Honest Conversation Is Overrated
Actual Human Interactions Witnessed Or Overheard
In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century America
In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century America
Kid: Look, Dad, they’ve got a Wolverine #1.
Dad: *Sigh* Yea, I had the full set of Wolverine when I was in college, but I sold it for heroin and ramen noodles. Kid: What? Dad: Don’t do drugs.
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I must still look like a poet. Or a drug addict. The two aren't necessarily indistinguishable. But while I'm waiting for the train home from Sora's, a guy offers me some trees for some haze, and I don't think he's trying to solve global warming.
I have no trees. The only haze is in my mind, because I didn't sleep much last night. It was my turn to sleep on the floor, and my body clock is more of a blinking digital 12:00 VCR flash (which I suspect is the real reason DVDs were invented). I get on the train and am surprised to see an old friend back from Africa who shares smacknothing talk with me between Providence and Boston, where I pack, and go to meet another bus. The beginning of my trek to Dallas. I noted several years ago that Cerberus is actually a Greyhound. I think if Americans were serious about rehabilitating criminals, instead of sending them to jail, they'd put them on a bus for a week. This theory is shot to hell when I discover my first seatmate is fresh from jail and headed to rehab I said no, no, no. He entertains me with the level of lies I haven't heard since I deported Elvis almost a decade ago. And then I fall asleep. Wake up in New York. Grand Central Fuck Yourself Port Afuckenkillyourselfthority. The 9:15 bus I'm supposed to take doesn't exist. The next one is, of course, 11:45, and it will be pack packed. And, of course, the really obese woman in front of me clicks her seat back against my knees, and a woman and her toddler squeeze in next to me. And the baby rarely cries but she kicks and grabs my arm. And the mother's knee is in my hip, and it's like this all the way to fucken Richmond Virginia. Richmond to Roanoake to everywhichwhere Caroliginiasee, the bus is a hive of crackheads and loud women and crying oh my god kids. And somewhere in Tennessee Nate gets on. Nate. Nnnnnnnnnnate. If I wasn't stupidly Sorafied (he is not stupid, I am not stupid, I am using it as in wicked, as in hella, as in completely), I'd have noticed sooner how unnervingly sexy he is. Not beautiful like Sora. Not hot like...hot people. He looks like what would happen if Gary Sinese got Tobey Maguire pregnant. And he's of course Irish, and is reading The Hitchhiker's Guide, and I am reading The World According To Garp, which makes us best buddies because obviously we're both nerds who are Irish who listen to The Dropkick Murphys and The Pogues. And everything is a racist joke to him, except the religious ones. And hours pass. He is showing me pictures of his fiancee, asking if I approve. And she's obviously also Irish, and pretty, and, sure I approve of why not her? "It's just..." and he stares at me, "I've always had a thing for redheads..." And the stare keeps lingering there, like someone sprayed Axe bodyspray in a microwave. "O...k. I don't really have a type, in that way. But. Good for you." And he is a kicked puppy that I keep feeding and at my god every stop he wants to know what I'm buying and oh man I'm tired but the conversation and the sleep can't coincide and he has so much to say and instead of a knee in my hip, it's a tongue in my ear, and not in the cool way that Sora does it. "And I'm a soldier." He says. "So when I say Fuck Bush, I know what I'm talking about and" yip yip bubbledy bloo. And he keeps touching my leg, which is not his beautiful fiancee. And all I want to do is sleep, and I don't think I've eaten anything since my God Boston. When he switches buses in Texarcana, he takes down all my info so that we can keep in touch. I can't imagine what I'll say if he ever actually calls or writes. And blissful then sleep until Dallllllllldallllllldalllas. Where poets and old friends and a camera await me. While the national poetry slam starts in Austin on Tuesday, there is a pre-nationals invitational tournament in Dallas on Sunday night. So I left Boston a little oh god too early. And the rest of my team doesn't arrive until Monday, so instead of competing, I volunteer to record the event. Put down poetry book, pick up tripod and video and lay down on weird angle floor. And so many people I've not maybe purposefully maybe not seen for a while. I am called by hot_rod_poet's name no less than a dozen times (mostly by the same person). This is because all white people from Boston look alike. Even though, according to my last show in Boston, I am actually a 6'2 black man named Wiz. After the show and some requisite drinks and food, I hang out with my not teammates (another team from Boston comprised of people I have previously been on teams with), and then there is...then there is drunkoolery. And beer? "I want a beer." Someone drunk drunk tipsily tells me. "I" of course "don't have any beer." I look around for support. There is drunk boy, drunk boy's nearly as drunk friend, Asterisk, and Insaferubenmode, a friend of mine who (obviously) has nearly the same name. Drunk Boy invites all to get beer with him at the gas station across the street. When Asterisk, Insaferubenmode, and I decline, he says "Anyone who doesn't get beer with me is gay." He is, in fact, two thirds correct. But Asterisk looks mock horrified and Drunk Boy says, "Oh, you know I'm kidding. I'm as bisexual as they come." And his friend says "On your face." And Asterisk and I are of course obliged along with Insaferubenmode to begin BeerQuest. Which fails. But I do get to see Drunk Boy climb a pole and run super speedy across the street and then Asterisk says "I couldn't fuck him. When he gets drunk his eyes go crazy, and I can't tell if he's looking for me or looking at me." And there is much laughter, and you know, I hardly ever spend time with just Asterisk, and we amuse ourselves muchly. Then Asterisk goes to sleep, and I grab my bathing suit and head to the pool where Drunk Boy, Drunk Boy's friend, pageloads of LJ friend/poets