“At least somebody laughed,” he said, his head tilted slightly downward in my new apart- ment (compartment, box; I was just happy for company). It was not me that laughed, however (too honest to a fault, that’s me). Anyway, that fact was most definitely noted (the lack of laughter, not the honesty; honestly, I don’t know if anyone be- lieves – or if I will ever be- lieve – that part–the honesty– but its true)–by the both of us. So much so that quiet swirled around in the tiny room for a moment or two. Why am I so damned serious, you might wonder. The Aunties are always mortified by the severity of my seriousness. “Learn to espouse a bit of levity,” they’d always say. To paraphrase. Or expound upon, in my own words. So to speak. “I mean, lighten up for God’s sake,” they translated, in front of the both of us, all three standing stock still in the sub-zero weather at the barely cracked door.
“Dawn, Mister Smith- ereen. Mister Smither- een, Dawn. Well, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I do be- lieve that I myself am going to tiptoe over to the bar for a quench. Shall I get you queens anything? A julep, perhaps? At least it doesn’t come with a cantaloupe knock knock joke dangling just over the edge of Four Corners, New Mexico and such” [@ which he whips up more of a mosey than a tip of the old toe…]….
Musing Over Teenage Assignments on Anxiety In this Age of Anxiety; and Envisioning What such Homework Might Be (In a Somewhat Cheeky and Unfinished Manner; Inspiration!)
I bought a few yards of sweet-to-the-skin rope at Britex the other day, so that I could bring it to my Xanax class today, see? I mean, look, I have this soft-to-the-senses [watch as I demonstrate effortlessly, at least empirically] … …rope. [Look as I rub it in all the right places, exposing all the right places, including my raw and jangled nerves, if at all possible, can you tell how raw and jangled they are?] [Eyes meet the intended audience – mean- ing the skittish eyeballs of everyone in the room. Eye- balls which, upon half meltingly introducing my ‘rope’ and offering my gaze, pop directly up to meet mine, so swiftly as to almost exit their sockets.] My students, amongst their so-called peers (which ap- parently include the pre- viously noted professional professor) now each and all have eyeballs aimed like a compass needle steady on north are at me. And my audience fetish ....
[Loud and deliberate as fuck, please, but coming from an indeterminate somewhere in the audience:] “Hey! I get 30 bucks a pop for an A of any kind. Excepting in the case of an A+, for which I get at least a half a yard apiece, maybe even a double..so Benji, or whoever, depending on the needs of the weekend, bettah pop! Holla that?”
I think I’m enthralled. May I just throw in right here [clearly, but without clearing my throat] “End of dream sequence. Come back tomorrow?”
Says the man during a conversation about one of my favorite film directors. Back to form? he says and I wonder skep
tically when she ever lost her so-called
form in the first place? This is petty
of me, I think, given that his was at least a back-handed compliment. There is a ritual that for decades now has given me unfathomable amounts of joy: watching film trailers. For hours sometimes. Only these days it’s only the trailers (just like it’s only me). I’ve been at the cinema twice in the past three years (as compared to the zillions of times the previous
three). So I can speak to this, no?
Occasionally, I’ve taken Netflix up
on a free month or two, but even
then I cannot watch a thing in there.
It’s not the screen being so small. It
is my inability to dismiss the surroundings
of my present predicament; the questions
that demand decisive and urgent answers.
My retrieval into the celebrity of the small
screen has been meandering but thorough.
Only now, since I just tore my back, I’ll be
going on an indefinite leave. “It’s all con
nected. We can get to the
bottom of it.”
