“I beg you,” I say. “Go away. And put some clothes on.”
Mimi tightens the belt on her kimono. Smiles. “I’ll give you one hour, baby.”
I pull the sheet over my head. It’s 11:25 a.m., but it feels like midnight.
I sink quickly.
Chapter 3
I’m standing at the bus stop, sipping a can of Red Bull and shivering in my favorite hoodie—a black zip-up with ESPAÑA stamped across the chest. Over that, I’m wearing a flannel shirt, looking like a real Northwest logger. Better yet, looking like the great grunge rock god Eddie Vedder, of West Seattle and the world. My boxers ride my bellybutton. My Levi’s ride my butt crack.
The world is falling in curtains of white. A Jeep Cherokee bombs down the street, kicking up a rooster ass of snow, spraying all the two-wheel drives hibernating in their curbed snow caves.
I’m at home in this world—this clash of innocence and arrogance, elves and idiots. If only Walt Whitman would walk up and stand here, all pink-cheeked and gray-bearded in his floppy hat. He, too, had a brother who got hurt. He, too, sat in the hospital, night after night. We’d have a lot to talk about, Walt and me.
The pitter-patter of nurses’ feet.
The gaping void of tomorrow.
In the back of my throat I can still taste last night’s grapes. Feel the rawness.
I drain my Red Bull and smile at the memory of my fall. Twenty feet—damn!—and not a broken bone. I know my thicks will spread the word. Jonathan—poet and superman.
It’s not how I see myself; I’m just a poet. Nothing dual about that. But they’re always spreading the word, building my legend.
“I’m Jonathan, not Telly,” I say. “Let me be forgotten.”
They ignore me.
Most things are out of my control anyway, as the world has taught me.
Only twenty feet? It seemed like a lot more. Somehow, I know there’s a connection between my fall and the snow, between me and Walt Whitman, between Whitman and Telly. But I can’t quite figure it out. That’s what poetry is for, building those connections. When I figure it out, I’ll put it in my new poem, “Tales of Telemachus.”
So far, “Tales of Telemachus” stands at 317 lines, and it’s still growing.
I’ve divided it into sections, each of which I call a chaos.
Ezra Pound called each section in his long poem a canto.
Jack Kerouac called each section in Mexico City Blues a chorus.
I prefer chaos because there’s no structure, no logic, to how I write.
I write fast. Free. Gut.
All my lines spring from some dark well.
Boiling with razor fish.
Ugly-lonely sturgeon.
Damselfish with ADD.
So far, “Tales of Telemachus” consists of twelve chaoses.
It’s shaping up to be my masterpiece.
The No. 22 crunches around the corner, tires crisscrossed with giant snow chains. The driver, a beefy guy in a furry hat, pops the door. He grins when I show him my school pass.
“Is this heaven or what?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Heaven.”
The snow glues us like brothers, but only for two seconds.
I drop into a seat over a back wheel. Sprawl myself across the narrow heating vent. But as soon as the bus pulls out, I know I’ve chosen the wrong seat. Every spin of the wheel slams a tail of metal chain against the floor under my feet. My headache wakes up. My stomach kicks into tumble dry.
I slide to a nonthunking seat.
In the window of the No. 22, I am colorless—the corpse that could be lying in the morgue today, with a tag on his toe.
To climb onto the rail of a bridge and piss into the snow—hey, that’s just marking your territory.
But to let go—that’s insanity.
It scares the holy jeezus out of me.
Chapter 4
Birdwell lives in a decayed tooth of a building called the Fauntleroy Arms. It’s downtown, pretty far up Pine, by the Paramount Theatre.
A homeless man sleeps in a shadow, in the dry space under the Greek columns.
I dig in my shirt pocket for my pencil and little notebook. Let it flow fast. Not just because I have a headache, but because fast writing puts me in touch with my primal, sacred, universal self.