and some sort of family reunion that has nothing to do with poetry but who have decided to record some video of performing poets who are swimming and making, according to the management, too much noise, since the pool is supposed to have been closed for three hours so be quiet anyway. And it's not that I was looking to see Drunk Boy naked, it just sort of happened, and good for him and good for whichever sex and whichever person he ends up with because well, yea, good for him and everyone involved. And I am involved, but not with him, with Sora and. And. Well, you know. He's no but who is Sora. And it occurs to me I should have been sleeping hours ago. But the pool. And the computer. And Dallas. And LJ poet friends. And the maniac from Albuquerque (not a slam poet) who is in town for American Idol with his band, a novel he's working on, his website, a team of flying reindeer, the blueprints to Fort Knox, and a whole other wagon full of bullshit if anyone believes the first few piles he shovels at you. And, you know, naked on your face. And in a few couple maybe less than one hours I'm off to Austin and don't ask me how but you know it will happen and more poetry and dizzy and blur and more naked would be great and I wish Sora were here (though he needn't be but I wouldn't mind naked), but rumor has it Ben is coming in how did this happen stead. This is meanfunny I guess but I don't know where Ben is planning on staying. But I have an idea. I brought some masking tape. I'm thinking of taping off a section of the hotel room I'm sharing with Wiz, fifteen inches by four feet, and labeling it "Van Seat" in honor of the "bed" I slept on in his house. It was more comfortable than Sora's floor (but that's not my usual place when I stay over), and didn't smell as badly as the Greyhound seats, but it was still you know a too small van seat for my long legs, and really I just always need an excuse for something to do. Yes, I'm vanishing. Yes, life is more complicated than explaining calculus to someone who doesn't speak the same language as you. Yes, Asscat scratched the blood out of my hand last night. Yes, taking three hits of acid on your first time is an incredibly stupid idea. Yes, I'm fine now, thanks for not asking. When Ben asked me to feed Rufus while he went back to New York, he said "And this time, I promise the power won't go out."
Celeste, who I called to keep me company while Lissabelle torments Ben, smiles at me through thirty-seven coats of lipgloss. "The whole arrangement is just decidedly weird." Ben and Lissabelle are in his apartment, packing, unpacking, repacking for their return trip. The acid was so good, Ben's going back to buy one hundred hits. Celeste and I are in the hallway, passing one of Ben's Gauloises between us. I inhale and then try to flick the cigarette, but the filter catches under my nail. "How so?" Twitchingly. "Well...." And I hate the way that word hangs between us, as though I'm going to tell you something you already know, but don't really want to hear right now is sandwiched between the e and the first l. And I know what she's trying to say, it's weird how I met and fell in love with Ben so quickly, and then unceremoniously moved into his apartment, even though he doesn't really love me. And it's weird how Ben, who doesn't love me, and who hasn't even known me for very long would let me move in with him. "You know, the whole, uh...living situation." I know. In the reflection of Celeste's lip gloss, I see Ben open the door. "Hey, hun, you're gonna want to get your shit off my bed, because everything that's on my bed in three minutes, gets put in my bag and taken to New York." I head into the apartment, collect the notebooks Celeste and I have been writing in, place them on the piano, and then lay across his bed. "No. I'm not taking you. Nice try." He pushes me off the bed, and begins throwing things from the bed into his bag. "Oh, check these out." He picks up a pair of argyle knee socks. "Hot." I say, because they are. "You are sooooo gay." Lissabelle says. And I'm not sure whether she's talking to me or Ben. Sure, Ben is the one who has pink hair, eyeliner, and knee socks, but I'm the one who's attracted to him. "He didn't used to be gay." Celeste says. So they're talking about me. "You know, apart from the whole sleeping with men thing." I should be saying something clever and catty, but I have been abusing my brain and body for the past week or so, and they are both decidedly unhappy with me. "Fascinating as your socks are," Lissabelle says, "we are way late right now, so you need to pack so we can get out of here." "Bitch, we're only late because you forgot to pack." Ben says, fluffing his hair. "So, no more from you. Shhhh. Shhhh." And then they are packed and gone. And it is Celeste and I alone in Ben's apartment. She is standing in front of the mirror, "Adam, do my lips look puffy?" "No." They look varnished like the hardwood floor in a sports arena, but they don't look puffy. "Ok." But she continues to look at her face in the mirror. This is Ben's apartment. There are mirrors everywhere. "We should go out for a walk. Moving would be really good." Yes, yes it would. "Where should we go?" "Outside." So we head out to the streets of Allston, where the colors are vivid and the wind is a word I can't come up with. We don't go anywhere exciting. An ATM and the ice cream shop. Then we are back in the apartment, and it is time for Celeste to go home. "Bye, Adam. See you later." And she smiles, again. I can see myself in her lips, alone in Ben's apartment, looking at the calendar, trying to figure out how long it will be before Ben comes home. I am Contrast. Do gooder nice guy does what told. Folds blankets for sleeping guests. Buys presents for friends and loves and loves and would do anything for and is supremely talkative. Give me a topic and yes, I'll listen too. Tell me a story. That's fabulous. I love you but don't you piss me off. I disappear. Give me a new haircut and I'll be silent forever. You can give away everything I don't own. I'm a packrat who doesn't care anymore. Take everything. We'll call it even but it's not balanced and certainly not fair. I'm a flying fish on land with a papercut tongue. Come kiss me.
