You had to think on your feet, you had to remember how much you had to pull from
you remember the water mains
you remember the fires of '68
no one was ready
no one saw it coming
but you
those sky licking red hot flames, furious with black smoke
seeking to destroy
fury and torpor all at once, reckless destiny
and a careless shrugging god
you remembered the mains. you knew where you had to pull from
you knew what it would take to stave this beast of conflagration: more than it had
you have to survive it. you have to pull from everywhere.
you have to look it in the eyes and dare it.
you have to match this monster.
as if every celebration were a war
as if every war
were a celebration.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
The Myth of Summer Fins
Dusk hangs in the air, temporal longing, as the trains make their steely paths announcing the coming and going, something solid you can count on. Trains. Coming. And going. And Amelia breathes, in, and out, and attempts to slow this moment as Jenz chatters on and lightly foots at the white painted two by fours fencing the patio in.
"What're we gonna do, girl?" says Jen as if there were a choice.
Amelia inhales, searches the dead flat horizon beyond, and brings her vision closer into the lit windows of the houses on the street and good ol Mouska the cat, fat and furry, mozying down the street like nobody's business but her own.
She turns her gaze toward Jen and allows her eyes the pleasure her husband has had, to search and enjoy and examine the vision of Her. Jen's tan face, bare legs. Skirt hiked up just over the knees. Jenz always looked good. Dressed well. Took her damn near long enough, for Christ's sake. Town like this. Who did she think would come through and sweep her up? Nobody barely alive here, wouldn't so much as come through long enough to change a flat tire. But Jenz looked good. It was admirable, her dedication to vanity. Amelia would just think, 'maybe, someday. Maybe I'll look good' but in the meantime seemed to tend to the needling needing wringing hands at hand: trying to hear every second and survive every hour.
"Stick together," said Amelia.
Jenz looked at her with that look like she didn't understand a word she was saying. Amelia attempted an explanation, as if she was the one who should do the explaining.
"I guess."
"Yeah. I got you, girl. I love you."
Each of them searched the sky, the overhang of the porch, the grass, the breeze through the trees. Hope and destiny and the future and the past were contained within the connecting atoms passing between the bending of the boughs, the blades of grass, the exhales of mutual and intuitive surrender.
"You want another?" asked Amelia.
"Yeah. Fuck it. Why not."
Amelia swung open the door and kissed Em on her head as she sat in her wheelchair reading People magazine. She pulled open the door to the fridge, grabbed two beers, and walked into the kitchen where the small change purse knicknack with the lid that Gammy kept small unforgettable items in was, and walked through the living room to once again foot open the front screen and plop down, left hand extended with beer toward Jenz.
"Thanks, beeeeeyatch," Jenz took the beer and realized with a shot to the heart what else was in Amelia's hand.
Hanging from her palm was the gold cross necklace Jenz and Amelia had each received from Gammy when they were confirmed in the church. White dresses, full communion. An admission of sins, coming before God. Or whatever they told you to be pure.
"Where'd you find that?"
She could have done it. She could have blown the whole thing wide open. But that's not what she wanted. And if she had anything on either of them, it was that she knew what made her happy, what she was grateful for, why she was here, and What To Do. And What To Do was to keep the last remaining remnants of some life she was handed down to and not add any more fucking misery to this God Damned Fucking World.
"Musta left it here," shrugged Amelia.
"Oh." Jenz said. Act like nothing happened, and maybe, maybe, by erasing it in your mind, nothing did. "Thanks."
Amelia traveled the line of Jen's face again and smiled, smirking down some beer. "Sure thing." She laughed to herself and repeated it. "Sure thing."
*****************************
After she left, the usual talk to you/see you later, meaning within a few hours, Amelia shut the front door with the final gratifying release of the cylinder to unleash the latch into the undying solid wood of the door jamb. Em was asleep and Will was cold-cocked out.
In the low light of the dining room, Amelia pulled open the drawer that nobody ever opens and pulled out the photo.
She sat and exhaled and looked out the picture window. A sliver of golden light under Em's door was reflected in the picture window. But she wouldn't come out. She couldn't.
Staring at the photo Amelia attempted to pin any understanding or hope about the event onto the grainy photo. Maybe it could understand. The only other person who knew, who would ever know. Like a wispy cloud over a dark sea. The tiniest spot. The tiniest spot that breathed, maybe. That pie shaped portion. That would have sucked it's thumb. The blackest sea. The darkest Maybe. The tiniest spot that couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe here. Especially not here. Amelia knew. And she would stop that pushing, pulsing, tearing pain from anything and anyone she could. No she would not have any more misery. Not this time around. Not now. Not while she was alive. Not while Amelia could help it.
It was nothing but blood for a day, and cramps.
And anyway, baby would probably have betrayed her too.
"What're we gonna do, girl?" says Jen as if there were a choice.
Amelia inhales, searches the dead flat horizon beyond, and brings her vision closer into the lit windows of the houses on the street and good ol Mouska the cat, fat and furry, mozying down the street like nobody's business but her own.
She turns her gaze toward Jen and allows her eyes the pleasure her husband has had, to search and enjoy and examine the vision of Her. Jen's tan face, bare legs. Skirt hiked up just over the knees. Jenz always looked good. Dressed well. Took her damn near long enough, for Christ's sake. Town like this. Who did she think would come through and sweep her up? Nobody barely alive here, wouldn't so much as come through long enough to change a flat tire. But Jenz looked good. It was admirable, her dedication to vanity. Amelia would just think, 'maybe, someday. Maybe I'll look good' but in the meantime seemed to tend to the needling needing wringing hands at hand: trying to hear every second and survive every hour.
"Stick together," said Amelia.
