Patrick Fealey's Blog, page 20
October 13, 2012
Jackson Evarts interviews Patrick Fealey
The following interview on writing was conducted may 13, 2002, in newport, ri, at 304 broadway, beginning 3:44 pm. Upper 40s and raining..
Jackson: a lot of these questions are for the readers more than for me because I’m somewhat familiar with your writing habits. There are a lot of writers and people who want to write who might gain insight and at least motivation from hearing how a writer such as yourself works.
F: first off, I am not a writer. I am a guy who writes. I am a man, not a thing. The rest of it I agree with, that we can learn and be inspired by others who have done it or are there. I know others have helped me, to an extent, though it’s not going to get you off your ass every morning, or whenever it is you write or propose to. in the end, my view on other writers, their works and their ways, as relating to other up and coming writers, is this. if you look around for something and are not finding it, maybe you are it.
J: you mean style, the writer, like that.
F: yes. My point is do not look outward with all your confidence in what is there, because the guys you are seeing once looked out and did not see themselves among the selection. Don’t put too confidence or weight in what is out there. Of course, a hack will, but we’ll leave the hacks out of this for now, those people who read every fucking thing in existence. I’m talking about writers who are finding their way and naturally look outward for help, affirmation, about what they are doing or where they are going. There’s a good level of insecurity in any aritist and when starting out, confidence can be kind of low, too low, maybe. To the point where the writer has doubts about himself. This is good too. I’m saying that he should not have so much doubt as to be shut down. and if there is anything that is going to bury a guy in despair it’s the canon. And the rest of them. not word happy egotists like mailer, but terrors like celine . . . but getting back to your question, nobody is going to write like you and you shouldn’t attempt to write like another guy. If you are going through writers and are getting this feeling of satisfaction, that your need, depth, range, style, whatever is not being met, it’s likely that that is the thing in you which needs to come out onto paper. That you are that writer. That’s all. It’s an active approach to the problem and it makes sense, since they are your needs, being projected onto the books, which then fail you, and you go pick up another one and another one, reading and looking. When all along you are it. that said, we are talking here about maybe a dozen living people out there right now with the capability of matching or beating the resident geniuses while changing the nature of the game. Pollock, miles, nirvana, these guys are so far ahead of us writers. We’re slower. It takes time.
J: where is writing going?
F: (laughs)
J: you know some writers, some good ones.
F: yeah. Real ones. We keep a respectful distance. When you work the same turf, it’s tough to admit things. You know. the best writer I know, mike decapite out in california, he says he envies my writing ability. I told him I don’t like that word. To me, envy implies seperation, conflict, an unease. Nobody can be me. I can’t be anyone else. There are things he can do which I will never be able to do and I have gotten used to that. Nobody can be you. shit, if I could write like someone, it would be celine. See, I have had to get over the fact that I am not celine. I am also not balzac, nor am I saul bellow, which is fine with me. I consider myself one of the most fortunate guys to know these writers, these men. Both of them are men first, persons, which is more than you can say for wally lamb. I don’t want to be nasty. But if you are not a genius, you have no business wasting paper. There are plenty of geniuses around already wasting paper. Go get a job cutting down trees or inventing tougher computer keyboards.
J: would you say you’re getting more confident about what you do?
F: yes. Each day is a struggle. When you win more than you lose, you gain confidence. This writing game is played on a clock that’s set in years, not seconds or minutes. Sometimes hundreds of years. The victories have been small. Affirmations have come from people and places I respect, usually indirectly, sometimes with acceptances. The most important victories are at home, you don’t even remember them, the realizations, the words, they’’re like injections, firecrackers in your ass. Those keep you going. The outside things, they are less frequent, but you remember them better for some reason. Maybe it’s the ego. I remember one time I was introduced by a guitarist to a published novelist in a fucking oxford and the guitarist says, “this is pat. He’s a real writer.” The oxford dude stayed away from me the rest of the night. Shit like that is cool. What’s also cool is when you open up a highly lauded book, you know, national book award, pulitzer, nobel, booker, starbucks memoirist of the week, and you start reading and before you finish a paragraph you stop, close it, and think, fuck, man, I wrote better when I was 12. half the people I know, who are not writers, do better than this.
J: but it’s that also somewhat depressing, discouraging? If it’s true?
F: fuck you on the second part of your question. But yes, it is discouraging, so far as believing your work will ever get out to people to read. It’s also discouraging financially, because succeeding as a starving artist means that yes, you are alive, but you can hardly travel or buy clothes or even eat out, your health suffers, all of that. Obviously, you do not own a car and finding a girlfriend is not easy. Hi. I’m sick. I’m recovering from this and that. I have no money. I will spend half my waking time ignoring you, etc.
J: it’s your choice.
F: no. it’s not. maybe the hacks choose it. the rest of us are possessed. Call it the muse, but I think “muse” is too delicate a word for whatever I’ve got. I have a disease. I don’t have a life. I have this afflcition, which really I know is an obligation, a responsibility, a calling.
J: to what?
F: I don’t know. sit around thinking about what I’m not thinking about?
J: since you mentioned muses. Writer’s block?
F: only thing I know about the muse is it doesn’t care about whether you live or not. I got blocked once that I can remember, writing a page one story on deadline. I’d gone out to interview this archaeologist, famous in her field, over in egypt, london, harvard here. The problem was by the end of the interview I was in love. I was late getting back to the office because she made me fucking dinner. So I went back and I’m sitting there and the other reporters notice I have got a sentence after half an hour. They start to laugh at me, say I’d fallen in love. I tried to ignore them, but the truth was I was out of my head. I couldn’t write because I was in love. Five years later we got together and we had occasional rendevous, a correspondance, but I fucked it up big time. I was insane at the time, legally, but I fucked it up and she has never recovered her trust. I am one of her great regrets, so she says. I just tell her, hey, most relationships end and they usually end because something is not good, so quit being so fucking self concious. It’s a fucking disaster, but my writers block went away, I mean when it comes to her. the rest of the time, it’s not a factor. If it happens, it is infrequent and I take the day off. Usually if I don’t or can’t get into it, it means I need a rest. Rest is important. I tend to write in shifts, sleep inbetween, when I am into a book.
J: so you would say writing is physically tiring, as well as mental and emotional.
F: yes, and the rub is that the emotional and mental side sneaks into your sleep and disrupts it. you are trying to rest your brain and body and the faces and words follow you into darkness.
J: that is obsessed.
F: I told you. nobody knows. Obsessed is being able to write a novel in two days. A short novel, but a good novel. I know several people who can do that, including myself. I’ve done it. I did it on scraps of paper, napkins and a notebook in this café in san francisco, que tal, on guerrero street. They thought I was nuts. It must have looked pretentious, but I had nowhere to go.
J: where’s the book?
F: I think it is stuck into the wastrels manuscript, but I think I’m pulling it out and putting it together with some other san francicso writing from that time, which was a period of two months in late ‘99. It’ll be more solid with the context, but it could stand as a novella. Thing is, it’s not something anyone could do every day, full time, unless they were cranking out romance novels or porn or other shit. Speaking of romance novels, I had to interview this girl I used to work with who published one. She was also a reporter, back in the day, a couple years older than me. I did the story. She told me about getting her agent and her contacts, etc., she knew I wrote, but she didn’t offer any names or help. Which is fine. But it’s an interesting attitude.
J: more opposition.
F: more true friendship!
J: have you considered writing porn?
F: yes.
J: it’s obvious that you could. You’d make a little money.
F: I think the only reason I haven’t is time and energy. I suppose I could devote a couple hours, say 3 to 6 am to writing porn. A lot of great writers have done it. miller, nin, and whitman’s publisher was a shady pornographer. If it wasn’t for the poems of manly love, which are beautiful, we might not have leaves of grass. Who knows. But yeah, I should look into porn. Which reminds me, I left two first editions of de sade in san francico when I split in ’99, couldn’t carry any more weight. My friend, father ryan, had to sell them because he was starving on mission street. A couple pages of the marquis are enough, but 1000 pages are a meal.
J: I already know this about you. you have no respect for books. Is that fair?
F: I respect some of what’s in them, and some of the writers. but no, I do not cling to them. they are not precious and I do not get caught up in them. I know I can find them again anyhow, it I want. I have sold books, but most of them I have given away or thrown out. I give a lot away because I’m hot on the guy. I have 3 small piles of books here, most of which I aquired in the last year. I go through cycles, I guess. A year ago I was a 33 year old writer with no books. Whether I read them or not, they go, with few exceptions.
J: such as?
F: top of my head? Villon. Rimbaud. Baudelaire. I replaced baudelaire. I let go of celine and miller, but they’ll be back. Bukowski is gone and may be back. Blake is back.
J: all poets. Predominantly romantics.
F: yeah. That’s funny. I didn’t appreciate them until later. Now I consider it the most perfect form. writing so concise, demanding.
J: novelists?
F: you’re not going to let me expound on poetry?
J: how long will we have to wait for you to become concise?
F: until the language becomes more elaborate and complex.
J: it appears language is not on your side. The novelists?
F: I already mentioned two, celine and miller. That’s all I can come up with for today.
J: somebody said to me that you seem to ‘sweat novels.’
F: (laughs) I once added up all the pages and divided it by the years and it turns out I write one finished page a day.
J: that’s all? But you’re talking to the final draft?
F: yeah. Thing is I’ve been writing for a long time, so it looks like I ‘sweat novels’ when the fact of the matter is, I’m slow as hell. I just work a lot.
J: places like this allow that.
F: the tit, my nea grant. America takes care of its artist, despite what you think.
J: you just have to be mentally disturbed.
F: yes.
J: it makes sense.
****
Jackson: a lot of these questions are for the readers more than for me because I’m somewhat familiar with your writing habits. There are a lot of writers and people who want to write who might gain insight and at least motivation from hearing how a writer such as yourself works.
F: first off, I am not a writer. I am a guy who writes. I am a man, not a thing. The rest of it I agree with, that we can learn and be inspired by others who have done it or are there. I know others have helped me, to an extent, though it’s not going to get you off your ass every morning, or whenever it is you write or propose to. in the end, my view on other writers, their works and their ways, as relating to other up and coming writers, is this. if you look around for something and are not finding it, maybe you are it.
