None of the buses worked anymore. Every time they fixed them, someone vandalized them again. Someone got into the depot and ruined their engines or stole their wheels. The entire budget for the buses had been exhausted, so there weren't any buses. None of them worked, so I didn't have a way to get to my job washing dishes and making salads and burning myself on the bread trays anymore. No one would drive me, and I didn't have a car. My grandma wouldn't drive me, and she kept her keys on her at all times. I didn't want to wrestle them from her, though she often goaded me into wrestling them from her. She had an empty swimming pool in her backyard. Every day, she would spit in it. Sometimes, she would pay me to spit in it. She would pay entire groups of people to spit in it because, after all, wouldn't it be some kind of record if you filled a swimming pool full of spit? I had no car. The reason I was working at the restaurant was to earn 2K to buy a 2K car and leave the town.
No bus, no ride, no car, so I had to wait for a boy, Graig, who rode his bike around the town all day. He never stopped riding--even in the incredible heat and sun, even when he was hungry, even when he had to defecate. Graig did not appreciate how much he depended on us in the town. We were the ones who held out sandwiches and water for him. We were the ones who gave him wipes. We were the ones who occasionally tackled him off his bike so that we could take off his shirt and slather him with sunscreen. Graig had fair skin, so if we didn't get him, then he'd have terrible scarlet burns on his face, his neck, and his arms. Somehow, even in the incredible sun, his legs remained pale.
Friday, August 26, 2011
WHO KNOWS BUT THAT, ON THE LOWER FREQUENCIES, I SPEAK FOR YOU?
How is a small hardware store related to Intolerable Circumstances? This store is on a street where the rent must be high. Many of the things in the store have dust on them. Things do not get sold often. The rent must be high, but the manager says that things are fine. He is not worried about having to close. He has a display with yellow whiffle bats and white whiffle balls. He sells odd looking toilet plungers--ones that look part accordion. It is not clear how a small hardware store is related to Intolerable Circumstances. The man who owns the store is the only employee. It does not seem he abuses himself. He does not stand in his doorway and shout abuse at those who walk by. Who walks by?
There is a wooden case with a glass top. In this case are pocket knives. They have dust on them. The owner has a key machine. He has this machine in his widow. On top of the key machine is a metal rack that has many blank keys on it. Where does he get his blank keys from? Many people would like to order so many blank keys. They represent possibility and promise. They are not dusty. The keys are not dusty. They hang on a rack that's above the key machine. The key machine is an ILCO Manual Key Machine. Many people have wondered about getting such a key machine. Maybe it would be possible to find one used online. If many people were to get such a machine, they would have to figure out where to get the blank keys. Once they got the blank keys and the machine, they would be able to practice making keys before they started to make keys for a living. Or maybe they would make keys gratis for their friends.
It is difficult to think of an Intolerable Circumstance that has to do with making a key. After all, if you are making a key, then you are inviting someone in. The ILCO Manual Key machine is orange. It is an orange that people don't use anymore when they are trying to make a product. It is the orange of a plastic YMCA basketball, and it has grime all over it from the owner of the hardware store. The grime must have come from his hands since he's the only one who works in the store. The key machine is in the window--and close enough to the door--so maybe some of the grime is from the outside. The owner's hand oils and the soot from exhaust outside make up the grime.
The owner faces the key machine. He has a key. He has a key that someone wants copied. He has a key. He screws it into the left side of the ILCO. He takes a blank key from the rack and screws the blank key into the right side of the ILCO. When he moves the left side of the ILCO, the side with the key that's to be copied, it moves the right side of the ILCO, the side with the blank key. He turns on the ILCO. He moves the left side, and when he moves the left side, he runs the teeth of the key that's to be copied over a guide. He runs the teeth over a guide. As he runs the teeth over a guide, the right side of the ILCO moves and cuts teeth into the blank key. He runs the teeth over the guide two or three times. He unscrews the new key--the key that just a few minutes ago was blank--and runs an electric brush over it. He buffs the new key. He takes edges off it. And so he's made a key. It costs $1.50 to have a key made.
He says he never makes bad keys, but he says to people to go home and try their keys and come back if the keys don't work. He does not ask them about their lives. He wears an apron. When was the last time he went to the beach? When was the last time he floated in the ocean? There is red seaweed in the ocean. There are millions of little bugs in the ocean. They get in your swimsuit. They pinch you a little. It doesn't hurt, but it is strange--when they pinch you.
The ILCO Manual Key Machine. It is manual because you must use your hands, your manos, to operate it. It does not take much skill to operate the machine, and the machine does not look as if it's very expensive. But maybe it isn't expensive. And how expensive is a blank key? Is it 50 cents? Less? If it is less--and if an ILCO Manual Key Machine--can be bought used and for cheap, then it might be a good idea to have a key machine of your own. It would enable you to make your own keys and to make keys for your friends and people you wouldn't mind letting themselves in. You could make keys for other people. There is a power line pole right near your house. You could make a high-quality sign that says I MAKE KEYS FOR $2. You could make that sign, and there you go. You could make keys out of your house. It would cost $2. Sure, people could go to the hardware store, but what is 50 cents? Let them come to you. You will make keys. The ILCO key machine cannot make keys that say DO NOT DUPLICATE because those keys are much more complicated. Special machines make those keys, so if you lose such keys, you need to get them some other way. They say DO NOT DUPLICATE but certainly there are times when they must be copied.
There is a wooden case with a glass top. In this case are pocket knives. They have dust on them. The owner has a key machine. He has this machine in his widow. On top of the key machine is a metal rack that has many blank keys on it. Where does he get his blank keys from? Many people would like to order so many blank keys. They represent possibility and promise. They are not dusty. The keys are not dusty. They hang on a rack that's above the key machine. The key machine is an ILCO Manual Key Machine. Many people have wondered about getting such a key machine. Maybe it would be possible to find one used online. If many people were to get such a machine, they would have to figure out where to get the blank keys. Once they got the blank keys and the machine, they would be able to practice making keys before they started to make keys for a living. Or maybe they would make keys gratis for their friends.
It is difficult to think of an Intolerable Circumstance that has to do with making a key. After all, if you are making a key, then you are inviting someone in. The ILCO Manual Key machine is orange. It is an orange that people don't use anymore when they are trying to make a product. It is the orange of a plastic YMCA basketball, and it has grime all over it from the owner of the hardware store. The grime must have come from his hands since he's the only one who works in the store. The key machine is in the window--and close enough to the door--so maybe some of the grime is from the outside. The owner's hand oils and the soot from exhaust outside make up the grime.
The owner faces the key machine. He has a key. He has a key that someone wants copied. He has a key. He screws it into the left side of the ILCO. He takes a blank key from the rack and screws the blank key into the right side of the ILCO. When he moves the left side of the ILCO, the side with the key that's to be copied, it moves the right side of the ILCO, the side with the blank key. He turns on the ILCO. He moves the left side, and when he moves the left side, he runs the teeth of the key that's to be copied over a guide. He runs the teeth over a guide. As he runs the teeth over a guide, the right side of the ILCO moves and cuts teeth into the blank key. He runs the teeth over the guide two or three times. He unscrews the new key--the key that just a few minutes ago was blank--and runs an electric brush over it. He buffs the new key. He takes edges off it. And so he's made a key. It costs $1.50 to have a key made.
He says he never makes bad keys, but he says to people to go home and try their keys and come back if the keys don't work. He does not ask them about their lives. He wears an apron. When was the last time he went to the beach? When was the last time he floated in the ocean? There is red seaweed in the ocean. There are millions of little bugs in the ocean. They get in your swimsuit. They pinch you a little. It doesn't hurt, but it is strange--when they pinch you.
The ILCO Manual Key Machine. It is manual because you must use your hands, your manos, to operate it. It does not take much skill to operate the machine, and the machine does not look as if it's very expensive. But maybe it isn't expensive. And how expensive is a blank key? Is it 50 cents? Less? If it is less--and if an ILCO Manual Key Machine--can be bought used and for cheap, then it might be a good idea to have a key machine of your own. It would enable you to make your own keys and to make keys for your friends and people you wouldn't mind letting themselves in. You could make keys for other people. There is a power line pole right near your house. You could make a high-quality sign that says I MAKE KEYS FOR $2. You could make that sign, and there you go. You could make keys out of your house. It would cost $2. Sure, people could go to the hardware store, but what is 50 cents? Let them come to you. You will make keys. The ILCO key machine cannot make keys that say DO NOT DUPLICATE because those keys are much more complicated. Special machines make those keys, so if you lose such keys, you need to get them some other way. They say DO NOT DUPLICATE but certainly there are times when they must be copied.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
WHAT IT IS
In the salvage bin at the grocery store, he finds slimy mushrooms, soft cucumbers, and wounded strawberries. He buys these things with pennies. He goes to have his hair cut at the salon--not the barbershop. His friends sometimes tease him for going to the salon, especially since he has so little hair. But he likes the salon because Sadie washes his hair before she cuts it. She gives him a scalp massage. It must be easy for her to massage his scalp because his baldness affords her so much access. As she massages him, he often asks her to tell him about vacations she'd like to take.
After she washes his hair, she cuts it. After she cuts it, she washes his hair again. When she washes his hair the second time, he asks her how her vacations were. She says she never took them, but he pleads with her to pretend and tell him what it was like. It's the second wash that he most loves because, when he used to go to the barbershop, the first thing he'd have to do when he got home would be to take a shower to rid himself of all the hair bits that were itching him. Sadie is seven months pregnant, and he relishes the feel of her pregnant stomach against his back when she cuts the hair at the back of his head. Or when she shaves his neck. He pretends he feels the baby kick him. He says, "Ooh--that was a good one." And Sadie says, "One what?" And he tells her it was a kick. When he used to go to the barbershop, he'd feel a belly against his back, too--only it would be the belly of the fat barber.
He buys his salvage vegetables and fruit.
He has his hair cut by Sadie.
After his haircut, he drives around the lake that's in town. He drives through the cemetery and tries to find the stones that have the oldest dates. He knows where all the newest dates are because he hasn't missed a burial in decades.
He looks at the Vietnam helicopters that are posed all over the town. The helicopters are no longer functional. Their working parts have been frozen by welders or filled in with cement.
Years ago, he could have been the one who delivered Sadie's baby, but he no longer practices medicine. Instead, he's devoted himself to finding a boyhood friend of his who disappeared fifteen years ago. He himself had dredged the lake with three types of dredgers. The first dredger was a weighted net. The next one had dull hooks on it. The last one had sharp, barbed hooks on it. He has hired several private detectives, none of whom have found anything. One detective, in fact, had the gall to say that he had made up the disappearance.
He fries his mushrooms and eats them. He eats his terrible strawberries. He slices his cucumber, takes off his shirt, lies on the couch in the parlor, and puts the slices on his chest. He imagines that each slice is someone kissing him. His wife comes home.
"Take those cucumbers off yourself," she tells him.
"I will not take these off," he says.
He continues to lie on the couch. A window opens, someone hunches through the open frame, and steps into the room. It's his boyhood friend--the one who had disappeared so many years ago. His friend wears a long wig, a bridesmaid's dress, and workboots.
"Let's get you a haircut," he says to his friend.
"Will you be my wife?" his friend says to him.
"He's already married," his wife says.
He plucks the cucumbers off his chest and asks if anyone present would like to kiss his places.
After she washes his hair, she cuts it. After she cuts it, she washes his hair again. When she washes his hair the second time, he asks her how her vacations were. She says she never took them, but he pleads with her to pretend and tell him what it was like. It's the second wash that he most loves because, when he used to go to the barbershop, the first thing he'd have to do when he got home would be to take a shower to rid himself of all the hair bits that were itching him. Sadie is seven months pregnant, and he relishes the feel of her pregnant stomach against his back when she cuts the hair at the back of his head. Or when she shaves his neck. He pretends he feels the baby kick him. He says, "Ooh--that was a good one." And Sadie says, "One what?" And he tells her it was a kick. When he used to go to the barbershop, he'd feel a belly against his back, too--only it would be the belly of the fat barber.
He buys his salvage vegetables and fruit.
He has his hair cut by Sadie.