Jenz looked at her with that look like she didn't understand a word she was saying. Amelia attempted an explanation, as if she was the one who should do the explaining.
"I guess."
"Yeah. I got you, girl. I love you."
Each of them searched the sky, the overhang of the porch, the grass, the breeze through the trees. Hope and destiny and the future and the past were contained within the connecting atoms passing between the bending of the boughs, the blades of grass, the exhales of mutual and intuitive surrender.
"You want another?" asked Amelia.
"Yeah. Fuck it. Why not."
Amelia swung open the door and kissed Em on her head as she sat in her wheelchair reading People magazine. She pulled open the door to the fridge, grabbed two beers, and walked into the kitchen where the small change purse knicknack with the lid that Gammy kept small unforgettable items in was, and walked through the living room to once again foot open the front screen and plop down, left hand extended with beer toward Jenz.
"Thanks, beeeeeyatch," Jenz took the beer and realized with a shot to the heart what else was in Amelia's hand.
Hanging from her palm was the gold cross necklace Jenz and Amelia had each received from Gammy when they were confirmed in the church. White dresses, full communion. An admission of sins, coming before God. Or whatever they told you to be pure.
"Where'd you find that?"
She could have done it. She could have blown the whole thing wide open. But that's not what she wanted. And if she had anything on either of them, it was that she knew what made her happy, what she was grateful for, why she was here, and What To Do. And What To Do was to keep the last remaining remnants of some life she was handed down to and not add any more fucking misery to this God Damned Fucking World.
"Musta left it here," shrugged Amelia.
"Oh." Jenz said. Act like nothing happened, and maybe, maybe, by erasing it in your mind, nothing did. "Thanks."
Amelia traveled the line of Jen's face again and smiled, smirking down some beer. "Sure thing." She laughed to herself and repeated it. "Sure thing."
*****************************
After she left, the usual talk to you/see you later, meaning within a few hours, Amelia shut the front door with the final gratifying release of the cylinder to unleash the latch into the undying solid wood of the door jamb. Em was asleep and Will was cold-cocked out.
In the low light of the dining room, Amelia pulled open the drawer that nobody ever opens and pulled out the photo.
She sat and exhaled and looked out the picture window. A sliver of golden light under Em's door was reflected in the picture window. But she wouldn't come out. She couldn't.
Staring at the photo Amelia attempted to pin any understanding or hope about the event onto the grainy photo. Maybe it could understand. The only other person who knew, who would ever know. Like a wispy cloud over a dark sea. The tiniest spot. The tiniest spot that breathed, maybe. That pie shaped portion. That would have sucked it's thumb. The blackest sea. The darkest Maybe. The tiniest spot that couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe here. Especially not here. Amelia knew. And she would stop that pushing, pulsing, tearing pain from anything and anyone she could. No she would not have any more misery. Not this time around. Not now. Not while she was alive. Not while Amelia could help it.
It was nothing but blood for a day, and cramps.
And anyway, baby would probably have betrayed her too.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
The Myth of Summer Two
It would be easy to say it was hard. Of course it was hard. The point was in the living through it. Or so they said.
Amelia made it to college, Jenz didn't see the point in going. Jen stayed and did hair with her cousin Lori and made enough to have her own apartment in town. Amelia went up to Northern State and studied Philosophy, Modern Feminist Theory, and Psychology, but not necessarily in that order. Specifically, she was trying to figure out Why Everyone Is So Fucked Up but essentially just had to cut out of Spring semester, second year, and Go Home when the news came in about the accident.
Emma was thirteen at the time, that awful painful age where females go from girls to whatever and realize they are the trash of the world, if they haven't already been treated as such, will soon learn they are, somehow. Mama was most definitely drunk and only going the six or so miles from Bessie's Place back home where Gammy was already full of hate phlegm bile and life lessons painfully excruciating as a splinter under your fingernail. There to stay.
It wasn't Mama's fault. The semi bulled through one of the four or so stoplights in town and people gandered that the brakes had gone out, the man held no ill will. Mama, of course, didn't live. But Emma did. Of course. Of course Emma lived. All thirteen blessed flowering years of this soft gentle soul, to relive every minute, every second, to wonder why Jesus didn't take This Lamb of God, but chose Mama, who wished she would die every day anyway.
But you go on and you make tea and you make dinner and you praise another day and you wheel the chair forward and you make your way around and you just live on. It's just what you do.
Will had come along from Nebraska when his parents moved, and he and Amelia had met in the Library of the University, or at some party. Amelia remembered the Library, Will insisted it was at Joe's party. Either way, they met, and all their friends agreed It Should Be So and so they went on dates and did what those who are interested in one another feel like they should do.
Amelia had been back and taking care of Emma for about nine months when Will said he would be there, "Hon. I'll be there." Which Amelia shrugged of but accepted the same as she accepted pies when she was 20 at her mother's funeral, Emma still in traction in the hospital. Will took three and a half months to just be there, but when he got there and Amelia was looking out the picture window of the Old House and holding one of Gammy's old salt shakers, he came up to her and kissed her neck and put his arms around her waist, looking at the amber, brown, red leaves fallen on the ground. Amelia rested her head on his broad, strong shoulders when he came around to her side and exhaled long. It's going to be ok. Or something.
"Hey," Will said and shouldered Amelia toward him. "You know what?"
Amelia sincerely did not want to know any more What at this point.
"Yeah. What."
He turned her body like you do with blindfolded children playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey toward the trees and leaves outside, and slung his arm around her neck like a yoke on cattle. "You n me? We're a team."
Amelia smiled a wizened smile.
