by KUBOA
SheThere. There is the world, the variegated world.
HeGate? Did you say? The gate is open?
SheVariegate.
HeRight.
SheIt’s—it’s—
HeYes?
SheGrand. It’s grand. It’s so bright.
HeIt is.
SheIt frightens me.
HeDoes it?
SheNo. No, it’s—welcoming, isn’t it?
HeIt is. Come here.
SheWhat?
HeYou’re beautiful.
SheI—
HeYes. Beautiful.
SheYou, too. You’re beautiful.
HeCome closer.
SheYes.
HeThere. How’s that?
SheUnexpected.
HeYes. Excellent.
SheYes, except hold me like that. Yes.
HeThe light is so—what? Tender?
SheOr—
HeLet’s go. Let’s go outside.
SheIt’s a beautiful word. World—word.
HeNothing is changed, ultimately.
SheI know. Noth—
HeStill—
SheRight.
HeJust holding you, just holding on.
SheIs enough?
HeMaybe. I don’t know.
SheI don’t know either.
He
She
He
She
HeAh.
SheHerme’s silence?
HeI think so. I think it’s only a space between two things, two possible things. One bright, one dark. That space—that space is all we know—all we can hope—
SheOne bright, one dark.
HeI know.
SheHold me closer. Close the door.
HeThere.
SheLater. We can decide later.
HeYes. You’re smiling.
SheHold me closer.
Spring Ahead, Fall Behind
‘Once upon a time, there was a musical group called The Beatles.’
‘Very funny, Chick. You think I’m totally unaware of anyone before my lifetime. Van Gogh, I’ve heard of him, hm?’
Anne was fiddling with the salt shaker, trying to make one of its octagonal bottom edges rest against a grain of salt.
‘Ok. But, Jesus, you were born after Lennon was already dead.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Jesus.’ Chick shook his head, looked around the diner.
‘I’ve heard of him, too,’ Anne said and smiled. Her smile was like new silver. She was positively elfin, Chick thought.
‘Ha. Ok. But, I mean, do you think this is crazy. I’m forty-four.’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes, you think it’s crazy?’
‘Yes. It’s crazy. But it’s not wrong. You’ve got some mixed up idea in your head that life is neat, that there’s a pattern, a prescription.’
‘How’d you get to be so smart in so few years?’
‘I watch a lot of TV.’
The salt shaker rested for a moment on the side of a grain of salt and Anne bent her head low to blow away the excess, to complete her magic trick. When she did the shaker fell over with a dull sound.
‘Yeah, TV. In my day…’
‘Right. Let’s move on. Let’s talk about something constructive like what we’re gonna do this afternoon. You wanna see the Impressionist show at The Dixon?’
‘Ok. Though it concerns me what kind of Impressionist show Memphis can draw. I worry we’ll be looking at second or third rate paintings by the greats, or even second or third rate Impressionists.’
‘Chick. It’ll still be a real experience, I promise. If it’s second rate Monet it’s still gonna be great, isn’t it?’
‘Sure. Yeah. Let’s do that.’
Anne made one more stab at setting the shaker up on its side. It stood as firmly as a building in Pisa as Anne blew away the extra salt which left the shaker leaning seemingly by itself in the middle of the table. A grain of salt that was invisible balanced it: sorcery. They paid their check and left, holding hands. After they were out the door the waitress put the salt shaker back in its place and wiped the tabletop clean with a foul rag she kept hanging from her apron string.
***
‘I told you we’d be disappointed.’
‘I wasn’t that disappointed. You liked that Pissaro.’
‘Yes, I did. Was he officially an Impressionist? I mean, did he have the card, attend the meetings?
‘Ha ha. Come here, art lover.’
Anne let herself fall back on the bed and Chick followed. When Anne lifted her shirt off over her head Chick was surprised anew at her breastless upper torso and the incredible slimness of her waist. Willowy, the word came unbidden. Her waist could almost make Chick cry.
Afterwards, in the kitchen, Anne was making a peanut butter sandwich.
