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01
So this is how I'm supposed to touch you. With pen and paper. Ink. Typing ribbon. Little slivers of graphite so slender you can shove them under your fingernails for a sharp pain. Chewed pencils. Forty pound proof. Wide and college ruled. Bar napkins and the backs of business cards. Restroom walls. Printers that shudder and bump as they spit out my life story. Unread. And just when it was starting to get interesting.
02
Yesterday or a week ago, I shop. Rows of canned goods and boxed foods stretch to the limit of vision. I fill my cart without looking, indiscriminately toss cans in. It isn't so much buying food as painting. The colors on the labels lay in sharp relief to the dullness of the metal. Orange. Green. Silver. I guess I'll be having peas and carrots tonight.
I round a corner. A gleaming tower of imperishable meat product scrapes the ceiling, the sky. I get a running start and fling headfirst through the display. My head hits the ground first. I hear a crunch. My nose, or a tooth. Or both. My entire head is a filing cabinet slammed shut. Then I'm pelted with falling cans of Spam. They break like water across my back, my legs, my ass, some from eight feet, others from a mile up. From the sky. This is a baptism. I'm a new man. Yeah, right. It's a diversion. A way to pass time, and as the store manager runs over screaming at me the whole time he saw what I did, and what the hell is wrong with me, I roll myself over, pull my disability card. I hand it to him and give him a shitty, gap toothed, bloody grin. From now on I'll have to shop at Wal-Mart.
03
When you've retired at twenty eight the world is your oyster. Lying dormant for so many years, it has slowly calcified that accidental grain of sand that has become your life. Your own personal and perfectly boring pearl, watch it shine. So I try to keep myself busy. Keep my mind from eating itself more than it already has. I steal. I crash golf carts into trees. I cut myself or poke with needles or buy more refills for a mechanical pencil I don't have. Anything to stay occupied.
04
Another thing I did, I put on my old uniform, the one with the epaulets and funny lopsided hat. I always hated that fucking hat, it never fit me and always made my face look like it was on crooked. I put it on and rubbed the entire thing with peanut butter, hat, jacket, pants and all. I went to the garage and opened a forty pound bag of bird seed and doused myself liberally. I walked six blocks to the park, laid down, and waited.
It didn't take long. Within seconds the first curious pigeons were pecking at my legs, my chest, my head. It didn't hurt, it sort of tickled. Word spread fast and soon I was covered with birds. I swear I even saw a squirrel. While the birds found no food on my face, they still used it as a perch. I was a living tapestry of feathers. Yeah, right. I was an asshole covered with flying rats, and as soon as I was sure a crowd of people had gathered, I shot up off the ground, dozens of pigeons bursting into flight, a cloud of flapping chaos in front of me, I ran yelling like a madman at the first little girl I saw. She shrieked in terror, and no kidding, her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted. Mission accomplished. Thank you sir.
I ran the rest of the way home, a few errant pigeons still pecking at my shoulder and back as I went. Two days later I had to see the doctor as one of the scratches on my face had become infected. I told him what happened but he didn't really hear it, just nodded and uh-hummed and asked me if my head or back still bothered me. They didn't, hadn't in months, but I nodded and uh-hummed and yessed myself into more hydrocodone.
05
Way back when....
I saw you lying on the bed. Wasting time. Remote in your hand. I sat on the edge of the bed. You didn't move. I said, "babe?" and put my hand on your cold leg. You didn't move. I pulled the sheets back, I said, "babe?" and shook. You didn't move. Your eyes were open. But your mind was shut. I dragged into the living room, poured myself another drink, and quietly cried myself to sleep. When I woke, it was raining.
06
My memory has been strange the last few years. It's not that I have trouble making new memories, (that movie, you know?, with that guy?, he couldn't remember--that made me laugh) or that i've blocked out my past or anything like that. I just can't remember everything all the time. That's why I try not to tell jokes. I get halfway through and forget the punchline and have to stop from embarrassment. Later, sometimes two weeks or so, the punchline will come to me unbidden and alone and i'm left wondering why the hell i'm thinking of a sugar-frosted duck.
I have better luck with names and faces, i'm usually pretty good at remembering those, but I do have my slips. It seems like if I don't catch your name the first time I meet you I'll never learn it, so I make up nicknames for just about everyone I meet. That's how i often find myself hanging out with Chicken Leg, The Grinch, and Private Private.
07
08
And not just the visible spectrum, either.
I dream in UV,
Fucking infrared,
oh the things I dream.
The unfortunate thing is that there are no names for these colours, and as soon as I open my eyes they're gone anyway.
Goddammit.
09
I think at this point we're scratching the tip of the iceburg. I'm starting to trust you a little, and maybe just maybe you're starting to like me. Or if not like me, then at least empathize. So I apologize for what's going to happen. From here on out things are going to be a little more hectic. Disorganized. Unhealthy. You see, I had to get you on my side first, now I can open up a little. Let you in. From here on out there might be scribbles, or drawings, or pictures, or more typing. Most likely alloftheabove. And ultimately, I don't care if it's jarring and you don't like it. I'm jarring, and people don't like me, and what is this but a mirror? I hold myself up to the page and capture as much as I remember and write it down, or draw it.
My metaphor is weaker than my smile.
You don't like it.
And just when it was starting to get interesting.
10
Another this I did was for one whole month i didn't leave the house. Thank the internet and online banking and seventeen news channels with streamers across the bottom that make you feel like if you blink you missed that crucial piece of the puzzle that would tie it all together. There is only so much before you're dying for fresh air. After a week i was insane. Another week and I was cured. The next week I never left the tub, not once. Not that I remember anyway. During the last 10 days, I not only bit off my fingernails, I bit off most of my right pinky.
On the last day, I broke the top knuckle, and one of my teeth. My finger was a shredded mess of blood and bits, it hurt so bad I couldn't touch it but I kept biting.
The next day, and stitches, and the doc nods and uh-hums and yesses me in to more hydrocodone. I'd hate myself if it weren't for the drugs.
11
I'd hate the drugs if it weren't for myself.
1 comment:
i like it.
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