He had no idea she knew that Will and Jen had 'been a team' for at least a year. That vanilla body spray was impenetrable, intractable. Jen loved that sick, sweet smell. Amelia had neither the desire nor the inclination to tell her how disgustingly, maskingly sweet that smell was. It might as well have been gasoline. Then you could set it on fire.
"BITCHES!" Jenz came from up the street to the left which was unusual, Will almost always made the first entrance. Jenz, of course, did the whole shower, do hair, pretend busy thing, as if a shower would wash off the fact that she had been fucking her best friend's husband for three years.
Emma waves and the smiles a wider smile than the red sea at the parting of Moses.
Jen hugs her and playfully pretends a kick at the wheels. Glances aside toward Amelia.
"You dry off?"
"You see me wet?"
"Guess not. Got tea? Nah, nevermind. I brought beeeers! Want one?" Jen pulls a six pack from her giant cloth purse. Could be a diaper purse. Should be a diaper purse. But Jenz just flitted from one branch to another, never long enough to get caught, never long enough to feel. Just enough to rest for a bit on the branch.
"Let's shotgun it. Huh?"
Amelia exhaled and giggled. Of course. What else is there to do. Went into the kitchen and slowly pulled the long butcher knife from the drawer. She pulled the steel sharpener and slowly ran the blade along to cut the blade sharper. I could cut you, but I won't. You could have hurt me, but you don't. I could humiliate you both, by I won't. One. Sharp. Blade. Run slowly along the steel.
Emma was ready with hers and shaking it like an ecstatic baby.
"Oh Jesus," said Amelia. Here. Maybe take a key instead.
"No! Knife." If anyone could handle the mechanics of a butcher's knife, it was Emma. She shook the can like a maniac and carefully punctured the bottom end with a twist. "Gooooo," she smiled and drank the boozy barley fuzz.
Jenz and Amelia looked at each other. "Oh I see. You've got yours."
"Yep, getchurz own!" said Jenz. Two seconds later was the shake, the eye contact, the Double Dog Dare of the shotgunning of the beer. Shake shake shake, shake shake shake, shake you booty, shake you booty, and the quick as lightning no eye contact or second guessing needed pass from one hand to another of the newly sharpened knife, both keenly aware of What Would Happen If, to carefully puncture the aluminum just so like all women know how to do. And take the shooting fizzing liquid into your mouth, as if any liquor would make it in. Jen and Amelia looked at each other with the same Dare, the Same Love You Forever Until look until Amelia spit out some beer onto her lap.
"Ohhhhhhhhh! You fired!"
"Yep," said Emma. "Fired."
It had only been three months.
Amelia made it to college, Jenz didn't see the point in going. Jen stayed and did hair with her cousin Lori and made enough to have her own apartment in town. Amelia went up to Northern State and studied Philosophy, Modern Feminist Theory, and Psychology, but not necessarily in that order. Specifically, she was trying to figure out Why Everyone Is So Fucked Up but essentially just had to cut out of Spring semester, second year, and Go Home when the news came in about the accident.
Emma was thirteen at the time, that awful painful age where females go from girls to whatever and realize they are the trash of the world, if they haven't already been treated as such, will soon learn they are, somehow. Mama was most definitely drunk and only going the six or so miles from Bessie's Place back home where Gammy was already full of hate phlegm bile and life lessons painfully excruciating as a splinter under your fingernail. There to stay.
It wasn't Mama's fault. The semi bulled through one of the four or so stoplights in town and people gandered that the brakes had gone out, the man held no ill will. Mama, of course, didn't live. But Emma did. Of course. Of course Emma lived. All thirteen blessed flowering years of this soft gentle soul, to relive every minute, every second, to wonder why Jesus didn't take This Lamb of God, but chose Mama, who wished she would die every day anyway.
But you go on and you make tea and you make dinner and you praise another day and you wheel the chair forward and you make your way around and you just live on. It's just what you do.
Will had come along from Nebraska when his parents moved, and he and Amelia had met in the Library of the University, or at some party. Amelia remembered the Library, Will insisted it was at Joe's party. Either way, they met, and all their friends agreed It Should Be So and so they went on dates and did what those who are interested in one another feel like they should do.
Amelia had been back and taking care of Emma for about nine months when Will said he would be there, "Hon. I'll be there." Which Amelia shrugged of but accepted the same as she accepted pies when she was 20 at her mother's funeral, Emma still in traction in the hospital. Will took three and a half months to just be there, but when he got there and Amelia was looking out the picture window of the Old House and holding one of Gammy's old salt shakers, he came up to her and kissed her neck and put his arms around her waist, looking at the amber, brown, red leaves fallen on the ground. Amelia rested her head on his broad, strong shoulders when he came around to her side and exhaled long. It's going to be ok. Or something.
"Hey," Will said and shouldered Amelia toward him. "You know what?"
Amelia sincerely did not want to know any more What at this point.
"Yeah. What."
He turned her body like you do with blindfolded children playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey toward the trees and leaves outside, and slung his arm around her neck like a yoke on cattle. "You n me? We're a team."
Amelia smiled a wizened smile.
He had no idea she knew that Will and Jen had 'been a team' for at least a year. That vanilla body spray was impenetrable, intractable. Jen loved that sick, sweet smell. Amelia had neither the desire nor the inclination to tell her how disgustingly, maskingly sweet that smell was. It might as well have been gasoline. Then you could set it on fire.
"BITCHES!" Jenz came from up the street to the left which was unusual, Will almost always made the first entrance. Jenz, of course, did the whole shower, do hair, pretend busy thing, as if a shower would wash off the fact that she had been fucking her best friend's husband for three years.
Emma waves and the smiles a wider smile than the red sea at the parting of Moses.