My weapon of choice (martial arts-wise) is the killer umbrella. A killer umbrella? Or, until now at least, it was my go-to. Probably more than any other reason because it’s so… unlikely? At least in that historical Hong Kong martial arts flick cinematic genre’s original way. It is outlandishly imaginative and was at first just plain beyond
my version of possibility. There is no right word, much as I am positive there is one, for this phenomenon, this notion of umbrella as magical realist weapon. As I attempt to stare at a future self everything begins to make sense in this killer umbrellas sense. What a lost form. Torn abdomens. Families of meerkats with no names, only so someone who concocts names can give birth to something, some anomaly. And what results is a person named Meerkat. And this is for life (will it inevitably have the
pizazz of Cher or Madonna, say? Likely not!). And so I wonder, why this pyrotechnical eureka, this everything making sense all of a sudden (like that moment during the first sem- ester of my sophomore year of undergrad, nearly two-thirds of the way through the term, during which my courses were Physics III, Organic Chemistry II and a class that gave dramatic/cinematic closure—with the scary pro- bability of a sequel—to all of the mathematics/algebra/ trigonometry/calculus courses I
had thus far endured)? Everything
makes sense sometimes, right? Or
is it just me? Do we not each have such moments? I wouldn’t know, of course. But did you know (as I now do, and am compelled to share) that meerkats are “social, desert-
and, I do mean hopelessly des- perate—in love. Romanticism be
damned; idealism be damned; such stupid incessant oil-mixes
to be avoided at all costs. The Montagues [hack!], the Capulets
[spit!!], the various nurses and nephews only trying to help! My
constipated ass they are!!! Hope- lessly fucked in a no-win situation,
completely unable to turn the right screws [and to this he mumbles a
bit of aren’t we all?]. Pushing the right buttons, of course we all
get it down to a science. The life of a spy, the life of a queen or a king,
even and especially the goddamned JESTER [a title to which our company
leader adds enormous decibels, as if it were a grander title than either
king or queen; it is basically coughed out of his throat—directly after which,
predictably, he has rolled his somewhat hazel-pixeled pupils so far back behind his
lids that he seems pained to continue; nevertheless]. Everyone knows that it is
at least momentarily back to business, even if on tenterhooks. So for now
what would sound like silence to a newcomer is actually a bombardment
of echoey gossip banging around in each attendee’s head. Some or most
may be unaware, but their skulls, in toto, are knowingly relieved
by such reverberated headache- inducing slam. So much so, in
point of fact, that roaches, might they be present, would most likely
be catching a bit of the conver- sation via these echoes. Ah,
silence. Old habits dies hard; I’ve learned from the best; etc.
And just like that, it's back to being desperate for just a smidge
of human flesh. Never not once! But behold, the almighty drag and swing
of Frankenstein’s monster’s newly stuffed arms, built cold and about to crumble only a few minutes ago, are now scorched with- in and without, and not simply by the al-
mighty Franklin God of the Induced Lightning Storm, but, as time passes
toward a chilly dusk, to cool the con- fusing emanation of heat that burns
within their own circulatory reverb. Oh, to be desperately AND hopelessly
in love, unable to screw or button-push in any engaging or locally and simultan
eously stimulating method. Dare I intimate the possibility of intimacy
(this seems the appropriate spot to do so). Desperately and hopelessly in love.
This I have known (intimately). But, during the same season, finding oneself in his first
(and oh how utterly despicable) instance of ALSO being utterly desperate for love;
even for the screws and buttons that often accommodate such whimsical nonsense.
This, an overwhelming combination that, with all the common sense one can muster,
seems an algorithm that literally necessitates violence. It is by no means inequitable to
accepting as many agonizing pinpricks as can be positioned onto one palm-sized portion of
human flesh. To become, as such, Mister Pincushion, who, never having a complete
termination of remorse from the one afflic- tion, finds with the added disease a nonstop
blister-producing juggle-gouging of hot po- tatoes so hell-bent that each night one eagerly-
picked vegetable simmers hot and then only hotter even as it has been distributed
upon the flesh of an alternative human [this, I can attest, reaches its full magick when the
heart-tortured company’s grotesque and mottled tomcat’s lavish hairball, a daily hot mess, has
just arrived (and NOT metaphorically) to double- press the steam out of the vegetables and into
the human soul. This, the idiotic magick of love. All this.]. All this: Just another nonstop
reminder of the repeated and inalterable movements we who are so doubly-afflicted each find our-
selves receiving every single day. And if we recuperate from this idealistic bullshit we learn far too late
that we are always merely the déjà vu of a monster. The one you’d always already become. Kindred
spirits with the immortal heaving a burden of rock and alloy from bottom to top of earth, every
single day the rock goes up until dusk settles, when the burden is delivered to its appropriate destination,
only to have the heaver (re)discover, on the verge of unconsciousness, that his innards are being dined upon
like carrion. For the rest of the night. Then, before the sun bellies up through the blue horizon, that
it is time to head back down to the bottom of this fiendish sphere, prepare the same burden, make
its daily delivery and reap the same rewards as the previous night. Over and over and over again.
And this was our Don, the Caesar of all of our immortal godfathers (emphasis on immortal?).
