A word of warning to anyone who thinks that living with your life on your back is a good idea: humans were not built to be turtles. This is the lesson that is ringing in my spine today.
The sun woke me up from my bad dreams. There was a foul taste in my mouth as always. I could smell myself. It was not good. The memories of the night before and the last few days were barking at me from a dozen different directions. I’d been so angry last night. A real ball of frustration, fury and pain. I was prepared to fight the whole world in the cold.
Catching the last train to find out that Drew was not where he was supposed to be. No phone to find out where to go. The way those stoops looked like a reasonable place to sleep for a night. A borrowed phone call for Drew’s sleepy directions. Finding out that the cabby was from Haiti. Guilt. Drinking beers with Jim and Drew. Talking with Jim about anger. The calming fingers of M.Jane calming my hyperbolic tornado of emotions. All the anger coming out. Fuck these people and their cellphones and their pills and all of their endless bitching about how hard it is here in this veritable land of plenty. Fuck the calm, blissful stupidity of every one of us. Jim telling me about the boat that he was on during the invasion of Iraq. It was like an Apocalypse Now revision of the PT boat horror show. A soldier on the water is a soldier out of it’s element. Cigarettes and cigarettes and beer.
Let the tour begin.
Margie showed up in the mail this morning after I cut my hair on a lucid whim. We’re watching football deep into the whiskey. Jim is making some magnificent feast of Bratworst, apples, onions and other things delicious. The house is full of typewriters and musical instruments and hand-made paper prints. It is a familiar scenario which unfolds wherever the Rescue Chopper lands.
Sexual commercials with images of girls at war with nature to sell tampons and boys spraying themselves with bullshit to hide their true hideous nature lead to discussions about gender politics despite Jim’s efforts to keep football day a day of total rest.
There is a clinking of silverware and a rumbling in my belly. After the game we’re headed to the school to make some mono-prints for a few hours. Jim explained to me what a mono-print is last night. I look forward to detailing this process when the day is done.
The Paper Trail 