Jen hugs her and playfully pretends a kick at the wheels. Glances aside toward Amelia.
"You dry off?"
"You see me wet?"
"Guess not. Got tea? Nah, nevermind. I brought beeeers! Want one?" Jen pulls a six pack from her giant cloth purse. Could be a diaper purse. Should be a diaper purse. But Jenz just flitted from one branch to another, never long enough to get caught, never long enough to feel. Just enough to rest for a bit on the branch.
"Let's shotgun it. Huh?"
Amelia exhaled and giggled. Of course. What else is there to do. Went into the kitchen and slowly pulled the long butcher knife from the drawer. She pulled the steel sharpener and slowly ran the blade along to cut the blade sharper. I could cut you, but I won't. You could have hurt me, but you don't. I could humiliate you both, by I won't. One. Sharp. Blade. Run slowly along the steel.
Emma was ready with hers and shaking it like an ecstatic baby.
"Oh Jesus," said Amelia. Here. Maybe take a key instead.
"No! Knife." If anyone could handle the mechanics of a butcher's knife, it was Emma. She shook the can like a maniac and carefully punctured the bottom end with a twist. "Gooooo," she smiled and drank the boozy barley fuzz.
Jenz and Amelia looked at each other. "Oh I see. You've got yours."
"Yep, getchurz own!" said Jenz. Two seconds later was the shake, the eye contact, the Double Dog Dare of the shotgunning of the beer. Shake shake shake, shake shake shake, shake you booty, shake you booty, and the quick as lightning no eye contact or second guessing needed pass from one hand to another of the newly sharpened knife, both keenly aware of What Would Happen If, to carefully puncture the aluminum just so like all women know how to do. And take the shooting fizzing liquid into your mouth, as if any liquor would make it in. Jen and Amelia looked at each other with the same Dare, the Same Love You Forever Until look until Amelia spit out some beer onto her lap.
"Ohhhhhhhhh! You fired!"
"Yep," said Emma. "Fired."
It had only been three months.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
The Myth of Summer
Her memory was impeccable; impervious. And miserable. She would walk that very same path and knew exactly where the step down would be. Try to count the steps until the unforseen failing and falling would render her completely paraplegic, strapped for life in a wheelchair with eyes averting and innocent, curious children asking "what happened to your legs, lady?" and the industrious corn-fed salt of the earth types knowingly but tacitly acknowledging that it was God's Will. And God will do what He will. Oh, he will.
But she wouldn't trip. Not this day, walking the same path home from Sunday Funday with Jenz. No last ghost for her.
"You remember the pool with Bobby Flay? Remember how hot he was?"
"Worst name."
"He would - oh GOD! Worst name. But he looked like -"
"Ken."
Amelia sucked on her cherry lollipop, every last tart sweet drip. There's a technique, we hope, to sucking every last drip out of everything that tastes of anything, right down to and including the paper stick. Every spot on the tongue receives a different taste: sweet, summery, sublime, surreal, seduced, surrendered. Cherried. With a cherry on top.
"He looked like fuckin Ken." Jen said in the Sat Down, Yes Indeed tone of agreement they do in the Midwest, flipping her hands through the water in sunglassed recline.
Flay. If we could have stopped to think what a ridiculous name, well anyway we didn't end up with him did we.
Amelia threw the last part of the stick over the fence into the gravel and god knows what cacti. It is literally called god knows what cacti. Well at any point, at this point it is.
Dives in, stays down, opens eyes. Burning chlorine eyes. She shoves her upper body down to hand plant on the bottom of the pool, and fights the water's urge to bring her up to where she belongs. Melia fishtails and points her legs in the opposite direction, opening eyes to see the 3' tile on the other side bathing and waving in blue. She achieves the perfect handstand, accomplished only when the water holds you still enough. Tiny circles like whisking a cake mix, she spreads her hands an inch and pushes till she is fully upright, upside down. Crosses her arms over her chest then extends her arms to swirl her body around underneath. Looking.
Jenz through blue. Legs, motion. Nothing like the motion of water. Her calves and wrists and ass, in a blow up raft bluer than this blue, in contra to, motioning but going nowhere. Going nowhere, going nowhere...
The blunted fluid watery sound of her voice through the water.
Up and harsh air, quiet has gone, replaced by distant sirens, splashing, the kids a few apartments up screaming, television roaring.
"What are you doing down there. Come up and get a tan."
Amelia tries to clear her nose of chlorine. Nothing gets rid of that sting. You just have to let it take its course just like Gammy said. In time, Darlin, it'll just pass, won't even notice that stung anymore.
"You find any pennies? Give me some. I'm fuckin broke." Jenz didn't even crack a grin. Poverty isn't funny unless you really release yourself to it, laugh at the ridiculousness of counting pennies to see the afternoon movie together. Fuck pennies.
Exhale and back float. Cloud watch. Thin strips dragged faintly, whispers across so much blue. Listen to your own breath. Breathe. Float. Listen. Sink. Inhale. Hear the muffled sound of voices through water. Flip over. Breast stroke over to plastic full of margarita juice gone melty and sickly sweet. Still got tequila. Backflip underwater, swim to other side, touch, turn & go, race yourself to the shallow end. Go fast. Keep it shallow.
"Hey what was that bitch's name, the one that stole Mark from you in tenth grade."
Clear nose, half submerge, let the fluid water pull your hair back, pop up half a body in the now sunny cool air top half only.
"Aimee Frisbee."
"AIMEE fuckin Frisbee. Oh god that's right. I guarantee you she got knocked up."
"Yet another ridiculous name. His last name should have been..."
