Slanted writing, stuffed into the index of a history textbook:
You: you: are something I can only make scratch-and-scrape attempts to mimic in the margins of my notebooks, you: are flutesweet and candlebright, you: are windchimelovely and --
Slanted writing, on a biology worksheet, crammed against a diagram of a pig:
-- and there is no peeling-iron-scrap of doubt in my aching tanglebrain or my sluggish droolingheart that you: are a gilded crook, that you: are a pearly thief, are the crown jewel criminal who surely framed Prometheus, and you: are a plaited barbwire garland grown in --
In the margins of The Odyssey:
-- in the caviar corner of a Nirvana gardenmaze, in labyrinthine soil, you: are a Sphinx, who has crafted and carved a magnificent starvation into the corduroy lining of my lips and lungs and the soles of my feet, what is left of them, and you: have sparked a March hare’s craving in the belly of my belly to --
In the cover of a Sunday school folder, crossed out and rewritten several times:
-- to bend, to kneel, and give grace to the --
Delirious in the cover of a spiral notebook:
-- the commands of this lunatic lieutenant, this toybox ringmaster, to salute and attend the dragon’s-hoard feasts of Shangri-la with all their jangling brambles and brilliance and Bacchanalia, and you: would be there, and I would pucker and run my tongue around the gaps of my teeth and suck out the sugars of the moment to greed myself on every last splinter of lacquer and licorice, and you: could watch as I was driven, like numb cattle, to dance like a dynamite marionette, to prowl like a Trojan lion, to stomp and thrash and wail like a Cherokee warchief, and we: --
The rest, scrawled on the back of a spelling test: turned in and forgotten.
(One of my weirder things. But I like. AND OHOHO WHAT'S THIS, KYLIE, AN OBLIQUE STATEMENT ABOUT ADOLESCENT INFATUATION?)
5/30/10
5/29/10
Six-word stories
"For Sale: Baby shoes never worn." - Hemingway. AUGHHH BRILLIANT.
"I do." And I did, then.
A locked door would have helped.
"How's he lookin', there, Doc? ... Doc?"
"Quit crying." He didn't. It hurt.
Somehow, the cat was back. "Goddammit."
He stopped bleeding. We stopped working.
"I'll go," but I shouldn't have.
The gavel cracked. So did she.
I don't really like the curtness, but damn if they aren't fun.
"I do." And I did, then.
A locked door would have helped.
"How's he lookin', there, Doc? ... Doc?"
"Quit crying." He didn't. It hurt.
Somehow, the cat was back. "Goddammit."
He stopped bleeding. We stopped working.
"I'll go," but I shouldn't have.
The gavel cracked. So did she.
I don't really like the curtness, but damn if they aren't fun.
5/27/10
The air was wet with sound: the faraway yelping of a wounded dog
Little August caught fire last night, and everyone got out alive.
The bowl that Corinne’s daughter had made for her in art class was as pretty as a teahouse, but it was massacred against the kitchen tile when the sirens fired and she dropped it like bad meat.
The bracken old lady who stood by a firehydrant every morning and sold poinsettias from a basket tried looting her neighbor’s jewelry box.
Douglas Harvey was a champion marksman from Maine, whose bedroom lock was tangled with age and dandruffy with rust, and while he was boiling with saline panic it decided to fall asleep. He instead cannoned through the window and two stories later his leg folded up and back and around with an icy musket crunch.
A coltish boy named Travis was working a double shift at Hank’s Grocery, and picked the wrong aisle to be restocking when the store turned circus. He would be a fruitbasket of bruises for weeks.
The white-toothed schoolmaster charged through the other churchgoers like he was hauling freight, eyes horsewild and blind. He collided with one of his students and sprawled them mouthfirst into a cedar pew. The whole time he shrieked, like a teakettle was crawling up his throat.
A stone was thrown and the stained-glass Joseph caved away.
A young wife tore into Dr. Merrier’s face with a bearheaded hatred, and dragged him onto the bone marrow pavement, and squealed off in his car.
A boy who had tossed a cigarette into the alley behind the florist’s was racking his brains on how to best break into the candystore.
Little August caught fire last night, and everyone got out alive.
The bowl that Corinne’s daughter had made for her in art class was as pretty as a teahouse, but it was massacred against the kitchen tile when the sirens fired and she dropped it like bad meat.
