I’m neither fat nor lazy. I am out of shape and tired. It isn’t easy living life these days. Television is taxing and taxes are television. Death and steroid use haunt us from every direction. We are not safe on the street and we are not safe in our home. The world is hate and confusion. Yet, I know there is good out there, even in here, in me. I have the ability for good. I also have the ability to jog, but I don’t do that either.
My days are made heavy by stresses known and speculative. My shoulders sink in a constant hunch, as if ripped open at the neck and filled with endless grains of sand. Am I a sandbag to hold back floods of whatever is thrown upon me, or am I an hourglass, always trudging along, even as time runs out? Regardless, I am heavy. I am not your brother.
Or am I? We are supposedly all brothers and sisters, according to numerous cult literature and Motown songs. More so, I have an actual brother lost to me before I was even born. I know not of his whereabouts, his name, or if he even lives. He is nothing but sand to me and it slows my steps.
I saw on the news today that a tsunami in Asia has killed over 200,000 people. I didn’t know any of them. That does not make it any better. Maybe I did know someone. Perhaps I said ‘excuse me’ to one on the train, or stood next to them at Starbucks. I helped a guy push his car up a hill in Prague once, just like the jeans commercial, he could have been there. My brother could have been there. How would I know?
There are so many people suffering in the world, so many people full of anguish and hate, loss and love. What of us? We are indifferent thanks to venti lattes and plasma screens. We feel pity, perhaps sorrow. We feel that someone should do something. How about those pundits in Washington? They aren’t doing anything productive, just killing our own for no apparent reason, why not spend some money to save someone else? Someone should do something, but we have to go to work, plus the game is on tonight. I would go over there in a minute mind you, if I were to find that my brother was there, but how would I know? We’re all brothers aren’t we? Funny how we show it.
My sister and I used to fight all the time. We fought over many things, but never religion or oil. Yet, now our world is on Amber Alert for those very reasons. Why should I care what someone believes? Shouldn’t we be looking for alternative fuels at this point anyway? What is it about these things that makes my trip to the market so dangerous? Your beliefs are your own problem. Leave me alone.
Leave me alone. What an easy notion, but we can’t do it. In a world of avoiding eye contact and stepping aside for fleeing purse snatchers, we can’t leave each other alone. It’s ‘I want we he’s got’ and ‘they better think like me’ and of course the famous ‘or else’ that really puts our collective back against the wall.
How is it that in the same world where 200,000 people have died from an act of god, we are still fighting wars over which of ours is the god that did it? Who cares? Just help those people! How is it in a world where brave men and women fight wars against AIDS and cancer that my stepfather is having a tumor removed at the same time a carbomb is going off to prevent such forward thinking? Would fanatics rather those of us that survive earthquakes and tidal waves instead die from explosives and disease? Or would fanatics rather those of us that live with anguish and hate focus it upon the officials in Washington. There are floods of questions that grow stronger with time, and perhaps that is my answer: I am both the sandbag and the hourglass. And I am your brother.
Friday, February 18, 2005
Thursday, February 17, 2005
THE BEATLES ARE BIGGER THAN JESUSAUROS REX: AN ESSAY
We woke up early to watch the parade. It started at 7am, which seemed to me a fairly unreasonable time to get out of bed, especially for Al Roker. New York City was buzzing with people doing something as simple as watching a parade and as brave as leaving their homes. It was two months after the terrorists attacks and we sat in our living room drinking butter-rum coffee and feeling as safe as ever. It was the first Thanksgiving morning since we lost so much, and it felt good. We had much to be thankful for.
The parade announcers, including Mr. Roker, were dressed smartly in their free Macy's wardrobe, and the song numbers were lip-synced to near perfection. It was how Thanksgiving was supposed to start; family, coffee, the parade, and then football, turkey, and six bottles of wine. We had much to be thankful for.
About midway through the Parade the women announcer said something that I will never forget. That women that is so cute. Still. She had lost her husband, and she has kept her cool. Katie! That's it. Anyway, they are cutting to commercial and she is telling us what balloons are making their way up the street, and she says to stay tuned for Jesusauros Rex. Jesusauros Rex.
"What did she say?" we asked each other even though we all knew the answer. There was a balloon coming, somewhere between the high school band from Alabama and the 27th boy-band float of the morning, that encompassed everything that we wanted, that we needed. That America needed. It was a monster, a dinosaur of the Rex variety, the kind that devoured its enemies. And America has enemies. Yet, it was Jesus. Jesus is kind and understanding. He turns cheeks. He forgives. He makes a mean Merlot. Jesusauros Rex was everything we were feeling. Everything we wanted. Revenge and understanding. War and peace. Rage and reflection. Not to mention the endless bottles of wine. We looked at each other and waited his arrival like it was the Second Coming.
He never came. There is no such thing as a Jesusauros Rex. There is however, a Cheesasauros Rex, a giant dinosaur that encompasses something else America needs; pasta and cheese powder in a nice blue box. Kraft had a balloon and it wasn't a giant smiling cigarette. We had much to be thankful for.
So Cheesasauros Rex came and went, followed by the two oldest men alive, Tony Bennett and Santa Claus. It was really a nice parade. Al Roker was great. Katie Couric! Yes, I believe that is her name. Well, she and the other guy were great too. Yes Katie, there is a Cheesasauros Rex.
The funny thing is that when the parade was over I couldn't shake the message it had sent, even if I had imagined it myself. Love and mercy. Revenge and redemption. These were things that I needed, and so, as I always do in times of trouble I turned to the Beatles. After all, they were spiritual and blasphemous, revolutionaries and pacifists. They were eggmen. Fragile and hard-boiled. I am the walrus.
But football was on, so I forgot it all. Again. As if it hadn't happened, and I had never known the kind of pain that I had. The pain that was but a pinprick to the pain they had felt. Still. They lost their husbands, and they kept their cool. Those people gave new meaning to the word 'hero', and the old guard, like our professional athletes for example, could do nothing but say thank you, salute, and dry their tears. Sure, the Lions can't remember the last season they had that wasn't filled with pain, but it doesn't matter. It's a game, football, like so many other things we elevate it to pedestals it may not deserve, but it's okay. It keeps us sane and entertained. Football is a great game. An American game.
The Beatles, however, are not American, yet they are as much a part of our culture as any force in entertainment could possibly be. And then some. They are Beatlemainia. They were bigger than Jesus for God's sake! John Lennon said that, not me, but he had a point. They were selling out much bigger stadiums than God.
On September 11, 2001, Paul McCartney sat in an airplane in New York City and watched the world burn down. He saw through a first-class tinted window what we saw on our TV sets. Hate personified.
But for us it was Thanksgiving. We had each other. There was wine in my glass, football on the TV, and in the next room my wife and my sister sang Beatles' songs on the karaoke machine. We had much to be thankful for. And it was bittersweet.
It came and it went, tethered heavily upon our heartstrings, floating like a giant balloon. Yes Katie, there is a Jesusauros Rex, and he loves you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The parade announcers, including Mr. Roker, were dressed smartly in their free Macy's wardrobe, and the song numbers were lip-synced to near perfection. It was how Thanksgiving was supposed to start; family, coffee, the parade, and then football, turkey, and six bottles of wine. We had much to be thankful for.
About midway through the Parade the women announcer said something that I will never forget. That women that is so cute. Still. She had lost her husband, and she has kept her cool. Katie! That's it. Anyway, they are cutting to commercial and she is telling us what balloons are making their way up the street, and she says to stay tuned for Jesusauros Rex. Jesusauros Rex.