Chaos XIII
O sleeping bum of a building,
you cradle the litter of our streets
under your fake Doric columns.
You saw our grandfathers
stalk these sidewalks
in Humphrey Bogart hats
posing for blurry black-and-white photos.
Back in the basement years
when nuclear families huddled
against Khrushcher
and drank canned milk.
Gutter Hercules!
Go ahead,
shiver on your cardboard bed.
You have found your place
in history
under the quake-cracked columns,
stained with pigeon shit.
I search for mine.
I’ve squeezed in a reference to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which we’re studying in Mr. Mandelheim’s class. But I’m not too happy with some of the lines. For example, “quake-cracked” sounds like “quacked.” And I’m not sure what a Doric column is.
I’ll fix it later.
I take the elevator up to the fifth floor. Before I knock, I hear Birdwell cooing inside. We all have theories about Birdwell, and maybe now I can prove one of them.
When he opens the door, he’s all smiles.
“Hello, Jonathan.”
“Hey, Dr. Bird . . . Bramwell.”
I glance over his shoulder.
Birdwell is a sparrow of a man. Beak nose. Thick glasses. Big, protruding chest. He has a funny way of walking, quick hipped.
His apartment is disgustingly clean. He isn’t wearing shoes, only big wool socks, so I slip out of my puddly Nikes.
“Jonathan, you look like a truck ran over you.”
“A forty-ton semi,” I say. “Is somebody else here?”
“No, just you and me.”
“But . . .”
“Ahh,” he says, breaking into a grin. “C’mere, Janey!”
I expect god knows what—a voluptuous transvestite or, at least, a yipping terrier—to bolt out of the bedroom.
Instead, a robot blinks to life, rolls over, and stops, facing Birdwell. The robot stands maybe two feet tall. She’s built like Carmen Electra. Her name, Calamity Jane, is branded onto her tank top. Her bellybutton is showing. It’s pierced. So is an eyebrow.
“Say hi to Jonathan, Janey.”
“Hi, Jonathan.” Her voice is sexy, in a robot-y way.
“Well, aren’t you going to say hi back?” Birdwell asks me.
“Hi,” I say.
Birdwell beams with joy.
“Now ask her what she thinks of you.”
Whoa! This is creeping me out. But I’m his guest.
“Go on, ask.”
“What do you think of me?”
“You’re the sexiest man alive,” Janey says.
Birdwell cracks up. So do I. But I’m pretty sure we’re laughing for different reasons.
“Janey,” he says, “is very good to me.” He winks. “I mean good-good.”
“Good-good?”
He nods. “She vacuums every morning after I leave for school and every night after I do the dishes. And she’s a wonderful listener—no back talk. Not like my juniors and seniors. Nothing at all like you, Jonathan.”
He smiles at the big-boobed little robot. “Thank you, my sweet. Bye-bye.”
“Bye-bye,” she says, and spins a 180, rolling over to a landing pad in the corner. She blinks ecstatically, then shuts down.
Birdwell glows like a proud father. Then his face darkens. He goes over to a side table and grabs his copy of Dr. Jacobson’s letter. Holds it in my face.
“I trust you’ve seen this.”
“
Yeah.”
I start to sit on his couch—a soft beige one with big pillows—but Birdwell screams, “Wait!” He pulls out a roll of bubble wrap and places it on the sofa, on my side. He does not put bubble wrap under himself.
We both sit, side by side, and the weight of my ass pops a few bubbles.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Do you have a strategy for success?”
I shrug. “Just live. Take it one day at a time. Be true to myself.”
Birdwell sighs. “Jonathan, Jonathan . . . Listen to me:
‘There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune . . .’”
He shakes a finger at me.
“ ‘Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries . . .’
Do you know who wrote that?”
I shake my head.
“Take a guess.”
“Christopher Columbus?”
“It was William Shakespeare. In Julius Caesar. Do you know what it means?”
“No.”
“Take a guess.”