The bracken old lady who stood by a firehydrant every morning and sold poinsettias from a basket tried looting her neighbor’s jewelry box.
Douglas Harvey was a champion marksman from Maine, whose bedroom lock was tangled with age and dandruffy with rust, and while he was boiling with saline panic it decided to fall asleep. He instead cannoned through the window and two stories later his leg folded up and back and around with an icy musket crunch.
A coltish boy named Travis was working a double shift at Hank’s Grocery, and picked the wrong aisle to be restocking when the store turned circus. He would be a fruitbasket of bruises for weeks.
The white-toothed schoolmaster charged through the other churchgoers like he was hauling freight, eyes horsewild and blind. He collided with one of his students and sprawled them mouthfirst into a cedar pew. The whole time he shrieked, like a teakettle was crawling up his throat.
A stone was thrown and the stained-glass Joseph caved away.
A young wife tore into Dr. Merrier’s face with a bearheaded hatred, and dragged him onto the bone marrow pavement, and squealed off in his car.
A boy who had tossed a cigarette into the alley behind the florist’s was racking his brains on how to best break into the candystore.
Little August caught fire last night, and everyone got out alive.
5/26/10
I waste hours of my life wishing I lived near a barn
When the red nag snapped her trotter
and couldn’t plow, and couldn’t run,
Mother took her by the creek
and we had meat each night for months (it was filling but it reeked.)
This left the barn a skeleton
with the yellow relic smell (and rust)
We nailed horseshoes up to keep the devil out,
but forgot about the ghosts (one got in and wouldn’t hush.)
He upset the bales when it suited him
and let the pitchfork bite and clang,
and howled for the Beauchamps’ girl, and the Harrisons’,
and we told him to shut his damn noise (he kept asking us their names.)
It wasn’t long before he left the barn,
and tried to settle in our shed
So we nailed crosses on our doors, and on the headboards of our beds
Across the mantel, around the pantry, and right above the kitchen sink.
Twice along our Mother’s windows (til our hands were raw and pink.)
He boiled and frothed and stripped our shutters,
and flung them at the door,
And spiderwebbed the windows with blue bricks and gardenstones
and crippled the gate, and stripped the field, and spooked the cattle out
And the tools were thrown and the shingles torn and all the time he bayed and moaned
to please, please let him in - that he didn’t mean us harm,
but we were turning him to skin and bone, trying to keep him in the barn.
(I have two settings: prose, and prose crumbled up into stanzas.)
and couldn’t plow, and couldn’t run,
Mother took her by the creek
and we had meat each night for months (it was filling but it reeked.)
This left the barn a skeleton
with the yellow relic smell (and rust)
We nailed horseshoes up to keep the devil out,
but forgot about the ghosts (one got in and wouldn’t hush.)
He upset the bales when it suited him
and let the pitchfork bite and clang,
and howled for the Beauchamps’ girl, and the Harrisons’,
and we told him to shut his damn noise (he kept asking us their names.)
It wasn’t long before he left the barn,
and tried to settle in our shed
So we nailed crosses on our doors, and on the headboards of our beds
Across the mantel, around the pantry, and right above the kitchen sink.
Twice along our Mother’s windows (til our hands were raw and pink.)
He boiled and frothed and stripped our shutters,
and flung them at the door,
And spiderwebbed the windows with blue bricks and gardenstones
and crippled the gate, and stripped the field, and spooked the cattle out
And the tools were thrown and the shingles torn and all the time he bayed and moaned
to please, please let him in - that he didn’t mean us harm,
but we were turning him to skin and bone, trying to keep him in the barn.
(I have two settings: prose, and prose crumbled up into stanzas.)
5/25/10
I should never
have left Paris. The sawed-off vinegar fuck at the Dijon trainstation was right: I have too much little in me. Not enough enough. Wandering someplace happens only once, and once there I should never have left. The gunmetal bomber’s jacket that I stole from a veteran still feels like the thorny net of some Hun invader, and with meatcleaver cleverness was it fashioned into something that I would be willingly snared by. Will of want. Not choice. Were I asked to return it, I may tell a lie and say it was lost or I may tell the truth and say it was ruined. There is a rip in the neck that hemorrhages cotton, after all. I was spidering up a park fence after hours and it snagged and tore open. The fence was iron lattice, and gunmetal.
