T-LA 5, Baby! More Proof that There's Love All Around Us

00034:321:53

“Heeey, that’s my cigarette!”

A dirty man I hadn’t noticed had been following the man just in front of me, waiting for him to finish his cigarette and drop it.

“What?”

“You just stepped on my cigarette!” He was angry—but resigned—and pushed his fists into the arms of his wheelchair.

“Sorry, man—just walking.”

“Eh, now it’s all flat and. . . eaoaohh, shit!” He picked up the cigarette and rolled it between his fingers to bring it back to life.

“I wouldn’t smoke that if I were you.”

“Why, d’you got any?” He looked up hungrily.

“Uh, sure..., —here.”

“Thanks, could I have two?”

The man smiled.

I handed him another. “Merry Christmas.”

“And could you spare any Rats, man? Me and my partner are tryna make it happen til the 15th. —We’r...” He looked over his shoulder towards his partner —playing bongos on coffee cans in front of the Grinchy Mart. I gave him a small coin and immediately he broke into an unsuppressed grin and started to beat box for my amusement —Lee Dorsey it sounded like.

The look of these men for one cigarette, like a shattered mirror waiting —poised for its next grin. —A forty—Country Club probably—will find the business end of that face, and where they’ll end up I’ve heard from my dad. He almost killed one of them one night. —After they’ve gotten everything they can from the flats they head for the neighborhoods with hills. —Bent forward, with clown-sized bottles between their knees—sloshing like ballast, I imagine—they push themselves up. —Slowly, aching. Achingly. —Up the neighborhood streets past the cemetery—past the school, past the people inside watching TV and the basketball courts that are useless to them—past everything in eleven-inch grunts. —And I understand I think —it’s not that it’s fun—or even what they want… —but an imperative of more amoral origin.

Up top they pant —and before anything can settle—or form troubling thoughts—they take one last pull from their warm, flat beers and throw them up—towards the air —to be acted upon by the exact laws of physics that—should she choose to use them—would apply to an Ann Taylor housewife. —Each one would be smiling by now—and a slight whistle coming off the bottle’s mouth —and they’d push—coasting toward the buttered windows that line their route—routes?—route. —And just as they look as if they’ll come to rest, or are in slow motion, the torpedoes hit and the sound of breaking glass animates two drunken grins. Their bodies go straight and their hands push—always pushing—the huge wheels forward—with both comradery and fear dispelled by the nagging pump of intent. Intent. Intent.

As the hill picks up, the chairs swing wide to make the corners —and the men are invisible —if anyone could get to the window fast enough, they would see nothing; —and any noise would be blocked by the wind, or a radio set to the game. —And the men start to fill again —with their stumped hands and withered, useless legs and horrible faces —with tears erasing dirt down the stubble-filled ruts in their cheek... —And they jockey for position:

“Fuck you!”

“No, fuck you!!”

“No, fuck you!” they both laugh—swerving with abandon and cutting each other off. —They’ve given up for the far side of belief —for stupidity and recklessness —and fear and loathing —where all direction is one, and motion is feeling —everything’s the same —and position is velocity and matter is spirit and God is dead —and you thank him you’re alive, —or it doesn’t matter, or unless, —or until... —and then maybe you remember —or you do—and then the Fall, Christianity, Islam, —Yahweh —deserts and famines—desserts—and spears and blunt clubs, fires —or if not —and not —or if nothing —and you stick the landing —then buddha, nothingness, green paddies and jungle—sharpened bamboo stakes —sweet rice—dessert again —Everything —with a smile and it’s gone —yesterday, and...

—It depends on cars, of course, and my dad behind the wheel, and the landing—well, everything—but belief mostly. —And for a minute everything stops shaking.

And there’re more galaxies than humans in the world.


If I had more courage I’d still do it too. Not the wheelchair—I’d do that anyway—but the fucked up, the trying to kill.. —on the hill —or to die—to make something happen. —I know why every drunk—every junkie and abusive father does it. —Does what destroys. In a way they have higher standards than the rest of us: they refuse to budge and eventually break themselves for an incompatible world. —The wrong way, of course —the strip club is the monastery is the water is the smack —yeah, of course, —but you do have a soul. And it is nice to be alive to enjoy it.

