From: exit2k@hotmail.com
Subject: whew …
Date: October 31, 1998 8:37:37 PM EST
To: horsestorideon@hotmail.com
if i had ever doubted that you had gained [not knowledge but] some
wisdom from your days, weeks, months, about a year and a half of
wandering from home2home2home2home, then i, the doubter, could be proved
wrong by one creation by you [thisis, ov course, now] that, intended to
communicate, does;
like that one.
that was my main impression.
so now i’ll give you what i told you i’d tell:
i’m just going to include all of my journal entry for today, because it
includes a dream you simply MUST hear! so, en joy.
ps if you think anyone else would be interested in the story, give it to
them. but separate it from the dream — i’d hate to bore.
Oct 31 1998
Had an amazing dream this morning. With two other guys, released from
jail. We decide to pull one final heist. We fuck it up somehow but get
away. We come back to scope the place out and see how we can get it
right, but we’re being really obvious and we’re going to get caught.
This woman who is there and was also in jail starts freaking out and
saying, “You guys are fucking up, you guys are fucking up,” and I think
she asks me why are we doing this, or why don’t we stop, or something —
and then this is the amazing part.
All this time I have been aware that this is a play and we are all
acting — except there is no other reality, everything is only what it
is, so being trapped in the play we do have something at stake. There
is also no discernable audience, thought the heist is in a museum and
there are all these glass walls and we’re walking inside with the
exhibits — so there’s an element of Who’s watching? Is someone
watching? Anyway, when the girl says Why don’t you just stop? or
whatever, I flash onto a great monolog I can give — so I do.
The basic idea of the monolog is whatever I spent all that time in
jail for, I didn’t do it. And I want my life back, which has been
destroyed by my jail sentence — and the only way to get my life back is
to pull off one final heist that will make me rich enough that all those
years of unjust imprisonment won’t matter. The monolog in the dream
consisted mostly of yelling “I didn’t do it!” and pounding on a table or
piano I was standing next to. But I’ll try to recreate what I can
remember:
“Why? Because I didn’t do it! What I was in for, all that time, I
didn’t do it! I didn’t do it! Maybe you do did what you were supposed
to have done, but I didn’t! I didn’t do it! And now I want my life
back … and this is the only way to get it.”
The main thing is that I made the monolog up as I went along, and I
had no idea what I had been imprisoned for, how long I had been
imprisoned, or whether or not I had actually done it. I just knew that
this was a great opportunity for me to give an angry, impassioned
monolog. My big moment.
As soon as I finish the speech the guy playing the policeman walks
in with no shirt (looking good) and thrusts a litlighter at my nipple
ring, as if to punish or capture me by burning my nipple. I hit his
hand away, and say What were you doing? and say Oh, I thought you were
going to burn my nipple, like this. We are starting to come out of
character, or he is, but I am also using coming out of character as a
method to keep the policeman-guy from knowing what I was just talking
about, what we’re diong — to keep from getting caught, just in case the
play starts again unexpectedly. I wake up.
* * * * *
From: horsestorideon@hotmail.com
Subject: New Deluded Currency. two bills. washing dishes for lack of funds…
Date: October 30, 1998 11:42:58 PM PST
To: exit2k@hotmail.com, afw10@columbia.edu, mrvisible@worldnet.att.net, sejohnst@midway.uchicago.edu, shorning@willamette.edu, and 4 more…
theses days i say ‘i never lie’
i say ‘ i never say good-bye’
which isn’t exactly true [not that i’m aiming at that one, but…]
i can’t seem to ever mean it
but it does take its toll.
when i think of everyone i’ve ever let enter my life
from the most annoying mother fucker who’d bore holes into my starving body
to the last person on earth i never got to come inside me
or let me get inside them…
i always leave things up to chance, when it comes down to it.