Marseille was cruel to me but I loved it. Loved it. The autobiography that I vomited onto the sidewalk in front of the burlesque theater was brief but well understood by passersby. They moved so goddamn fast. It was like watching machineguns walk. A boy who was too young for his face was pawing around in the gutter and throwing stones at cars, and when he inevitably groped a cracked bottle he offered his bleeding hand to his mother. She grabbed it, and clucked when he howled. “Eh, vois-tu? C'est une aide-memoire!” is what she said, which as far as I can tell means “Quit throwing fucking rocks.” Simple lessons are the ones that stick with us the longest, I think.
In gorgeous Bordeaux I fucked a young black man who had greasefire scars sunk into his midsection like quartz leaked in marble, and I was fucked by a Latina woman who had no calluses and an Italian-sounding name. There was music, each time. Beethoven said that princes were princes by the accident of birth, and that Beethoven was Beethoven by the miracle of Beethoven, but the cello spoke more clearly for him. Little else is as divine as the sugary growl of a cello. The greatest of orators and poets and tyrants fall mute, and upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the miracle of Beethoven had very little to do with Beethoven.
And I loved it all but nothing compared to Paris. Oh Christ, Paris. It rolls my catacomb heart like a die, sets it tantrumming off its ribs like an inmate, has it whining like some mutt shut in a kennel. The sour opium carnival. It was a lover that cradled me like a python, and I was happy prey. Gunpowder was the soup du jour, and I licked my bowl clean.
Marseille was cruel to me but I loved it. Loved it. The autobiography that I vomited onto the sidewalk in front of the burlesque theater was brief but well understood by passersby. They moved so goddamn fast. It was like watching machineguns walk. A boy who was too young for his face was pawing around in the gutter and throwing stones at cars, and when he inevitably groped a cracked bottle he offered his bleeding hand to his mother. She grabbed it, and clucked when he howled. “Eh, vois-tu? C'est une aide-memoire!” is what she said, which as far as I can tell means “Quit throwing fucking rocks.” Simple lessons are the ones that stick with us the longest, I think.
In gorgeous Bordeaux I fucked a young black man who had greasefire scars sunk into his midsection like quartz leaked in marble, and I was fucked by a Latina woman who had no calluses and an Italian-sounding name. There was music, each time. Beethoven said that princes were princes by the accident of birth, and that Beethoven was Beethoven by the miracle of Beethoven, but the cello spoke more clearly for him. Little else is as divine as the sugary growl of a cello. The greatest of orators and poets and tyrants fall mute, and upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the miracle of Beethoven had very little to do with Beethoven.
And I loved it all but nothing compared to Paris. Oh Christ, Paris. It rolls my catacomb heart like a die, sets it tantrumming off its ribs like an inmate, has it whining like some mutt shut in a kennel. The sour opium carnival. It was a lover that cradled me like a python, and I was happy prey. Gunpowder was the soup du jour, and I licked my bowl clean.
5/24/10
Royal oil is a wicked liquid with a gallant talent for drawing handsome ransom
“You smell like death,” she told the apartment door as it opened. Even through the hot cut of her wet nail polish, she could smell him. Something low and harsh and meaty. It happened, she supposed. “Destination: shower, babe.”
The glossy page of the magazine snagged against her sweater, and made a scraping sound as she smoothed it down. Halfway through a paragraph about skin cancer she realized she could still smell him.
“Babe?”
She shifted around on the couch and turned.
“Oh. Oh, what the fuck.”
He had been uncobbled, by the looks of it. The ripe swell of jaw that she had kissed goodbye and playfully pinched that morning was gone. Instead there was a loaf of underdone mutton, with the makings of a mouth. It was opening and closing in slow, shallow bites, and crooked ones. The molars seemed to no longer line up correctly. He was still dressed for work, dapper and sharp in his pressed white oxford and half-price chinos, the ancient worn-away stained-in-spots pair that she had been begging him for weeks to let her replace. All down his front and side was a lush gush of red, and dark red, and dark brown, and crusts and flakes and patches and clots. His dress shoes were still neatly tied.
He shifted towards her, and something made a noise like a bubble and a sigh, and she realized with abrupt sadness that it was his throat. Sound could not quite find its way out. He had never been very good at shaving, never, would come out of the bathroom with a scowl and nicks all up and around his face and neck. After a good giggle at his expense, she would offer graciously to kiss them all better.