Like these men, I spent years hammering my world. For every inch my gut dropped—every inch I was betrayed—I would kill off another block —burn another newspaper, ruin another life. The planet I’d been born to was all wrong. —I held truths! —glorious truths, otherworldly truths—and ones I quickly learned no one else believed. I was determined, though, —was —to show my parents, my teachers—my books—how wrong they were. And as they tried to beat this tender flame I fought back with a persistent campaign of my own —and when I ran out of world, I hammered myself. —I didn’t want to be alone; and if I was to be ruined at least it would be by my own hand. To this day doing the wrong thing still feels right to me. Where I see graffiti it means kids are settling a corner that didn’t want them born. —‘Everything owned, —sorry.’ My eyes search impulsively for marks on handrails and dark, stained, and slick-waxed curbs —marks of secret life, —secret lives. The world and your heart are incompatible; this is not a cliché. And just as life demands death, so is freedom a sacrifice. The sacrifice. —But those who cannot swallow such lumps must pulverize first —the drunk breaking his world, the monk breaking himself —and the busyman, —like most citizens, doing a little of everything —a little desire, a little progress, a little medication or ’tation—whatever’s convienient—trying to moderate whatever feels worst. —But for those who break nothing, and who past the age of twelve attempt to build a world of reconciled wholes, we have few words, the most descriptive being lunatic.


00034:344:17

I have a painful zit to the left of my navel. It is the pinprick of her disbelief I’m sure. Just before she discarded me she tried to crush my wings, giggling twice that she couldn’t say it, couldn’t say it, and then dropped the shit once I left my relative shelter to assure her it was okay: “—I think you like the idea of writing,” she said, wriggling, and stuck it in deep where it splintered —like little corkscrews of syphilis invading. I should’ve left right there. Or maybe two months before. —That I didn’t, that I didn’t kill—or move, or budge or fuck her even—but waited a few dumb minutes and rolled over on top of her and kissed her was proof —proof that I had made her my god. —And the horsemen were coming.

I believed her even—kind of—I knew from the start, but what could I do, tell her my plan? That things fall apart? Admit that I liked the idea of her, the idea of life? That I’ve been raised on a TV set to porn? —That I’d give it up if I could? She has a child and every right to disbelieve. Shit, I was starting to disbelieve at the time myself —I wanted her—a family, sweatshops, Wal-Mart, —weekends, newspapers, two cars, a lawn —I didn’t fucking care. —I knew what I didn’t want: to be alone, —in the woods, fawning over moss and chilled epiphany—bivouacked at 26,000 feet for the fucking view. Yeah, I know it’s a mountaintop—but I want the shit it’s supposed to be about —to reflect and inspire —to define! I want the real shit —to leave and explore —to come back—the golden shit —the haaa-tcha —the bling-to-the-motherfucking-back-that-ass-up-bling, bling —all of it! I... —well, —more than anything —I, —ahh, fuck, my chemicals are off. I can’t see —I inhabit a dream of naked possibility, of comfortable choices —deadly —and dreadfully. Which is why I’ve done what I’ve done —to make something real —I need a philosophy—a great religion maybe—written—no spoken—by mothers, passed down through daughters, translated by grandmas. Enough of the death cult shit —all this shit about men. —How much theory—how much freedom —how many books about loneliness can a baby take? —How much fear and expectation would I erase from my darling mom? —(Hi Mom) —What about the fucking life we have?!

—what was I...? Oh, —The, pinprick? yeah, —disbelief, fear—whatever—injected at exactly the spot reserved for the sacred self, where women and god overlap transparently and into everything—or anything—and is held up only by my ability to keep my mind. To stay separate. To ignore the sweetest fruit—my sweet—and, of course, exactly where I come to live —to write.

> > >

The phone just rang. Fuck, —god, go away. She can’t call me now. Aren’t there conventions about this shit? Please god,

Please.

Don’t let her call me now.


00034:348:19

—And I wish there were anything else to redeem my failure. I wish there was anything but empty or full. I’ve gotten it a few times, —Once maybe, but not so it’d pay the bills. My heart aches for leaves as they wither and plunge from the branch, for cars as they pass and songs as they end. I feel as though I’ve never been touched —and only by admitting this cringe of a fact does some small wave of relief creep down my back. And this, my friends, is why I’m here—to see off this half-truth that infects my walls —the hideous irony that I cannot be—and to place it tenderly at your feet—an offering, stillborn —of what I don’t know—so that empty I could never fill the same up; so that full I’d never empty again —this is my hope and pretentious desire.


00034:427:41

But I should tell you a bit about myself first. —My name is Julius and I’m thirty-three years old.