I mean, just take a gander at that gizzard, folks! No don, no caesar, and no immortal
would readily serve this up nightly, daily, routinely. And yet, with nary a snake left
in his bellypot, up he goes once again. [Sitting, as is his habit, for one brief moment beforehand,
almost laden with sense]. What’s a kiss but an inevitable stab in the heart? What’s a twirl
of our fair lady’s finger in her fine kept hair but a clump of it in some cold soup a few
days later? You call the odds if you want, but we already know who wins. And that
there is no cycle so odd. Yet, there will never be one so impossible to quit until the
instant the demeaning poison finally reaches the lips (which is entirely too much of a change
in this one-sided conversation), am I right? This, perhaps, the only cure that might remove the
tragic cycle? We are all afflicted. It is impossible to quit this tragedic scheme. Until, of course, we
finally learn (if we make it there—but I can most certainly pinpoint the instant at which I received
my education). Lesson learned? Perhaps. But when routine begs to prohibit crises of faith, it begs to toss
love to the mortally wounded coil. Then we might find ourselves no longer fools (nor dons, nor caesars,
nor gods), but mere, redundant mortals. As for this kind of non-love we deemed romantic and
actual? Anyway, it’s time to call in the dames. Time to roll the dung into a slippery ball and to
get it moving on up. Got it? All hands on deck! Let’s get it on, my men. It’s another night for
the dogs. Until we’ve completely eradicated the scourge of hope and unscientific emotion.
It turns out that Robert Smith can be just as heart-stirringly depressing when he’s just singing out the screen door window down into the court- yard. Somebody just had the precious wherewithal to notice how his own (the room from which he’s singing very live) window is open just so (the window that, I might more correctly relay, is the one window that emanates from the room in which he’s crooning – the one window that’s connected to the room in which Mister Robert Smith is crooning! Never lose sight!) that the room in which he is singing within these 5 stories of very small rooms (the courtyard, the unex- pected acoustics – meaning horrible or fan- tastic and everything in between – of the courtyard [almost] smushed against the open courtyard windows themselves – we are truly neighbors in this, our transitional housing venue where Robert Smith has taken to crooning from within the very heart of our building.) floods the ears of those of us within who have windows open to the courtyard. There’s rain presently forecasted for days on end; there is rain presently falling. This happens in San Francisco. Is Mr. Smith chagrined? That’s just a joke. I imagine that he’s immune to, if not in love with, the rain, in general. As it builds upon or flavors his crooning. Any nobody could stand anywhere in the vicinity and say that it perhaps tomorrow, perhaps the next day, this luck we have with being so personally crooned by such an illustrious star, here, in this place, will end. At some point, Mister Smith will be gone, but for now, and for a few days now, he seems not to recognize that he’s the catalyst for such a unique event. At a transitional housing facility. At MY transitional housing facility. In San Francisco this week. But, no. The final several weeks shall be more dramatic, I'd say. (Note to self: is it time that I begin adding “if you like that sort of thing?” -- no no no!! This is a magnificent luxury. Of what kind I’ve no idea at the moment. But we’ll get there. And we’ll all get there together.) (Further notes to self: How many of the tenants know who Robert Smith is? How many care? I know there’s an 80s song fanatic that resides in a room through a window directly across the court yard from my own – or in that general vicinity. Should I introduce the two of them? And is there a link between Robert Smith, homelessness, harm re- duction [and here I’m surely grasping] and/or anything San Francisco that is relevant. Repeat, is ANYTHING relevant here. Ooh, he’s still crooning this afternoon. Good ones, Mister Smith. This is most definitely relevant. And great ones indeed. Then it hits me like a ton of reverb that I’ve been avoiding you, my darling, for quite some time, even if you do yet barely exist. But you do, oh you purple bear you. And YOU remember that the theme at tonight’s disco- teque is PURPLE ROOM. You haven’t begun to think about a costume of course, much less the concept for the grand entrance hallway (a clumsy one, always, and yet the theme of clumsy conversation that makes up about half of the after-party talk. Is it that nobody’s high yet? Perhaps.). But I am so swimming with, well, if not ideas, then notions that this whole thing can be brought together for the good of everyone, should something purple walk out of my closet and say, “Del, I’ve got it.”… Well, no such thing happens, at least poste haste. However, as if on breakthrough, you realize that this is exactly what you’ve always been working your way towards; or at least sidling your career practically along- side. (And I’d say that the crash details of this “intro” are about to be known around the world. Or at least around ours. And Mr. Smith’s. Or maybe not Mr. Smith’s. He’s wonderfully out of touch.) And. It’s your call if not calling. And I see this written all over your face like a map so in wonder of this world of potential that, well, it has a world, a geo- graphy of potential. It’s your calling, remember. Um, and your call. But do you realize this ASAP? (Is it a new calling and the old calling simultaneously? This would take a while for you, for me, for us to parse through individually and in toto, I can tell. I even see that glimmer, say, with fortitude, that it’s your profession’s responsibility to emanate, if you will. And it damned well will be your entrance. A world of sighs all around.)
