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Germany, the summer before I left home for college.
NOTE: My Downtown Year was written in 2004. I will be using excerpts from My Downtown Year in a book about San Diego that I’m currently writing. For more context on its serial presentation on this blog, click here.
Smoked some grass, walked to the video store. Along the way, a homeless man was berating a portly fellow who had kindly enough invited the homeless man into his house. “You fat pig fucker. Bacon-ass bald-headed fucking cocksucker.” It was for the best really. What good could have come of the homeless man accepting Fatty’s invitation? One or both of them would have undoubtedly been disappointed by the encounter. At least this way, Fatty is able to feel martyred, and Homeless Man can put the remembrance of what it is to have a home back into the depths of his subconscious.
It’s really a positive turn of events for Fatty. He’ll never have to give another dollar to a pan-handler again. He will likely live the rest of his life feeling fully justified at looking into a sun-scarred, toothless, unkempt memory of a face and saying simply, “No thanks.” (Note: I meant to start writing earlier in the evening, but of course I had to choose music that would properly stimulate my writing. Obviously it’s all very strange music, stuff you’ve probably never heard of before, so I won’t bother “dropping” any band names.)
And so our lives become parenthetical to their own stories. In this free-market fascism, we are all identical, whether wearing Soviet grey or Gap khaki.
There’s a girl on the bed and it would be so very Hunter S. to say that I don’t even know who she is any more. But today, and for me, I know more about her all the time, but less about myself. And as I know her more, she knows me more, and both of us feel like we know our own selves less for the effort. But we will never know ourselves any more than we do now. We are the illegitimate love children of a failed revolution. And that was so Chucky P. of me to say.
500,000 marched against our Marlboro Man in the streets of New York City this week. The next day, I woke up and drove a fossil-fuel-powered automobile to work. I wasn’t making any more money. I was still tired. I still had to step over drunks and junkies to get to my car. Five-hundred thousand people screamed a collective “FUCK YOU!!!!” and two-hundred-eighty million replied with a resounding “Eh, whatever.” The Million Man March won’t be effective until it’s the One-Hundred-Fifty Million Man and Woman March Apathy is the ultimate mind control.
In rear-screen projection, the car appears to be traveling extremely fast, but in reality it never moves an inch. (Note: My apartment is quickly becoming a museum of Ramen noodles, styrofoam coffee cups and empty cigarette packets. I’m also out of rolling papers.)
Day 3: Our sensitivity has overwhelmed our political sensibilities. I was wrong yesterday when I said that 500,000 screamed a collective “FUCK YOU!” In reality, 500,000 whispered a collective, “fuck you, please?”
London, the summer after sophomore year. That's me with the camera.
- June, 2000: Junior Prom
My god, the world is a different place at night. Self-consciousness sets itself in motion. It’s to the point where forecasting criticisms of future critics has become commonplace. Every thought is filtered through its eventual perception by an audience of fans and critics, admirers and detractors.
And so does the machinery of the corporate world trickle down into personal applications. We are the first wave of buyers who accelerate the market penetration of new products and ideas. Our product is ourselves: the newer, better, cooler versions of ourselves. (Note: As I lit my cigarette just now, I pulled the lighter from my cigarette and my cigarette from my face in an overly dramatic manner.) (Note also: I smoke Camel Lights, as they offer the time-tested Camel brand name combined with the reduction in perceived-risk of a light cigarette.)
And so it is that our mirrors become proof-sheets for a photo shoot that hasn’t happened yet. (Note: I am currently wearing tight jeans with an interesting, but not overwhelming, wash. To complement my jeans, I am wearing a Shins t-shirt. I have donned a jaunty army cap for the occasion, complete with a small button advertising an up-and-coming local band that you have never heard of, yet are the best band in the history of music.)
That last paragraph was really only one sentence, with a three sentence parenthetical. Strunk says perfunctorily (Does he ever say anything otherwise?), that parentheses are far too formal for conversational style (Strunk can be a real dick sometimes).How witty, how clever. “He really is the voice of his generation.” “Look at how he subverts grammar and structure to fit his ends.” The point of knowing the rules is to be able to break them.
