Friday, June 29, 2018

TROOPS

At this point, however, Causubon retreated from inferential arguments and resorted to one that would have satisfied Montagu.

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Was it 1975?

It was summertime in the south of France, or was it Switzerland? A jazz-rock fusion band was playing down in a sandy valley below steep, rocky slopes where we sat with the rest of the crowd. We had a picnic—ham sandwiches, peaches, Evian water in the corrugated liter bottles, everything the same unappetizing temperature and smelling of the plastic of the insulated cooler bag that was in the trunk of the car for the past three hours.

I was worried we might fall off this jagged boulder and tumble down, gashing our heads and breaking limbs.

The men in the band looked like dolls down there in flared pants, silk shirts, bandannas. Strange, angular sounds bleated from their speakers and I wished somebody would sing.

Friday, June 15, 2018

TROOPS

I walked to the car, pausing shyly before opening the door and getting in.

Tuesday, June 05, 2018

I like the stripes on the water pipes in the stairwell at work. And the fire hoses that say Made in Canada. Sometimes these are the only things I notice in an eight-hour day.

Happy BIrthday

There was a fucked-up trans woman on the corner of Grove Street and West 4th with a big pink chalk in her hand and a cigarette bouncing between her lips. Around her workers built a scaffold, twisting bolts, dropping pipes from the platform up above with a monstrous crash. She crept among them and their edifice crouched over, like a hunter in the woods. Looking for the place and time to strike.

Finally she wrote something on the curb in big, curly capitals. “HAPPY,” it said. “HAPPY BIRTH—” and then I was too far away, and I felt foolish for wanting to turn around and read over her shoulder. Later when I came back the other way, I wanted to know who it was she celebrated. There had to be a name. The target of her message. But that’s all it said.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

Saturday, June 02, 2018

I emerged from the Houston Street station to find a row of people facing across Varick, examining something with great concern. Before I reached the sidewalk I realized it had to be awful.

In fact the intersection was jammed with emergency vehicles—cops, an ambulance, a fire truck. I could have turned away at that moment and went on to the entrance to my work, twenty feet away. But I turned again to look at what everyone was looking at. A woman was prone on a stretcher, unconscious. Medium build, black. I did not see any blood. But you could just imagine what had happened.

Friday, June 01, 2018

The Hole Where My Shit Goes

The toilet was on the fritz, water seeping out from around the base when you flushed. Mike the Plumber said it probably needed a new seal. He came quick the following day.

He called me in when it had been removed. Not sure why, but I guess it’s something you’re supposed to see. The toilet itself was at an angle off to the side. Mike’s assistant was bailing it out with a Solo cup, pouring the tainted water into the sink a few ounces at a time. In its footprint was a sinewy mass of yellow wax surrounding the mouth of a cold, silver pipe, five or six inches wide. It was black as hell in there. Mike said a few words and I said a few words back, hoping they were the right ones, but all I could think about was that awful hole, finally laid bare. The truth that lies below reality. The hole where my shit goes.