After his haircut, he drives around the lake that's in town. He drives through the cemetery and tries to find the stones that have the oldest dates. He knows where all the newest dates are because he hasn't missed a burial in decades.
He looks at the Vietnam helicopters that are posed all over the town. The helicopters are no longer functional. Their working parts have been frozen by welders or filled in with cement.
Years ago, he could have been the one who delivered Sadie's baby, but he no longer practices medicine. Instead, he's devoted himself to finding a boyhood friend of his who disappeared fifteen years ago. He himself had dredged the lake with three types of dredgers. The first dredger was a weighted net. The next one had dull hooks on it. The last one had sharp, barbed hooks on it. He has hired several private detectives, none of whom have found anything. One detective, in fact, had the gall to say that he had made up the disappearance.
He fries his mushrooms and eats them. He eats his terrible strawberries. He slices his cucumber, takes off his shirt, lies on the couch in the parlor, and puts the slices on his chest. He imagines that each slice is someone kissing him. His wife comes home.
"Take those cucumbers off yourself," she tells him.
"I will not take these off," he says.
He continues to lie on the couch. A window opens, someone hunches through the open frame, and steps into the room. It's his boyhood friend--the one who had disappeared so many years ago. His friend wears a long wig, a bridesmaid's dress, and workboots.
"Let's get you a haircut," he says to his friend.
"Will you be my wife?" his friend says to him.
"He's already married," his wife says.
He plucks the cucumbers off his chest and asks if anyone present would like to kiss his places.
7 MWE: Not a single person was calm in the parade
He tried to sop up what he had spilled on the countertop. He tried to sop up a light green liquid that could have seeped right through the table and onto the floor at any time in the morning. We went to foul the well. We went to spit in the cistern. We weren't supposed to swim in the reservoir, but we still did. We didn't have swimsuits, so we tied t-shirts about our middles. We slept on a trampoline outside. It was a fine way to fall asleep slowly. Our goal was to fall asleep as slowly as possible--to take many hours. We found many comforters in the thrift store. For months, we collected comforters and threw them into our spare room. It became the most comfortable room in the house. We would open up the door, and comforters would slide out. Some of us would sleep on top of many comforters. Others of us would burrow into the center of the room. I stood on top of many comforters. I had a hammer thatIn I used to make a hole in the ceiling. The ceiling looked like cottage cheese. It came down in sheets. I looked in the newspaper and saw that the newspaper printers were trying to get rid of aluminum sheets. I drove a long distance. Her effect on me was not pacific. I had an attack in the middle of a field. It was not quite in the middle. I tried to belittle my sister, but she turned around and spat in a hole I had dug. It was no easy feat. It was not easy to tread water for so many hours, but I had no choice--especially if I wanted to put my head through a large mushroom.
She did not bite her nails. She cut all her nails to the quick. Right to the quick. She had to have all her nails cut close. She tried to cut the nails of her partner. It bothered her that his nails were longer. It bothered her that he wanted the nails on one hand to be long. He said he played the guitar and that he wanted the nails on his left hand to be long. But he did not play the guitar--at least, she never saw him play a guitar. She knew he didn't own one. And, since he is right handed, wouldn't that mean he would have to grow the nails on his right hand long? But he claimed that he played guitars in stores and that when he played them he played them left handed. She had a caniption fit. He vomited in the neighbor's pool. He watched his effluence bloom away from him. He worried he would catch his finger in the filter that was at the bottom of a pool. He had a pit bull mix that, when he threw rocks in the would, would fetch the rocks. He hated the sound of the dog having rocks in its mouth. The sound of the rocks in the dog's mouth reminded him of sunset. It reminded him of when he had a strange thought in a very dark room. He hung upside-down for ten minutes and then righted himself. He heard his blood. He wanted to listen to its blood because, sometimes in its rushing, it explained to him how he should assemble subterranean markings.
There were nuts in the eaves. There were snoozers in the house. They should have gotten up hours ago. She had to wake up the snoozers with a mix she had created. It was a pancake mix. It was not time to be noiseless when it was time for the snoozers to be up. She thought she should dig a moat around the house since the rains would come soon. She saw herself as a mote. She was with a moat because of the rains. Inside the water, she sprinkled oatmeal. She was at the seashore. She had not eaten breakfast, so she sprinkled oats in the water. She swam through her oats with her mouth open wide.
My sister would not eat her dinner. We found we could trick her. We asked her to sing a song-- one in which the lyrics were Open Wide Your Little Mouth. When she sang that song, she had no choice but to open her mouth wide. And every time her mouth opened wide, we crammed a forkful of something into her mouth.
My mother told me where she kept her night-blue nailpolish. It was in a location. It was hard to find. It was not hard to find. The nailpolish was in the attic. It was underneath a pile of spears. I brought the polish back to her, and she asked me to paint her nails. I had never painted nails before. She told me to be careful of the cuticles--not to get any on the cuticles. So I was careful. I painted her nails, some of which had become brittle. Just when I was about finished, I got some paint on her pinky's cuticle. My mother said, "That finishes it. Now you have to paint my fingers. Paint my fingers but beware my knuckles." I painted her fingers, and of course I could not avoid her knuckles. Once I got some paint on her knuckles, she said I might as well paint her entire hands. Her arms. He shoulders. She removed her nightgown and had me paint her chest--all with night-blue nailpolish. I was surprised to see three hairs in the center of my mothers chest. Three more hairs than I have. Would you like me to remove these, I thought, but then I remembered they were there because my father liked them. That must have been a large bottle of nailpolish! And it was. It came in a five-gallon container.
One the side of the five-gallon container, there was a warning. The warning was a cartoon that showed a baby falling into the container. I wondered if babies had fallen into five-gallon containers or paint or roofing tar. Five gallons of it. I called the companies, asking them if babies had fallen in. "Did you put that warning there because of something that happened? Or did you put it there because of incredible foresight?"
The pickle factory was closed because it poisoned us all. We couldn't ride the horse because everyone who rode it got a disease. We couldn't pet the cat because it bites. We couldn't cross the river because we were afraid. I sat on a wooden chair. The chair was slippery, so I fell off it. We were seeing who could sit on it the longest. I was lonely, so I hired some kids to paint my house. Whenever I felt lonely, I'd have a coat of paint put on the house. I would wrap thick ropes around my arms and legs.
She did not bite her nails. She cut all her nails to the quick. Right to the quick. She had to have all her nails cut close. She tried to cut the nails of her partner. It bothered her that his nails were longer. It bothered her that he wanted the nails on one hand to be long. He said he played the guitar and that he wanted the nails on his left hand to be long. But he did not play the guitar--at least, she never saw him play a guitar. She knew he didn't own one. And, since he is right handed, wouldn't that mean he would have to grow the nails on his right hand long? But he claimed that he played guitars in stores and that when he played them he played them left handed. She had a caniption fit. He vomited in the neighbor's pool. He watched his effluence bloom away from him. He worried he would catch his finger in the filter that was at the bottom of a pool. He had a pit bull mix that, when he threw rocks in the would, would fetch the rocks. He hated the sound of the dog having rocks in its mouth. The sound of the rocks in the dog's mouth reminded him of sunset. It reminded him of when he had a strange thought in a very dark room. He hung upside-down for ten minutes and then righted himself. He heard his blood. He wanted to listen to its blood because, sometimes in its rushing, it explained to him how he should assemble subterranean markings.
There were nuts in the eaves. There were snoozers in the house. They should have gotten up hours ago. She had to wake up the snoozers with a mix she had created. It was a pancake mix. It was not time to be noiseless when it was time for the snoozers to be up. She thought she should dig a moat around the house since the rains would come soon. She saw herself as a mote. She was with a moat because of the rains. Inside the water, she sprinkled oatmeal. She was at the seashore. She had not eaten breakfast, so she sprinkled oats in the water. She swam through her oats with her mouth open wide.
My sister would not eat her dinner. We found we could trick her. We asked her to sing a song-- one in which the lyrics were Open Wide Your Little Mouth. When she sang that song, she had no choice but to open her mouth wide. And every time her mouth opened wide, we crammed a forkful of something into her mouth.
My mother told me where she kept her night-blue nailpolish. It was in a location. It was hard to find. It was not hard to find. The nailpolish was in the attic. It was underneath a pile of spears. I brought the polish back to her, and she asked me to paint her nails. I had never painted nails before. She told me to be careful of the cuticles--not to get any on the cuticles. So I was careful. I painted her nails, some of which had become brittle. Just when I was about finished, I got some paint on her pinky's cuticle. My mother said, "That finishes it. Now you have to paint my fingers. Paint my fingers but beware my knuckles." I painted her fingers, and of course I could not avoid her knuckles. Once I got some paint on her knuckles, she said I might as well paint her entire hands. Her arms. He shoulders. She removed her nightgown and had me paint her chest--all with night-blue nailpolish. I was surprised to see three hairs in the center of my mothers chest. Three more hairs than I have. Would you like me to remove these, I thought, but then I remembered they were there because my father liked them. That must have been a large bottle of nailpolish! And it was. It came in a five-gallon container.
One the side of the five-gallon container, there was a warning. The warning was a cartoon that showed a baby falling into the container. I wondered if babies had fallen into five-gallon containers or paint or roofing tar. Five gallons of it. I called the companies, asking them if babies had fallen in. "Did you put that warning there because of something that happened? Or did you put it there because of incredible foresight?"
The pickle factory was closed because it poisoned us all. We couldn't ride the horse because everyone who rode it got a disease. We couldn't pet the cat because it bites. We couldn't cross the river because we were afraid. I sat on a wooden chair. The chair was slippery, so I fell off it. We were seeing who could sit on it the longest. I was lonely, so I hired some kids to paint my house. Whenever I felt lonely, I'd have a coat of paint put on the house. I would wrap thick ropes around my arms and legs.
WHAT IT IS
I have just one headlight. I have not registered my car because my license is suspended. Though I'm worried about the police pulling me over, I drive to work anyway because no buses run at two or three AM. Earlier today, I started digging a hole for my trailer. I have an Airstream trailer--one of those long, silver, hot-dog-shaped ones that were popular in the 70s. The trailer has a skylight on its top. If I make my hole deep enough, and if I bury the trailer as I want to, then I will make sure that the skylight serves as a hatch. That's how I'll get into my trailer once it's buried. I'd be able to live underground then, and I'm sure that if I were to live underground, it would be quiet.
There's a warrant for my arrest--but not for anything violent. Just one headlight. On my way to work just before three AM, I see a patrol car, so I flash it with my one light, and it flashes me back. I'm not sure why patrol cars never pull me over so long as I flash them with my one light. Maybe it's because my flash is blatant. It's as if my flash says, "Yes, I'm aware of my delinquency, but, believe me, I will take care of it." Or maybe I don't get pulled over because it's one of my job's perks.
And I am aware of my delinquency. I'm aware that I owe my children thousands of dollars of back child support. I am aware that their mother is still dead and that they live with their sick and old grandmother in the suburbs. I'm aware that they don't want to visit me because, as my son says, "Your domicile is not fit for habitation." The last time I visited my kids in the suburbs, I was impressed by how clear their complexions were. I myself remember picking and squeezing through years of cystic acne. When I visited, I saw that my son had taken to taming magpies. He would steal them from their mothers when they were young and raise them as his own to do his bidding, which was mostly that he wanted them to bring him coins and jewelry.
I was surprised that my son decided to tell me his terrible secret about how he best tamed his magpies. I didn't expect him to tell me anything--let alone his best secret. He told me that when the magpies were little, he would break one of their legs. They never remembered he was the one who broke their legs, of course, and they probably also didn't remember that he was the one who brought them back to health. He made sure, though, that their legs never completely healed. All his tame magpies had limps, and it was painful for me to see how loyal they were to him, how they brought him things they could barely carry from far away. They brought him coins and bracelets. They brought him rings.
"I once saw a bird of mine peck a woman until she gave it her pendant," he told me.
My son. My son also told me that someone was tying gold ribbon around lit cigarettes so that his birds would pick them up and bring them to him. My son wasn't sure if this person who planted the cigarettes was trying to be his friend or if this person was already his enemy.
