I was a coin someone dropped into a vending machine. Then I was the machine.
One day three guys in jumpsuits came and took me from my place in front of the WalMart. They put a blanket over me, strapped me into in a van, drove me a long, long ways. We seemed to be going in circles. When they uncovered me again, I was in a gleaming white corridor in the bowels of an office building, far beneath the surface of the earth.
20080126
20080125
IS it in?
Let me tell you what I'm looking at.
We have, in the immediate foreground, a window. It's a tall, thin window. An old window. A house window. It is, I mean, a window in an old house. There are, it's worth noting, cracks in this window. Long, delicate, arcing cracks that meet at a point on the rattling wooden frame and that are, under a fingertip, sharp and cold as the edges of razor blades.
We have, under this window, a rooftop. The one covering the kitchen on the floor – on the storey – under us. It's gritty, flat and grey, this rooftop, littered with twigs and branches fallen from trees overhanging it, repaired, in spots, with patches of tar the exact same black as a blackboard. There are gutters, loose nails, laundry vents. There is, at this rooftop's corner, a brick chimney, sooty black, with a leaning television antenna above it.
We have, in the middle ground, a thousand houses, all crushed together, the peaks of their glistening slate-shingled roofs straining upward for light and air. They're brick houses, white-clapboard houses, century-old working-class houses, some intricate and Victorian, some hard and square and plain. Jutting up between them, there are, we see, bare trees, leaning street lamps, telephone poles, sagging black cables with
We have, in the immediate foreground, a window. It's a tall, thin window. An old window. A house window. It is, I mean, a window in an old house. There are, it's worth noting, cracks in this window. Long, delicate, arcing cracks that meet at a point on the rattling wooden frame and that are, under a fingertip, sharp and cold as the edges of razor blades.
We have, under this window, a rooftop. The one covering the kitchen on the floor – on the storey – under us. It's gritty, flat and grey, this rooftop, littered with twigs and branches fallen from trees overhanging it, repaired, in spots, with patches of tar the exact same black as a blackboard. There are gutters, loose nails, laundry vents. There is, at this rooftop's corner, a brick chimney, sooty black, with a leaning television antenna above it.
We have, in the middle ground, a thousand houses, all crushed together, the peaks of their glistening slate-shingled roofs straining upward for light and air. They're brick houses, white-clapboard houses, century-old working-class houses, some intricate and Victorian, some hard and square and plain. Jutting up between them, there are, we see, bare trees, leaning street lamps, telephone poles, sagging black cables with
20080124
IT'LL stretch
striding into the laundromat, bold as you please, kinetic and American, golden limbs flashing, blonde ponytail bouncing, big plastic basket of shadowy, mysterious unspeakables under one well-toned arm. It's like an ad for something. We observe her together, eyes in synchrony, me and the old townie on the other side of the drone-filled room. The local university's crest is on her tank top. She starts sorting clothes, filmy things slipping through her fingers into two different washers. Me, I force my attention back to my book. But him, he's still staring, thin lips parted, eyes blinking, mesmerized. When I pass him on the way out, a bulging Hefty bag of damp jeans and T-shirts hanging pendulously from each hand, I for some reason make eye contact. What am I thinking. How long until I learn. Needless to say he follows me into the parking lot, keeping five feet behind me. It's sunny and hazy, half hot already. As I'm opening the car door, thinking maybe I'm gonna get away clean after all, he starts in.
"You know how you got here, don't ya?" he wants to know, his voice unexpectedly loud. He's sixty-five easy, Amish-looking, wispy white chin beard and all. Like an old Thoreau. I gradually discern "here" to be the laundromat: a woman's place. I get three or four minutes, furious at myself for standing there and taking it, about how the goddamn feminists have wrecked this country, about how his wife always knew her place was at home like he knew his was at the Steel. This is how they raised their two boys -- the one even went to college. He concludes, predictably, with a denunciation of that fuckin' idiot in the White House (it's 1997), then, suddenly embarrassed, like he didn't want to spew this shit at me but couldn't help himself, turns back to the laundromat and leaves me behind, walking weirdly briskly, a farmer making tracks over his acres. I'm embarrassed too. He's told me he hates women. He's told me he's got no one, not even his two good boys, to talk to. Why do I even go out. Throwing the Hefty bags into the front seat, I drop my keys on the blacktop, then accidentally kick them under the car.