"What did she say?" we asked each other even though we all knew the answer. There was a balloon coming, somewhere between the high school band from Alabama and the 27th boy-band float of the morning, that encompassed everything that we wanted, that we needed. That America needed. It was a monster, a dinosaur of the Rex variety, the kind that devoured its enemies. And America has enemies. Yet, it was Jesus. Jesus is kind and understanding. He turns cheeks. He forgives. He makes a mean Merlot. Jesusauros Rex was everything we were feeling. Everything we wanted. Revenge and understanding. War and peace. Rage and reflection. Not to mention the endless bottles of wine. We looked at each other and waited his arrival like it was the Second Coming.
He never came. There is no such thing as a Jesusauros Rex. There is however, a Cheesasauros Rex, a giant dinosaur that encompasses something else America needs; pasta and cheese powder in a nice blue box. Kraft had a balloon and it wasn't a giant smiling cigarette. We had much to be thankful for.
So Cheesasauros Rex came and went, followed by the two oldest men alive, Tony Bennett and Santa Claus. It was really a nice parade. Al Roker was great. Katie Couric! Yes, I believe that is her name. Well, she and the other guy were great too. Yes Katie, there is a Cheesasauros Rex.
The funny thing is that when the parade was over I couldn't shake the message it had sent, even if I had imagined it myself. Love and mercy. Revenge and redemption. These were things that I needed, and so, as I always do in times of trouble I turned to the Beatles. After all, they were spiritual and blasphemous, revolutionaries and pacifists. They were eggmen. Fragile and hard-boiled. I am the walrus.
But football was on, so I forgot it all. Again. As if it hadn't happened, and I had never known the kind of pain that I had. The pain that was but a pinprick to the pain they had felt. Still. They lost their husbands, and they kept their cool. Those people gave new meaning to the word 'hero', and the old guard, like our professional athletes for example, could do nothing but say thank you, salute, and dry their tears. Sure, the Lions can't remember the last season they had that wasn't filled with pain, but it doesn't matter. It's a game, football, like so many other things we elevate it to pedestals it may not deserve, but it's okay. It keeps us sane and entertained. Football is a great game. An American game.
The Beatles, however, are not American, yet they are as much a part of our culture as any force in entertainment could possibly be. And then some. They are Beatlemainia. They were bigger than Jesus for God's sake! John Lennon said that, not me, but he had a point. They were selling out much bigger stadiums than God.
On September 11, 2001, Paul McCartney sat in an airplane in New York City and watched the world burn down. He saw through a first-class tinted window what we saw on our TV sets. Hate personified.
But for us it was Thanksgiving. We had each other. There was wine in my glass, football on the TV, and in the next room my wife and my sister sang Beatles' songs on the karaoke machine. We had much to be thankful for. And it was bittersweet.
It came and it went, tethered heavily upon our heartstrings, floating like a giant balloon. Yes Katie, there is a Jesusauros Rex, and he loves you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
A SENTIMENTAL FOOL AM I or ESSAY ON BEING A WUSS
In my search to find something sensitive for the holiday yesterday I came across this little piece that I wrote one morning in September of 2001, days before 9/11 and a few years before the Red Sox sold their soul to the devil. Turns out that I have quite a few of these essays and even though they aren't 'fiction' per se, I think that I'll include them on this page. Here 'ya go:
A sentimental fool am I. Really. I am much more sensitive now than I have ever been. When I was younger I was easily moved, even touched, by things around me, but those things always involved me directly, and most often than not, sex. Sensitivity was foreplay, and in the far too many cases where things went wrong in that matter, I was also feeling enough to drown myself one glass at a time with beer and cheap whiskey. I cared about things, sure, but I definitely had my priorities.
Then I grew up. Or old. Or soft. I grew something. Perhaps in a moment of Grinch-like awakening my heart grew to an incredible size. I don’t know. All I know is that I used to be different inside. Now I am a wuss.
The weirdest things choke me up. Commercials. What in the world can there be worth crying about in a thirty second ad? There’s something, and Hallmark makes it.
Take last night for instance, I was alone on the couch watching baseball. Yes baseball. It was the Yankees and Red Sox in the last game of a three game series in Boston the first weekend of September. Now, you may read this and think that crying in this situation is understandable, but the thing is, I’m not a Sox fan. I’ve no reason for tears. Besides, I didn’t actually cry at this point, but I was touched deeply by how close Mussina came to pitching a perfect game. It was his first year with the Yanks, and he had been pitching wonderful all season. The only reason that his win total wasn’t higher was the lack of bat support that the bombers were failing to supply. So last night it was the 8th inning, 2 out, 2 strikes to Carl Everett, and that bastard had the nerve to get a hit. Christ, you would have thought he was Ted Williams the way the crowd cheered him, Carl Everett, the man all of Boston treats like a boatload of tea. That really made me feel bad.
I changed the channel to the MDA telethon. It was a little odd, because as far as I could tell Jerry Lewis wasn’t there, or maybe he was napping, or sleeping one off. Like the rest of America I have grown accustomed to the lack of actual entertainers that do the show, but I figured Jerry might make an appearance at some point. I watched some guy named Norm slur and sit through half a dozen "entertainers" (of which the Oak Ridge Boys were the only legit, albeit has-beens, in the stretch, and even they were via satellite from Branson, which is something else that bugs the hell out of me. What is up with Branson?) while Ed McMahon played straight man for some "comic" and called out tympanies at a rate that seemed much more forced than I remembered. Then out of the blue they cut to Lou Gerhig giving his famous speech about being the ‘luckiest man alive’ and how he died from his disease just two years later. Even though that happened before I was born I have always been amazed by that footage to the point of goosebumps and periods of silence. With that effect still lingering Norm introduces a video clip featuring a woman singing ‘Amazing Grace’, my all-time favorite song to sing in the shower, to the names of all the people that have died from various sorts of Muscular Dystrophy in the past year. Man, that was heavy. Bank accounts across America were depleted by the second verse. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not making light of this, it was very moving, and that’s my point. I found myself holding back tears and watching the MDA telethon, not for the hopeful chance that Kiss might make an appearance as I did for many years on my livingroom floor when I was a kid, but for the humanity and pain and hope behind it. I didn’t even care that the Oak Ridge Boys made us sit through two other songs before they played ‘Elvira’, I cared about Jerry’s kids.
This isn’t to say that I haven’t always cared for people that face odds on a daily basis that I will hopefully never know, of course we all do, but how often do we actually think about it. Unless our lives are actually involved we pretend it doesn’t exist and then every St. Patrick’s Day we pay a buck for a Shamrock with our name on it to hang in 7-11.
I decide that I needed a change of pace so I turned the channel again, this time stopping on one of my favorite movies, Awakenings, with Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro. I remember seeing it the first time years ago in the theater, and that I had cried even then. If you haven’t seen it then turn of your computer and go rent it. It is based on a true story about the deterioration of the human body and the perseverance of the human spirit. It is a very touching movie that always makes me cry, and then I was. I laid in the dark on the couch and I cried.
That’s when I went to bed where my wife had been sleeping for hours and lay down against her, holding her as close as I could with my eyes closed and my lips lost in her hair, thanking anyone that cares that I am not going through this world alone.
