TROOPS

“Rancid cod oil may improve it.”

TROOPS

a cinema gig between productions of Titus Andronicus.

Notes Written Upon Waking Up About a Dream I Can No Longer Remember

Dad restaurant on the road in France, other people (young), hospital with severely depressed person?

TROOPS

Meanwhile, everyone looks down on May’s unspoken rival

TROOPS

Something unseen stabbed his chest, something more painful and more powerful than he'd ever felt before.

TROOPS

after that one, eh boys?” The saxophone shrieks suggestively

The car honked a few times and I turned around. A teenage boy was crossing the street in front of it, against the walk signal. I imagined he’d hurry up a bit, even reluctantly, knowing he was wrong but determined to maintain his insolence. Instead he turned and heaved a giant gob of spit in the direction of the driver’s window. It wobbled and distended, amoeba-like, as it arced through the air, shiny in the morning sun.

I don’t know where it landed.

I started at him as he walked away, and he turned around, as though something finally did make him feel guilty. He saw me watching him and turned away. He glanced at me again. And turned away again.

As he stepped out of the train at 7th Avenue he hissed venomously into the ear of the short man in the baseball cap who stood at the left of the doorway: You’re in the way. There was no reaction from the other man—he might not have heard. But I did. I stared at him as we walked along the platform. Well-to-do, my age. Guy from the neighborhood. Probably a family. Good job. He gave me an unhappy glance, suggesting that he knew I was scrutinizing him, that he knew I’d heard what he said, and that he regretted that I had—that anyone had. It was supposed to come from the darkest core of his self into another human being—his target—and the world wasn’t supposed to know.

It keeps supposed to be snowing. And it never really does. A flurry here, a flurry there, that’s it. Yesterday, today. The whole city waiting for it to happen. We’d like something pretty and white to cover up the mud and gunk from the last big storm, at least for a little while.

We all felt like we had a personal relationship with Bowie. Which is immediately a problem, because he didn’t have a personal relationship with us. So to mourn him and to watch hours of videos of him on YouTube is poignant but also disconcerting. Did we all love him because there were so many of him, one for every one of us? He did present many reflective surfaces—or certainly flat white ones, upon which we could project what we wanted, anyway. It is remarkable that there’s something for every gender, every sexuality, every race. Something for the loners and the weirdos and something for the preppy kids. (Mostly something for the loners and the weirdos.) But beyond those obvious conclusions there’s something he said in an interview which makes sense to me and cuts across the personae, and so cuts across us all: the theme in his work, if any, he said modestly, is the experience of isolation and misery, and the urge (the related urge) to make a connection with other people. I want an axe to break the ice.

TROOPS

There was a faint, unpleasant shiver in the air, like chimes gone sour.

As I gazed into the microwave, the bowl slowly turning, the liquid inside growing hotter—I couldn’t tell it was, but I knew—I wondered about the first microwave of all time, maybe a hundred years ago. What did they think was going to happen? That blue flames would arc across the air? That all life in the vicinity might be contaminated? How could they know? They didn’t. So they tried.

I thought about how the entire twentieth century was defined by leaps into the void. Eat this mold from an orange—see if it kills you, see if it makes you well. What would happen when an atom exploded? Would the chain reaction continue until all of creation was destroyed? How about a sonic boom? Would the airplane disintegrate, and Chuck Yeager too? What if you shined a laser into someone’s eye? What if we played all the wrong notes? Painted pictures of nothing? Made sculptures out of toilets. We suspected someone, or something, might stop us. Or punish us after the fact. But no one did.

Just Do It

OK, ready? Now do it.

Do it.

No. No, no, no, no, no. That’s not how it’s done.

Do it again now. Do it right. Do it.

What are you doing?

You’re doing it wrong. Again. You’re doing it wrong again.

Do it right.

Ready?

You know how to do it. So do it.

No!

No, no, no.

You’re still not doing it right.

You’re doing it wrong. All wrong.

See him over there? He knows how to do it.

Watch what he does. And do it. Do what he does.

Simple as that.

You’re not doing the same thing. Watch what he does. Watch. Really watch.

That’s not it. That’s not IT. He’s doing it right. Watch.

That’s how you do it.

Why can’t you do it right?

Don’t you know how to do it?

You know how to do it. You know you know how to do it. So do it.

No. Nope.

Not like that.

Do it again. Try. Try harder.

Oh no, no, no. No.

You’re not even close. You were doing it better before. When you weren’t doing it before, you were doing it better.

You were almost doing it.

Now you’re not even doing it like that.

You’re not doing it bad like that. You’re doing it worse.

I don’t know what you’re doing now.

OK now go. Just do it.

Stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

You’re trying too hard.

Do you feel like the harder you try, the harder it gets?

Don’t try so hard. But don’t try easy. Just try. Take a breath and try.

Forget about it. Do it.

Now!

OK hold on, hold on, stop. You’re not doing it at all. Not at all.

