The policemen showed up as the song ended. I opened the door with no incidental film music, mouth drooling slivers of seaweed salad bought at the corner Japanese buffet.
"This tastes nothing like seaweed," I informed them. "Any damed Asian would know that. From the taste of this man's hands, he came from Nicaragua."
I pretended not to notice that my talking was causing slobber to come down the corners of my mouth and ooze green seaweed juice onto my chin. The policemen didn't do such a good job of it as me. The both of them stared at my mess. On certain days, I couldn't care less what they thought of me.
"This," I continued, "is what I consider an outrage." I proceeded to slam the door on their faces.
What they had come to do is complain about the fish-smell. The neighbors had been complaining about it for days. The old bat that shared the kitchen wall with me had arthritis and all the pounding of her fists on the shared wall to get my attention had done nothing to get me to take care of the smell. The way I saw it, she was going to die soon anyway. Old bats always do. And they always go down complaining about something. Complaining gave her purpose. It gave her activity. The damned fish-smell was giving her something to do. Something to be listened to about. Something to be taken seriously. Something that anyone else, anyone younger, would respond to as well and think to him or herself, That old bat's got a point. She's not just being an annoying senior citizen with nothing to do to occupy her time. The thing about selkie skin that people don't realize is that it's fatty tissue. Like all other fatty tissues in the world, it gets rotten if you don't take care to preserve it. The thing about selkie skin that the stories don't sing about is that it emits a putrid, rancid fish-smell if you don't pack it in an air-tight Ziploc and stick it in the freezer.
The guy in the upstairs efficiency had better things to do than stomp on the floor and bother the crap out of me all day, it seemed. He'd written one angry letter that he'd left taped to my door. The letter had been "angry" by design. The truth is, it was completely devoid of any real emotion. The old bat had gotten to him, I was sure. I still am. Damned old bats have to get everyone in their business all the time. Even the guy upstairs who spent less time in his apartment than in the bar or in his band's rehearsal space. Even the guy upstairs who probably couldn't tell the fish-smell above the stink of his dirty man-laundry or his festering bachelor pad dish-filled sink.
The policemen wouldn't let up. By the time I opened the door again, I had swallowed the sewage the Japanese buffet was passing as seaweed salad. Whatever the Hell it was, it hadn't ever seen the ocean. It hadn't washed up on the beach. I opened the door again and invited them in. Then I asked them if that had any musical preferences that they would want to share as I went over to the laptop to start something playing. One of them had the back of his hand held up to his nose clearly offended by the stench. The other was holding his breath. On certain days, I couldn't care less if a policeman died of asphyxia on my living room carpet, so long as his death hadn't made a mess of the place. Some of those days I had run out of carpet cleaner and Febreeze.
I offered them some tea. The one that was turning blue from all the not-breathing nodded. He wanted me to walk away. He wanted to make a face to the other one. They didn't want to stay any longer than I had wanted them to and that was saying that they wanted to get the Hell out. I took the warm kettle off the cooling stove top and poured some hot water in a mug. I didn't think he would notice either way, but I took care to make sure that the tea I selected for him would be both soothing to his stomach and somewhat aromatic to cover up some of the smell. When people don't use their noses to breathe, they don't use their noses to smell either. Essentially, I was doing no favors, but I took my time in deliberately making the tea selection anyway. Niceness does not go unrewarded.
Not that I cared, but I hoped the policemen didn't mind the Dead Kennedys.
I kept the selkie skin folded up in the pantry alongside the canned tuna and sardines. On the shelf below, I kept the noodles. On the shelf above, I kept the oatmeal, the cereal, and some grits. All in all, it's important to me that I live by the old adage, A thing for every place and a place for every thing. My pantry was never an exception.
What no one asks for on their Christmas wish lists is a set of instructions for the selkie skins they've collected. I assume this, of course, and I assume that, in turn, it means there isn't such a high demand for one. This isn't something that the old bat cared to listen to. After the first failure of attempting to communicate this to her, I had given up. A part of me felt like it was that she hadn't been able to hear me due to the way that age had made things like her five senses dull. No one aspect of that possibility gave me pause for sympathy. Everyone gets old. She got hers and I'll get mine. Everything that I know about selkie skins, I've learned through experience. The problem with experience is that it takes time to amass knowledge by it. By the old bat's age, I fancy I'll be an expert on selkie skins and the like. Just like, eventually, I became the expert on unicorn horns. Another thing they don't make instruction manuals for is the handling of unicorn horns. I can tell you one thing: They're just as difficult to get rid of as they are to come by. They're the Ouija boards of horned-creature mythology. Just ask the whale population. They've been trying to rid themselves of the narwhals for at least two centuries. Or so I've heard.
By the time I returned to the living room, the policemen had gone leaving the door opened behind them. I took a moment to wonder at the kind of policemen that they were leaving a woman's home vulnerable to home invaders and serial rapists in the neighborhood. In a bottom-floor efficiency with a door that opens onto the sidewalk of a relatively tucked-away urban street, safety had always been and continues to be a concern for me. Reeking fish-stink wouldn't sway the compulsive urges of a sexual predator. The outrage that the door left opened by the policemen caused me was tantamount to that of what the fake-Japanese were passing off as seaweed. I logged their names quickly on a memo pad I had sitting on the dining room table, as quickly as I could so that I wouldn't forget them. I promised myself to call the station and make a formal complaint.