“We should all go on a Caribbean cruise?”
He glares at me. “Get serious, Jonathan!”
I shrug. “I have no idea what it means.”
“It means,” he says, “there are moments in life when one has to take action. These moments can be wonderful opportunities, but they’re not always apparent to us. They often last a brief time—a few days, a few hours. Once they’ve past, they’re gone forever. Here is your moment, Jonathan. A chance to do what you do best: write. And get paid for it.”
“How much?”
He waves the thought away, like a fart. “Irrelevant. It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“Then you ask the question,” Birdwell says. “I did, however, make inquiries.”
Inquiries. I roll the word around. It’s a headache-y word, very “admin.” I’ve never used it. Never will. Unless maybe in a poem, as a dagger.
“A man named David Cosgrove lives in a hospice in the Admiral District. He wants to pay someone to write a book about his life. Specifically, he wants you, Jonathan.”
“Me!”
Birdwell nods. “He caught you on TV. Apparently someone downloaded your poems for him. He liked two of them.”
“Oh, yeah? Which ones?”
Birdwell scratches his memory. “‘Baboonery’ and ‘Bloodcurdling Cliché.’”
“And all the others sucked?”
Birdwell shrugs. “Fame opens doors, Jonathan.”
“Slams them shut, too,” I say.
Birdwell leans close and blows a puff of air into my eyes—his very weird way of telling me to shut up.
“You need to know, Jonathan, that Mr. Cosgrove has a few medical issues.”
“What kind of medical issues?”
“Heart disease,” Birdwell says. “And cancer.”
“Heart disease and cancer?”
Birdwell nods. “And he’s blind.”
“Whoa! Dude, I’m not going within a mile of anybody like that.”
Birdwell blinks. “Why not?”
“For one,” I say, “I’m not into illness. For two, I don’t like hospitals. For three, four, and five, I don’t like old people who smell like piss. I don’t like anything about any of this. It makes me sick. The answer is no!”
Birdwell shakes his head. “Jonathan, you’re too young to carry so many biases. To be so anti.”
“Hey,” I say, “I wouldn’t peer through a smoky glass window into that world. Not even if he paid me double minimum.”
“He just might,” Birdwell says. “He’s an interesting old man, Jonathan. A veteran of World War Two. An award-winning journalist.”
“A journalist! Why doesn’t he write his own damn book?”
“Well, possibly because he’s blind. And possibly because he wants someone impartial, with fresh eyes.”
I goggle him. “Look into these eyes. They’re as rancid as old cheese.”
“I told him you are ‘brilliant’ and ‘personable.’ Half of that is true.”
“Which half?”
“Jonathan, he’s willing to pay you to write a book about his life.”
“Tell him to hire a real writer.”
“You are a real writer!”
“Hey, I’m not a real anything. Just because I won that stupid contest—”
“Oh, stop it, Jonathan! I’m doing you a favor. If you can’t see that . . . Listen, it’s a writing job. Not one of your house-painting or grease-monkey jobs. A writing job! I’ve been teaching for eighteen years, and in all that time there have been maybe five students—no, maybe three—I’d recommend for this, and you are definitely one. Besides, aren’t you always telling me you’re broke? Aren’t you always heading off to rob the Wells Fargo stagecoach? Think of it as a chance to get raw material for your poems.”
“Whoa!” I say. “Don’t go there. I’ve got fourteen lifetimes’ worth of raw material.”
“Yes, yes,” Birdwell says tiredly. “Your existential angst is all very impressive. The point is, Jonathan, if you do this—and do it to a satisfactory conclusion, and honorably—I can get you off the hook with Dr. Jacobson.”
Finally, he has my attention.
“How can you do that?”
“Well, if we play our cards right, you won’t be held back next year. This is a very special opportunity, Jonathan. A compensatory project.”
“Compensatory?”