"You know how you got here, don't ya?" he wants to know, his voice unexpectedly loud. He's sixty-five easy, Amish-looking, wispy white chin beard and all. Like an old Thoreau. I gradually discern "here" to be the laundromat: a woman's place. I get three or four minutes, furious at myself for standing there and taking it, about how the goddamn feminists have wrecked this country, about how his wife always knew her place was at home like he knew his was at the Steel. This is how they raised their two boys -- the one even went to college. He concludes, predictably, with a denunciation of that fuckin' idiot in the White House (it's 1997), then, suddenly embarrassed, like he didn't want to spew this shit at me but couldn't help himself, turns back to the laundromat and leaves me behind, walking weirdly briskly, a farmer making tracks over his acres. I'm embarrassed too. He's told me he hates women. He's told me he's got no one, not even his two good boys, to talk to. Why do I even go out. Throwing the Hefty bags into the front seat, I drop my keys on the blacktop, then accidentally kick them under the car.
20080122
WITHOUT pulp
girl was in the tub, crouched in the corner. When she saw Will she started shrieking and screaming in a language he'd never heard before. He opened his mouth to say something, but she was already out of the tub, bolting past him, knocking him down. He hit the floor hard. From there he watched her streak through the bedroom, into the living room, where she ran headlong not once but twice into the sliding glass balcony door. Then she fled to another corner and cowered there, wild-eyed.
He lay there breathing, heart pounding, wondering what to do. He stood up very slowly. He started walking cautiously toward the living room, keeping his eyes on the girl's squatting figure. Her crouch tightened. He was imagining dragging her out of the building by her flailing legs. But getting closer, he saw her eyes for the first time ‑‑ blue ‑‑ bruises the color of violets in their corners. He stopped and looked at her. She stared back, breathing.
Suddenly he was trying to soothe her. He was speaking gently to her and offering her a piece of Wonder Bread from the loaf he found on the floor. After a couple minutes she crept forward and took it from him. She chewed the crust, then stuffed the whole piece into her mouth, jaws working furiously, eyes fixed on him. He went to the kitchen and retrieved different foods from the refrigerator: a carrot, a Del Monte pudding pack, cold pizza. Only the bread interested her, though. She devoured three quarters of the loaf, then followed him back to the kitchen, always staying five feet from him, and washed the bread down with a quart of Welch's grape juice. When she'd finished drinking, she smiled, her lips and face a mass of purple, her
He lay there breathing, heart pounding, wondering what to do. He stood up very slowly. He started walking cautiously toward the living room, keeping his eyes on the girl's squatting figure. Her crouch tightened. He was imagining dragging her out of the building by her flailing legs. But getting closer, he saw her eyes for the first time ‑‑ blue ‑‑ bruises the color of violets in their corners. He stopped and looked at her. She stared back, breathing.
Suddenly he was trying to soothe her. He was speaking gently to her and offering her a piece of Wonder Bread from the loaf he found on the floor. After a couple minutes she crept forward and took it from him. She chewed the crust, then stuffed the whole piece into her mouth, jaws working furiously, eyes fixed on him. He went to the kitchen and retrieved different foods from the refrigerator: a carrot, a Del Monte pudding pack, cold pizza. Only the bread interested her, though. She devoured three quarters of the loaf, then followed him back to the kitchen, always staying five feet from him, and washed the bread down with a quart of Welch's grape juice. When she'd finished drinking, she smiled, her lips and face a mass of purple, her
20080121
TRANSMISSION approved
One crisp, cloudless October morning, Jay Johanson, 27, carried a suitcase out to his hand-me-down BMW, got in, and started driving, filled with nothing but a certain dubious inclination. He drove and drove and drove, ten non-stop hours on interstate 81. Then, somewhere in southwest Virginia, surrounded by all the splendor of that country's autumn, he saw an exit ramp for a place called Savage and, titillated, veered across three lanes of traffic, nearly causing a terrifically bad accident, to take it. In this way he was deposited onto a sinuous two-lane highway with busted-up guardrails and an uncanny amount of roadkill that he dodged for six long miles, arriving at last at an impossibly ugly town with a sign greeting him thusly: WELCOME TO SAVAGE, THE HEART OF APPALACHIA. Spray-painted beneath these words were two more: EAT ME. Lordy, it was better than he'd dared hope for.