‘Did you buy honey?’
‘Um, no. I didn’t. I’m sorry, am I out? Tutu, the little bear empty?’
‘That’s okay. I’ll use this blackstrap.’
‘Are you sure? Sounds dreadful.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘You’re beautiful,’ Chick said, ducking his head like a younger man.
‘Mm,’ Anne replied, licking peanut butter from her forefinger. ‘As are you.’
‘No, I mean it. You’re so beautiful naked, so smooth. You’re like brand new, something unused, like fruit on the vine, or like pure gold, something man has not sullied yet.’
‘Oh shit, Chick. I’m younger than you. Shut up.’
‘I don’t get you.’
‘That’s the subtext, isn’t it?
‘I thought I was complimenting you.’
‘Ok. Thank you.’
‘Ok.’
‘And shut up.’
***
The relationship was a month old. Not one day went by when Chick didn’t feel at least a little ridiculous, yet Anne wasn’t a child. She was 21 and wiser than most other women her age, or so he told himself. So, what was the problem? Chick worried that it said something bad about him that he sought such a youthful lover, as if he were to be called before a tribunal of psychoanalysts and found wanting.
He was wanting all right. He wanted Anne day and night. Anne was a student at the midtown Art College and Chick was the manager of an art supply store a few blocks away. The proximity was painful in its temptation. Chick was smart enough, though, to know not to push too hard. When he called and Anne said she was studying he never questioned her further. He knew his need for her was a turn-off, though why that was built into the human animal was a mystery to him.
They had met when she came into his store and bought some oil paints. Though she was, she told him as if he had accused her of something, a sculptress; she worked in three dimensions. She painted sometimes on the side, she told him. She was sexy and slender and she flirted outrageously with him. He fell for her like a lemming going over a cliff.
***
When she broke off with Chick he could have predicted the language she would use. He could have written the conversation down ahead of time. It almost made him tired and bored to sit through it, except that it wracked him with pain, end-of-the-world anguish. She was leaving him
‘You were never comfortable with us anyway,’ she stated in her reasonable way.
‘Right,’ he said, anger bubbling in him like undigested food.
‘Chick, I’d still like to see you,’ Anne said and put a reassuring slim hand on his forearm. He looked at that hand and its heartbreaking comeliness and its almost transparent skin and the small brass ring she wore on her pinky and Chick began to cry.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘Chick,’ Anne said, but she looked around to see if anyone were watching. That hurt.
Chick stood up abruptly. His chair fell over. The other patrons of the diner looked in his direction. For a moment Chick felt as if he were about to do something unforgivable, so
mething which would mark this moment for the rest of his life. It called for an imprint of unforgettable violence. He actually put his hands on the under-edge of the table—if turning over a chair upset everyone so much, what if he threw this table across the room?
But, of course, he didn’t. He didn’t even look Anne in the eyes as he left. He couldn’t know it at the time but he would never look into her eyes again.
On the way out he noticed on the table nearest the door, someone had balanced a salt shaker on one of its edges. Some magic, Chick thought, ungenerously. Cheap, shitty magic.
My Continued Conversation With Insomnia
(and TV, A Slight Return)
3:45, ungodly hour, time of ghosts and heartquakes...Christ...not again, damn insomnia...
beautiful thing, thing of beauty...breathing sweetly, bangs slightly sweaty...that soft lower back...let it go, let it go...
mmph...trousers, book...just close this, let the wife sleep, sweet sleep...
read for a while, stop this merry-go-round in my head...shut up, damn you...find that trick to re-enter sleep, it is a trick, one minute, wife, bed, office, house, reality of flesh and fleshly pain, then nothing, just a trick, a mental twist, but not mental that's the trick of it, the opposite of mental, what would that be, not physical, the trick of oblivion, the non-thought...a zen thing, ach, frivolous mindpath...the light
ach, Jesus!...damn, hate that...sleeping and wakefulness lovely but the door between, there's the hell of it, there's the pain, study that why don't they, the trapdoor between the worlds, that split second, when...mmph, that's better, not so swimmy now...read for a while, calm this inner demon...
hmm, Message in the Bottle, is this what I was reading...no, never seen this, Percy, yes, familiar, but...wait, here...’The Loss of the Creature,’ my bookmark, yes, here...mmm...