[this, ov course, is today.]
i can’t imagine you not being there anymore.
and i don’t believe you if you say you’re staying away for good.
and it doesn’t hurt for you to say those things to me
it’s always much better than you not saying anything.
the first people in my life i knew i’d never lose
i thought were crazy
— they almost always prove themselves
even if i have to do all the work.
you know, they love you. they do what they can for you
but you must remember
they’re trying to do more than they can for themselves…:
it saves precious little space and time for you
[sometimes you have to find something else than that nasty duality]
if she hits your brother again
and breaks that ruler over his ass
you have to watch his face
to see the blushing and the tears
so you can remember the way he laughed when he got through the door
and closed it behind him with an extra sob
just to make the point.
you’ve got to try and remember all the parts you remember missing as they happened. you have to retro-fit the next life into this. you have to have it all before it happens so you can be ready in the real-time.
so my wrist says…
or said, rather.
you know they love you, lover…. they really do.
did.
whatever, they tried.
even though the bastard took to sticks in closed buildings where no one could hear you
it’s not an excuse to say you hate him:
why give him such credit in taking up your mind?
he’s done so many other wonderful things…
even when he cries and asks you to comfort him
it’s time to be hard, just like you: kid.
she’ll push you over into his lap anyway… it’s the history of the trade.
you have to keep these fucked up bastards with you for the rest of your life.. and any longer that you think may be necessary.
they didn’t get it right
they still aren’t
they’re tried filling you up and knocking you in
but you’re the one they made to carry them into the story
the one you’re writing to make them the heros
the ones who did it right
the ones who came out with a christmas card and a fishing rod
you have one hell of a responsibility
even if you never expect to pay it back.
well, they’re there… on the bottom shelf, the one with the door
no light
masionite
it’s cheap: but it’s a place for them to go.
and you can’t forget their mates… the ones who share their space…
claimed by all the kids you can’t forgive and can’t forget
they’re your friends
very best friends
they’d kick you when you’re down
and smile when they got you wet
yeah, turning you on like a fucking fountain
at least you can please someone, eh?
well, remember them down there
and the doors you run to find and slam behind you with a masterful turn of the little crowned button in the centre of the knob
the sound of the struggle on the other side of wood
while you look around your country wondering where to go.
still thinking about where to go when you have all these things to carry round… you don’t travel lite.
you’ve got the modle kinds ones
who didn’t get you killed at every crossing
few, yeah sure… but important because they only PREtended to make you feel like a fool because they knew they were no better than you.
these are the kids you loved, back then. the ones with the games and the toys and the grade. these are the roles you wish you could fill, though they made you as sick as the rest they didn’t push you away
well, not too far to get back.
and the images in mind,
a boy in black-leather. bleached hair. ear-ring. sunglasses blocking the eyes as you stroll out of the cornfields into suburbia where you have no history in this new skin
those things like that…
like the star [in some sport] who made them all happy or proud or other words that really didn’t make any sense at the time
but a goal is a goal, right?
gotta have something to aim at.
i mean, remember the kids
the ones in the river
the ones in the fields
the ones in the parks.
you’d take up the day under grasses and trees and the house-sitting.
imagine a world where you’re the winner. a crime-boss: it’s something to do: fuck those squares.
you never even knew you had it in you
[i guess it never came out]
until late at night
seventh grade?
what a game
fish.hook.and ____
it’s something to do if both of your are moving your hands at the same speed
twelve times a night? was that the record?
videogame. new cd. sneaking out and stealing your father’s cars…
gett itt off two more times before the sun cums up
we’ve got something to do.
next to
the maitenance man on the first job after many years of
“you smoke pot”
‘sure i do’
“want some”
‘sure i do’
and a back massage, maybe the only one you ever got and that huge bent thing in your mouth
it’s unspeakable, that condition, but it’s something work on with your friend…
which leads, of course, further into
the others: pick them out from the other school
or past kids you knew
and they knew them from church
[oh, i think that’s in a box under the bed]
who read books and had nothing so bland to do [as deal with you]
but you’re a persistant little fuck
your brother told you that was the only thing you ever did well
[annoy]
and you honed your skill like it was your only possesion…
what else could you do?