He drove into town, passing leaning clapboard houses, cinderblock laundromats, a pack of dirty-faced boys on Huffies whose blank-faced stares he returned as he motored by. He turned corners on potholed streets with no curbs or sidewalks, the BMW's suspension rattling and banging, the transmission screaming as he fought through the gears. An ancient black man sitting on a careening front porch began to wave, then stopped. A burned-out house with two satellite dishes and what appeared to be a tombstone in its front yard appeared after he passed the volunteer fire station. It was three blocks off Main Street, though, that he found the thing that had been calling to him in his sleep: a shot-to-hell 19th-century Victorian house with a cardboard sign in its window reading APARTMENT FOR RENT. This was truly a city of signs.
He drove into town, passing leaning clapboard houses, cinderblock laundromats, a pack of dirty-faced boys on Huffies whose blank-faced stares he returned as he motored by. He turned corners on potholed streets with no curbs or sidewalks, the BMW's suspension rattling and banging, the transmission screaming as he fought through the gears. An ancient black man sitting on a careening front porch began to wave, then stopped. A burned-out house with two satellite dishes and what appeared to be a tombstone in its front yard appeared after he passed the volunteer fire station. It was three blocks off Main Street, though, that he found the thing that had been calling to him in his sleep: a shot-to-hell 19th-century Victorian house with a cardboard sign in its window reading APARTMENT FOR RENT. This was truly a city of signs.
20080118
THE irascibles
I bet you look just tremendous naked, don’t you?
This from Alan Belk, the Welsh post-doc who’d this semester fallen into the habit of spending every noon hour in Meg’s office.
She sucked the plastic spoon with which she’d just finished her yogurt. Thinking he was getting pretty bold. Deciding how big a bone to throw him.
Actually, yes, she said. Outside of a knee-surgery scar, I do, in fact, look pretty tremendous naked.
Oh my God.
He was thirty pounds overweight, smelled of cigarette smoke, mild B.O. But there was something to him. There was something to him. The charm of the utterly unrepressed. Plus which he got a good bit of mileage out of the accent. Just two days earlier she’d overheard a sophomore in the Humanities Center telling her friend something really rather remarkably debauched she wanted to do to him. If he spoke like a Philadelphian there’d be none of that.
I’d so love to photograph you, he said.
I bet you would.
Naked, he said.
She smiled. That's what I figured you meant.
I’m serious. How can you be working on a book on pornography and not on some level want to be photographed naked?
Who says I haven’t been?
I don’t mean by your bloody husband. There’s nothing pornographic in that.
She tapped the spoon on the edge of the yogurt cup, looking out the window over his shoulder. The trees were budding. Birds and bees.
Dear God, he finally said. It was your husband, wasn’t it?
This from Alan Belk, the Welsh post-doc who’d this semester fallen into the habit of spending every noon hour in Meg’s office.
She sucked the plastic spoon with which she’d just finished her yogurt. Thinking he was getting pretty bold. Deciding how big a bone to throw him.
Actually, yes, she said. Outside of a knee-surgery scar, I do, in fact, look pretty tremendous naked.
Oh my God.
He was thirty pounds overweight, smelled of cigarette smoke, mild B.O. But there was something to him. There was something to him. The charm of the utterly unrepressed. Plus which he got a good bit of mileage out of the accent. Just two days earlier she’d overheard a sophomore in the Humanities Center telling her friend something really rather remarkably debauched she wanted to do to him. If he spoke like a Philadelphian there’d be none of that.
I’d so love to photograph you, he said.
I bet you would.
Naked, he said.
She smiled. That's what I figured you meant.
I’m serious. How can you be working on a book on pornography and not on some level want to be photographed naked?
Who says I haven’t been?
I don’t mean by your bloody husband. There’s nothing pornographic in that.
She tapped the spoon on the edge of the yogurt cup, looking out the window over his shoulder. The trees were budding. Birds and bees.