‘Why is it almost impossible to gaze directly at the Grand Canyon under these circumstances and see it for what it is as one picks up a strange object from one's back yard and gazes directly at it?’...hm, got something there...’It is almost impossible because the Grand Canyon, the thing as it is, has been appropriated by the symbolic complex which has already been formed in the sightseer's mind. Seeing the canyon under approved circumstances is seeing the symbolic complex head on. The thing is no longer the thing...’
wait, what...’the thing is no longer the...’ ...I've lost the, mm, symbolic complex...what the hell...can't quite seem to make sense of this, too tired, too awake, too too something...words, it's all words, words colliding like trains of thought, yes that's good, trains of thought, words jammed up, backed up, words clogging the door to sleep...words...gotta let it go, gotta shut up, infernal dialogue, who is this who keeps me up, who answers when I ask, who...Jesus...tv, that'll do it, idiot tv...
...’SLEPT IN THE OTHER ROOM WHILE YOU WERE WITH HER SISTER, IS THAT RIGHT, MARK? DO I HAVE THAT RIGHT? WELL, MR. NANO, NO LET HIM SPEAK, YOU'VE HAD YOU'RE TURN, LET HIM SPEAK, MR. SETTLES, GO AHEAD, I...Jesus, that tripe, can't stand...JESUS HAD ME, HE HAD ME, HE HAD AHOLD OF MY HAND, CHILDREN, HE STOOD NEXT TO ME AND SPOKE IN MY EAR, AND CHILDREN, HE...mm, hm, there's gotta be something, news, ad, shopping...OH, ROB (laughter), FRIENDS DOWN HERE AT GOODBELLY NISSAN WE'RE NOT GONNA GIVE YOU THE SLICK PITCH TO SELL YOU A VEHICLE, NO SIR, WE'RE...Nickelodeon, Discovery, Goddam CNN...SHE LIKED IT, THAT'S MY BOTTOM LINE, AT THE TIME SHE LIKED IT, WHOA WAIT A MIN...HELP ME NOW, YOU GOTTA HELP ME NOW, IF YOU PRAY WITH ME I CAN HEAR IT, HE CAN HEAR IT, WE GOTTA PRAY...FORTY-FOUR AND AUTHORITIES SAY THEY CAN'T BE SURE OF THE EXACT COUNT UNTIL MORNING AND SOME OF THIS SMOKE CLEARS OFF, BEVERLY, THANK YOU...
can't do this, can't stand tv at this hour, lowest common denominator...gotta get up, change position...heat up some milk, the old time honored panacea, herbal medicine, witchcraft, that's it...something in the milk, someone told me, something in turkey, triptosomething, a chemical, of course it works, all the old things, something to them, like chicken soup, now they're discovering...shut up, for Christ's sake...Jesus...just a...hot enough...impatience, look at me, heart rate up, stupid, Jesus...that's good, yes, even tastes different, soothing, that's it...mm....
back now, that's it, turned the corner...sweet sleep...Aw, Jesus that's dark...slowly, slowly...
wow, that's dark...just get to the wall and...there, no doorjamb, here...and...hm, smooth as skin, this wallpaper...just here...Christ
get back to the light...here, just...ow, damn...just...
as smooth as skin...lost...the door is gone...the door back...it's...I...
Grace...Grace...
aggh...I...can't...
lost...
light...
this is only midnight terror...only middle-of-the-nightness, fear, existential fear...this will right itself, and tomorrow, the dawn...I will be returned to the world as if this were a bad dream. I will be back, righted...
the dawn...
just let me outside, breathe the air, remedy this...
