Graffiti

This story has been taken down for an overhaul.

Thanks to all who read and commented. Your kind words and advice have inspired me to rewrite parts, and this piece has been published on Out of Ruins where it fits in nicely.

Thanks again.

World Peace Day

Wouldn't it be great if there were no news items posted anywhere or reported on television about any sort of discrepancy, disagreement, fighting, arguing, or criminal activity? What a boring news program, and what a treat to our overtaxed psyches. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, well, not at the moment while I'm typing, that everyone everywhere takes the theme of the day to heart and tries to help someone somewhere who may need it.

I am a Hoarder

In going through my mail today, I found a notice from A&E Insider News about a show they have called Hoarders. I haven't watched it, and after realizing my own situation, I'm kind of afraid to see myself in one of the episodes.

Reading Wikipedia's take on the situation was enough for me to see and say, yes, I am a bibliomaniac and a digital hoarder, and yes, I am the child of a traditional hoarder.

There is help all over the place including YouTube, but it is hard to admit to oneself that something needs to be done, and the only way to do it, is to get off your duff and take action.

Starting out on the right foot

Sondra Harris, who has been maintaining an online diary called The Ministry of Silly Walks since November 2001, and whom I found out about through Rob McEvily's searching through the archives at his Six Sentences, began the whole thing in exactly the right frame of mind for an unknown blogger. I wish I had approached this with the same sense of deliberation.

Chimera

Volumes where the golden insect crawled fetch glory by the yard, but there is no communication between the ink and the eye, for try as they might, libraries cannot express the depth of what they lack in emotion. Sharp-toothed keys assist the explorer in gaining entry to a world renowned for its emptiness, but there is never any action in the quotidian balance. Read, read, read, they said. However, he was left alone to ponder the fruitlessness of his desperation. Sadly, Hugo observed the declination of reason as three virgins giggled and proceeded to retain their innocence, which, by the way, was neither innocent nor retainable. They must have known what was on offer without the experience, he calculated, for there was guile in their laughter. One of them, she of the radiant halo, dipped and scooped up the golden spider leaving only its latest unreadable tome in a web of silky verbosity. Virgin or muse, he could not tell. Still, he was news once again without the slightest perception of validation. Everything he touched glowed and shimmered in an ephemeral way. Yet, he never doubted all was at their behest.

Popping, he shriveled almost immediately and shortly thereafter he noticed he was losing hair again and there were liver spots.

…those who can’t, teach.

IT'S ALWAYS US VERSUS THEM. I used to be in the Us camp. You used to be also. We all were. And when we were crossing the bridge to the other side, to this side, we all looked for confirmation that we were making the right decisions; as if decision making had anything to do with the ineluctable crossing.

   When it comes to observation, I’d guess about ninety percent of the literature takes place on the bridge, and they call them Coming of Age or Rite of Passage stories.

   We spend a good number of years complaining how They don’t understand Us and our needs, and dealing with peer pressure. Then there’s a short interval, though for some the experience lasts longer, where all the road signs seem to have been removed. Afterwards, we spend the rest of our lives as Them trying to convince Us, because we still feel like Us inside, that things are not as bad as predicated.

   Stories that show children or older minors acting in sinister, or comedic, adult fashion are always popular, while tales of adults doing what is expected of children are just sad or melancholic. When a male author, like Joyce, writes understandingly from the point of view of a female, he is lauded for artistic achievement; conversely, when a woman writes as a man, it is observed that women have always had that capability. It’s a similar situation between youth and adulthood. A very young author who writes well about adult concerns will be applauded for his or her insight whereas blurbs on the books about childhood written by adults frequently begin with the words, “Never before has a story…” blah, blah, blah. Successes in this area seem to come rarely. They are so few and far between that a Catcher in the Rye or A High Wind in Jamaica can last forever, although again, Catcher takes place on the bridge.

   I’m venting because I wrote what I thought was a sharp little six-sentence “story” that described a teenager’s blasé attitude toward her pregnancy (from the point of view of her teacher) and someone in my peer group reviewed thusly, “I think the flash would evoke more feeling if [it] was from the POV of another student, rather than the teacher. Kids have a much more startled/jaded/sneering take on this stuff than adults.” And I’m thinking, “Ah, but if it was told from the point of view of one of the kids, then it wouldn’t be the story I intended to write.” I was attempting to note observation of one of Us prematurely acting out as one of Them through the eyes of one in Their camp. How and why would I observe one of Us from Our side? My peer also made mention of a so-called run-on sentence, which definably wasn’t – due to grammatical punctuation, but here I am at fault because I did not announce the pre-established conventions of the format. It could be I’m too thin-skinned, or perhaps I was attempting to evoke too much in a limited space, but damn me, I was trying.