Dear God, he finally said. It was your husband, wasn’t it?
20080117
PRUDENCE never pays
I went for a month to Southfields, London. There, an old prep-school buddy known to the world only as the Wrangler had a dreary row house, withered gardenias in the window boxes. While he edited computer manuals in the afternoons, I went for rides on the famed red buses, slept in pubs, talked to homeless men. One gray morning at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park I persistently begged cigarettes from strangers, then stood listening for a while to the resident white supremacist, a dozen lit fags in my nostrils, ears, mouth.
One evening while the Wrangler was out with his Swedish girlfriend, who despised me, I called the Norwegian in Miami. I told her I’d studied history in college. I told her a kid in second grade had punched me in the stomach on the bus and made me vomit. I told her I’d been in a celebrated rock band with a hit in the U.S. and U.K. Hearing that last she blew air out her nose, amused. “I knew,” she said, “it had to be something like that.”
“Why don’t you leave that gun-toting jerk-off?”
“What on Earth are you doing?” she asked. “I mean, with your life, what are you doing?”
“You nitwit. The same thing everyone else is.”
“Oh yes? What is that?”
“Waiting to die.”
I materialized next in the not-so-deep American South. A sleepy state-university town whose
One evening while the Wrangler was out with his Swedish girlfriend, who despised me, I called the Norwegian in Miami. I told her I’d studied history in college. I told her a kid in second grade had punched me in the stomach on the bus and made me vomit. I told her I’d been in a celebrated rock band with a hit in the U.S. and U.K. Hearing that last she blew air out her nose, amused. “I knew,” she said, “it had to be something like that.”
“Why don’t you leave that gun-toting jerk-off?”
“What on Earth are you doing?” she asked. “I mean, with your life, what are you doing?”
“You nitwit. The same thing everyone else is.”
“Oh yes? What is that?”
“Waiting to die.”
I materialized next in the not-so-deep American South. A sleepy state-university town whose
20080116
IT should be declared its own country
When his alarm went off the next morning, Will sat straight up in bed, still in his shirt and tie. His reflection in the window looked hung‑over, and for a moment he figured it was Saturday.
Then he remembered the girl. His back was sore from carrying her. He realized he'd been dreaming about her. He'd dreamed he was standing with her on a vacant dirt lot, possibly a soon-to-be construction site, watching her throw rocks at bottles.
He went to the bedroom door. He opened it a crack and looked out into the living room. Sure enough, she was still there on the couch, breathing spastically, like a wounded animal.
He went into the bathroom and showered and dressed. He stuffed a silk tie into his pocket. When he came back into the living room the girl was still asleep. He went to try and wake her, but kneeling beside her found himself awash in the same wave of pity he'd felt the night before and couldn't raise his hand to shake her. So he left her sleeping, a box of Hostess powdered donuts and an explanatory note on a yellow legal pad on the coffee table beside her.
"Oh my God. You're insane," his cohort Jay said at lunch.
"Seriously, Will," Rebecca said, gazing at him huge-eyed over her tuna sandwich. "Jesus Christ. She's probably got a, a U‑Haul over there right now, cleaning the place out. You've gotta go home."
He slurped from his empty drink cup. Melissa was also staring at him in amazement. "Hey," she whispered. "What if she dies?"
Jay said, "Will? Hello?" But Will just shook his head. "I'm not worried," he said cryptically.
Then he remembered the girl. His back was sore from carrying her. He realized he'd been dreaming about her. He'd dreamed he was standing with her on a vacant dirt lot, possibly a soon-to-be construction site, watching her throw rocks at bottles.
He went to the bedroom door. He opened it a crack and looked out into the living room. Sure enough, she was still there on the couch, breathing spastically, like a wounded animal.
He went into the bathroom and showered and dressed. He stuffed a silk tie into his pocket. When he came back into the living room the girl was still asleep. He went to try and wake her, but kneeling beside her found himself awash in the same wave of pity he'd felt the night before and couldn't raise his hand to shake her. So he left her sleeping, a box of Hostess powdered donuts and an explanatory note on a yellow legal pad on the coffee table beside her.
"Oh my God. You're insane," his cohort Jay said at lunch.