And so are we left with a grand design that has been implemented six billion times too often. We have learned how to ride a bicycle so that we can invent a tricycle. We “said no to drugs” so that we would do drugs in moderation. “A wannabe H.S. Thomspon, and a second-rate one at that,” – Dapper Literary Critic, New York Times Book Review. (Note: Dapper Literary Critic is a widely recognized dapper and literary sort of fellow who dislikes Susan Sonntag but who admires, if not the message, the style of On the Road.)
What a question: the drug question – the drug question that has itself become rhetorical and isn’t even asked anymore. And so it has become a question punctuated with a period rather than a question mark. It is a question in the same sense as the abortion question. Abortion question period. Rather than ask the question, we have decided just to ask the opposing parties to separate into distinct groups. (Note: While I dislike the idea of aborting a potential life, I feel that it is the woman’s right to choose. It is her body, after all.)
And so cohesion falls by the wayside. Less than a page by my count, but judging by the general word-to-page ratio for books by “the author of his generation”, these words will probably fall on the second or third page of actual text. What the true page numbers of those pages will be depends on whether this is the hardcover, pocket edition soft-cover, or the special edition featuring photographs from the new motion picture now being produced by Columbia Pictures. We also would have to factor in any special “Anniversary” editions, which invariably include all sorts of forewords and “looks back” by various literary and social luminaries.
And so we come to the question of our generation; we do not come to that question directly mind you, but we come to it nonetheless. To have an enemy, that would be something. We erect figureheads of enemies, sure, but a figurehead is not the thing. Our enemy is in fact faceless, or, more correctly, infinitely faced. Masks of our enemy are not popular Halloween costumes.
And so we come to the question of how one goes about describing a faceless enemy. Finally, a question with an answer! The answer of course is no… or rather, do not. Those that recognize the enemy do well not to reveal its identity. I’ve probably said too much already.
“A work of pretentious, self-important, obtuse and inefficient metaphors for nothing.” – DLC. (Note: Dapper Literary Critic has gone to using only his initials instead of his full name, so chic.) god damn it, he is good, that Fucker. You’ll all have to let me know if they capitalized that “god” there. Those bastards, I bet they did. By “those bastards”, I mean my editor. She’s a very smart, imaginary, young girl. She was brought on by the publishing company, also imaginary, and renowned for publishing very smart work, to help bring some focus and discipline to my writing. (Note: My torrid affair with my imaginary editor will be the subject of a period film, illustrating how deeply a work of art can touch a person.)
(Note: the ashtray next to my keyboard is now full to the brim as I smoke incessantly while writing.) (Note also: I write in the very late-night/early-morning hours as the friscillating light from the city streets leaks through a haze of cigarette smoke into my ironically-appointed downtown loft.) I met a homeless man once, and he told me a funny story that made me laugh. The story didn’t really have any meaning, but it’s a beautiful image isn’t it? Me listening to this homeless man’s crazy story? (Note: It’s far too late for me to still be awake, but it’s more important that I capture these ideas that are bouncing around like electrons in my head than to be well rested tomorrow.)
“Told in a series of disconnected vignettes…” – Dapper Literary Critic. I see he dropped the initials thing. Good for him, it came off as pretentious. I heard he was doing too much blow during the “initials” phase of his critical career. He’s been through rehab now though; I heard that going back to the full name was part of his leaving his past behind him. You always have to return to the beginning to leave the past behind. (Note: your shirt looks wrinkled, you should change it before you go out. No, no, I don’t mean like artist/rugged wrinkled, it looks like it’s really been in the hamper for too long.)
Great pornography lets you jack-off without thinking about jacking-off.
2004
You look hungry. Eat something.
The moon lies suspended in dark cerulean sky, silhouetting the ridge below. Outlines of treetops are a bushy head of hair on the ridge’s ancient head. The air is sharp brittle cold. I exhale steam and cigarette smoke in a plume like flamethrowers’ breath. I stub out my cigarette and put it with my hands into the pockets of my coat. I walk inside and throw the butt away in the cheap faux-stainless-steel flip-top trash can in the kitchen.
Andrea shakes a panful of ragout across the hot orange glow of the electric stovetop: ”Take that mozarella and throw it into a bowl with half of the ricotta that’s in the fridge, and like half of the gruyere.”
“The gruyere?”
“I mean the chevre. Why do I keep wanting to say gruyere every time I talk about cheese?”
“I keep wanting to say it whenever. Gruyere, gruyere, gruyere.”