"Is this person trying to give me gifts of lit cigarettes? Or is this person trying to burn me down?" my son asked.
I told him I couldn't tell him--only that it wasn't I who was doing it. I sometimes saw limping magpies near my trailer in the city, and I wondered if my son had sent them to take my coins. I did, after all, owe my children thousands.
I don't know much about my daughter except that she administers dialysis to her grandmother three times a day. I know that she rides her bike fast and without a helmet. It is not my place to tell her to wear a helmet.
I arrive at work. I have a simple job. It's to clean a bar from three AM to seven AM. The bar, by law, is supposed to close at two, but it stays open for an hour extra because that's when all the police come in to drink. The owner of the bar knows that I have stopped drinking. He likes to tell the police that he'll give them free drinks if they can force me to drink.
"Free drinks for anyone who can get this waste to drink," the owner says. He says this tonight.
There's a warrant for my arrest--but not for anything violent. Just one headlight. On my way to work just before three AM, I see a patrol car, so I flash it with my one light, and it flashes me back. I'm not sure why patrol cars never pull me over so long as I flash them with my one light. Maybe it's because my flash is blatant. It's as if my flash says, "Yes, I'm aware of my delinquency, but, believe me, I will take care of it." Or maybe I don't get pulled over because it's one of my job's perks.
And I am aware of my delinquency. I'm aware that I owe my children thousands of dollars of back child support. I am aware that their mother is still dead and that they live with their sick and old grandmother in the suburbs. I'm aware that they don't want to visit me because, as my son says, "Your domicile is not fit for habitation." The last time I visited my kids in the suburbs, I was impressed by how clear their complexions were. I myself remember picking and squeezing through years of cystic acne. When I visited, I saw that my son had taken to taming magpies. He would steal them from their mothers when they were young and raise them as his own to do his bidding, which was mostly that he wanted them to bring him coins and jewelry.
I was surprised that my son decided to tell me his terrible secret about how he best tamed his magpies. I didn't expect him to tell me anything--let alone his best secret. He told me that when the magpies were little, he would break one of their legs. They never remembered he was the one who broke their legs, of course, and they probably also didn't remember that he was the one who brought them back to health. He made sure, though, that their legs never completely healed. All his tame magpies had limps, and it was painful for me to see how loyal they were to him, how they brought him things they could barely carry from far away. They brought him coins and bracelets. They brought him rings.
"I once saw a bird of mine peck a woman until she gave it her pendant," he told me.
My son. My son also told me that someone was tying gold ribbon around lit cigarettes so that his birds would pick them up and bring them to him. My son wasn't sure if this person who planted the cigarettes was trying to be his friend or if this person was already his enemy.
"Is this person trying to give me gifts of lit cigarettes? Or is this person trying to burn me down?" my son asked.
I told him I couldn't tell him--only that it wasn't I who was doing it. I sometimes saw limping magpies near my trailer in the city, and I wondered if my son had sent them to take my coins. I did, after all, owe my children thousands.
I don't know much about my daughter except that she administers dialysis to her grandmother three times a day. I know that she rides her bike fast and without a helmet. It is not my place to tell her to wear a helmet.
I arrive at work. I have a simple job. It's to clean a bar from three AM to seven AM. The bar, by law, is supposed to close at two, but it stays open for an hour extra because that's when all the police come in to drink. The owner of the bar knows that I have stopped drinking. He likes to tell the police that he'll give them free drinks if they can force me to drink.
"Free drinks for anyone who can get this waste to drink," the owner says. He says this tonight.
Monday, August 8, 2011
WHAT IT IS
We had a going-away party for ourselves, but I thought of it as a going-astray party. We invited people from our work over, but once they were in our small apartment, I saw it was more of a trap than a party for everyone. We did not provide enough food or drink, for one thing. There were bottles of wine, but I had hidden them in the fake closet that had the heater in it. After everyone left, she spat on me, and the spit was purple because we had been drinking the wine. Her otherwise white teeth were gray because of the wine. She thought a lot about teeth. She liked them straight and white, and mine were neither of those things, so I worried when I saw her looking at my teeth.
At the going-away party, one of my friends got stuck in a wall. Somehow, he had been looking at one of my posters, only to find himself in a wall. I had to remove a panel underneath the sink to get into the wall and find him. I slid along, inside the wall, until I found my friend, who then urgently asked me for all the names of the people at the party. I whispered the names to him, though I wasn't sure of some of her friends' names. And, even if I knew the names of her friends, I was unsure of the pronunciation--that is, if I should stress the syllable before the last one or an earlier syllable.
She spat on me after everyone had left. She was upset because, once everyone left, I opened up bottles of wine and began to make omelets. She was upset because I left our bedroom door open when I cooked the omelets. She hated the smell of food--"kitchen smells," she called them--in our bedroom. Her name was Sycamore, which was odd because that was my name, too. She spat a purple wad onto me. She cried, and as she cried, she produced amazing quantities of snot, which she collected and cupped in her hand before wiping them on me.
She screamed that I shouldn't have gone to my friend in the wall. I should have left him there to die. I should have left him there and called the landlord to dispose of him. I shouldn't have told him everyone's names, and she was certain that, when we were in the wall, we had talked about other women and how we wanted to be with them instead of anyone else. She said we laughed about all this, and I told her I couldn't remember laughing. There were great blotches of wax in the carpet of our bedroom because, the other night, trying to be romantic, we had lit candles only to forget them. That happened the other night. Sycamore pronounced "wax" as "waz."
I tried to open the window in our bedroom. I wanted to escape, but she grabbed me and pulled me back in. I couldn't help but to laugh, and she said, see, that's just how you laughed about the women with your friend in the wall. I realized that, yes, we had spoken about women in the wall. I realized I had laughed. I made a confession to her, and tornado sirens sounded outside. That summer, we had heard the sirens so much that we didn't take them seriously anymore. The first time we had heard them, we had responded and scuttled into the basement of someone's house across the road. We didn't know the person--it was an old man--and we begged him to let us in. We begged him to let us in his basement. He had stacks and stacks of board games in his basement. He had hundreds of pairs of athletic cleats. We later learned that, like some kind of scary human magpie, he broke into homes and stole board games. He broke into school gyms and locker rooms and stole cleats. He told us that the best day of his life was when a pregnant woman cut his hair. He told us that when she shaved his neck he felt her big belly on his back. He didn't feel a kick, but it would have been nice to feel one.
At the going-away party, one of my friends got stuck in a wall. Somehow, he had been looking at one of my posters, only to find himself in a wall. I had to remove a panel underneath the sink to get into the wall and find him. I slid along, inside the wall, until I found my friend, who then urgently asked me for all the names of the people at the party. I whispered the names to him, though I wasn't sure of some of her friends' names. And, even if I knew the names of her friends, I was unsure of the pronunciation--that is, if I should stress the syllable before the last one or an earlier syllable.
She spat on me after everyone had left. She was upset because, once everyone left, I opened up bottles of wine and began to make omelets. She was upset because I left our bedroom door open when I cooked the omelets. She hated the smell of food--"kitchen smells," she called them--in our bedroom. Her name was Sycamore, which was odd because that was my name, too. She spat a purple wad onto me. She cried, and as she cried, she produced amazing quantities of snot, which she collected and cupped in her hand before wiping them on me.
She screamed that I shouldn't have gone to my friend in the wall. I should have left him there to die. I should have left him there and called the landlord to dispose of him. I shouldn't have told him everyone's names, and she was certain that, when we were in the wall, we had talked about other women and how we wanted to be with them instead of anyone else. She said we laughed about all this, and I told her I couldn't remember laughing. There were great blotches of wax in the carpet of our bedroom because, the other night, trying to be romantic, we had lit candles only to forget them. That happened the other night. Sycamore pronounced "wax" as "waz."
I tried to open the window in our bedroom. I wanted to escape, but she grabbed me and pulled me back in. I couldn't help but to laugh, and she said, see, that's just how you laughed about the women with your friend in the wall. I realized that, yes, we had spoken about women in the wall. I realized I had laughed. I made a confession to her, and tornado sirens sounded outside. That summer, we had heard the sirens so much that we didn't take them seriously anymore. The first time we had heard them, we had responded and scuttled into the basement of someone's house across the road. We didn't know the person--it was an old man--and we begged him to let us in. We begged him to let us in his basement. He had stacks and stacks of board games in his basement. He had hundreds of pairs of athletic cleats. We later learned that, like some kind of scary human magpie, he broke into homes and stole board games. He broke into school gyms and locker rooms and stole cleats. He told us that the best day of his life was when a pregnant woman cut his hair. He told us that when she shaved his neck he felt her big belly on his back. He didn't feel a kick, but it would have been nice to feel one.
7 MWE: The ninny was sailing his ship across the junkyard
She did not have much to make soup. She cut up some garlic and cooked it in oil with herbs. She added water and let it simmer for half an hour. That was her soup. She had some dough, so she tossed rubs of dough in her soup. She made dumplings. She coddled an egg in her soup. She had chickens. Yesterday, she had given her chicken mussel shells to eat. It started to rain. She had been bucket bathing for months. It started to rain, so she took off her clothes, stood in the rain, and soaped herself up. She expected it to stop raining when she was still soapy, but it rained and rained and gave her plenty of time to rinse. After the rain, she took her mussel shells to stomp on. After she stomped her mussels shell, she called to her chickens by calling churrras. Churrras. All the chickens came to her and started pecking at the shells. Two days ago, she had gotten drunk and had thrown a log at her chickens. She had only wanted to frighten one of them, but when she threw the log, she accidentally hurt one gravely. She had to kill it, even though she didn't want to kill it. To cut off its head, she slipped it into an orange traffic cone. The head of the chicken stuck out of the pointed end of the traffic cone. The chicken was easy to kill when it was in the cone. All she had to do was chop off its head with a hatchet. After chopping off the chicken's head, she submerged it in boiling water so that she'd be able to pull out its feathers. If she didn't keep it in the water long enough, then the feathers wouldn't come out easily. If she kept it in for too long, then skin would come off with feathers. There'd be a mess. She had to keep the chicken in the water for just the right amount of time.
The young people who got drunk in the square weren't too smart. The square was paved with rock. Under to rock, there were supposed to be many bodies. These were bodies of people who were buried with animals. Many people were buried with animals. They were dead, and then live animals were buried with them. In this square. The young people were nitwits. They were dolts. They were ignoramuses. They were simpletons. They were not too intelligent. They would buy a bottle of cheap cola, and they would buy a bottle of cheap port. Many times, I saw them pour out half the bottle of cola before they poured some port into that same bottle. Why don't you drink the cola, I thought. Why do you waste the cola? Why don't you have a third container? You have a third container to pour some cola and some port in. In which to pour. So they get drunk on their wine and cola. It's something to see them throw themselves around the square. To make money for more port, they sell postcards to tourists. They buy the postcards for one coin and sell them to tourists for two coins. Or, better yet, they steal the cards because the cards are so easy to steal. They steal them and sell them to tourists for two coins. They buy the port. They buy the cola. They mix the two and have a drink. They have drinks because they are on the square. They piss against rock walls in gold light at the end of the day.
She was in the doldrums. The dumps. She was told that she did not hit the ball right. She was dull. She was insipid. She was prosaic. She wanted to hit a cymbal with a sausage in order to hear if it would re-create the sound her grandfather made when he hit his head on a brass bannister. The empty and stupid box. The sadness at the end of Sunday. The excrement packed neatly away for later inspection. She got her comeuppance.
