by Gabby Bess
[“It has a section titled ‘Cunt Crazy’. The son has a literal Oedipal fixation on his mother. It is written in stream-of-consciousness self- loathing Jewish-American prose. What is with male writers and their cocks? I’ve never felt the urge to write about jacking off. But it is a perennial fixation for Updike and apparently Phillip Roth.”
Caitlin said, “I think writing is not dissimilar to masturbation.”]
Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty by Bradley K. Martin:
“North Korea called Carter a ‘vicious political mountebank;’ his jour- ney, ‘a powder-reeking trip of a hypocrite agitating for aggression and war.’ But a North Korean spokesman in Tokyo said that, in the North Korean lexicon, this was a relatively moderate slur. At least the North had not called Carter an imperialist, its worst insult.’
[“Not an imperialist! Anything but that!” For three days they joked in mock horror about the thought of being called an imperialist. Adam brought up the joke recently and Caitlin groaned in return.]
The Marriage Plot by Jeffery Eugenides:
“He held up the baggie. Leonard stuck his nose into the bag and his depression lifted another notch. It smelled like the Amazonian rain forest, like putting your head between the legs of a native girl that had never heard of Christianity.”
[Adam called it a ‘paltry piece of fiction’ but he said that he wanted to put his head between her legs and Caitlin said “okay” even though she had no intention of letting him do that. Caitlin remembered the first time he went down on her in the hotel room that Adam lived in at the time. It was the first time Caitlin had oral sex. It was the first time someone had done something specifically for her for more than an hour. Adam kept looking up at her periodically with this apolo- getic look on his face. Caitlin kept looking at his bed sheets, trying to figure out the thread count with a concerned enough look on her face that could have hopefully been misconstrued as a look of pleasure.]
Once, he texted Caitlin and said, “I must fuck you.”
Caitlin didn’t reply but she took a screen shot of the text. She texted him the screenshot a few days later without context.
This was the only quote Caitlin had ever sent him. She sent it in a way that meant:
“Look at all the ridiculous things you say to me.” He took it to mean she wanted to sext.
This was the conversation when Adam mentioned to Catlin that she would be good at writing erotica and then made sure to add that he was too much of a book snob to read erotica. Though, while Caitlin was sending him detailed descriptions of how she masturbated (face down, sometimes with lesbian porn) he didn’t seem to mind erotic realism.
One night Adam texted Caitlin,
“Intense solitude becomes unbearable only when there’s nothing one wishes to say to another.”
He texted Caitlin again before she answered and told her that the
quote is from Americana by Don Delillo.
Caitlin looked at her iPhone light up and then checked her Gmail.
While she was going through her spam inbox, trying to figure out how to get off all of these subscription lists (Macy’s, PETA, Sierra Club, ModCloth, Urban Outfitters) that she thought were a good idea to sign up for at the time, Adam texted her a third time and said something like,
“I just finished a margarita. I am dining at alone at Plaza Azteca.”
He had perfectly crafted a scenario within the span of three text mes- sages of a lonely drunk writer, drinking comically tropical drinks in a Mexican restaurant, while contemplating the prose of the American heartland. In the back of his mind, behind his wire-framed glasses, matted, self-conscious beard, and nervously thin lips, Caitlin just knew that he thought this was a romantic vision of a struggling writer that drinks margaritas until drunk or out of cash and eats vegetarian tacos because they are cheaper.
Bukowski in paradise.
Adam quoted Bukowski too often to keep count. It was mostly in reference to how he was so much like him or how he had thought that drinking at 3 am on a Tuesday while writing self-loathing poetry made him so much like him. Caitlin usually waited until about the fifth text in a row to text him back when Adam started his Bukowski rants. She knew that the important part wasn’t that she had anything to say back; the important part was to make him feel like someone else thought he was like Bukowski; his little dark girl with kind eyes. Caitlin always wanted to tell him that she hated Bukowski. Maybe he is kind of like Bukowski, Caitlin thought.
Caitlin texted back, “I like that quote.” Even though she didn’t really like that quote. Caitlin liked to sit alone and not talk about how she was sitting alone. She liked to drink to get drunk then go to sleep in her own bed. She didn’t mind not having anything to say.
Immediately Adam responded, “I knew you would. I want you. Come to me.” Caitlin did not want to drink margaritas with him. She did not want to talk in quotes. She did not want to be the kind of person that brings novels to Mexican restaurants. She did not want to be with the kind of person that thinks bringing a novel to a Mexican restaurant makes them an interesting person. Some nights, she just wanted to talk about the weather. Some nights, she really didn’t care what was and what wasn’t post-modern. Some nights, she wished that she and Adam were post-conversation. She wished that they didn’t have to turn everything into a metaphor for itself.
Adam once told Caitlin that she was his ‘manic pixie dream girl’ like he had never even spoken to her before as if she was a caricature of herself or a trope to be employed in one of his short stories. He could never talk to her like she was in the present tense.