It's morning and I wake up alone in a haunt of ghosts. I wronged that one and that one and that one and that one, but that one took off in the night with my discman and the last fleck of trust, that one strapped wings on my back, kicked me, and had the nerve to act pissed when I flew away, and that one is Princess Thundercloud and she wouldn't have been happy if I hadn't left her crying. I part my ghosts with morning breath and mint leaves. Stand still. Let the room cross me. I want and am wanted and am wanted dead. This is every morning before I go to sleep. I can't sleep for all the dreams and guilt I'm not having. Fuck you all, I'm sorry. I can't even decide whether to use punctuation today. It's noon now and so dark outside I am snowblind. Celeste is having a party. It's not her birthday or Halloween, but it is somewhere between and around both. I have forgotten we are supposed to dress up naked insecurity costumes. And when she reminds me, I have no clue what I will be but instinctively know it will be conflicted like my determination to be something but my resingedness as to what. I spend my day laying on this bed that isn't mine running around town collecting ideas and ending up with nothing. I don't want to go to a party, I want to be alone with all these ghosts figuring out who is who and then blending them all into some forgettable mass and flinging them from the apartment. I want to be surrounded by people who love me and will tell me I'm imperfect and kiss me on the flaw and say fuck you don't leave me ever. I am Contrast but this is a gray day. I don't know where my thoughts begin or end or rest comfortably in the middle drifting off and around but still tethered to my vagrant mind. This is a gray day and I want something immediately but I don't know what it is except not gray. Color comes home. Rather, Color comes to his home and I am already here. "We'll go as ourselves" he says and the floor turns luminous wood wherever he stands. The mirror explodes. And this apartment is vibrant and alive and humming electric and I think the whole world must be reacting to him and everything beauty and everything colorful but outside is still gray and wet and we have three hours until the party. Color says "Paint me." And I am Contrast. He is feeling creative so I am flat piece of wood without texture or design. I paint because he wants me to and the colors on his arm clash brilliantly like him and my perception of him and me and my perception of myself. His arm is bright green dark blue painful yellow soothing purple and then fleck red and spit orange and he is blissfully unhappy with the results. The party is two hours away and we start over. River of purple splotches of yellow red leaves footprints like a soccer player in a marshmallow field and there are other colors there I can't name but can paint and yes that's it entirely. Color is acid and giggly. I adore Color but stay gray until I look myself in the mirror. I am Contrast I see things in contrast. My face whitens with black lines sectioning things off the part of my hair I like turns black the rest white and my hands only comfortable when cracking knuckles paint themselves in contrast but not really color. Soon I'm wearing a coat and it appears that wings have sprouted from my back but more likely I pulled them off someone else and tied them around my body. My wings are black. Color's are white. So we are both contrasting, but we are not both colorful. We are late to the party and giggly and depressed and frantically apathetic about being late. The outside gray has turned darker but still gray and it is of course raining and I envision all the color in his face and hair and arms swimming away from him and my contrast sludging into this gray day night. We make tepid jokes and Color says "I think I like you most because you're decidedly not crazy though everything in your life right now is." I say "It's because I've grown to realize that I'm never going to be stable if I keep reacting to things around me so I just stopped reacting outwardly and now I seem serene though really what the fuck am I doing with my life?" As if to explicate this, a car passes too close splashes water all over me but it is raining anyway so what the fuck do I care if I get any wetter I just keep walking and spouting philosophy about how happy I am these days but really I'm so full of shit that I'm wasting away to nothing. I'm standing outside of The Anorexic, waiting for Ben, who is half an hour late, to show up. On my way here, I ran into a poetry acquaintance who'd recorded one of my spoken word shows a few months before. While most of the tracks are fairly mecentric, there's a couple of tracks I did with Ben, Celeste, and Wiz. I am in the midst of listening to Ben sing, via my headphones, when my cellphone rings. "You need to come home right away." He says. "The cat is pink."
I go home to his apartment right away. Sure enough, Rufus the Asscat is pink. "It's an organic, non-poisonous hair dye." Ben's friend, who is sporting blue hair, says. Ben's hair is green. Ben's other friend's hair matches Asscat's fur. "So, is this a good trip?" I ask Ben. "Oh, yes!" All three of them say at once. "Great. I'm gonna get some Cherry Coke." And when I open the refrigerator, in the place where my Cherry Coke usually sits, is my industrial sized stapler. "Why is my stapler in the fridge?" "Oh, the places it has been." Blue hair says. Pink hair chimes in, "The things it has stapled." "You really have to try some of this." Ben says. "We each took just one hit. It took a while to kick in, but it's...I mean, wow." So I open up the freezer, and take out one of the sugar cubes. And, what the hell, I have a high tolerance, I pull out another one and suck them both into nothingness. I open a box of Cheez-Itz while the three already high members of the room torment the cat. "Cheez-Itz?" Ben inquires. "Might I have some." And he swoops a monstrous hand full of Cheez-Itz and begins slowly crunching them. "It's like I'm crushing entire civilizations with my mouth. Desert civilizations. These Cheez-Itz taste like sand. Delicious, delicious sand." I laugh, and begin to pet Asscat, who has wandered away from the freak contingency, and has approached me for, perhaps, solace. I take a sip of Cherry Coke, put it down, pet Asscat, then go to pick the bottle up again. It's not there. It's not anywhere near me on the floor. "It's on top of the bookshelf." Blue hair laughs. "Oh, the places it's gone." Ben says. And I"m not sure if what he's saying is funny, but I laugh