Do you think you’re doing it? Do you think you did it?

Because you’re not doing it at all.

Not by a mile.

That’s right.

If he can do it, you can do it.

Right?

And look at her. She did it before and now she’s doing it again.

Look at her do it!

Effortless.

He can do it. She can do it. You can do it.

Ready to do it?

I know you can do it.

Listen: I know you can do it.

Do you know you can do it? You have to know you can do it.

But don’t think about it. Just do it.

OK… OK, OK, OK!

That’s it, that’s it. That’s it!

I think you’re doing it!

Come on, come on, come on!

NO NO NO NO NO!

What’s the matter with you?

TROOPS

Of course, Miss Collins was absolutely right. A town of this sort would be grateful for virtually anything I could offer it.

TROOPS

No, Cassio is not killed.

Shooting at Flowers

There was a gravel path all around the house, above it a balcony along two sides of the second floor. Pink petals, blown off of little flowers in the bed that ringed the path, were strewn about the pebbles, here and there.

“Look at that one,” Jean-Nicolas said.

I peered over the railing. The pebbles looked far away from here. Then again they looked pretty close. I was getting dizzy. Jean-Nicolas was indicating a petal with the tip of his gun. He brought the butt to his shoulder and took careful aim, peering straight down through the sight and to the ground.

“I see it,” I said.

He pulled the trigger and pebbles scattered from the spot the pellet struck. The petal leapt up bounced around a second. It landed in much the same position, in almost the same spot. You couldn’t tell whether he’d actually hit it or not.

Dave

Jeff started telling me weird things about Dave.

“Dude, he’s like, psychic.”

“What do you mean?”

“He knew all about my dad. He knew about his cancer. He told me about it in the woods.”

“He knew about it?”

“He told me about it. Like he knew. He knew what type it was. He knew it was stage four pancreatic cancer.”

“Without you telling him?”

“No, without me fucking telling him. Of course not.”

“Then how did he know?”

“Dude, dude, dude, I just told you. He’s psychic.”

“He told you about it in the woods?”

“Yeah, we went out in the woods on Friday night. We made a fire. He was like, ‘I can tell something’s up with you. Something with your dad.’”

“You were in the woods and you made a fire?”

“Yeah. Out back. Near the airport.”

It was not unusual for us to hang out in the woods. Especially not to get high. Normally we didn’t go out at night though. And didn’t make fires. The fire seemed to make some kind of difference in the story. Flames illuminating faces.

“You guys got high?”

“Yeah, fuck. Shit, Jesus. Of course we got high. We were fucking baked. Dave had the most amazing weed.”

“And he didn’t know about your dad?”

“He didn’t! I mean, I didn’t tell him. There’s no way he would know. But dude, he fuckin’ told me. It was fuckin’ spooky, man. It’s like he knows shit.”

“Wow, that’s weird.”

“Yeah, and plus he did some other shit that was amazing too.”

“What other shit?”

Jeff widened his eyes. “Like I-can’t-even-tell-you-type crazy-ass shit, man.”

Dave was slightly older. He was a new kid at Jeff’s school, moved there for this or that reason. Parents split up, Mom moved to Chaplin of all goddamned places. Or maybe Dad did. Or maybe they both did. Who knows. Why does someone appear in the middle of the school year in a backwoods town in Northeastern Connecticut? Least of all someone like Dave?

I didn’t go to their school. I just hung out with Jeff on account of playing guitar. We had the same teacher and he told us we should get together, since we could both play just about as good. So we did. And we smoked cigarettes. And we smoked pot. We bought cigarettes from the machine at the diner on Route 89. We drank beer. Out on the dyke by the airport. Then we’d go to his place and play Grateful Dead tunes on two electric guitars, recording into a portable cassette player. Anyway, Dave moved into town.

One day soon before Dave disappeared for good, without a warning or a trace, the three of us were hanging out. Dave was a tall guy, short hair. He seemed more relaxed than any other kids I knew. Like he’d already done shit, like maybe had some jobs. Maybe had a kid or something. Definitely been laid.

We went out on the dyke one night and got high as hell, then we went back to Jeff’s house to watch TV. We were goddamned hungry. We made spaghetti.

“Lemme show you how to make the sauce,” Dave said.

I didn’t really understand what the fuck he was talking about. Sauce came out of a jar like it always does.

“What do you mean, make the sauce?” I asked.

“You gotta doctor it, man. You gotta doctor it.”

I nodded stupidly as he found a jar of oregano in the spice rack.

“Watch me,” he said, and I did as I was told.

Dave unscrewed the entire top of the shaker so there was just one fucking big hole there, not the screen with all the little holes.

“You see what I’m fuckin’ doin’?” he asked. Then he proceeded to pour a good fucking tablespoon of oregano into the sauce. The dry, dusty flakes, sitting in clumps now on the glistening, bubbling surface of the Aunt Millie’s. I was astounded.

“Wow,” I said.