I toss the mozarella and the ricotta and the chevre and the contents of an egg into a big plastic bowl. I take the old electric hand mixer from its drawer under the stove. I insert the metal beaters into their respective slots. I plug in the mixer, stick it into the bowl and turn it on low. The machine’s motor whirs to life with a clank and a low whine. The beaters spin slowly, churning the hunks of cheese into lumps and then into a smooth creamy mixture. I knock the mixture clinging to the beaters loose with a series of whacks against the side of the bowl. I press a lever on the mixer and pull the beaters out. I go to lick them clean, but I remember the raw egg and run them under the faucet instead.
“When I was a kid, my mom always used this kind of mixer when she was making cookies, and I would always lick the batter off these things.”
“Me too! I would spend so long, jamming my tongue into all the little nooks and hiding spots!”
“I love cookie dough.”
“Me too!” She gives me a quick peck on the lips. She shimmies her sauce around the pan. ”This is just about ready, will you get the noodles out?”
“Sure.” I take the box of no-boil lasagna noodles from the cupboard over the stove and open the box.
Andrea pours a thin layer of sauce across the bottom of a blue Pyrex casserole dish. Then she makes a layer of noodles. Then a layer of cheese, then sauce, then noodles, then cheese, then sauce, then noodles, then sauce. She puts the full casserole dish in the preheated oven. The warmth that escapes as she opens it feels good, and I follow the lasagna into the oven. I hold my face in front of its glowing red coils, let the heat roll against my skin. Andrea won’t let me turn on the heater. ”Not when you’re walking around in a t-shirt,” she said.
“Look out!” Andrea warns as she shuts the oven door.
“How long ’til it’s done?”
“Like forty-five minutes.”
”Wanna go play some video games?”
“Sure. Do you wanna rock and roll or kill Nazis? Or do you want to play the surgery game?”
“Um, let’s kill some Nazis.”
“Ok, let’s kill some Nazis.”
February 12, 2009
"Are you tired of eating this stuff yet?"
On my last day, I carry boxes of my things with me to the car as I head out the door to work. There’s a spot open in front of the shop, so I park there, feed the meter, and walk inside, mumble-singing the song from the radio, “Two step, and let your shoulda lean.” I say hello to Laura as I walk to the back of the shop. I set my backpack down in the back, grab an apron from the hook on the storeroom shelf. I walk into the bathroom. I look in the mirror, splash some water on my face and smile at my reflection. ”One more day.”
I wash my hands in the sink behind the counter. I wave my hand in front of the paper towel dispenser. It spits out an eight inch sheet of paper towel. I tear it off and wave my hand in front of the machine again. Another eight inch sheet. I tear it off and dry my hands with the two sheets. Laura is talking to someone who looks like her brother. Maybe it’s her boyfriend.
“Been pretty slow?” I ask her.
“No, it was really busy actually. It just slowed down.”
“Wow. Well, the weather’s pretty nice.”
“Yeah… Last day, are you excited?”
“Oh yeah. I can’t wait…”
“I bet.” She walks over to the table, under the pass-through window and starts packing her things.
I look in the gelato case: fresh pan of cannoli, fresh pan of tiramisu, fresh pan of malaga, everything else is about half full. I look in the sorbetto case: fresh pan of pineapple, fresh pan of tropical, fresh pan of pomegranate blueberry, fresh pan of lemon, everything else is running low. I take a spoonful of pomegranate blueberry. It’s cold and smooth, and as it warms the flavor melts across my tongue, sweet and a little bit tangy. I swallow it down.
Laura dons her backpack and walks out with her friend. ”Have a nice life,” she says with a smile as she puts on her scooter helmet.
“Nice working with you.”
She leaves and I scoop a little bit of chocolate sorbetto and a little bit of pomegranate blueberry sorbetto into a small green corn-plastic cup, into a cupcake-like mound. I sit at the little table under the pass-through window with my cup of sorbetto. I run my corn-plastic spatula-spoon over the humping purple-chocolate meridian. The schism smoothes and softens. I round off the hump into a lump, into a bump. I put the spoon, sorbetto-down, on the middle of my tongue, and pull it towards the front of my mouth, scraping the sorbetto from the corn-plastic spatula with my tongue. Each frozen bite slips down my throat like a candy eel.