J: you mean style, the writer, like that.
F: yes. My point is do not look outward with all your confidence in what is there, because the guys you are seeing once looked out and did not see themselves among the selection. Don’t put too confidence or weight in what is out there. Of course, a hack will, but we’ll leave the hacks out of this for now, those people who read every fucking thing in existence. I’m talking about writers who are finding their way and naturally look outward for help, affirmation, about what they are doing or where they are going. There’s a good level of insecurity in any aritist and when starting out, confidence can be kind of low, too low, maybe. To the point where the writer has doubts about himself. This is good too. I’m saying that he should not have so much doubt as to be shut down. and if there is anything that is going to bury a guy in despair it’s the canon. And the rest of them. not word happy egotists like mailer, but terrors like celine . . . but getting back to your question, nobody is going to write like you and you shouldn’t attempt to write like another guy. If you are going through writers and are getting this feeling of satisfaction, that your need, depth, range, style, whatever is not being met, it’s likely that that is the thing in you which needs to come out onto paper. That you are that writer. That’s all. It’s an active approach to the problem and it makes sense, since they are your needs, being projected onto the books, which then fail you, and you go pick up another one and another one, reading and looking. When all along you are it. that said, we are talking here about maybe a dozen living people out there right now with the capability of matching or beating the resident geniuses while changing the nature of the game. Pollock, miles, nirvana, these guys are so far ahead of us writers. We’re slower. It takes time.
J: where is writing going?
F: (laughs)
J: you know some writers, some good ones.
F: yeah. Real ones. We keep a respectful distance. When you work the same turf, it’s tough to admit things. You know. the best writer I know, mike decapite out in california, he says he envies my writing ability. I told him I don’t like that word. To me, envy implies seperation, conflict, an unease. Nobody can be me. I can’t be anyone else. There are things he can do which I will never be able to do and I have gotten used to that. Nobody can be you. shit, if I could write like someone, it would be celine. See, I have had to get over the fact that I am not celine. I am also not balzac, nor am I saul bellow, which is fine with me. I consider myself one of the most fortunate guys to know these writers, these men. Both of them are men first, persons, which is more than you can say for wally lamb. I don’t want to be nasty. But if you are not a genius, you have no business wasting paper. There are plenty of geniuses around already wasting paper. Go get a job cutting down trees or inventing tougher computer keyboards.
J: would you say you’re getting more confident about what you do?
F: yes. Each day is a struggle. When you win more than you lose, you gain confidence. This writing game is played on a clock that’s set in years, not seconds or minutes. Sometimes hundreds of years. The victories have been small. Affirmations have come from people and places I respect, usually indirectly, sometimes with acceptances. The most important victories are at home, you don’t even remember them, the realizations, the words, they’’re like injections, firecrackers in your ass. Those keep you going. The outside things, they are less frequent, but you remember them better for some reason. Maybe it’s the ego. I remember one time I was introduced by a guitarist to a published novelist in a fucking oxford and the guitarist says, “this is pat. He’s a real writer.” The oxford dude stayed away from me the rest of the night. Shit like that is cool. What’s also cool is when you open up a highly lauded book, you know, national book award, pulitzer, nobel, booker, starbucks memoirist of the week, and you start reading and before you finish a paragraph you stop, close it, and think, fuck, man, I wrote better when I was 12. half the people I know, who are not writers, do better than this.
J: but it’s that also somewhat depressing, discouraging? If it’s true?
F: fuck you on the second part of your question. But yes, it is discouraging, so far as believing your work will ever get out to people to read. It’s also discouraging financially, because succeeding as a starving artist means that yes, you are alive, but you can hardly travel or buy clothes or even eat out, your health suffers, all of that. Obviously, you do not own a car and finding a girlfriend is not easy. Hi. I’m sick. I’m recovering from this and that. I have no money. I will spend half my waking time ignoring you, etc.
J: it’s your choice.
F: no. it’s not. maybe the hacks choose it. the rest of us are possessed. Call it the muse, but I think “muse” is too delicate a word for whatever I’ve got. I have a disease. I don’t have a life. I have this afflcition, which really I know is an obligation, a responsibility, a calling.
J: to what?
F: I don’t know. sit around thinking about what I’m not thinking about?
J: since you mentioned muses. Writer’s block?
F: only thing I know about the muse is it doesn’t care about whether you live or not. I got blocked once that I can remember, writing a page one story on deadline. I’d gone out to interview this archaeologist, famous in her field, over in egypt, london, harvard here. The problem was by the end of the interview I was in love. I was late getting back to the office because she made me fucking dinner. So I went back and I’m sitting there and the other reporters notice I have got a sentence after half an hour. They start to laugh at me, say I’d fallen in love. I tried to ignore them, but the truth was I was out of my head. I couldn’t write because I was in love. Five years later we got together and we had occasional rendevous, a correspondance, but I fucked it up big time. I was insane at the time, legally, but I fucked it up and she has never recovered her trust. I am one of her great regrets, so she says. I just tell her, hey, most relationships end and they usually end because something is not good, so quit being so fucking self concious. It’s a fucking disaster, but my writers block went away, I mean when it comes to her. the rest of the time, it’s not a factor. If it happens, it is infrequent and I take the day off. Usually if I don’t or can’t get into it, it means I need a rest. Rest is important. I tend to write in shifts, sleep inbetween, when I am into a book.
J: so you would say writing is physically tiring, as well as mental and emotional.
F: yes, and the rub is that the emotional and mental side sneaks into your sleep and disrupts it. you are trying to rest your brain and body and the faces and words follow you into darkness.
J: that is obsessed.
F: I told you. nobody knows. Obsessed is being able to write a novel in two days. A short novel, but a good novel. I know several people who can do that, including myself. I’ve done it. I did it on scraps of paper, napkins and a notebook in this café in san francisco, que tal, on guerrero street. They thought I was nuts. It must have looked pretentious, but I had nowhere to go.
J: where’s the book?
F: I think it is stuck into the wastrels manuscript, but I think I’m pulling it out and putting it together with some other san francicso writing from that time, which was a period of two months in late ‘99. It’ll be more solid with the context, but it could stand as a novella. Thing is, it’s not something anyone could do every day, full time, unless they were cranking out romance novels or porn or other shit. Speaking of romance novels, I had to interview this girl I used to work with who published one. She was also a reporter, back in the day, a couple years older than me. I did the story. She told me about getting her agent and her contacts, etc., she knew I wrote, but she didn’t offer any names or help. Which is fine. But it’s an interesting attitude.
J: more opposition.
F: more true friendship!
J: have you considered writing porn?
F: yes.
J: it’s obvious that you could. You’d make a little money.
F: I think the only reason I haven’t is time and energy. I suppose I could devote a couple hours, say 3 to 6 am to writing porn. A lot of great writers have done it. miller, nin, and whitman’s publisher was a shady pornographer. If it wasn’t for the poems of manly love, which are beautiful, we might not have leaves of grass. Who knows. But yeah, I should look into porn. Which reminds me, I left two first editions of de sade in san francico when I split in ’99, couldn’t carry any more weight. My friend, father ryan, had to sell them because he was starving on mission street. A couple pages of the marquis are enough, but 1000 pages are a meal.
J: I already know this about you. you have no respect for books. Is that fair?
F: I respect some of what’s in them, and some of the writers. but no, I do not cling to them. they are not precious and I do not get caught up in them. I know I can find them again anyhow, it I want. I have sold books, but most of them I have given away or thrown out. I give a lot away because I’m hot on the guy. I have 3 small piles of books here, most of which I aquired in the last year. I go through cycles, I guess. A year ago I was a 33 year old writer with no books. Whether I read them or not, they go, with few exceptions.
J: such as?
F: top of my head? Villon. Rimbaud. Baudelaire. I replaced baudelaire. I let go of celine and miller, but they’ll be back. Bukowski is gone and may be back. Blake is back.
J: all poets. Predominantly romantics.
F: yeah. That’s funny. I didn’t appreciate them until later. Now I consider it the most perfect form. writing so concise, demanding.
J: novelists?
F: you’re not going to let me expound on poetry?
J: how long will we have to wait for you to become concise?
F: until the language becomes more elaborate and complex.
J: it appears language is not on your side. The novelists?
F: I already mentioned two, celine and miller. That’s all I can come up with for today.
J: somebody said to me that you seem to ‘sweat novels.’
F: (laughs) I once added up all the pages and divided it by the years and it turns out I write one finished page a day.
J: that’s all? But you’re talking to the final draft?
F: yeah. Thing is I’ve been writing for a long time, so it looks like I ‘sweat novels’ when the fact of the matter is, I’m slow as hell. I just work a lot.
J: places like this allow that.
F: the tit, my nea grant. America takes care of its artist, despite what you think.
J: you just have to be mentally disturbed.
F: yes.
J: it makes sense.