Time will tell how things turn out in this slightly off-beat club in the oddest part of San Francisco (for San Francisco – I mean, the club had been part of the city’s mainstay since I was part of the city’s mainstay, which began toward two decades ago now (not the actual moment I pulled in to the city, but the moment I began this endless party). I’d recalled with lots of funny faces, the ongoing theme of the awkward hallway that made its way from the slightly off- kilter parked cars, under the little umbrella—it was always at least drizzling—over the red carpet and into the great indoors, and finally toward the beat of the herky-jerky come-what-may that led to the dance floor – oh I heard once that there were gigantic round hay bales!). The event was filled to gala-proportions that night. Even Mr. Smith showed up, something that had been a less expected part of the gamble. And you, you’d found your profession, if you will. Even if it was momentary. And more than anything, you found your entrance. Life, we’d see once again, was to be grabbed by the balls and kissed so desperately hard one wouldn’t know if it’d immediately be spit up (life; the poor balls, etc.). And this we had made the good if not grandiose thing that begins and often ends all things so fantastic.
These wacky words are for my lovely and exuberant...and gracious... friend of 32 years or so, Tammy Powell
Inner Dialogue (Don’t Look Now, But I Believe I’m Already Back.)
I did not have the moral rectitude to tell her that he’d never left in the first place. “Not even to smoke a cigar on the verandah?” I heard this slowing, squeaky question from the back row and knew exactly what to do with it. “Not even,” to which there was a long pause. “Now just a moment, everyone. Let me ask you to each close your eyes. All of you, now, okay? Yes, it’s dark now. The midnight hour truly approacheth (as the man sayeth). You’d all think it was a little bit like late night, Carson having just started. Because it is the dead of night. Now can you. Each. Just imagine. How utterly, painfully, beautifully beyond sexy that scene must have been? [Shorter pause] Man, those really were the days, weren’t they? Gosh. And. Oh. You can open your eyes back up again. Thanks very much and have a wonderful mid- night, everyone.
Most folks have goals, a goal or two, semblances of them, maybe a sem blance of one, but as the song says (and who doesn’t remem ber this one), there’s gonna be a heartache tonight. Go ahead, look at the lady or gentleman you’ve probably never met in the seat to your right or to your left (I checked and most of you are onesies, so don’t even sidle me a lip-pursed glance). We cannot, each and every one of us, remain so incessantly contrite about the structures of our senten ces. Leniency will not be tol erated ladies and gentlemen. And that’s no pun intended, I’m as serious as cancer, and I’ve been led to believe that cancer can be pretty darned serious. But so can winning the lottery, as each of you in this room has the experience to live and tell. So, it’s your turn now. What’s your beef? What’s this lady’s cause for concern? Doesn’t each and every one of us rec ognize fail ure well e nough to have the word con stantly on the tips of our tongues? As a lovely case in point why don’t we all grab that tongue-tip of ours and in unison say as loud and clear as we must ( let’s forget about will or won’t or yearning for the high or the low roads for just a moment) and say—all at once now— PHILANTHROPY. So what are we going to do? I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to get up, walk out those doors, and start cut ting out the vast majority of human tongues. If that won’t end the strug gle, let me assure you that we’re all goners. What have we got to lose, any how? A bunch of worthless tongues? Who’s keep ing score? he laughs to himself. Nobody! he sudden- ly turns to address his devot- ees. Be- cause we’ve already won the game to end all others.
It Wasn’t an Event to Invoke a Nonconformist’s Cliché About a Higher Power. Nor Was It One to Untether One’s Wife- ly Duties and Make Any Sud- den Moves Toward Upsetting the Applecart. But rest and relaxation are nevertheless....