anyway, because the cat is pink, and my stapler should, perhaps, be writing postcards, and I'm starting to think maybe this is acid is hitting me just a little bit faster than I thought it would. "Ben?" Ben, the cat is pink. You've turned safety light green and god I want to touch your hair. Your friends are blue and neanderthal. please help me Ben help me please I shouldn't have taken two tabs at once. Everything was fine until the lights came on and Ben, the fucken cat looks pink to me. "What?" He asks. Ben, your Neanderthal friend tripping face and talking close needs to leave, but the door is a jar of mayonnaise that I can't open with arthritic hands. "I'm gonna go to the Sleven. The Sleven. The Seveneeeeleven. Do you want anything?" "Yes." Ben, help me please me help I love this feeling of shifting time and rubbing the little Communist cat under your bed but I have to get out of the room and away from your friend and get cigarettes for you because stop waving me away I love you and the room keeps shifting and the cat is pink and Neanderthal. and I am hungry and thirsty still can't find missing Cherry Coke so off I go to the inconvenience store and maybe also get cigarettes "Ben." I say, hugging myself in the elevator. I put my headphones on, and start listening to the track I recorded with Ben and Wiz. "Ben." I say. Ben, the man in front of me in line is trying to buy cigarettes with a pile of nickles. The agitated man behind the counter scratching dandruff over counter waves me over because he probably thinks I am in a hurry but the thing is I am swimming and forgot cigarettes, left the store with more Cheez-Itz and Cherry Coke and some sort of god it was awesome candy bar. Ben, if the opportunity ever comes to do two tabs of acid, go outside on a cold autumn night, and listen to a CD of yourself performing a poem about schizophrenia, take it. It was so awesome I forgot how to chew. When I get back to the apartment, everyone is either asleep or not there anymore or both. I make my way over to my van seat, flop down on it and stare at him. At some point I heard myself whispering "Ben, help me. Please. Ben." Ben, when your Neanderthal friend left us it was it was it was time is broken and sometime morning and I was in the bathroom making faces in the mirror. How could you ever love someone so ugly? And morning is coming and light and I look ugly in light but it's dark and I could kiss you now but won't because that would be ugly and imperfect and instead I go to the freezer and take out a third sugar cube and mmmmmmmmm gone. Ben, in retrospect, the third hit was a bad idea. The wall over Ben's bed has the costume angel of death that I'm supposed to wear to Celeste's party on the left side, a poster of a beautiful boy with the word Never written all over it on the right side, and inbetween is a gigantic American flag. I am seizing angel of death side and Ben is never and beautiful and America is the bed between us. And Ben, wake up, don't let Safey trip lonely no more. When you're awake everything smile fuzzy and petting pretty poor pink Asscat under your bed and everything mostly okay moving furniture compulsive cleaning Ben continuing to tackle the ever expanding mess of my life and we were all awake together and "Wake up please Ben wake up I'm lonely" Ben is sleeping America. Can't wake him because Safey, Ben needs to be sleeping now, has ten a.m. job up by seven shower smile dress hello wash out green hair cat isn't pink Good Morning This is Ben how may I help you? Ben, I really hope you were sleeping when my face went all "Please me Ben help please me."Fear and Loathing and breath seizing cracking fear out of joints and the hallway beckoned and I answered and why aren't you looking for me? Ben, these Cheez-Itz taste like sand. Ben, I don't think I've ever articulated how much your Never poster scares the fuck out of me. I stare at him and dark angel and the clouds are advancing morning purple and bright eyes and it's cold here and the clouds platoon of dreams that will never rain fruition advance and unfuck clouds and unfuck you getting up for work but I won't let you oversleep I'm a responsible friend waving and never oversleeping and never sleeping and never scares me Ben. I get off the van seat, all twitchy and stoplight. I've got a notebook on the desk, which I pick up and start writing in. Blue ink overlaps red ink. And there is no time to process. See, some mornings the pen moves so fast it bends to your will bleeding words and those are the good mornings when the radiator only clinks when it's time to get up and the neighbors don't mind the singing but would you mind so terribly much turning down the volume of your dreams And words and thoughts sometimes get lost in the margins of notebooks Well to make a proper omelot you must first lean to crack, then collect the best that remains scramble scramble add some ham salsa tomato bacon where are my fingers? this pen is so shiny right now and yes i could return to help me Ben please but that's so overlydependentgay and my voice is lower scramble scramble voila ohmlet omlit Omelet is not an early morning word Who on Earth would invent a breakfast word so imfuckenpossible to spell Unfuck not being able to spell Awmlette egg dish within which other things are folded I may not be able to spell you but I can spell desideras and omniscient and other words that are way more important than some stupid breakfast words This is why I only eat sane people things for breakfast like Lobster Benedict which turns lobster in your stomach and he's never loved you Ben, every time I close my eyes the room goes precise and geometric patterns of darkness and never angel and someone is screaming perfectly ordered someone is screaming and I think it's me the most horrific gyroscope ever Ben, see that meteor coming toward Earth? See how it's shaped like your face and smiling? Ben, the third hit, on my all time list of good ideas, not so much on it. That third hit is Elvis. Clarissa. Arifuckenzona. Your beautiful pink cat has been tethering me sane for broken time now and he thinks my writing of this journal is bad and he keeps knocking it out of my hands as though this book were responsible for rancid farts, Jimmy Fallon movies, the Serbian genocide, and holding his cat mother hostage and doing unspeakable non-cat things to her Ben, the colors of this morning are roof worthy and decidedly matching this book and ink and even the cat Brava If every morning were so youtiful and vivid I'd be a morning alarm not necessarily clock morning