****
October 12, 2012
The Book Lover
the book lover
gracie did not shave her legs or armpits, but as the weeks passed, she became less and less hairy. she did not wear make-up or perfume, but she did shower every day, maybe. i had known another girl who kept hair under her arms. she was from the east village and rode a motorcycle. she was jewish. gracie was english, by way of berkeley, a place she lived even when she was living in arcata. gracie did not ride any kind of bike, though she had a schwinn she let me use.
we had a date of sorts one afternoon in september. to moonstone beach. one of those bright and warm days which seemed natural to me but made others act blessed. i don’t recall how we got out to the beach, but neither of us had a car. maybe her friend, or we took a bus. i don’t know. i can’t recall much of that day. but i still have some black and white photographs.
we were new friends and we were getting along, learning one another with the help of the sun and waves. our butts were in the sand. each was open to this new person and excited to share. this was before our first kiss. maybe the day we kissed? i don’t believe so. but i can’t remember. no need. i look at these pictures now and see less of her than my own body. then and now. that’s what i think about. myself. not her smile. i was ripped. stomach, cut. i had a paddler’s arms and chest. i would die today in yesterday’s waves. today? i can’t run up the stairs for my cigs without hiring a sherpa to carry my albuterol tanks.
the path down to the beach from the overlook was a tunnel. a trench was dug into the dirt by year’s of feet and flooding. a canopy of trees grew arched over the hollow, forming an earthen tube. the air was cool under there and smelled like the dark and dirt until it opened onto the bright sand at the foot of the cliff.
gracie had not been accepted to u.c. berkeley the first time she applied. this had been her life’s goal and dream. she had grown up under the influence of the school’s presence and she was going to get in. she went to community college for a year and then she came to humboldt to add another year of courses to her transcript before she re-applied. she had to do well at humboldt and she did. berkeley accepted her for her junior year.
gracie was not dim, but she was dull. she was calm in her tense way. she was serious, but superficial, a conscientious studier who offered little to a conversation. she could laugh, but she could not be funny. she did not play. she was kind, yet absent. she may have been less where she was because she was looking ahead to berkeley. arcata was not her dream or choice and she did not become attached. she was using the place, using her time. i was a part of the supporting cast. my role was to present my cock when the leading lady came home from the library. i fit into her easy cat stevens songs. i was god’s creation, a dewy stepping stone along the way, sunlit but setting. i came broken off. i was happy to end a day in raging surf with a fuck and a beer. she was not living in the moment and i was; we fit.
gracie reminded me of some of the top-ranked students i knew in high school, the ones who studied and worked endlessly for their rankings, to get above, be above, stay above. i had dated a salutatorian who was like this. like gracie, she also dumped me, but she had other things going for her. she was an athlete, musician, and always showed up on the social scene. she became a doctor in chicago. gracie was not even a friend of animals. gracie was locked in a room with books and papers spread across the bed, frowning. she was the sort of intellect which is too distracted and busy with its own preservation. a mind thinking about itself. distracted, her unsurprising mind might have been why berkeley had resisted her. she had the sat scores, but who was she? aside from a chick who wanted u.c. berkeley on her resume? she took an art class in arcata to show berkeley her diversity. she was a miserable sculptor, i mean miserable about doing it. her sculptures were also bad, but they were made of subjective clay and posted grades.
i can explain how we wound up together. it was proximity. two bodies, conveniently placed until one and one turned into penetration.
the summer before classes began, before i met her, i was working on a yacht in rhode island. i had two part-time helpers, but mostly worked alone. i had to get this 1928 stadel schooner back into the water in newport so it could sail home to new rochelle. i was single and washing neurotoxins off my hands with worse neurotoxins while gracie was down in the east bay, taking summer classes and going out with a kid she would mention to me twice. it had lasted some time, but she said it was over. she was compelled to mention him when his face surfaced in a pile of pictures she was showing me. it was a loss that still hurt her, but i didn’t care. his existence didn’t trouble me and i did not consider myself a rebound. if i was a rebound and i knew it, i would not have been bothered. she was sex, not a partner.
i should be able to recall more than a chafed cock. i haven’t thought of her much since it healed. she had red hair, long, so brilliant and deep it hid in the open. the color was made for her. it was soft and the strands finer than you would expect. it shone. some red hair gets on my nerves, but her hair bothered me only the first couple days. i guess i don’t remember our first kiss. it might have been in the sun at moonstone beach, waves crashing. but it might have been in the quiet shade of the redwoods. maybe it was in her room. i do remember that her room was where we first fucked. the shades were drawn, we had been lying on her bed, as we had been for several afternoons. i also remember the first time i saw her. a block party. marc was there, the first time i saw him too. gracie stayed with her girlfriend. gracie did not stand out to me and she did not step into the party. i can see her in front of her house with her friend, a short, startled looking chick from oakland. gracie did not mingle or eat or drink with us. she was watching the party. she talked to her friend. my housemate, maurice, might have approached them first and eventually i was talking to the two of them. i’d seen they were my new neighbors. she had a schwinn mountain bike and i asked her if i could take it for a spin. mountain bikes were mostly a california thing then. she let me take it for a ride, but i didn’t go far because she looked a little nervous. she didn’t know me, i guess, and it was a new bike. straight, low handlebars, turning loose on fat knobby tires. a few days later word came via maurice that gracie liked me. i’m not sure if it was maurice who told me, but chances are it was. maurice was the quick socialite who shuttled between porch lights. it had to be maurice. gracie likes you. it was unexpected. i hadn’t considered her. she likes me? i admitted she had a body and that so far there was nothing wrong with her. why me? and or but so it happened that we were very often hanging out in the same place at the same time.
gracie was a big coffee drinker and she wanted me to drink arabica beans. she took me to the co-op in town and showed me how to make falafels. she listened to cat stevens and introduced me to one of the best bands around, camper van beethoven. she had gustave klimpt’s “the kiss” on her bedroom wall, a portrait of gentle love making i did not recreate. most of our start is lost to me. i wish i could remember our first kiss. what was it like? forceful? soft and slow? moist? dry? wet and frenzied? no. delicate? what did she taste like? it must have been nice. right? was it a meeting? perfection? no. it was not a meeting. i would remember. she probably remembers less.
we spent a month in her only position. then she said, “i need to find myself.” our relationship was devouring her time. she had not come north to fuck. she was right, for herself. i was an especially bad one to be fucking because i did not share her academic values. academically, i was the other type. i did as little class work as possible and posted good grades. i had graduated near the top of my class without opening a book. in college, i didn’t even buy the books. so long as i drank with reason, i would graduate a live human. my days revolved around surfing with bobo. when she told me she needed to find herself, it hurt more than i would have predicted. i had never heard such a thing, as common an explanation as it was. i was dumped once by the salutatorian: “i’m going to see him,” but never “i need to find myself.” i had never even used that line. it was a loose end. i withdrew from gracie and our hot little world. she moved on to her academic project. often our paths intersected on the sidewalk, less on campus. we were friends who now did nothing to be friends.
maurice wrote her off as a psycho-bitch, one of 15 million surrounding us. he told me not to worry about her and poured me a scotch. i never found her particularly bitchy, just lame, but maurice’s ”psycho-“ prefix seemed to fit the shift. maurice cheered me with scotch, at his own risk. i had been surfing a lot with bobo and after things had started with gracie, i had not been home much. when i was around, i saw how he missed me. after gracie, i was home and we drank together. whisky was good for the pain you felt when you were dumped by a woman you did not love. maurice and i dawned off the nights. and by day, bobo called in waves. i remembered why the hell i was alive. then the dream girl came along when only a marilyn would do.
in the fall gracie and i had gone down to berkeley with maurice in his 500 cubic-inch galaxy. his destination was a dead show at the coliseum. marc was with us, on his way to some place he wasn’t talking about. he sat up front in a ninety mile an hour wind, poised. plenty of wind in the backseat of that galaxy, lots of wind on me, but no sunshine back there with gracie and herself sitting on that couch. i was there, wondering. this trip was her idea. she had said she wanted to show me around her town and with each mile of 101 south she slid over.
we stayed in the dorm room of a friend of hers at mills college in oakland. we slept on the floor. what did we do in berkeley? i don’t remember much. we walked the campus and we ate on telegraph, browsed the stands of silver jewelry and art on the sidewalk. i do remember what happened to her. she disolved. as if this scene of her past life met the dream of her future life and carried her out of the present. it was in a café on telegraph that she delivered that impenetrable line: “i need to find myself.” she needed space. she meant total space. gapped on the second floor of a café on telegraph avenue, gracie was dumping me. yes, and it hurt. and it was not convenient. we were in berkeley, 370 miles into her world. she wanted to be friendly. i wanted to get away from her.
toward dusk that same day gracie and i were walking up telegraph avenue looking for gracie when who comes bouncing down the concrete but maurice. he was shouting stoutly in a blue serape. he was with friends. he said they were killing time before the show. he was cooking fast and yelled above his shout. we were standing in the middle of the sidewalk. he yelled the odds against us running into one another in the bayarria were so great that i must be an opening hallucination. he pulled the bottle from under his smock and offered me a hit. people were walking around us, his mad street love flooding pedestrians into the gutter. “do you realize the odds?” he shouted. it seemed natural to me, like we were outside our apartment, but what did i know? “there are millions of people and we bump into each other? like this?”
that night on the floor of her friend’s dorm at mills college, my space chick found she wanted to fuck. my dick was not long enough.
however confused i am about the chronology of a kiss, i can recall sleeping with gracie after she dumped me in berkeley. she stopped by one night after i’d just returned from the darkroom. wet prints were laid out on paper towels on the bedroom floor, where i hoped they would dry before my roommate got back from one of his four study groups. wayne and his study groups. whatever they were, it kept him out of my hair. wayne was another conscientious studier from berkeley, but he was a fucking asshole. gracie was excited about the shots and was truly in the room, there, the friend and girl i had liked. gracie in a rare gracie. she wanted to fuck. she spent the night and in the morning while wayne snored we resumed fucking. we didn’t know it would be our last time.
gracie had just begun her search for herself when lumberjack days arrived. i went into town for a drink and found a woman who burned off my buttons. she was in costume as a whore and she was a friend with curves out of time. her name was marilyn. she was beautiful. she was sexy and crazy to gracie’s cool; compelling to gracie’s ambitious; brilliant to gracie’s intelligent. i had been with the wrong girl; i hadn’t known there was a chance with the right girl. i forgot about gracie fast, though we still had simple and mildly unpleasant moments when we ran into one another. gracie was put-out that a split had cost her everything so fast, like she had expected me to wait and welcome her home each time she returned to earth. she had thought i liked her enough for me to stay convenient. word came back from her sister that gracie was hurt, and more interesting, angered that a pair of pumps had beaten her birkenstocks. she knew of marilyn and she believed she knew who marilyn was, or what.
in another moment that would have dropped maurice to the sidewalk, reeling in disbelief, i saw gracie four years later walking down telegraph. here comes someone out of your past, flushed from the millions.
she was coming south on telegraph, approaching the rockridge bart station. she was just into oakland, coming from berkeley. i was walking north up telegraph with my girlfriend jess. we’d come over from the city because jess had a job interview at an insurance company.