   Here is the point of my rant, I spend too much time every day with young people, observing their foibles, failures, and successes; I don’t share enough in the lives of my peers. As a writer, I observe, analyze, and reconstruct what I see. I see the young, who are not writing their own stories, and use this as grist for my fiction, when more than likely, and speaking from an ethical point of view, I should be getting inspiration from a level on par with my current experience. Although, I still stand behind the excuse, that I was once a kid too, you know, I guess it’s not passable. These thoughts, this self-recrimination, can lead to writer’s block, which further leads to the posing of the deadly question, “Hey, why write at all?” I keep falling back on my motto, “It’s a dirty business, but someone has to do it.” I can, to a degree, therefore I do.

Puppet

Susana owns a pesto green Volkswagen. I don’t drive. I didn’t when we lived in New York. She always has. Although I take a bus home from work every day, in the evenings, she says she doesn’t want me taking the bus in the morning too because the school is on the other side of town and I would have to leave an hour earlier to get there on time. So I keep the car in gas and she drives me there every day. We argue every morning because I’m responsible for disturbing her sleep. She’s currently between jobs. Twice when I left early and let her sleep in, she was in a grouchy mood all afternoon, so though I suffer guilt and exchange words in the car, I’d rather continue the ritual. The evenings are better that way. This morning after I said I hoped she’d find work soon, she glared at me. When she dropped me off she drove away in silence.

Here in Chiapas the fifteenth and end of the month are quinceanas, paydays. This autumn semester is the toughest of the six I’ve taught at the Tec. I teach four Advanced English classes five times a week. It’s not the hours performing in front of exuberant teenagers that I find so wearing. It’s all the prep work at night and on the weekends, and the bitacoras and other paperwork. Susy and I don’t get much quality time together, but when I get paid we have a nice dinner out, maybe go to a movie, see some friends for drinks and usually have a more intimate night.

Of course I enjoy those nights but I’m not keen on the social evenings beforehand. All of the friends we spend time with speak Spanish and Susy’s so much better at making conversation than I; being half Mexican she would be. She especially likes getting together with Valentina and Raul. Valentina’s a doll, really pleasant, always smiling. Raul’s a snob. He was educated in Texas and can speak English as well as I can, but he never does anymore. He says I need the practice. The three of them talk while I listen, nodding at appropriate moments and occasionally saying, “Gracias,” to waiters.

Today was a quinceana and I was looking forward to a night of heat and passion, such as I can muster these days. Susy’s also better at that. Not working, she would be, but that’s beside the point. I took the bus to Plaza Crystal, figuring I’d pick something up for her at the mall to make things right. At one of the gift shops I found a harlequin puppet in a costume of black and white diamond shapes, with one black tear painted below his left eye. I know she loves that sort of thing.

When I arrived at the house she wasn’t home and the VW wasn’t parked in front. Once inside, I turned on the fan and propped Pierrot against the fruitbowl on the table, made a cup of coffee and smoked a couple of cigarettes. And waited. I reread the next units in my texts and graded thirty-four exams. Three hours later, there was still no word from her. It was unlike her to leave me wondering where she was.

At eight-thirty, Valentina called and asked if we were meeting them at Es-tres. I said I didn’t know yet but didn’t mention that I was alone. “Well, if you decide, give me a ring,” she said, “Raul asked me to call him on his cellphone, if we were going to get together tonight.”

“Oh, he’s not there?” I asked.

“No, he went to San Cristobal today but he’s due back in a while. He said he’d try and get back earlier if something was on.”

After finishing with Val, I noticed I’d smoked my last cigarette, so I headed up to the tienda for another pack. Before I left, I stuffed Peirrot behind some empty luggage in the bedroom closet upstairs. In case, Susy came in while I was out, I didn’t want the puppet to speak for me and say the wrong thing.

I was gone much longer than I’d expected as the store’s security guard, who likes to practice his English on me, caught my ear and then I met a neighbor who tried to convince me that I should contribute more than fifty pesos to the fund she was collecting for her sick tia.

As I entered the house, I saw the harlequin right away. He was back on the table. He was propped against the fruitbowl again, but this time with his head drooping in a sad looking way. Between his legs was a small piece of paper. I read the note.

She’d written, “No llores. It’s been fun. I finally found something. –S”

The What-If Factor

Ineradicable cobwebs fill the corners of my life.
The ghosts of things that might have been haunt me though they haven't.

In my dream, we said some terrible things -
No, I take that back,
I said some awful things to you -
Hate-filled words, untake-backable words,
And left you in confusion
Wondering what you'd done.

Then I walked through fire -
Returning to a past which had not, could not happen.

I took the consolation you deserved for myself,
In the arms of someone who no longer was there.
After thinking how good it felt, I realized it could not last.
It was a chimera.

I saw clearly I'd given away the present for a past I could not reclaim
And thus, my future was obliterated.

When you woke me and you were still real,
For a brief moment there was relief,
But then I noticed cobwebs
Constructed of motes of sadness
And felt the heat of the coming fire.

Somewhere in this there's a formula for figuring probability.
Somewhere there's a path to get to the average mean.
There's the murk of the future and the bottleneck of the recent past
And glorious worlds at either end,
But I'm stuck in between.