person gazing out on Allston at first light watching college urchins and homeless students and vagrant businessmen knowing my morning even alone without you caring is so much more Interesting and worth living than theirs and this is not the greatest place in the world to say kiss me but please do it will stop me making silly scary mirror faces while you sleep Ben, beautiful green safety traffic light hair go gently into this no doubt for you seizure inducing i'm sorry day Ben, writing loud again no good music Safey think like vacuum and every stupid and every honest and every insafemode line and love line and frustration is sand The real geometry is smiling while your face melts I hope this wears off soon I'm losing my language and i can't kiss him figure out how best to kiss him get over this and his sweaterfish is breathing on the desk while he is sleeping quietly and the pink cat is licking my feet and the chirruping where's the chirruping coming from oh yes alarm Ben, if this is rebuilding I am wholly fuck all you ain't kidding wrecked but the thing is, I was wrong. Most people let their substances their addictions wreck their lives. Big pink neanderthal balls schtupping large puzzle pieces they'll never get back, allowing them to feel more comfortable traveling from "Hi, nice to meet you" to "That was subpar, be a dear and lock the door behind you when you leave." Me however I am for some godawfullythoughtnotwellout reason using substances to build elaborate but shit looking spiderweb bridges to people who are so close, the only things between us are these unnecessary rebuilt bridges I wake you up on time good wifey infagmode You smirk pink kitten I did that sorry and washout green you go au natural work I sit sentry in your bed You tired excuse want call in sick so I sit sentry knowing that with me in your bed you won't go anywhere near it and this is either hilarious how awful that revelation is or awful how hilarious it is Ben, I'm thinking that third hit is your sour face regarding pink puss you slam door shut between us There is waaaaaaay too much light in this room now Kiss Kiss Good morning “This is totally driving me crazy.” Ben says. And he launches into this story about some art opening he went to a few months ago. “I’m minding my own business, when this” and he shudders “fat kid, like Wisconsin fat, corners me. And I’m tripping balls, and his huge chins are all like jiggling while he talks. And eventually I gave him my phone number just so he would go away. It’s so gross.” He fluffs his hair. “I think I’m reasonably attractive,” You’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’rebeautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful you’re beautiful “and I would never just go up to some stranger and force my presence on them until they gave me their phonenumber in an act of self-preservation. As if he even had a chance, he’s sooooo fat, and gross.”
“You used to be fat.” I say. I’ve seen the pictures of Ben as a kid, as overweight in junior high and early high school as I was. “Fuck you. I was never fat like this kid. And the point is, I’m not fat now, so why would this guy think he had even a remote chance with me. If I was trapped on a desert island with him and no food and nothing to do, I would make him turn away from me when I masturbated. I don’t get all these people who think I would even bother with them. Anyway, he called me today. He hasn’t called in like weeks. Like, back before I met you, he called me a bunch of times in one night. And the messages went from normal what are you up to chit-chat to well, I guess you don’t care about me you self-righteous prick in the course of like four hours. And, yea, I really don’t give a shit about him. And I probably wouldn’t have called him back anyway, but certainly not after that barrage of messages. So, today he calls and wants me to apologize for breaking his heart. Breaking His Heart? Ugh. I’m so tired of all these men who say that I’ve broken their hearts. I’m completely up front with people. I’m a rock. It’s not my fault that people keepslamming their hearts against me." He is a rock. Last week, I felt like waves crashing over him. “You know I love you, right.” His eyes go cold. “We are not talking about this right now.” “Why not?” “Look, I’m not letting myself be in love or lust or like with anyone right now. I mean, spending time with you is awesome and everything, but no. We are never a yes. Always no. You and me? No. Friends.” And he steers our conversation to safer shores. How he’s going to New York in a couple of days with Lisabelle to procure some acid. How he really likes Celeste, and wants to hang out with her more. “I was looking through one of my ex’s Myspace accounts.” He says. “And he said There is no option for ‘I don’t care’ in relationship status, and then he listed his sexual orientation as straight. Apparently, there was no option for fucken liar in sexual orientation. I should be flattered. I’m the only guy he’s ever been with. But when we were making out one time he said I want you to fuck me, and then come on my face. I can see a straight guy getting drunk and maybe asking his gay friend to blow him, but asking to get fucked and have a guy come on your face is pretty much an exclusively gay thing.” Then he says Labor Day pussy drink extra pillow pigeon. Sign language van seatrelationship Galouises. I don’t hear more than one word in any sentence he says. I am sitting on the van seat. Asscat is scratching at my leg, but I don’t have the energy to pet him or wave him away. I just sit there and watch Ben pretend I never told him how I felt. I listen to him turn the conversation toward his HIV positive ex. How much he still cares for him. How he’d have unprotected sex with him, so that the two of them could share the experience of dying together. A funny anecdote about what happened to him at work the other day. He just keeps talking at me and talking at me like I’m capable of listening or comprehending. And I realize, I’ve never been on his playlist. I am an unrequited eyefuck poppy seed zombie. Bombastic proposal of anorexic analogies. You’re beautiful. Never a yes. Always no. Beautiful. Never. Rainbortion. Language. I’m maybe not rebuilding but wrecked. Maybe van seat. Maybe fat kid. Maybe vapid. “I think seventeen is a perfect age” Too old for him anyway. Too bombastic. Too pussy drink. Too stem thick. Never too. Never positive. Never you’re. Never beautiful. There must be maggots under my skin. It looks like I’m still breathing. “What the fuck?” I scream.
