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

 

 

 

 

The Home Office, Pt. II

     I dream I am in Washington.  I’m in the Capitol, in the statuary hall.  I hear deep voices, but they echo so thickly I can’t make out the words.  The echoes multiply and the voices deepen to become a churning cacophony, gnawing at itself and spawning simultaneously.  The noise is insufferable: a tangible presence replacing the oxygen, a black adenoid swallowing elegant marble busts and intricate plaster moldings and, finally, my thoughts.  Endless dark.  And then bright white fluorescent light.  I am in the Capitol, in my office, in my black leather swivel chair, behind my oak desk.

     My wife appears in front of me.  Her hair radiates a crimson halo.  It is brighter than the day we swam in that azure cavern off Capri.  She is naked and her breasts are pert and firm and her pubic hair is that same candied red.  She comes towards me in silence, and I back the chair on its casters away from the desk.  She kneels between my feet, unzips my pants, pulls out my flaccid penis and puts her hands behind her back.  I take her by the hair and she opens her mouth.  Her lips are full and smooth and red and glossy.  I guide her mouth towards the tip of my penis, resting on the black wool of my suit pants.  As her tongue touches the glans, she looks up and smiles and her teeth are razor sharp and her face is old and spotted and warted.  Purple and crimson bruises ring her eyes, visible through her wax-paper skin.  She lunges forward, and I tug her hair against it.  She breaks free, swallowing my member.  Her hair comes out in my hands in dull matted clumps.  I wake up.

     I am cold.  My shirt is wet with cold sweat and sticks to my back.  I sit up and put my elbows on my desk and rest my face in them, by my chin, on the heels of my palms.  I rub my temples with my fore and middle fingers.  I look between my hands at the agenda on my desk.  The black ink swims on the white page, my head pulses.  I pick up the beige telephone receiver from my desk and dial “714″.  I hear a ring in the receiver speaker a second before I hear Laurie’s phone ring next door.

     “Lorena Garcia.”

     “Laurie, it’s me, I’m ready to go over today’s itinerary.”

      ”You sure?”

     “Yeah, come on over.”     I take off my coat and drape it behind me, over the back of my vinyl chair.  I fold the right cuff of my shirt over, then fold it over again.  I fold the thickened cuff one more length up my arm.  The creases start to slip, the fold becomes a tangled roll of cotton-polyester blend, I push the roll just above my elbow.  I repeat the process with the left sleeve.  The door opens and Laurie walks in.

     “Feeling better?”

     “A little, yeah.”

     “Ok.  I went ahead and cleared your morning anyways.  Armistise is gonna be your first appointment, so you’ve got a couple hours to relax.  You should take it if you’re not feeling well, because you have a ribbon cutting at three, and then a police awards ceremony at 5.”

    ”Do I need a tux or anything for the awards?”

     “No, you’re gonna be overdressed like that.  We’ll lose the tie on the way over there.”

     “Anything else?”

     “The Union called, they want a quote on HR-765, and the woman with the hangnail on Medicare, Mrs. Delano, she wants a personal response from you, or she says she’s filing a malpractice suit.”

     “Can she do that?”

     “I doubt she’ll win, but she can file the claim.”

     “Ok, send her a letter saying I’m sorry for her discomfort and that we uh, take very seriously all claims of malpractice by Medicare doctors and that we’re ‘looking into the matter’.”  Laurie scribbles it all down on a note pad.  When she goes back to her office, she’ll transcribe the note to her computer, and then send it to her BlackBerry and then e-mail it to the intern, who will write the letter to Mrs. Delano.   “Is that it for the day?”

     “Except for the private fundraiser tonight.”

     “Shit.  Do I need a tux for that?”

     “No, it’s a luau theme.”

     “What?”

     “It was your wife’s idea.  The caterers are doing a roast pig on a spit.  ’Bringing home the pork’.  Get it?”

     “Very funny.”

     “But that’s it.  And you have two hours until Armistise is expecting you at the barbeque place.  Anything else, or would you like me to leave you alone?

     “That’s it.”

    ”Alright,” she says, neatening her manilla folder, “you’re sure you’re alright?”

