I liked the big nosed guy. After the show the actor for the big nosed guy came out and said how long it took him to put the fake nose on every day but now I forget how long.
I remember thinking during the show I wanted to give my life for something but like Antigone I couldn’t find anything worth dying for. The Universe is empty, I don’t care if there’s inflationary matter out there. I know it doesn’t make much sense now but it was what I was thinking at the time.
#
I don’t remember what happened next but later I was back at the hotel. Once I drank copper sulfate in Chem class. (caked oil paint blue)
She came back after I had been in the room for a little while with her hair wet and curled at the ends. Maybe it was raining or something. I still didn’t know her name but I imagined it was a pretty one like Mustardseed. When she came in she nodded to me and went into the bathroom. I guess to dry off. I went up to the door and knocked.
“Yes?”
“Hi.”
I could hear the water running again. She didn’t say anything back.
“I was going to have dinner. Would you like me to wait for you?” Tenses in English are very strange sometimes.
“Ok, I’ll come.” I heard the faucet turn off and then she opened the door and came out.
#
The restaurant we went to was on the third floor of a building and we sat out on a balcony overlooking the street below. Outside there were shops and motels. Outside it was neon.
I didn’t ask her where she had gone. The place we were at was a crêperie. The walls of the restaurant were oak and the tables had candles for light and white linen for cloth. We were quiet until one of us started talking.
“I…” She stopped after saying ‘I’. There was a pause and I put my fork through some of the garnish. I had a teacher once who thought she was a good mother because she didn’t give her kids any lettuce with brown spots.
“What?” Since then I won’t eat any bad lettuce or bananas or grapes or anything else that’s discolored.
She hesitated. “I like this restaurant.”
I thought she was kinda strange. I don’t remember what she was eating. What kind of crêpe I mean. She would use her fork to hold it down and cut it with her knife and then put down the knife and switch the fork to the other hand to bring the crêpe up to her mouth.
She pretended to look around. Then she stopped. “It reminds me of my grandmother’s house.”
Through the windows you could see white Christmas lights hung on the exterior wall.
“I guess it was my grandfather’s house too.”
And then on some of the tables there were little trees with leaves trimmed spherical and light green. There were beeswax candles to my side and across the table I could see the light reflect in her eyes like glare on TV. I remember thinking of her glass eyes that didn’t emit anything except the thought of not emitting anything and phased out of it for a second.
“… in the desert.”
“What?”
She had some food in her mouth and looked at me without saying anything. “I dunno… I like this restaurant.”
“Ya, the restaurant is nice.” Everything was so dark and warm. I remembered once being out in a street with the sun above in a white sky eating one of those dry paper-wrapped pre-made sandwiches you find in supermarkets. The light glazed the cinderblock buildings so there was no detail; there was nothing there with bleached sky and ground. This was a different feeling.
I don’t remember too much about her. Like what she was wearing or anything. Just the candles and the light in her eyes.
“Do you want anything else to eat?” I remember asking her that because we were both done with the crêpes.
“N-nn.” It was that shake-your-head-no that isn’t in any of the dictionaries. She put her glass to her lips and held it there and I remember seeing the water distort her chin and neck. Then she said, “I knew him for a long time. We grew up together.”
I think she was referring to the other guy. The one with the jinglely keys I saw walk away from her at sunset in the park that had trees and was named after a president. Or President. There’s always another guy. There was a crash on the other side of the room; I think someone dropped a dish. “What… what do you think of me?”
“What?” People aren’t supposed to ask questions like that. I didn’t know what to say, let alone what I wanted to say. “What do you mean?”
“Like… never mind I guess.” She rotated her fork on her plate so it was lined up with the knife and then took her napkin off her lap and placed in on the tablecloth in front of her. “He’s following me.”
“What do you mean?” (écoute et répète)
“He’s crazy. I kept seeing him out of the corner of my eye today.” She picked up a sugar cube and dropped it in the coffee. “Do you know what’s weird? How people always say that sugar dissolves in liquid. It’s not really true.”
Again I didn’t know what to say.
She stirred her coffee with her pinky finger. “It doesn’t do it right way.”
“There’s an in-between state.” This ‘in-between state’ thing keeps coming up.
“Ya.” She took a sip with the coffee raised to her lips. “Should we go?”
“Ok.” The waiter walked by. “Excuse me.”
“Yes?” The waiter she had on these leather pants. I remember looking at leather pants. “Would you like the check?”
“Ya, thanks.”
She put one of those fake leather check booklets with an American Express logo on our table and smiled and walked away. I looked at Mustardseed.
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to get away from this place.” (time) I looked out the window at the Christmas lights and saw the sparkle halo through the glass and my contacts.
“Ok.” I looked down at the table and then at the check. I picked up the booklet. “I’ll be back in a second. I’ll just pay for this.”