The song ended as soon as I shut the door after the policemen. I sat on the sofa, a warm cup of tea in my hand, the aroma carrying itself in wisps up to my nose so that I smiled just a little bit at taking a breath. I sat on the sofa and considered the selkie skin in the pantry and the man that it had borne within it. All the good ones, I thought. All the good ones go while the getting's good.
Even when you've got their soul bundled in the pantry someplace awaiting their returns.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Shaman and The Laygirl
My shaman is colors. He is ashen coffee skin. He is cottonball white Brillo hair on his head and on his upper-lip. He is orange shirt. He is red guitar laying on his back, strap across his chest. He is blue bicycle. He is all of these colors and mostly a grandfather's smell. To my shaman, Bruce Lee is a genuis. My shaman is ancient and he was borne from a cave. When I ask him of his mother he tells me that she is there, the place where he walked out her womb full-grown looking exactly as he does today. My shaman was born man-sized. My shaman was born just past middle age. When I ask him of his mother, he tells me that she is there because caves don't relocate. They're the kinds of things that stay where they are and that's where they stay. His mother, he confesses, never changed a diaper in her life. She'd never had to. Caves that bear grown men don't have a need for diapers or other baby-things. As he is telling me this, I can sense no sentimentality. No feelings of abandonment. No repressed sexual aggression toward a father figure that hasn't been mentioned. Men like my shaman do not think much on caves.
For as much as he tells me, he doesn't say many things. He does a lot of silent chuckling and looking past my face, beyond to the infinity of backdrop. For every answer that he gives me, he restates the question and shakes a Magic 8-ball for what it would respond. When he answers, it's always looking down at the plastic lens. It's always as though he's reading from the wisdom of the Magic 8-ball. When I ask him about it, he asks the orb and answers, looking down at the ball's response, and says, "The Magic 8-ball knows many things."
I shrug. There isn't much I can do to argue with a shaman of his caliber. Moreover, there is less that I can do to argue with a Magic 8-ball. It is, after all, quite inanimate.
My shaman asks that I call him Prospero so that I know he can read my mind. Conversely, he continually refers to me as Miranda even though I'm pretty sure he knows that's not my name. When I state my words in a hopeful, wishing way, he tells me that he doesn't listen to my prayers. He says I shouldn't make them, anyway. He tells me that I should start by paying attention.
A couple of green parrots fly overhead and deliberately make no sound so as not to interrupt us. They find a perch on the top of a palm tree that shades us the little bit that a palm tree can offer us as shade. My shaman stares past me and the way that his nostrils are somewhat flaring and the way that his belly is hopping beneath his pumpkin shirt, I know that he is silently laughing again but I don't know what at. He shakes the Magic 8-ball even though I haven't asked him anything. Even though not a single word has passed between us for some minutes. I'm smoking a cigarette and I'm pulling down the back of my t-shirt so that no one passes behind me and sees that I'm wearing the same polka-dotted panties that I wore yesterday. I don't want people to know those kinds of things. With the way that things are deja vu around me all the time, there's no way to be certain that someone passing by right behind me today wouldn't have seen me standing on the beach yesterday with my green dress flapping in the sea breeze. There's no way to tell if that same person hadn't taken a peek at my underwear, a peek that wouldn't have been so much of a "peek" since the wind was kind of forcing me to be indecent.
The Magic 8-ball says to my shaman, "This girl is depressing." My shaman looks at me and says the same thing. I ask him if he means me and he nods.
I don't think that he is happy but, then again, I don't think that this shaman can be. I ask him what it means. He shakes the ball again, never furiously, but, nonetheless, with some deliberation, with some forced intent. For a moment, I catch myself wondering what the prism wonder-scroll inside the plastic ball has written on it. I wonder if it says anything more than the usual "Ask again later" or "Signs point to yes" or, even more simply, "No." I wonder at how much of what he's telling me it says is filtered through is interpretation.
My shaman says that he reads in the lens, "This girl has made an art of creating defenses. This girl has built a fortress of aloofness and shallowness within which she resides. This girl is failing miserably at living an authentic human life."
I think, The Magic 8-ball must be magical indeed if that much can be written on a little corner of its 20-sided die.
When he's done reading it, my shaman shrugs. My shaman who wants I call him Prospero just so that I know that he can read my mind. My shaman who calls me Miranda even though he knows that's not my name, or so I believe. My shaman, it seems, doesn't have much to say on the subject of the Magic 8-ball's latest conversation piece. On the subject of whether or not I'm depressing the oracle and/or his device of prophecy, I stay mum. I shrug, too, more mindful of the parrots above our heads than to the words of the Magic 8-ball.
My shaman laughs, and this time it's not silent. My shaman laughs and a moment later, I wipe my brow of sweat and seeing the back of my hand, know that the parrots are well-fed.
For as much as he tells me, he doesn't say many things. He does a lot of silent chuckling and looking past my face, beyond to the infinity of backdrop. For every answer that he gives me, he restates the question and shakes a Magic 8-ball for what it would respond. When he answers, it's always looking down at the plastic lens. It's always as though he's reading from the wisdom of the Magic 8-ball. When I ask him about it, he asks the orb and answers, looking down at the ball's response, and says, "The Magic 8-ball knows many things."