A sentimental fool am I. Really. I am much more sensitive now than I have ever been. When I was younger I was easily moved, even touched, by things around me, but those things always involved me directly, and most often than not, sex. Sensitivity was foreplay, and in the far too many cases where things went wrong in that matter, I was also feeling enough to drown myself one glass at a time with beer and cheap whiskey. I cared about things, sure, but I definitely had my priorities.
Then I grew up. Or old. Or soft. I grew something. Perhaps in a moment of Grinch-like awakening my heart grew to an incredible size. I don’t know. All I know is that I used to be different inside. Now I am a wuss.
The weirdest things choke me up. Commercials. What in the world can there be worth crying about in a thirty second ad? There’s something, and Hallmark makes it.
Take last night for instance, I was alone on the couch watching baseball. Yes baseball. It was the Yankees and Red Sox in the last game of a three game series in Boston the first weekend of September. Now, you may read this and think that crying in this situation is understandable, but the thing is, I’m not a Sox fan. I’ve no reason for tears. Besides, I didn’t actually cry at this point, but I was touched deeply by how close Mussina came to pitching a perfect game. It was his first year with the Yanks, and he had been pitching wonderful all season. The only reason that his win total wasn’t higher was the lack of bat support that the bombers were failing to supply. So last night it was the 8th inning, 2 out, 2 strikes to Carl Everett, and that bastard had the nerve to get a hit. Christ, you would have thought he was Ted Williams the way the crowd cheered him, Carl Everett, the man all of Boston treats like a boatload of tea. That really made me feel bad.
I changed the channel to the MDA telethon. It was a little odd, because as far as I could tell Jerry Lewis wasn’t there, or maybe he was napping, or sleeping one off. Like the rest of America I have grown accustomed to the lack of actual entertainers that do the show, but I figured Jerry might make an appearance at some point. I watched some guy named Norm slur and sit through half a dozen "entertainers" (of which the Oak Ridge Boys were the only legit, albeit has-beens, in the stretch, and even they were via satellite from Branson, which is something else that bugs the hell out of me. What is up with Branson?) while Ed McMahon played straight man for some "comic" and called out tympanies at a rate that seemed much more forced than I remembered. Then out of the blue they cut to Lou Gerhig giving his famous speech about being the ‘luckiest man alive’ and how he died from his disease just two years later. Even though that happened before I was born I have always been amazed by that footage to the point of goosebumps and periods of silence. With that effect still lingering Norm introduces a video clip featuring a woman singing ‘Amazing Grace’, my all-time favorite song to sing in the shower, to the names of all the people that have died from various sorts of Muscular Dystrophy in the past year. Man, that was heavy. Bank accounts across America were depleted by the second verse. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not making light of this, it was very moving, and that’s my point. I found myself holding back tears and watching the MDA telethon, not for the hopeful chance that Kiss might make an appearance as I did for many years on my livingroom floor when I was a kid, but for the humanity and pain and hope behind it. I didn’t even care that the Oak Ridge Boys made us sit through two other songs before they played ‘Elvira’, I cared about Jerry’s kids.
This isn’t to say that I haven’t always cared for people that face odds on a daily basis that I will hopefully never know, of course we all do, but how often do we actually think about it. Unless our lives are actually involved we pretend it doesn’t exist and then every St. Patrick’s Day we pay a buck for a Shamrock with our name on it to hang in 7-11.
I decide that I needed a change of pace so I turned the channel again, this time stopping on one of my favorite movies, Awakenings, with Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro. I remember seeing it the first time years ago in the theater, and that I had cried even then. If you haven’t seen it then turn of your computer and go rent it. It is based on a true story about the deterioration of the human body and the perseverance of the human spirit. It is a very touching movie that always makes me cry, and then I was. I laid in the dark on the couch and I cried.
That’s when I went to bed where my wife had been sleeping for hours and lay down against her, holding her as close as I could with my eyes closed and my lips lost in her hair, thanking anyone that cares that I am not going through this world alone.
Send A Kid To Camp
They start them young. As if three phone calls a night trying to sell, give, and survey crap wasn’t bad enough, they send their young door to door with cartons of said crap for every club and sports team ever invented. They solicit donations and sell cookies or tamales outside the grocery store. They chase you through mall parking lots with imitation perfumes. They stand on street corners stripped of all gimmicks save hunger and beg for you to give. Give! Give! Give till it hurts, and then buy some stale boxed peanut brittle from some kid you have never seen before, that somehow got into your gated community, because selling crap to you will keep him from doing drugs. Kids are supposed to be on drugs. That’s what growing up is, pulling bongs and dropping acid. How else are kids supposed to form an opinion on anything unless they experiment. That kid should be sitting at home playing XBOX, smoking dope, and eating peanut brittle. . .this damn six-dollar stale-ass peanut brittle.
Monday, February 14, 2005
FOR THE LOVERS & THE BITTERS
Happy Valentine's Day Lovers:
FIRST TIME THIS TIME AROUND
Against the candle
Her eyes were dark,
And lost all meaning
in their deepness.
Her hair gathered
The shadows of the night
That danced about her.
Each breath was a kiss
Upon her cheek.
Her skin the moonlight
That closed doors denied.
He lay there safe
and warm beneath her breasts
collecting her lips
that shot like stars
against his mouth
burning from the touch
of their passion.
It was late and cold,
But what is time or season
To a moments happiness?
Valentine's Day is for jerks, isn't it Bitters?
MERRY-GO-ROUND
I drink till I'm fucked
I fuck till I'm sober.
It's a jackass on a carousel
This thing called loneliness.
FIRST TIME THIS TIME AROUND
Against the candle
Her eyes were dark,
And lost all meaning
in their deepness.
Her hair gathered
The shadows of the night
That danced about her.
Each breath was a kiss
Upon her cheek.
Her skin the moonlight
That closed doors denied.
He lay there safe
and warm beneath her breasts
collecting her lips
that shot like stars
against his mouth
burning from the touch
of their passion.
It was late and cold,
But what is time or season
To a moments happiness?
Valentine's Day is for jerks, isn't it Bitters?
MERRY-GO-ROUND
I drink till I'm fucked
I fuck till I'm sober.
It's a jackass on a carousel
This thing called loneliness.
Sunday, February 13, 2005
MOUNTAINS FROM WHITE HILLS
"Reading Hemingway always makes me wish that I drank more." He said as he sat the book down on the table and picked up his cup of coffee.
"You should." She said smiling. "There are still moments in the day when I think you might be sober."
"I’m sober now, aren’t I?"
"Yes, you are sober now. For now." Her eyes did not go with her smile.
"Come on baby, you know I’m not a drunk."
"I know Robert. I know." She had been doing a puzzle while he had been reading and after a short pause to let her words sink in, unsure if they were meant for her or for him, she continued with it. He sipped his coffee while looking at the lines of the city through the window and wondering how long he should wait now before he made himself a drink.
"It’s funny," he said, "how sharp the buildings are against the horizon. They almost seem fake, like a movie set or a giant billboard."
"Or a puzzle." She added, not looking up.
"Or a puzzle." He repeated slowly as he traced the outline of each building with his eyes. "You’re right, Anna, that’s exactly what it is, a puzzle."
She smiled when he spoke. He did not give her praise often enough and his words warmed her.
"Will you make me a Bloody Mary baby?" she asked him.
"I thought you liked me sober."
"I love you sober, and I love Bloody Marys. And I would love for you to make us some drinks and get drunk with me."