I finish my sorbetto. I take off my apron and set it on my chair. I walk back to the storeroom and take an Altoids tin from the front pocket of my backpack. I take out one of the cigarettes Andrea left there for me. I put it behind my ear. I walk to the front of the shop. I pour myself a cold cup of coffee from the urn behind the counter. I heat it up with a splash of boiling water from the espresso machine. I walk out to the patio, set my coffee at the small table, in the back corner, and sit down. I light my cigarette. Across the street, I see the woman in the motorized wheelchair, rumbling towards me. ”Goddammit,” I mutter, stubbing out my cigarette, “Goddammit.”
January 31, 2009
I'll take my Chevrolegs.
I take my pack of cigarettes from my right pants-pocket, remove one from the pack and place it between my lips. I close the paper flip-top lid and stuff the crumpling pack back in my right pants-pocket. I take a red plastic lighter from my left pants-pocket and use it to light the cigarette between my lips. I take my phone from my right sweater-pocket and check the time. I have fifteen minutes to make it to work. I usually give myself half-an-hour to make this walk. I wonder if I can catch a cab closer to downtown. Shit. No money. I walk faster.
I drag on my cigarette and my stomach churns and gurgles echoes of a receding flu. I reach the bridge into the financial district and flick my cigarette into the street. It’s run over by a small gray Toyota, northbound. The pressure of my backpack against my sweater against my t-shirt against my dermis heats the latter above its sweat threshold, and moisture gathers in the small of my back, in the hallows between my clavicles and deltoids under the straps of the backpack. I stop on the bridge and take off my backpack. I put it on the ground at the base of the suicide-fence and take off my sweater. I open my backpack and put my sweater inside. I zip the backpack closed.
I touch the back of my right hand against my shirt, just above my hips. I feel the sweat come through the once-worn white t-shirt. I lift my left arm and see a small yellow oval against a field of white cotton, bound for growth. I look through the green mesh of the suicide-fence at the freeway below, at the cars rushing across it. Ceaseless. I think about how I might survive the fall:
A panicked but alert motorist applies the brakes forcefully and leans hard on the wheel. The car veers into the next lane and collides with another, and another, and another, piling up and flipping and crushing and tumbling and rear-ending into an automotive hurricane with me as the eye. A nonplussed island in a sea of mangled metal.
I shoulder my load and feel the cooled sweat set on my skin. I start walking again.
At First and Broadway, an old black man in a security guard’s uniform and cataract sunglasses is arguing with a crackhead in front of the Wendy’s. They’re yelling, but I’m not close enough to hear what they’re saying. The light changes and I cross Broadway towards them.
“Fuck you!” the crackhead is yelling. ”Fuckin’ sunabitch dirty mother fucker I should…”
“I told you calm down nigger,” growls the old black man in the security guard’s uniform as I step onto the sidewalk and turn up Broadway. He lifts his hand in a fist and puts it in the crackhead’s face. It looks like he threw a punch that fell a foot short. The crackhead stares at the fist, at the small metal can it holds. The old man with the cataract sunglasses presses down on the top of the small metal can. A spray like a squirt gun, or a sad seltzer bottle, streams silently into the crackhead’s face. He stares defiantly at the old man, his eyes already blood shot. I look at the old man’s cataract glasses and I look at the crackhead’s eyes, drifting, blind now. He stumbles towards the corner, into a bank of newspaper machines.
“Gawn now,” says the old man after him, retaking his post in front of the Wendy’s.
My eyes start to itch and water so I move on up Broadway, towards Fourth, on my walk to work.
January 19, 2009
I lean my bike against the house and walk in through the sliding glass door. I pant for breath and my stomach churns. A dull ache goes through my teeth each time I inhale. My face is cold and wind stung, my back is sticky with sweat. I walk through the kitchen into the living room and see the back of Andrea’s head over the top of the couch. She’s petting the dog. Iggy stares into the orange glow of the directional space heater, obsessed. I toss my backpack on the scuffed hardwood floor. Thud. Andrea turns around.
“Hey baby!”
“Hey.”
I take the full ashtray from the black coffee table at Andrea’s knees and walk to the kitchen to empty it. The trash can is already overflowing with coffee grounds and pizza boxes and vegetable scraps.
“Fucking bullshit.” I growl.
