these same stale shoes

--How do you ever know?

--We can make conjectures. We can hint at understanding.

--So it is just the idea then, right?

--What else can we have about others? We only know them as our idea of them.

--Or ideas.

--Yes. There can by many.

--A capful?

--A coliseumful.

--There are other cases as well.

--There are always other cases.

--Moods dictate certain things.

--Moods are dictators of thoughts.

--And this transcends?

--This glides and heaves and seagulls and feathers and ovoids and verses.

--Whatever notions we have about others…

--There is always a snip of falseness.

--Ask for me to-morrow and you shall find only gravy.

--Something towards truth, at least, in a so-these-two-trains-leave-the-station-at-the-exact-same-moment-and-travel-at-the-speed-of-light-in-opposite-directions sort of way.

--We can be morose and guess at trying.

--If I have this conception of who it is that you are…

--Like the ship of Theseus.

--Yes. And I have these attitudes attributed to you…

--Merely bow-tie weather.

--Of course. And you also partake in this, my ascribed notion of you. You are a willing participant in this dumb show…

--Smart.

--Then we have together coalesced this “way of being” that for both of us can now represent all parts piecing together a whole, and this whole will be the person you are while we are together, sharing breath, crushing coke cans, spitting watermelon seeds on the rug.

--We play our parts. We blow smoke out of the ass of this same asinine master plan. The claims of the creator disband our sense of self.

--But we have Tasers.

--We have machine guns.

--We have goldenrain tree and acacia gum. Let’s chew the skinny.

--Let’s take a shot on an open goal, in that while-supplies-last sort of way.

--So. We come to see the world in this distorted way, as if we were gazing at it through a prism of our own understanding.

--Or we come to just distract ourselves with our prism gazing until something better comes along.

--Or.

--Being locked inside, trapped, isolated, censored and amended…these things come to define us, how we see ourselves, and, ergo, how others see us too. A hamster? A hamster might have chance. In its wheel. But not us.

--It is our own affair, how we choose to manage our affairs.

--Say, “Atlee Hammaker.” What lights to mind?

--A pitching prospect?

--Nobody knows. It’s just like breaking boards with your mind. These things just come on like ostrich eggs. Plants fall apart.

--Give me a distinction. I’ll take a distinction any day.

--I love distinctions. I treasure being distinct.

--Being distinct is where it’s at.

--We distinctly see things in the distinct way we see them.

--Others must be sold on our ideas.

--Ideas are where it’s at.

--We have micromolar theory. We have Pavlov’s dog. We have Gestalt theory.

--Wholes and parts. Moles and farts.

--In a plain-clothed sense. Okay? Let’s take things seriously so we can laugh at ourselves later.

--Clearer than cloudlessness.

--Better. By the way, have you been for a dip in the new pool at the revamped rec center?

--Swimming is not at the center of my attention, nor does it swindle my intentions out of their chance to sprint along the course they’d rather jog along.

--And a rutabaga could be a vehicle to transport cabbage and turnips across the country.

--Just think about it.

--Will do.

--The person whom we think we know, this person, this thing that is assembled out of kowtowing blebs of inhibition interspersed with carrot sticks of fashion, this unaccountably maintained glued-together ostracon of banana-nut muffins and tuna salad, this wheelbarrow of hurly-burly, this thing can come to only act in response to itself. And the forces which seem to affect it are all internally regulated. There is nothing it does that is not conjured itself to life by its maker.

--In the maker’s self-created world.

--Absolutely.

--It is without a doubt absolute.

--For sure.

--True that.

--Influences of decision-making?

--Rattail radishes. Harmon Killebrew’s uppercut. The particular cut of clouds that happens to be, just-so-happens-to-be, filtering through the ecosystems of your head.

--Are you consumed with being you?

--With myself? Of course. It is an all-consuming thing.

--Have you played a game of pool on the newly upholstered baize of the rec center’s pool table?

--It is quite marvelous. Smooth and solid. I want to cut my lawn like that.

--You have a lawn?

--No. But if I did…

--If you did.

--Then I’d have a house too.

--Then you would.

--Then I would find the time to relax, to just relax.

--On the porch, possibly quenching thirst with a cool glass of lemonade, partaking in some shade, wearing a straw hat, getting tickled by the breeze, plucking a sitar, making nothing happen as best you can.

--These are things to be hoped for?

--Not in these parts.

--These parts are not for the faint of heart. Timidity does not do well in these parts.

--And the label says, “Bursting with antioxidants!”

--Whom can you trust?

--Somebody who is rad, sad, and nice to know.

--Somebody who can juggle more than two balls at once.

--A fraction that divides. A little thrill. Boiled eggs for dessert.

--And we keep things to ourselves. Hide. Keep secrets. Feed the garbage disposal in your head with worries.

--Why is it so hard to pick up a phone?

--It is dangerous. It is mad.