I shrug. There isn't much I can do to argue with a shaman of his caliber. Moreover, there is less that I can do to argue with a Magic 8-ball. It is, after all, quite inanimate.
My shaman asks that I call him Prospero so that I know he can read my mind. Conversely, he continually refers to me as Miranda even though I'm pretty sure he knows that's not my name. When I state my words in a hopeful, wishing way, he tells me that he doesn't listen to my prayers. He says I shouldn't make them, anyway. He tells me that I should start by paying attention.
A couple of green parrots fly overhead and deliberately make no sound so as not to interrupt us. They find a perch on the top of a palm tree that shades us the little bit that a palm tree can offer us as shade. My shaman stares past me and the way that his nostrils are somewhat flaring and the way that his belly is hopping beneath his pumpkin shirt, I know that he is silently laughing again but I don't know what at. He shakes the Magic 8-ball even though I haven't asked him anything. Even though not a single word has passed between us for some minutes. I'm smoking a cigarette and I'm pulling down the back of my t-shirt so that no one passes behind me and sees that I'm wearing the same polka-dotted panties that I wore yesterday. I don't want people to know those kinds of things. With the way that things are deja vu around me all the time, there's no way to be certain that someone passing by right behind me today wouldn't have seen me standing on the beach yesterday with my green dress flapping in the sea breeze. There's no way to tell if that same person hadn't taken a peek at my underwear, a peek that wouldn't have been so much of a "peek" since the wind was kind of forcing me to be indecent.
The Magic 8-ball says to my shaman, "This girl is depressing." My shaman looks at me and says the same thing. I ask him if he means me and he nods.
I don't think that he is happy but, then again, I don't think that this shaman can be. I ask him what it means. He shakes the ball again, never furiously, but, nonetheless, with some deliberation, with some forced intent. For a moment, I catch myself wondering what the prism wonder-scroll inside the plastic ball has written on it. I wonder if it says anything more than the usual "Ask again later" or "Signs point to yes" or, even more simply, "No." I wonder at how much of what he's telling me it says is filtered through is interpretation.
My shaman says that he reads in the lens, "This girl has made an art of creating defenses. This girl has built a fortress of aloofness and shallowness within which she resides. This girl is failing miserably at living an authentic human life."
I think, The Magic 8-ball must be magical indeed if that much can be written on a little corner of its 20-sided die.
When he's done reading it, my shaman shrugs. My shaman who wants I call him Prospero just so that I know that he can read my mind. My shaman who calls me Miranda even though he knows that's not my name, or so I believe. My shaman, it seems, doesn't have much to say on the subject of the Magic 8-ball's latest conversation piece. On the subject of whether or not I'm depressing the oracle and/or his device of prophecy, I stay mum. I shrug, too, more mindful of the parrots above our heads than to the words of the Magic 8-ball.
My shaman laughs, and this time it's not silent. My shaman laughs and a moment later, I wipe my brow of sweat and seeing the back of my hand, know that the parrots are well-fed.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."
Of the fourteen Santa Clauses that Virginia had written to, only one sent a reply. True to form, he'd written back on a Christmas card. Middle of July, one hundred and two degrees not counting what the humidity was adding to the heat index, and Virginia is the only girl on the planet who gets a Christmas card.
Nobody can get everything they want. Now, please stop writing.
It was written on the inside of the card, just under the obligatory ho-ho-ho holiday message. He hadn't even signed it with an exit greeting. He'd merely scrawled a sloppy S.C. beneath it. There, Virginia, that's Santa Claus. That's what happens when you believe and you grow up and you keep believing because, seriously, who would want to live in a world wherein Santa Claus doesn't exist? What kind of a fucked up place would that be? Thirteen letters gone unanswered and that last one might as well have fallen their way. Let the cards fall where they may, she thought to herself. That and, Fuck Christmas. It had been a long time since Virginia hadn't known bad words.
Virgina closed the card and folded it lengthwise, shoving it into the back pocket of her jeans. Anyone checking out her ass would have noticed Rudolph's stupid doe-eyes staring right back at him. No one needs to see the red light bulb nose to know which reindeer Santa would choose to market on the face of his Christmas cards. Even Santa has favorites. Even if it is the stupid one of the bunch. The one with the defective reindeer nose.
Slut of a mother probably fucked a lightpost thinking it was another reindeer. Slut of a mother had herself a bastard son with a bulb for a nose. Bastard of a reindeer becomes the underdog story of at least two millenia. Virginia thought of all this as she walked back to the house with absolutely not even a sliver of hope that she'd get anything more than a lump of coal now for Christmas. The thing about Santas is that they hold grudges. In the North-fucking-Pole, kids on the Naughty List never get off it. They stay there. For eternity. Even after they die their names are on that damned list. It's a wonder anyone gets Christmas gifts at all, anymore. She imagined the town meeting, the pre-Christmas planning parade that happens annually in the summer months. She thought of all the Santas, St. Nick holding standing at the front of the room holding a microphone in his hand so that every elf in the hall could hear him state the agenda for the year. She thought of the open Q&A portion of the meeting during which all the other Santas and their Missuses could air their grievances or give shout outs to their hard-working slave elves. She thought of that one fucking prick of a Santa that got so aggrivated with receiving another letter from her, her twentieth in as many years, and how he complained in his hearty, jolly tone about that girl, Virginia, and her ridiculous request. Her single request. The same for so many years. The same letter sent time after time. The same letter sent to each one of them.