Her lips trembled.
“Oh, baby. Oh, sweetheart.”
At some point between the seeing and the speaking she had stood and edged away, slowly, mindfully, but still she had the magazine in hand. It clattered to the floor like a bird as she reached gently around for her duffel bag.
“Oh, sweetie, this isn’t right. I’m so sorry.”
He gurgled, lurching. The couch clipped his hip and he stumbled. She watched, ripping the zipper slowly open and reaching inside.
“We should have stayed in, today. Both of us. We could have watched a movie.”
The coffee table barked his shin and he doubled over painlessly. Then kept moving. She pulled out the tennis racket, almost every bit as shiny and new as it had been that last Christmas.
“You could have picked this time. I know you don’t like the old black-and-white stuff, but I don’t mind comedies.” The racket came up for a moment, and quivered. Her face squirmed. “Oh, sweetheart.”
He reached out to her - still doubled drunkenly over the coffee table, working patiently to climb over - with his crooked molars opening and closing and opening and closing and opening, and he stretched his hand out and curled and uncurled his fingers into fangs and then she laid into his wicker-brittle skull over and over and over and sideways and across and over and over and then through it like a cavewoman. By the time she was done, her nails had smeared.
(despite my love of visceral description and violence in general, zombie stuff has never really fancied my tickle... Hmmmm.)
The glossy page of the magazine snagged against her sweater, and made a scraping sound as she smoothed it down. Halfway through a paragraph about skin cancer she realized she could still smell him.
“Babe?”
She shifted around on the couch and turned.
“Oh. Oh, what the fuck.”
He had been uncobbled, by the looks of it. The ripe swell of jaw that she had kissed goodbye and playfully pinched that morning was gone. Instead there was a loaf of underdone mutton, with the makings of a mouth. It was opening and closing in slow, shallow bites, and crooked ones. The molars seemed to no longer line up correctly. He was still dressed for work, dapper and sharp in his pressed white oxford and half-price chinos, the ancient worn-away stained-in-spots pair that she had been begging him for weeks to let her replace. All down his front and side was a lush gush of red, and dark red, and dark brown, and crusts and flakes and patches and clots. His dress shoes were still neatly tied.
He shifted towards her, and something made a noise like a bubble and a sigh, and she realized with abrupt sadness that it was his throat. Sound could not quite find its way out. He had never been very good at shaving, never, would come out of the bathroom with a scowl and nicks all up and around his face and neck. After a good giggle at his expense, she would offer graciously to kiss them all better.
Her lips trembled.
“Oh, baby. Oh, sweetheart.”
At some point between the seeing and the speaking she had stood and edged away, slowly, mindfully, but still she had the magazine in hand. It clattered to the floor like a bird as she reached gently around for her duffel bag.
“Oh, sweetie, this isn’t right. I’m so sorry.”
He gurgled, lurching. The couch clipped his hip and he stumbled. She watched, ripping the zipper slowly open and reaching inside.
“We should have stayed in, today. Both of us. We could have watched a movie.”
The coffee table barked his shin and he doubled over painlessly. Then kept moving. She pulled out the tennis racket, almost every bit as shiny and new as it had been that last Christmas.
“You could have picked this time. I know you don’t like the old black-and-white stuff, but I don’t mind comedies.” The racket came up for a moment, and quivered. Her face squirmed. “Oh, sweetheart.”
He reached out to her - still doubled drunkenly over the coffee table, working patiently to climb over - with his crooked molars opening and closing and opening and closing and opening, and he stretched his hand out and curled and uncurled his fingers into fangs and then she laid into his wicker-brittle skull over and over and over and sideways and across and over and over and then through it like a cavewoman. By the time she was done, her nails had smeared.
(despite my love of visceral description and violence in general, zombie stuff has never really fancied my tickle... Hmmmm.)
5/23/10
Hustling and Easterner, bringing out the beast in her
Perry was a friendly and sweet-mannered little boy, but had never been very bright, and the hungry thing that lived in the creek knew that. Not the way that a person knows another person or a dog knows its foodbowl, but the way a rock knows what sort of itching clicking gristle is hidden beneath itself. Some dumb, blameless, wicked sense. Perry had sprained his ankle in teeball last year, after splitting his scalp wide open at the roller rink, after crying his heart out at the burial of the family Pyrenees, after chipping his tooth on an icecube in his lemonade. The hungry thing that lived in the creek knew all of this too. It didn’t know that it knew it, but it did.