The inquiring and quite intimidated gargoyles were the subjects, I believe, of the article I was enjoying at the time. Dinner was running a bit late, which is hot at all out of the norm. And, also not unusual, the two Aunties were standing near the gas hearth, stock still, in the particular way they always loved to pose, believing themselves so very hip to the “Age of the Selfie Stick,” as they called it. Ron’s dun-colored mastiff arrived at the perfect time, spilled the entire bowl of pinto beans and somehow me under our elaborately-hewn (I the had a moment to notice) dining room table. Neither of us had ever pretended it was an actual dining room. But I was insis tent that it be both a room and a site with in which something akin to dining would at least occasionally occur. Anyway, no matter how seriously the belligerent Aunties were when it came to the diligence of their par ticular idea of hip portraiture, with their aw kwardly erect and severe looks to a photo graphic layperson such as I (okay, it’d been maybe a 7-minute duration of immobility thus far. But my god! If they gave out an award for Best Mannequins Alive each Year, well, they’d probably be dining with Meryl Streep and not their petty “nieces” at the moment). One bare shrimp the length and (literal) texture of the gullet of an egret makes for neither fine & dandy nor fine nor dandy. On any occasion. While I might be keenly aware that beauty is in the eye of the beholder (that is my opinion on that subject if it can even at all be an op inion and not a fact; a fact with which I’ve had enormous amounts of luck if you’d ask me, but then that would make light of the fact that facts are facts, I suppose — so don’t expect me to budge from the opinion that this fact is, um, a fact.), the poor gals suddenly looked as if they might lose con sciousness, like, pronto. For some reason this thought forced my eyes to roll back- wards, well into angles pointing toward the depths of my sockets behind which I’m to understand the very brain can be seen if only a tiny flashlight were handy on such unexpected occasions. Later on, sometime shortly after my eyeballs flipped back around in such a way that (and on this I can simply suspect, as always, never having any eyes but my own, of course), in a somewhat more human fash ion, I found myself staring in horror at the still models of the century and their chitosan- riddled eyeballs as they sort of scooted (like a dog does across the carpeted room when it needs to, you know, squeeze the Charmin) slowly, hesitantly and, I did think, madly at me. Needless to say we never made it to the bakeless blonde brownies on that particular special occasion (and of course I’ve already forgotten what had initially made this day so special in the first place, but obviously they were here, together, with us, and a meal was being prepared, so something special must have been happening at the time or within its pro ximity. I felt a joy that cannot at this moment be put into words (which would, of course, be quite exactly: The Aunties are leaving! The Aunties are leaving!) sprint like a marathon into my head with nothing less exuberant than sheer unre strained glee. I’m struck now with some shock at how unashamed I am of relaying this to you. But, you know, honesty and all. Ew. Well, anyway. I was able to control my normally uncontrollable reaction, that is to present anything anywhere upon the visible surface of my face how happy I was about this breaking news. In retrospect, I’ll just say that a senior must refrain from acting in any fashion that might be construed (or, as occurs most often my case, misconstrued) as the least bit giddy at your Auntie’s posing so long at a gathering that you are hosting that they have to do anything short of (on this day) calling the ambulance to leave said gathering a bit early. At the precise point that the door was shut behind them, I figure that if you’re going to guffaw, then guffaw you must. So what if you’re elderly. The horrid apologies can come later. (And if you’re not yet wise to elderly women or, I’m certain, men, then something guffaw- like erupts. You can always just apologize, say that you were just thinking about something from last month and quickly retreat to the ladies’ room. I’ve done it all my life and it seems to work for me. On most occasions, that is. There was that one time, but never mind that. That one’s a full story to be told on another date. If we ever happen to have another after this one. You don’t know this about me yet, and perhaps never will, but even though I do often go on, I don’t think that I have I ever once told a story in its need ful entirety? Which reminds me: on the day of the occasion in which the Aunties became frozen models (for a duration well over that which any 80 year old should re main that immobile and barely breathing) it would seem to me that I had finally be come a woman with wisdom. Which is a very cool thing, I think. One thing is certain and that is that I was the hostess with the mostest that day. Oh, and on a smaller but related note, not even once have either of us, whilst shopping, which was usually late on a weekday evening (by which I suppose I mean, in general, shortly after midnight), the two of us, exhausted, leaning dependently upon the handle of our one oversized but mostly empty cart as it crawls ever so slowly down every aisle at Target or Safeway or wherever, never has there been any reaching toward, or even pretending to even notice, those boxes of bakeless blonde brownies. They are simply and slowly passed, un noticed much in the same way that most scenery in a play or film might be. We are by all means only pretending not to notice them, but like most all other humans on this planet, we’ve all both got peripheral vision (speaking of oddly and often unnoticed facts). And I may not guffaw as I glance from the corner of my eye at, what at the sur face, looks and seems in concept like a wonderful, wonderful thing. But I let out at least a half-chuckle every single time. A frequent event that seems to happen to me in mostly inopportune moments and ones in which I assure you NEVER go unnoticed.