as you worked them into the idea of being a writer
the necessary adventures
and traumas
and scandals.
you set it up
like you have every story you’ve never written
about the parties
and loves
those things you lost…
broken, maybe.
you’ll have to have a loss somewhere..
a good friend; a lover.
make it older.
make it the same sex.
make it dirty as hell.
make it guilty.
sufficient.
you got a 31.32.33.
you’re friends knew him as 32
til a year later… you know how it goes.
he is on the middle shelf…
oh, was… you’ve moved him into the cubbard in the back of the room
now buried in magazines and old scribbled books.
don’t forget him: he’s getting married in four months
“marrieanne”
sweetsweetsweet: tie me up and put me on videotape and make me scream.
it’s alright if it makes you feel better you twat.
i love you.
i’ll keep you right
over
Here.
[you’r gonna break your dolls treatin’em like that]
ok.
so how many now?
i have a million in my life
and i’ll never let them go.
i mean… MOST of them are gone
or going
or comming back
or something
but the majority of them aren’t HERE, right…
they’re off on their own little thing
but i’ve got a secret…
like all the secrets i’ve got
it’s not real… so it doesn’t exist.
“i’m here with a cause. i’m holding the torch — In the Corner of your Room, can you hear me? and when you’re Dancing and Laughing and Finally LIVing hearmyvoiceinyourheadandthinkofme KINDLY”
it comes around like that.
things move into place
“the knight strikes at midnight”
it’s all like clockwork
when the hands have broken from the center
and the watch is on the end of a chain
attatched to a world
that can’t sit still
til it finished its dinner
can’t go to sleep
can’t wait til dawn
can’t get away
has way too many things to do
before it becomes easy enough to set the alarm and trust not to miss anything.
like walking the sidewalks and staring at the cracks of bad-luck or just killing your mother
better yet: put her in a lot of pain
so you can take her off the shelf
and dust her off
and give her the reason to make you not feel like a fool:
you got a purpose now, mr care-giver
you got SOMETHING to do.
like any crowded room
where you only notice the people in your life
and if you seem them
and they aren’t there yet
you needn’t worry
coz you know they will be.
any passing face. any drunken story. any days of too-much of some-thing. you can see them as you walk out the door. you can seem them in the next car over. you can see them exiting the room
when you’re sitting down
having ordered already
having forked out the cash
which is worth more than the effort it takes you to go to them again
and again
and again.
maybe someday they’ll come back to you.
maybe you won’t have to wish and want and feel the lack
they’ll fill in your space for you
and you won’t have to move your hand to be sure they’re there.
you won’t have to invent them anymore
and fear turning around
to give yourself the chance to lose them.
just because you say ‘goodbye’ does’nt mean you mean it.
and just because you never write it doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten
and just because they never call
just because they’re never there
just because you’re still alone
it doesn’t mean i don’t miss you.
From: exit2k@hotmail.com
Subject: very pretty.
Date: October 30, 1998 8:22:28 PM EST
To: horsestorideon@hotmail.com
you should be a writer! no, but
really, i enjoyed it not just for its clarification of your past and
your love[r][s]. i’m glad you could write it, anyway.
and what a surprise! i see sera too. and she’s irish!
how pleasing. i don’t think she understood. i think she is sweet, but
she explains the wrong answers. i would write to her and tell her what
i mean, but i wouldn’t know what to tell, and she doesn’t know me from
me besides. sad story, i guess. glad she gets fucked when she needs
it. or not.
she hears what she doesn’t want to say, even when someone else doesn’t
say it, and believes her story is the most important just because it’s
hers and told, to her. small eyes. doesn’t know what she’s missing.
found my tape, and my player. they were in my bag all along — no cab.
i thought it seemed a little extreme, even for Me. listened to them,
they’re well. i have one more tape — two hours! and i was going to
save it for when i got home, but now i’m hoping to score some acid for
tomorrow night that i better enjoy a lonely all hallow’s eve. that’s a
tape if a tape ever was, if i pull it off.
wish me luck. i’m going to ask the concierge for advice.