What should it have been. Underwater again, shark attack on Jen. Jen, underneath, grabs her sunglasses still on. All bangles of easily greened gold painted wrists of hers figure 8 to come back up. Amelia smiles underwater and Jenz gives it long enough to flip her the bird, come up, and in one fell swoop scoop the raft under her arms and frog swim around. Slowly paddle toward the other side to palm her melted margarita in the bright lime green plastic cup.
Amelia climbs out and lies on her towel, warmed from the sun baked concrete.
"Fucking Will," Amelia says as she lays a towel over her eyes.
"Oh now it's fuck Will?"
"He doesn't know what he wants. Including me. I'm gonna ask out the hottie that comes into Swoozie's. He lingers."
Jenz laughs. "You are going to ask HIM out." And then, curious, "He lingers?"
"He lingers. Longer than he needs to. Which either means he has brass balls or is doing the I'm-too-shy-to-ask-you-out thing. He's gonna make me do it."
"You gonna do it?"
Amelia removes the towel from her eyes, the world turning red to orange to yellow to normal in the sun as her eyes adjust to the brightness, sits up, downs the last of the sickly sweet now warm margarita, looks at Jenz.
"What the fuck have I got left to lose?"
They laugh like it's the funniest thing in the world but looking in different directions, a private inside joke to each, separately. In separate ways.
Loneliness eradicated. Connected forever. Warm in the sun. Pleasure forever. Unending cocktails. Best friends forever. Memories that fade like sunburns weeks later, to peel and die and skin changes anew. Temporary and transparent, like looking through water. Absence of pain. Laughter abound. The myth of summer. Everything fades, like names scrawled with a scarlet polished fingernail through the water. The temporary crackle and spark of sparklers on 4th of July, write your name only to have it disappear forever, like it will disappear from their lips. The sting that lingers as the seasons change is the constant. Let it live. Change is the one thing you can count on.
But she wouldn't trip. Not this day, walking the same path home from Sunday Funday with Jenz. No last ghost for her.
"You remember the pool with Bobby Flay? Remember how hot he was?"
"Worst name."
"He would - oh GOD! Worst name. But he looked like -"
"Ken."
Amelia sucked on her cherry lollipop, every last tart sweet drip. There's a technique, we hope, to sucking every last drip out of everything that tastes of anything, right down to and including the paper stick. Every spot on the tongue receives a different taste: sweet, summery, sublime, surreal, seduced, surrendered. Cherried. With a cherry on top.
"He looked like fuckin Ken." Jen said in the Sat Down, Yes Indeed tone of agreement they do in the Midwest, flipping her hands through the water in sunglassed recline.
Flay. If we could have stopped to think what a ridiculous name, well anyway we didn't end up with him did we.
Amelia threw the last part of the stick over the fence into the gravel and god knows what cacti. It is literally called god knows what cacti. Well at any point, at this point it is.
Dives in, stays down, opens eyes. Burning chlorine eyes. She shoves her upper body down to hand plant on the bottom of the pool, and fights the water's urge to bring her up to where she belongs. Melia fishtails and points her legs in the opposite direction, opening eyes to see the 3' tile on the other side bathing and waving in blue. She achieves the perfect handstand, accomplished only when the water holds you still enough. Tiny circles like whisking a cake mix, she spreads her hands an inch and pushes till she is fully upright, upside down. Crosses her arms over her chest then extends her arms to swirl her body around underneath. Looking.
Jenz through blue. Legs, motion. Nothing like the motion of water. Her calves and wrists and ass, in a blow up raft bluer than this blue, in contra to, motioning but going nowhere. Going nowhere, going nowhere...
The blunted fluid watery sound of her voice through the water.
Up and harsh air, quiet has gone, replaced by distant sirens, splashing, the kids a few apartments up screaming, television roaring.
"What are you doing down there. Come up and get a tan."
Amelia tries to clear her nose of chlorine. Nothing gets rid of that sting. You just have to let it take its course just like Gammy said. In time, Darlin, it'll just pass, won't even notice that stung anymore.
"You find any pennies? Give me some. I'm fuckin broke." Jenz didn't even crack a grin. Poverty isn't funny unless you really release yourself to it, laugh at the ridiculousness of counting pennies to see the afternoon movie together. Fuck pennies.
Exhale and back float. Cloud watch. Thin strips dragged faintly, whispers across so much blue. Listen to your own breath. Breathe. Float. Listen. Sink. Inhale. Hear the muffled sound of voices through water. Flip over. Breast stroke over to plastic full of margarita juice gone melty and sickly sweet. Still got tequila. Backflip underwater, swim to other side, touch, turn & go, race yourself to the shallow end. Go fast. Keep it shallow.
"Hey what was that bitch's name, the one that stole Mark from you in tenth grade."
Clear nose, half submerge, let the fluid water pull your hair back, pop up half a body in the now sunny cool air top half only.
"Aimee Frisbee."
"AIMEE fuckin Frisbee. Oh god that's right. I guarantee you she got knocked up."
"Yet another ridiculous name. His last name should have been..."
What should it have been. Underwater again, shark attack on Jen. Jen, underneath, grabs her sunglasses still on. All bangles of easily greened gold painted wrists of hers figure 8 to come back up. Amelia smiles underwater and Jenz gives it long enough to flip her the bird, come up, and in one fell swoop scoop the raft under her arms and frog swim around. Slowly paddle toward the other side to palm her melted margarita in the bright lime green plastic cup.
Amelia climbs out and lies on her towel, warmed from the sun baked concrete.
"Fucking Will," Amelia says as she lays a towel over her eyes.
"Oh now it's fuck Will?"
"He doesn't know what he wants. Including me. I'm gonna ask out the hottie that comes into Swoozie's. He lingers."
Jenz laughs. "You are going to ask HIM out." And then, curious, "He lingers?"