“What’s wrong baby?” Andrea calls from the other room.
“Nothing.” I reply, “I swear to God, I’m the only person who ever does a God damned thing in this house.”
“Come here baby, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I plop into the couch. ”I’m sorry, I’m just tired. Long day. That’s all.”
“Oh baby…” she massages my left shoulder with her right hand.
“I’m so sick of my job. I’m ready to leave. It’s the same thing, every day, I hate it. I hate all the idiots that eat there.”
She switches to my left thigh. “I know baby, but it’s almost done, one more month.”
“I know, I know. It’s so frustrating though. I just don’t care about any of these people I see all day.”
”Babe… You don’t have to be their friend or anything.”
“I know. I can’t even be polite anymore though. It’s getting bad. I feel like an asshole.”
“What did you do?”
”Nothing. Stupid shit, this guy was taking forever to choose a flavor, so I gave him like half scoops in his waffle cone. Not saying “goodnight” to people. Just snarky bullshit. But I hate people right now. I hate it.”
She smiles reproachingly. ”You gave him little tiny scoops?”
I smile guiltily.
”Baby…”
“I just feel so… Un-empathetic. I feel disconnected.”
“Baby, come here, come here.” She puts her right arm around me and gently pulls my head to her decolletage. With my left ear pressed warmly and comfortably into her sternum, she runs her fingers through my hair. ”I’m sorry you had a hard day baby. Just relax, let me pet you. We’ll get you some food, and something to drink… maybe a beer? Huh? And we’ll snuggle up in front of the heater with the pug and watch a funny movie, and I’ll rub your sexy little head. Ok?”
I exhale the day. ”Ok.”
“Ok. Now let mama get up so I can get you some food.” She lifts my head from her chest and kisses it: “Mwah!”
I lean back and close my eyes as she walks away. ”Baby…”
“Yes sweetheart?”
“Thank you.”
She laughs, “For what sweetie?”
“I dunno. For making me feel better. For taking care of me.”
“Oh baby.” She dismisses me with a wave of her hand, “I love you.”
January 12, 2009
It begins as a low rumble in the distance, as darkness beds down for night. The clouds infiltrate the purple sky in shredded silver columns, preceding the massing bulkhead. The clapboard house across the street lights up in the flash of God’s Instamatic. ”One one thousand, two one…” My count is interrupted by thunder like fireworks exploding in the upstairs room. Then sirens, first a fire engine, then an ambulance. Cop cars and taxi cabs are all that I can see drive past.
Another flash. ”One one thousand, two…” Another round of fireworks, just a little louder than the last, and I feel the first droplet, on my right ankle, exposed as it’s crossed over my left thigh. I look down at the suicidal raindrop on my ankle and a second droplet shatters on my nape. I drag on my cigarette. I exhale a cloud just thinner than the approaching thunderhead and toss the butt into the street. I stand up. I pick up my aluminum and nylon lawn chair and fold it up. I put the folded chair under my arm, and walk up the steps. I knock on the heavy steel screen door and look up into the mirror above the door. I hear a loud buzz and the door comes open with a thud, like dropping an aluminum baseball bat on a linoleum floor. I open the unlocked wooden door behind the screen. I bring myself and my chair inside, and close the wooden door behind me. I lean my chair just to the right of the door jamb and sit on the sofa under the stairs. I hear the heavy steel screen door thud shut and lock again.
I lay across the couch, my head on the armrest farthest from the door, my knees hooked over the other armrest, feet hanging over the side. I interlock the fingers of my hands and put them behind my head. I swing my feet in gentle alternating rhythm against the couch’s vinyl upholstery. I drum the pads of my interlocked fingers against the knuckles opposite. The couch is too short for my whole torso, so I’m bent at the waist and the hammer of my pistol is poking into my gut. I take the gun out of my waistband and set it on my belly, on top of my shirt. Another roar of thunder, the sound of God hitting a broken bat home run. It sounds so much farther away through the heavy wooden door. The cold seems so much farther away. The storm is here but I am warm and dry. My eyelids weigh a kilo each. I close my eyes.