     “I’ll be ok.”

     “Ok, let me know if you change your mind, if you need someone to talk to.”

     “I will.  Thank you.  I’m alright.”

     She leaves and closes the door behind her.  My eyes fall on a photograph of myself and Sylvester Stallone.  I lay my forehead on the cool wood of my desk and close my eyes again.  My head pounds.  I stand up and walk out of my office, down the hall to the men’s bathroom.  I lock the door.  I stand over the sink and splash water in my face, rubbing my face with the palms of my hand, slapping my face back and forth between my two hands.  The faucet squeaks as I turn it off.  I set my hands on the edges of the sink and lean in to the mirror for a closer look at the bags under my eyes.  I feel the sink start to give as I put my weight on it, and I quickly stand up straight.  I jiggle the sink.  It feels like it’s attached by the pipe alone.  I look in the mirror and make sure my hair is neatly parted, and I leave the bathroom.  I walk through the maze of aides’ cubicles, to the elevator doors.  I press the “down” button.  It lights up.  I press it again, jamming it into its socket, again, again.

     “In a hurry, sir?” the intern asks.

     “You have no idea.”

    ”Where are you headed?”

     “The Grotta Azzurra.”

    ”Is that a new restaurant?”

     The elevator doors open, and I get on the elevator.  The elevator descends, stops, and the doors open again.  I exit the elevator into the lobby.  I see plastic ficus and shrubs, polyester flower petals and a fish tank.  I see waiting room chairs upholstered in mauve and taupe.  I walk through the lobby.  I push its glass double doors open.  I leave the home office.

The Home Office

     I wake up and I don’t know where I am.  I realize there’s someone next to me and a twinge of panic drops in my stomach.  I blink my eyes and rub them and look around.  I look at my wife, next to me in the bed.  Her red hair is matted against her face, her mouth agape, her eyes still closed.  I sigh in slight relief and pull the covers off myself.  I breathe in deeply and exhale slowly and then do it again.  I rub my left temple with the fore and middle fingers of my left hand.  I rub my right temple with the fore and middle fingers of my right hand.  I rub both temples.  I get out of bed.

     In the bathroom, I turn the shower on, to let the water heat up.  I take off my silk pajama bottoms and the matching collared top.  I sit on the toilet.  I push my penis down between my legs and piss.  I try to shit, but nothing happens.  Steam begins to fog the glass shower doors and I get off the toilet.  I reach my right arm into the shower, making sure it’s not too hot.  I get in the shower.  I let the water rinse over my body, until I’m wet all over.  I take the bar of soap from its built-in enclave in the shower wall.  I rub the soap between my two hands, to build up a lather.

     Holding the bar in my left hand, I rub the lather from my right hand along my left forearm, then my left bicep and tricep, then my left shoulder.  I scrub the lather vigorously into the hair of my armpit, scratching the skin underneath with the fingernails of my right hand.  I rub the lather on my chest and stomach.  I cup my testicles and rub them with the warm soapy water in my right hand.  I take the shaft of my limp wet penis and gently squeeze it.  I cup my hand over my penis and my testicles and rub them clean.  It feels good and I take hold of the shaft of my penis again.  I stroke it several times and it doesn’t get any harder and I give up.  I rub the bar of soap between my hands again.  Taking the soap in my right hand this time, I use the lather in my left to wash my right forearm and bicep and tricep.  I scrub my right armpit as vigorously as the left.

     With my right hand, I rub the bar of soap in circles on my right ass cheek.  I switch the bar to my left hand behind my back and rub circles with it on my left ass cheek.  I run the bar through the crack of my ass and rub the residue into a lather with my right hand.  I lather both my legs and feet.  Then I let the falling water of the shower rinse me clean.

     I turn in small circles under the water, feeling its warmth on every part of my body.  I feel its temperature start to fall.  I stand directly under the nozzle and let what little hot water remains pummel the nape of my neck.  I count backwards from ten.  ”Zero.”  I turn the water off and grab a crimson-red terry-cloth towel from the shower door.