Like all post-modern creations (—how it kills me to be after —always after) —Like all post-post whatevers, I am unremarkable without explanation. I don’t pretend to have done anything radically different and I can’t claim to be effective or prolific. What I do possess, however, is an explanation—one that surpasses life itself —one that turns my barren past into future possibility —a reason for life itself —and one worth my death. —I tell myself that this is the mark of humanity, but you’ll be the judge, I’m afraid. —As for myself, I feel nothing—all I’ve ever wanted was to create more than I consumed —to find one important thing —and like any sane man I would trade it all for a love that lasts overnight. —At these lofty goals I have failed miserably, but on my way out can see perhaps a glimpse of light.

I was raised to get over but have an absolute negative inclination to do so. My people got land grants and ran shit with whipped slaves. They hooked up wagons and set off for Shangri La —West. They kept moving—kept chopping—kept shooting their way —West toward the rising sun —towards land, water, and freedom or death —The Best Coast, Manifest Destiny in a bottle—freedom, fresh air and fun—it hurts to be inside —my corpuscles thirst for dreams, uncertain air, hate what lies before them. I am purebred for dissatisfaction and thirst.

But three thousand years is a lot of control, and these valves are worn clear through. Only a thin plaster—even parts cowardice and faith—keeps my still blood blue —and standing on the shore looking at waves. And everything may crumble on my watch. —I’m tired. —Live tired. And barely understand why.

With my extravagant youth I imagined I would spin a more beautiful bureaucracy—that I would craft more exuberant tools and forge better genes and memes for the people, but eventually found in myself no sympathy for the future, and even less for what they called help. Help? Help!? —I needed them! I wanted a world more Sugar Hill—more PE and Eric B., more Bollywood and bangra. —More Dogtown —downhill—siesta —Bomb the fucking Suburbs, Yo! I wanted something to wear and my own food and a town square where I could ask old men questions and even more I wanted to admit—a place to admit —to stand up and scream even—to be able to stand up and scream—or talk even—among the deafening silence of sewn mouths: ‘I don’t want to be dirty or depressed or dead! I refuse the options provided! I don’t want a punk or a pig! I want life—something besides paved corpses and shit behind auto glass—shatter-proof, non-collar —A place to sit and first-person people first!’ —But no one was listening. —Or we pretended we weren’t but actually everyone was and we all had another and woke up the next morning. —Or I said okay and marched slightly slower and forgot how to cry and made my jokes more crass and less jokes. —I’m condensing months and months and painful years of course—high school, the cult of college, old Greek gods misappropriated, a million starts, vacant gropes of sex, etc.—but I know you understand. —I know. Only if it weren’t true would it need explanation.

—It was upon this gradually glaring realization, or possibly despite it, that I perfected the black arts that have brought me my slight notoriety: light conversation, creative medication, busywork, poshlust, exotic product relocation. I did and excelled at them all. At one point, in fact, I thought I could string enough of them together to make it work—but this, to my peril, was false.

—Anything that could push me an hour closer to my relaxing death I chased like a lover. And here may lie the only reason you can stand me now: I am not the truth but its cartooned pimp—a cock-smiled salesman.

Remember that.

> > >

In my darkest hour, upon the complete collapse of my first expectations, believe me when I say I did it all and I’ll spare you the American drunk story. —I absorbed pain for others so they could better ignore mine. I turned myself inside out with bottle caps and tabs—promising that if I could not live the truth of my birth, then I would cleanse the world with the fire of its own brutal horror. —At the time I thought it would be my salvation, too—that by broadcasting my own bile—my own hatred—I could find some peace —or get a piece at least—but just as Satan believes in Jesus, so must a dropout worship success. Upside-down and backwards I tried to erase my stain from this planet, I couldn’t out-bad myself. It doesn’t work. I tried consumption, I tried hate, I tried mutilation and denial. —All the costumes and labels and scripts in the world left me nothing but more deeply fucked—precipitating the longest and quietest scream of my life—a complete chemical collapse of a five-year plan. I tried to ignore it as I had the rest—as I mentioned I have no real ambition—but I was weak—too much of a coward—and unable to erase either—either myself or the world around me. And so I backed. And backed. And backed and backed and backed and backed and backed. For five years I pushed away, and for five years I was alone. And every time I mustered the courage to look the dirt was closer around my neck. And closer, and closer—until the shadow of my handgun in the bottom drawer cast a dark pain over the whole flat. It became not a question of why—everyone knows why—but one of how and when. My whole life boiled down to a few final promises I had made before the crash. (If you ever get to it, promise to go out as radically as you-naked-in-a-surgeon’s-rubber-gloves came in: with a squirt gun in a bank or on a camel in Yemen—anything but worship the boredom that did you in).