I think if this was a movie I’d walk off the scene and the camera would stay on her sitting at the table staring at something across the room. But it’s not so I can’t write about that. I didn’t even know if she was going to be there when I got back.
At the register I gave them credit and put a 20% tip on the receipt they handed back to me. 20% and my chicken-scratch signature. When I got back to the table she was still sitting waiting for me.
Chapter 4
We left the café and headed back to the hotel. I think we walked cuz the car was already there when we reached the hotel. I remember thinking about the dish that someone dropped back in the restaurant. I imagined it falling and hitting the ground off-axis and then breaking along stress points. I remembered once reading this story about how people watch the world though the spaces in picket fences. I think it was some Zen thing with a donkey. (cause & effect). There was also something about getting a tailless donkey sometimes.
The hotel had those automatic revolving doors. She went in and I followed her across the lobby but before we got to the stairs the bellboy stopped us.
“Wait!” It was a kid in a red uniform with dull metal buttons down his front.
“What’s the matter?” I said. He just looked at me and didn’t say anything so I asked him again. “What’s wrong?”
“A guy came looking for you. He said he knew you so I let him into your room.” The bellhop he had a lazy eye. I knew it was bad but I couldn’t keep from staring at it.
She was looking at the bellboy and the bellboy was looking at her. “We’d better not go up.”
“Ya, let’s go back outside.” I tipped the bellboy and we headed back for the door. On my way out to my right I saw this section of the lobby with glass windows so you could see the street and checkerboard carpet green and white, empty of chairs and furniture like someone was trying to solve a bigger version of the 8-queen problem but it was NP-hard for some reason so everything was in transition. (wait on machine) The interesting thing though was walking
across the room orthogonal to the checkerboard; it looked all trippy like my lines of parallax were warping and rotating as I passed by.
#
Later I think I was driving cuz I remember having to look out for red lights. My window was open and I could hear the passing cars like Speed Racer. (www.speedracer.com) She was staring at the side-mirror. I asked her, “Where do we go now?”
“I don’t know.”
The road had an island and two lanes on each side. Sometimes in the middle there was a tree but for the most part the island was made of that brick kind of sidewalk.
She turned around and looked out the back. “He’s behind us.”
“What?” I checked my mirror. First all I could see was the side of my car but I adjusted the mirror and then I saw this tan sedan with chrome trim behind us. I couldn’t tell if the guy from the park was driving it but I figured she was probably right. I stopped looking at the side-mirror and paid attention to driving again. I didn’t know what to do. I cut in front of one of those new Beatles and made a right at the corner. I was kinda afraid of a cop seeing me. My last ticket was twice the speed limit and my parents weren’t happy about that. She was gripping her seat and still looking back. She might have looked forwards for a little bit when I wasn’t paying attention.
“Go down this street.” I made another right on a street called ‘Blackhorse’ I think. But don’t quote me on that. There were buildings on both sides of us and it was getting dark outside cuz of the weather I think. I glanced into the rear-view mirror but he was still following us. There was a truck in front of us and I had to go on the wrong side of the road to pass it.
“Look out!”
There was another car in front of me. It was beige. I swerved back onto the right side.
“Turn here!”
I made another right. It occurred to me that she knew where she was going.
“In there…” She pointed to an underground garage. I turned left and went in it. I forgot to use my signal though. But he wasn’t in my rear-view mirror anymore so I guess it was ok. I parked the car and turned it off. There was this cement wall with a yellow stripe in front of us.
I sat back in my seat with the yellow stripe in front of me. I was thinking about asking her how she knew the script but I didn’t. (jewels and faces of timeless girls) “Let’s go outside.”
#
We went up out of the subbasement and emerged on the street. The stairs we used were the spiral kind, which I thought was weird. Outside it was dark now and the streetlights were on. I started walking and I guess she followed me. There were still buildings on both sides of us. I mean there were buildings that weren’t moving. I think that’s what I mean anyway.
“Where are you going?” She said. There were cars passing us in the street but I think most of them were cabs.
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe we should get a hotel.” I stopped at looked her. Things were happening too quickly. What was she doing to me? Who is she? Where did I park my car? I should have at least remembered where I parked my car. But the world is funny that way. Like when you put a rock in a bag and close the bag it will still be there when you come back even if you forget about it.
But anyway enough with the rhetorical questions leading to topical tangents. (stack pop) She looked at me and smiled and took my arm. I turned around and we walked down the street.
There was this storefront we passed to my right with carpentry stuff inside the windows like it was under construction but I remember pinecones. There were pinecones in the windowsill sitting up and sideways and diagonal on top of other pinecones. Next to them was one of those Big Gulp fountain drinks that you find at 7-Eleven I think. Someone passed me to my left and I thought he was talking (so we stay together for a few…) to me but when I turned to look he kept walking so I don’t think those words were for me.
Then I saw this hotel and stopped in front of it. It didn’t seem to fit in. Most of the other houses were brick with wood trim chipped and peeling so you could see the age but this was different.
