My Downtown Year, Day One

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

 

 

 

 

My Mom

     My mother and I have an ongoing debate as to whether or not there is a god.  This is pretty common these days among mothers of my mother’s age, and sons of my age.  Our debate is uncommon in that it is not at all metaphorical.  We love each other enough to avoid ad hominem attacks and we are both sticklers for logic (although we each sometimes deny that the other possesses that quality), but we clash in accordance with the proverb: iron sharpens iron.  The best part of these debates to me, is that I usually end up parroting things she’s said when playing devil’s advocate in debates with friends (or my girlfriend, sorry Andrea).  That, and that we always walk away by hugging and saying, “I love you.”  Awwww.  Read a bit of our snarky back-and-forth on her blog.

Fireworks Upstairs

     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