Aren’t there some folks you just want to clonk off? Like leisure tops. Or overgrown bananas (by which I mean the walking and talking kind; even though I adore words that in combination—or even alone all by themselves— make no sense at all). As if nonsense could even be gin to not make sense. It’s great fun to define things; and to invoke context. Esp ecially when there seems to be none whatsoever. Whether or not we’re talking physical objects, living beings or act ual events. At best it’s damned tricky to get even close to defining in any appropriate manner. Out here in the wild, it’s really just moment by mo ment. For each and all of us. Of proselytizing. Of overbearingly emblaz oning what we call wisdom onto unlistening juveniles. And smarts? Smarts doesn’t necessarily help, either. We can be ditzy or else just plain (too) enmeshed (in the now?) to contextualize. All I’m say ing is that to really context ualize properly is literally im possible. Most especially in the historical sense (as in defining — so as to rank, perhaps — where this moment stands relative to the future, much less the now). Like words—like language it self, even—context is never law. It’s always simply hy pothesis, if that. And as I was saying just a few days ago, wouldn’t that be a terrific invention to patent and from which to profit? Wait a sec. Maybe it was actually Greg who said that. I forget. But I by all means agreed. One hun dred percent. Ahem, well…. Oh! Apologies for losing track of where and what I was there for a moment (and boy did I ever!). It’s just that I was in the mid dle of practicing all of these pretend sounds for my dreams tonight. Omigod they work like you would not believe! And don’t be ridiculous, please, yes, drop by anytime you’d like, Just like usual. How about for tomorrow’s circus? Now that should really be fun. I tell ya, those animals!
If your piece of lover put on my piece of lover long enough to move from the flirty stage to the I’m-so- effin’-entertaining stage (each, of course, “dancing” onstage at this year’s hottest circuit party – remember those? – which take place when these days, by the way?) (and yes I’m just a bit curious!) – long enough to grab a piece of our next lover (who’s one and the same, but of course!) and all three (that is, the grand sum of all we’re talking about here, am I not somewhat on target?) would, you know, seeing that bore of a ham- bone in action, create within themselves (the sum of the three of them) at least a slight enough confusion that’d perhaps dangle in time just long enough for the first pair (re- member when we were a quar- tet?) to get tang- led up a bit in someone’s stage costume (some- thing not a boa, say, but boa- esque, perhaps), lose his and his balances so that him and him’d have to reach out in simultaneity, in which case they’d accidentally nab a hand-sized chunk (intact, but very clearly performed as a duet) of Sherry. Ah, remember why we call him that? It’s because he does so love to be shared, of course; but also because he never fails to overtipple on the actual drink; no less than, what, once a month wouldn’t you say...at least? (I would never go so far as to call it a problem,
I surely needn’t add. As we both recognize with strict clarity that it’s just a wee drinkie, if at all. Unless it passes through those permanently pursed lips; what a dreadful show!). Anyhow, directly after this...chunk...of Sherry has broken free into So-&-So and So-&-So’s palms, one of the S’s—or bet- ter yet, all three— will proceed to ev- er so accident- ally imbibe a very large por- tion of the boa- esque non-boa. I say they each ingest something akin to the size of, say, Lucifer writhing through an apple tree. Oh, shh!! Quiet for just a moment. Listen. You can hear all three of them pacing the hall- way just outside the door, as if each has some- thing very imp- ortant to say. And soon. Oh, but do keep the firmest of grips on this plan-to- end-all-plans (or vice versa). It’ll be the biggest spec- tacle in town for months. At least until tomato season, wouldn’t you say? Oh, I do make myself giggle quite uncon- trollably. Now don’t look at me askew like you don’t know very well that what I mean, at
the very least,
is never quite so…purposeful.
The funny part
about vengeance, a planet I used to never find myself
standing upon, much
less comprehending. I
mean even conceptually. Those were the days, I’ll warrant you. But what? Oh. The funny part about vengeance is always who gets to barf on whom. And I’m here to tell you, to
witness such a spectacle it is really quite addict- ive, don’t you think?
I am older than you are. But I’m not dead yet. It took nearly 3 years of burn- ing to face this. To “say” it. Who cares, right? So, when you sing your song about old men, no matter the look on your face, I’ll think ‘glorious!’ I’ll think that it must be true— my every dream! Well, not all of them. As for my additional dreams, tonight the moon weeps for each of them. They will each take time. And a little bit of death, shall we say? Yes, death. But what’s a little death for but to enthrall, invigorate, in- vite introspec- tion. The pun’s on me, and why not? I’m not a- fraid of myself. Nor what I’ll find. Some may say that’s a bit naïve. But not me. I have plenty left of my sleeves, clumsy as I may be at finding I’ve lost nearly half of what I was carrying up in there some days. Goodnight, you gloriously sad weeping ball of cheese. I’ll see you tomorrow night. And that's something you can count on for certain.
