Her and Me and the End

She smells like every want your adolescent mind has ever desired.  Some men notice her like a focused dog: momentarily distracted, only to return to the task at hand.  Not me.  When a girl she’s wearing walks by, picture a giant, slow-moving sound wave bruising my eyelids and rolling my head back.  The first time I met her was a snowy day in seventh grade.  She was drowsing lethargic on a cute girl in French class.  I had to sit next to her for forty-two minutes straight trying not to pass out.  She was so fucking present, like a fog.  When the bell rang, I hurried outside, guzzled thin air and threw up.  Thinking back, it makes sense that she would like French.

I’m getting ahead of myself.  I’m on my way to work, on the N-train.  I loathe my job just like everyone else in the car.  That’s why we all push so hard getting in and out: because on the subway, it’s acceptable to take your aggression out on the people around you.  I miss my girlfriend, away at grad school.  God I miss her.  Things would be better if she was here.  As I looked up from turning my thoughts over and over in my head, the doors opened and in she came.

When I was a senior in high school, a kid I knew drove his car into the highway divider.  That’s what the police said.  He wasn’t drunk and there was no one else on the road.  Just him.  Middle of the night.  I had dreams about it.  I dreamt that I was driving a blue Ford Explorer, alone in the dark on the cross-county parkway.  I looked to the passenger seat and saw no one.  I glanced at the road, at the radio, then again at the passenger seat and saw Victoria.  In my dream Victoria was a man, forty some-odd years old, thin hair slicked back, stubble painted on a gaunt face, hollow eyes, and teeth that weren’t quite crooked but were far from straight.  Despite his appearance, in my dream he didn’t smell like anything.  I was so alone.  He smiled at me and I knew he was the End.  Then he grabbed the steering wheel and launched the car into the divider.

As I watched her in the subway, I remembered her appearing here and there in college, usually on young, attractive women on the go.  She never wore girls who used too much make-up.  Never really diversified her population.  When I moved to New York after graduating, she showed up no less frequently or infrequently.   The hair-dresser’s assistant, the girl walking down the street, the brunette leaving the pizza place.  Once, she was on a very unattractive heavy-set German!  I think that was either an accident or a lapse of judgment.  She’s never worn my girlfriend or any other girls I’ve dated.  Thank God.  I wonder if she can live forever.

Today, she was wearing the program-coordinatorish girl standing in front of me on the subway.  The girl was very pretty: mid twenties, wavy brown hair, green eyes.  Her blouse accentuated her breasts, slim stomach and long neck.  She wore a dark skirt, nice shoes and jacket to match.  I was taking all of this in, when in an utterly unpredictable and unprecedented move, she left the train.  Let me clarify: she left the GIRL on the train.  Thinking back, I should’ve seen that as a warning.

Trains are heavy.  Trains feel heavy.  As the engine turns the wheels, I can feel the resistance; I can sense the effort, the struggle against gravity and friction.  A moment ago, the train I’m riding eased passed normal.  Unperceivable at first, then more pronounced, the car was rumbling through the tunnel without gravity or friction, faster than the force of the engine pushing it forward.  The only resistance came from the inconsistencies of the train tracks, whose rhythm and push were much quicker than usual.  In addition, the windows revealed the kind of darkness in the tunnel that stretches space to infinity.  Every few seconds, the wall outside the car scraped by my window reinforcing what my body was telling me.

Click.

The veins and tendons of the bench I sat on swelled and buckled exploding paint and plastic everywhere.  The shattering of the floors sounded like an accordion of dead leaves.  The windows turned to powder and the walls to bent bread.  The lights ticked out as a hundred people were forced towards the front of the car like tea in a French-press.  Clothes luffed like dead sails.  Skin rippled like a hurricane cove.  Bones held, flexed, broke, splintered, shattered into a collapsing crimson bonfire.

But all of this was lost on me because at the exact moment that the train hit, I thought of her and how she left.  It turns out I was right: smells don’t wear death.

Rick and Mary

Rick eats an entire bag of popcorn each afternoon. On vacations, a soda before dinner is to him like a birthday cake to a six year old. He loves fishing, has fired a rifle and calls his three children every five or six days.

Mary loves good food. She reads all the time always carries her smell with her. She sweats when she sleeps but there is doubt as to whether or not she has ever perspired in public after she stopped having children at age 42. She is liberal-minded, has a foot fetish and loves her three children equally.

Rick's chest hangs down to his waist.

Mary's chest hangs down to her waist.