jess was a tall brunette and one girl you’d want to be seen with by an ex who had dumped you. on this day, we’d been together three years and lately we’d been laughing our way into the bedroom. we liked one another and we were empowered by a new lightness. i had never been as unsettled by a woman’s presence. there were other beautiful women and more beautiful women, but her face held a pain which showed a life that had allowed for the beauty in death. her face was silence opened. absolute power – and a humility that had not been indulged from her. she was haunting. she was marked by a refined fidelity. her skin was soft and pale, her blue eyes eddying, her chestnut hair long and curly. i was awkward, and, she showed me, primitive and desirable.
if jess showed any anxiety about this job interview, it was directed at her bare legs. she had not dressed up for this one. life was grand at home and she had left her best clothes on the kitchen table. she did bring with her a genius i.q., any language they wanted or wanted her to learn, and years of experience as a flower girl and waitress. we were not desperate by my definition and we were having the best times by any definition, but she was being practical about the future, which was, in her view, to start in two or three weeks. i was writing, collecting unemployment, and drinking 16 hours a day, a position i had worked most of my life to establish and one jess was prepared to endure. why? i’ll never know. she was one of those people who understood. the agency had made this insurance company job sound special and the pay was more than enough. the job might have been a good idea, but i had not been down with her calling the agency. we were starting a new life in the mission and a job seemed lousy, but she was coming from a place i trusted her with. life was changing again. we’d quit our jobs and abandoned the high ground on telegraph hill. we were in the mission, grilling fillet mignon and salmon on foodstamps. we had time and we turned toward one another. jess walked down telegraph knowing she would get the job. i was the guy walking down telegraph wondering if she would hold it against me.
i didn’t see gracie until she was upon us. she was six feet ahead, to my left. she was looking when i looked and she balked in a blink. she looked down. she walked on, probably for the train. in half a breath we saw and passed and saw. to rid, to shed, five years. she was plain looking and our past together seemed soulless. her eyes were shallow and her face so locked that i couldn’t imagine her blinking while her lips were moving. her nose was pointed. maybe it was a reaction. maybe it had always been an arrow. she had a book bag on her shoulder, looked like a student. still fucking going to school?! looking away was the right thing to do. this was as close as we got. this scuffed glance said enough. all words could have done was chill what had been a mistake. down the street a ways i told jess who we had just passed.
“i thought there was something,” she said. “the way she was looking at you.”
jess had seen gracie well before i had. i guess gracie had given an honest look. maybe she believed i had seen her. who knows. i was glad i hadn’t seen her sooner. i would have felt the pressure, heard maurice yelling about the odds of it.
October 11, 2012
The Roads We Choose
The shower passed and the sun burned down. We sat there, the raindrops growing finer on the windshield. The sun was hot. We rolled down our windows. The pavement dried like it was on fire.
Three blacks were running through the cars. They crossed the highway in front of us. They ran like they’d stolen a Thanksgiving turkey and apple pie. Two cops appeared beside our car. The blacks ran up the sloped grass. They stopped at the overpass and looked down on the jam. One of them threw a rock at the cops. It flew over the cars and over the heads of the two cops. If you were going to be jammed in traffic on the Cross-Bronx Expressway, you couldn’t beat this. The cops wore dark blue jackets with heavy black belts, very serious and helpless looking public servants. Rocks fell on them as the other two blacks joined in. The cops did not chase the men. Their car was on a nearby access road. Standing on their hill, the black men laughed. I couldn’t hear them laugh, but they opened and closed their mouths and their teeth showed while they threw rocks. The cops were losing this one in front of an audience of stalled drivers and fortunately, none of the rocks hit our windshield. What was this about, anyhow? The blacks laughed and continued their bombardment, delaying their escape to make the insult. Then one of the cops unbuttoned his holster and took out his pistol. He held it high and stepped forward. The blacks ran. They vanished right up the road. The cop put away his gun. It had been entertaining until the fucker brought a gun into it. I guess it was one of those moments you’ll never see again. The blacks were having fun. The cops were obscene losers.
We sped through the Meadowlands, where the grass grows yellow under a sunless sky, except in spots where there have been brush fires. Smokestacks reined the horizon and the wind cradled a nightmare. It was then that I noticed we were running low on gas. I took an exit for a gas station. In New Jersey it doesn’t matter what exit.
I filled her up and paid the Indian sitting behind an inch of glass. He took my money through a metal drawer. He did not say a word, but he looked out. He sat behind the glass, safe with the cigarettes and scratch tickets. When I say Indian, I mean from India. Not the people who were living here when Columbus arrived looking for India. Columbus had made a mistake. The people who had greeted him had made a mistake. The guy behind the glass gave me the right change.
I turned the ignition and the car clicked. I tried again. No good. Our 1967 Rover 2000 would not start. But it had been doing this all summer. It would start if we gave it time to cool down. Jess had run out of patience with the car. She was afraid of it. She let out her frustration and squeezed her hands between her knees. I tried to ease her worries by explaining the problem as we pushed the car away from the pumps. The starter wires were overheating while we drove because they were too close to an exhaust pipe. This became significant when you stopped and then tried to start again soon after. Hot wires conduct less electricity than cool wires. The starter wasn’t getting enough juice to turn over. She was not comforted. Maybe because we were driving to California.
On the freeway with warm wind rushing at us. On the move.
“I think we’re going in the wrong direction,” Jess said.
“We’re going north?” I said. “No we’re not.”
“Yes we are. We’re headed back home.”
“It looks the same.”
Smokestacks and grass yellowed from a diet of smog and headaches. A green and white highway sign finally showed up to clear the matter: I95 North. Jess was right. I had to turn around. We had to get off the highway.
In no time I was lost. I’d like to say we were lost, and we were, but I was driving and Jess was the innocent captive who knew better, getting dragged through the ghetto in search of a way back to I95 south. I was caught in a crossword puzzle of one-way streets lined with cinder-block homes with barred windows. People walked the streets and gathered on the corners. They were talking. They did not seem to be up to much, but they looked happier than their houses and cars. We found the one-way street which led back to I95 south, hit the highway and rolled down the windows. I turned up the music: don’t worry, ‘bout a thing, ‘cause every little thing, is gonna be alright . . .
Many songs later, the prospect of people eating all the corn in Pennsylvania and then excreting it, gave me something to think about. Jess found beauty in the monotony of the green stalks. We were driving through a Warhol. The road was wide and dry and stretched forever with no one in front of us and no one in the rearview. We owned all of that corn without having to live in a vinyl house on a hill.
“I like it here,” Jess said.
In the hills, in the trees, shadows accumulated and became darkness before the sun was down. In the open, the day hung with us, fading out while I drove. Jess opened the glove box and found The AAA Guide to Camping, Northeast Edition.
“There are a bunch of campgrounds near Gettysburg,” she said.
“We’re near Gettysburg?” I said.
“I think so. Let me see. Yes, we’re getting close. It’s about an inch away on the map.”
“How far is an inch?” I asked.
“Oh. About sixty miles. That’s more than I thought. What do you think?”
“Why not?”
“I’ve always wanted to see Gettysburg,” she said.
“Let’s go see what it’s all about.”
Jess read me the roads and we got off the highway onto a small road that wound past the ends of people’s driveways for two hours. Lights were on in these houses.
“Can you roll up your window a little?” Jess said. “I’m cold.”
The wind blowing across my arm was cold. I rolled it up – a little.
“It’s close to nine o’clock,” Jess said. “They close at ten. Are we gonna make it?”
“I don’t know.”
The road had some sharp turns, but I stepped on it. The Rover had a race-car suspension. Over hills. Leaves in the road. Through chimney smoke. Jess complaining she was carsick.
The town parted the trees. A wave came up the windshield and blinded me. Holy shit!
I slowed and turned on the wipers and we saw we were on the main drag of some small town. Small-town America like so many small towns back home. The rain poured on the desolate streets. Then I saw a sign on the outside of a store: GETTYSBURG HARDWARE.
This was the famous town. “We’re in Gettysburg,” I said.
“This is Gettysburg?” Jess said.
“We’re out of Gettysburg.”
“Go back!”
“Hang on!”
It was dark. I drove on. The rain hammered the roof. The wipers tried to go back and forth. The steering went with every river I drove into. Jess was studying the AAA booklet under the focused beam of the Rover Deluxe Reading Lamp while I wondered where we were. We were alone, I could see. Pennsylvania was a quiet state this day. It was dark and out in the rain were fields or farmland with some trees here and there. I squinted at the road in front of me. I turned the wheel toward darkness.
Something went by on the roadside.
I slowed and hit the high beams.
“Turn off the light!”
Jess did.
“What?” she said.
“I saw something. Up on the right.”
The shadows came again.
Silhouettes.
I slowed.
Canons.
There were three of them standing in an uneven line, facing the road.
I drove on. There were more. We were close to the battle. We were on the battlefield.
Jess gave me directions.
We saw a light. Going by, we read the sign: THE BATTLEFIELD CAMPGROUND.
I’d passed it. I pulled a u-turn and headed back toward the only light on those dark fields. I turned in at the sign onto gravel. A short way in was a shack with a sign in the window: VACANCY. The shack also looked vacant. Jess waited in the car while I checked the door of the shack. The rain beat on me. The air smelled of rotting leaves. I was cold. The door to the place was locked and there was no sign of a human. There were a bunch of brochures on the counter. I ran back to the car, climbed in, soaked to the skin.
“Anything?” Jess said.
“Just a bunch of books.”
“What time is it?” she said, looking at her watch. “It’s quarter after ten. Now what are we going to do?”
“Don’t worry.”
I turned off the headlights and backed away from the shack.
“What are you doing?” Jess said.
“Shhh.”
I pulled the car onto the gravel road and headed inside the campground. The parking lights cast enough yellow light to see the road and outlines of trees. We crept along the gravel in the dark until we came to a fork. I took the road on the right because it looked lonesome and went away from the campground’s center of activity. We would be less likely to get caught down there. The road turned to mud. Under the trees, whose trunks glowed amber, were fire pits marking the campsites. A potential spot appeared under the leaves of a wide trunk. The tree would protect us. I flashed the headlights and saw good ground.
I secured the tarpaulin while Jess rushed the pillows and blankets from the car to the tent. We found our toothbrushes and went off to find the bathrooms. We had seen the white cinderblock building on the way in, so it didn’t take long. There was a WOMEN sign on one end and a MEN on the other. The doorways were brightly lit by floodlights which illuminated gatherings of mosquitoes. Jess walked through the women’s mosquitoes, I through the men’s.