And Ben peeks his head out from the kitchen. “What’s wrong?” “You know that crazy bitch who’s moving into the room down the hall from me?” “Yea.” he says, fluffing his hair, “I don’t like her.” “She put an ad on Craigslist saying my room is for rent.” “Are you sure it’s not for the room downstairs. I mean, if you don’t like her, maybe that Becky chick doesn’t like her either. It’s probably just a misunderstanding.” I reread the ad. “No. There’s no misunderstanding. The headline is Shitty Roommate Must Go, and there’s fucken pictures of my room, with all my stuff in it." “Woah.” Silence. Silence. “I’ll just finish making the tea then.” I call Celeste, and start verge of tear bitching about this crazy situation, and how I can’t afford to put a deposit on a new place to live, and...and she says she’ll be over to Ben’s as soon as she can, in order to help me come up with new ideas about where I might move. “You could stay here.” Ben says, and hands me a cup of tea. “Really?” “As long as you don’t mind sleeping on the van seat.” Oh. I sip the tea. It’s wretched. “Oh, I forgot to mix it with the orange juice. Want some?” I decline. I’ve never liked orange juice. “Suit yourself.” And he lights up a Galouises. “Where’d you get that?” I ask. “I thought you told me that the convenience stores nearby were officially out of them, what with the whole French not exporting them here anymore.” “Yea, but I keep finding stores with a couple packs left. I should just stop smoking them, but it’s like that exboyfriend who’s no good for you, who calls every once in a while, and you can’t help but invite him over and fuck him.” “You are now, officially, the King of Analogies.” He smiles. I get the chills. “I kind of ground up the stems, so the tea is a little...thick. Next time I think I’ll leave the stems out.” Saying the tea was a little thick was like saying Don King was a little unscrupulous. A tad wordy. I use a spoon to chew the first half of the tea, chasing it with lemonade. The second half, I down as quickly as possible, but not as quickly as Ben does. “Is it hitting you yet?” He asks, his eyes: a cat watching a nuclear explosion. “I don’t know.” We head up to his roof to smoke, and watch the sun consume the city around us. A hot guy comes up and starts doing tai chi in front of us. This is the best high ever. My phone rings. It’s Celeste. She'’s downstairs waiting to be let in. While I go downstairs, Ben grinds up another batch of tea. “Your eyes.” She says. “Have you been crying? You looked positively wrecked.” But I’m not wrecked. I’m rebuilding. When I was sixteen, I made a bet with my mother. I would not be caught smoking, drinking, or doing drugs between the time the bet was placed, and my twenty-firstbirthday. If I succeeded, she’d buy me my first used car.
Years later, I learned that the actual bet wasn’t that I wouldn’t get caught, but that I wouldn’t do any of those things. But by the time my mother passed this revelation on to me, I was already on my second car, and was in no financial position to reimburse her for the first one. I have a very competitive nature. Not only was I fixated on winning the bet, but I also gauged my rate of drinking, smoking, and doing drugs against the rates of my friends. I figured, if I was smoking, drinking, and doing drugs less often than my friends, then I wouldn’t get caught, I would win my car, and I would have the satisfaction of being a better person. While I did have a brief addiction to cigarettes when I was twenty-one, I generally only smoke a cigarette or two every six months, when I’m exceptionally stressed. I drink socially, and until I started spending time with Ben, I had been decidedly antisocial. I’ve also held true to my ideal of drug usage. I don’t pay for them. Ever. This way, I don’t run the risk of becoming addicted to them. I do drugs on a purely peer pressure basis. For the most part, I only smoke pot. And again, not very often. Apart from pot, and a few cups of mushroom tea when I lived in Burlington, Vermont, I’ve only ever done one drug, mescaline. I was sixteen, and my high school roommate (thank you, boarding school education), JBob, had bought some from another student. He’d never done it before, I’d certainly never done it before, so we decided we’d do it together, and invited our friend Matt to hang out with us so that we wouldn’t do anything stupider than the sort of things we usually did when we were together. About an hour after we took it, we weren’t feeling anything. Neither of us had ever been buzzed from any of the pot we smoked, so we decided that our experiment with mescaline was a failure, and decided we would go into town and watch a movie. As luck would have it, there was a brand new movie out that all three of us (me, JBob, and Matt) wanted to see: Natural Born Killers. Well, the mescaline kicked in at some point during the movie. I don’t know when. I don’t know what I hallucinated and what was actually in that fucked up movie. All I know is, I haven’t been able to watch the movie since. I also haven’t touched mescaline since. “Have you ever done speed?” Ben asks. It’s Labor Day, and we’ve just finished an extra large pizza, a bottle of Jack Daniels, two liters of Coke, and four hours of watching the Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston reality show. “Never.” I say. “You’ve got to try it.” He says. “I got so much writing done when I was on speed. I mean, it was all terrible, but I used to get sooooo much accomplished. You’d love it. I mean, I’ve always been hyper. My mom used to say I was like a kid on speed, but the truth is I totally was a kid on speed.” Ben kicks his voice up an octave. “Look at my Lego castle. I used 2,458 pieces. The princess sleeps in this room. See the way the drawbridge works…” and he is talking a mile a second, and I am laughing too hard to keep up, because it isn’t that he was a kid on speed when he was a kid, he’s a kid on speed now, just without the actual speed...or the kiddiness. He talks like this all the way to the bus stop, during the entire trip to his house, and most of the way to the grocery store where we are, for some reason, buying a coffee grinder, lemon juice, lemonade, apples, nectarines, and bananas. “I haven’t had bananas in ages.” I say, setting him up for a gay joke. “Why not?” He asks. “I don’t know. I like them, but I mostly have apples when I’m feeling healthy. Apples are my favorite fruit.” Ben smiles. “I thought I was your favorite fruit.” He is. When a cute guy walks by him in the cereal aisle, Ben’s eyes and body follow the cute guy to the left. I push his left shoulder and he turns to the right, toward me. “I wonder if that’s an instinct?” He asks of his newly discovered navigation control. “I don’t know. But there are other portions of your body I’d like to press to find out what happens.” He shakes his head. “Booooo.” And then, “Have you ever done opium?” “No.” I’ve always been leery of opium. All those terrible TV spots tell you that marijuana is a gateway drug, but they never mention which drugs it opens the gate to. Opium, from all the Burroughs I’ve read, is the gateway drug to heroin. And while I have no fear of needles in doctors’ offices, I have no desire to start sticking them into my arm, taint, or spine on a regular basis. Plus, I’ve never been turned on by young Arab boys, or shooting a loved one in the face. “It’s a really mellow high.” He says. “It’s like the anti-speed. Of course, it makes you really nauseous and shit, but that’s totally okay because when you do opium, you do opium with your friends, and puking is like conversation when everyone’s high.” “I don’t think vomit is a language I want to speak.” “You’ll love it.” He says. And on the way back from the grocery store, we stop at a florist, where we buy a dozen dried poppies. While Ben grinds the poppies in his newly acquired coffee grinder, I check my e-mail. Note from my mom’s boyfriend letting me know that my mother may have cancer, porn spam, invitation to a lesbian wedding, Viagra spam, and an e-mail from Celeste: Dude, my roommate was going through Craigslist looking for an apartment for his new girlfriend, when he found this ad. Isn't that your room? While my friends were fantasizing about being astronauts, doctors, rock stars, or Teen Wolf, I was harboring dreams of my own. I wanted to be a firetruck. Not one of those ladder-climbing masochist firemen. I didn’t want to spend my time hooking up hoses to hydrants or putting on those unfashionable helmets, I wanted to be shiny red with flashing lights and blaring sirens.