Caitlin knew that if she met him at Plaza Azteca she would spend the entire evening playing a game with herself. She would take sips from her glass of water and try to figure out ways to hide it from the waiter. She would want to see the cup completely empty. No water, no ice. If the waiter asked to refill her glass she would have to oblige. Those were the rules. She would perform her water dance while Adam would talk to her about something he read or wanted to read (something about Gore Vidal or Salman Rushdie) and he wouldn’t notice what Caitlin was doing with her water. Caitlin would think silently about how many water-related quotes he had, quotes about being empty.
Caitlin texted him “K” and drove over to Plaza Azteca.
STEVE BUSCEMI EYES
Supine, I am watching TV.
In the dark, light moves against the wall
behind me as the scenes change on the TV
and nothing else happens
but night turning back into day. I witness it:
The nothingness, the feeling of wasting my day off from work. I think about ingesting caffeine
to make myself more of a person
that is motivated and interested in life.
5 am on a Friday is a time that doesn’t exist to me when I can sleep and my father is pulling
the trash can out onto the sidewalk.
Tonight/This Morning I have a distinct sense
of 5am and sadness in my stomach as I lay supine but I can’t cry like this
because of gravity, maybe. Who do I need
to email to improve my life?
When Kanye says, “Ain’t no tuition for having
no ambition/and there ain’t no loans
for sittin your ass at home,” he is making
eye contact with me.
Outside there is a singular bird seemingly shrieking out
into nothing, performing the sadness that I project onto her. It sounds
like a nervous breakdown,
I know this. I feel it
in the vibrato and the tree
branches, given temporary meaning, clutched by light bird feet,
feel an immense sense of duty
to console. Feeling an immense
sense of duty, I want to call back to her but the bird wouldn’t understand
that she wasn’t alone. There is nothing I can immediately do
to fu
lfill my sense of duty to everything that is suffering. Keep in mind,
that I would hurt someone
if I knew who to hurt. Am I
the ultimate goodness?
On the TV,
Steve Buscemi looks sad, the way his eye folds sag, though he smiles and laughs
with slicked back hair.
He waits tables through the TV screen,
making the lights move on the wall behind me.
I lay and I watch him
I feel myself not cry
I hear the bird shriek
and then become apologetic sounding:
softer, slower, desperate,
and then silent to my ears.
But the bird can shriek at differing decibels, heard or unheard to me, and I can only remain supine; Steve Buscemi can always wait tables through the TV screen like this,
even in death,
and I can watch him.
ideas to get rich (#1A)
MINIATURE BEARS
On your bed
we sit like miniature bears.
You can bury me in your mattress, I want to sit next to you until we become dangerous. Until we become parade balloons of bears, cut loose and floating too close
to the street level floors of buildings.
“I want you up there,”
you said with closed eyes, pointing
to the light fixture that you called a ceiling necklace when you couldn’t think of the word chandelier.
Well, cross your heart and hope to live for a very long time.
20MG/DAY
I’m alone here, with the whales.
I can think of anything and still be alone.
I wrote this poem and now I am alone with
this poem, the whales, and the abstractly formed thoughts that I’ve already forgotten about. These words
that I write don’t compare to what I’ve imagined
you to feel like. Pressing into it,
I am a powerful force amongst whales.
I feel like my anti-depressants are working.
Painted onto the wall tiles, the whales are on clouds and their bodies are clouds too.
Sometimes I press my head against the shower wall and cry quietly into them.
THE UNIVERSE HAS TAUGHT US A GREAT TRICK
Lately all of Jane’s friends had been swallowing themselves whole. This was the conclusion that Jane came to when all of her friends seemingly disappeared from her life. This was particularly inconve- nient for Jane because at midnight it would be Jane’s 20th birthday. It was 10 pm on the east coast and in her apartment on the east coast, Jane lay on the wooden floor with her iPhone suspended above her face, held by her hands. Jane stared at her iPhone wondering who she could text. “They have all eaten themselves,” Jane declared sad- ly as she scrolled through the contacts in her phone alphabetically. Adam, IT Administration, Olivia Aiken, air1magic, Alice, Amtrak, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone. Jane felt alone.
Jane tried to convince herself that her friends would not leave her on purpose. Maybe, all of Jane’s friends had orchestrated this great prank against her to surprise her on her birthday. They had orches- trated this prank just to show Jane what great friends they were and since they were great and fabulous friends they could joke around on such a high level. Maybe, Jane thought, her friends would mate- rialize themselves inside of her apartment at exactly midnight, with their faces flushed red, teeming with excitement, at finally seeing Jane after having to hide from her for so long. They would run up to her, all arms and embraces, as they told her all about the illusion that they had learned. “Look, Jane” they would say, “The universe taught us a great trick. We can swallow ourselves whole and return again. We have returned just for you. Nothingness was wonderful but we are deeply sorry that we left you to exist alone.”
The trees and the darkness outside of Jane’s window obscured her view of the street below. The trees stood like a scared improv troupe performing something called, “The World Still Exists Outside of Your Window.” For all she knew, her whole street could have swallowed itself to feed the universe’s intense hunger. Jane didn’t know how to comprehend the universe. She imagined the universe as a giant sad thing that consistently felt alienated by itself because it was too large and too sad for anyone to possibly understand it. Jane felt bad for the universe. Maybe the universe needed her friends more than she did. But then Jane thought about how it didn’t make sense to feel bad for the universe–the universe was just chemicals, she decided–and with that she felt bad for herself again.