And when Perry crouched down on the bank of the creek to look for frogs, soaking the toes of his hand-me-down sneakers, the thing began to drool.
“I don’t think you’ll find much down here, whatever it is you’re looking for.”
Perry flinched away from the sound, and slipped and fell. It was a just a man, though, standing tall on the other side of the creek. Maybe he was around his father’s age but maybe not. It was difficult to say. He seemed nice, though. His clothes made him appear neat and trim and orderly, but there was something strangely oily, too, and Perry simply could not get a hold of the look of him.
“You are lookin’ for something, aren’tcha?” the man asked, friendly enough, after a few moments of the little boy staring. “Me, I just lost my watch fob down here the other day... my dog, Shepherd, he got his slobbery chops all over where I left it on the table, and ran right out the door! The scamp! Neighbor said she saw him run down here, and I just now got the time to have a look-about.”
The thing gave a pleasant smile, one that widened when Perry showed the beginnings of a shy grin. What a ripe little mouth the boy had.
“So that’s what I’m looking for... what about you?” The man hunkered down on his heels in an imitation of Perry, and began peering into the lazy water. “You didn’t lose something, too?”
Perry had blunted his palms against the smooth wet creekstones when toppling over, and as he then straightened up he unthinkingly wiped them on his khakis. Wiping like that always gave him dirty clothes, and dirty clothes always got him in stomach-whirling trouble with mom and dad about cleanliness and Godliness, but it was a deep and comfortable habit. “... no, I was, uh... I was just looking for frogs.”
By then he was expecting a harsh word from this stranger, for wandering about on his own with such little reason. He wiped his already-dry little boy’s hands against his now-dirty little boy’s shorts with a precious, tender nervousness. The thing howled inside itself.
“Is that right? I did the same thing myself, when I was younger. If it wasn't frogs, it was turtles or minnows or crayfish. Though... hey, now!” He wobbled back on his heels as if struck by thought, his eyes wide in comic realization. “I look something like a frog right now, don’t I? All eyes and knees and elbows!”
Perry’s laugh was quiet, but cheery and clear. He nodded and hunkered down, too, sticking out his elbows like a frog.
“Well, now, don’t we make a fine pair.”
Perry grinned timidly. The chip in his tooth was visible when his ripe little boy lips pulled back and oh the thing boiled and throbbed to shred them to morsels.
“Say, now, I got an idea,” the man said. “Let’s give each other a hand, hey? I’ll bet I can remember all the best frog-spots around here, once I’m not all distracted. You help me find that ol’ watch fob and we can go look for where all them frogs are hiding.”
The boy’s smile faltered, and the man hurried to explain.
“You’ve got younger eyes, is all... and that watch fob, it’s not as shiny as it used to be. My father gave it to me, he did - so it’s plenty old.” The man frowned, and completed to look of a frog by swelling and deflating with a sigh. “Don’t have a clue what I’d do, if it’s lost for good! I’d sure hate that.”
He collapsed his elbows and propped them on his knees, leaned forward, and aimed an imploring look directly at Perry. “Won’t take a minute to find! Shepherd can’t swim worth a lick, so it’s no doubt right over here. On this side, here. Won’t take a minute. Whatcha say, hm?”
Perry hesitated. He was unsure if this was the type of stranger he was supposed to watch out for, but in all honesty, he was unsure if he wanted to look for a watch fob, either. He just wanted to find some frogs. “We’ll look for frogs right after?”
“Cross my heart,” said the thing.
The boy waited only long enough to wipe his hands on his khakis, before stepping out onto a stone to cross the water. Then something roared and swallowed and grabbed at him with a damp stinking coliseum of teeth, and he kicked and kicked to get to the surface and screamed and cold wet pocketknife shrapnel filled up his mouth, and he kicked and his shoes were gone and his back was naked and shredded up against a rock and full of tiny scrapes and cuts that stung like cigarettes, and he grabbed around for anything at all and his fingers dug into something soft like gristle and soil, and he wanted to breathe and cry and go home, and he grabbed harder and he pulled, and something came away in his fingers and there was a roar again and the cold went slack and then Perry could breathe again, and he was on the bank, and there was air, he was up and he was breathing and Perry was running home in the wrong direction.
