Jamie Iredell's Blog, page 10

title pageThe Book ofFreaks

title page


The Book ofFreaks

Town kidsChildren from towns across North America, onBMXs...

Town kidsChildren from towns across North America, onBMXs, swig whisky-sworled Kool-Aid mostafternoons shriek-dusted by autistics. South of the seagullshit-cracked porches the bricks and windows are Augustwiredopen. Wails whip through cottonwoods, find theends of Camel Wides, Black n’ Sweet Backwoods, thetattered ear somebody’s daddy shear-mangled with thekitchen chicken-splitters for stacking the canned peasand carrots like a list, like a stack of lists. The screams arethe wails of seagulls, are the town’s kids, that night theirmothers hid the whisky. But—and good thing—theyfound it.

tumor, Thecelled its way to a golf ball-sized clump of ce...

tumor, Thecelled its way to a golf ball-sized clump of cells. Tumorsand certain weather phenomena are always comparedto sporting balls and fruit. Example: There’s a grapefruitsized tumor in his colon. Our town was pummeled by softball-sized hail. Why are not tumors and hail tumorand hail-sized? The doctors and meteorologists wandertheir offices tapping pencils to their temples and eyeingthrough stacks of Sports Illustrated, their walls wallpaperedwith fruited still lifes. This particular tumored man, aboutwhom we’re discussing, possessed good teeth, bad gums.His gums smelled like dead flesh. He jogged. His heartwas a very fat man’s, and he pounded it inside his chest.As many syllables as “cardio vascular disease” lined by ona sign inside his head. His tumor was a basketball underhis shirt. Sex evaporated as quickly as his wife’s presencein his apartment. His body remained, tumor-attached.The body was named Larry. Outside the hail was the sizeof hail.

united arab emiratiansWhat most do not know about United ...

united arab emiratiansWhat most do not know about United ArabEmiratians is their prowess with the discus.Even the minutest of the Emiratians can hurl a discus,spinning and skimming moisture from the air, for morethan a hundred meters. This was discovered—the coverremoved and what was underneath shown to the rest ofthe world—in California, where there are few UnitedArab Emiratians. But those who migrated, came to thebrink of American Olympic glory, only to be oustedfor performance drug abuse. Next to the discus, UnitedArab Emiratians are adept club openers, managers,and bouncers. One can find these failed Olympichopefuls admiring their slicked oil locks in the everpresentmirrors walling up these otherwise velvetedinteriors. Should you—man, you’re an idiot if you do,but anyway—show up to an Emiratian’s club female-less,then never mind your Friday night. No, no, my friend.There are twenty-four-hour diners where losers like youcan dip French fries into your Heinz and taste yourselfgetting fatter. This is only because of the United ArabEmiratian’s extreme appreciation for all things beautiful.The compilers of this volume have been in a taxicaptained by one of these countrymen, a taxi that taxiedpast a glorious wreck. Forget the fact that the compilerswere late for an important lecture on the merits ofChekhovian description techniques in fiction. This cabdriver slowed to a halt, admiring the twisted and shiningchrome, dripping with the drizzle raining down. Thelast sputter of exhaust and steam from the overturnedundercarriage. The bright splash of red from the cryingwoman’s sweatshirt. This Emiratian could have beenadmiring the engineering feat and beauty of his homecountry’s mastery with the skyscraper, their towers muchhigher than any mountain in the United Arab Emirates,or their ability to adopt capitalism, their tireless lust forimprovement. “My God,” said the Emiratian, “look atthat.”

vampire, AThis particular vampire was observed upon a spe...

vampire, AThis particular vampire was observed upon a spearof summer grass, and again in a local taquería. Avolume of something stupid sweats in the sweat of hisfingers, reading “a novel” on its cover. If you breathegarlic breath at this vampire’s pores, nothing happens. Heis large, he contains multitudes. Buy him a Silver Bullet,and he’ll gag. Remember: this man said “vampire,” not“werewolf,” and that only frat boys like Coors Light. Thisis the truth that dangles from every crucifix. This mansays that Jesus is quite beautiful. He sweats holy water;his body sings the electric. The bar splinter, driven intohis chest by leaning for the Jameson, does nothing. He isall: bodies, souls, air, earth, exclamations, promulgations,the dead, the living, the handmaid carrying her wares,the workman hefting his, the poet with his poems, thepoems with their poems, the poems’ poems within theirown little universes contain all and everything of this, thevampire sings. He says, “If I bite you, will you becomeme?” You should at this point be thinking, “Hopefully.”