He got up and walked towards the bar. "What else would I do on a Sunday?" he asked. He took a bottle of Grey Goose from the freezer and poured two glasses halfway over cubes of ice that he had layered with pepper. He then added a wedge of lime, some Tabasco and Worcester sauces, a dash of fajita spice, tomato juice, and an olive to each.
"You could write something."
"Or I could play solitaire for hours. It’s more productive."
"Just take a drink and kiss me you asshole."
So he did.
Her lips were sweet and tangy with a touch of spice that lingered after the kiss along with a shadow of vodka.
"There." He said jokingly, as if he had just done her a favor.
"Good boy." She said as she ran her fingers through his hair.
He walked back to the table and opened his book. "That’s better." He said after reading a few words and taking a sip. "That’s the way it’s supposed to be read."
Her mind was on the puzzle.
"If you want to live like Hemingway the least you could do is take me someplace while we still can." She said after an hour of mutual silence.
"Where? I took you to Key West. Besides, hunting isn’t cool anymore, Africa’s not safe, and Cuba is restricted."
"What about Paris?"
"It isn’t the same place that he knew. It’s like this." He motioned at their view out the window of the Seattle skyline. "It’s a puzzle. Café’s and bookstores are now McDonald’s and the Gap. Even the museums are like shopping malls."
"I still want to see it." She said.
"You will baby. Someday." They both looked out at the city.
"I did love Key West. I miss the warm water and sunshine."
"And the humidity?" he asked her.
"Not as much." She answered. "I miss The Blue Heron and passing people I recognized buying books and drinking beer. I want to walk barefoot outside the church like we did on our wedding day."
"And into the sea." He added.
"Yes." She said. "The sea. That’s what I want." She stood from the place that she had been sitting on the floor while doing the puzzle and walked to the kitchen. She returned with two glasses and a can of Guinness that she split between them. He kissed her hand as she poured the beer then returned to his reading.
After an hour more he finished "Islands in the Stream", and turned again to the window. He didn’t see the city this time, instead he looked at the reflection of himself that seemed somehow absorbed by the sheet of glass that held it, and he thought things that people often do when they stare at their own drunken and unshaven image. He remembered a conversation they had had before on a different Sunday, that was a lot like the one they were enjoying now, only that it had more rain.
"If you must be rich," she had said to him when the subject had never been brought up, "why don’t you start by getting a job?"
"Why would you say such a thing?" he responded. " I have no desire to be rich, although I wouldn’t turn it down. No, what I want is fame. I want someone to remember me after I die."
"I’ll remember you."
"Of course you will. Just don’t kill me yet."
It had seemed to him that he should have been bothered by the fact she assumed he would die before her, but it didn’t. It did, however, cause him to write a poem on a piece of scratch paper that he was using as a bookmark. The poem read:
This isn't another poem about love and rainbows,
this is me, morbid and naked,
the cleansing of my soul.
My life under glass,
viewed on a slide
would only provide
my critics with the power to judge
my actions and regrets,
their breath would smudge.
To the man who'll crush my dream,
I beg you sir to heed my scream,
bury me by a riverbed,
but be sure I'm dead...
be sure I'm dead.
He had been sure at the time that he had created something rather insightful, and if not pretty, at least real.
"Utter crap." He said as he took it from his finished book, read it again, and dropped it to the table. "Everything I write is utter crap."
He glanced at Anna’s reflection which was also absorbed through the glass of the window. "Do you know what I wish?" he asked her image, never turning around.
"What’s that dear?"
"That I had something so profound, or meaningful, or down right moving to say that I had to say it twice."
"What do you mean?" she asked. "You say lovely things all of the time."
"I mean the type of thing that you hear in movies or speeches. Words that come out so heavy that they linger inside you for a moment when you hear them before they really sink in, and then just as they do they are repeated slower and softer, pushing the whole phrase to the pit of your stomach. Words that you never forget."
"Do I say things like that?" she asked.
"I’m sure you do Anna, but damn if I remember. Hemingway always found the words. He wrote that whenever he was at a loss he would force himself to write the truest sentence he could, and then follow it with another. I don’t even know if I know what that means. The only true sentence that I know is that. ‘I’m not sure what that means’. And I could follow it with, ‘ but I know that everything I write is utter crap’. What’s wrong with us? My whole generation is at a loss, and the only true sentence we know is that we don’t know."
"Do you remember one night?" she asked, pausing to make sure that he was still listening to her.
"I remember a few." He answered never taking his eyes from the window.
"Good. Do you remember one night long before we married that you whispered in my ear that you were going to marry me?"
"The night I asked you that question?" he replied.
"No, not the night you asked that question. Long before, shortly after we met."
"Were we drunk?"
"I’m sure we were."
"Did you love me?"
"Yes I did."
"No, I can’t say that I remember it. Why?"
"No reason." She said. "But you knew that. That was true."
He smiled at her. "That’s right baby. It was."
"And your whole generation isn’t lost. It’s mine too, and I know where I am."
"I know where you are too." He said watching her in the window. "I didn’t say we were lost. I said that we are at a loss. Everything is changing faster everyday, and we couldn’t stop it if we wanted to. We are the future, and the future is out of our hands. There is a revolution out there, and we are fighting it in chatrooms armed with cynical apathy."
It was a good conversation she thought. They hadn’t talked about anything real in a while and she enjoyed the fact that his voice rose as he continued.
"I just wish that someone would do something. The politicians are still a generation ahead of us, the actors are either supporting the NRA or going vegan. Nobody will take a stand on the individual issues, so they flock to the extremes where everything is assumed for them."
"Why does it have to be politicians or actors?" she asked. "There are other platforms than money."
"That’s what I’m talking about baby; fame. They are famous and we want them to tell us how to dress, decorate, shop, and vote. I need to know that Brad Pitt likes my coffee table."
"And if he doesn’t?"
"Then I’ll vote for someone who does. Or I’ll go back to Ikea."
"What about writers. I though they were the conscience of a generation."
"Not today we’re not." He said. "The only writer in our generation who has proven to be worth his weight in anything else but bullshit is Douglas Coupland. The rest are at a loss."
"That’s rather cynical of you."
"Yes, and I don’t care. Do you want another drink?"
"Are you having one?"
"I think so." He said rising from the table.
"I’m okay right now. Perhaps in a bit."
"Suit yourself baby." He walked to the bar and filled a glass halfway with bourbon. He drank the warm brown liquor down fast and quiet. She wasn’t watching and he filled it again, this time to the top.
"Coupland?" she asked. "Which one is he?"
"You know the book in the livingroom, Life After God? The one that everyone looks at, but none will read because they think that it will define them."
"You love that book." She smiled.
"Damn right I love that book. I remember when I first read it. I had stayed a week skiing in Colorado with Joseph, back before he was painting and instead spent all his free time drinking and remembering women. I had read Bukowski non-stop for a month at that point, and when I was through, feeling sufficiently bitter and coarse, I started Coupland’s book. I read the entire book from the top of the Rockies to the rivers at the bottom while Joseph drove us home to Arizona."
"Did it define you?"
"I don’t know," he said, "but it did describe me."
He sat in an empty bar waiting for the Mariners to clinch against the White Sox on TV, and spending his time by not thinking about it. Instead he thought about his wife and the things that he longed to tell her while knowing that they were topics that should never be spoken.
She’s too damn negative he thought to himself. She seems to find happiness in complaining, and in doing so she ruins mine. Why can’t she glow like she used to? With something good, warm, and secret inside, instead of spreading shadows of negativity like a plague that only fed on him.