A few years after they first met, they figured out they were special. As their friends talked about getting married, they nodded and smiled joyously, sharing their secret. As their friends talked about getting divorced, they nodded and smiled simpathetically, hiding their secret.

Rick and Mary were born over seventeen thousand years ago. Rick was a tree and Mary was a gust of wind. Since they've been together so long, it's no suprise that their hair is so thin and their asses so big!

One morning, a week from now, Rick will die. It's a bit unfortunate that it'll take Mary another twelve hours to follow suit. In those twelve hours, she will tidy the house, call her children to tell them she loves them, and play the piano. She is annoyed at Rick for always walking slightly ahead of her. Huhbrrrr! What an ass.

Invincible, pt 2 of 2: the dark of grey

I had a great plan to write about death in two parts but now I don't feel like writing the serious angle. Instead, here's an email that I sent to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I have not yet heard back from them.

Dear marble Roman penis,

Seeing you on Sunday was awkward for both of us. Had I known you were there, in between the Great Hall and Oceania, I would’ve walked through European Sculpture and Decorative Arts instead. The fact is, although I will always love you, there are so many of your kind in every museum I’ve ever been to. The only thing that outnumbers you is terra cotta pots from Greece. And possibly 20th century African shit (which isn’t really digging into the history of the continent, now is it?). Anyway, I'm sorry little kids always point up at you and laugh. Don't take it too personally - they laugh at everything.

Be well and I'll see you next Sunday,

James

Three from London

Push and hold down the plastic button.  Watch as the screen goes blank.  A few hiccups, a bit of pain.  Reset.

History is funniest when you read it in a bathroom.  Kings and men and dogs all with inextinguishable pride and hypocrisy.  Silly guidebooks and crumbling walls and buildings full of artwork.

My Tree will save the world.  I pray that I can hold her hand as she burns bright.  I dream of carrying her in my arms when she wilts.  My Tree has saved me.

Invincible, pt 1 of 2: the light of grey

When you are small, you are invincible. Cuts heal, scars disappear and tears turn to laughs very quickly. I think this is best illustrated by my friend's two year old son, Adam. While running around on the playground he bit the dust, hard. You can see it: his legs are only twelve inches long and that's including all the space taken up by feet and knees. So it's not really running, it's more like bouncing on chubby stubbs with flailing arms. Adam was running full speed, eyes taking in every ray, cheeks pulled back in a manic smile, drool flying everywhere. It was a little like a smiling, fleshy jackhammer without an operator. Stumble and THWAP! Pancake Adam.

After taking a moment to visually check-in with his mom, he decided not to cry and then used a combination of hands, feet and head to right himself and continue his touring-the-playground via seizure. I didn't see his face but I'm assuming he was smiling even wider now that he had kissed the pavement. If I was running proportionally as fast as Adam and then hit the ground, I would take a day off to go to the doctor and sip Advil cocktails until I couldn't see straight.

As I put children up on a pedestal, let's get something clear: I love getting older.

I love driving; I love drinking (not at the same time). If I want to see my sisters, I buy a ticket and go. Gray hair? Awesome. Gray is Gregory Peck, Steve McQueen, George Clooney and my dad. I'm fine with Gray. Hell, I can't wait for the gray on the right side of my head to convert the brown on the left. I have an iPhone, a drumset, a sweet watch, three earrings, a tattoo, and every episode of Battlestar Galactica on my macbook. If I want pizza for lunch like I do today, I'm going right the fuck outside to buy the best pizza in a four block radius. Suck it, Adam. And PS, have fun waiting twenty years to get laid.


Next Post: Invincible, pt 2: the dark of grey. You can safely assume at least three more posts before I get to "Her and Me and the End." That story keeps shedding it's skin and growing longer.

4/21/09 - Edit: changed title to indicate there are only two parts to this essay.

Wednesday

There is something about the rain.

I woke up at 7:40 a.m. My alarm goes off at 8:00 a.m. Waking fantasies of coffee (between dreaming fantasies of dragons) rolled my smile over the rest of my body rendering sleep obsolete. The people who warn you not to drink coffee right out of bed have never had it fresh-ground.

My neighborhood is very windy. The petulant child pulls paper out of the garbage cans and tosses it about. I decided to pick up all the trash I could on my way to the subway. After an hour or so, I made it to Ditmars Boulevard. On the train, I gave my seat to a frizzie-haired woman. She was not pregnant or old.