--Pick up a phone. Push some digits. Get a hold of somebody.

--Write me a reminder. Tie a rubber band around my wrist. Take in some sun. Air out your dreams.

--So, there’s this guy caracoling over by the post office.

--I don’t send out mail anymore.

--And this guy is prancing around. This guy is making a big production. This guy is dumbing himself down to whoever passes by.

--I don’t even own one stamp.

--This guy is swinging around lampposts. He’s abnegating all forms of control. He’s scrawling, “Jesus just might be on his way,” with charcoal briquettes on the sidewalk. Look around. There is nothing in this room to compare with that. Take a gander within these walls.

--Would you consider the color of these walls to be hematoidin?

--No. Bilirubin. Like the Virgin Mary’s lipstick stains on your collar.

--Like the skin of certain apples.

--Like sunsets in Taos.

--Like how mirrors keep on working even when no one is looking, there are always those things that are given.

--Givens. I adore givens.

--Those “of course” or “goes without saying” things.

--Things tacit. Things assumed.

--I move through dooms of joy. I spindle and mutilate junk mail.

--That’s a given.

--I got myself a mandrel with a washer brazed onto the threaded end.

--Lucky you. Myself, I can only hope to be as lucky as Martin Luther, who married an ex-catholic nun he had smuggled out of the convent in a herring barrel. Or live on a diet of worms, at least.

--We each have our unique opportunities in the life.

--In this life.

--We’re encourage to work hard at keeping busy and to take it easy.

--I am not badass enough to handle days like these.

--You best…you better…you bet…you be going on home now. Like right away. Like right now.

--Ralph Macchio never had days like these.

--And Abraham Linclon was morbidly depressed for most of his adult life. Who matters more, you or the rest of the world?

--More coffee please.

--Can we have frictional equivalents if those involved are not coevals?

--As long as there is somebody to lose, or something to be lost, or won, or tied, I guess.

--Oh and also, forgot to mention this: did you hear about the shooting at the church?

--Yep. It was a Mass murder.

--Damn. Why am I always the last to find out about…?

--No worries.

--Check the 5 o’clock news for lessons in geography. Dish out some soap. I am dispensable, but I don’t worry about it. Sleep will be arriving shortly. Any day now. I can tell.

--Question. Can you drive a car with only your knees?

--I can steer with my knees. I made a u-turn once with just my knees. No cops were involved. There were no plush dice hanging from my rearview. It wasn’t my best moment, but I did it. Now, strangely enough, I am proud of the event.

--Can we discuss technique? Or maybe a classic duel?

--Hippo Vaughn Vs. Fred Toney. One for the ages.

--The ages? What ages?

--Kids from one to ninety-two. Everybody knows that.

--Somebody upstairs is playing musical chairs with an elephant. While me? I find dead moths everywhere. Squashed inside the pages of magazines, in pockets of pants, on the toilet bowl’s rim, in my shoes, in cereal boxes, in the soil of potted plants, on door knobs, and of course the ones I’ve swatted into the walls or stomped into the carpet.

--I hate whispering, the sound whispers make, people who whisper…whisperers?

--It’s like lisps. Makes certain people’s skin crawl.

--Like knuckles cracking.

--Cannibals claim that the fingers are the tastiest part.

--How does one come to know these things?

--TV watching mostly, and reading TV guide, maybe some Sports Illustrated and some comic strips, the backs of cereal boxes and billboards, the small print on drug advertisements.

--And you’re always just one good haircut away from success in this life.

--Forever and always.

--Would love to get my hands on a barnful of some hard red spring, and then hold it hostage to drive up prices as demand rose for it. And all the new “food insecure” types created? They’d have a hard time convincing me of their worthiness.

--You really are one capital-A asshole, you know that?

--Hey, just following that old Goldman Sachs Commodity Index, you know?

--You talking barley, canola, cattle, coffee, copper, cotton, gold, hogs, lumber, milk, oats, oil, platinum, rice, and silver. Oh, and we say things like, “It’s the crease that gives the wheat its variety.”

--Bold. Fashionable. Lotsa luck to ya, pardner. Have you played bocce ball recently?

--Only when it’s overcast. When the sky swirls aquamarine and morganite, almost as if you could touch it, like velvet, dipped and eddying, a trove of cloaked algae-like mashes, and there’s the simmering beaked pull of sun blasting at the mottled fringes of things, the peplumed brow of the horizon wrinkling in a wash of deep luscious blues and olivine, a smug smirk of cloudy cusps blown wayward like curdled milk stirred into grape juice. We have times like these, do we not?

--We can jackknife our lives with worries. We can be hard up for love. We jut out into nothingness more than we’d like to think.

--But there are times when you hold forks, and times when pianos play themselves, and then you’ve got to take the garbage out too, you know? But there’ll perpetually be a place for Hoyt Wilhelm’s knuckleball in the booing stadium of my sluggishness. Have you talked shop recently?