Some things you just don’t talk about he thought as watched two men and a single heavy-set woman enter the bar, look around, and take seats with clear views of the television. The men each ordered beer and the woman had a cup of coffee with a shot of Irish whiskey to keep it warm.
Who loves them? He wondered. Do they smile when they leave bars or do they release their tears in the backs of taxicabs and empty hotel rooms? You don’t have to be alone to be lonely he thought, unsure if he had heard the phrase somewhere along the way, or if he had coined the words himself.
Another man came in and sat on the stool immediately next to him. He asked the bartender for a pull of beer and a menu. In his maneuvering of the stool he brushed against Robert and mumbled an apology as he fixed his gaze upon the game.
He felt guilty sitting there with his wife out in the shopping mall buying things for him that he didn’t need, and being the happiest she had been in a while.
"It’s almost like cheating." He said under his breath and then realizing he had done so he glanced at the man next to him. His eyes were still on the TV, and if he had heard he gave no sign of it. Robert looked back down at the shine of the bar top that reflected the light through his glass and the sharp darkness of his eyes hanging over it. That’s what it is though, he continued in his head. It’s just like cheating if I can’t make her happy. But damn if she doesn’t complain about every little thing, throwing guilt at me as if it were my fault. I guess it’s cheating me too if I let it get me down. But damn if her words aren’t heavy.
And then there were other matters that might just change everything. He looked across the bar at the mirror in which he could see the lines of trees through the window behind him. They were swaying quietly in the wind and rain that were as much a part of his life as anything else. Seattle was good about that. Keeping things constant. A city that consumes that much coffee doesn’t like surprises, or even the possibility of them. The streets of Seattle are paved with leaves that have been weighed flat and smooth by the constant pounding of drizzle after drizzle after drizzle. The air floats on clouds of steam from blue collared men and espresso machines, creating a feeling of perpetual morning that lingers throughout the day. The nights hide in darkened clubs and cold bottles of micro-brewed beer. People are everywhere. They are from everywhere. Yet they are all the same. It is as hard to hide in this city as it is to be found. Instead the trees dance to the song of the rain, and all the while the wind leads with gentle arms. The leaves slowly turn from green to the signs of autumn, deep and dull oranges, plums, reds, and yellows. Each falling down of it’s own accord once it tires of the constant dance. Ashes to ashes.
Behind the trees he could make out the parade of cars which sped past on 156th street. Passing him, the bar, the shopping center, and the rhythm of the fall, oblivious to everything but their own battles.
"Another Guinness?" asked the bartender. He looked at the empty glass in his hand and answered ‘please’ with a forced smile. He hadn’t even noticed that his glass was empty and while studying it in his hand he noticed that his fingernails, while clear and clean, could stand to be trimmed. He tried to remember when he had done so last. He glanced back at the mirror and realized that his hair was also due. How was he supposed to take care of anybody else if he couldn’t even take care of himself?
"Here you go." Said the bartender while setting the pint down on a fresh cardboard coaster and taking away the old one along with the empty glass.
"Thank you." He said as the bartender faded into a conversation with the man on his right about whether or not the Mariners could beat the Yankees in a seven game series. It was the type of conversation that would normally get his interest, and of course he had his own opinions, but for the time it didn’t really seem to matter. He sipped his beer and stared at himself in the mirror, oblivious to the dance.
How many cups of coffee would I need to drink before I blended with the masses? He asked himself as it occurred to him that he stood out perhaps a bit too much. What are the masses of Seattle? Computer geeks and gays seemed to be the current fad, overshadowing the layman, even quite sadly, the beer makers. Why don’t we dance in the rain? Because it’s cold and wet, and yet the trees are like anything else, they are one and they are many, and within the masses they blend.
I could wait tables he thought watching the bartender greet a new couple, but the hard part is the waiting. I couldn’t stand the wait. I can’t stand the weight. How can she?
His beer had been served in a pint glass. Guinness is actually supposed to be served in a princess glass, which starts like a pilsner at the bottom and bowls out at the mouth. Pretty feminine name for something that holds such a masculine beer. What is it that lets a woman hold a man in he pondered, his stoutness, his flavor, his being? All the while he thought of her gentle arms wrapped tightly around him. What makes a woman that strong? Maybe princess wasn’t such a bad name after all.
She came in with her bags and sat next to him. "Have you been sitting here drinking the whole time?" she asked. "I thought you were looking for a job, something to make ends meet? Instead I find you here. Being a drunk doesn’t pay well."
He didn't want to argue. He ordered a bourbon and took an antacid. She was talking of things beyond his control, and making them much more dramatic than they deserved. He came close to interrupting her, but decided against it. Any words from him would only drag out the conversation.
She was quiet for a moment and then asked for a water. He shook his head as he watched her in the mirror. "We are going to need some money Robert." She said. "If you can’t get off your ass you could at least try and sell a story. You haven’t even written in a month."
"Why do we need more money?" he asked quietly as he put the glass to his lips. "We are doing fine." He added as he finished the drink and sat the glass down loudly on the bar top.
"Don’t be an ass." She answered as she smiled to the bartender who had glanced towards them and the sound of an empty glass in a heavy hand.
He looked once more to the mirror and the ballet of trees that it encased. I am oblivious he thought.
"Could you carry these for me please?" she asked him, pointing towards the large bags that rest against her legs. "What’s the score?"
He felt the weight of her bags as he took them from her hands.
"I don’t know." He said.
He wasn’t sure what time it was when they got home. It was gray outside, and it was always gray. The ground and the clouds had long ago quit fighting over lines of division and had come to an understanding of surrender. Everything was gray and that’s the way it was. He imagined a steel wool pad stretched into thin strands and then wrapped repeatedly around his eyes with only enough of an opening for some last lingering glow of light and splashes of rain to get through. It was that gray. And it was cold.
"I’m going to go lie down kitten." He said as he walked past her towards the bedroom.
She watched him walk down the hall and then she poured herself some whiskey.
"Don’t fuck with Ernest Hemingway!" he shouted as he grabbed the book from her grasp. He had been sleeping and at some point she had joined him in bed. She had been writing something in pencil on one of the pages when he opened his eyes.
She bit the back of his shoulder playfully, shaking his flesh slightly in her teeth, as if at any moment she might change her mind and rip it off.
"Damn woman, you got something against drunks?" He reached to the nightstand by turning on his side, put the book down and took a sip from the glass he had left there. She let his skin slide from her lips as she adjusted herself, straddling him atop his lap and pinning him to the bed.
"Don’t think that just because you drink like Hemingway that you write like him."
He could feel the bite. "That’s cold baby."
"Honesty’s cold Papa."
She pulled herself across his body to her side of the bed and faced her back to him.
"Don’t call me that." He said as he stared at the ceiling. The room was quiet and they both listened to the sound of the trains from across the city that only seemed to run at night. They rolled slow and constant as they went in and out, like the sound of sleeping breath. Now and again a whistle blew and Anna would answer with something soft that was not quite a sigh, and not quite a whimper. It was as if they shared some secret, Anna and the trains, that could only be whispered in the deepness of the night.
"Hey" he whispered after some time had passed, but she was asleep. He sat up against his pillow with his pen and pad of paper. The trains were quiet now, and he closed his eyes to wait for the next one as the whiskey rolled slowly across his lips.