To honor the memory of her father, she tied a kite string around his grave. She held onto the other end. The other end was a yellow plastic spool with handles. She had to pay out the spool to go to other places. The one end was tied around her father's gravestone. The other end was a spool. She had to pay it out. She would get asked on dates, but she couldn't go anywhere on a motorcycle or a car because she wasn't able to pay out her kite string fast enough. "Leave the kite string," some guy told her. This guy told her earlier that he had to get all his fillings taken out of his teeth and replaced because they were telling his mind odd things. "There must be some off metal in them," he said, "because the metal gives me strange ideas." But, later, he told her to leave her kite string and the memory of her father. He wanted her to ride on the back of his motorcycle. He wanted her to lie on the road so that he could try to jump her. He wanted her to come with him to steal strawberries from an old farmer. The farmer did not have a shotgun. That's the old cliche. Instead, the farmer had an atl-atl with which he would launch spears. It was beautiful to see him launch a spear. Many strawberry thieves would pause to see him launch a spear at them. He had a jai-alai glove. My father had a jai-alai mitt. If I misbehaved, I was to put myself against the brick wall that separated our property from the property of my best friend's mother. My father would launch bitter mangoes at me. My friend and I tried to sell those mangoes, but they made so many people unhappy. Instead, we had to go into canals and steal mangoes that drooped over into the canal. We stole many mangoes, and each one sold for a dollar. My father used the jai-alai mitt to throw mangoes at me. They left bruises on me. One hit me on the back of my neck and stunned me. One hit me on my right side--right on my live--and put me on the ground. My father yelled at me that I was faking it. But I wasn't faking it. My friend and I would sneak onto a golf course at night. We would drench balls with glowing liquid and hit the balls.
The young people who got drunk in the square weren't too smart. The square was paved with rock. Under to rock, there were supposed to be many bodies. These were bodies of people who were buried with animals. Many people were buried with animals. They were dead, and then live animals were buried with them. In this square. The young people were nitwits. They were dolts. They were ignoramuses. They were simpletons. They were not too intelligent. They would buy a bottle of cheap cola, and they would buy a bottle of cheap port. Many times, I saw them pour out half the bottle of cola before they poured some port into that same bottle. Why don't you drink the cola, I thought. Why do you waste the cola? Why don't you have a third container? You have a third container to pour some cola and some port in. In which to pour. So they get drunk on their wine and cola. It's something to see them throw themselves around the square. To make money for more port, they sell postcards to tourists. They buy the postcards for one coin and sell them to tourists for two coins. Or, better yet, they steal the cards because the cards are so easy to steal. They steal them and sell them to tourists for two coins. They buy the port. They buy the cola. They mix the two and have a drink. They have drinks because they are on the square. They piss against rock walls in gold light at the end of the day.
She was in the doldrums. The dumps. She was told that she did not hit the ball right. She was dull. She was insipid. She was prosaic. She wanted to hit a cymbal with a sausage in order to hear if it would re-create the sound her grandfather made when he hit his head on a brass bannister. The empty and stupid box. The sadness at the end of Sunday. The excrement packed neatly away for later inspection. She got her comeuppance.
To honor the memory of her father, she tied a kite string around his grave. She held onto the other end. The other end was a yellow plastic spool with handles. She had to pay out the spool to go to other places. The one end was tied around her father's gravestone. The other end was a spool. She had to pay it out. She would get asked on dates, but she couldn't go anywhere on a motorcycle or a car because she wasn't able to pay out her kite string fast enough. "Leave the kite string," some guy told her. This guy told her earlier that he had to get all his fillings taken out of his teeth and replaced because they were telling his mind odd things. "There must be some off metal in them," he said, "because the metal gives me strange ideas." But, later, he told her to leave her kite string and the memory of her father. He wanted her to ride on the back of his motorcycle. He wanted her to lie on the road so that he could try to jump her. He wanted her to come with him to steal strawberries from an old farmer. The farmer did not have a shotgun. That's the old cliche. Instead, the farmer had an atl-atl with which he would launch spears. It was beautiful to see him launch a spear. Many strawberry thieves would pause to see him launch a spear at them. He had a jai-alai glove. My father had a jai-alai mitt. If I misbehaved, I was to put myself against the brick wall that separated our property from the property of my best friend's mother. My father would launch bitter mangoes at me. My friend and I tried to sell those mangoes, but they made so many people unhappy. Instead, we had to go into canals and steal mangoes that drooped over into the canal. We stole many mangoes, and each one sold for a dollar. My father used the jai-alai mitt to throw mangoes at me. They left bruises on me. One hit me on the back of my neck and stunned me. One hit me on my right side--right on my live--and put me on the ground. My father yelled at me that I was faking it. But I wasn't faking it. My friend and I would sneak onto a golf course at night. We would drench balls with glowing liquid and hit the balls.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
WHAT IT IS
Since no one else wanted to be with him, and since he couldn't be left alone, I was the one who ended up accompanying him on all his errands. He had a small dog that never left his body. Most of the time, the dog perched on his large shoulders, but when the dog felt especially threatened, it would climb onto his bald head and make boiling noises. To piss, the dog would scratch his shoulder. He'd hold out one of his arms, the dog would walk it like a plank, and then piss off the end--just missing his stubby fingers.
I was supposed to watch this man--to make sure he didn't kill anyone, steal anything, or take bodies to turn into skeletons. That's what he had done to my grandmother's body. He had made it a skeleton. She had expressed in her will that she wanted to be cremated, but he got to her body first, removed all the meat off it, and dried out her bones one by one in his electric oven. He made a beautiful base out of carved wood, set a metal pole into the base, and, with wires, hung her bones on the pole. What granddaughter can say she's touched her grandmother's bones? Certainly many can say that who are in other countries, but I can say it, too. The man had a tattoo of a beer can's pull tab on the top of his head, but he says he got that tattoo in his drinking days but that now his drinking days are over. They have been over for ten days.
I went to the dump with him.
"I was supposed to be the manager here," he told me at the dump. His dog scratched his shoulder.
"I worked here for years--got this dump under control--and it was understood I'd be the next manager. But they passed me up and gave the post to the son of the fire captain."
The dog scratched his shoulder urgently. I reached over and shoved the dog off him. After the dog hit the ground, and after it got its senses back, it behave as if the ground were trying to eat it. It threw itself at the man's legs, but then I pushed him down, too.
"You're not the dump manager because you can't be trusted with anyone's garbage," I yelled at him.
I was supposed to watch this man--to make sure he didn't kill anyone, steal anything, or take bodies to turn into skeletons. That's what he had done to my grandmother's body. He had made it a skeleton. She had expressed in her will that she wanted to be cremated, but he got to her body first, removed all the meat off it, and dried out her bones one by one in his electric oven. He made a beautiful base out of carved wood, set a metal pole into the base, and, with wires, hung her bones on the pole. What granddaughter can say she's touched her grandmother's bones? Certainly many can say that who are in other countries, but I can say it, too. The man had a tattoo of a beer can's pull tab on the top of his head, but he says he got that tattoo in his drinking days but that now his drinking days are over. They have been over for ten days.
I went to the dump with him.
"I was supposed to be the manager here," he told me at the dump. His dog scratched his shoulder.
"I worked here for years--got this dump under control--and it was understood I'd be the next manager. But they passed me up and gave the post to the son of the fire captain."
The dog scratched his shoulder urgently. I reached over and shoved the dog off him. After the dog hit the ground, and after it got its senses back, it behave as if the ground were trying to eat it. It threw itself at the man's legs, but then I pushed him down, too.
"You're not the dump manager because you can't be trusted with anyone's garbage," I yelled at him.
7 MWE: The bedding, the bloodletting
He squats in his garden and pulls out weeds. He accidentally pulled a carrot before it was ready. He accidentally pulled a beet. In the newspaper, he read that there would be an auction of the things of people who had storage areas but who didn't pay for their storage areas. His goal was to kiss a crow on the beak. He was told his life would be awful until he kissed a crow on the beak, so he went about trying to tame them. His hemoglobin told him that he wasn't much without his mother. His hemoglobin told him that he wouldn't be much if he tried his hand at technical writing. He wouldn't be much. She was missing a tooth. It was a distracting tooth. She wasn't missing a front one or a back one. She was missing one in between. It made him think she was a horse. That's where the bit could be slipped in.
Some froth around the bit. The horse had frothed a little around its bit. She was inhuman. She had him eat turmeric. They put turmeric in everything because they believed it had some sort of property. Retching on the seat of his country, she found that yesterday the wretched etching in the market could have been a bird's wing but instead it tithed for the right money yes I am not happy in my plot to leak all the water out of the bush in the road with the funk on the model watching your favorite rocket scream across the sky only to walk on the balls of your feet with all your tubular boisterous finality of a juggler who does not know a rod will be implanted in his neck so that he can look only down. He can only look down. Only he can look down.
Moppy rides in the car with her mother. Her mother drives. As her mother drives, she eats some yogurt she had made. The mother loves to make yogurt. She loves to talk about how easy it is and how it was her grandmother who gave her mother a yogurt culture. And then her mother gave her her yogurt culture, and that's the culture she uses to make her yogurt. And then she will give her yogurt culture to Moppy, and Moppy will be the one to eat yogurt. But Moppy does not like yogurt. "You will," he mother says. Moppy's mother drives. Moppy does not like yogurt, but she likes carrying around a candle. For years now, she has carried a lit candle wherever she goes. She has to carry the candle, and the candle has to be lit. She wears tall socks, and tucked in these socks, she keeps a couple of extra candles. She also has books and boxes of matches. She has books of matches. The matches are waxed paper. She has boxes of matches. The matches are wood. She has long kitchen matches. Moppy carries around her candles. Some candles she has can last over 24 hours. These candles give her some relief. Other candles she has last only an hour or so. She always carries a candle. Her mother drives. She has a candle. Her mother eats yogurt and talks about yogurt. Her mother becomes quiet. Moppy doesn't notice this at first because she is busy cupping her hand around her candle. Her mother has her window cracked.
The gory grit. The earthworm. The bostonian with the lisp. He cut off her braid. She had a french braid. The dendrites were gilt. The barrel was lit on fire, and we dared each other to stand in it. Stand in the lit barrel. It was a metal drum with a fire in it. How long can you hold your head in it. In order to make it on the handball team, you had to see how long you could hold your head in a flaming metal drum.
I was the maid of honor in my sister's wedding. I was honored. I was honored and excited to wear the dress. I was honored, but I told her I would not be at the wedding. When I went to the wedding, I saw a python. The python made me remember when I wore a dress. My mother told me to take it off because she said I shouldn't wear dresses. Reaching for a dress, I felt something inside me rip. I ripped through my inheritance. Good riddance to a one-million dollar inheritance. I went through it. I went to a gorge. I wanted to get to the bottom of the gorge. To get to the bottom of the gorge, I had to take a metal cage that was a kind of outdoor elevator. It was attached to what looked like winches and gears and oversized bike chains. I waited in line to get in the cage. The cage could hold only five people, and there must have been thousands of us in the line. I waited to get in the cage. When I got to the front of the line, the cage operator asked me to get out of the line. He wanted to speak with me. He said that he was certain that the two of us had met at a beach park. We had spent the day with each other, he said. He said that, at the end of our date, we ended up sitting at night in a beach park. We both sat on a bench and kissed. Then, he said, to his surprise, I put myself on top of him. He put his hands on my hips, and I took his hands off. We made sand drip castles. We took wet sand to the road. We were given the task of guarding a tree. We were told not to let anyone eat any of the fruit off the tree. It was a mango tree--only, in all of its mangoes, there were gifts. We were told that if we made it through July by not allowing anyone to take any of the fruit, we would be rewarded.
The child never ate vegetables in the house, but when we were outside in the garden, he would eat vegetables. He would eat tomatoes off the plant--at least 20 tomatoes he'd eat. He'd eat raw kale. I hated his kale breath. He often would eat kale and then want to kiss me.
Some froth around the bit. The horse had frothed a little around its bit. She was inhuman. She had him eat turmeric. They put turmeric in everything because they believed it had some sort of property. Retching on the seat of his country, she found that yesterday the wretched etching in the market could have been a bird's wing but instead it tithed for the right money yes I am not happy in my plot to leak all the water out of the bush in the road with the funk on the model watching your favorite rocket scream across the sky only to walk on the balls of your feet with all your tubular boisterous finality of a juggler who does not know a rod will be implanted in his neck so that he can look only down. He can only look down. Only he can look down.