When I realized that I was never going to transform, no matter how many Optimus Primes I bought, I settled on a new dream: writing my dirtiest secrets for the entertainment of a few close friends and hundreds of complete strangers. I’d like to thank LiveJournal for making that dream come true. Apart from the occasional pulling to the side of the road, and a few high school fire drills, I haven’t had a close relationship to fire trucks in years. Police cars on the other hand were becoming routine. So were red trucks. During a trip from Boston to Burlington with Zuzu, we got into a very minor fender bender. Even the fender escaped unscathed. In the fantasy story that the pseudo-Abe Simpson who’d crashed into us when he wasn’t paying attention told his insurance company, he was driving along minding his own business when a fleet of red trucks swerved around him causing him to crash into him. The insurance company was positively shocked to learn this wasn’t true. Apparently Not-So-Honest Abe had used The Red Truck Defense in previous accidents. Between that story, and the deja-vu truck, I was developing quite the case of fucuvehicuphobia (fear of red trucks). So the police car at the end of the street was somewhat of a relief. Of course, being having studied myself into oblivion (stupid Anthropology!), there was also an air of foreboding. I made eye contact with the officer in the car, nodded, and walked up a road between the mall and the parking garage. Neither the truck nor the cop car followed. “You’ve really got to relax a little.” Ryan said. “The world isn’t out to get to you.” “Shouldn’t you be busy decomposing somewhere.” I muttered. “That got boring real quick. Serving as your subconscious is much more fun.” I scanned the road for signs of life. “Go away. It’s not Christmas yet, Jacob Marley.” “And I’m not indigestion, asshole. You’re so baked you--” I started singing U2’s “40” until I was safely at the building that passed as home for most of the year that I lived in Burlington. By then, Ryan was buried in the same portion of my brain as Ted’s talking cat. “Hey Ads,” one of the many people who didn’t live in our house, but was nevertheless always there, said. “Want a hit?” Hell, yes, I wanted a hit. I wanted a hit like A-Rod during his first month with the Yankees, like J*Lo’s A&R man, like a masochist in the ring with Mike Tyson, like a guy with two deucesplaying blackjack, like a hurricane on unprepared land, I wanted a hit like a paranoid kid coming home high from a party and running into a red pickup truck a cop car and the ghost of his dead boyfriend. God fucken damnit I wanted a hit. “Do you want a hit?” Zach asked. Wasn’t he listening to the narrative going on in my head? Yes, I wanted a fucken hit. “Uhhh. Sure.” I sat down at the dining room table, and waited for him to hand me the bubbler. “Rough night?” Again with the questions, what was he, Barbara fucken Walters? “Yea. There was this kind of....intense party at Ted’s...shrooms...pot...a talking cat...an action figure in a an electric chair...and then this truck was following me...and there was a cop car...but the brownies were pretty good.” Zach was inhaling during the entire seven hours it took me to finish my soliloquy. Actually, it might have only been a second and half. I wasn’t sure whether I was talking ridiculously slow, or insanely fast. All I knew for sure was that my pupils were spinning around my eyes. I was seconds away from “TILT”. I took another really long drag, sputtered out a “Thanks, I needed that” and retired to my room. But just like Ozzy Osbourne retiring from touring, I was up again five minutes later, taking another hit on the way to the bathroom, and then another on the way back. I locked the door behind me (mostly to keep things like this from happening), took off my clothes and tried to find a comfortable way to sleep on my god-awful futon frame. After approximately fifteen seconds, I flung the futon on the floor, turned up the Gomez on my CD player and commenced an intense self-loveathon. I think the reason the masturbation fest lasted so long wasn’t that the various drugs had numbed me, it was that I couldn’t decide who I was fantasizing about. I have a strict no masturbating about people I could theoretically fuck policy. That way, if I ever end up fucking said person, I won’t have ridiculously high standards. There’s little worse than spending months fantasizing about drilling a hole in the tight, toned ass of a screaming in ecstasy coworker only to discover that their nearly non-existent ass can’t even muster a proper moan when you insert your thermometer of love in their rectum. The prospect of another four years of Bush? Worse. The fact that they green lighted a spin-off of Friends? Worse. Mushroom clouds over North Korea? Worse. That’s about it, though. I flipped through the appropriate celebrities of the moment, then the most attractive of the guys I’d fucked during whore month, then the most attractive guys I wished I’d fucked during high school and college, I had just about settled on Saint when “What about me?” Ryan asked. “Go. Away.” “I’m not even” And he wasn’t. I went back through my catalog, and settled on Victor. I don’t mean I settled for Victor like I’ll settle for macaroni and cheese when I’m all out of steak, I mean I settled for Victor like Puritans settled on the North American continent. Actually, there was nothing Puritanical about the way I was settling on Victor, but I was using him as refuge from the tyranny of the First Church of Ryan. When I woke up, it was either still dark outside or dark again. I checked the answering machine for messages. Took a hit of the bubbler while I listened to my roommate’s psycho bitchgirlfriend’s thirty-seven messages asking him where he was. Then I called Ted and made plans to hang out downtown so I wouldn’t spend any more time in the house getting high and/or jerking off. Not that there’s anything wrong with either of those things. I was on my way out the door when Zach, James, and an assortment of people I’d never met before in my life bounded in through the back door, prattling on about an upcoming Ween show. :...and if I go as a geisha girl, they’re bound to remember me. Oh hey, Adam, heard you had a little run in on The Loop last night.” “Huh?” I was new to this whole drug thing. I’d smoked a little pot here and there in Cranberry Lake, but I’d never been up on the lingo. “The loop?” I said goodbye to no one when I finally moved out of Cranberry Lake. I put in my two weeks notice at Kookaburra Canyon. Told my boss from the fudge store that I needed some extended time off. Then I put all of my non-essential items in storage, and moved to Boston to become a full-time poet and writer.