(deep breaths…)
the comforts of familiarity, civilization...ah, the neighborhood, the commonplace, driveway, dog, dogwood...here I am, here is the world, restore me...
At The Zoo
I never said that.
You said something approximately like that.
I never said that.
What difference does it make?
Well—
I only want to know, if, you know, you see this as ongoing.
Ongoing. That sounds so passionate.
Passionately ongoing.
Jeff, listen. I said, you know I said, that you and I were the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
There’s a but there somewhere.
There isn’t. We are great together.
You mean.
That too. Yes. We clicked there, you know we did.
Yes.
For you, maybe, it was, I don’t know, usual.
No.
Usual as in I was certainly not the first.
Well—
Nor the twenty-first.
But the last. You don’t want to be the last.
Jeff. Yes. I think I want that.
But—again but.
No. Listen. There is that—that frisson—when we’re together, you know.
Yes.
That lubricious—exciting—hungryfleshly thing and the way you—
Yes.
Well, I mean, never before, for me, have I—
Yes. I know.
I didn’t even think I—you know.
Yes.
So that was great. That was-earth shattering.
Really?
Yes. You know so.
I didn’t—
But—
Right.
No, listen. You opened me. That’s the expression. You opened me. On that level—
A lower level.
No, I don’t think so. Do you?
No. No, I don’t.
It is important. That level. It’s—paramount—
Yes. I know.
So—I mean—before you—I didn’t even know—
Yes.
So, please. This—misunderstanding—
Is it? Is it only that?
I think so.
Ok.
You—well, you’re—
Ok.
That—look, have you seen this exhibit before?
No.
It’s remarkable really.
This is new.
Yes. Just opened, I think.
It is. I wasn’t even—
Look. Look at the way she looks at us.
It’s a bit unsettling.
A bit.
She—well, she could feed a large family with those.
Ha—yes, look at that.
They have babies here somewhere. Gyp told me.
Really?
Yeah, little ones.
She looks like maybe she’s had some babies. She looks sad, really.
&
nbsp; Yes.
She’s looking at you. She’s looking right at you.
It’s—unsettling.
Yes.
She needs to move away from that—that pile—
It’s dung.
I know what it is.
She’s staying close to it. You don’t think—
I saw an orangutan once throw a piece at a little boy.
Yeah, I’ve heard of that.
She’s –
She’s pretty in a way. Do you think so?
I guess so. She has breasts—they’re almost too big.
Yeah, I know that’s a turn-off.
No, I mean. For her size. She’s got such little hips.
Yeah, maybe she hasn’t had babies.
She could have.
She’s really looking at us.
Help me.
OH MY GOD!
Please help me.
SHE’S TALKING TO US!
Listen to me. They put us in here. They—you’ve got to help us.
GOD. This is freaking me out.
Listen. Please. We are not wild. We—you have to tell someone.
How did you—
Don’t talk back to her.
Why don’t talk back to her?
She’s—you idiot. You do like her big breasts. This is what—
It’s not her breasts—Jesus, Marcy. She’s talking to us.
Please. Please.
JESUS. Where are the—
Please.
I’m sorry
Jeff, you go ahead. You do what you think is best. This is what I’m talking about.
Please.
Marcy, we can’t just—walk away.
We can. We most decidedly can. What do you think everyone else does?
I don’t—
Please. Listen to me.
Don’t Jeff. Don’t listen to her.
But—
You want to stay here and look and listen and think she means those big breasts for you go ahead.
Marcy—
Go ahead, Jeff. Look at her breasts and her—her—hair. That’s what she wants you to do. She’s—feral. She’s caged, Jeff.
Marcy. I can’t—
Please. Jeff.
Oh, Jesus.
Jeff, please. You’re a good man. Don’t—
Marcy, I—
Jeff, come on. She’s learned to use your name. Just go with me. Come on. There’s the bears. You like the bears.
Marcy, should we—
Jeff. Come on. Leave her alone. They will take care of her.
Please. Please. Please.
Don’t let her call you by name, Jeff. Come now.