Moppy rides in the car with her mother. Her mother drives. As her mother drives, she eats some yogurt she had made. The mother loves to make yogurt. She loves to talk about how easy it is and how it was her grandmother who gave her mother a yogurt culture. And then her mother gave her her yogurt culture, and that's the culture she uses to make her yogurt. And then she will give her yogurt culture to Moppy, and Moppy will be the one to eat yogurt. But Moppy does not like yogurt. "You will," he mother says. Moppy's mother drives. Moppy does not like yogurt, but she likes carrying around a candle. For years now, she has carried a lit candle wherever she goes. She has to carry the candle, and the candle has to be lit. She wears tall socks, and tucked in these socks, she keeps a couple of extra candles. She also has books and boxes of matches. She has books of matches. The matches are waxed paper. She has boxes of matches. The matches are wood. She has long kitchen matches. Moppy carries around her candles. Some candles she has can last over 24 hours. These candles give her some relief. Other candles she has last only an hour or so. She always carries a candle. Her mother drives. She has a candle. Her mother eats yogurt and talks about yogurt. Her mother becomes quiet. Moppy doesn't notice this at first because she is busy cupping her hand around her candle. Her mother has her window cracked.
The gory grit. The earthworm. The bostonian with the lisp. He cut off her braid. She had a french braid. The dendrites were gilt. The barrel was lit on fire, and we dared each other to stand in it. Stand in the lit barrel. It was a metal drum with a fire in it. How long can you hold your head in it. In order to make it on the handball team, you had to see how long you could hold your head in a flaming metal drum.
I was the maid of honor in my sister's wedding. I was honored. I was honored and excited to wear the dress. I was honored, but I told her I would not be at the wedding. When I went to the wedding, I saw a python. The python made me remember when I wore a dress. My mother told me to take it off because she said I shouldn't wear dresses. Reaching for a dress, I felt something inside me rip. I ripped through my inheritance. Good riddance to a one-million dollar inheritance. I went through it. I went to a gorge. I wanted to get to the bottom of the gorge. To get to the bottom of the gorge, I had to take a metal cage that was a kind of outdoor elevator. It was attached to what looked like winches and gears and oversized bike chains. I waited in line to get in the cage. The cage could hold only five people, and there must have been thousands of us in the line. I waited to get in the cage. When I got to the front of the line, the cage operator asked me to get out of the line. He wanted to speak with me. He said that he was certain that the two of us had met at a beach park. We had spent the day with each other, he said. He said that, at the end of our date, we ended up sitting at night in a beach park. We both sat on a bench and kissed. Then, he said, to his surprise, I put myself on top of him. He put his hands on my hips, and I took his hands off. We made sand drip castles. We took wet sand to the road. We were given the task of guarding a tree. We were told not to let anyone eat any of the fruit off the tree. It was a mango tree--only, in all of its mangoes, there were gifts. We were told that if we made it through July by not allowing anyone to take any of the fruit, we would be rewarded.
The child never ate vegetables in the house, but when we were outside in the garden, he would eat vegetables. He would eat tomatoes off the plant--at least 20 tomatoes he'd eat. He'd eat raw kale. I hated his kale breath. He often would eat kale and then want to kiss me.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
WHAT IT IS
I consider Mr. Camps to be my mother, but I don't tell him that. I see Mr. Camps in a hospital birthing me. He is pleased when his labor is over and that all went well and that he didn't need a cesarian section. The nurses tell him that they've seen many babies but that none have ever had the elegance about them that I have. I don't tell Mr. Camps anything about any of that, but it's still what I think, and there is nothing that says I can't think it if I can't get it out of my thoughts.
I am in Mr. Camps's key shop. It's where he makes keys--even the keys that say, "DO NOT DUPLICATE." Everyone knows that Mr. Camps will copy such keys. It's just that he'll probably charge you more. He could charge you one dollar more or maybe five kay more. It's all in how you look when you ask. At the key shop, Mr. Camps also bakes bread and repairs umbrellas.
"There are many umbrella in this city, and no one is willing to fix them except me," Mr. Camps often says. He repairs umbrellas for half the price it would be to get a new one. For some extra money, he will even make it so that you can conceal a knife in the handle of your umbrella. If this is what you want, then you can expect Mr. Camps will replace your old umbrella handle with a new handle that's a wooden duck's head. He carves these duck's heads himself, and whenever I am walking around the city and see someone with an umbrella with a wooden duck's head, I often cross to the other side of the street for fear of being knifed.
I bring all the keys I find to Mr. Camps and have him make copies for me. He even duplicates the ones that say, "DO NOT DUPLICATE," and he never charges me extra because there must be something in the way I look that says I have no desire to break into anyone else's room. I have no desire to get at something good. I simply find keys and want to see copies made.
I bring him five keys today. The key shop smells like bread because Mr. Camps is making some wheat bread with wheatberries and oats. He gives me some bread. He has a jar of brown spread, which he offers to me.
"Put some of this on your bread," he tells me. I put it on. It tastes like strange chocolate and is grainy on my teeth. It has grit in it. He says the grit comes from a volcano that killed 50,000 people. He says he puts that grit in his chocolate to remind himself that, yes, I am lucky to eat chocolate on excellent bread, but let me not forget things like volcanoes, which can kill 50,000 people right off.
I eat the bread and feel the grit. My mother, Mr. Camps. Mr Camps looks at his shining, shimmering wall of blank keys and selects the ones that best match the keys I brought.
I am in Mr. Camps's key shop. It's where he makes keys--even the keys that say, "DO NOT DUPLICATE." Everyone knows that Mr. Camps will copy such keys. It's just that he'll probably charge you more. He could charge you one dollar more or maybe five kay more. It's all in how you look when you ask. At the key shop, Mr. Camps also bakes bread and repairs umbrellas.
"There are many umbrella in this city, and no one is willing to fix them except me," Mr. Camps often says. He repairs umbrellas for half the price it would be to get a new one. For some extra money, he will even make it so that you can conceal a knife in the handle of your umbrella. If this is what you want, then you can expect Mr. Camps will replace your old umbrella handle with a new handle that's a wooden duck's head. He carves these duck's heads himself, and whenever I am walking around the city and see someone with an umbrella with a wooden duck's head, I often cross to the other side of the street for fear of being knifed.
I bring all the keys I find to Mr. Camps and have him make copies for me. He even duplicates the ones that say, "DO NOT DUPLICATE," and he never charges me extra because there must be something in the way I look that says I have no desire to break into anyone else's room. I have no desire to get at something good. I simply find keys and want to see copies made.
I bring him five keys today. The key shop smells like bread because Mr. Camps is making some wheat bread with wheatberries and oats. He gives me some bread. He has a jar of brown spread, which he offers to me.
"Put some of this on your bread," he tells me. I put it on. It tastes like strange chocolate and is grainy on my teeth. It has grit in it. He says the grit comes from a volcano that killed 50,000 people. He says he puts that grit in his chocolate to remind himself that, yes, I am lucky to eat chocolate on excellent bread, but let me not forget things like volcanoes, which can kill 50,000 people right off.
I eat the bread and feel the grit. My mother, Mr. Camps. Mr Camps looks at his shining, shimmering wall of blank keys and selects the ones that best match the keys I brought.
7 MWE: The fish blinded those who took it from the water
He has terrible blisters on his arms. Very big blisters full of liquid. He looks in one of his blisters and sees a plastic figurine. He sees a dead bird. He sees a rabbit in his garden. A rabbit in his garden. The road had honey on it. They were trying to pave the road with honey and corn puffs. Good luck paving the road with those things in the summer. He used the kitchen sponge to stop his mother's bleeding. He had to wring out the sponge ten times.
The child was sturdy and muscular. The child could have swallowed a water balloon. They had put flour in the water balloons. When you got hit by a water balloon with flour in it, you got the sensation that you'd never known your loved ones and that, in fact, your loved ones wanted nothing to do with your rotting body. He left his nail clippings in a pile on his night table. If you want to start a fire, a good way to do it is with six corncobs. The cows drink from a trough that always has goldfish in it. The schoolroom is cold in the winter. But if you sit near the iron stove, you will get hot. And if you sit in the back of the room, you will get cold. The teacher painted our faces. The teacher had us take off our shoes so that he could paint our feet.
The alley. The sidestreet. The frontage road. The rotary. A tree hung over the busy four lane road. Two lanes went one way, and two lanes went the other. The speed limit on this road was 35, but most people went 50. A large tree hung over this road, and a child hung from this tree. The child fell into the road. It was winter. There was ice on the side of the road. A man went to his mailbox, which was on the side of the road. He saw that he had a package wedged into his mailbox. He started to pull at the package, but it was difficult to remove. He tugged and tugged. As he tugged, he slipped on some ice and fell into the road. A car missed his head, but another car ran over his hand, making it a flipper.
They are eating hot dogs and hamburgers in a large room. They are eating. They paid $5 for the food, and the money will go to some group that has to do with farming. It's for farmers and farming and the raising of cows and pigs and horses. They are in a large room. The tables have plastic tops and metal legs. Outside, they go to pens and see the horses and pigs and cows. They sit on bales of hay. They are three people. They fall down and hole and can't get out of it. Cows and pigs and horses fall down the hole on top of them. The people who were in charge of the fundraiser start to kick dirt in on top of the. They get a machine that reads their minds in the least intrusive way.
A misfortune was the most noticeable thing that happened today. I was asleep. I tried to sleep on the couch but couldn't fall asleep. I went to the floor and pulled a rug over me. It was in that way that I fell asleep. I dreamed that if I wanted a danish, all I had to do was think of a danish. I worried that these danishes came from out of someone's mind, which might have been a lawn on the top of some building but wasn't since all I had to do was put my hand down a horse's throat to get myself a can of warm beer. I trained myself to like warm beer instead of cold. I trained myself to drink hot beer. It is at its best when it is 200 degrees. I was sleeping on the floor under a rug when someone started pounding on my door. This person pounded, and, as this person pounded, this person also rang the doorbell over and over. It was as if two or three people were doing this, but I knew it was just one. It was one person with a disorder of the first order. A disorder of the mind because he was certain his mind wasn't in his head. He insisted it was just below his belly button. When he was deep in thought, he was not in his head but just below his naval.
Before my dad died, he gave me night vision. He gave me some goggles that would allow me to see at night. This was before my dad died. We lived next to strawberry patches. The man who ran the patches was always warning me not to steal his strawberries. He said he had an intuition. He said he knew when someone was in his patches and that he couldn't tell me how many times he woke up at 3 AM to see some flashlight bouncing in his patches. He said he'd go outside and shoot his rifle at the light, not at the person who must have been near the light. He would shoot at the light, and that would be close enough to scare the person. So I told him that now I knew that and that I wouldn't be afraid if he shot at my light. I knew he was too much of a coward to shoot me with his rifle. But my father had given me night vision before he died, and this night vision allowed me to sneak into that man's strawberry patches and steal many of his berries. As it turned out, he had no intuition. He simply woke up late at night and still had good vision for an old man--at least good enough to see a flashlight's light bouncing in the distance. Good enough to aim at that light with a rifle and shoot the light and not shoot the person. Since I had night vision, though, he couldn't see me. I took many strawberries. Everyone in my family wanted to eat the strawberries with very cold cream and sugar, but I wanted to eat them with lukewarm water and phlegmy spit. I had my entire family spit in my strawberry bowl. They didn't want to do it at first, but then I told them that, after all, we are family, and that it would be my honor to gag on their slimy spit as I ate my strawberries. It was an odd time to be a young boy and to have a dead dad and a pair of night vision I could use any time to defraud my sister's government, which wasn't the least bit fair since it turned off my favorites shows that reflected off the clouds and bounced off the ground five times before I could even kill a bird with a marble or a BB or a sphere of steel shot.
The child was sturdy and muscular. The child could have swallowed a water balloon. They had put flour in the water balloons. When you got hit by a water balloon with flour in it, you got the sensation that you'd never known your loved ones and that, in fact, your loved ones wanted nothing to do with your rotting body. He left his nail clippings in a pile on his night table. If you want to start a fire, a good way to do it is with six corncobs. The cows drink from a trough that always has goldfish in it. The schoolroom is cold in the winter. But if you sit near the iron stove, you will get hot. And if you sit in the back of the room, you will get cold. The teacher painted our faces. The teacher had us take off our shoes so that he could paint our feet.