"Seriously, Will," Rebecca said, gazing at him huge-eyed over her tuna sandwich. "Jesus Christ. She's probably got a, a U‑Haul over there right now, cleaning the place out. You've gotta go home."
He slurped from his empty drink cup. Melissa was also staring at him in amazement. "Hey," she whispered. "What if she dies?"
Jay said, "Will? Hello?" But Will just shook his head. "I'm not worried," he said cryptically.
20080115
WE eat mice
Though there was a dim, flickering light. To which her eye, like a dumb bug, was instantly drawn. Across the little living room, in a closet she’d never seen open before, was a…an altar of some kind. Covered in purple cloth. A fat black candle burning at its center, in a mound of its own pungent drippings. As she was drawn to the corpse in the funeral home that day, so to this...this...whatever it was. Unable again, though dimly aware of trespassing, to stop her feet’s forward progress. There were weird things there. Loose cigarettes. Black sunglasses. Some purple flowers in a glass, maybe from the cemetery out back. A weird little statue of a black man in an old-fashioned military uniform, sideways plumed hat and all, head disturbingly too big for body. A plain black wooden cross. A half-empty bottle of some amber liquor. Some saints’ pictures in cheap tin frames: St. Bridget, scribbling away; St. Expedite with walking stick; St. Gerard with lilies and skull.
20080114
BESTIAL seasons, seasonal beers
And it was just that strange, too: a psychiatric disorder, ontodormichosis, in which the patient can't tell the difference between waking and dreaming life. It wasn't a problem, obviously, when she was asleep: We all mistake the imagined for the real then. The problem was when she was awake and started mistaking reality for dreams. Then anything -- a ringing cell phone, say -- could fill her with such unutterable dread she'd hurl herself at a plate-glass window or a dead-bolted door to get away from it. Or a child's toy could bring on spasms of hilarity. Or a meal might inspire such fury she'd find herself smashing plates against walls. In short, "real" things took on all the symbolic import of dreamed ones -- and so, as you can probably guess, it wasn't long before
1992
driving through Delaware on a hot day in June with this friend of mine named Shelly, telling her all about this time when I was seven or eight. My parents, I'm saying, used to rent this house on the bay when I was a kid, out near Dewey or Bethany, maybe, not far from where we're driving. It was one of those A-frame things you see all over the place out here, one of those houses built ten feet off the ground on thick phone-pole stilts so it's protected from floods and hurricanes and what not. And the land all around the place, I'm telling her, was nothing but flat, flat dirt that seemed to go on for miles, with another A-frame house on stilts pretty much just like ours every fifty or hundred yards. The ground there was full of bee holes, and the bees would crawl out of the ground and fly away, leaving tiny clouds of dirt in the air behind them. I used to break up sticks and stuff them in the holes so the bees couldn't get out.
Anyway, I don't know why, but I'm spending a lot longer than I probably need to setting up this story for Shelly. I'm telling her all about this goddamn house, with its orange and green vinyl furniture like beach houses have, and its '50s-style refrigerator. I'm telling her about the fishing nets hung on the living room walls, and the fake plastic crabs and lobsters stuck in them. I'm telling her about the crankable glass slats on the storm doors, and the dresser that made my whole bedroom smell like cedar whenever you opened a drawer. I'm telling her about how the first thing my family always did when we got to town was go to the A&P up on the highway and buy all the groceries for the week, and how I used to try to get my mom to buy me a carton of Yoo-Hoo when my dad was off shopping in another aisle, and how we had to lug all the groceries up the sandy wooden stairs to the kitchen door, and how this was 1978 or so, so my favorite T-shirt had a picture of a Star Wars stormtrooper on it.
"Yeah yeah," Shelly finally says, "it was a beach house, you were at the beach. I get it. What's the story?" She's got her seatbelt off, and she's twisted around sideways in her seat, her back against the passenger door. There's a Rolling Rock from the cooler in the back seat in her hand, and there's a bright green cornfield streaking by behind her. She's grinning at me, looking hard at me. She's been looking at me all afternoon, and I'm starting to wonder what it's about.
"I'm getting there," I tell her.