The men’s room was quiet. There was no one in there. There were showers we could use in the morning. I picked one sink from the long row of sinks and brushed my teeth. I washed my face in that strange and quiet place. I looked in the mirror and was disappointed by the professional who looked back. The road had done nothing for him. It was the face of inexperience, with four wheels and dreams of a continent.
I went outside and waited for jess under the overhang. Me and the dancing mosquitoes staying out of the rain. A long while later, she appeared. We ran through the rain for our tent, across the wet grass under the big old trees to the tent, where I unzipped the door and she jumped in. I followed, sealing us inside. We settled into our pile of blankets. The floor was wet. We didn’t care. The rain poured and we were safe in our shaking tent. I don’t know who started it, but we were greedily taking off our clothes. I said that whoever came first would have to drive tomorrow. We made love outside the rain and wind. We didn’t know where we were going. She was there. I was there. Tomorrow we would be somewhere else. And she would be driving.
October 10, 2012
The Captive and the Dead
patrick.fealey9@gmail.com
for my father . . .
“if anything happens to yoko and me, it wasn’t an accident.” john lennon
the captive and the dead
he and the kid are singing and playing guitars in the enlisted men’s club. they have a regular following among the betrayed men. they are the entertainment the 364 nights of the year bob hope is not there.
the sergeant is buying the beer. he is a lifer and short-timer. he’s going home. he’s loose.
“vietnam, as you know, was a colony of frogs. the communists made the frogs leap out of the pot, and in came howdy doody to support a puppet government in saigon. the leader of this shaky howdy doody government is famous for being assassinated by people in sandals and straw hats, though i forget his name. i’d like to make a toast to president kennedy, the son-of-a-whore who put me in vietnam: eternal shame!”
the explosions rock the enlisted men’s club. he drops his guitar and runs for the bunker with the others. mortars and rockets coming from outside the perimeter. the marines fire back into jungle blindly, it’s today’s hit-and-run attack from the heart of freedom. he is in the bunker, watching a centipede crawl past through the sandbags. it’s legs are fast and mechanical and it is almost a foot long. i wanna go home. i wanna sleep with my wife, not ten thousand miles.
the earth shakes.
the general was visiting. the colonel showed him around. the men were having a blast. see, war ain’t so bad. the general smiled at the men and the men smiled back. the general lost his face when he heard the words to a song. the colonel grabbed his sleeve and took him to the o club, where the drinks were stronger and so was the lie.
budweiser kept him alive. he was singing that sweet lament. if i were free. death is all this is. let me choose. i wanna go home. i wanna sleep with my wife, not Phu Bai.
there was this hill. america had wanted to build a new road and install drainage ten thousand miles from home, where roads and drainage were highly valued. the army corps of engineers had attempted to use the hill of gravel for the road, but the vietnamese shot at them with machine guns and mortars every time they started the bulldozers. they didn’t want drainage. all the army corps accomplished was the digging of giant pits to hide their equipment and their asses. the army corps gave up and gave the gravel to the seabees. the seabees were a tough lot, combat engineers who trained with the marines. when they looked at a hill of gravel, they saw potential energy. and this is how the nation came to call on him to go out and survey the hill.
the hill was outside the concertina wire. the hill was composed of fine gravel.
he drove out in a jeep with two other seabees. he had joined the navy in order to avoid vietnam, but he was yanked from this dream when he arrived to his assigned base, where he was told the first day: “you’re going to vietnam.” the base was in quonset, road island, and the many car dealerships there thrived off young recruits and their checks. later, nixon would shut down this base because the citizens of rhode island voted democratic during the presidential election. nixon pledged to get the u.s. out of vietnam, but it would take him four years, during which time b-52 bombers dropped more bombs on the people in straw hats and sandals than were used by all countries combined in world war two. between three and four million vietnamese men, women, and children were killed. this holocaust made kissinger a great diplomat. (“peace with honor”)
he drove the jeep out to the hill. he steered around bodies bloating in the tropical heat. there were always corpses blackening on the road outside camp, even when they had not killed any.
the hill rose about 30 feet above ground level. he didn’t ask why the army corps was trying to build a road into enemy territory, just as he had tired of wondering if he was in the navy. he suspected the u.s. expected to someday hold this area, a hope which did not come to fruition. the kid climbed to the top of the hill and stood straight. he cupped his hands and shouted into the jungle: “shoot me!”
they surveyed the hill. it was round at the base, generally cone-shaped through it’s height. they moved positions and took notes throughout the day, attempting to establish how many cubic yards this hill was. when they knew this, they could determine how many dump truck trips would be required to move it. he didn’t see what it mattered how many dump trucks it would take because they were going to move it, whatever it was. some of these assignments happened because someone had to give an order because he existed to give orders and was being paid to give orders and someone had to follow that order because he existed and was paid to transcend rage.
a squad of marines came through and asked them why they were standing around a tripod in a hot zone.
“we’re building an interstate,” he said.
a marine said, “you shouldn’t be here.”
it was tedious work standing around smoking for 12 hours and by the time the sun was setting, they were not done with the job.
“whatta ya think?” he asked.
“apple pie,” the kid said.
“well give me an answer,” he said.
“it’s getting dark,” the kid said.
“now can we get the hell out of here?” said the seaman.
“load up,” he said.
“this place is getting spooky,” the seamen said.
“they could have us if they wanted us,” he said.
“i suppose they think surveying hills is worse than death,” the kid said.
“are you questioning orders?” he said.
“yes.”
“i thought so.”
“all we got is forty-fives and one m-16,” the seaman said.
“don’t forget the jeep,” the kid said. “our most powerful weapon.”
driving back to base in the closing light, he sped on the winding dirt road. a tank concealed on the roadside fired a round over their heads. his heart tripped and he touched his hat. he was deafened. there was a ringing in his head and pain in his chest. he bet the sonsofbitches fired to bust their nuts.
word came from the states that his first child had been born. he was a he and he had been born on the day he had predicted, december 19, 1967, which was two days ago. a first son. they drank in the enlisted men’s club while the baby slept in new york city, bonding to its grandfather. he would go home in six months, be state-side for five months, and then turn around and come back for eight more months. counting the days seemed futile. the child would be an infant without him. the child wouldn’t know who the hell he was. cigars were passed and smoked until the rockets started. it was a heavy attack and he did not have time to make the bunker, but instead dove into a fox hole. the sky flashed light upon them. he was in the fox hole with a black corporal who wore a bronze star. the man saw him looking at it and started to cry. “i don’t deserve it. all i did was kill kids. i didn’t do anything. i killed women and kids. they give me this. i can’t keep this medal. i want to kill myself.”
the sergeant is retiring, out of this latest assignment. he doesn’t like vietnam. all the soldiers look like kids. he didn’t look like that in korea. he didn’t like korea either. he wonders if it’s too late to like the country waiting for him state-side.
“sorry, jim, but we need you. you’re getting an extension.”
“what?” the sergeant says. “sir, i’ve got five days. i’ve been in the marines twenty years. i’m down to five days.”
“i know, i know. i’m sorry. you’re irreplaceable. you know the drill.”
“sir, i earned this.”
“we need you to stay on until we can replace you.”
“when will that be?”
“i have no idea.”
“sir, if you don’t mind me saying so, this is bullshit.”
“i don’t mind you saying so.”
the sergeant stayed in vietnam and one month beyond the day he was supposed to retire and go home, a rocket made a direct hit on his hut while he was running down the front steps for the bunker. he went home with one leg.
most of his buddies did not appreciate how difficult it was to catch these giant lizards. some just didn’t appreciate a two-foot lizard in the tent. the lizards lived in holes in the sand. they were wary when they poked their heads out. he stood nearby, kneeling behind the jeep he had borrowed from the captain, hanging on to the rope. the noose was around the hole. the lizards were the fastest thing he had ever stalked and the most vicious. upstate new york, he had caught woodchucks and even a rabbit with his bare hands. he was good at this, but the lizards had been around a long time. to catch the lizard, it had to come out of the hole and expose itself. he could not move or wipe the sweat sliding into his eyes. if he moved, the lizard would vanish. they each stood frozen in the glaring sun, staring one another down. he did not blink because in a blink the lizard would be out of its hole. he held the rope and watched the lizard with burning eyeballs.
he blinked.
the lizard was out of its hole. it stood 15 feet from its hole, watching him.
he stood up. the lizard looked at him. he threw up his arms and said “what are you going to do now?”
the lizard bolted for its hole.
he pulled the rope. he had it by the middle. on the end of the rope, the lizard’s claws were more dangerous than the north vietnamese.
he was sitting in the latrine, taking a shit. there were two men down the line, also taking shits. he heard the sound of a large fork-lift approaching. the engine noise grew louder. it can’t be, he thought. the latrine moved. it shook. they were being raised into the air. he looked down through the hole between his legs and saw the lift below. they were changing the buckets. “give us a minute,” a private yelled, saluting the three assholes. he walked out of the latrine to see his shit going up in flames.