The alley. The sidestreet. The frontage road. The rotary. A tree hung over the busy four lane road. Two lanes went one way, and two lanes went the other. The speed limit on this road was 35, but most people went 50. A large tree hung over this road, and a child hung from this tree. The child fell into the road. It was winter. There was ice on the side of the road. A man went to his mailbox, which was on the side of the road. He saw that he had a package wedged into his mailbox. He started to pull at the package, but it was difficult to remove. He tugged and tugged. As he tugged, he slipped on some ice and fell into the road. A car missed his head, but another car ran over his hand, making it a flipper.
They are eating hot dogs and hamburgers in a large room. They are eating. They paid $5 for the food, and the money will go to some group that has to do with farming. It's for farmers and farming and the raising of cows and pigs and horses. They are in a large room. The tables have plastic tops and metal legs. Outside, they go to pens and see the horses and pigs and cows. They sit on bales of hay. They are three people. They fall down and hole and can't get out of it. Cows and pigs and horses fall down the hole on top of them. The people who were in charge of the fundraiser start to kick dirt in on top of the. They get a machine that reads their minds in the least intrusive way.
A misfortune was the most noticeable thing that happened today. I was asleep. I tried to sleep on the couch but couldn't fall asleep. I went to the floor and pulled a rug over me. It was in that way that I fell asleep. I dreamed that if I wanted a danish, all I had to do was think of a danish. I worried that these danishes came from out of someone's mind, which might have been a lawn on the top of some building but wasn't since all I had to do was put my hand down a horse's throat to get myself a can of warm beer. I trained myself to like warm beer instead of cold. I trained myself to drink hot beer. It is at its best when it is 200 degrees. I was sleeping on the floor under a rug when someone started pounding on my door. This person pounded, and, as this person pounded, this person also rang the doorbell over and over. It was as if two or three people were doing this, but I knew it was just one. It was one person with a disorder of the first order. A disorder of the mind because he was certain his mind wasn't in his head. He insisted it was just below his belly button. When he was deep in thought, he was not in his head but just below his naval.
Before my dad died, he gave me night vision. He gave me some goggles that would allow me to see at night. This was before my dad died. We lived next to strawberry patches. The man who ran the patches was always warning me not to steal his strawberries. He said he had an intuition. He said he knew when someone was in his patches and that he couldn't tell me how many times he woke up at 3 AM to see some flashlight bouncing in his patches. He said he'd go outside and shoot his rifle at the light, not at the person who must have been near the light. He would shoot at the light, and that would be close enough to scare the person. So I told him that now I knew that and that I wouldn't be afraid if he shot at my light. I knew he was too much of a coward to shoot me with his rifle. But my father had given me night vision before he died, and this night vision allowed me to sneak into that man's strawberry patches and steal many of his berries. As it turned out, he had no intuition. He simply woke up late at night and still had good vision for an old man--at least good enough to see a flashlight's light bouncing in the distance. Good enough to aim at that light with a rifle and shoot the light and not shoot the person. Since I had night vision, though, he couldn't see me. I took many strawberries. Everyone in my family wanted to eat the strawberries with very cold cream and sugar, but I wanted to eat them with lukewarm water and phlegmy spit. I had my entire family spit in my strawberry bowl. They didn't want to do it at first, but then I told them that, after all, we are family, and that it would be my honor to gag on their slimy spit as I ate my strawberries. It was an odd time to be a young boy and to have a dead dad and a pair of night vision I could use any time to defraud my sister's government, which wasn't the least bit fair since it turned off my favorites shows that reflected off the clouds and bounced off the ground five times before I could even kill a bird with a marble or a BB or a sphere of steel shot.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
7 MWE: the slovenly hellion couldn't digest mutton
A bear was in a tree. The tree retched out of its hole. It was a strange tree. The tree had a large hole in it, and it retched out of this hole. The sound it made was one of retching. The guitar was full of rot. The house's floorboards made sounds. The bone broke. It was a green branch break. The bone broke in the way that green branches break. He never loved his favorite son. His favorite son wanted to swim in the ocean, but he first laughed in the tunnel that had no padding in it because if there had been padding, and if all the rocketry had been sensitive enough to quell their anger, then maybe, in the end, they would have flushed three times in an hour.
She was jumpy. She had artificial feet. She showed great ardor with her partner. Her partner had artificial feet. It was a feat of the imagination--when they imagined they had feet. They got free french fries, played some arcade games, got some beer, and then bowled. When they finished bowling, they were some of the last to leave, and they got knifed.
Dunbar told us all he was going to take out the trash. Dunbar always wanted to take out the trash in the summer because that meant he got to be outside. It meant he got to be outside and that, as he walked to the trash, he got to smoke half a clove. He made a big show of telling us he was going to take out the trash. We didn't notice he was taking longer at first. We then noticed he was taking longer. Then, we asked one another if he had been gone for a long time. We then knew he had been gone for a long time, and one of us went to find him. One of us found him by the Dumpster with a wound in his back. He imagined he had been knifed, but, really, he hadn't been knifed. Something else had happened.
I could not prevent what happened. I was absent-minded. My absent-mindedness was what made it so that I could not prevent what happened. I was oblivious. I was unmindful. I was unfamiliar with how they would hunt and kill coyotes. People in town were worried that a coyote would carry off a child. I made my presence known at these meetings. On and on they went on about how the coyotes were dragging off their silly purebred dogs and $900 cats. They went on about that. Next, they brought up that soon it would be their kids that the coyotes would carry off. It was then that I asked to speak. I asked the group if, really, would it be so awful that a coyote carried off one of their kids. They looked at me, horrified. They looked at me as if I were sick. I said, "You look at me as if I were sick." I then went on to say that I don't think the coyotes would carry off their kids to kill them. Instead, what I think is that the coyotes would carry off their kids to raise them, and that they, the coyotes, would probably do a much better job rearing their brats than they would have done if their spaceships weren't broken and their ankles could move in more ways than just the three ways. The three ways: up, down, and to the side.
I was driving. I thought I would be able to turn left. I was in the intersection. The light turned yellow. It turned red, and I didn't turn, so I was still in the intersection. I looked to see if anyone was directly behind me. No one was directly behind me, but I saw that, soon enough, cars would be behind me in the left-turn lane. So I put the car in reverse, went back, and got myself set up again. I was going to wait. It was now that I began to think of other things as I waited for the left-turn arrow. It was now that I thought of things. I remember how I had been part of a club in which, if you wanted to get in the club, you had to find a young married man and cut off his wedding ring with tin snips. We never said how you had to cut it off. You could drug the person. You could take it when he was sleeping. For some reason, though, many of us in the club preferred wrestling young married men to the ground, pinning them there, and then using tin snips to cut off their wedding rings.
These were the things I thought about. The light turned green, and I didn't pay attention. Someone behind me honked. I took my foot off the break, pressed the gas, and promptly went backwards. I had never put the car into drive after having been in reverse. I crashed into the car behind me. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw an upset young man.
I got out of the car. I lay in the prison. This was not a prison made by the state or by some private company. This was one that my brother-in-law had made just for me. This was a rich deposit. I am now in one of the richest deposits for me. When I cut off an orchid from the plant, I felt that I had but a few more moments to live. Those moments passed, and I felt I had but a few more moments. I will use these moments to cut another orchid, I told myself, so I cut an orchid. In the center of this orchid, I made out what looked to be a boat I had once captained. It was not a prism that I had. Before the pale dentist drilled open my cheek, I asked him if he'd like to come to my graduation. The dentist was supposed to drill my tooth, not my cheek. He told me it was a great temptation he faced every day--that is, that he shouldn't plunge his drill into the cheeks of his patients. But that is just what he did to me. There is very little sensation in the center of the cheek. When I was younger, I would often upset my parents by pushing toothpicks through the center of my cheeks.
The resurrectionist didn't get up this time. He was dead this time. The end has come for him, the resurrectionist. Or maybe the resurrectionist wasn't the one who always got up after being dead. Maybe he was the one who got someone else up. Here he is--dead of natural causes. Dead of artificial causes. Dead of artistic causes. Dead of scientific miracles we couldn't help but to credit with the draining of our bathtub after we had expressly told our neighbor to break into our house and fill it whenever we leave. A duty is a beauty.
She was jumpy. She had artificial feet. She showed great ardor with her partner. Her partner had artificial feet. It was a feat of the imagination--when they imagined they had feet. They got free french fries, played some arcade games, got some beer, and then bowled. When they finished bowling, they were some of the last to leave, and they got knifed.
Dunbar told us all he was going to take out the trash. Dunbar always wanted to take out the trash in the summer because that meant he got to be outside. It meant he got to be outside and that, as he walked to the trash, he got to smoke half a clove. He made a big show of telling us he was going to take out the trash. We didn't notice he was taking longer at first. We then noticed he was taking longer. Then, we asked one another if he had been gone for a long time. We then knew he had been gone for a long time, and one of us went to find him. One of us found him by the Dumpster with a wound in his back. He imagined he had been knifed, but, really, he hadn't been knifed. Something else had happened.
I could not prevent what happened. I was absent-minded. My absent-mindedness was what made it so that I could not prevent what happened. I was oblivious. I was unmindful. I was unfamiliar with how they would hunt and kill coyotes. People in town were worried that a coyote would carry off a child. I made my presence known at these meetings. On and on they went on about how the coyotes were dragging off their silly purebred dogs and $900 cats. They went on about that. Next, they brought up that soon it would be their kids that the coyotes would carry off. It was then that I asked to speak. I asked the group if, really, would it be so awful that a coyote carried off one of their kids. They looked at me, horrified. They looked at me as if I were sick. I said, "You look at me as if I were sick." I then went on to say that I don't think the coyotes would carry off their kids to kill them. Instead, what I think is that the coyotes would carry off their kids to raise them, and that they, the coyotes, would probably do a much better job rearing their brats than they would have done if their spaceships weren't broken and their ankles could move in more ways than just the three ways. The three ways: up, down, and to the side.
I was driving. I thought I would be able to turn left. I was in the intersection. The light turned yellow. It turned red, and I didn't turn, so I was still in the intersection. I looked to see if anyone was directly behind me. No one was directly behind me, but I saw that, soon enough, cars would be behind me in the left-turn lane. So I put the car in reverse, went back, and got myself set up again. I was going to wait. It was now that I began to think of other things as I waited for the left-turn arrow. It was now that I thought of things. I remember how I had been part of a club in which, if you wanted to get in the club, you had to find a young married man and cut off his wedding ring with tin snips. We never said how you had to cut it off. You could drug the person. You could take it when he was sleeping. For some reason, though, many of us in the club preferred wrestling young married men to the ground, pinning them there, and then using tin snips to cut off their wedding rings.
These were the things I thought about. The light turned green, and I didn't pay attention. Someone behind me honked. I took my foot off the break, pressed the gas, and promptly went backwards. I had never put the car into drive after having been in reverse. I crashed into the car behind me. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw an upset young man.
I got out of the car. I lay in the prison. This was not a prison made by the state or by some private company. This was one that my brother-in-law had made just for me. This was a rich deposit. I am now in one of the richest deposits for me. When I cut off an orchid from the plant, I felt that I had but a few more moments to live. Those moments passed, and I felt I had but a few more moments. I will use these moments to cut another orchid, I told myself, so I cut an orchid. In the center of this orchid, I made out what looked to be a boat I had once captained. It was not a prism that I had. Before the pale dentist drilled open my cheek, I asked him if he'd like to come to my graduation. The dentist was supposed to drill my tooth, not my cheek. He told me it was a great temptation he faced every day--that is, that he shouldn't plunge his drill into the cheeks of his patients. But that is just what he did to me. There is very little sensation in the center of the cheek. When I was younger, I would often upset my parents by pushing toothpicks through the center of my cheeks.
The resurrectionist didn't get up this time. He was dead this time. The end has come for him, the resurrectionist. Or maybe the resurrectionist wasn't the one who always got up after being dead. Maybe he was the one who got someone else up. Here he is--dead of natural causes. Dead of artificial causes. Dead of artistic causes. Dead of scientific miracles we couldn't help but to credit with the draining of our bathtub after we had expressly told our neighbor to break into our house and fill it whenever we leave. A duty is a beauty.
MY LATE SON
"Scorsese on the Cross" is an essay by Vince Passaro that appeared in the July 2011 issue of Harper's.