I realize at this point that there are two key facts for my story that I haven't told her yet. The first is that my family didn't rent this entire house. The place was broken up into two
Anyway, I don't know why, but I'm spending a lot longer than I probably need to setting up this story for Shelly. I'm telling her all about this goddamn house, with its orange and green vinyl furniture like beach houses have, and its '50s-style refrigerator. I'm telling her about the fishing nets hung on the living room walls, and the fake plastic crabs and lobsters stuck in them. I'm telling her about the crankable glass slats on the storm doors, and the dresser that made my whole bedroom smell like cedar whenever you opened a drawer. I'm telling her about how the first thing my family always did when we got to town was go to the A&P up on the highway and buy all the groceries for the week, and how I used to try to get my mom to buy me a carton of Yoo-Hoo when my dad was off shopping in another aisle, and how we had to lug all the groceries up the sandy wooden stairs to the kitchen door, and how this was 1978 or so, so my favorite T-shirt had a picture of a Star Wars stormtrooper on it.
"Yeah yeah," Shelly finally says, "it was a beach house, you were at the beach. I get it. What's the story?" She's got her seatbelt off, and she's twisted around sideways in her seat, her back against the passenger door. There's a Rolling Rock from the cooler in the back seat in her hand, and there's a bright green cornfield streaking by behind her. She's grinning at me, looking hard at me. She's been looking at me all afternoon, and I'm starting to wonder what it's about.
"I'm getting there," I tell her.
I realize at this point that there are two key facts for my story that I haven't told her yet. The first is that my family didn't rent this entire house. The place was broken up into two
20080113
SIMIAN helmet
for it, and because she was a strong advocate of what she called infinite-complexity theory: ever more powerful electron microscopes, ever more powerful space telescopes, it didn't matter, you'd just keep finding more: more sub-atomic particles, more galaxies, more space, more time, until finally the distinction between the infinitesimal and the gargantuan became meaningless, the one at some point simply collapsing into the other. What was especially disconcerting, though, was her unswerving faith in a
20080112
FINALLY, a blog by, for, and about sex workers
Which are the words forbidden from appearing here? And why?
IF you call that living
were rumors of secretly circulating demos. There were hipsters loitering outside the band’s Avenue D rehearsal space, hoping to catch a tune wafting up through the laundry exhausts. They needed a second guitar to fill them out. They wanted me.
“You got me,” I said.
“Fuckin’ A,” clutching my knee, hard. Trent threw back the second half of his martini, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Don’t you want to know how I found you, sexy?”
“Tell me an elaborate but instructive lie.”
“I followed the buzzards.”
When he passed out on my couch four hours later, a girl from the Googie place draped over him, I walked gingerly out. Wallet in hand.
Fourteen hours later I was in Hilton Head, South Carolina. I couldn’t seem to escape the heat. There, in a gleaming Hyatt bar, I met a legally separated Norwegian, a beautiful woman in the James Bond tradition. She was Sorbonne educated. She had mile-long corkscrew curls, green cat eyes. She spoke five languages, could get dinner or a lawyer in five more. She liked discussing Russian economics, Caribbean religions, Wole Soyinka. Rich men had approached her in night clubs in New York, Rome, Geneva, wanting her to fly with them to Madrid, Colombo, Monterey.
She was 31.
“You got me,” I said.
“Fuckin’ A,” clutching my knee, hard. Trent threw back the second half of his martini, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Don’t you want to know how I found you, sexy?”
“Tell me an elaborate but instructive lie.”
“I followed the buzzards.”
When he passed out on my couch four hours later, a girl from the Googie place draped over him, I walked gingerly out. Wallet in hand.
Fourteen hours later I was in Hilton Head, South Carolina. I couldn’t seem to escape the heat. There, in a gleaming Hyatt bar, I met a legally separated Norwegian, a beautiful woman in the James Bond tradition. She was Sorbonne educated. She had mile-long corkscrew curls, green cat eyes. She spoke five languages, could get dinner or a lawyer in five more. She liked discussing Russian economics, Caribbean religions, Wole Soyinka. Rich men had approached her in night clubs in New York, Rome, Geneva, wanting her to fly with them to Madrid, Colombo, Monterey.
She was 31.