"He lingers. Longer than he needs to. Which either means he has brass balls or is doing the I'm-too-shy-to-ask-you-out thing. He's gonna make me do it."
"You gonna do it?"
Amelia removes the towel from her eyes, the world turning red to orange to yellow to normal in the sun as her eyes adjust to the brightness, sits up, downs the last of the sickly sweet now warm margarita, looks at Jenz.
"What the fuck have I got left to lose?"
They laugh like it's the funniest thing in the world but looking in different directions, a private inside joke to each, separately. In separate ways.
Loneliness eradicated. Connected forever. Warm in the sun. Pleasure forever. Unending cocktails. Best friends forever. Memories that fade like sunburns weeks later, to peel and die and skin changes anew. Temporary and transparent, like looking through water. Absence of pain. Laughter abound. The myth of summer. Everything fades, like names scrawled with a scarlet polished fingernail through the water. The temporary crackle and spark of sparklers on 4th of July, write your name only to have it disappear forever, like it will disappear from their lips. The sting that lingers as the seasons change is the constant. Let it live. Change is the one thing you can count on.
Monday, March 22, 2010
one tiny tomb
you got outfoxed
you never learned
how to lie like me
silent
becoming
stilling the sadness
thistle stuck throat
white pastures cut with barbed wire
teaching yourself not to be the wanderer,
the seeker
but slowly
gathering the fabric
slowly under the table
tasting it with your fingers
under that immutable oak
tempting it with a tease, the gentle pull, temptation of the never pulled-off party trick
but wouldn't the place look great
in flames
you knew what this stone was for.
encasing yourself
in hushed
and whispering wonders
to forge your tomb under the covers
well i'll tell you what you reckless despot
silence knows what speaking is for.
you never learned
how to lie like me
silent
becoming
stilling the sadness
thistle stuck throat
white pastures cut with barbed wire
teaching yourself not to be the wanderer,
the seeker
but slowly
gathering the fabric
slowly under the table
tasting it with your fingers
under that immutable oak
tempting it with a tease, the gentle pull, temptation of the never pulled-off party trick
but wouldn't the place look great
in flames
you knew what this stone was for.
encasing yourself
in hushed
and whispering wonders
to forge your tomb under the covers
well i'll tell you what you reckless despot
silence knows what speaking is for.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Under Byen
This band is so fuckin amazing I can't believe more people haven't heard of them. It's lonely out here.
Anyway, Under Byen is releasing their latest album, Alt Er Tabt in April, and the great people over at Stereogum gave an update and the video for the title track, which is fuckin amazing. You can view Under Byen's "Alt Er Tabt" video here.
I caught them when they came through LA at the Knitting Factory and it was, to say the least, a pretty inspired show. Any band that includes playing the saw, electrically, is at least worth checking out. They were amazing.
My review for LA Record of Under Byen.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
confirmation
Pray, Discipline, that you never see me again.
count your blessings that we will never be in the same building. car. kitchen.
train to D.C.
underground through New York City
and despair the chance it should happen in Paris
exhale at the thought that we will not see these eyes at the same gathering, any gathering, that I never feel your breath that close again
whatever forces you believe in, expansion, contraction, adhere to their laws and stick close to the walls
come to know Faith.
Believe.
Pray.
that you’ll never have my fingers touching your neck, beguiling you with the only charms I’ve learned and some I’ll come to know, opening your closed book with my smile.
because if I ever see you again, I will inhale every breath you breathe. I will swallow you and hold you inside; I will extinguish your doubt. I will linger on your thoughts until decay. I will seep into your heart like ink spilled on clean white paper, never to be written on again.
you will never see the light of day.
so pray.
count your blessings that we will never be in the same building. car. kitchen.
train to D.C.
underground through New York City
and despair the chance it should happen in Paris
exhale at the thought that we will not see these eyes at the same gathering, any gathering, that I never feel your breath that close again
whatever forces you believe in, expansion, contraction, adhere to their laws and stick close to the walls
come to know Faith.
Believe.
Pray.
that you’ll never have my fingers touching your neck, beguiling you with the only charms I’ve learned and some I’ll come to know, opening your closed book with my smile.
because if I ever see you again, I will inhale every breath you breathe. I will swallow you and hold you inside; I will extinguish your doubt. I will linger on your thoughts until decay. I will seep into your heart like ink spilled on clean white paper, never to be written on again.
you will never see the light of day.
so pray.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Julian Casablancas
Cute story! When LA Record sent out their perennial and never regularly scheduled Who Wants What Show email, I jumped to go see Julian Casablancas. Like, wriggled and writhed like the obnoxious know-it-all in class that's waving their hand in the air because they know the answer to the teacher's question. Except, I didn't know the answer to the question. Because in my head? I was thinking Jose Gonzales, who is amazing and wonderful and I'm dying to see. Have you heard his cover of The Knife's "Heartbeats"? Amazing. But uh. It was actually Julian Casablancas. Hahaha, I'm a silly bitch! Aaaaaaaaanyway, I had actually been wanting to see a show I wouldn't normally see and review it. This would be one! But I went, dressed to the tits and with an open mind. Here is the review.
For the record (haha, get it?!? GET IT?), the final lines as I wrote them were:
For the record (haha, get it?!? GET IT?), the final lines as I wrote them were:
If one were to compare, say, Daft Punk, LCD Soundsystem, The Knife, or Ratatat in a live setting, I would say, humbly, that Julian Casablancas is in a whole other game now. And if he wants to keep up, then he needs to do just that.
But whatever. Editing!
Writeup for LA Record here.