Some books from my library

The Sequel

Russell Crowe, walking on deck, meets a woman dressed in the flouncy skirts of Colonial times. He too is dressed in a costume of the past, the outfit he wore in Master and Commander which took place during the Napoleonic Wars and had nothing to do with Colonial America. It suddenly dawns on him he must be in a sequel to that film, or Hollywood’s version of a sequel, which doesn’t always adhere to the conceits of the original story.

A consummate actor up to any challenge, he steps into character and asks the woman, whom he does not recognize, but nonetheless admires for her lack of artifice, if he may help her in any way. She responds in the negative, thanks him for the uneventful crossing, and says she did not experience the mal de mer customary on long voyages. Russell tips his tricorner, says, “At your service, ma’am,” and walks aft. A moment later he recalls there were no women on board in the first film, but figures it will make a nice piece of acting if he turns to quietly survey this attractive female. However, when he pivots, she is nowhere to be seen. There is only the empty deck.

Perhaps she was a mirage, the scriptwriter’s way of letting the audience know although the ship is filled with solitary males, at least the captain still has manly desires. If that’s what it was, Russell applauds the unobtrusive effect.

His reverie is disturbed by the voice of a deckhand coming from one of the portals. It is Chris Rock who says without humor, “Captain, New York is in sight. Shall we prepare to dock and go ashore?”

“Eh?” he responds, thinking that like several comedians before him, Rock must have taken a serious role like this to get his shot at a supporting Oscar. “Why certainly.”

Chris makes a gesture at tipping his hat while saying, “Yes sir,” but bareheaded, his action only parallels Russell’s of a few minutes earlier.

Nice comic touch, he thinks. Everything cyclical but subtle.

Soon all the men are on deck but the focus is on Russell behind the man steering. Through his eyes we see the low skyline of Olde New York coming into view. Though impressively reconstructed, he’s thinking, this is not how the story goes. He cannot remember how the script develops, and doesn’t recall this scene from the O’Brian books, but not wanting to appear difficult or incompetent, he remains in character and displays a look he hopes expresses longing, or better – knowing anticipation.

Blunt cut to the men disembarking. Many are meandering off to discover the place, but a carriage is waiting for Russell and his firstmate, who has no lines. Maturin is not around, must have gone to research the flora and fauna. Chris Rock puts the captain’s things on top of the carriage along with a little bundle which is his own then climbs up to sit next to the driver. He glances back to see the leather bags and his little red kerchief-tied bundle. These things make their own statement through juxtaposition.

Our attention is soon diverted by the authenticity of the town, appearing more real than Scorcese’s Gangs of New York but oddly, though not disconcertingly, anachronistic for the time period we thought we were in. This is New York of perhaps 1870. Playing fast and loose with history, the designers have gone through great pains to make everything look authentic albeit for another story.

The carriage approaches a square. Chris notices a statue he assumes to be a pilgrim and remembers in the present day a statue of George Washington stands there. “Oh my, will you look at that,” he says aloud. However, as the carriage rounds the statue it disappears so only the plinth remains visible, as if the carriage’s movement has brought everyone a little further back in time before there was a monument to either.

The streets of the town are festooned for a coming or recent celebration. There are garlands of flowers strung from building to building. But people in top hats and tails are going about their work as if festivity were the furthest thing from their minds. In a window of one of the wooden buildings we see the face of the woman Russell had met on the ship. She looks sad. The hint of a smile as she eyes the passing carriage tells us she is hoping for release from a desperate situation. These men from elsewhere may be her salvation.

Inside the carriage we see Russell, the face of stoicism. He’s hoping someone will arrive to cue him on his next lines. It is strange indeed no one has called, “Cut,” in a long time, but grown weary of being known as difficult he will not be the one to break the mood.

Cut to the interior of an old building. Chris and a friend, whom we hadn’t seen before, are waiting outside an office where the captain has gone to speak to someone. On the door is a placard with the name B. Luhrman.

Chris says to his friend, “I think this other door leads to the roof. I’m going to see how the place looks from above.”

The other man says, “Better be careful not to change anything. You know how altering the past can affect the future.”

Chris looks at him as if to ask, “What are you talking about?” then shrugs and proceeds through the door.

Alone in the hallway, the man fidgets and paces. Now is when the viewer begins to question the sanity of everyone involved in this piece. We, like him, feel on the outside of knowing. If things are to proceed any further, an explanation has to come from someone, before the fourth wall fully materializes

At that moment, Russell comes out of the office. “Where is he?” he asks.

“Sir,” the man sputters, “Captain, sir, he went through that door to have a look from the roof.”

“Oh my god! He shouldn’t have..”

“I told him, sir, to be careful. I told him he could affect history. I said…”

“Stop gibbering, man. That’s not the problem,” Russell says, “We haven’t gone back in time.”

“Sir?”

“It’s just been made clear to me we’re in a sequel occurring in an alternate universe. I don’t think there’s any way out.”

Suddenly, Luhrman announces from behind his door, “That’s right captain and remember my advice regarding sunscreen,” followed by the voice of a castrato singing something unfathomable offstage.