This is the first sentence of the essay:
"On the wall of my kindergarten classroom at St. Aloysius School, among the many typical decorations, hung a gaudily colored print that I used to stare at with fascination."
"On the wall of my kindergarten classroom at St. Aloysius School" is a linked chain--a concatenation--of prepositional phrases that starts this sentence. This is something that we have to get through before we get to the subject of the sentence. We have to wait for the subject. We are being played with in this first sentence. "On the wall" is a prepositional phrase. "of my kindergarten classroom" is another prep phrase that modifies the one right before. "at St. Aloysius School" is another prep phrase that modifies "classroom."
The saint was a Jesuit. When I think of kindergarten, I think of getting traced on the floor. I think of carpet that smells like cornchips.
"among the many typical decorations" is another prep phrase.
"hung" is the main verb of this sentence. It is an intransitive verb--it has no direct object. In fact, the prepositional phrases that start with "On" and "among" both modify this main verb.
"a gaudily colored print that I used to stare at with fascination" is the subject of this sentence, even though it comes at the end of the sentence. This sentence is inverted. It is in a strange form, so it must be in this form for a reason.
--"a" is an indefinite article.
--"gaudily" is an adverb that modifies "colored."
--"colored" is a past participle that works as an adjective. It modifies "print."
--"print" is a noun. It is a count noun and is the simple subject of this sentence.
--"that I used to stare at with fascination" is a relative clause that functions as an adjective since it modifies "print."
--"that" is a pronoun, I guess, since it's the object of the preposition "at" in this relative clause.
--"I" is the subject of the relative clause.
--"used to stare" is the verb phrase of this clause. "to" is not a preposition here. It is not the "to" in the infinitive--like "to eat." No, it goes with "used." It's maybe what's called a semi-auxiliary.
--"stare" is the main part of the verb.
--"at" is a preposition. Its object is "that." The writer could have written, "at which I used to stare with fascination," but that sounds silly and stuffy. To write like that would have been a snoot move.
--with fascination" is another prepositional phrase. Lots of prepositional phrases in just this first sentence. Bryan Garner, in GMAU, says this about prep phrases:
"In lean writing, it's a good idea to minimize prepositional phrases. In flabby prose, a ratio for one preposition for every four words is common; in better, leaner writing, the quotient is more like one preposition for every ten or fifteen words."
The above sentence, which is 29 words long, has six prepositions--six prep phrases--in it. That means we have a prep for every 4.8 words.
This is the first sentence of the essay:
"On the wall of my kindergarten classroom at St. Aloysius School, among the many typical decorations, hung a gaudily colored print that I used to stare at with fascination."
"On the wall of my kindergarten classroom at St. Aloysius School" is a linked chain--a concatenation--of prepositional phrases that starts this sentence. This is something that we have to get through before we get to the subject of the sentence. We have to wait for the subject. We are being played with in this first sentence. "On the wall" is a prepositional phrase. "of my kindergarten classroom" is another prep phrase that modifies the one right before. "at St. Aloysius School" is another prep phrase that modifies "classroom."
The saint was a Jesuit. When I think of kindergarten, I think of getting traced on the floor. I think of carpet that smells like cornchips.
"among the many typical decorations" is another prep phrase.
"hung" is the main verb of this sentence. It is an intransitive verb--it has no direct object. In fact, the prepositional phrases that start with "On" and "among" both modify this main verb.
"a gaudily colored print that I used to stare at with fascination" is the subject of this sentence, even though it comes at the end of the sentence. This sentence is inverted. It is in a strange form, so it must be in this form for a reason.
--"a" is an indefinite article.
--"gaudily" is an adverb that modifies "colored."
--"colored" is a past participle that works as an adjective. It modifies "print."
--"print" is a noun. It is a count noun and is the simple subject of this sentence.
--"that I used to stare at with fascination" is a relative clause that functions as an adjective since it modifies "print."
--"that" is a pronoun, I guess, since it's the object of the preposition "at" in this relative clause.
--"I" is the subject of the relative clause.
--"used to stare" is the verb phrase of this clause. "to" is not a preposition here. It is not the "to" in the infinitive--like "to eat." No, it goes with "used." It's maybe what's called a semi-auxiliary.
--"stare" is the main part of the verb.
--"at" is a preposition. Its object is "that." The writer could have written, "at which I used to stare with fascination," but that sounds silly and stuffy. To write like that would have been a snoot move.
--with fascination" is another prepositional phrase. Lots of prepositional phrases in just this first sentence. Bryan Garner, in GMAU, says this about prep phrases:
"In lean writing, it's a good idea to minimize prepositional phrases. In flabby prose, a ratio for one preposition for every four words is common; in better, leaner writing, the quotient is more like one preposition for every ten or fifteen words."
The above sentence, which is 29 words long, has six prepositions--six prep phrases--in it. That means we have a prep for every 4.8 words.
Monday, August 1, 2011
WHAT IT IS
In class, we are playing a fun game. It's fun because the children seem to enjoy it incredibly. They are worked up. I am keeping score on the chalkboard. The student who wins the game will get to be traced by me five times on the chalkboard. I do not know why this has become such a great reward to them--that is, getting traced by me on the chalkboard. They simply love to stand on the chalk tray and get traced by me multiple times. I've even bought more chalk colors so that I can trace them with green and purple and orange. It goes without saying that I steer real wide of their groin areas. I don't like my job, but I want to keep my job.
The child with the lowest score, as a punishment, will have to lick the chalkboard and the dirt outside. The child with the lowest score will have to lick the inside of the stainless steel sink I never scrub too clean. That child will have to lick the rubber cement brush. We play the game. They love the game. The game has to do with shouting words while your mouth is full of marshmallows. The point of the game isn't just to have fun. It's to work on pronunciation. It's very hard to say words with a mouth full of marshmallows. It's so hard. But, once you've tried to say words with a mouth full of marshmallows, it's much easier to say the words with nothing in your mouth. We have also played this game with mouths full of raw potatoes, rocks, and balls of tin foil. The children get one point for saying a one-syllable word that someone else understands. They get extra points for extra syllables.
One child says "Toyota" and gets another child to understand the word. I tell the child that I won't give her any points--let alone three points--because that word is a brand. No brands count as points. I tell another child that "internet" doesn't count. These children are mostly six-years old, though we do have one three-year old in the class and one ten-year old. The three-year old is smart and usually helps me teach for about an hour a day. He teaches forensics, and it's marvelous--really terrific and splendid--that he teaches because it gives me some time to myself and to prepare other activities. I do worry, though, that the three-year old can be too exacting.
We also have a ten-year old in the class. This child is not in the class because he's a dolt and got held back. He's in the class because he prefers to be in my class. If he's not in my class--if he's put with another teacher and with kids his age--he throws a fit. He topples desks and messes with carpets and breaks windows with a stick. He's attached to me because he's the son of my wife. I call him "the son of my wife" not because I'm ashamed of him and can't find it in myself to call him my son. It's just that he's my wife's son because she had him with another man. The man is an astronaut. He's been in space and has set his foot on the moon. He's had many people in love with him and send him videos so that he can spend time with them on the space station. On the space station, he has to exercise a lot--especially his legs--because, in zero g, he doesn't have to use his legs at all. "If I were to spend even more time in zero g, and if I weren't to exercise my legs, then my legs would shrivel. The muscles would atrophy," he often says. That's the kind of thing he says. My wife had a child with that man.
The boy tells the other children--and even other adults who will listen--that I'm his dad. He tells just about anyone that he doesn't care for his real dad and that I'm "more of a dad than his real dad will ever be." He often says that from his real dad, he learned "only how not to be a person," while, from me, he's learned how to be a man. I don't know how he's come up with all this. And I do feel guilty that it's so hard for me to call him my son. Instead, I mostly call him "my wife's son" or "Sweet Charlie" because his name is Charlie.
I'm worried what will happen when Sweet Charlie's real dad will visit class next week to give a talk about how the human body decays in space. I would never have invited Sweet Charlie's dad to class, but I couldn't help that he got scheduled, because it was the three-year old who scheduled him for his forensics class.
Last week, the school was closed because of lead pipes, sulfurous dry wall, and Brown Recluse spiders.
The child with the lowest score, as a punishment, will have to lick the chalkboard and the dirt outside. The child with the lowest score will have to lick the inside of the stainless steel sink I never scrub too clean. That child will have to lick the rubber cement brush. We play the game. They love the game. The game has to do with shouting words while your mouth is full of marshmallows. The point of the game isn't just to have fun. It's to work on pronunciation. It's very hard to say words with a mouth full of marshmallows. It's so hard. But, once you've tried to say words with a mouth full of marshmallows, it's much easier to say the words with nothing in your mouth. We have also played this game with mouths full of raw potatoes, rocks, and balls of tin foil. The children get one point for saying a one-syllable word that someone else understands. They get extra points for extra syllables.
One child says "Toyota" and gets another child to understand the word. I tell the child that I won't give her any points--let alone three points--because that word is a brand. No brands count as points. I tell another child that "internet" doesn't count. These children are mostly six-years old, though we do have one three-year old in the class and one ten-year old. The three-year old is smart and usually helps me teach for about an hour a day. He teaches forensics, and it's marvelous--really terrific and splendid--that he teaches because it gives me some time to myself and to prepare other activities. I do worry, though, that the three-year old can be too exacting.
We also have a ten-year old in the class. This child is not in the class because he's a dolt and got held back. He's in the class because he prefers to be in my class. If he's not in my class--if he's put with another teacher and with kids his age--he throws a fit. He topples desks and messes with carpets and breaks windows with a stick. He's attached to me because he's the son of my wife. I call him "the son of my wife" not because I'm ashamed of him and can't find it in myself to call him my son. It's just that he's my wife's son because she had him with another man. The man is an astronaut. He's been in space and has set his foot on the moon. He's had many people in love with him and send him videos so that he can spend time with them on the space station. On the space station, he has to exercise a lot--especially his legs--because, in zero g, he doesn't have to use his legs at all. "If I were to spend even more time in zero g, and if I weren't to exercise my legs, then my legs would shrivel. The muscles would atrophy," he often says. That's the kind of thing he says. My wife had a child with that man.
The boy tells the other children--and even other adults who will listen--that I'm his dad. He tells just about anyone that he doesn't care for his real dad and that I'm "more of a dad than his real dad will ever be." He often says that from his real dad, he learned "only how not to be a person," while, from me, he's learned how to be a man. I don't know how he's come up with all this. And I do feel guilty that it's so hard for me to call him my son. Instead, I mostly call him "my wife's son" or "Sweet Charlie" because his name is Charlie.
I'm worried what will happen when Sweet Charlie's real dad will visit class next week to give a talk about how the human body decays in space. I would never have invited Sweet Charlie's dad to class, but I couldn't help that he got scheduled, because it was the three-year old who scheduled him for his forensics class.
Last week, the school was closed because of lead pipes, sulfurous dry wall, and Brown Recluse spiders.
7 MWE: The analysis of the body is an autopsy because it isn't turvy
The necropsy happened at the one-million-dollar wedding. How was it that a wedding got so expensive? The answer is that it wasn't expensive because the people who threw it were billionaires. My father's favorite joke: What's the quickest way to become a millionaire? Start out as a multi millionaire.
They had to verify that the child's mouth was full of bread dough. He had learned to make the bread dough by reading a book. The book warned him not to put it in his mouth because bread dough is so easy to choke on. It is so easy to find it heavy when all your plants are weeds and your tomatoes are still green. He wondered what it would be like to drop his car through the roof of his house. Is it necessary to say that he found the billboards in the town offensive? All the billboards advertised liquor and soda pop. Just liquor and pop. All that was on the tv were ads for liquor and pop. All that was on the billboards were ads for liquor and pop. When the teacher asked the students if they had any questions, all the questions of the children had to do with liquor and pop. His father, ever night, drank Canadian whiskey and ginger ale. If whiskey is spelled with an "e," then that means it's from the US. If it's not spelled with an "e," then that means it came from England. His father drank whiskey and ginger ale every evening. The whiskey came in a dark brown bottle and had a simple white label with black letters on it. His father would peel off the label and give it to him. "Write me a story on the back of it," he'd tell his son. His father was always asking him to tell him a story. At first, the son felt great pressure to tell his father stories. But then he noticed that his father liked all his stories. The son found that, in order to tell his father a good story, all he needed was two people who didn't like each other and a terrible, ugly room.