The next morning he had crackers with peanut butter along with his coffee for breakfast. She was gone by the time he had gotten up and there wasn’t any bread in the house. There wasn’t much food period. Maybe that’s what she’s doing now he said to himself as he sat down at his desk and thought about the things that he could write if he ever got around to writing. He stared at his portable Corona number 3 and thought about never going to Paris.
"I’m never going to be a writer." He said as he sat on the edge of the bed. He was drunk and she had just walked in from her doctor’s appointment.
"You will and you are." She said facing him while she placed her hands on his shoulders. "You are going to be something else too."
He looked at her as she stood there smiling and waiting for him to smile or wink or say something. She noticed that he had been cleaning his gun. "Baby, you shouldn’t do that when you’ve been drinking."
"Why? It’s not loaded. I am, but it’s not. Do you want a drink baby?"
"No."
"Hemingway always drank, and his women always drank. I always drink and I thought you would always drink, but now you don’t, and I’m not a writer. I’m an idiot." He slurred his words as he rocked slowly back and forth between her outstretched arms.
"Don’t say that Robert. You are a great writer. You can drink if you want. You can do whatever you want. Just do what you want." She held him still by his shoulders.
"Put your arms around me princess."
She did. He felt her hold him in.
"I want the sea." He whispered as he placed his head tightly against her chest and listened to her breathe.
"You can’t live your life being someone else." She answered, running her fingers through his hair. "That’s not your destiny. It was theirs. All it is is bullshit."
"Maybe you’re right baby," he said as he stared into the barrel of the pistol, sliding his thumb along the smooth crescent of the trigger, pausing before he spoke, "maybe you’re right." His words were soft and slow, and they lingered inside her, falling into her abandoned stomach even as he fell to her feet.
The shot was quick, and it was clean.
"You should." She said smiling. "There are still moments in the day when I think you might be sober."
"I’m sober now, aren’t I?"
"Yes, you are sober now. For now." Her eyes did not go with her smile.
"Come on baby, you know I’m not a drunk."
"I know Robert. I know." She had been doing a puzzle while he had been reading and after a short pause to let her words sink in, unsure if they were meant for her or for him, she continued with it. He sipped his coffee while looking at the lines of the city through the window and wondering how long he should wait now before he made himself a drink.
"It’s funny," he said, "how sharp the buildings are against the horizon. They almost seem fake, like a movie set or a giant billboard."
"Or a puzzle." She added, not looking up.
"Or a puzzle." He repeated slowly as he traced the outline of each building with his eyes. "You’re right, Anna, that’s exactly what it is, a puzzle."
She smiled when he spoke. He did not give her praise often enough and his words warmed her.
"Will you make me a Bloody Mary baby?" she asked him.
"I thought you liked me sober."
"I love you sober, and I love Bloody Marys. And I would love for you to make us some drinks and get drunk with me."
He got up and walked towards the bar. "What else would I do on a Sunday?" he asked. He took a bottle of Grey Goose from the freezer and poured two glasses halfway over cubes of ice that he had layered with pepper. He then added a wedge of lime, some Tabasco and Worcester sauces, a dash of fajita spice, tomato juice, and an olive to each.
"You could write something."
"Or I could play solitaire for hours. It’s more productive."
"Just take a drink and kiss me you asshole."
So he did.
Her lips were sweet and tangy with a touch of spice that lingered after the kiss along with a shadow of vodka.
"There." He said jokingly, as if he had just done her a favor.
"Good boy." She said as she ran her fingers through his hair.
He walked back to the table and opened his book. "That’s better." He said after reading a few words and taking a sip. "That’s the way it’s supposed to be read."
Her mind was on the puzzle.
"If you want to live like Hemingway the least you could do is take me someplace while we still can." She said after an hour of mutual silence.
"Where? I took you to Key West. Besides, hunting isn’t cool anymore, Africa’s not safe, and Cuba is restricted."
"What about Paris?"
"It isn’t the same place that he knew. It’s like this." He motioned at their view out the window of the Seattle skyline. "It’s a puzzle. Café’s and bookstores are now McDonald’s and the Gap. Even the museums are like shopping malls."
"I still want to see it." She said.
"You will baby. Someday." They both looked out at the city.
"I did love Key West. I miss the warm water and sunshine."
"And the humidity?" he asked her.
"Not as much." She answered. "I miss The Blue Heron and passing people I recognized buying books and drinking beer. I want to walk barefoot outside the church like we did on our wedding day."
"And into the sea." He added.
"Yes." She said. "The sea. That’s what I want." She stood from the place that she had been sitting on the floor while doing the puzzle and walked to the kitchen. She returned with two glasses and a can of Guinness that she split between them. He kissed her hand as she poured the beer then returned to his reading.
After an hour more he finished "Islands in the Stream", and turned again to the window. He didn’t see the city this time, instead he looked at the reflection of himself that seemed somehow absorbed by the sheet of glass that held it, and he thought things that people often do when they stare at their own drunken and unshaven image. He remembered a conversation they had had before on a different Sunday, that was a lot like the one they were enjoying now, only that it had more rain.
"If you must be rich," she had said to him when the subject had never been brought up, "why don’t you start by getting a job?"
"Why would you say such a thing?" he responded. " I have no desire to be rich, although I wouldn’t turn it down. No, what I want is fame. I want someone to remember me after I die."
"I’ll remember you."
"Of course you will. Just don’t kill me yet."
It had seemed to him that he should have been bothered by the fact she assumed he would die before her, but it didn’t. It did, however, cause him to write a poem on a piece of scratch paper that he was using as a bookmark. The poem read:
This isn't another poem about love and rainbows,
this is me, morbid and naked,
the cleansing of my soul.
My life under glass,
viewed on a slide
would only provide
my critics with the power to judge
my actions and regrets,
their breath would smudge.
To the man who'll crush my dream,
I beg you sir to heed my scream,
bury me by a riverbed,
but be sure I'm dead...
be sure I'm dead.
He had been sure at the time that he had created something rather insightful, and if not pretty, at least real.
"Utter crap." He said as he took it from his finished book, read it again, and dropped it to the table. "Everything I write is utter crap."
He glanced at Anna’s reflection which was also absorbed through the glass of the window. "Do you know what I wish?" he asked her image, never turning around.
"What’s that dear?"
"That I had something so profound, or meaningful, or down right moving to say that I had to say it twice."
"What do you mean?" she asked. "You say lovely things all of the time."
"I mean the type of thing that you hear in movies or speeches. Words that come out so heavy that they linger inside you for a moment when you hear them before they really sink in, and then just as they do they are repeated slower and softer, pushing the whole phrase to the pit of your stomach. Words that you never forget."
"Do I say things like that?" she asked.
"I’m sure you do Anna, but damn if I remember. Hemingway always found the words. He wrote that whenever he was at a loss he would force himself to write the truest sentence he could, and then follow it with another. I don’t even know if I know what that means. The only true sentence that I know is that. ‘I’m not sure what that means’. And I could follow it with, ‘ but I know that everything I write is utter crap’. What’s wrong with us? My whole generation is at a loss, and the only true sentence we know is that we don’t know."
"Do you remember one night?" she asked, pausing to make sure that he was still listening to her.
"I remember a few." He answered never taking his eyes from the window.
"Good. Do you remember one night long before we married that you whispered in my ear that you were going to marry me?"
"The night I asked you that question?" he replied.
"No, not the night you asked that question. Long before, shortly after we met."
"Were we drunk?"
"I’m sure we were."
"Did you love me?"