I moved in with a woman named Zuzu who I’d met at a poetry reading in Cranberry Lake. I’d been slowly moving into her house since we’d met. First spending weekends there, staying up late and making fun of fellow performers that we knew. Eventually, I was there so often that moving there just made sense. In lieu of paying rent, I gave her my grand piano, which her husband used to teach their ten year old son, Lot, how to play. I stayed there about four months, living the dream, before I nearly came to fisticuffs with the man organizing the Boston poetry scene. I was mentioning this to a poet in Vermont that I’dbefriended, when she suggested I move up to Burlington. I had no money saved up, no tentative place to live, no job prospects. Moving up to Burlington would be incredibly impulsive and stupid. I moved up the next day. Again, without any goodbyes. I’d been up there and unemployed for nearly a month when I reached the stage of poor where I was salivating at the prospect of Ramen noodles. Even the mention of the word cheeseburger gave me an erection. After a month of living off popcorn, rice, and charity dinners, I knew I needed a change. More than change, I needed some paper money fast. My friend got me a job packing fudge. This time there were no costumes, thous, or lesbian looking gay boys involved. It was during a shift of fudge packing that Ted tap danced into my life. “You’re pretty good at that.” I said. “Nah.” he said “It’s just real easy to fake on this floor.” I pretended not to stare too intently at Ted, as he and my female coworker flirted. Cut fudge, wrap in tissue, center in box, fold corner flaps, wrap in bow. Cut fudge, wrap in tissue, center in “You can come, too if you like.” he said. “Sorry, I was in Chocolate Walnut Land. Come where?” “My house. I’m having a little shindig. Do you....study?” One of the uberhippies in Burlington goes by the name of Jesse. Jesse is connected to one of the larger, more successful organic drug dealers this side of Canada...and the other side of Canada (that being, Canada). We’ll call him The Guru. The Guru’s legit job was as a book salesman. Therefore, people like Jesse called Guru at work and ordered textbooks instead of drugs. I don’t remember which subjects corresponded with which drugs, but it was something to the effect of mushrooms being Biology, LSD being Calculus, Ecstasy being Anatomy, and cocaine being “look shithead, I don’t deal cocaine, it’s time for you to get counseling.” For this particular party, we’d be studying Anthropology. I brought my bubbler. Do to the vast amount of studying I did at said party, I don’t remember very much of it. Iremember eating some sort of veganesque sandwich. About halfway through, I became incredibly full. Not just full to my stomach, but I could feel my brain pressing against my skull. Memories oozed out my ears. My two month backlog of sperm shot out covering the room with a-- you get the idea. “I should go.” I told Ted’s cat. “I’m really tired, and I have to work tomorrow.” “Don’t you think you should crash here, and call in high?” The cat asked. “No. My boss doesn’t mind me coming in high.” This was true. During my interview, my boss asked me whether I smoked. After a six hour pause where I looked quizzically at my shoes, he said “Don’t worry. I just want to know if I should invite you over to my house for a few weekenders.” “Suit yourself.” said the cat. “Bye Ted’s cat.” “Ted’s bi.” “Huh?” “Bye.” I staggered down the stairs of the apartment and out into the freezing fucken cold streets of Burlington. Having only been in town for a few months, and never having been to the section of town where Ted and his cat lived, I was somewhat unsure what was the most expedient way home. I knew the direction, but there was an assortment of annoying buildings and sculptures in my way. Plus a mall. Fucken malls. I was a bit southeast of the mall when I noticed a pickup truck. I had an intense feeling of deja vu. Once I had ascertained that there was no gun rack or “I hunt red heads for sport” bumper sticker, I returned to my paranoid about everything but the pickup truck state and walked toward the mall. About two minutes later, I noticed a pickup truck. I had an intense feeling of deja vu. Once I had ascertained that there was no gun ruck or “Honk if you love Homocide” bumper stickers, Ireturned to my paranoid about everything but the pickup truck state and walked toward the mall. I was about fifty yards from the mall when I noticed a pickup truck. I had an intense feeling of What the Fuck I Know I've Seen This Pickup Truck At Least Three Times Now, and broke into a run. That’s when I spotted the police car. |
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