“Suicide bomb, that!” Says the guy playing the elevator music on his cellphone (for everyone in the ele- vator to enjoy). “This can’t be helped,” he says into the phone for whatever reason. (Everyone else thought surely he was going to terminate that hogwash with “can’t be happening, but it seems these thoughts were similarly spare of any real foreboding.) Not being a movie, this sort of string of incidents does not lead to tragedy. These things just do not occur in real life. Nevertheless, the pregnant woman began to moan. The elevator inhabitants were on their way up. The moans were barely a blip in anyone’s mind. And they were silent enough that it did not seem disturbing that no on was paying attention. Visibly, any- way. But each person in the shaft did believe they caught an audible “birth” and “fuck” . . . . Ah, mumbling. This is most definitely not what the occupants of elevator number five were thinking, but how could they not know, given the cast they encountered in the miniature fleet- ing home in which, come to think of it, we all spend an awful lot of time as its occupants are zipped away to another home (whether zipping down or up, as it turns out); to one that’s a bit less miniature and a bit less fleeting. Ah, home.
Back to our story. With, I’ll admit, an intended level of suspense, since I do know what hap- pens next, even fifty-one years hence (as I type this). How could I possibly forget? Who could? I exited the elev- ator and sort of staggered to my desk at my less fleeting home, after noticing that everyone else in the el- evator had the most unusual sunburn. “These people are so not careful,” I remember think- ing as I stumbled toward the coffee machine. Pay no heed to that. It’s simply my job to think. Because I’m the agent, after all. So, at that lost in thought moment of swagger and impending coffee, whether it was a bomb or not, I instinctively re- moved my phone from its holster (these things have been trending for weeks now; trust me, just look it up!) and I sent one quick text: “you still mean the world to me, nick!” I hit send and quite fortunately made it well toward the outskirts of floor forty-two before the massive explosion on floor fifty-one.
It’s “pretty cool” to get exposed to fine arts at an early age, like Kid Rock’s doppelgänger, we each decide, here in The Quiet Room of the homeless shelter in which I’ve “resided” for the better por tion of two years. And then Mr. Lucid for the First Time in the Six Months I’ve Known Him, he’s my bunk neighbor, adds “and so are interpersonal relations.” Nobody had a clue what to say for a long while after that. We made it true by just being silent. But, inside, I’m giddy. Because this lies at the very foundation of my value system; which been blown to smithereens the past couple of years, but yet clearly remains somewhere in here. Scrooge just claimed in a very poignant moment that interpersonal relations are, well, pretty cool. I’ve really no idea where the other minds here earlier have wandered, but I can hardly contain myself. Which, as anyone who has spent more than, say, fifteen minutes with me knows, is not that unusual. Biting my tongue being near impossible for me. So it’s tough to speak, and this happens to me next to never. A couple of minutes pass (or perhaps thirty?). Then Scrooge, aka Mr. Lucid for the First Time Since I’ve Made His Acquaintance adds, as if he had only just seconds ago made the previous observation, “Yeah, and you most definitely talk too much.” He’s looking at me (duh!). So the moment is gone. The subject veers momentarily to other subjects, like earthquakes. Apparently one hit Napa Valley the previous Sunday. A 3.8. I learn a lot from the guys in The Quiet Room. And relearn just about as much. Things with which I’ve been out of practice, like regaining control of a sustained type of optimism. This, and, another example, the art, the sheer necessity, of being social (I’m speaking for myself here, of course). I tend to usually add here that I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety, am on regular medication for it. Particularly social anxiety. But yet I’m also a clear-cut extrovert, in the Myers’ Briggs sense. So, I get my energy AND my anxiety from people. They’re a necessity and a curse (to which I usually add that I’m a Gemini). But, this can’t be that abnormal. Is it? I don’t know. It’s just me. And every day is learning to deal with it. I stop my meandering thoughts long enough to listen to the directions the conversations have gone in the room. How San Francisco sucks. How it’s a fantastic place to be (whichever, it’s home to me, and I do love it, or wouldn’t be sitting in a home- less shelter discussing such an absurd subject). Next up: our favorite spots to sleep when we are literally “on the streets.” Mine happens to be Ina Coolbrith Park (named after a poet!), a relatively untravelled diagonal block on Russian Hill built on one of those avenues that give way to a vehicular dead-end for a block or two due to how steep it is (or how wealthy the neighborhood, I suppose). My mostly six months on the streets coincided with the longest contracted job I’d had for nearly a decade, when (during the earlier time) I made enough money to take three and a half years off of paid work and live the life of what I considered at the time either a luxury I never thought I would have, or that of a bohemian artist. I loved the park because it was relatively un-trafficked, I had my own cul-de-sac built of boulders to sleep within (a fortress, if you will), and, night or day it had one of the most beautiful vistas these eyes have encountered. I got to wake up every morning, pre-dawn, to the view of the gorgeous new Bay Bridge, Treasure Island, and my “home,” of sorts, the Financial District, with its familiar buildings down below. As I spent my last night here at the barracks (as I called them), a place appropriately enough called Sanctuary, which stands inconspicuously at the corner of Eight and Howard Streets in SoMa, feeling the need to record yet another small record of my existence, this more straightforward (truthful?) than normal hello to the world, or the minute part of it that might take a listen, I am content. Tomorrow, I shall move on to better things. Finally. May it be an uphill swing for many years to come. If I had small glasses and champagne to distribute on my last night in The Quiet Room, I’d send us all a simple cheer. On to the next. May it never be as consistently grueling as the recent past.