Very FatThis is the medical term for severely overweighti...

Very FatThis is the medical term for severely overweightindividuals. One particular man weighed in at1,264 pounds, and even the scale—which was digital,and set into the floor beneath the steel bed frame—read“Holy shit!” He had not always been so large. He hardlybreathed, for all the eating. If food itself contained oxygen,that was his air. Remember your mother telling you notto eat watermelon seeds for what would eventually growinside you? He never left his bed. In order to be fed andcleaned, he had a girlfriend who’d shed tears when theymet. She was the kind of woman who would clean up aftermen who slapped her behind and called her “shugah,”and she’d never stopped smiling. She wanted him to loseweight. But the bacon he sucked up satisfied her, also thegrease he dabbed at with his bread crust. These two arestill together, though the prognosis is bleak.

Vitamin d deficiencyThis condition results from leaving f...

Vitamin d deficiencyThis condition results from leaving for work indarkness and returning home after sundown. Workis as an accountant. All members in this firm firmlybelieve in eventually being in the black. Sufferers dreamdreams of a dairy farm, of becoming a cheese maker. Theyand their boyfriends have begun making cheese in theirtiny Seattle apartment on weekends. This, they say, is avery involved process, so they cannot get outside. Even ifthey did, the sky is covered by clouds that drizzle mist. Inthe world there are novelists who tell these accountantsthat they are cheese making vampires, them and theirboyfriends—all men such novelists have never met—andthat they’ll make novels about them and collect billionsof dollars. The accountant-cheese makers say their goatcheese is pretty good but not the right texture, thoughthey’re working on that. None of the boyfriends have thename of Patrick.

WEonly watch baseball these days.

WEonly watch baseball these days.

What we call lifeIn life people stand on beaches under wh...

What we call lifeIn life people stand on beaches under white clouds.They all stare at the clouds, though there’s nothingabout the clouds that makes a discernable shape or couldbe in any way interesting. Some say that this was beforelanguage, but those making this distinction assume afalse sense of superiority, which is almost always roustedout by way of their automobile choices and style of dress.This is universally true of domestically-produced autosand imported clothing. What is perhaps most notable,however, is viewing subjects in the convenience store.There aren’t any beaches in this state. But if there were,even these people would stand around like those staringat clouds, unsure of what beer to choose.

WHITE PEOPLEWhile goofing around on YouTube the other day...

WHITE PEOPLEWhile goofing around on YouTube the other daywe came across a video of Mitch Hedberg whosaid that non-racists love all people: white people, blackpeople, green people, purple people. He said we’ve got todraw the line somewhere: fuck purple people, unless theyare suffocating, then help them. It would’ve been goodif that joke had been ours. But seriously, white peopleare fucking crazy. They have flags and leather pants andboots and can be most proficient with profanities andstones. They seem perpetually bound to the televisionscreen, upon which they are found rallying, their signsetching political statements in the sky: I disagree withyou! White people eat funny foods: this stuff calledTex-Mex, and then there’s chowder. Why would anyonecall foodstuff chowder? Better to have named it candysurprise. White people always have jobs, but never work.Somehow, though, they keep the Earth in rotation, likelywith a billion purple people pedaling stationary bicycles.Meantime, yet another billion green people yank anenormous rope and tug (à la o’-war) the planet roundthe sun, the force of these poor souls’ exertions the causeof said planet’s characteristic wobble. White people livein Vermont, where they attend writers’ conferences andexclaim, “Ahhh! Fall color!” To be a true non-racist onemust concede: fuck white people.