The Keepers
The Keepers were and are a band formed in Long Beach somewhere in the late 90s/early '00s, but who the hell remembers. Three dudes, some of my favorite boys of all time, and 3 of the most sickly talented musicians I'll ever know. Patrick Butterworth and Ed Kampwirth can be seen presently as the (completely amazing) rhythm section for Dios. Fred (Dirt Clod) Fight can be seen biking down mountainsides in Oregon with his bro Phil fight. He also recently finished his Master's Thesis on the Long Beach punk scene, which, yes, has enough material in its history to merit an entire Master's Thesis.
New Dios here.
Article for LA Record here.
New Dios here.
Article for LA Record here.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Gag Order
I have wanted to keep this, here, free of my usual political rants and raves, but given this past week, and the weeks leading up to it, I'm lifting my own self-imposed gag order.
In light of the passing of Howard Zinn, may his great soul truly rest in peace, I recall a few gems. "Most wars, after all, present themselves as humanitarian endeavors to help people. " Sound about accurate? But my all time favorite and a constant go-to for this liberal is his saying about how, in America, they're always telling you that you can make anything out of yourself, you can do anything if you just work hard enough. They don't tell you how easily you can fall. One pink slip, one family member getting sick is all it takes to wipe everything out. He added "I saw my parents work their fingers to the bone every day, and they never made it out of the tenements."
Watching the State of the Union on Wednesday, his words coursing through my mind, several things occur to me, as they usually do. As much as I'm not only an Obama supporter and cried the night he was elected, and again during his inauguration, but I'm a huge admirer of the man and his abilities and his audacity of hope. Now, having said that, I also concur with my patriots in arms, other liberals who feel like this particular president has a pretty golden window and perhaps isn't doing as much as maybe is possible, or that somehow has lost that audacity.
I'm also fully aware that after the past 8 years and a Machiavellian (at best), idiotic, jingoistic, and criminally reckless Administration, whoever won the '08 election was going to be inheriting a pile of shit.
But watching the SOTU, it just smacks of empty rhetoric, doesn't it? Doesn't it make you just wanna give it all up? I realize there's a distinct difference but I wanted to hear at least a twinge of the kind of speech we heard at the Dem convention in '04 that blew everyone away. Instead, per usual, you have POTUS speaking and half the room acting like kids who got their candy taken away. But this year in particular really fucking pissed me off. Just looking at John Boehner's petulant smirk on his over tanned face (it's January in DC for christ's sake) was making me insane. And the man's constituents are in Ohio. OHIO. Not South Carolina even. O. HI. O. So, I get it, this is politics. You're either with us or against us.
Everyone has known that even just bringing up health care reform is touching the third rail. Not only that, it's potentially a career killer. It happened to Hillary just, like, a few years ago really. But then again, as my darling Gore Vidal always says, the country we live in is more like the United States of Amnesia. Look I had to really rack my brain just yesterday to remember the neighbor's cat's name, but I still remember that knock down drag out career (almost) killer that the Clintons went through when they approached health care. But even then, maybe behind closed doors it was happening, but we didn't have the level of public - oh, we'll just say "debate" that's been happening. People taking to the streets in protest and talking about socialism. There we go. Bing! The button. Drop the S bomb into an idiotic constituency and bam. They're your zombie soldiers arguing vigilantly for...
For....?
What are they arguing for? Nobody can answer this for me. These people, these tea partyers, these Fox News watching terrified idiots, what are they fighting for? Honestly. I don't get it. Is it really just change? Is it that simple? Is the theory of Occam's Razor in full effect here? That the simplest explanation is the answer here?
The number one mistake in American history is not letting the South secede. Don't get me wrong, I love the South. Love it. Most of our great American writers and a good majority of our best music comes from the South. But we shoulda let them go, you know what I mean? But the biggest mistake of American politics for at least a century is the bipartisan system. Sunday after Sunday after debate after debate I am absolutely sickened, mollified, indignant at the binary level of discourse. Who will take back Congress. Which team will win. How will the Reps battle the Dems, vice versa.
All these years of supposed evolution, and we end up in the Coliseum watching Jersey Shore, I mean, Gladiators fight, standing and applauding or sitting and smirking at every well rehearsed and focus grouped line of the State of the Union.
Welcome to the vomitorium, my friends.
Binge, purge, the excelsior elixir of the end of the Empire.
It's not a fucking Super Bowl game, god dammit. There are people's lives at stake here. And all it takes for everything, everything they've worked so hard to earn to be taken away is one pink slip, one natural disaster, one family member getting sick. Are these people protesting, now I'm not specifically talking about the politicians yet, but the Fox Newsers, the people in the streets, are they seriously telling me they don't have a single family member that has a health problem? Or that they're so set they can afford to put Mom through chemo without worry? In the words of Bill Hicks "I dooooooooooooooooubt it."
But then! It's a bird, it's a plane! President Obama went into the lion's den, the Republican Retreat (wait a minute, they have retreats? Did anyone else know that they camp out together and have team building retreats???) in none other than Body More, MD and intelligently and cogently and passionately argued (of course, per usual) his case for, let's all say it together, bi-partisan cooperation. Normally this is the stuff of barfdom (see: vomitorium) but there is so much at stake here, now, especially with healthcare, that this one act was truly an act of heroism. Truly.
I'm not sure how long this link will be active, but here it is for as long as it stays up. Obama at the House Republican Retreat.
And to end this highly charged political week is our old standby, the always great SNL Weekend Update. Seth Meyers said of the Republicans inviting Obama to speak and argue his case was like "inviting Aquaman into the water. You guys do know that's how he got the job, right? By debating? It's like in Indiana Jones where the guy waves a bunch of swords around and Indy just pulls out a gun and shoots the guy." Or something like that. That link, for as long as it's up, here: SNL Weekend Update.