When something swallows itself there are no remains. Whatever was, simply returns to nothingness. Jane sat in her small apart- ment surrounded by nothingness. Everything inside of her apart- ment remained normal. Jane shifted her eyes without moving her head to look at the expanse of her apartment. Her couch was sitting in the middle of the naked wood floor. The lamps, end tables, and various stacks of evidence of Jane’s existence remained completely still. Jane positioned herself on her back on the wooden floor. Lying on the floor, she lifted her leg up as far as it could go. Jane was not very flexible so her leg did not go very far. She bent her leg at the knee and curled her abdomen to try to coerce her foot closer to her mouth. Jane stretched her mouth wide and wildly thrusted her leg toward her head and her head toward her leg. This caused Jane to roll around on the floor like a dumb happy dog. Jane could not swal- low herself whole. Jane laid out like a starfish in defeat. “I’m an ass- hole starfish,” Jane thought. While rolling across the floor, Monday had turned into Tuesday and Jane had turned 20. Jane’s friends had noticeably not materialized in her apartment. Since Jane could not swallow herself she attempted to do the opposite. Jane lay across the floor of her apartment and tried to make her body 1 million feet long, pushing her body into every corner and crevice, to fill up the empty space. “I am the biggest asshole starfish,” Jane thought.
always too late
SELL ME SOMETHING
There’s a joke somewhere
in the fact that when someone calls my house phone and the caller ID is unknown/blocked
the automated voice on the phone says
“Call from... Unavailable”
Haha call for Unavailable, more like it
I just let the phone ring or move farther away from it
I don’t know.
I’m not skilled
at expressing my sadness with humor
so I will express my sadness
with sadness.
I guess
there’s a joke somewhere
in the fact that I still have a house phone and the only people that call it are confused or trying to sell me something
JEANNE DIELMAN
On Monday, Jeanne woke up for work. Just as she had the day be- fore and just as she would in the days to follow. On Monday, as on any other day of the week, Jeanne worked at Target. The thing about working at a large retail franchise is that it sucks. There were small moments when Jeanne paused and she could feel herself becoming a machine; only slightly more personable and fallible than a com- puter. She could feel herself instinctively knowing exactly what aisle, shelf, and position a specific product was placed when asked. An- other thing about working in a large retail franchise is that you wake up each morning and think, “OK. This is my life,” with a little less shock and distress as the days move forward and your life remains stagnant.
There aren’t many career choices for a depressed college dropout but as a woman, Jeanne felt that she had been training for work in retail her entire life. Jeanne learned to perform emotional labor, to smile when approached, to ask what could be done to help, to provide that help and care. Jeanne learned to have an automated response avail- able when asked, “How are you?” The answer is, “I’m fine. Thank you.” However, as a woman, as an employee, you are the first to ask, “How are you?” Always ask first. Always respond when called sweetie or honey. Sweetie. Honey. Baby girl. As a woman, those were also her names. Jeanne never had
any experience in retail but she had known what to do and what to expect her whole life.
Before work, Jeanne made pasta for breakfast. In the kitchen it was quiet and the linoleum floor felt cold underneath her bare feet. The click of the gas stove attempted to signal the kitchen to life as Jeanne turned on the stove to boil water. The sun struggled to enter the windows but Jeanne had shut the blinds tight. There was a sad glow against walls caused by the kitchen light fixture that was turned on the dimmest setting. A feeling of being watched settled over Jeanne and hung over her. Suddenly she felt like she was the subject of a film and she became careful. Jeanne could imagine how the film of her life would begin:
There is an overhead shot of the boiling pasta with her hand stirring it. The lighting, her hand, and the things on her hand slightly change seven times to indicate that everyday she boils water for pasta and it is just as quiet.
At work Jeanne focused intently on folding towels into geometrically perfect rectangles. While she was folding towels a Jamaican woman with a thick accent approached Jeanne and asked her where “the dutch” was. Jeanne felt confused as to what she was referring to. “You know,” the Jamaican woman said, “the dutch... for your cooch- ie” and the Jamaican woman pointed to her crotch.
When it was time for her scheduled 15-minute break Jeanne walked past the shampoo isle on her way toward the breakroom. She noticed a coworker that she had not yet spoken to. Jeanne had noticed him before. From his nametag she had discerned that his name was Ken- neth. Kenneth sat on the floor of the shampoo isle for eight hours and stacked bottles of shampoo all day, as his only job was to arrange the shampoos. Kenneth had Down’s syndrome.
Jeanne only vaguely knew how Down’s syndrome actually affected a person. Possibly, Jeanne thought, Down’s syndrome made you especially apt to arrange shampoos in the way that being severely depressed made you especially apt to fold towels into geometrically perfect rectangles. Kenneth smiled up at Jeanne as he continued to line up shampoo bottles in precise rows on the shelf in front of him.