“join the navy before they send you to vietnam,” his mother had advised. “join the navy before they send you to vietnam. join the navy before they send you to vietnam.” ten years later she denied saying this. she denied any involvement, she denied vietnam, she denied her oldest son, and she voted for ronald reagan, who had been one of the war’s hardest proponents. he knew reagan was the governor of california, where numerous defense contractors were located. reagan was a homicidal paranoiac who despised john lennon and activated the national guard when students said what they were thinking. he gassed and bullied with bayonets the freedom of speech.
he is crossing the street in chu lai and he bumps shoulders with a guy. they look at each other. they are childhood friends from the same neighborhood in new york.
he sold his martin to the kid for $50. the kid was getting good and deserved a better guitar. a soldier on his way home had sold him the martin for $50. he was passing it along. he had a silvertone he had bought before the war and played that.
night watch duty was unavoidable. he was ordered to guard a pallet of budweiser all night. his non-com rank should have spared him the job, but this is what lyndon johnson and the united states of america asked him to do with his education and training. fuck it, in college he wouldn’t have hesitated to spend a night with a pallet of budweiser. he showed up with his m-16 and wearing his helmet. he was also frustrated by the duty because the guys were having a big party tonight and he would miss out. he guarded the beer. he sat atop the pallet and heard the voices and laughter of the men he wished he was with. he guarded the beer, wondering which direction the enemy would attack from. he didn’t have enough firepower to stop a really thirsty offensive. a seabee from the party arrived with a drink for him. he drank it. a while later, a marine came out with another drink for him. he wasn’t totally missing the party. throughout the night, his buddies arrived with drinks and he drank them. in the morning he was awakened by the rain. it was falling into his open mouth. he was lying atop the pallet of budweiser on his back with his head thrown back and his open mouth filling with water. he choked awake. he found his helmet and weapon spilled into a puddle. none of the beer was missing.
it was a hospital. they were going to build a hospital for the vietnamese. it was a public relations project which was supposed to bring the civilians into the fold. these would be the civilians who had not been vaporized by b-52s. the site, 40 miles south of chu lai, somewhere in the jungle near quang tri, was encircled with concertina wire. about 25 men were assigned to the job. they would sleep on site because it was far from camp to commute. they cut the jungle down. they placed one roll of concertina next to another and put a third roll on top of those two, creating a six-foot pyramid of steel barbs. mines were laid and they began surveying. a few men who were ordered to fill sand bags questioned the location, but these fubar jobs were common. most were unbothered and went along because their senses and ability to have ideas had been worn down by the repetition in duties. there was no beer, but they’d brought their guitars.
tet. too bad for the american who wakes to find himself an imperialist.
the vietnamese attack the hospital site at night. muzzles flash and grenades pop. the vietnamese come and come. it is a swarm from all directions. he never knows how many he has shot. there may be hundreds of them. he is on the .30 cal and cuts them three and four at a time. when gooks get through the fence he has to drop the machine gun and use his .45. before dawn, there is the sound of suffering as the vietnamese recede into the green shadows. bodies drape the concertina like dead fish in a net. now and then a burst into the earth. there are vietnamese inside the wire, bled out on the ground. he looks around to see who is still alive. he isn’t the only one doing this. the men drift in the sulfur and look at one another. eleven of them have made it. he doesn’t see the kid. there are two wounded, the rest killed. some were wounded and died unattended. he walks the site looking for the kid. they are enclosed by a circle of sacrifice. he sees the kid lying face down with his brains feeding the morning flies. the martin is under him. he doesn’t turn the kid over. the silence of the birds is the sound of shame.
“what kind of gun are you looking for?”
“the enemy is too close for a rifle,” he said.
”you know you’ll have to pass the state test before i can sell you a handgun.”
”how about this test?”
”so, vietnam. you’ve come prepared. what kind of pistol are you looking for? a revolver, an automatic?”
“a colt forty-five.”
“for home defense?”
“ . . . yes.”
“i can recommend the thirty-eight special. it’s powerful enough and easier to handle than the forty-five. this snub-nose would be perfect for the bedside table.”
“i’ll take the forty-five.”
he sits in a reclining chair in the dark unfinished basement for ten years with a beer by his side. he doesn’t touch his guitar. he doesn’t teach his son how to play it. he hears his wife repeat her threats. he can’t do anything about it. the struggle to stay alive is no longer the question. the question is wanting to stay alive. he sees that he is ceasing to misunderstand existence. president ronald reagan is trying to convince america that ketchup qualifies as a vegetable in the school lunch program. john lennon is not around for this or el salvador. they had forced him into a delusion. the rich used him. the politicians used him. the killers had used him. anyone who wants to control another person is deluded and afraid. the fear of death the root of all evil. he knows warriors are needed because the world is not what it could be, but his war lacked a war. when you cease to misunderstand existence, you lose the need. paradox. when you cease to need life, you cease to need death. reason in paradox: more paradox. his life is no dream. he is paralyzed. he lives with the imperative of the gun.
for my father . . .
“if anything happens to yoko and me, it wasn’t an accident.” john lennon
the captive and the dead
he and the kid are singing and playing guitars in the enlisted men’s club. they have a regular following among the betrayed men. they are the entertainment the 364 nights of the year bob hope is not there.
the sergeant is buying the beer. he is a lifer and short-timer. he’s going home. he’s loose.
“vietnam, as you know, was a colony of frogs. the communists made the frogs leap out of the pot, and in came howdy doody to support a puppet government in saigon. the leader of this shaky howdy doody government is famous for being assassinated by people in sandals and straw hats, though i forget his name. i’d like to make a toast to president kennedy, the son-of-a-whore who put me in vietnam: eternal shame!”
the explosions rock the enlisted men’s club. he drops his guitar and runs for the bunker with the others. mortars and rockets coming from outside the perimeter. the marines fire back into jungle blindly, it’s today’s hit-and-run attack from the heart of freedom. he is in the bunker, watching a centipede crawl past through the sandbags. it’s legs are fast and mechanical and it is almost a foot long. i wanna go home. i wanna sleep with my wife, not ten thousand miles.
the earth shakes.
the general was visiting. the colonel showed him around. the men were having a blast. see, war ain’t so bad. the general smiled at the men and the men smiled back. the general lost his face when he heard the words to a song. the colonel grabbed his sleeve and took him to the o club, where the drinks were stronger and so was the lie.
budweiser kept him alive. he was singing that sweet lament. if i were free. death is all this is. let me choose. i wanna go home. i wanna sleep with my wife, not Phu Bai.
there was this hill. america had wanted to build a new road and install drainage ten thousand miles from home, where roads and drainage were highly valued. the army corps of engineers had attempted to use the hill of gravel for the road, but the vietnamese shot at them with machine guns and mortars every time they started the bulldozers. they didn’t want drainage. all the army corps accomplished was the digging of giant pits to hide their equipment and their asses. the army corps gave up and gave the gravel to the seabees. the seabees were a tough lot, combat engineers who trained with the marines. when they looked at a hill of gravel, they saw potential energy. and this is how the nation came to call on him to go out and survey the hill.
the hill was outside the concertina wire. the hill was composed of fine gravel.
he drove out in a jeep with two other seabees. he had joined the navy in order to avoid vietnam, but he was yanked from this dream when he arrived to his assigned base, where he was told the first day: “you’re going to vietnam.” the base was in quonset, road island, and the many car dealerships there thrived off young recruits and their checks. later, nixon would shut down this base because the citizens of rhode island voted democratic during the presidential election. nixon pledged to get the u.s. out of vietnam, but it would take him four years, during which time b-52 bombers dropped more bombs on the people in straw hats and sandals than were used by all countries combined in world war two. between three and four million vietnamese men, women, and children were killed. this holocaust made kissinger a great diplomat. (“peace with honor”)
he drove the jeep out to the hill. he steered around bodies bloating in the tropical heat. there were always corpses blackening on the road outside camp, even when they had not killed any.
the hill rose about 30 feet above ground level. he didn’t ask why the army corps was trying to build a road into enemy territory, just as he had tired of wondering if he was in the navy. he suspected the u.s. expected to someday hold this area, a hope which did not come to fruition. the kid climbed to the top of the hill and stood straight. he cupped his hands and shouted into the jungle: “shoot me!”
they surveyed the hill. it was round at the base, generally cone-shaped through it’s height. they moved positions and took notes throughout the day, attempting to establish how many cubic yards this hill was. when they knew this, they could determine how many dump truck trips would be required to move it. he didn’t see what it mattered how many dump trucks it would take because they were going to move it, whatever it was. some of these assignments happened because someone had to give an order because he existed to give orders and was being paid to give orders and someone had to follow that order because he existed and was paid to transcend rage.
a squad of marines came through and asked them why they were standing around a tripod in a hot zone.
“we’re building an interstate,” he said.
a marine said, “you shouldn’t be here.”
it was tedious work standing around smoking for 12 hours and by the time the sun was setting, they were not done with the job.
“whatta ya think?” he asked.
“apple pie,” the kid said.
“well give me an answer,” he said.
“it’s getting dark,” the kid said.
“now can we get the hell out of here?” said the seaman.
“load up,” he said.
“this place is getting spooky,” the seamen said.
“they could have us if they wanted us,” he said.
“i suppose they think surveying hills is worse than death,” the kid said.
“are you questioning orders?” he said.
“yes.”
“i thought so.”
“all we got is forty-fives and one m-16,” the seaman said.
“don’t forget the jeep,” the kid said. “our most powerful weapon.”
driving back to base in the closing light, he sped on the winding dirt road. a tank concealed on the roadside fired a round over their heads. his heart tripped and he touched his hat. he was deafened. there was a ringing in his head and pain in his chest. he bet the sonsofbitches fired to bust their nuts.
word came from the states that his first child had been born. he was a he and he had been born on the day he had predicted, december 19, 1967, which was two days ago. a first son. they drank in the enlisted men’s club while the baby slept in new york city, bonding to its grandfather. he would go home in six months, be state-side for five months, and then turn around and come back for eight more months. counting the days seemed futile. the child would be an infant without him. the child wouldn’t know who the hell he was. cigars were passed and smoked until the rockets started. it was a heavy attack and he did not have time to make the bunker, but instead dove into a fox hole. the sky flashed light upon them. he was in the fox hole with a black corporal who wore a bronze star. the man saw him looking at it and started to cry. “i don’t deserve it. all i did was kill kids. i didn’t do anything. i killed women and kids. they give me this. i can’t keep this medal. i want to kill myself.”
the sergeant is retiring, out of this latest assignment. he doesn’t like vietnam. all the soldiers look like kids. he didn’t look like that in korea. he didn’t like korea either. he wonders if it’s too late to like the country waiting for him state-side.
“sorry, jim, but we need you. you’re getting an extension.”
“what?” the sergeant says. “sir, i’ve got five days. i’ve been in the marines twenty years. i’m down to five days.”
“i know, i know. i’m sorry. you’re irreplaceable. you know the drill.”
“sir, i earned this.”
“we need you to stay on until we can replace you.”
“when will that be?”
“i have no idea.”
“sir, if you don’t mind me saying so, this is bullshit.”
