake. Really dig deep and figure out if you have what it takes to do that shit, son. And if you can’t go through with it, then put the knife down and ask yourself why. All the while I’m sitting there holding this knife up to my throat, and tears are streaming down my face at this point—mostly because of the expression on my mom’s face the whole time. I was utterly, absolutely flabbergasted. Of all the scenarios I had envisioned while I was walking down the hallway and into the kitchen to do this shit, never once did it cross my mind that my father would be standing there trying to talk me into pushing a mincing knife into my Adam’s apple.
That’s where you were holding it?
What the fuck? I didn’t know any better, I was ten. So I realized then that if I was going to commit suicide I would be killing the wrong person.
Who was the right person?
My father. He was a terrorist. It was only about the umpteenth time I had thought of killing him, but this time was probably the kicker because I thought for once he had actually put my life in clear and present danger by telling me to go through with it. I stood there frozen afterward, and silently thought about possible ways to kill him without shaming my mother too badly—all this while she cursed at him and pounded his shoulders, like, To tell our soon to actually KILL himself, I can’t fucking believe you Gerald... Eventually she left the room and it was just my father and I staring at each other in the kitchen. My bitter hatred was growing because I had begun to realize that he knew me even better than I knew myself. He somehow must have known that I never would have gone through with it. In that way he denied me what ninety-nine percent of parents would have given their kids in that situation: their utmost attention. What scared me most at the time was that I was pretty sure he could somehow read my mind, and then he damn near voiced the same thought as I had it. He said, Everything you think, everything you do, I’ve been there and done that. Because you are the closest thing to me on this planet.
How’d the whole thing end?
He picked up the knife I had dropped on the counter and studied it, turning it back and forth in the air and clicking his tongue. He replaced it into its slit in the carving block and removed a long, narrow knife from the cutting block and said, Now this is the one that you would use to actually take a life. This huge one would just cause a lot of pain. Then he went on, I’m gonna show you something they taught me in the service, hopefully you’ll never have to use it. But it’ll come in handy if you ever have someone in your home trying to kill you. It’s called the lethal knife blow.
Shut up.
No, yeah, this is for real. He handed me the knife and held the fingers of my other hand to his sternum. Now, any random thrust with a knife to the torso is likely to bounce of a rib, so you gotta aim for just below the sternum where your ribcage comes together. But if you just stab right there, you’ll still have a struggling body to reckon with until their punctured lung fills with blood. So, you gotta flick your wrist something fierce once you’re behind that ribcage in the direction of the heart. If you’re lucky, the tip of that knife will just about poke a hole in their heart and it’s bye bye Betty.
Tell me you didn’t lunge at him right then?
No, no. I just kind of backed away in horror while he stood there pointing to his chest at the best entry spot for the lethal knife blow. And I wanted to finish it so bad, but I knew that he could sense that and was poised and ready for me to try. Then he would have had a great excuse to ship my troubled little ass off to some special school with latrines and “sessions.” He was goading me on a bit, too. Hey, don’t scoff at it. That trick may save your life one day. Where are you going? Hey, you forgot to put the knife back in the block.
I don't know, give me a good one.
Did I ever tell you about the time my father very nearly pushed me to take my own life?
No. My God. What’d it happen like?
Like any other row in the kitchen of my childhood. The perpetuity of my parents’ fighting; I think I just wanted to top them somehow, though I was also the only chronically depressed ten-year-old I knew—which, by the way, only made the depression worse, you know, feeling no one could relate, yadda yadda yadda.
That must have been hard.
Yeah, well, steel is forged in a crucible or something, right?
I guess…
But anyway, there I was in the kitchen with my parents one summer day when I was ten or eleven and I had just told them about this horrible nightmare I had during a nap that day. One of those dreams where you’re falling and falling endlessly, but then all of a sudden I just went splat! right there on the ground and my viewpoint or viewfinder or mind’s eye or—you get the point—anyway it started panning out and giving me a wider and wider angle of my body just lying there with blood oozing out on the pavement. And then there was this overriding thought that started as a whisper, and by the time I woke up it had become a near-deafening mantra, You are nothing, you are nothing and so on over and over. I woke up with such an existential rain cloud over my head that I could just not fathom any value to my existence. So, naturally, I went into the kitchen where I heard my parents arguing and I had the plan of hacking myself to bloody bits in front of them to convey the message that their arguing and their fighting and their separations were all bullshit, just like my very life was.