“What’s the matter?” She stopped next to me. She seemed happy.
“Look.” I gestured toward the building. “It doesn’t fit.”
“Ya.” She said. She smiled and looked at me. “Wanna go here, Hal?”
She was right; it was French provincial like the aliens in 2001. I just nodded my head. I guess it was ok. I walked in.
#
I remember having an argument with the lady at the desk. She had a funny accent. “Vat do you vant?”
I asked for two rooms but then she asked why. I said because we wanted two. Then she got rude and said some bad things. Bad things like… well you know. Then I said ok and asked for a room with two beds. Then she said ok and smiled and handed me a key. “Thanks…”
“It’sa on the second flur, first rum on your right.” She seemed rather cocky about it. I remember I learned the word cocky from the movie Star Wars.
I paid for the room and asked for some food to be brought up. The lady looked at me funny but then I gave her a big tip and then she was ok with it.
We went up the stairs into the room. There was only one bed. She went into the bathroom to clean up and I just sat on the bed for a while. I decided to stop thinking and let things just happen. Thinking is bad. It’s why we’re not as smart as animals. At least if you’re into pop philosophy. Someone knocked on the door. I opened it. “Hello.”
It was a short man in a red suit. He had my food. “Here’s your food.”
“Thanks.” I gave another big tip. I remember reading once that tipping is a good way to make friends. He thanked me and left. She came out of the bathroom and I was eating.
“What are you doing?” She laughed.
I had food in my mouth so I kind of mumbled. “What do you mean? I’m eating.”
She smiled and said, “What’s wrong with you? Why are you following a silly girl like me around?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure why I do anything anymore.” I thought it was a good question to ask. I guess it was because I had nothing better to do.
She slipped herself under the sheets and curled facing the window. “It’s ok. You don’t have to have an answer. Good night.”
“Good night.”
#
I tried but I couldn’t sleep for a while. I was thinking about the lady’s accent. I remembered in 1st grade there was this girl in our class who was from Russia and I was asked to help her with English cuz I was the smartest in the class. I felt bad about it because I couldn’t remember who my teacher was. I remember where she lived though. I have a picture of her apartment in my head. I think her name started with an S. Her last name anyway. One time I started speaking gibberish in class to confuse her. I remember doing it on purpose. She freaked out and called my parents. From then on my parents only spoke English to me cuz they thought I couldn't handle learning two languages and that I was a confused boy.
I also remember that there were these twins in our class and me and this other boy whose dad was a cop would fight over them. I would say I'm gonna marry them and then he would say that he'd marry them. One day I thought I’d be like Big Bird and said, ‘let's compromise and we'd share them, cuz there are too of them, ya know?’ Or something like that. But he said he wanted both of them so I thought he won the fight for some reason. Then I was sad because I had lost both the twins.
Later I was in love with this girl Amy. I had this picture of her in a cage high up on a pillar with circular stairs going up. I guess I thought of her as unreachable. The picture was in black and white. Anyway I also have a cousin named Amy. I was sitting with my parents and some guests and one of them asked me whom I wanted to marry. My mom said that I didn't know cuz I was only in first grade but then I said I did. So my mom asked whom and then I walked up and told her in her ear. I said Amy and then she laughed cuz I think she though I meant my cousin when I really meant the chick in the cage.
#
The n
ext morning when I got up my back was sore from sleeping on the couch but when I took a shower it went away. She had been up before me and left a note on the night table saying she went to get something to eat. Actually I think I spent too long in the shower. Sometimes I’ll just stand there and zone out with the water pouring down on me. (I am not alive) Anyway afterwards I opened the window back in the bedroom and then it was cloudy outside. There was a small garden on the other side of the street and I could see it from my window. I could see the tomato vines. The clouds moved slowly in the sky. Then I heard the door close behind me.
I turned around and saw that she was standing against the wall with her eyes closed. She had changed into a dress out of her blue denim jeans. Then she opened her eyes and noticed I was in the room. I thought I was doing something wrong so I just looked at the floor. I wondered where she had gotten the dress from.
“He’s outside.” She looked tired with her face pale and gaunt.
“What does he want?” Maybe that was a silly question.
She didn’t answer. I guess it was a silly question.
“What should we do?” She just looked me. Her eyes were wide but I couldn’t look at them for very long. She didn’t know what to do. I was sorry I asked her. “Let’s get out of here.”
I grabbed my jacket from one of the bedposts and opened the door. On the other side of the door there was a hallway. The hallway was empty. There was a draft coming from my right from an open window somewhere and the air it tingled the back of my neck.
“No, wait…” She stepped towards me, but then stopped. I put out my hand. She took it. Her hand was soft. It felt like… is wasn’t like my hand.
“Ok?” I said. It felt like white roses on cotillion night.
“Ok,” she said.
Circular Motion Page 4