Perry was crying and bloody and his shirt was missing and his stomach-whirling-trouble-dirty khakis were even dirtier. His shoes were gone. He cut up his feet looking for the road.
(Ghost story? Allegory of pedophilia? Propaganda against watch fobs? You make the call.)
And when Perry crouched down on the bank of the creek to look for frogs, soaking the toes of his hand-me-down sneakers, the thing began to drool.
“I don’t think you’ll find much down here, whatever it is you’re looking for.”
Perry flinched away from the sound, and slipped and fell. It was a just a man, though, standing tall on the other side of the creek. Maybe he was around his father’s age but maybe not. It was difficult to say. He seemed nice, though. His clothes made him appear neat and trim and orderly, but there was something strangely oily, too, and Perry simply could not get a hold of the look of him.
“You are lookin’ for something, aren’tcha?” the man asked, friendly enough, after a few moments of the little boy staring. “Me, I just lost my watch fob down here the other day... my dog, Shepherd, he got his slobbery chops all over where I left it on the table, and ran right out the door! The scamp! Neighbor said she saw him run down here, and I just now got the time to have a look-about.”
The thing gave a pleasant smile, one that widened when Perry showed the beginnings of a shy grin. What a ripe little mouth the boy had.
“So that’s what I’m looking for... what about you?” The man hunkered down on his heels in an imitation of Perry, and began peering into the lazy water. “You didn’t lose something, too?”
Perry had blunted his palms against the smooth wet creekstones when toppling over, and as he then straightened up he unthinkingly wiped them on his khakis. Wiping like that always gave him dirty clothes, and dirty clothes always got him in stomach-whirling trouble with mom and dad about cleanliness and Godliness, but it was a deep and comfortable habit. “... no, I was, uh... I was just looking for frogs.”
By then he was expecting a harsh word from this stranger, for wandering about on his own with such little reason. He wiped his already-dry little boy’s hands against his now-dirty little boy’s shorts with a precious, tender nervousness. The thing howled inside itself.
“Is that right? I did the same thing myself, when I was younger. If it wasn't frogs, it was turtles or minnows or crayfish. Though... hey, now!” He wobbled back on his heels as if struck by thought, his eyes wide in comic realization. “I look something like a frog right now, don’t I? All eyes and knees and elbows!”
Perry’s laugh was quiet, but cheery and clear. He nodded and hunkered down, too, sticking out his elbows like a frog.
“Well, now, don’t we make a fine pair.”
Perry grinned timidly. The chip in his tooth was visible when his ripe little boy lips pulled back and oh the thing boiled and throbbed to shred them to morsels.
“Say, now, I got an idea,” the man said. “Let’s give each other a hand, hey? I’ll bet I can remember all the best frog-spots around here, once I’m not all distracted. You help me find that ol’ watch fob and we can go look for where all them frogs are hiding.”
The boy’s smile faltered, and the man hurried to explain.
“You’ve got younger eyes, is all... and that watch fob, it’s not as shiny as it used to be. My father gave it to me, he did - so it’s plenty old.” The man frowned, and completed to look of a frog by swelling and deflating with a sigh. “Don’t have a clue what I’d do, if it’s lost for good! I’d sure hate that.”
He collapsed his elbows and propped them on his knees, leaned forward, and aimed an imploring look directly at Perry. “Won’t take a minute to find! Shepherd can’t swim worth a lick, so it’s no doubt right over here. On this side, here. Won’t take a minute. Whatcha say, hm?”
Perry hesitated. He was unsure if this was the type of stranger he was supposed to watch out for, but in all honesty, he was unsure if he wanted to look for a watch fob, either. He just wanted to find some frogs. “We’ll look for frogs right after?”
“Cross my heart,” said the thing.
The boy waited only long enough to wipe his hands on his khakis, before stepping out onto a stone to cross the water. Then something roared and swallowed and grabbed at him with a damp stinking coliseum of teeth, and he kicked and kicked to get to the surface and screamed and cold wet pocketknife shrapnel filled up his mouth, and he kicked and his shoes were gone and his back was naked and shredded up against a rock and full of tiny scrapes and cuts that stung like cigarettes, and he grabbed around for anything at all and his fingers dug into something soft like gristle and soil, and he wanted to breathe and cry and go home, and he grabbed harder and he pulled, and something came away in his fingers and there was a roar again and the cold went slack and then Perry could breathe again, and he was on the bank, and there was air, he was up and he was breathing and Perry was running home in the wrong direction.