[00034:352:19 to 00034:358:30 missing]

00034:358:31

And what is love if not sorrow exposed? Both are empty and transparent like a hand in natural repose. When the first reveals its scars and missing fingers, the second cannot help but grasp—to help —to hide it —to love its wrinkles so deep and dry that even the birds have flown on.

The distance between the two is not far today, but today is a good one —an inclination, a belief—this distance—the most meaningful sliver in history... —If only the ground itself would move, —so we could have again the second without the first —and would find eggs finally—and nests—in the green, green eruptions of wealth held aloft for so long. We could grow while alive instead of hatching full-formed and dying like babies. We could wrestle sorrow and stomp upon our victories. —But it would be lonely.


00034:359:28

I dropped down to each station to buzz the waiters and hangers-out, —to see if I knew anyone. It’s pretty common —well, you know —if you grew up on this side of the bridge you do—eventually the computer hooks up everyone with the same destination. —You get unhooked for stops, of course, but the hope is that the power of the pattern brings like-minded riders together. It ’s the Tao T’ching meets Egyptian astrology or something. —solar boats, Sun Ra—shit like that. —Some kids race but I just like the travel —It’s comfortable —being nowhere and somewhere at once. Sometimes you’ll see a friend sitting at a stop or hear them on the intercom and get off and hang out or take a ride together, but the best is just motion —being gone —leaving and going someplace. Transportation is about possibilities after all—a fact which doesn’t change just because you’re locked in a rusting forty mile grid.

While travelling is when I cultivate my most modern mindset—and usually do my best work. As I mentioned my span is damaged so a little motion turns me on like a rocking cradle. Even now I can hear the worn rubber wheel pla-aping from side to side in the track, —turning corners and straightening back out. —And it wakes me like my mother on the first day of school:

‘Juuu—lius, ...Juu-lius,’ (—always my first name twice). ‘Get up honey, it’s time to go to school.’

—And most importantly, it provides enough fear —you’ve got to admit they are always just about to break —just enough fear to clear away the knot of my long-term condition and aim me back towards my skin. You can’t feel as much while you’re moving and it gives the brain plenty of cud to chew—plus the illusion of progress. —The scientists say that since Liberation we’ve become a class of emotionally hyper wrecks. It may be true but I think I do a little to keep from jelling out altogether —a little action keeps my brain clear.


00034:403:12

Sometimes I think I may go off the grid like them. Every major religious figure has done the same. Gautama, —Jesus did, Mohammed did —and they were just three of millions, —who traded tales of bare feet for a bowl of rice and some company. For seeing. —And now they’re.. . [tape damaged]

—But I’m willing to admit that my purification may have limits as long as I’m dependent on the state, and in some sense my family’s historical largesse. Still, you must understand the attitude towards these people. No one wants to contribute to someone who has taken themself off the knob of the state.

—Would you cross the street to thwart a suicide attempt? can anyone. . [garbled] .? I [garbled] that is why I do my job.

> > >

I had jobs and excelled at them. I had women and made them love me. I did what I was told and brought it all back home to nothing until my considerable efforts at isolation and hatred blossomed into the wormhole I inhabit today: a circus of honest losers and already broken lives held back together with silvery webs—beautiful like my empty hands. This I prefer.

As a disturbed dropout at the start of my downward career, I considered the enlightenment of those on the other side of the wall my duty. I would make them see what I had been forced to by virtue of my birth, by overtuned antennae—make them see—no, feel —Crush their superficial optimism and pride. —But more often than not, my work—and much of it was good—was informed more by loneliness and depression’s burnt ladder than any muse or higher source. —What, after all, has half a man to say? So I disguised my questions as proclamations, —and got loud —everyone does —and more and more violent until I feared I would kill myself to be heard.

—And then it hit—the idea that would end all ideas, the one that would certainly lead to something concrete: I would love—no more, no less. Like the modern masters I would be undiscovered in life and my death would send historians scrambling to reconstruct the story of my corpse. Like Vincent, —like Fernando...

All the time I had tried to inflict my ego’d view of the world on the unfortunate victims of my abuse they had gone away with nothing but entertainment—a prettier hatred. A song about dictatorship is never about love, in fact, love rarely wants a song at all—in stark contrast to all the blather you hear on translator these days. —My sick people I would inject with a slow-acting, ineffective, and instead-of-asking-for-it-myself care and attention.