I dream I’m in the home dugout of my high school baseball field. There’s a game going on, but I’m in the dugout. Coach has me by the lapels of my blue and silver varsity jacket. He’s yelling at me. He’s throwing me onto the field. I’m taking off my jacket and grabbing my glove and I’m running out to right field. The grass is dried yellow green and the sky is cloudless white gray. The batter seems a mile away. The pitcher winds up and delivers. The tiny batter swings, and connects, and the ball is flying towards me, its creamy white leather invisible as it rises against the milky sky. The crack of the bat reaches my ears.
I’m awake and the heavy wood door is splinters flying at me. I cover my face with my forearms and roll into the back of the couch. The gun slips from my belly and is pinned against the sofa. I turn my head and see black helmets and black machine guns and black gloves and black boots and black flack jackets. I’m torn from the sofa, my pistol falls to the floor. I see shag carpeting and feel those heavy boots on my back, on my arms: pinned behind my back. I feel cold metal around my wrists and the hot friction of the marbled brown shag against my face. Upstairs, another crack of the bat, and another and another, closer and smaller than the thunder, sharper, like m80s, like gunshots. I close my eyes.
January 11, 2009
i sit in the cold of new night. an older couple walks briskly by and i nod to them, unrequited. the darkened side street is quiet. there is a small aluminum floodlight in a cabinet inside. i am supposed to attach it to the top of the one of the double doors that is closest to the outlet above the cabinet. there is a rubber-coated clamp welded to the aluminum floodlight for this purpose. i am supposed to attach the floodlight to the top of the door, thread its cord over the door’s top hinge, through the gap between the open door and the jamb, and plug it into the outlet above the cabinet.
i am supposed to make sure the conical flood of light it emits falls on the cardboard cut-out of a six-scoop waffle cone as tall as i am. the light is supposed to make it easier for people to see the sign. seeing the sign is supposed to make people want to eat ice cream, which we sell inside. if passers by succumb to the sign, i’m supposed to scoop the flavors they choose, into the vessel they choose, and give them that vessel. they, in turn, are supposed to give me money, in an amount corresponding to the vessel they have chosen, which i am supposed to place orderly, according to denomination, in the cash register.
i’m not going to plug in the floodlight. i don’t want to sell any more ice cream tonight. not that the floodlight works that well, not when its cold like this. i smoke a cigarette and my stomach agitates at the settling darkness. a group of arab men passes in tight formation, tersely debating the youngest war as they go. a sliver of the conversation lingers after them and finds my ear: “what peace…” the way they’re dressed reminds me of the secular muslims who smoked cigars at the Café Bassam, when it was still downtown, when one could still smoke inside. when i worked as a valet. when i was supposed to park people’s cars.
At midnight, we stood in a room on the second floor and I emptied a bag of balloons onto the revelers in the courtyard. Then I kissed Andrea. I lifted her off the ground, with my arms around her waist, by her ass. She wrapped her legs around me and put her tongue in my mouth, and I put my tongue in her mouth. Everyone else in the room on the second floor was alone, and I felt bad kissing Andrea so long in front of them. But I kept kissing her anyways. We stopped kissing and I took her by her shoulders and looked in her eyes and told her I loved her. She said she loved me too. I was angry at everyone else in the room, in her room. I wanted to be with her alone.
We left her room and walked through the house. In the living room, a group of Brazilians sang karaoke to a ten year-old pop song. The line for the bathroom split the living room from the kitchen, so we pressed through it. In the kitchen people were talking and mixing drinks. I didn’t know any of them. We walked through the kitchen and out the door. In the narrow side yard were friends from college, leaned along the rickety bare-wood picket fence, smoking cigarettes, making jokes. I said hello to some of them as Andrea and I passed and they said hello in return. A couple I didn’t know passed us going the other way and said, “Happy new year.” I said, “You too,” and took Andrea by the hand.
In the courtyard were more people, milling about, drinking and smoking, talking and laughing. The balloons I had thrown from the window littered the floor, forgotten. Here and there were young men and women too drunk for polite company: the curly-haired boy talking too close to a strange girl, the French girl asleep on a couch next to the dance floor, dreaming a Rubens painting. The music was loud and the constant vibration of bass osmosed easily through the crush of sweating dancing bodies. Smoke and steam rose from the scrum. Through thin layers of fabric, sexes rubbed against one another, against thighs and asses. Andrea and I drifted into the flotsam and danced the jostle. She was beautiful, and we danced without touching, as we always do when the music is fast.