Perry was crying and bloody and his shirt was missing and his stomach-whirling-trouble-dirty khakis were even dirtier. His shoes were gone. He cut up his feet looking for the road.
(Ghost story? Allegory of pedophilia? Propaganda against watch fobs? You make the call.)
5/20/10
VONNEBE.
There is no dignity in the smell of old blood. You would think so: blood has feuds and baths and money. Blood makes oaths. And sparks lust, and curdles in the victim and beats cold in the killer, and I am told it is thicker than water. But then it ages and the velvet goes. And in its place there are brittle pipes, and mongrels, and the afternoon kiln of the classroom in August, and cheap bread.
I am told by holymen that blood can be pure or be tainted. I am told by poets that blood can sing. I am told by doctors that blood grows brighter, more vicious in color, when it comes into contact with oxygen. That blood becomes more alive when it leaves a body, I find sad. I find it wasteful. So there is justice in time then turning it to dregs.
When I tell her these things, Claire puffs air through her nose quietly and fixes me with a patient look. “You work too hard is all.” She sets a four-egg omelet and orange juice in front of me, gently.
Such a considerate person. I think I may marry her, one day.
“That’ll be six fifty-eight,” she says.
I have been told that omelets are a poor choice of breakfast for a man in my line of work. That nausea, and fatigue, and intestinal gas are sure to follow. But the truth of it is that eggs are the only meat I can stomach. And breakfast the only meal that I can stomach it for, because it would be very silly to order an omelet for lunch or for dinner. Brunch is not so silly a time to order eggs, but it would be quite silly to order brunch.
“And your change,” she says.
Coins, also. Old blood smells slightly like coins. But mostly not. I am told that blood leaves a taste like pennies in people’s mouths, when they bite their tongue or when they bite their lip or when they swallow their nosebleed. I have done none of these things. I am told that it leaves a taste like pennies and so a taste like copper, but I do not think this is correct, because blood and coins have only iron in common.
The quarter in my palm is from twenty-three years ago. Two of the pennies and a nickel are even older. I cannot imagine the godlessness of blood at such an age.
I work in a slaughterhouse. I clean out the blood. My mother, she wanted me to be a surgeon.
(oh what's that Vonnegut? You say I'm not allowed to attempt an imitation of your voice for a plotless blurb, since I'm too aggressive with imagery and heavy-handed with characterization? WELL HEY GUESS WHAT YOU'RE DEAD)
I am told by holymen that blood can be pure or be tainted. I am told by poets that blood can sing. I am told by doctors that blood grows brighter, more vicious in color, when it comes into contact with oxygen. That blood becomes more alive when it leaves a body, I find sad. I find it wasteful. So there is justice in time then turning it to dregs.
When I tell her these things, Claire puffs air through her nose quietly and fixes me with a patient look. “You work too hard is all.” She sets a four-egg omelet and orange juice in front of me, gently.
Such a considerate person. I think I may marry her, one day.
“That’ll be six fifty-eight,” she says.
I have been told that omelets are a poor choice of breakfast for a man in my line of work. That nausea, and fatigue, and intestinal gas are sure to follow. But the truth of it is that eggs are the only meat I can stomach. And breakfast the only meal that I can stomach it for, because it would be very silly to order an omelet for lunch or for dinner. Brunch is not so silly a time to order eggs, but it would be quite silly to order brunch.
“And your change,” she says.
Coins, also. Old blood smells slightly like coins. But mostly not. I am told that blood leaves a taste like pennies in people’s mouths, when they bite their tongue or when they bite their lip or when they swallow their nosebleed. I have done none of these things. I am told that it leaves a taste like pennies and so a taste like copper, but I do not think this is correct, because blood and coins have only iron in common.
The quarter in my palm is from twenty-three years ago. Two of the pennies and a nickel are even older. I cannot imagine the godlessness of blood at such an age.
I work in a slaughterhouse. I clean out the blood. My mother, she wanted me to be a surgeon.
(oh what's that Vonnegut? You say I'm not allowed to attempt an imitation of your voice for a plotless blurb, since I'm too aggressive with imagery and heavy-handed with characterization? WELL HEY GUESS WHAT YOU'RE DEAD)
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