“You think that’s enough?” he asked, tauntingly.

“Yeah!”

Immediately he shook out the same amount again.

“Wow,” I repeated. My hunger. My twisted mind. My numb and stricken mind. Ravenous like an animal. Terrified like one too.

“You think that’s too much fucking oregano for this fucking sauce, Pat?” he demanded. It sounded like a threat.

“I dunno. Yeah. It’s kind of a lot.”

He calmly, deliberately shook in some more. Till half the jar was gone. The entire surface of the crimson liquid was now covered, just about.

“That’s enough,” Dave said. He put the lid back on and placed the jar back on the rack.

Then he stirred his concoction a few times and pronounced it done. We poured it on the spaghetti and ate in front of the TV. It tasted pretty good. I was so high anyway. I don’t know. “2001: A Space Odyssey” was on. The apes had just discovered the monolith and were going batshit crazy. I looked over to see Dave gazing at the screen, its light reflected in his eyes. He lifted his fork up to his mouth and ate like anybody does. Like an animal.

In the middle of the night I awoke from a dream about football that had turned into a dream about soccer; a pleasant dream, about a ball lofted through the air into a net, and felt so sick, so miserable. I figured it was because I’d had too much to drink. But I hadn’t been out—couldn’t have been that much, could it? Just a whiskey or two, or maybe three, on top of the wine of course, as the quiet night wore on. Still I felt that pang of guilt that readily accompanies the pain.

I got up to take two naproxens. Just that effort accentuated my misery. Waking up Sara, inevitably, reassuring her I was OK. Feeling a little unsteady on my feet, in the dark. And of course there’s no immediate payoff to the drugs. Just doubt on top of the agony.

I thrashed about, unable to find a tolerable position. I flipped the pillow to the cool side and noted dismally that the cool sensation, normally blissful, universally recognized as such in fact, was now a taunt, a reproach. I was in desperate need of relief and it gave me none. It mocked me with cold, awful truth. I thought I could vomit. I thought maybe I should.

And then after some fitful sleep, as I lay in a reverie, I felt the painkillers kick in. The very moment they kicked in. It was like my head opened up—it felt good, almost too good. All the wretchedness flowed away. I felt a kind of wonderful void, exhilarating and a little scary. And then I slept a few more hours.

Someone, maybe it was Cruz or Bush or Rubio, but it could have been anyone, spoke of violence “in our communities” as the bigger issue than gun rights. It struck me how obviously “communities” is a metaphor for “ghettoes.” Reminded me of that dick Rudy Giuliani mocking Obama for being a “community organizer” at the 2008 Republican Convention. He was really saying “ghetto organizer.” He was really saying “N-word organizer.” Ha! Can you imagine that? A lowly N-word organizer. Now he thinks he’s gonna be president!

Now I’m remembering Giuliani’s objection to the pissed-on Jesus art exhibit way back when. Someone should have pissed on Rudy’s face. That’d be art.

All summer long Mom and Dad fought upstairs in the big old house in Woodstock, England, while we waited out the storm in the living room, drawing pictures, watching TV. One day a music video came on that I’d never seen before. The bass had this rubber-band thing going, mesmerizing. Electrifying. Suddenly we’re in some kind of make-believe landscape in pink and blue. A sad, boy-girly clown who appears to have a scar on his forehead sings plaintively. He’s joined by a chorus in vaguely religious garb, like Eastern Orthodox maybe, not Catholic. But they're weird. And boy-girly too. Like eunuchs in the court of an alien king. The clown shows us a picture of himself as a man trapped in a padded cell and suddenly there he is, sunlight streaming through the window bars. The chorus is murmuring something. It sounds reproachful, judgmental. He’s shivering and freaking out. Kicking, though I had no idea what that meant at the time. But I knew what it meant to be shivering in a padded room. Because all of us are kicking, all the time. Then he’s the clown again with the chorus of weirdos beside him, walking ahead of an earth mover, and a couple of them on each end are doing this asynchronous dance where they swoop down and touch the ground. It’s awful beautiful, what they’re doing. And when he sings “all time low” the person on the left of the screen, a female—maybe?—comes around and touches down in time to the music, indicating “low,” but like a princess picking a flower, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, the way she did that, and got right back up again, an indifferent gesture, but so graceful. Poignant. Then the clown’s on the beach and something’s wrong with his hand. He’s back in the padded room again. He’s waist-deep in the lake, his arms outstretched, singing, “I’ve never done good things, I’ve never done bad things, I never did anything out of the blue.” Out of the blue? And he sinks. And then the chorus comes around again and there they are all in a line, the bulldozer looming, and please do it again, please, and right on cue she does it again. All. Time. Low. He’s back on the beach, releasing a bird. Then he’s cowering in the corner of the padded cell again, singing something about his mother. Something she warned him about. And suddenly there she is walking with him on the beach, imploring him, trying to reason with him. But it’s too late. He just stares off into space.