From: sejohnst@midway.uchicago.edu
Subject: Re: [paying my debts of obligatory stories] 1.1 (-ah,maybe it’ll even arrive)[or, connection troubles in the flat-lands]
Date: October 30, 1998 12:11:48 PM CST
To: horsestorideon@hotmail.com, mrvisible@worldnet.att.net, houseofthe2palms@hotmail.com, shorning@willamette.edu, scoobear@net-link.net, exit2k@hotmail.com, and 3 more…
chicago is grey.
there are screams coming from the dumpster.
not as loud as the screams coming from inside my head.
there’s a naked boy sleeping on my bed.
and i don’t know what to do with him.
after we fucked i fell asleep crying.
i told him i made a huge mistake when i was 17.
and that it kicked me in my tummy when i was 18.
& now i am 19 and lamenting.
aye. i. aye.
so i sat on my bed, a fetal ball, crying and wishing for more
almonds.
and i thought that i had found the boy in green pants, with lots of
books, and subversive ideas again. only his pants were on my
bedroom floor, the books i had all read, and the ideas didn’t
ascribe to the law of utility, to the principle of offense.
so i realized that there is no boy in the world who will speak
with prizes and still feel good deep between my legs.
crying on my bed. telling the sleeping boy how i wished i could
talk to dominic but that i didn’t know where the fuck he was.
[remembering when i didn’t know how to attack and he taught me
to strike.]
[remembering when i didn’t bleed and he gave me tests and tea.]
[remembering when i couldn’t speak and he fed me my voice.]
aye. i. aye.
all these things flew into my head right then.
the mice help maybe. the rats, the token mobsters.
i realized this past domingo [in toronto, fie] that i couldn’t be stationary.
i realized just yesterday that i couldn’t be on bottom.
i realized that bleeding is normal, and inhaling is foul,
that remembrance is cruel and letters ought be burned.
but there are many boys with my letters [pues, just three] and only one
knew how to read. but he wasn’t my dividend for the moment, for me.
and i thought of ginger, dates, plums, and my tea cup.
and i thought of mister dominic.
and i teared for an hour.
but the naked boy sleeping on my bed didn’t wake up. i tried to tear
quietly so that i wouldn’t have to explain….
that i don’t love him and i don’t believe in love.
and i gave it to one boy erroneously, only to realize later that i had sent
it home in afghan’s pocket. (we like to say it’s a lack of free will
but you just ask mr. carpenter about that)
oh friENDs, friENDs, friENDs, friend. it’s only friend with a few.
aye. i. aye.
no. i keep mister dominic under me skin.
i wish i could hear his voice, he makes me tear. i want the both of us to
shrink up and then put ourselves in water again. i know a lot about mercury
and vibrational modes. i can speak in tongues about the harm principle, its
conflict and faults. off to the auto-icon with hammers and wrenches. lots
and lots of pipes. really heavy pipes…{it’s me first pilgrimage}
[let’s absorb some heat.]
miss bentham. miss him a lot. pero no esta aqui…
so everyone coach me in telling someone who loves me that love doesn’t exist.
and i’ll shove him on the floor and put afghan into my pears .
i’m learning. i’m learning.
i’m still tearing.
{miss you mister d….}
aye. i. aye….i.
From: horsestorideon@hotmail.com
Subject: [paying my debts of obligatory stories] 1.1 (-ah,maybe it’ll even arrive)[or, connection troubles in the flat-lands]
Date: October 29, 1998 5:48:15 AM PST
To: mrvisible@worldnet.att.net, houseofthe2palms@hotmail.com, shorning@willamette.edu, sejohnst@midway.uchicago.edu, and 5 more…
the pretties girl i ever loved i met behind me in a social-sciences class when i was fifteen…
she didn’t really plus me then.
she was a year younger… something like that. she was really smart and she tried really hard.. and i respected that and all
but at that age, i was more interested in find every reason i could to hate everyone around me so i needn’t be bothered thinking about what the thought.