I would go first.

I had found the perfect medium, unco-optable and in massive synchrony with all spheres, material; rings, crystal; and ethers.., —ethers. I had fused secular biology and divine physics. —The grand unification theory. Once I was dead and my transmission complete, a million imitators, my army of proof —all hungry for lovely recognition—would replicate my chemical combination into a virtual health. The fact that I had given up my life and said nothing would convince even my deepest detractors. —I had lived!

“I tried!” I would yell from my will, for all those with authentic axes to see. All I needed was a device, a mechanism to catch a few sympathetic ears on my way out —a way to explain what I had done and why —to point people in the right direction.

“—Oh, I remember that guy.”

“—Yeah, I found a drawing on the bus once,” they would say, or “—There was a stick of gum...,” and thus they’d know it all went together, that it was conscious and constructed ahead of time instead of random and listing. —And then would the carpenters of crap see that this pathetic unshaven mope with the pom-pom hat and fake shades was taking up space for a reason; —that I carried my own sun! —that I did need to see! —that I wasn’t after their precious spare change at all but wore old shoes specifically —for them! —So they’d have something left if they tired of superhighway. —that I pioneered! —that I gave it all up to pan for soul! —White soul—white hot soul! —Maybe they’d even sell jeans with my picture on them—knee deep, of course—nothing but skin and bones —before I’d struck it rich! —Of course! —once I was dead —once I had made it back to the East Coast with my bullion and new suits—oh, what parties we’d have —and people could once again take credit for raising their kids, they’d have pages and pages encouraging them to drop the career and keep the marriage —let mom live out her final years at home. —Oh, that they’d find my trunk like Pessoa. —A hidden martyr to the cause, underground, like a rabbit warren of real life—I was alive the whole time! —Behind these eyes, this not yet ready for prime-time brow, and lip... —and then a living room with no translator would be a symbol of culture —radical chic! —Boom for motherfucking real, motherfucker! And then, —and then hundreds of thousands of aspirational tweests would shun logo T’s for bumpy suits and garlands —anything else —Anything! —and be secure in the knowledge —that only mood matters. —And I would be reacquainted with the knowledge I had lost on my birth —and could see once and for all if this was really all a joke as they said. —And the street kids and punks would pose as bible students door-to-door to tell parents everywhere that all we wanted was a half an hour. —Go tell Aunt Rhody! —Ahhh, and thus would the anti-Warhol spread like a dream cancer…

So for years I toiled underground. Dressed like a Mormon I put make-up on ladies in old folks’ homes. I did math so kids could play in the street. I ran errands and cooked meals. —I’d skateboard loud downtown to let loose the tight-faced yellers, I washed motorboats and carried packages of crack, —I hid guns for gangs, meowed outside windows and stayed off private property, joyrode with drunk teenagers —got hit by cars. —Anything I could do to flip the script I’d do —anything for you —anything to make you happy, —anything to lift even one eyebrow or peek under the brimstone of consternation in this city of perpetual constipation —wave at babies of frightened mothers, leave candy on the bus so people’d wonder for a second—if they should eat it —mind my own business, go out of my way, do nothing —neurotic, angry, happy, sad—anything I could think of I did. —Whatever you wanted.

I bought and threw out everything I could.

And for a time it worked, people seemed content and my job gave me joy. As long as I was formulating new theory or getting in deeper or more clever hooks, I was fine. But once I exhausted myself to routine—as my pipes and tubules stiffened -—as my chemicals diluted—once I realized I could never make a chair and sit at the same time—a familiar certainty returned to my head —familiar and disgustingly comfortable..

“–Show ’em, don’t tell ’em!”

—That’s Ms. Shoe, my 11th grade English teacher. The one who thought I copied that paper on Faulkner. —Well fuck you Ms. Shoe—if you’re still alive that is. Fuck Faulkner too, although he’d probably have the courage to ask at least —to look me in the eye instead of snipping and in-sin-u-a-ting —and giving me the “D” —withholding while still holding, and shooting me those fucking looks —and planning on using anyway... —‘But I tolerate many forms of di-vers…’ —Well, fuck that! —Fuck that shit! —I didn’t copy it! —I didn’t read it either, —but I didn’t fucking copy it.

—And bullshit for bullshit for bullshit for bull...

—Another victory for modernism!