I’ve had my job for one year. Once seated in my office, I spent the next two hours doing absolutely everything. I got it all done. The director called me for my annual evaluation where I was told that despite my wardrobe and stainless steel garnishes, I was a “top notch employee and an example for the rest of the staff.” I was given a raise. When the ceremony was over, I walked outside to drop a letter in the post box. A scream! I turned to see a woman proclaim her stroller toward Second Avenue. I sprinted to the infant, scooping her out of the stroller with my left hand while grabbing the handle of the cart with my right. No bulls will run over young Lucy today. I went back to work, consoled my boss over the death of her aunt and was given the rest of the day off.

The M15 bus runs south on Second Avenue. Entering the bus, the only open seat was next to a Latino man. Three blocks later, he began to teach me Portuguese. Thirteen blocks later, I knew the same vocabulary as the average Portuguese teenager. Thirty blocks later, I decided to hop off and told Jorge (his name was Jorge), “Foi um prazer conhecerte, meu amigo.” In English: “It was a pleasure meeting you, my friend.”

There is a fantastic falafel place at Broadway and 17th. I walked there and bumped into Matthew Broderick. He mentioned something. I mentioned something else. He mentioned something about New York. I laughed and we sat down together in Union Square Park to eat. We talked about Election and Ferris Bueller. He asked me about being in a band. I asked him about executives at HBO. A husband and wife eating lunch nearby stood up suddenly. The man was huffing in and out and the woman was rubbing his back. Eyes bulging now, he grabbed at his throat and she screamed, “Somebody help!” Luckily, Matthew Broderick carries an Epi-Pen with him. He popped off the cap and stabbed the needle into the man’s thigh. Crisis averted. The four of us then went to the afternoon showing of Watchmen in IMAX.

Watchmen is a long movie. To ease the stiffness of sitting for three hours, I padded to Chelsea to meet my friend Claire for dinner at her father’s restaurant. Halfway through the meal, she mentioned the chef’s name off-hand:
“…Mark Lupino.”
“Mark Lupino!” I said.
“Mark Lupino,” she said.
I knew Mark from restaurant work in Saratoga after college. Before I knew it, Claire, Claire’s father, Mark and I were all Elaphanting through red wine. We laughed, drank cappuccino, exchanged phone numbers and laughed some more. Mark hailed a cab for my ride home to bed.

7:40 a.m. Lovely rain.

Next Post: Me and Her and the End.

Laughed Myself Wide Open

I don't smoke. I have, however, smoked quite a few cigarettes and I've enjoyed most of them. Usually alone, sometimes with a band or at a bar, never more than one or two a day. I would buy a pack, smoke half of them over a week, give the other half away, wait four months, repeat. There may have been three times in my life where I bought more than one pack in a row and smoked more than two cigarettes in an evening. At those times, I was a "smoker." And it wasn't all fantastic. There were a few in there that, when coupled with the shouting, dancing and imbibing, lead to a lousy day-after. Those nights usually came at the end of the week, and lead to the four month hiatus.

People hate smoking and I don't blame them. Smoking will kill you as slow and steady as the tide. It is also likely that smoking has done considerable damage to a member of your family. But it feels so good and all your favorite people are doing it. Well shit. I don't smoke because it's a little disgusting and it hinders my ability to run, jump, and play the drums. I rarely ever criticize someone for smoking, although I usually encourage others should they decide to quit. Either way, it's from the perspective of someone who has been there and done that.

I loved smoking; I was addicted to Twitter.

There is something amazing about millions of people posting completely random and unique thoughts every second. The web is lit-up by trends. People flock electronically. Current Events? The definition of current events is rewritten: I mean right the fuck now. Not a report tonight on what happened hours before. And some of my favorite authors, actors and comedians are doing it - people who I've always been curious about...

And yet, with the beautiful diamonds comes the scratchy dirty straw. First, there is constant updating and overflow of mundane information. Second, most web trends are pop-culture related. Not a whole lot of Ghanaians thumbing away on their iPhones. And my favorite people? I still don't really know them. Following them around is a little self-centered on their part and stalkerish on mine. And just who were the ten random people following me?

Yesterday, I deleted my account. My last cigarette didn't feel that good. I left work and laughed myself wide open. Like an unmoored boat, I drifted around midtown smiling and tilting. Listened to music, watched some people, sent a text. The sun went down and I rolled towards the subway.

I don't twitter anymore because after the novelty of throwing random things on the internet wore off, I began to feel a little trapped: I was compelled to post every hour regardless of what I had to say. It wasn't fun anymore; it was simply something I did. Still, I have no intention of criticizing it's power as a connecting force. Maybe in twenty years, I'll join the 2029 twitter equivalent. Whatever I do, it will be from the perspective of someone who's been there and done that.

Next Post: "Wednesday"