"Yes I did."
"No, I can’t say that I remember it. Why?"
"No reason." She said. "But you knew that. That was true."
He smiled at her. "That’s right baby. It was."
"And your whole generation isn’t lost. It’s mine too, and I know where I am."
"I know where you are too." He said watching her in the window. "I didn’t say we were lost. I said that we are at a loss. Everything is changing faster everyday, and we couldn’t stop it if we wanted to. We are the future, and the future is out of our hands. There is a revolution out there, and we are fighting it in chatrooms armed with cynical apathy."
It was a good conversation she thought. They hadn’t talked about anything real in a while and she enjoyed the fact that his voice rose as he continued.
"I just wish that someone would do something. The politicians are still a generation ahead of us, the actors are either supporting the NRA or going vegan. Nobody will take a stand on the individual issues, so they flock to the extremes where everything is assumed for them."
"Why does it have to be politicians or actors?" she asked. "There are other platforms than money."
"That’s what I’m talking about baby; fame. They are famous and we want them to tell us how to dress, decorate, shop, and vote. I need to know that Brad Pitt likes my coffee table."
"And if he doesn’t?"
"Then I’ll vote for someone who does. Or I’ll go back to Ikea."
"What about writers. I though they were the conscience of a generation."
"Not today we’re not." He said. "The only writer in our generation who has proven to be worth his weight in anything else but bullshit is Douglas Coupland. The rest are at a loss."
"That’s rather cynical of you."
"Yes, and I don’t care. Do you want another drink?"
"Are you having one?"
"I think so." He said rising from the table.
"I’m okay right now. Perhaps in a bit."
"Suit yourself baby." He walked to the bar and filled a glass halfway with bourbon. He drank the warm brown liquor down fast and quiet. She wasn’t watching and he filled it again, this time to the top.
"Coupland?" she asked. "Which one is he?"
"You know the book in the livingroom, Life After God? The one that everyone looks at, but none will read because they think that it will define them."
"You love that book." She smiled.
"Damn right I love that book. I remember when I first read it. I had stayed a week skiing in Colorado with Joseph, back before he was painting and instead spent all his free time drinking and remembering women. I had read Bukowski non-stop for a month at that point, and when I was through, feeling sufficiently bitter and coarse, I started Coupland’s book. I read the entire book from the top of the Rockies to the rivers at the bottom while Joseph drove us home to Arizona."
"Did it define you?"
"I don’t know," he said, "but it did describe me."
He sat in an empty bar waiting for the Mariners to clinch against the White Sox on TV, and spending his time by not thinking about it. Instead he thought about his wife and the things that he longed to tell her while knowing that they were topics that should never be spoken.
She’s too damn negative he thought to himself. She seems to find happiness in complaining, and in doing so she ruins mine. Why can’t she glow like she used to? With something good, warm, and secret inside, instead of spreading shadows of negativity like a plague that only fed on him.
Some things you just don’t talk about he thought as watched two men and a single heavy-set woman enter the bar, look around, and take seats with clear views of the television. The men each ordered beer and the woman had a cup of coffee with a shot of Irish whiskey to keep it warm.
Who loves them? He wondered. Do they smile when they leave bars or do they release their tears in the backs of taxicabs and empty hotel rooms? You don’t have to be alone to be lonely he thought, unsure if he had heard the phrase somewhere along the way, or if he had coined the words himself.
Another man came in and sat on the stool immediately next to him. He asked the bartender for a pull of beer and a menu. In his maneuvering of the stool he brushed against Robert and mumbled an apology as he fixed his gaze upon the game.
He felt guilty sitting there with his wife out in the shopping mall buying things for him that he didn’t need, and being the happiest she had been in a while.
"It’s almost like cheating." He said under his breath and then realizing he had done so he glanced at the man next to him. His eyes were still on the TV, and if he had heard he gave no sign of it. Robert looked back down at the shine of the bar top that reflected the light through his glass and the sharp darkness of his eyes hanging over it. That’s what it is though, he continued in his head. It’s just like cheating if I can’t make her happy. But damn if she doesn’t complain about every little thing, throwing guilt at me as if it were my fault. I guess it’s cheating me too if I let it get me down. But damn if her words aren’t heavy.
And then there were other matters that might just change everything. He looked across the bar at the mirror in which he could see the lines of trees through the window behind him. They were swaying quietly in the wind and rain that were as much a part of his life as anything else. Seattle was good about that. Keeping things constant. A city that consumes that much coffee doesn’t like surprises, or even the possibility of them. The streets of Seattle are paved with leaves that have been weighed flat and smooth by the constant pounding of drizzle after drizzle after drizzle. The air floats on clouds of steam from blue collared men and espresso machines, creating a feeling of perpetual morning that lingers throughout the day. The nights hide in darkened clubs and cold bottles of micro-brewed beer. People are everywhere. They are from everywhere. Yet they are all the same. It is as hard to hide in this city as it is to be found. Instead the trees dance to the song of the rain, and all the while the wind leads with gentle arms. The leaves slowly turn from green to the signs of autumn, deep and dull oranges, plums, reds, and yellows. Each falling down of it’s own accord once it tires of the constant dance. Ashes to ashes.
Behind the trees he could make out the parade of cars which sped past on 156th street. Passing him, the bar, the shopping center, and the rhythm of the fall, oblivious to everything but their own battles.
"Another Guinness?" asked the bartender. He looked at the empty glass in his hand and answered ‘please’ with a forced smile. He hadn’t even noticed that his glass was empty and while studying it in his hand he noticed that his fingernails, while clear and clean, could stand to be trimmed. He tried to remember when he had done so last. He glanced back at the mirror and realized that his hair was also due. How was he supposed to take care of anybody else if he couldn’t even take care of himself?
"Here you go." Said the bartender while setting the pint down on a fresh cardboard coaster and taking away the old one along with the empty glass.
"Thank you." He said as the bartender faded into a conversation with the man on his right about whether or not the Mariners could beat the Yankees in a seven game series. It was the type of conversation that would normally get his interest, and of course he had his own opinions, but for the time it didn’t really seem to matter. He sipped his beer and stared at himself in the mirror, oblivious to the dance.
How many cups of coffee would I need to drink before I blended with the masses? He asked himself as it occurred to him that he stood out perhaps a bit too much. What are the masses of Seattle? Computer geeks and gays seemed to be the current fad, overshadowing the layman, even quite sadly, the beer makers. Why don’t we dance in the rain? Because it’s cold and wet, and yet the trees are like anything else, they are one and they are many, and within the masses they blend.
I could wait tables he thought watching the bartender greet a new couple, but the hard part is the waiting. I couldn’t stand the wait. I can’t stand the weight. How can she?
His beer had been served in a pint glass. Guinness is actually supposed to be served in a princess glass, which starts like a pilsner at the bottom and bowls out at the mouth. Pretty feminine name for something that holds such a masculine beer. What is it that lets a woman hold a man in he pondered, his stoutness, his flavor, his being? All the while he thought of her gentle arms wrapped tightly around him. What makes a woman that strong? Maybe princess wasn’t such a bad name after all.
She came in with her bags and sat next to him. "Have you been sitting here drinking the whole time?" she asked. "I thought you were looking for a job, something to make ends meet? Instead I find you here. Being a drunk doesn’t pay well."
He didn't want to argue. He ordered a bourbon and took an antacid. She was talking of things beyond his control, and making them much more dramatic than they deserved. He came close to interrupting her, but decided against it. Any words from him would only drag out the conversation.