“i don’t mind you saying so.”
the sergeant stayed in vietnam and one month beyond the day he was supposed to retire and go home, a rocket made a direct hit on his hut while he was running down the front steps for the bunker. he went home with one leg.
most of his buddies did not appreciate how difficult it was to catch these giant lizards. some just didn’t appreciate a two-foot lizard in the tent. the lizards lived in holes in the sand. they were wary when they poked their heads out. he stood nearby, kneeling behind the jeep he had borrowed from the captain, hanging on to the rope. the noose was around the hole. the lizards were the fastest thing he had ever stalked and the most vicious. upstate new york, he had caught woodchucks and even a rabbit with his bare hands. he was good at this, but the lizards had been around a long time. to catch the lizard, it had to come out of the hole and expose itself. he could not move or wipe the sweat sliding into his eyes. if he moved, the lizard would vanish. they each stood frozen in the glaring sun, staring one another down. he did not blink because in a blink the lizard would be out of its hole. he held the rope and watched the lizard with burning eyeballs.
he blinked.
the lizard was out of its hole. it stood 15 feet from its hole, watching him.
he stood up. the lizard looked at him. he threw up his arms and said “what are you going to do now?”
the lizard bolted for its hole.
he pulled the rope. he had it by the middle. on the end of the rope, the lizard’s claws were more dangerous than the north vietnamese.
he was sitting in the latrine, taking a shit. there were two men down the line, also taking shits. he heard the sound of a large fork-lift approaching. the engine noise grew louder. it can’t be, he thought. the latrine moved. it shook. they were being raised into the air. he looked down through the hole between his legs and saw the lift below. they were changing the buckets. “give us a minute,” a private yelled, saluting the three assholes. he walked out of the latrine to see his shit going up in flames.
“join the navy before they send you to vietnam,” his mother had advised. “join the navy before they send you to vietnam. join the navy before they send you to vietnam.” ten years later she denied saying this. she denied any involvement, she denied vietnam, she denied her oldest son, and she voted for ronald reagan, who had been one of the war’s hardest proponents. he knew reagan was the governor of california, where numerous defense contractors were located. reagan was a homicidal paranoiac who despised john lennon and activated the national guard when students said what they were thinking. he gassed and bullied with bayonets the freedom of speech.
he is crossing the street in chu lai and he bumps shoulders with a guy. they look at each other. they are childhood friends from the same neighborhood in new york.
he sold his martin to the kid for $50. the kid was getting good and deserved a better guitar. a soldier on his way home had sold him the martin for $50. he was passing it along. he had a silvertone he had bought before the war and played that.
night watch duty was unavoidable. he was ordered to guard a pallet of budweiser all night. his non-com rank should have spared him the job, but this is what lyndon johnson and the united states of america asked him to do with his education and training. fuck it, in college he wouldn’t have hesitated to spend a night with a pallet of budweiser. he showed up with his m-16 and wearing his helmet. he was also frustrated by the duty because the guys were having a big party tonight and he would miss out. he guarded the beer. he sat atop the pallet and heard the voices and laughter of the men he wished he was with. he guarded the beer, wondering which direction the enemy would attack from. he didn’t have enough firepower to stop a really thirsty offensive. a seabee from the party arrived with a drink for him. he drank it. a while later, a marine came out with another drink for him. he wasn’t totally missing the party. throughout the night, his buddies arrived with drinks and he drank them. in the morning he was awakened by the rain. it was falling into his open mouth. he was lying atop the pallet of budweiser on his back with his head thrown back and his open mouth filling with water. he choked awake. he found his helmet and weapon spilled into a puddle. none of the beer was missing.
it was a hospital. they were going to build a hospital for the vietnamese. it was a public relations project which was supposed to bring the civilians into the fold. these would be the civilians who had not been vaporized by b-52s. the site, 40 miles south of chu lai, somewhere in the jungle near quang tri, was encircled with concertina wire. about 25 men were assigned to the job. they would sleep on site because it was far from camp to commute. they cut the jungle down. they placed one roll of concertina next to another and put a third roll on top of those two, creating a six-foot pyramid of steel barbs. mines were laid and they began surveying. a few men who were ordered to fill sand bags questioned the location, but these fubar jobs were common. most were unbothered and went along because their senses and ability to have ideas had been worn down by the repetition in duties. there was no beer, but they’d brought their guitars.
tet. too bad for the american who wakes to find himself an imperialist.
the vietnamese attack the hospital site at night. muzzles flash and grenades pop. the vietnamese come and come. it is a swarm from all directions. he never knows how many he has shot. there may be hundreds of them. he is on the .30 cal and cuts them three and four at a time. when gooks get through the fence he has to drop the machine gun and use his .45. before dawn, there is the sound of suffering as the vietnamese recede into the green shadows. bodies drape the concertina like dead fish in a net. now and then a burst into the earth. there are vietnamese inside the wire, bled out on the ground. he looks around to see who is still alive. he isn’t the only one doing this. the men drift in the sulfur and look at one another. eleven of them have made it. he doesn’t see the kid. there are two wounded, the rest killed. some were wounded and died unattended. he walks the site looking for the kid. they are enclosed by a circle of sacrifice. he sees the kid lying face down with his brains feeding the morning flies. the martin is under him. he doesn’t turn the kid over. the silence of the birds is the sound of shame.
“what kind of gun are you looking for?”
“the enemy is too close for a rifle,” he said.
”you know you’ll have to pass the state test before i can sell you a handgun.”
”how about this test?”
”so, vietnam. you’ve come prepared. what kind of pistol are you looking for? a revolver, an automatic?”
“a colt forty-five.”
“for home defense?”
“ . . . yes.”
“i can recommend the thirty-eight special. it’s powerful enough and easier to handle than the forty-five. this snub-nose would be perfect for the bedside table.”
“i’ll take the forty-five.”
he sits in a reclining chair in the dark unfinished basement for ten years with a beer by his side. he doesn’t touch his guitar. he doesn’t teach his son how to play it. he hears his wife repeat her threats. he can’t do anything about it. the struggle to stay alive is no longer the question. the question is wanting to stay alive. he sees that he is ceasing to misunderstand existence. president ronald reagan is trying to convince america that ketchup qualifies as a vegetable in the school lunch program. john lennon is not around for this or el salvador. they had forced him into a delusion. the rich used him. the politicians used him. the killers had used him. anyone who wants to control another person is deluded and afraid. the fear of death the root of all evil. he knows warriors are needed because the world is not what it could be, but his war lacked a war. when you cease to misunderstand existence, you lose the need. paradox. when you cease to need life, you cease to need death. reason in paradox: more paradox. his life is no dream. he is paralyzed. he lives with the imperative of the gun.
October 9, 2012
Hard to Get
she lived in a dorm. she was cute. she thought i was cute. i fucking hated to be called cute, but she looked worth it. she had a nice body and the sweetest, most patient smile, an unabashedness from which i naturally inferred experience and willingness. she was sexy. we walked on the beach. i went with her to the dining hall. we hung out with her roommate, a small beautiful jewess with a frantic social life. christina was also jewish. she was also catholic. she talked about judaism and she talked about catholicism. i listened and did not believe her religions had anything to do with me.
christina was less available than she could have been. her last boyfriend had been her first and only love. he had dumped her and moved to israel to join the army. he had felt it was his duty as a jew. he was out of her life until his two years were up. she showed hope about him, was thinking about their chances when his military duty was done. i imagined this guy, who once truly cared for her, reading backwards and forwards while christina tended the idea that so long as she didn’t fuck me, he wouldn’t get blown up. i hung in there because i had nothing else going on and i didn’t care. she was okay. she didn’t talk too much. i don’t remember kissing her for the first time or the day or night which led to this kiss. it came too late to burn. these were the days when i was trying not to discard girls. when christina asked for assurances, i lied and gave them to her. she needed to hear that i was serious.
early on, i saw that to get anywhere with christina, i had to convince her i would set the mantle clock ten minutes fast so we could get the kids into to bed in time for i love lucy. i acted, and acted well – like a guy without a dick. i was patient and let her convince herself. i was slow. unfortunately, it was time enough for me to start disliking her. it was becoming a prolonged courtship behind which i heard the voices of her rabbi and her priest arguing for my soul. i realized what a liar i was becoming. but it was intriguing. i liked her, but not her restraint. i guess that means i didn’t like her. but i liked her ass. i was back to the same old cynicism. she was an obvious dead-end on religious, psychological, and sexual grounds, but i still wanted to fuck her. and to think i had first seen her for a fun time. how i missed it i don’t know, other than i was mislead by a friend’s confidence in her interest. i was pretty experienced at foraging three-hour relationships. my judgment would have been sharpened by an eight-ball and a twelve pack, but those days were behind me. i needed to get used to my new eyes. or maybe i had called her right and she knew it, got insulted and was going to learn me. my friend cody talked to her enough and probably had told her all about my past, and what i might have said about her. maybe she’d cornered the prick, plied him with milkshakes. “tommy’s fucked more women than you’ll ever know.”
after three weeks of discussing how we would see one another during the summer to plan our wedding, we were in her top bunk. it was very nice up there. i remember she came out of her clothes when i pulled on them. i didn’t pull on them until we had kissed the appropriate duration. she could kiss. she had full lips, the taste of patience rewarded as i took off her shirt. her breasts were more than i had expected, they converted me. these were not for the street or the home. to cover my surprise at seeing them, i buried my face. her cunt was tight. i moved down and she allowed herself to become wet. her odor was as a sifting of sweat and soil, harmonic. she made beautiful unexpected sounds my balls had ached for. i rose onto my knees and unbuttoned my pants. i don’t remember how we or she or i got them off. maybe they stayed around my knees. i leaned onto her and my cock touched her. i felt her hand on my cock. she grabbed so hard my eyes popped wide.