She imagined him barking in his sing-song grandpa voice, "Who the fuck does she think we are? Can't she get a take the damned hint? No one gets off the Naughty List. Not a motherfucking soul. What makes her any different?"
The roar of applause from the other Santas in the room is overwhelming. It's Jingle Bell-ing a riot of antagonism against her. The elves all rolling their eyes. In their high-pitched, pre-adolescent male, Munchkin Land voices they murmur what an idiot she is. Soon, everyone's asking to be the Santa that gets to drop the lump of coal off to her this year. It is the most awful kind of cheer. It is the most hideous kind of galvanizing. Everyone in their Christmas colors. Every red and green patterned argyle and plaid. Every fluffy white cotton ball on the tip of every Santa hat in the room. The elves happily dancing their jigs under hollies.
The sweltering heat made her breathing difficult, even just the short jaunt to the front door. No one thought about Christmas in July, no one but Virginia, no one outside of the North Pole, anyway. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand as she crossed the patio. Her jeans were stuck to her thighs, her shirt soaking up the sweat and marking deep blue spots along the places where it laid close to her skin. Cool breezes were a mystery to her. Something she'd read about in books but hadn't found herself caught in since childhood, since a childhood that knew the change of the seasons, knew the wonder of a snowflake or a lit fireplace. Virginia, still in the body of the six year-old girl she used to be, walked up to her front door carrying the weight of every day, of every week, of every month, of every year that she hadn't grown any older. The raspiness of a voice that betrayed her young features she hid behind closed lips. Scotch and whiskey were the pleasures of a homebody, not the social toasts between friends. Virginia, the oldest child in the world. The product of a vengeful Santa. The product of a careless Christmas wish.
What she could never have imagined at six years of age. Childhood arrested, retirement with the old folks all gone down to Florida. Retired at the age of six. Retired in the Sunshine State forever. Lonely and alienated from anyone her age. At sixty-eight years-old, Virginia was nothing more than a failure of imagination, her earliest Christmas wish having faltered by the naivete of childhood and Christmas glee.
Fuck Christmas. Fuck Christmas. Fuck Santa and his Naughty List.
Because not even Virginia stays a virgin forever.
Nobody can get everything they want. Now, please stop writing.
It was written on the inside of the card, just under the obligatory ho-ho-ho holiday message. He hadn't even signed it with an exit greeting. He'd merely scrawled a sloppy S.C. beneath it. There, Virginia, that's Santa Claus. That's what happens when you believe and you grow up and you keep believing because, seriously, who would want to live in a world wherein Santa Claus doesn't exist? What kind of a fucked up place would that be? Thirteen letters gone unanswered and that last one might as well have fallen their way. Let the cards fall where they may, she thought to herself. That and, Fuck Christmas. It had been a long time since Virginia hadn't known bad words.
Virgina closed the card and folded it lengthwise, shoving it into the back pocket of her jeans. Anyone checking out her ass would have noticed Rudolph's stupid doe-eyes staring right back at him. No one needs to see the red light bulb nose to know which reindeer Santa would choose to market on the face of his Christmas cards. Even Santa has favorites. Even if it is the stupid one of the bunch. The one with the defective reindeer nose.
Slut of a mother probably fucked a lightpost thinking it was another reindeer. Slut of a mother had herself a bastard son with a bulb for a nose. Bastard of a reindeer becomes the underdog story of at least two millenia. Virginia thought of all this as she walked back to the house with absolutely not even a sliver of hope that she'd get anything more than a lump of coal now for Christmas. The thing about Santas is that they hold grudges. In the North-fucking-Pole, kids on the Naughty List never get off it. They stay there. For eternity. Even after they die their names are on that damned list. It's a wonder anyone gets Christmas gifts at all, anymore. She imagined the town meeting, the pre-Christmas planning parade that happens annually in the summer months. She thought of all the Santas, St. Nick holding standing at the front of the room holding a microphone in his hand so that every elf in the hall could hear him state the agenda for the year. She thought of the open Q&A portion of the meeting during which all the other Santas and their Missuses could air their grievances or give shout outs to their hard-working slave elves. She thought of that one fucking prick of a Santa that got so aggrivated with receiving another letter from her, her twentieth in as many years, and how he complained in his hearty, jolly tone about that girl, Virginia, and her ridiculous request. Her single request. The same for so many years. The same letter sent time after time. The same letter sent to each one of them.
She imagined him barking in his sing-song grandpa voice, "Who the fuck does she think we are? Can't she get a take the damned hint? No one gets off the Naughty List. Not a motherfucking soul. What makes her any different?"
The roar of applause from the other Santas in the room is overwhelming. It's Jingle Bell-ing a riot of antagonism against her. The elves all rolling their eyes. In their high-pitched, pre-adolescent male, Munchkin Land voices they murmur what an idiot she is. Soon, everyone's asking to be the Santa that gets to drop the lump of coal off to her this year. It is the most awful kind of cheer. It is the most hideous kind of galvanizing. Everyone in their Christmas colors. Every red and green patterned argyle and plaid. Every fluffy white cotton ball on the tip of every Santa hat in the room. The elves happily dancing their jigs under hollies.