20080111
THE meat man cometh
When he recognizes the girl on the movie screen, Rob Laurel nearly clutches his wife’s arm in glee, stopping his hand at the last possible millisecond. Christ was that close. Grinning in the dark, feeling his heart knocking against his ribcage, he studies the luminous wall-size figure for several minutes, making sure. But that’s her, all right, even with the fake British accent – and when, an hour into the flick, she strips down to nothing on a Caribbean beach, heart-shaped ass swinging like a metronome as she strides into the surf, he has to struggle again not to grab Angela’s arm. Babe, he wants to tell her, you’re never gonna believe this!
It’s too much. Five minutes after the beach scene, whispering to Angela something about that second Guinness he had, he gets up and heads for the lobby, actually forgetting to check out the cute brunette teenager working the snack bar. In the men’s room, staring into the mirror, still grinning, feeling his hard-on pressed against the edge of the sink in front of him, he leans forward, tells himself, Hey, buddy. You fucked a movie star.
* * *
Despite her exhaustion, Angela slips into character when spotted on the sidewalk outside the theater: Mitch Gable this time, the local attorney who’s just made the city's front pages by arguing City Council into green-lighting slots casinos for the old steel-mill sites. Angela, Mitch groans, that restaurant. Rob, amused, watches the old codger’s hand knead Angela’s lower back – then sees Mitch’s poodlish wife observing the same. You’ve really hit it out of the park. That bouillabaisse. Never had anything like it this far from Manhattan. Whatever you’re paying that chef, double it.
Aw, thanks, Mitch.
How’s work, Rob?
Busy busy.
Saw that interview with you on the news last week, about the new arts center. And that bartender of yours, turning back to Angela.
Cindy.
First proper martini I’ve had in Galilee in twenty years.
Yeah, it’s her martinis you love, Angela thinks as they walk back to the car in the cool November air, not her ass, which you leered at all night, never mind your wife was sitting right across from you.
In the Land Rover, Rob actually tries to get a hand into her skirt. Oh God, you’re joking, she says, right? I just put in ten hours at the restaurant and – get off – went with you to see that god-awful, male-gaze-privileging – ow – flesh bonanza.
Just let me touch it, just for a sec.
She goes limp, puts on a long-suffering face. All right? she says. Done? He starts the engine, grinning. That Kelly Merchant slut, she says. There should be a warning to wives and girlfriends at the start of her movies.
Oh, if he could only tell her! You have no idea, he says.
She doesn’t bother asking what that means.
* * *
They roll up to a pre-fab manse dropped into the middle of what was, till two years ago, a cornfield. It’s surrounded by a dozen others just like it. Last week Angela parked in a wrong driveway, ambled up a wrong front walk, tried to put her key into a wrong front door. Inside she
It’s too much. Five minutes after the beach scene, whispering to Angela something about that second Guinness he had, he gets up and heads for the lobby, actually forgetting to check out the cute brunette teenager working the snack bar. In the men’s room, staring into the mirror, still grinning, feeling his hard-on pressed against the edge of the sink in front of him, he leans forward, tells himself, Hey, buddy. You fucked a movie star.
* * *
Despite her exhaustion, Angela slips into character when spotted on the sidewalk outside the theater: Mitch Gable this time, the local attorney who’s just made the city's front pages by arguing City Council into green-lighting slots casinos for the old steel-mill sites. Angela, Mitch groans, that restaurant. Rob, amused, watches the old codger’s hand knead Angela’s lower back – then sees Mitch’s poodlish wife observing the same. You’ve really hit it out of the park. That bouillabaisse. Never had anything like it this far from Manhattan. Whatever you’re paying that chef, double it.
Aw, thanks, Mitch.
How’s work, Rob?
Busy busy.
Saw that interview with you on the news last week, about the new arts center. And that bartender of yours, turning back to Angela.
Cindy.
First proper martini I’ve had in Galilee in twenty years.
Yeah, it’s her martinis you love, Angela thinks as they walk back to the car in the cool November air, not her ass, which you leered at all night, never mind your wife was sitting right across from you.
In the Land Rover, Rob actually tries to get a hand into her skirt. Oh God, you’re joking, she says, right? I just put in ten hours at the restaurant and – get off – went with you to see that god-awful, male-gaze-privileging – ow – flesh bonanza.