“do you have a condom?” she said.
i did have a condom. i never had a condom, but in fact, this one had been given to me earlier in the evening by cody’s roommate, randy. randy was an optimist. a tall and handsome kid from connecticut, he drove a red burt reynolds trans am and had a curl of hair which hung over his forehead into his eye. he constantly was pushing it up or flipping it back with a snap of the head but it always fell back. that lock was his key. his easy smile and that curl disarmed and impressed. girls chased him and he acted disgusted, but he kept putting gas in his trans am, maintaining his lock of hair, and buying condoms. randy talked more sense than all of us together. i hadn’t asked for the condom. he just offered it when he heard i was seeing christina that night.
i found my wallet. i tore the wrapper and discovered the condom. i rolled it down my cock. my cock bound and blinded, robbed of its senses. penicillin is more sensual. i wanted the journey, the contact and presence. after christina had let go of my cock, the erection returned without her help. protected by my consent to her request, i moved in for a second pass. there was momentum, but abandon had been lost when she had choked me. there was the pre-condom hard-on and the condom hard-on. christina was quiet under me. she seemed to have her nerves, most of them. i went slowly. the outer skin of the rubber touched her. before heat transferred through the latex, she seized my cock again. i broke her painful hold on me.
“how old is it?” she asked.
“what?”
“the condom.” she said.
“i don’t know.”
“where did you get it?” she asked.
“randy,” i said.
“is there an expiration date on it?” she asked.
“i don’t know. i can’t see it, here, now.” i was on my knees. my cock wilted. the rubber hung down, stretched and loose.
“i’ll get a new one,” she said. she climbed naked out of the bed and put on a robe. she left the room. the door was open a crack. she was gone, into the bathroom across the hall. i sat and waited with the rejected condom. this cunt was out of her mind. never before had i been told my condom wasn’t good enough. did she think it was used? how old is it?
did she think cody or randy had stuck a pin in it? made a passage from me to her? if she thought that, she didn’t know guys . . . if they had done that, then i didn’t know them. randy, dean of bachelorhood and non commitment, and cody, who was so paranoid about disease he put on condoms for hand-jobs, which he consented to only twice a year . . besides, this one came from randy spur of the moment and he was the least likely of the two to mess around. if i imagined a plot, i saw them both arguing against it. sabotaging condoms happened, among the dim and deranged. during my five years of school, including my time as a gentleman, i never heard a story of, nor saw, a guy sabotage a rubber. we were immature, disrespectful and disrespectable. at times we were inhuman and brutal to one another and we had a limited view as to who women were, but we were smart and we were selfish. it could be you. pregnancies and abortions, !kids?, pissing razor clams . . . if some moron put a pinhole in a condom and a girl became pregnant, who would know? the idiot would, the idiots he laughed with would, everyone would. a crime like that would ruin him. he would have two black eyes, a bloody nose, and would be unable to walk.
christina must have feared the condom would break, and if she at all believed what cody had surely told her about me, she was not just fearing that her string of near virginity might be broken by pregnancy, but that my ugly and distressed cock would never leave. i had no diseases, but i understood. there was a fear of aids. i remember thinking about it while i was at the frat house. i did nothing about it. that means the women did nothing about it. i must have had good sense about women, because statistically i should have been blind. we did not take aids as seriously as we were being told to. as it turned out, we were right. it was lies. meanwhile, we heard little about the ones who were dying. that was the 80’s, the decade of big lies. if you were christina, your chance of contracting any sexually transmitted disease was zero, even though condoms were only 99 percent effective. it was the grab and stop method and it prevented physical contact and pleasure more than any republican propaganda. the only fluids around were the guy’s tears. this must have been a church technique. or maybe she feared my cock itself. she was small and had some lingering virginity. i now wasn’t sure if she wanted to at all. she couldn’t speak. we had a disconnection.
i sat on the wrong bed. christina was in the bathroom. i climbed down off the bed to see what was keeping her. i looked out the door and saw the light under the bathroom door. what was she doing in there? hiding? sick? reading expiration dates, holding them to the light, filling them with water? i drifted back inside. nakedly waiting on her preciousness and paranoia was an aggravation i had not trained for. preparations are for the dying and royalty. i found my clothes and pulled them on. i walked out while she was in there. she was hopeless. slipping out of the bedroom, i looked at the light under the bathroom door. perhaps she was on the can reading consumer reports. i limped back to randy’s and told the story to him and cody. they laughed until they passed out. my balls hurt all night and i couldn’t walk the next morning. i should have jerked off in randy’s bathroom.
i saw christina again two years after she had turned the head of my cock into an aneurism. it was on graduation day. the seniors were all lining up by the quad before the commencement. i had already graduated and was there working for the newspaper. the crowd of students was trying to make itself into a thing which could proceed. it was in this disorganized mob that i came eye to eye with christina. robed bodies moved and there we were, four feet apart. her mother was fussing over her hair and cap. the last time i had seen her was in the dark, my cock pressed against her cunt. she gave me the look for shit and turned away without a word. a lot of time had passed since our night of cock squeezing and maybe by now her israeli soldier was waiting for her, out in the audience with a fresh pack of junior size trojans scanned by doppler lasers at the college of engineering. she was slightly heavier. her face showed wear, a decline. maybe she was realized. her face made me jealous of the men who had finished her off. she looked older, like she’d been roughed up by acceptable mistakes. i had missed out on the days when semen flowed, but i had played a role in her education, showed her the things you do and don’t do to a guy, but i had gotten there too early for the easy part. i believed this after considering whether i was once again mistaken about her, seeing cocks where there remained only candles. it was possible, but i knew her and here she was, bitterly sexy and looking like she had used a few guys herself. you might have expected her to be grateful towards me, but her eyes spoke this:
“fuck you, even if you were right. you lied to me.”
and i said: “yes. fuck me.”
October 8, 2012
EYA58WKQ4GZY
EYA58WKQ4GZY
SOME internet blogging community said i had to put that number in a blog or they would not work with me.
they have time to make up these numbers and send them out, they can't look at the blog. the reason is everyone and his one-legged uncle from france is blogging. one of the most popular blogs in the country is about hairdressing. so we know what is important and we know who has the time to read this shit. blogging today is difficult to be differentiated from taking a piss.
this is my way of thanking my readers. i mean it.
lately i have become an internet slave, data entry clerk, query and sales letter writer, envelope packer and mailman . . . do not ever think you can write a book and then kick back and watch the money roll in. that is rare for a serious novel, especially with the audience's shift toward crap, which started in the 50s and has reached a peak now. if i wrote a book about a serial killer who shoved a british commando knife between the legs of women trying to make a living, it would be a best seller. the agents are the gatekeepers of shit and they want the fast sell. the editors need hits or they lose their jobs. they're running around in tight circles, with no time or interest in what people would benefit by. the agents have too much power and act like kings and queens, above and disdainful of so many alleged (and great) writers asking them for something. their minds are closed, dead, class-infected. they are not interested in classics, but working as a tool of the 1%. they want to feed us shit and they want it now, mouths open wide to ghosts, monsters, murderers, magic . . . they especially go for the women's market because women read more -- more of what? more shit. and why do women read more? i don't think it is that they have more time or are bored. i believe they just like stories, i have talked to and corresponded with approximately 230 literary agents and only two ever said anything noteworthy. "your style is very moving, but sorry . . . " and the other said "NOT FOR US!!!" and she was right and eventually i gave up on them for the most part and turned to the small press scene, which happens to own 50% of the book market. the small presses are willing to publish and promote, asseert on behalf of the unseen geniuses rambling around train stations and dark bars. the small press is less class-conscious while new york's desire is to distract and hide from us what is really happening in our lives. they serve the same agenda as the government and rich: alienate and distract the populace. the publishing industry's agenda seems to be to divide and disarm and conquer so the money keeps flowing upward and the average man's understanding of life goes downward. and the rich folks who own big publishing companies will never be interested in books that are revolutionary, progressive, or even true, for they excell at insulating themselves from life by accumulation. their brains turn more toward defense budgets. the rise of the small press is evidence that people are fed up with new york's corrupt crap machine. it's a bloodless revolution. and a lot of work without publicists and a sales force. maybe next time i'll write about how america is becoming one gigantic runway for fighter jets.
SOME internet blogging community said i had to put that number in a blog or they would not work with me.
they have time to make up these numbers and send them out, they can't look at the blog. the reason is everyone and his one-legged uncle from france is blogging. one of the most popular blogs in the country is about hairdressing. so we know what is important and we know who has the time to read this shit. blogging today is difficult to be differentiated from taking a piss.
this is my way of thanking my readers. i mean it.
lately i have become an internet slave, data entry clerk, query and sales letter writer, envelope packer and mailman . . . do not ever think you can write a book and then kick back and watch the money roll in. that is rare for a serious novel, especially with the audience's shift toward crap, which started in the 50s and has reached a peak now. if i wrote a book about a serial killer who shoved a british commando knife between the legs of women trying to make a living, it would be a best seller. the agents are the gatekeepers of shit and they want the fast sell. the editors need hits or they lose their jobs. they're running around in tight circles, with no time or interest in what people would benefit by. the agents have too much power and act like kings and queens, above and disdainful of so many alleged (and great) writers asking them for something. their minds are closed, dead, class-infected. they are not interested in classics, but working as a tool of the 1%. they want to feed us shit and they want it now, mouths open wide to ghosts, monsters, murderers, magic . . . they especially go for the women's market because women read more -- more of what? more shit. and why do women read more? i don't think it is that they have more time or are bored. i believe they just like stories, i have talked to and corresponded with approximately 230 literary agents and only two ever said anything noteworthy. "your style is very moving, but sorry . . . " and the other said "NOT FOR US!!!" and she was right and eventually i gave up on them for the most part and turned to the small press scene, which happens to own 50% of the book market. the small presses are willing to publish and promote, asseert on behalf of the unseen geniuses rambling around train stations and dark bars. the small press is less class-conscious while new york's desire is to distract and hide from us what is really happening in our lives. they serve the same agenda as the government and rich: alienate and distract the populace. the publishing industry's agenda seems to be to divide and disarm and conquer so the money keeps flowing upward and the average man's understanding of life goes downward. and the rich folks who own big publishing companies will never be interested in books that are revolutionary, progressive, or even true, for they excell at insulating themselves from life by accumulation. their brains turn more toward defense budgets. the rise of the small press is evidence that people are fed up with new york's corrupt crap machine. it's a bloodless revolution. and a lot of work without publicists and a sales force. maybe next time i'll write about how america is becoming one gigantic runway for fighter jets.