The sweltering heat made her breathing difficult, even just the short jaunt to the front door. No one thought about Christmas in July, no one but Virginia, no one outside of the North Pole, anyway. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand as she crossed the patio. Her jeans were stuck to her thighs, her shirt soaking up the sweat and marking deep blue spots along the places where it laid close to her skin. Cool breezes were a mystery to her. Something she'd read about in books but hadn't found herself caught in since childhood, since a childhood that knew the change of the seasons, knew the wonder of a snowflake or a lit fireplace. Virginia, still in the body of the six year-old girl she used to be, walked up to her front door carrying the weight of every day, of every week, of every month, of every year that she hadn't grown any older. The raspiness of a voice that betrayed her young features she hid behind closed lips. Scotch and whiskey were the pleasures of a homebody, not the social toasts between friends. Virginia, the oldest child in the world. The product of a vengeful Santa. The product of a careless Christmas wish.
What she could never have imagined at six years of age. Childhood arrested, retirement with the old folks all gone down to Florida. Retired at the age of six. Retired in the Sunshine State forever. Lonely and alienated from anyone her age. At sixty-eight years-old, Virginia was nothing more than a failure of imagination, her earliest Christmas wish having faltered by the naivete of childhood and Christmas glee.
Fuck Christmas. Fuck Christmas. Fuck Santa and his Naughty List.
Because not even Virginia stays a virgin forever.
The Beautiful Monster Brigade
What you don't know about mermaids can fit a book. In fact, if you stop to consider it, it probably has filled a book. Multiple books, even. What you don't know about selkies tops that even.
I walk up to a mermaid tail on the shore. There it is. Dead. Attached to nothing. It's just the tail. It's three feet long or thereabouts. I don't stop to measure it. I don't walk around with measuring tape in my pockets or anything. Besides that, I'm not wearing anything with pockets wherein I could carry this measuring tape. My green wrap dress flaps in the sea breeze and all I can think to myself is that I'm glad I wore some pretty underwear today. The last thing I'd want when looking down at an amputated mermaid tail is for some other passersby to see me in granny-panties, those big white ones that could be used as a parachute. The breeze is cold between my knees. I lock them as I stare down at the tail. The big pink tail. There's really no other thing it can be but a mermaid tail. God just doesn't make shrimp that big. That and I'm pretty certain that a lobster tail would be harder. Lobster tails have plates more than scales. This thing, this gigantic pink thing has a fin attached to its bottom and its got iridescent scales catching the light of the noonday sun overhead. I squint when I look at it. That's how I know it belonged to a mermaid. Or, at least, that's how I suppose that it did. It's far too pretty to belong to a lobster. And there's no way God makes shrimp that big. Not even prawns.
What I'm not telling you is the stench coming off of it. What I'm not taking care to describe is how it's rank and putrid and I'm doing anything in my power to keep from inhaling through my nostrils so that I'm not forced to gag and heave and potentially throw up the egg salad sandwich and coffee that I had for breakfast all over it. What's heaps worse than a discarded mermaid tail lying unnoticed on the sand is a discarded mermaid tail lying unnoticed on the sand covered in vomit. I imagine that my standing by continuing to look at the damned thing on the shore wouldn't leave any passersby wondering where the vomit came from. I breathe in through my mouth with my face turned to the side, away from the smell, just so that I don't make a fool of myself on the beach.
Something like this happens, something like this occurs to you, and, of course, it happens when you're totally alone. No one you know is with you. There's no cellphone with which to make phone calls to your friends or to take pictures that you can email or message out to people. It happens on the day when you stopped the everything you normally do with everyone you normally spend the days with and it happens and it happens and no one's there to verify it with his or her witness accounts. If called to testify to the fact of the washed up mermaid tail reeking to high heaven like the carcass of the person-fish from which it came all you can say is, "I saw it. I swear." With no record of proof there's no evidence to support you. I stand there with my arms hugging my chest, my hands cinched at the sides of my waist, and I look at this tail and I feel all the sorts of curiosity and sadness that anyone should feel with no one to share it. Suddenly, I'm filled with loneliness and dread. Lonely and dreadful more for myself than for the other half of this creature, the top half where the head was, the torso wherein was held a heart.
The moment is nothing but selfish. If I'm wishing for the top half to still be attached it's only so that I can ask it questions and hope for an intelligible answer. I want to express my sense of wonderment about it. I want to let it know that I've have these burning questions for years: How do you mate? Are there any homosexual mermaids or mermen? What do you eat? Where does the waste go after the food's been digested? Have you ever ridden a whale? The Giant Squid: fact or fiction? Tell me all about Atlantis. How did you learn English? Have you ever had sex with a pirate? The moment when I realize that there's not going to be an answer is the moment when my sockets well with tears and I hate myself so much for caring less about the lost life and more about the questions left unanswered, the knowledge staying unknown.
I gather up the apathy about it somewhere beneath my belly, by my pancreas where my body makes glucose or whatever it is that the pancreas does, and I set its stovetop aflame and I allow it to boil over so that I can walk away untouched and utterly unmoved without a returning glance. It takes a while, two minutes at the least, during which I remain standing, holding myself, pressing my knees closer, pretending not to wonder if my skirt's gone up enough for someone to catch a glimpse at my polka dotted panties.