we all have our hang-ups, you know.
i left her when i was 17.
we never got on.
i, in fact, was an adversary of her brother
when he wasn’t trying to make friends with me because he was just a down-cast loser
[like
my
self]
i spent sometime away from that place
but had to return less than a year later.
my wonderful re-entry was riddled with beer and solitude.
i’d cast-off my old friends like so much lice or lovers.
i’d decided it was best to return to a space of empty abandon… as i felt that i couldn’t deal at all with the world i’d been given. [more on that later]
she drove my sister to school everyday:
picked her up in the morning and brought her back in the evening, had she any time.
my sister and her sister were good friends.
they hated eachother at times
but i just took it that girls spent their time like that to keep themselves from thinking about cleaning and cookies and cocks…
you know, girls are always trying to keep from thinking about something or other.
but this girl walked down stairs where i was in my underwear and a cloud of guilt and compression…
as if the entire atmosphere i lived in was meant to crush me
like i’d spent my entire time in a pressure cooker and i was just waiting until i became tender and soft and you could pick the meat off the flesh and tell the chef
“oh dear, it MELTS in the mouth”
we went driving.
i showed her how i stole things [all the time] and how you DON’t get caught.
i took her all the places she thought you couldn’t go [so it seems]
i asked her what she wanted to do but would never do
and we did it.
we burned magazines in an underpass decorated by the stress and the tension of my grestest and farthest lover
we spraypainted our confusion and angst on the hoods of the beautiful christian boys who were at an away-football-game
we talked about things she didn’t really think could be talked about
we didn’t have to be a boy or a girl
and we weren’t.
the pretties girl i ever loved was introduced to my greatest and farthest lover in a cloud of pop music, stolen wine and punturing orafices that hadn’t been dealth with.
i was the one who was cold on the floor;
they were under an afghan on the couch.
i loved them both so dearly…
so i decided she was always the one i wanted
so pretty, i thought.
we had a dinner part at my father’s other house
a camp
a cabin
we fought eachother out.
i don’t know, i loved her enough to give her acid and scream at her on the couch about MY world and how maybe she could see it
she sat on the floor enough to make me cry or shake or run
trying to show something i guess i never saw.
he put his hand on her foot
and she let him
and i was on my back…
staring at the ceiling in an effort to figure out why i couldn’t be as simple as a boy and girl…
i left them
as is my style
for a place where i didn’t think love could exist
[and manhattan was a good stomping ground too…]
phone calls and letters
[she sent them to me; i dial her up on her mother’s 888 number]
stuff of the movies
fourteen times over
i loved her and my lover she was getting fucked by.
i came back to them
and scared them all with stuff to put in the needles she supplied
with a foriegn friend
who my lover fucked around
but never got to the point.
i left her
to follow my lover
to a town where i could dry out
and stay drunk in my misery
of seeing postcards
and letters
to him everyday
comming to our mailbox
from her
and her wishes.
i translated her beauty for him
i bit my tongue til it bled.
she still called me when he never returned them. she still wanted me
in the way a person wants another person like they’d want themselves if they had the time.
a mirror, i wanted, i was, i was.
i loved her.
the prettiest girl i ever loved
cried on my bed
with the anger we’d always known.
my friends and my lover
the prettiest girl
…
we’d all been there before
we rooted her on
we secretly smiled.
she found me in her bed in the last mid-western city
she didn’t have time or the patience
as a boy so lazy as me.
a girl like that, so pretty and distant
a girl like that doesn’t need love fome someone who can’t do anything with it but scream and run from town to town.
who needs a bouy you can’t rely on?
who needs a star
you can’t be sure will be there at night?
i’m learning about the prettiest things.
distance is a teacher: stand on a hill and look at your house:
watch the front door open
and the curtains pick up through the breeze…
watch the sun set
and the shadows move
you can’t see that in there
you need a broken perspective
why else would you try to run back to the past
in this present state
when you know what you’ve lost
and you’ve forgotten it’s LOST.
like every real friEND
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