Jesus. Then what?
Well, I can’t exactly remember what the chronology of events was, but it felt like all of a sudden there was a huge kitchen knife in my hand, and the next thing I remember I was holding it to my throat and yelling I want to fucking die, which was strange because I don’t think I’d ever said the f-word in front of my parents before. I mean, I was only like ten at the time.
What’d they do?
Well, I remember this stone-face look my mom had, like if a feather fell on her she’d shatter into a thousand pieces. She didn’t get out a peep the whole time except Oh and then, in a voice so long and low it sounded like my dad’s bellowing, no… But my dad was the real showstopper. This sonofabitch had the nerve to say, before anything else, That’s not even the right knife.
No!
Yeah! But it got better. He leaned up against the tile countertop real slow and looked me up and down like he was assessing each and every electron in my body, and then he said, Do it.
What? No he didn’t. No way a parent would say that in those circumstances.
Look, did you want the E! True Hollywood Story over here or did you not? I’m not gonna sugar coat anything for you. Do it. Do it. DO it already, for godsake. Really dig deep and figure out if you have what it takes to do that shit, son. And if you can’t go through with it, then put the knife down and ask yourself why. All the while I’m sitting there holding this knife up to my throat, and tears are streaming down my face at this point—mostly because of the expression on my mom’s face the whole time. I was utterly, absolutely flabbergasted. Of all the scenarios I had envisioned while I was walking down the hallway and into the kitchen to do this shit, never once did it cross my mind that my father would be standing there trying to talk me into pushing a mincing knife into my Adam’s apple.
That’s where you were holding it?
What the fuck? I didn’t know any better, I was ten. So I realized then that if I was going to commit suicide I would be killing the wrong person.
Who was the right person?
My father. He was a terrorist. It was only about the umpteenth time I had thought of killing him, but this time was probably the kicker because I thought for once he had actually put my life in clear and present danger by telling me to go through with it. I stood there frozen afterward, and silently thought about possible ways to kill him without shaming my mother too badly—all this while she cursed at him and pounded his shoulders, like, To tell our soon to actually KILL himself, I can’t fucking believe you Gerald... Eventually she left the room and it was just my father and I staring at each other in the kitchen. My bitter hatred was growing because I had begun to realize that he knew me even better than I knew myself. He somehow must have known that I never would have gone through with it. In that way he denied me what ninety-nine percent of parents would have given their kids in that situation: their utmost attention. What scared me most at the time was that I was pretty sure he could somehow read my mind, and then he damn near voiced the same thought as I had it. He said, Everything you think, everything you do, I’ve been there and done that. Because you are the closest thing to me on this planet.
How’d the whole thing end?
He picked up the knife I had dropped on the counter and studied it, turning it back and forth in the air and clicking his tongue. He replaced it into its slit in the carving block and removed a long, narrow knife from the cutting block and said, Now this is the one that you would use to actually take a life. This huge one would just cause a lot of pain. Then he went on, I’m gonna show you something they taught me in the service, hopefully you’ll never have to use it. But it’ll come in handy if you ever have someone in your home trying to kill you. It’s called the lethal knife blow.
Shut up.
No, yeah, this is for real. He handed me the knife and held the fingers of my other hand to his sternum. Now, any random thrust with a knife to the torso is likely to bounce of a rib, so you gotta aim for just below the sternum where your ribcage comes together. But if you just stab right there, you’ll still have a struggling body to reckon with until their punctured lung fills with blood. So, you gotta flick your wrist something fierce once you’re behind that ribcage in the direction of the heart. If you’re lucky, the tip of that knife will just about poke a hole in their heart and it’s bye bye Betty.
Tell me you didn’t lunge at him right then?
No, no. I just kind of backed away in horror while he stood there pointing to his chest at the best entry spot for the lethal knife blow. And I wanted to finish it so bad, but I knew that he could sense that and was poised and ready for me to try. Then he would have had a great excuse to ship my troubled little ass off to some special school with latrines and “sessions.” He was goading me on a bit, too. Hey, don’t scoff at it. That trick may save your life one day. Where are you going? Hey, you forgot to put the knife back in the block.
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