The smell, even still, haunts me. In the back of my throat, it lingers, even though I've tried so hard to keep from knowing it so well. As with the time that I shoved the bits of selkie skin that I'd had to shred in the garbage disposal and watched the flesh pureed enough so that its fattiness could slide down the pipes, the stench still haunts me. Still lingers, still preys upon my emotions, hoping to make me feel something other than the nothingness that I've worked up for it.
What no one thinks about is the smell. What no one considers is how the ants will eventually get to it. How the vultures will, at some time, come peck out the meatiest bits of flesh and leave the rest to decompose and fester.
I walk up to a mermaid tail on the shore. There it is. Dead. Attached to nothing. It's just the tail. It's three feet long or thereabouts. I don't stop to measure it. I don't walk around with measuring tape in my pockets or anything. Besides that, I'm not wearing anything with pockets wherein I could carry this measuring tape. My green wrap dress flaps in the sea breeze and all I can think to myself is that I'm glad I wore some pretty underwear today. The last thing I'd want when looking down at an amputated mermaid tail is for some other passersby to see me in granny-panties, those big white ones that could be used as a parachute. The breeze is cold between my knees. I lock them as I stare down at the tail. The big pink tail. There's really no other thing it can be but a mermaid tail. God just doesn't make shrimp that big. That and I'm pretty certain that a lobster tail would be harder. Lobster tails have plates more than scales. This thing, this gigantic pink thing has a fin attached to its bottom and its got iridescent scales catching the light of the noonday sun overhead. I squint when I look at it. That's how I know it belonged to a mermaid. Or, at least, that's how I suppose that it did. It's far too pretty to belong to a lobster. And there's no way God makes shrimp that big. Not even prawns.
What I'm not telling you is the stench coming off of it. What I'm not taking care to describe is how it's rank and putrid and I'm doing anything in my power to keep from inhaling through my nostrils so that I'm not forced to gag and heave and potentially throw up the egg salad sandwich and coffee that I had for breakfast all over it. What's heaps worse than a discarded mermaid tail lying unnoticed on the sand is a discarded mermaid tail lying unnoticed on the sand covered in vomit. I imagine that my standing by continuing to look at the damned thing on the shore wouldn't leave any passersby wondering where the vomit came from. I breathe in through my mouth with my face turned to the side, away from the smell, just so that I don't make a fool of myself on the beach.
Something like this happens, something like this occurs to you, and, of course, it happens when you're totally alone. No one you know is with you. There's no cellphone with which to make phone calls to your friends or to take pictures that you can email or message out to people. It happens on the day when you stopped the everything you normally do with everyone you normally spend the days with and it happens and it happens and no one's there to verify it with his or her witness accounts. If called to testify to the fact of the washed up mermaid tail reeking to high heaven like the carcass of the person-fish from which it came all you can say is, "I saw it. I swear." With no record of proof there's no evidence to support you. I stand there with my arms hugging my chest, my hands cinched at the sides of my waist, and I look at this tail and I feel all the sorts of curiosity and sadness that anyone should feel with no one to share it. Suddenly, I'm filled with loneliness and dread. Lonely and dreadful more for myself than for the other half of this creature, the top half where the head was, the torso wherein was held a heart.
The moment is nothing but selfish. If I'm wishing for the top half to still be attached it's only so that I can ask it questions and hope for an intelligible answer. I want to express my sense of wonderment about it. I want to let it know that I've have these burning questions for years: How do you mate? Are there any homosexual mermaids or mermen? What do you eat? Where does the waste go after the food's been digested? Have you ever ridden a whale? The Giant Squid: fact or fiction? Tell me all about Atlantis. How did you learn English? Have you ever had sex with a pirate? The moment when I realize that there's not going to be an answer is the moment when my sockets well with tears and I hate myself so much for caring less about the lost life and more about the questions left unanswered, the knowledge staying unknown.
I gather up the apathy about it somewhere beneath my belly, by my pancreas where my body makes glucose or whatever it is that the pancreas does, and I set its stovetop aflame and I allow it to boil over so that I can walk away untouched and utterly unmoved without a returning glance. It takes a while, two minutes at the least, during which I remain standing, holding myself, pressing my knees closer, pretending not to wonder if my skirt's gone up enough for someone to catch a glimpse at my polka dotted panties.
The smell, even still, haunts me. In the back of my throat, it lingers, even though I've tried so hard to keep from knowing it so well. As with the time that I shoved the bits of selkie skin that I'd had to shred in the garbage disposal and watched the flesh pureed enough so that its fattiness could slide down the pipes, the stench still haunts me. Still lingers, still preys upon my emotions, hoping to make me feel something other than the nothingness that I've worked up for it.
What no one thinks about is the smell. What no one considers is how the ants will eventually get to it. How the vultures will, at some time, come peck out the meatiest bits of flesh and leave the rest to decompose and fester.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
The Mystical Orb and Its "Attitude Problem"
My appointments haven't shown up and I'm bored. This what I do instead of coming up with more productive work-related activities.
Will Jeremy Sisto shave his beard in 2010?
Don't bet on it.