It’s 2am, Tuesday morning. We’re six guys around a table in ‘The Quiet Room,’ which is never really quiet, but tonight it’s quieter than usual. New faces, old faces. The crazies, the dependables (such pigeonholing in the crypt of pigeonholing is always relative; more relative than you’d know for a long while, were you even stuck there as I was, assuredly). One guy I’ve never once seen lucid (he sleeps on the top bunk next to mine; I call him Scrooge, but a better description of his night- time ventures might more app- ropriately garner him the nick- name Gargoyle. Yes, these are some of the things that have occupied my mind during my stay here of nearly two years but for the 6 months break when I was working (and, lucky me, living on the streets simultaneously) – anyway, this is my first time experiencing him quite lucid, and we’ve been bunk neighbors for half a year. He’s the life of the party tonight! And party it is. It’s my last night here. I scan the “barracks” (as I call it here) in an attempt to envision this small tucked away enclave of a room a profligate (in the best possible way) cul-de-sac of lasciviousness. Our “Sanctuary” was home (apparently) to a bath- house. In the Golden Age of those mostly remnants of nostalgia here in San Francisco. The men sitting here tonight defy sex. That’s pro- bably an unfair assessment based on my own perspective. But they do defy sexuality, for certain. Except one, who’s a dead-on doppelganger for Kid Rock. And yet, he “got exposed” to “fine arts” at an early age, which, as he keeps saying (and I certainly keep agreeing), was “Pretty cool” . . . .
The days go by and I go without them. —John Ashbery
Finding crazy means you’re lost. And we all care not to be too lost, with cert itude! There are circumstances, but.... “The curtain and a curtsy!” the barmaid would always snort after pouring the five kamikazes. (She’d use ‘cinco’ for inadvertent but appropriate 1990’s faux multiculturalist unknowism.) Those might have been the days, ponders the one who thinks he’s actually in the know. Prox imity to the hole is always important.
I was going to puke once I realized we were not even halfway through the month. So. I’m truly sorry about the spectacle. But the fireplace is original. Sometimes memory is funny that way, serving no purpose but to remind us what idiots we are. Hence signifying the value of reclusivity and of running away from hardcore emotions or refusing to do laundry on do-or-die date. Obviously, there is an overarching fear that we might break our already fragile selves; become our own communal guiding light? Nice lighting in any environment is gener- ally helpful. And nice is not exactly det- ermined by the eye of the beholder here (if you follow my supposition) (distantly). A keen awareness of one’s environment can be helpful, if not crucial. I have heard about the wide disparity in how the periphery of each individual human’s vision can be in relation to the rest of
humanity’s. Deceptively tall embank-
ments on both sides of an intersection toward which you are driving (one ex- ample) before which thick vegetation obscures an intersection warning and, a few meters forward (i.e., directly in front of the intersection), another shrub- covered stop sign. These are not life- shortening or life-altering entities in and of themselves. Two or three nar- ratives of any shape or size suggesting logic via the narration of each. We play along. People are somehow fine with this routine. But, as for me, I believe doing so is the way of cretins. For one thing, people get terribly con- fused regarding their own role in their own event; and especially confused, say, when their closest friend is also at said event, there is massive confusion, in general, over who did what? Who hosted? Who was the most fun? The funniest? Etc.