     I scrub my hair dry, and then drape the towel over my back and pull it towards my ass, to dry my back.  I dry my chest and my arms.  I remember what my arms used to look like, how firm my chest used to feel.  I dry my penis and my testicles, and run the towel between my legs to dry the fleshy expanse between my genitals and my asshole.  I dry my ass and the back of my thighs and my thighs and my calves and my shins and my feet.  I hang the towel back on the shower door and I flush the toilet.

     I brush my teeth with the whitening toothpaste in the medicine cabinet.  I comb my still-damp hair, parting it down the right side.  My hair is still black, still full.  I walk naked from the bathroom.  The sunlight peeks around the heavy brown bedroom curtains, embossed with hundreds of tiny golden fleures-de-lis.  My wife lies in the same position, hair matted the same, mouth still agape, eyes still closed.  I dress myself in a navy blue suit with a white collared shirt with buttoned stays.  I choose a solid red tie.  I slide my feet into a pair of black patent leather shoes.  I thread a matching belt through the loops of my suit pants.  I take my wallet and my car keys from the nightstand on my side of the bed.  I look again at my wife and leave the bedroom.  I pick up my briefcase in the foyer as I walk out the front door.

     In the car, I listen to local talk radio, a show called, “Mikey in the Morning.”  Mikey is telling a caller that he’s naive about immigration.  Now Mikey is talking about me.  Mikey is saying that  I am naive like the caller.  He’s saying that I don’t know what I’m doing, that I should be fired.  He says that I’m a fat cat.  I turn the station to classic rock and The Beatles are singing, “a crowd of people stood and stared.”  I stop at the chain coffee store in the strip mall a block away from the home office.  I order a small coffee.  I look in my wallet and realize I don’t have the two dollars I need to pay for the coffee.  I hand the girl behind the counter my credit card.  She asks to see my ID and I show it to her.  She laughs.

     “What’s so funny?” I ask her.

     “Nothing,” she replies, still laughing, “it’s just that you have the same name as our congressman.”

      ”What a coincidence,” I say.

     She looks at me again and the smile disappears.

     “Wait,” she says, “Are you him?”

     “Guilty.” I raise my right hand like I’m swearing an oath.

     “Wow,” she says, “What are you doing here?”

     “Work.”  I take my coffee and leave.  In front of the home office I pull the gold Toyota into a parking spot with my name painted on the asphalt between its confines.  I get out of the car and walk into the office.  I get in the elevator and press a button marked “4″.  The elevator goes up and the doors open.  The intern at the reception desk sees me and stands up.

     “Hello, Congressman!” he smiles, “I’ll let Ms. Garcia know you’re here.”

     “Thank you.”  I walk into my office and close the door.  On the walls are pictures of myself.  There’s one of myself and the president and one of myself and the last president and one of myself and the Lion of the Senate and one of myself and the chief of the Chumash Indians and one of myself and the foreign minister of Azerbaijan.  On my beechwood desk is a picture of myself and my wife, swimming in the Grotta Azzura.  Her hair is a brighter red in the photograph than it is now, my teeth a brighter white.  There is a knock at the door.  It is my chief of staff.

     “Come in.” I say, and she enters carrying a manilla folder.

     “Hello, sir,” she says, “Welcome home.”

     “Thank you, Ms. Garcia.”

     “Shall we get right to business?”

     “We might as well.”

     “Ok,” she says, opening the folder on my desk.  She produces an agenda and spins it around on the desk, so it’s top-up to my perspective, and slides it across the desk.  Below it in the folder is an identical copy, which she picks up.   “For lunch, you’ve got Armistise, from Veteran’s Affairs.  He wants to talk about the new VA hospital, specifically the leasing agreements and future development clauses.”

     “Do we have to do it at the rib place again?”

     “I could try and change it, but he’s pretty particular.” 

     “No, the rib place is fine.”  I set my elbows on my desk and rub my temples with my fore and middle fingers.

     “Jet-lagged?”

     “Yeah.  Laurie, I’m sorry, can you give me five minutes.”

     “Sure,” she says scooping the manilla folder off the desk, “just buzz me when you’re ready.”

      She walks out and shuts the door behind her.  I lay my arms across the desk and my head on top of them.  I close my eyes.