She was quiet for a moment and then asked for a water. He shook his head as he watched her in the mirror. "We are going to need some money Robert." She said. "If you can’t get off your ass you could at least try and sell a story. You haven’t even written in a month."
"Why do we need more money?" he asked quietly as he put the glass to his lips. "We are doing fine." He added as he finished the drink and sat the glass down loudly on the bar top.
"Don’t be an ass." She answered as she smiled to the bartender who had glanced towards them and the sound of an empty glass in a heavy hand.
He looked once more to the mirror and the ballet of trees that it encased. I am oblivious he thought.
"Could you carry these for me please?" she asked him, pointing towards the large bags that rest against her legs. "What’s the score?"
He felt the weight of her bags as he took them from her hands.
"I don’t know." He said.
He wasn’t sure what time it was when they got home. It was gray outside, and it was always gray. The ground and the clouds had long ago quit fighting over lines of division and had come to an understanding of surrender. Everything was gray and that’s the way it was. He imagined a steel wool pad stretched into thin strands and then wrapped repeatedly around his eyes with only enough of an opening for some last lingering glow of light and splashes of rain to get through. It was that gray. And it was cold.
"I’m going to go lie down kitten." He said as he walked past her towards the bedroom.
She watched him walk down the hall and then she poured herself some whiskey.
"Don’t fuck with Ernest Hemingway!" he shouted as he grabbed the book from her grasp. He had been sleeping and at some point she had joined him in bed. She had been writing something in pencil on one of the pages when he opened his eyes.
She bit the back of his shoulder playfully, shaking his flesh slightly in her teeth, as if at any moment she might change her mind and rip it off.
"Damn woman, you got something against drunks?" He reached to the nightstand by turning on his side, put the book down and took a sip from the glass he had left there. She let his skin slide from her lips as she adjusted herself, straddling him atop his lap and pinning him to the bed.
"Don’t think that just because you drink like Hemingway that you write like him."
He could feel the bite. "That’s cold baby."
"Honesty’s cold Papa."
She pulled herself across his body to her side of the bed and faced her back to him.
"Don’t call me that." He said as he stared at the ceiling. The room was quiet and they both listened to the sound of the trains from across the city that only seemed to run at night. They rolled slow and constant as they went in and out, like the sound of sleeping breath. Now and again a whistle blew and Anna would answer with something soft that was not quite a sigh, and not quite a whimper. It was as if they shared some secret, Anna and the trains, that could only be whispered in the deepness of the night.
"Hey" he whispered after some time had passed, but she was asleep. He sat up against his pillow with his pen and pad of paper. The trains were quiet now, and he closed his eyes to wait for the next one as the whiskey rolled slowly across his lips.
The next morning he had crackers with peanut butter along with his coffee for breakfast. She was gone by the time he had gotten up and there wasn’t any bread in the house. There wasn’t much food period. Maybe that’s what she’s doing now he said to himself as he sat down at his desk and thought about the things that he could write if he ever got around to writing. He stared at his portable Corona number 3 and thought about never going to Paris.
"I’m never going to be a writer." He said as he sat on the edge of the bed. He was drunk and she had just walked in from her doctor’s appointment.
"You will and you are." She said facing him while she placed her hands on his shoulders. "You are going to be something else too."
He looked at her as she stood there smiling and waiting for him to smile or wink or say something. She noticed that he had been cleaning his gun. "Baby, you shouldn’t do that when you’ve been drinking."
"Why? It’s not loaded. I am, but it’s not. Do you want a drink baby?"
"No."
"Hemingway always drank, and his women always drank. I always drink and I thought you would always drink, but now you don’t, and I’m not a writer. I’m an idiot." He slurred his words as he rocked slowly back and forth between her outstretched arms.
"Don’t say that Robert. You are a great writer. You can drink if you want. You can do whatever you want. Just do what you want." She held him still by his shoulders.
"Put your arms around me princess."
She did. He felt her hold him in.
"I want the sea." He whispered as he placed his head tightly against her chest and listened to her breathe.
"You can’t live your life being someone else." She answered, running her fingers through his hair. "That’s not your destiny. It was theirs. All it is is bullshit."
"Maybe you’re right baby," he said as he stared into the barrel of the pistol, sliding his thumb along the smooth crescent of the trigger, pausing before he spoke, "maybe you’re right." His words were soft and slow, and they lingered inside her, falling into her abandoned stomach even as he fell to her feet.
The shot was quick, and it was clean.
MOCKING THE MOUNTAINS
The mountains wrinkle
In worried burrows-
Valleys that long for
The constant echo
Which fills my mind.
Songs on the radio
That are begging you to cry
And a baby in the backseat
That cannot help but giving in.
The passing by his window
Is as somber as mine,
He cannot feel the crispness
In the air that buries it.
Only the warmth of sunshine
Moving silently across his face.
He does not feel the wall
Of traffic ignoring themselves
And holding us back
From a place he knows
And a bed that he misses.
Then when he laughs
At nothing, after an hour
Of complex quiet
I smile at the understanding
Mountains that shadow our path.
For while their laugh
May be the last,
They have seen it all before,
And know that the joke is on them.
In worried burrows-
Valleys that long for
The constant echo
Which fills my mind.
Songs on the radio
That are begging you to cry
And a baby in the backseat
That cannot help but giving in.
The passing by his window
Is as somber as mine,
He cannot feel the crispness
In the air that buries it.
Only the warmth of sunshine
Moving silently across his face.
He does not feel the wall
Of traffic ignoring themselves
And holding us back
From a place he knows
And a bed that he misses.
Then when he laughs
At nothing, after an hour
Of complex quiet
I smile at the understanding
Mountains that shadow our path.
For while their laugh
May be the last,
They have seen it all before,
And know that the joke is on them.
URBAN BEACHES
Taste the sea when you lay against me
And not the sweat of a long day’s work
For I always said we would go there
Every time you brought it up
But the ocean does not pay the bills
And the waves of passing traffic
Outside our bedroom window
May never be surfed or waded through
But there is sand and sunshine
In the park around the swings
If we were to go there in the morning
With a basket of food and wine
I would put a towel down for you
To sun yourself while you read
Whatever it is women read on beaches
While the men try not to look
At so much exposed flesh
Instead wondering out to pee in the sea
And pretend that sharks are coming
To keep their erections down
But I’ll have no water to hide in
And I will come up with other ways
To watch your skin as it gathers sun.
For example, I may get on the swing
Since it would just be hanging there
And while watching your breasts
I might say, "Push me. Push me."
And not the sweat of a long day’s work
For I always said we would go there
Every time you brought it up
But the ocean does not pay the bills
And the waves of passing traffic
Outside our bedroom window
May never be surfed or waded through
But there is sand and sunshine
In the park around the swings
If we were to go there in the morning
With a basket of food and wine
I would put a towel down for you
To sun yourself while you read
Whatever it is women read on beaches
While the men try not to look
At so much exposed flesh
Instead wondering out to pee in the sea
And pretend that sharks are coming
To keep their erections down
But I’ll have no water to hide in
And I will come up with other ways
To watch your skin as it gathers sun.
For example, I may get on the swing
Since it would just be hanging there
And while watching your breasts
I might say, "Push me. Push me."
Welcome To Whit's End
I'm going to do the ego thing and use this site to showcase the glory that is me. Actually, I'm just going to post some writing, even the crappy stuff.
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