So that there's no confusion, let me reask this question: More specifically, will he go beardless, entirely, on any new "Law and Order" episodes to come this next year?
The stars say no.
Thanks.
Do I look fat?
So it shall be.
Wow. That doesn't answer my question.
Are you saying that I'm fat?
Indications say yes.
Ugh.
Is the oatmeal cookie thing a good idea for Qwanzamas?
No.
Dammit, man.
Will I totally quit smoking in 2010?
Focus and ask again later.
Am I that obvious when I'm not paying attention?
Answer unclear ask again later.
You don't want to work for me just now, do you?
No doubt about it.
Dick.
Yes.
Will Jeremy Sisto shave his beard in 2010?
Don't bet on it.
So that there's no confusion, let me reask this question: More specifically, will he go beardless, entirely, on any new "Law and Order" episodes to come this next year?
The stars say no.
Thanks.
Do I look fat?
So it shall be.
Wow. That doesn't answer my question.
Are you saying that I'm fat?
Indications say yes.
Ugh.
Is the oatmeal cookie thing a good idea for Qwanzamas?
No.
Dammit, man.
Will I totally quit smoking in 2010?
Focus and ask again later.
Am I that obvious when I'm not paying attention?
Answer unclear ask again later.
You don't want to work for me just now, do you?
No doubt about it.
Dick.
Yes.
Qwanzamas, Or Whatever
Having worked in music retail for at least the full-course of 4 holiday seasons (Black Fridays, each, included), I'm not particularly moved by the holidays. Most people are either one way or the other about them, but I'm not. Perhaps I'm a little ambivalent about holidays because "Sister" Aimee Semple McPhereson gets more of my attention and affection on a day-to-day than the Pope, or any Pope, on any given day. This year, however, perhaps in part due to the recession, I'm actually really looking forward to my Qwanzamas, your Qwanzamas, all of our Qwanzamases. My tree is already breeding gifts upon its cheesy Santa tree skirt and it's set to breed more. Some homemade CD mixes are currently in the works (at least two are in their tentative-to-perfect-as-they-can-be states) and some buys are making their ways to my mailboxes at home and at work. Despite the 90 degree weather outside (humidity included), it's all seeming to turn out rather festive with plenty of holiday and post-holiday parties to boot. But, I mean, what the fuck with Christmas music? Not even Neil Diamond Christmas music, just that horrible Christmas stock music that will forever exist in the annals of every mall's over-the-PA CD collection. It's probably the single most irritating thing about the season and, honestly, I can empathize with any of those Holiday Haters based solely on Christmas music and how, essentially, we're forced to have to hear it. I don't particularly want to be subjected to Lady Gaga or Lil' Wayne while I'm buying shoes or anything, but I'd prefer them or any Top 40 track than, say, ancient "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" or "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer." Just saying.
I'm working up the fucking cheer, I think. I think the cheer is sufficiently worked up, otherwise. It's the tracklists. It's working on personalizing the perfect CD mixes that does it. It's thinking so hard on each of my friends whom I've determined will get one. It's asking myself, "I wonder if Mannykins will appreciate the way that 'YrBroom' blends right into 'Wandering Around.'" It's realizing that "You're My Best Friend" might not actually be the most appropriate song to put in the Pennifer's tracklist, lyric-wise, and finding a suitable replacement in Jay Reatard's catalog.
Jim Henson sees a spindle of blank CDs next to my laptop and incredulously blurts, "You still use CDs?" as if I'm some kind of cavewoman.
I look back at him blankly and respond, "Well how else am I gonna give mixes as gifts?"
What makes the most sense about the entire exchange is that it depicts the very reason why he's not getting a Qwanzamas gift this year or any other year to come. Sad, but true. A man who can't appreciate the value of personalized CD mixes probably doesn't need to collect dust among the furniture in my house. Nor should his toothbrush. Back to the toothbrushes that have been collected in my bathroom's medicine cabinet. Back to the toothbrushes that I've tossed in the trash over the last year. Each a CD mix that I don't have to make. Each is a tracklist that I don't have to consider. At the end of the year, I count my mixed-blessings.
At the end of the year, I think about resolutions and how I never make them so I can never not keep them. The Hare Krishna Ex Who Is, Like, 100% A Closeted Homosexual used to lecture me on self-prophesized failures and, you know, fulfilling said prophecies. On a phone conference, our outgoing Territory Leader (which is like saying "our ousted former Regional Manager) talks about fruits of our labors and missing opportunities by not taking them. She doesn't "want to come down on [us] guys." But, yeah, that's exactly what she does. And though I'm half-paying attention, it kind of makes sense. It moves me a little and it makes me think and I decide to be more positive without being so outrageously idealistic and naively optimistic because, in the end, that's precisely the best way to put what I've been for the last couple of years. So, I guess that's a resolution. The bonus I can add would be to totally cut out the smoking. As a ciggie-holic (which I've deemed as being more challenging than being merely a nicotine addict), I have to cut it out entirely. Entirely. No smoking while drinking. No more "having a bad day"s. I've had it.
Besides, clearly something's not working. Let the resolutions abound!
Outside the glass doors at work, the smell of Christmas pine trees from the front of the grocery store begins to creep up. I turn to smell them and some guy wearing a Star Trek shirt and glasses almost trips over himself to get to one of them. He doesn't notice me chuckling (thank God) and just keeps on as though he hadn't almost fallen.
