“Why do people not like more of my things I post?” he said.
She said, “Because the things you post are deranged. People like pictures of
cats and babies and food, and links to more pictures of cats and babies and food,
and snapshots of people they know showing off how much they don’t.” “But I post
pictures of stupid things too,” he said. “Yes,” she said, “but your things are
not for showing, not for others. Just for yourself. Nobody cares about the
things you care about.” “But I don’t have a cat or a baby,” he said. “And my pictures are
telling of something more than just pictures-- really, if you think about
them.” “People don’t like to think,” she said. “People want to be entertained.”
“I think I’m going to move to Mars,” he said. “Or maybe Istanbul, or down the
street. Maybe I’ll find people there who are more decent to each other,” he
said. “Or maybe not,” she said, “people are the same all over.
(the following of other events)
The
distributor is out to lunch, the fan belt needs a new owner, and there is no
hood to speak of. Every level’s crooked. Wherever is lost. All the potholes are
healing themselves with screamed Jehoshaphats three times a day. I don’t steal
pencils from the blind. I do borrow a mannequin now and again, but never the
stripped ones, only the at least partially clothed. Scanners react badly to
good news, now, and my sheets are riddled with holes that stretch from
dime-size to half-dollar overnight it seems. Being at large is for the birds.
I’ve got my harpoon-machete. I’ve got my holy rabbit’s tail. I’ve got my cat’s
foot and my brown-bag breath. Nobody bothers to check in on me. It’s nice.
“That
guy was driving a Cadillac flower car all over town back then. You know where
that name comes from? Cadillac? Well, they took it from a French explorer who
founded Detroit, and he borrowed the name from a commune in the south of
France: Cadillac, Gironde. Henry Ford was kicked out of the company a year or
so after it was founded, and the guys needed a new name, as they couldn’t go
around calling themselves The Henry Ford Motor Company if Henry Ford was no
longer with them, so, well, there you go. They even used the French guy’s coat
of arms as their new company’s crest. But this guy, let’s call him Jasper,
well, he’s got this flower car, but there aren’t any flowers in it, ever.
Mostly he just keeps his belongings in the back there, all open to the
elements, and cruises the hulking thing all over town, windows tinted, driving
nice and slow and easy. Cruising. Now, Jasper’s got so much junk back there--
all sorts of crates and splintered furniture and used books and records and
clothes, popcorn makers and door-less microwaves and what have you-- that he’s
riding sort of back heavy, you know? You couldn’t miss him going by. We all got
a real kick in the shins about it. Jasper going by. He was a sort of
neighborhood hero to us.”
Just
after I was done thinking that the platinum blondes around here all take the
short way home and then run off with garden-hose salesmen, this girl named Lovely
starts in on telling me about getting elbow drunk, and then she kicks me in the
knee. Yep, just the endless numbing of the days growling by. So we sneak up
above Clothesline Alley and drop some pennies on the miscreants below. The
whites are out dripping in the high-noon sun.
At
some point I ask her, “Did you know that there are roughly three million
lightning strikes each day on this planet?” She just nods softly and takes a
nap on my shoulder. I go on: “All those nitrates, the clearing of dead trees
and animals, those nutrients enriching the soil so as to make way for new
growth, new life, another chance at breathing with the lungs of the earth:
plankton bloom. We’re just passengers sightseeing for a bit, along for the ride
for the fun of it. Protected from the destruction and/or complete annihilation
of sun flares by our magnetism.” I might as well be talking to a red-throated
bee-eater. The wind makes a pass at us, but I brush it away with a dangerous
sweep of my hand. Nothing improves afterwards. All is brush fire smoke and
bolide dust. We’re cozy in the crook of a fire escape, and nobody’s asking
after our day jobs. Being prepared is for the sidewalk makers. Me? I look
everywhere for nothing, and try not to let girls get the best, or worst of me.
How
do the Valentine’s Day wishers get away with it? It must be the attack pigeons
nesting in roosts of leisure above the pineapple stand. Even the moping
raincoat merchants go for the cheats and pale harmonica players. We reach but
never grab hold.
Why
do I keep falling love with girls named Claire? I don’t want to be in love. In
love? Nope. Not no more. Not with some girl named Claire. Not for me.
Maybe I’m not doing anything wrong, but
I’m certainly not doing anything right. It’s ruined and left for alive, in a
heart attack’s wake, and some guy named Hambone is whispering in the jukebox’s
ear, and we’re drugged with compassion right along with the slowest bus lines
in town, stuck behind a garbage truck of horrible music that’s blasting over construction
noise and, well, everyone in this dead-end town needs the emptiness of their
head examined. We’re all ready for all the bad things to come, just up ahead,
where we’re all headed. A place in the dark with a bottle of decent scotch,
that’s all I need, without the verse, without the harmony, without a woman
telling me what it is I’m supposed to do. Don’t you go worrying about my time;
I’ve wasted it all on away. There’s an ashtray in my vest pocket and a pool cue
running down my spine. The doormen all forget my name. The girls all strangle
themselves in the sodium yellow glow of lampposts. We are wishing what we
remember to stay still and play mean for a bit. The bar top’s littered with
torn, wet napkins and Ritz Cracker crumbs. Nobody gives a damn about your Joan
Crawford smile and your Bogart teeth. People are mostly assholes who take
pleasure in the misfortunes of others. And then there are those who are
challenged to scream something like, “Fuck off gingerbread dick!” at any
takers. I’m setting off the fire alarm and staying put.
One man’s robot is another’s fiancé. We
all get what we don’t need. It’s a soused trombone player making amends with
rowdy angels. It’s a hurricane of dirty clothes. It’s better off wrong. Diluted
thunderclaps of courageous overtones in the meek of heart, and we’re left
here-- god’s awful administrators-- with a go-to sense of entitled despair.
Help comes from the strangest of corners, and the dust of us is all that’s
left, for the most.
Some
girl with violin hands is making the squares say their prayers. It’s never late
enough in the morning for any of it. I am fit to be taken apart piece by
cracked and ugly piece, rounded and curbed, lost in chants of racemation-- a
bunched clubbing of the soul’s weakest sunken caisson. We who take nothing in
stride and speak to televisions in our sleep. We who run the obstacle courses
of oblivion just to pass the time. The armchair’s got a supporting role. There
are no elements left to name. Music’s nothing but airport security officers
whispering to drug-sniffing dogs on their break. It ain’t the Betty Ford
Clinic, but it’ll do until we find classier crooks to check in with.
I
was feeling damn pleasant, sitting at a table by a large window with a glass of
beer, watching the shadows crawl over old brick and wood and in the street.
Nobody was around to bother my at the moment. Wes Montgomery was filtering in
lightly over the sound of people at other tables clinking glasses and laughing
and other sounds of general bereavement. A man in tight white pants was
standing by the curb with both hands shoved into his back pockets, a good way
to scratch one’s ass in public I guess. A cigarette was smoking away as it
twitched up and down from his lips. He was ruining my peaceful landscape. I glanced
over to the bar which ran along two sides of the room in a V shape. A well-lit
plant was the showpiece of the joint. I’ve got to admit, it looked good up
there behind the bar, like it was on a stage. I wanted it to be called May or
Wilhelmina. It probably wasn’t though. It could have been just one of those
things that goes through this world without ever having a name. Some guy
sitting on a barstool had a most unfortunate case of accidental back-tucked-out
shirt, with way too much of his bottom half showing for my taste. I told my
eyes to mind some other business, and they went back to my beer. I drank it
down fast. It was cold and strong and made my head feel full and clear again. I
sat there and felt content for as long as possible. There was nothing else to
do.
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