“Yes,” Birdwell says. “I’m proposing that this be equal to all the work you’ve missed. A way to pay back the school. But you must embrace the project. You must commit, Jonathan. Nothing half-baked.”
“Hey,” I say, “when I commit, I bake it all the way, at four hundred twenty-five degrees.”
All through this yabbering something inside me is sinking. I’m supposed to be painting the house, and I’m way behind. I have no room in my life for another job. No time to write somebody else’s book. All of my inner architecture—all the screws, bolts, and steel beams—is needed to hold up my own life, writing “Tales of Telemachus,” hanging out with my thicks, messing with Ruby Tuesday. Oh yeah, and school—can’t forget that.
Somewhere in there I’m trying to squeeze a girlfriend. And work on my virginity issues.
And I’m about three years behind on sleep.
“This old man, does he wear diapers?”
Birdwell jumps up and goes to his desk. He grabs an envelope and hands it to me. I study the address:
David O. H. Cosgrove II
Delphi House
327 East Fillmore St. SW
Seattle, WA 98116
Inside is a one-paragraph letter about my incredible personality and literary genius. Birdwell has signed it with a loopy flourish. Like a twelve-year-old girl.
He purses his lips. “Do you know what a hospice is, Jonathan?”
“Yeah, it’s where sick old people in diapers go to tank.”
Birdwell sighs. “It’s a sanctuary for the terminally ill.”
“Everybody there’s gonna die, right?”
“We’re all going to die, Jonathan.”
“Not me,” I say. “Least, not in one of those places. I’ll jump off a bridge before that happens.”
Birdwell frowns. He doesn’t know about my little bridge escapade, but I’m sure he’ll find out. He always does.
I try to hand him back the envelope. “Look,” I say, “you know where I’m coming from.”
He grabs my elbow, walks me to the door.
“Go see David Cosgrove, Jonathan. Talk with him. See what kind of book he wants you to write. After all, you’re the best young writer in the state of Washington, are you not?”
“Best poet,” I say. “There’s a difference.”
Birdwell slips the envelope into the pocket of my flannel shirt.
“There is a tide in the affairs of men, Jonathan,” he say
s. “This is your tide. Ride it, man.”
“I’ll ride it tomorrow,” I say. “After I wax my surfboard.”
Birdwell shakes his head. “Now’s when the iron’s hottest.”
I nod toward the window. “In case you haven’t noticed, the iron’s not too hot.”
“Goodbye, Jonathan.”
“Adios,” I say.
Chapter 5
I hike down to the Pike Place Market. A scraper truck rumbles by and heaves a wave of snow onto the curb. It’s no longer pure white. Now there’s grit and soot mixed in. A sign of reality. The only other sound’s the crunch-crunch of my Nikes.
At the market, the newsstand guy stands in bulging layers of sweaters. He and the miniature-doughnut lady and two white-coated fishmongers stare blankly into the cold. One of the fishmongers catches my eye. “Fresh coho!” he cries.
Just what I need—fresh coho.
If you blot out the modern crap—the background cars and glass buildings—the market is framed by another century. It’s London in the 1800s, and there’s a big hooked goose waiting for the Cratchit family. Charles Dickens is writing all this by candlelight right up there in the garret window.
And that gray man in the seedy overcoat is Walt Whitman. And that greasy man with the bulbous nose outside the pizza window is Charles Bukowski. And we’re all coming together here at the market to drink coffee and talk about writing and death.
That’s what snow does. It opens a window in the mind, and everything crisscrosses and intersects: stories, centuries, people. Maybe if I look hard enough—like around the corner and behind the crab crates—I’ll even see Telly.
I board the southbound 22. The same fat driver is at the wheel. Now he’s tired and says nothing. He doesn’t celebrate the snow. We’re definitely not brothers.
I take a seat halfway back on the right, nowhere near the thunking chains. I open my little notebook, fish out my stubby pencil. Scrawl:
Adios, Nirvana Page 2