Not that I'm pulling for any team or side on this thing. But well played, Sir. Well played.
In light of the passing of Howard Zinn, may his great soul truly rest in peace, I recall a few gems. "Most wars, after all, present themselves as humanitarian endeavors to help people. " Sound about accurate? But my all time favorite and a constant go-to for this liberal is his saying about how, in America, they're always telling you that you can make anything out of yourself, you can do anything if you just work hard enough. They don't tell you how easily you can fall. One pink slip, one family member getting sick is all it takes to wipe everything out. He added "I saw my parents work their fingers to the bone every day, and they never made it out of the tenements."
Watching the State of the Union on Wednesday, his words coursing through my mind, several things occur to me, as they usually do. As much as I'm not only an Obama supporter and cried the night he was elected, and again during his inauguration, but I'm a huge admirer of the man and his abilities and his audacity of hope. Now, having said that, I also concur with my patriots in arms, other liberals who feel like this particular president has a pretty golden window and perhaps isn't doing as much as maybe is possible, or that somehow has lost that audacity.
I'm also fully aware that after the past 8 years and a Machiavellian (at best), idiotic, jingoistic, and criminally reckless Administration, whoever won the '08 election was going to be inheriting a pile of shit.
But watching the SOTU, it just smacks of empty rhetoric, doesn't it? Doesn't it make you just wanna give it all up? I realize there's a distinct difference but I wanted to hear at least a twinge of the kind of speech we heard at the Dem convention in '04 that blew everyone away. Instead, per usual, you have POTUS speaking and half the room acting like kids who got their candy taken away. But this year in particular really fucking pissed me off. Just looking at John Boehner's petulant smirk on his over tanned face (it's January in DC for christ's sake) was making me insane. And the man's constituents are in Ohio. OHIO. Not South Carolina even. O. HI. O. So, I get it, this is politics. You're either with us or against us.
Everyone has known that even just bringing up health care reform is touching the third rail. Not only that, it's potentially a career killer. It happened to Hillary just, like, a few years ago really. But then again, as my darling Gore Vidal always says, the country we live in is more like the United States of Amnesia. Look I had to really rack my brain just yesterday to remember the neighbor's cat's name, but I still remember that knock down drag out career (almost) killer that the Clintons went through when they approached health care. But even then, maybe behind closed doors it was happening, but we didn't have the level of public - oh, we'll just say "debate" that's been happening. People taking to the streets in protest and talking about socialism. There we go. Bing! The button. Drop the S bomb into an idiotic constituency and bam. They're your zombie soldiers arguing vigilantly for...
For....?
What are they arguing for? Nobody can answer this for me. These people, these tea partyers, these Fox News watching terrified idiots, what are they fighting for? Honestly. I don't get it. Is it really just change? Is it that simple? Is the theory of Occam's Razor in full effect here? That the simplest explanation is the answer here?
The number one mistake in American history is not letting the South secede. Don't get me wrong, I love the South. Love it. Most of our great American writers and a good majority of our best music comes from the South. But we shoulda let them go, you know what I mean? But the biggest mistake of American politics for at least a century is the bipartisan system. Sunday after Sunday after debate after debate I am absolutely sickened, mollified, indignant at the binary level of discourse. Who will take back Congress. Which team will win. How will the Reps battle the Dems, vice versa.
All these years of supposed evolution, and we end up in the Coliseum watching Jersey Shore, I mean, Gladiators fight, standing and applauding or sitting and smirking at every well rehearsed and focus grouped line of the State of the Union.
Welcome to the vomitorium, my friends.
Binge, purge, the excelsior elixir of the end of the Empire.
It's not a fucking Super Bowl game, god dammit. There are people's lives at stake here. And all it takes for everything, everything they've worked so hard to earn to be taken away is one pink slip, one natural disaster, one family member getting sick. Are these people protesting, now I'm not specifically talking about the politicians yet, but the Fox Newsers, the people in the streets, are they seriously telling me they don't have a single family member that has a health problem? Or that they're so set they can afford to put Mom through chemo without worry? In the words of Bill Hicks "I dooooooooooooooooubt it."
But then! It's a bird, it's a plane! President Obama went into the lion's den, the Republican Retreat (wait a minute, they have retreats? Did anyone else know that they camp out together and have team building retreats???) in none other than Body More, MD and intelligently and cogently and passionately argued (of course, per usual) his case for, let's all say it together, bi-partisan cooperation. Normally this is the stuff of barfdom (see: vomitorium) but there is so much at stake here, now, especially with healthcare, that this one act was truly an act of heroism. Truly.
I'm not sure how long this link will be active, but here it is for as long as it stays up. Obama at the House Republican Retreat.
And to end this highly charged political week is our old standby, the always great SNL Weekend Update. Seth Meyers said of the Republicans inviting Obama to speak and argue his case was like "inviting Aquaman into the water. You guys do know that's how he got the job, right? By debating? It's like in Indiana Jones where the guy waves a bunch of swords around and Indy just pulls out a gun and shoots the guy." Or something like that. That link, for as long as it's up, here: SNL Weekend Update.
Not that I'm pulling for any team or side on this thing. But well played, Sir. Well played.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Pogues
Maybe my pervasive and eternal draw to Ireland, my people, or my recent poetry reading spree, or my almost innate, instinctive desire to drink whiskey and indulge in said poetry and break out into sad yet cheery song, or just because I hadn't put anything up in a while...here is my writeup for LA Record. Pogues, Halloween. One of the best. Hopefully one of the memories that will flash through my mind at the end. Whenever that may come. Here's to you, Jean Paul. Cheers.
For LA Record.
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