Just let me touch it, just for a sec.
She goes limp, puts on a long-suffering face. All right? she says. Done? He starts the engine, grinning. That Kelly Merchant slut, she says. There should be a warning to wives and girlfriends at the start of her movies.
Oh, if he could only tell her! You have no idea, he says.
She doesn’t bother asking what that means.
* * *
They roll up to a pre-fab manse dropped into the middle of what was, till two years ago, a cornfield. It’s surrounded by a dozen others just like it. Last week Angela parked in a wrong driveway, ambled up a wrong front walk, tried to put her key into a wrong front door. Inside she
WHAT bigger said
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20080110
NICE caboose
"The canon has opened," Dr. Doctor tells them, abandoning his notes, "to every sort of literature but one. Bad literature." The students, relaxing, snicker. Their pens and pencils stop their dutiful scratching. Beyond the window, a hundred miles from the nearest city, an unspeakably beautiful snow is falling on the Appalachian hills. "Unspeakably." That is a trope unto itself.
Pushing his spectacles up onto his forehead: "When are we going to give bad writers their day? When will we acknowledge the efforts of those voiceless thousands?" Some hung-over kid barfs sloppily onto her desktop, all orange juice and scrambled eggs. "It's art!" cries another. Dr. Doctor smiles approvingly. "Listen, son. Nothing you think matters for shit if other human beings don't like you. Willy Loman was right, you know."
Pushing his spectacles up onto his forehead: "When are we going to give bad writers their day? When will we acknowledge the efforts of those voiceless thousands?" Some hung-over kid barfs sloppily onto her desktop, all orange juice and scrambled eggs. "It's art!" cries another. Dr. Doctor smiles approvingly. "Listen, son. Nothing you think matters for shit if other human beings don't like you. Willy Loman was right, you know."
20080109
TIGERS don't belong in zoos
that his own brain marked the center of the universe, that it had created the world he went out into every morning, had created itself, and was, as he only now realized, controlling everything that happened. Everywhere. Will had quelled this suspicion for a long time. Now he hoped confronting it would prove the first step in reconciling the conscious and unconscious halves of his mind, the divorce of which had possibly brought the cosmos into being.
Late one October night in the near-empty parking garage under his office building, Will found a body sprawled across the hood of his Passat. Seeing it, he froze in his tracks like he'd hit a pane of glass, a taste like battery acid filling his mouth. Then he began his slow and cautious approach. It was, he saw, a young woman. Rather scantily clad. White legs, mane of dark hair, one arm stretching up across the windshield. She was on her stomach, one leg protruding off the fender. Within a few feet of her now, Will leaned in and saw she was breathing – panting, sort of. Her face was tinged with bruises.
Late one October night in the near-empty parking garage under his office building, Will found a body sprawled across the hood of his Passat. Seeing it, he froze in his tracks like he'd hit a pane of glass, a taste like battery acid filling his mouth. Then he began his slow and cautious approach. It was, he saw, a young woman. Rather scantily clad. White legs, mane of dark hair, one arm stretching up across the windshield. She was on her stomach, one leg protruding off the fender. Within a few feet of her now, Will leaned in and saw she was breathing – panting, sort of. Her face was tinged with bruises.
He straightened up and looked out into the echoing shadows. Then he quickly dug his car keys out of his pocket and opened the passenger door of the car. Working gingerly, not wanting to rouse her, he slipped one arm under the girl's neck, the other under her knees, scooped her up, and placed her in the passenger seat. Then he shut the door, walked around and climbed in on driver’s side. He started the car and watched the shadows as he drove to the exit ramp, half‑expecting whoever had left the girl here to leap out from behind a concrete pillar. But no one did. The gate swung up in front of him, and he aimed the VW out into traffic.
GWU was nearby. He'd drop the girl off at the hospital there. Driving up Pennsylvania Avenue, though, past the hotels and offices washed in light, he got his first really good look at her. She was tiny and thin. She had a child's face and a mop of black hair. There were goosebumps on her arms. He watched the streetlights creep across her face and was filled with a strange rush of emotion, a crushing pity, and he
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