His father had worked in the bug factory for 17 years before they dismissed him with no warning. At the bug factory, they grew meal worms by the ton for consumption. They grew cicadas by the ton for consump. They grew great horned beetles by the ton. They grew crickets. That was all they grew at the bug factory. They grew the meal worms and the crickets in a large building. They had a field of trees outside for the cicadas. The cicadas had to lay dormant underground for a few years before they came up and affixed themselves to the bottoms of the tree branches. Then, they'd crawl out of their shells, and the people at the bug factory would catch them with nets. His father was one of the best at catching cicadas. Ever since he was young, his father would bring home cicada shells for him. The shells looked just like the bugs--only they had no bugs in them. The boy would paint them and play with them. He had painted hundreds of these bugs, and he even sold them at school to other children. He pretended they were soldiers.
His father got fired from the bug factory with no notice. The boy was home because he didn't go to school. He wasn't home schooled either. He was something new. His father wanted him to learn by learning only what he wanted to learn. So if the boy wanted to plant garlic, he had to learn how to do it. If he wanted to build a potato cannon, he had to learn how to do it. If he wanted to learn. The father came home. He comes home. This father comes home. He has his pants still tucked into his boots because that's what everyone at the factory does. He has a bag full of horned beetles and some of the gigantic Brazilian cockroaches that hiss. "They gave me these for severance," he told the boy. "As if I couldn't have stole them all these years." He has his bags of bugs. He also has a large bottle of Canadian whiskey and some 2-liter bottles of ginger ale. The pop bottles are green plastic. The liquid inside them is gold. The father buys the cheapest ginger ale. It is so cheap that, as soon as he opens it, it goes flat. The father takes a class. He chips it against the table so that, when he drinks from it, it will make him bleed. He fills it most of the way with whiskey and leaves a couple of inches for ginger ale. "Would you like some ginger ale?" he asks his son.
He was fired. He is fired. He is let go. He drinks his whiskey for many weeks before he decided to teach a class at the local high school. He will not teach for money because he knows they would never hire him. He will not teach for money because he wants to teach the children how to write stories, and no one would ever pay him to teach anyone to write a story. He wants to hear their stories. He asks his son all the time to tell him a story. That has been his son's only education. He thinks that, if his son can always tell a story, then that's all the education he will need. There is nothing more than that. His son does not got to school. He tells his son that, as long as he, his father, is alive, his son will never have to get a job and work. He can always live with his father. He cannot expect, though, that they will live in a style. They have the bugs that they eat. They grown bugs in the house. They have a garden in which they grow corn and beans and garlic. That's all they need. They have four chickens for eggs. That's their diet: bugs, corn, lima beans, garlic. Sometimes, they grow other things, but they don't depend on them.
The father teaches his class at the school. He wants his students to get closer to death, so he writes up permission forms. He asks the parents if they will allow their children to have knives thrown at them. The knives will be thrown by pros, of course. Pros from the carnival. Many of the parents do not sign the forms. Many of the parents complain to the school. But many of the parents are persuaded by his permission form and like the idea of their children learning something by having knives thrown at them. So he has knife throwers come to class and throw knives at children. He has the children wear bullet-proof vests, and he shoots them. (All after permission forms, of course.) He takes them to the morgue so that they can view autopsies. First, the medical examiner cuts the body's head. Then, the examiner peels the body's forehead over its eyes, revealing its skull. Then, with an electric saw, the examiner cuts into the skull. The examiner removes the brain. The examiner lays the body onto a metal table and cuts open its chest, only, instead of making the classic Y-shaped incision, the examiner makes one that's in the shape of an asterisk. When the examiner opens the body up, the body looks like it's open like a flower.
They had to verify that the child's mouth was full of bread dough. He had learned to make the bread dough by reading a book. The book warned him not to put it in his mouth because bread dough is so easy to choke on. It is so easy to find it heavy when all your plants are weeds and your tomatoes are still green. He wondered what it would be like to drop his car through the roof of his house. Is it necessary to say that he found the billboards in the town offensive? All the billboards advertised liquor and soda pop. Just liquor and pop. All that was on the tv were ads for liquor and pop. All that was on the billboards were ads for liquor and pop. When the teacher asked the students if they had any questions, all the questions of the children had to do with liquor and pop. His father, ever night, drank Canadian whiskey and ginger ale. If whiskey is spelled with an "e," then that means it's from the US. If it's not spelled with an "e," then that means it came from England. His father drank whiskey and ginger ale every evening. The whiskey came in a dark brown bottle and had a simple white label with black letters on it. His father would peel off the label and give it to him. "Write me a story on the back of it," he'd tell his son. His father was always asking him to tell him a story. At first, the son felt great pressure to tell his father stories. But then he noticed that his father liked all his stories. The son found that, in order to tell his father a good story, all he needed was two people who didn't like each other and a terrible, ugly room.
His father had worked in the bug factory for 17 years before they dismissed him with no warning. At the bug factory, they grew meal worms by the ton for consumption. They grew cicadas by the ton for consump. They grew great horned beetles by the ton. They grew crickets. That was all they grew at the bug factory. They grew the meal worms and the crickets in a large building. They had a field of trees outside for the cicadas. The cicadas had to lay dormant underground for a few years before they came up and affixed themselves to the bottoms of the tree branches. Then, they'd crawl out of their shells, and the people at the bug factory would catch them with nets. His father was one of the best at catching cicadas. Ever since he was young, his father would bring home cicada shells for him. The shells looked just like the bugs--only they had no bugs in them. The boy would paint them and play with them. He had painted hundreds of these bugs, and he even sold them at school to other children. He pretended they were soldiers.
His father got fired from the bug factory with no notice. The boy was home because he didn't go to school. He wasn't home schooled either. He was something new. His father wanted him to learn by learning only what he wanted to learn. So if the boy wanted to plant garlic, he had to learn how to do it. If he wanted to build a potato cannon, he had to learn how to do it. If he wanted to learn. The father came home. He comes home. This father comes home. He has his pants still tucked into his boots because that's what everyone at the factory does. He has a bag full of horned beetles and some of the gigantic Brazilian cockroaches that hiss. "They gave me these for severance," he told the boy. "As if I couldn't have stole them all these years." He has his bags of bugs. He also has a large bottle of Canadian whiskey and some 2-liter bottles of ginger ale. The pop bottles are green plastic. The liquid inside them is gold. The father buys the cheapest ginger ale. It is so cheap that, as soon as he opens it, it goes flat. The father takes a class. He chips it against the table so that, when he drinks from it, it will make him bleed. He fills it most of the way with whiskey and leaves a couple of inches for ginger ale. "Would you like some ginger ale?" he asks his son.
He was fired. He is fired. He is let go. He drinks his whiskey for many weeks before he decided to teach a class at the local high school. He will not teach for money because he knows they would never hire him. He will not teach for money because he wants to teach the children how to write stories, and no one would ever pay him to teach anyone to write a story. He wants to hear their stories. He asks his son all the time to tell him a story. That has been his son's only education. He thinks that, if his son can always tell a story, then that's all the education he will need. There is nothing more than that. His son does not got to school. He tells his son that, as long as he, his father, is alive, his son will never have to get a job and work. He can always live with his father. He cannot expect, though, that they will live in a style. They have the bugs that they eat. They grown bugs in the house. They have a garden in which they grow corn and beans and garlic. That's all they need. They have four chickens for eggs. That's their diet: bugs, corn, lima beans, garlic. Sometimes, they grow other things, but they don't depend on them.
The father teaches his class at the school. He wants his students to get closer to death, so he writes up permission forms. He asks the parents if they will allow their children to have knives thrown at them. The knives will be thrown by pros, of course. Pros from the carnival. Many of the parents do not sign the forms. Many of the parents complain to the school. But many of the parents are persuaded by his permission form and like the idea of their children learning something by having knives thrown at them. So he has knife throwers come to class and throw knives at children. He has the children wear bullet-proof vests, and he shoots them. (All after permission forms, of course.) He takes them to the morgue so that they can view autopsies. First, the medical examiner cuts the body's head. Then, the examiner peels the body's forehead over its eyes, revealing its skull. Then, with an electric saw, the examiner cuts into the skull. The examiner removes the brain. The examiner lays the body onto a metal table and cuts open its chest, only, instead of making the classic Y-shaped incision, the examiner makes one that's in the shape of an asterisk. When the examiner opens the body up, the body looks like it's open like a flower.
MY LATE SON
Back to Paul Theroux. This time, I will look at how the sentences relate to each other, too. I won't just parse the sentences and try to look at the form and function of all the pieces. I will also look at how one sentence comes out of the one right before it. I will look at how it is Turtles All the Way Down. I will look at how the writer has the gall to make his own stamp, get it inked up on his own pad, and then make a mark on what could have been a perfectly good blank page.
Here is the fourth sentence:
"His slight speech defect made him seem truthful."
"His slight speech defect" is the subject of the sentence.
"made" is the main verb. It's a transitive verb since it requires something more, though I don't think what follows is a standard direct object.
"him seem truthful" is what I'm going to treat as the direct object since I don't think "him" can be a DO by itself. It requires a complement--something like "seem truthful."
"seem truthful" is a bare infinitive phrase, I believe, since there is no "to" in front of "seem."
"truthful" is an adjective that serves as a predicate adjective--or a subject complement--since it's on the other side of the linking infinitive "seem."
This sentence relates to the one before because it has pronouns in it. "His" functions as an adjective--it's a determiner--but it's also a kind of pronoun in that it has a referent. "him" is also a pronoun. This sentence further relates to the one before because it has words in it that have to do with the voice of the character.
The next sentence is this:
"There was a babyish innocence in 'daily bwed.'"
This sentence has a special form, I think. The "There" makes it special. I think the "There" is what's called "Existential There." Maybe this sentence is inverted, and the true subject is what comes at the end.
So I will say that "There" is an adverb that functions as the subject complement.
"was" is the main verb, the "to be" verb.
"a babyish innocence" is the simple subject.
"in 'daily bwed'" is a prepositional phrase that functions as an adjective.
The "There" in this sentence, in a general way, references all that's come before because it sets up "Thereness." It reinforces that the place in the story exists and that, yes, there is a place for these characters to speak and to be. This sentence also relates to what comes before because it gives an example of the "speech defect" that's mentioned in the sentence that's right before.
Here is the fourth sentence:
"His slight speech defect made him seem truthful."
"His slight speech defect" is the subject of the sentence.
"made" is the main verb. It's a transitive verb since it requires something more, though I don't think what follows is a standard direct object.
"him seem truthful" is what I'm going to treat as the direct object since I don't think "him" can be a DO by itself. It requires a complement--something like "seem truthful."
"seem truthful" is a bare infinitive phrase, I believe, since there is no "to" in front of "seem."
"truthful" is an adjective that serves as a predicate adjective--or a subject complement--since it's on the other side of the linking infinitive "seem."
This sentence relates to the one before because it has pronouns in it. "His" functions as an adjective--it's a determiner--but it's also a kind of pronoun in that it has a referent. "him" is also a pronoun. This sentence further relates to the one before because it has words in it that have to do with the voice of the character.
The next sentence is this:
"There was a babyish innocence in 'daily bwed.'"
This sentence has a special form, I think. The "There" makes it special. I think the "There" is what's called "Existential There." Maybe this sentence is inverted, and the true subject is what comes at the end.
So I will say that "There" is an adverb that functions as the subject complement.
"was" is the main verb, the "to be" verb.
"a babyish innocence" is the simple subject.
"in 'daily bwed'" is a prepositional phrase that functions as an adjective.
The "There" in this sentence, in a general way, references all that's come before because it sets up "Thereness." It reinforces that the place in the story exists and that, yes, there is a place for these characters to speak and to be. This sentence also relates to what comes before because it gives an example of the "speech defect" that's mentioned in the sentence that's right before.
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