It makes me wonder where all the trains have gone. All the trains in the basements or garages. Where have they gone and who operates them where they're at? But it doesn't make me wonder enough to, you know, gift anyone with a train set. Or a conductor's hat.
***
Morning-After Suite at the Broken Hearts Hotel (A Mix for Mannykins, tentative playlist)
***
Morning-After Suite at the Broken Hearts Hotel (A Mix for Mannykins, tentative playlist)
- Mystified, Heavy, Sam Roberts
- I am Warm and Powerful, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
- Detouring America with Horns, Yo La Tengo
- Empty Bed, The Good Life
- Oh, I Buried You Today, The Raveonettes
- Evacuate the Vacuous, The Unicorns
- Comes & Goes, Les Savy Fav
- The Wind that Blew My Heart Away, Fruit Bats
- YrBroom, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
- Wandering Around, Coconut Records
- Anymore, that dog.
- Wantin' Her Again, Ben Kweller
- Add It Up, Violent Femmes
- Always a Bridesmaid, The Good Life
- Wounded, Jay Reatard
- Black Cab, Jens Lekman
- Reprise, White Rabbits
- Tomorrow is Better, The Library
- Melody Day, Caribou
- You Don't Understand Me, The Raconteurs
- A Blue Print of Something Not Yet Finished, The Six Parts Seven
- Fond Farewell, Elliot Smith
Monday, December 14, 2009
Questions for The Mystical Orb
It's like a Magic 8 Ball, but purple.
Is Tom Cruise the Messiah of Scientology?
Unlikely.
Will I adopt Linda from the Cat Network?
No doubt about it.
Is Global Warming going to cause "Day After Tomorrow" like destruction porn catastrophe within my lifetime?
Don't bet on it.
Follow up question: Is Jake Gyllenhal, in any way, going to be involved in the ultimate survival of the planet and humanity on said planet?
Prospect good.
Is that "Deadwood" movie ever going to be made?
You can count on it.
Will I see it?
Absolutely.
Is it possible for Keanu Reeves to win an Academy Award?
Unlikely.
But, what you're saying is: It is possible? However unlikely?
Answer unclear ask later.
Did Robert Johnson sell his soul to the Devil for the ability to play blues guitar? (I've already asked this of the Tarot and I've gotten a very thorough response. This is my control question.)
No response.
Have I been kidnapped by aliens?
No response.
Is that where the burning sensation has originated?
See above question.
Will I ever see Fruit Bats in concert?
Consult me later.
Is it likely that I'll move to Portland, Maine within the next two years?
Looks like yes.
Is The Desperate Football trying to get me fired?
Chances aren't good.
[Asked again]
Consult me later.
Is it going to work?
See above.
Am I ever going to get back to my 155 lb. goal weight? Humor me.
Chances aren't good.
Is that teacher who I think is a furry actually a furry?
No doubt about it.
If so, is that who "Zan" is? His furry alter-ego?
You can count on it.
When he goes on "vacation," is he really going to a furry convention?
The stars say no.
Is it as gross as I think it is?
See above.
When I'm talking in my sleep, is anyone hearing the secrets that I keep?
Absolutely.
Will Obama go up for reelection in 2012?
Can't say now.
Can you say now?
Prospect good.
So Obama will do up for reelection in 2012?
Absolutely.
If he does, will he win?
Unlikely.
Was Benjamin Franklin a dirty old man? (Another control question. Also, at this point, it is necessary to gauge the moral character of The Mystical Orb.)
No doubt about it.
Morgan Freeeman's going to win the Best Actor Oscar this year, isn't he?
Consult me later.
Is Marlon Brando's ghost haunting anybody, currently?
No.
Is it Fat Brando or Hot Brando? This is important.
Didn't get a chance to ask. See above.
In the future, will I be consulting you, The Mystical Orb, for answers to more questions?
Postively.
Sweet.
Is The Desperate Football trying to get me fired?
Chances aren't good.
[Asked again]
Consult me later.
Is it going to work?
See above.
Am I ever going to get back to my 155 lb. goal weight? Humor me.
Chances aren't good.
Is that teacher who I think is a furry actually a furry?
No doubt about it.
If so, is that who "Zan" is? His furry alter-ego?
You can count on it.
When he goes on "vacation," is he really going to a furry convention?
The stars say no.
Is it as gross as I think it is?
See above.
When I'm talking in my sleep, is anyone hearing the secrets that I keep?
Absolutely.
Will Obama go up for reelection in 2012?
Can't say now.
Can you say now?
Prospect good.
So Obama will do up for reelection in 2012?
Absolutely.
If he does, will he win?
Unlikely.
Was Benjamin Franklin a dirty old man? (Another control question. Also, at this point, it is necessary to gauge the moral character of The Mystical Orb.)
No doubt about it.
Morgan Freeeman's going to win the Best Actor Oscar this year, isn't he?
Consult me later.
Is Marlon Brando's ghost haunting anybody, currently?
No.
Is it Fat Brando or Hot Brando? This is important.
Didn't get a chance to ask. See above.
In the future, will I be consulting you, The Mystical Orb, for answers to more questions?
Postively.
Sweet.
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