--With my mistress. With my dog. With the pool cleaner. With the guy at the deli counter. With midges and emperor gum moths. With myself.

--Let’s talk tops and bottoms. Holds and ways of letting go. Killdeers and sheep. The Great Fire of 64 A.D. that leveled most of Rome. Stool samples and recreational bowling. Tumbleweeds.

--Build me a mission and I will kiss your boots. Give me a purpose and I will settle down. Crank out a few hits from the early 80s and I’ll dance like a come-to-life mannequin set on fire. Don’t let’s now get us all distracted by the damn light of those screwy monopotassium-phosphite elitists or nothing. Lewdness is a cure for boredom.

--Case and point, but just not at me.

--Word.

--Break my records. Fault my findings. Dig me a late grave. Defrost my eyelids. Cue up the harmonica music. Distract my distractions from distracting me.

--Can’t do it. We’re still on the payroll.

--We still take it to the bank.

--We have stomachs to feed and mouths to keep shut.

--We’ve got Baby Back Ribs and Bacon Swiss Crispy Chicken Sandwiches and honey mustard dressing and the cooing of doves and Del Scorcho and Mr. Rogers and Somalia and Dr. Dre and coffee as black as a moonless midnight and Jersey Shore and Grade B Dark Maple Syrup and Whoppers and Vladimir Horowitz and wind farms and Crocodile Rock and jalapenos and Nolan Ryan and putting greens and assassination theories and two-toed sloths eating human feces and nights filled with dread and hurricanes of clothes and the hazy wan glow of streetlights and mortality and sinus headaches and the height of balconies and murder raps and the stridulation of grasshoppers and the roll of the closing credits too.

--Junkballer.

--Estuaries are the most heavily populated regions in the world. Let’s move to one. I love congestion, the feeling of other humans close to me, the hustle, the bustle, the smell of many things scrunched into a whole.

--I had a girl over here last night.

--You had a girl over?

--Sure. I had a girl over here, and she couldn’t pronounce Camus properly.

--Death by firing squad?

--Too honorable. Like Saki.

--Put that bloody cigarette out.

--Oh yes. You know it! But do you think he was greatly improved by death?

--In all likelihood, well, sometimes you get too busy casting aspersions and playing rock-paper-scissors with the mirror. All things count. It’s just that certain things, well, they just count more.

--Do you believe in god?

--On my good days, on and off.

--What about on your bad days?

--Then I believe in the devil.

--There’s a fictionalized aspect to your belief system.

--I was a raised by communist transcendentalists. There is a horror to my unbelieving side which is unutterably worry-filled. I cut down trees, but I plant a few seeds from time to time.

--Would you say living through a time of war, as we are, makes one more disposed towards violence?

--One must find meaningful work. One must attempt to not throw bottles of Chartreuse at gophers. I keep my eyes peeled, and try not to be a sucker for the American Dream, whatever conniption fit of money and snorkeled happiness that happens to be.

--You are sold on idealism, on the rampant anti-hedonistic tendencies of, well, let’s take something like “freeganism” for example.

--Let’s not.

--Okay. So, why don’t we truck on over to something more substantial then? Maybe your upbringing for starters?

--First let me say that there is a certain freedom I require in the mornings.

--Um…

--It’s a matter of giving yourself an opportunity to breathe in a little bliss, to wake up a bit before you have to, to slowly sip strong black coffee, to listen to the traffic rumbling by, and to the wind in the trees and all that, to feel the sun blushing your face, to stare at your foggy reflection in the steamed-up bathroom mirror, to wonder who it is you really are, before shaving of course.

--To wake, perchance to not have to dream.

--Yes. It’s ordinary stuff, in general. Like talking about how you never think about what your face looks like while you are talking to another, except maybe by their reaction to your face, the things you’re making, consciously or subconsciously, your face do.

--Like ordinary human discourse?

--Yes. Well, if there are any redeeming qualities to go begging after. That is, if the “idea” you have of me suits the “idea” I have of myself. If you scuttle and crash and bleed into my fantasy of what the world is, of who I am in it, of who you are to me, as we are both “existing” temporarily in our own “idea” of the world, if the world can be said to even “exist” at all, whatever “exist” means.

--We are but creatures of our own imaginings, and our super-sized lives are merely cornered with wakefulness. Tunnels of clotted thoughts lead to subterranean battlegrounds where cadavering ideas lie frustrated with fallow impo…

--Bullshit. Let’s not get too superficial, okay?

--All we are is surface. There is no more.

--Got a light?

--I made a fire once. It was a long time ago, in a trashcan, in an oil drum, in an old lady’s pillbox hat, in a sewer, in a grand ballroom, in a desert of powdered sugar.

--Pass the hat around. Raise some funds. Give your heart away. Learn how to type.

--Mess around? Like that? No way. Not in this lifetime.

--In another?

--Sometimes anything is not possible.

--Sometimes.