Tuesday, March 29, 2005

On Tuesday, March 29, 2005
he ordered two raisin biscuits and a sausage egg sandwich from the most incompetent employee in the history of Hardees. The boy stared at the console in front of him for half a minute, before finally looking up, astonished, confused, saying with genuine disbelief, "I'm sorry, what did you order again? I forgot."

On Monday, March 28, 2005
he stood on a boulder in the Wisconsin River, fishing cigarettes out of the water. Finally, Matt laid them to dry on a sundrenched boulder and the three of them relaxed. The scent of pine trees. The river. The friends and the newly warm sun. He needed this. You have no idea.

On Sunday, March 27, 2005
he broke the windshield wiper control stick off the steering column of his mother's Saturn.

On Friday, March 25, 2005
he picked up a book on existentialism and read a few words by Nietzche, "Most die too late. Few people die too early," and thought, no wonder everyone thinks you're an asshole.

On Wednesday, March 23, 2005
he wrote, "Maybe it's the things I don't know about you that keep you beautitful."

On Monday, March 21, 2005
he read the following passage by Philip Roth. " . . . the unfolding of the unforeseen was everything. Turned the wrong way round, the relentless unforeseen was what we school-children studied as "History," harmless history, where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled as inevitable. The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic.

On Wednesday, March 16, 2005
he wrote, "It's a short distance from birth to death, and it's a brave man who pretends otherwise."

On Monday, March 14, 2005
something really funny happened, but I guess you had to be there.

On Wednesday, March 09, 2005
he read the following passage by Flannery O'Connor. "All he would be was an observer. He waited with serenity. Life had never been good enough to him for him to wince at its destruction. He told himself that he was indifferent even to his own dissolution. It seemed to him that this indifference was the most that human dignity could achieve, and for the moment forgetting his lapses, forgetting even his narrow escape of the afternoon, he felt he had achieved it. To feel nothing was peace."

On Monday, March 07, 2005
the descent took forty minutes. He slipped and fell a few times in the shale, gliding on his ass twice. He discovered it was easier in the steep passes to walk backwards, using a stick for leverage.

On Saturday, March 05, 2005
he suspected that others found his stories annoying.

On Friday, March 04, 2005
the internet resumed operation. Once again he could post insipid thoughts to the internet. He was out of practice.

On Thursday, March 03, 2005
he wrote, "I must look out the window on the way north to Seattle. Let the words find me. With high sirrus clouds smudging the sun, the washed out late afternoon daylight on railroad tracks, industrial plants, rivers, mountains, dead grass, bare tree forests. We're far enough north now, in March, to have escaped the numb ravages of southern America's perpetual summer. Give me seasons. Give me the secure peace of a warm house on a cold day."

On Tuesday, March 01, 2005
he had already set up his gear on stage, and eaten, and still it was two hours to showtime. So he walked, wandering Chehalis neighborhoods, marveling at houses like the Victorian atop a hill with a small, boxy turret above the doorway, a giant antique lamp in the window. He visited the single room library next to the courthouse. Four people on four internet stations, around a circular table, a wall of magazines, three books on Irish history, an entire shelf on Jesus, and no subscription to the New York Times.

The churches. The religion of small towns. The single screen cinema showing Hitch. Railroad tracks. A feed store. A courthouse dated 1927, and he noted that Wisconsin's rural communities had 50-70 years history on this, the west coast. People seen through the windows of a laundrymat. People kneeling in a store front Spanish church, where the pews are plastic lawn chairs. Sadness and faith. All the majesty has gone out of God. No one builds cathedrals anymore. The church as institution has lost its preeminence to that of capitalism. We have traded the deadly sin of pride for that of greed. All of it comes out. Each day passes and we are less.

He returned to the club and sat at a table in the corner, writing in his journal, "Nate is talking to Will. Kari reads War and Peace by the merch display. Ken is out in the van on his computer. I savor the space to think aimlessly, to waste thought, to wander my head like an unfamiliar city whose dark streets promise absolution. Forgive me. Forgive me. Let this be my form. Miles comes in and sits down at the table, reading the Da Vinci Code. No words exchanged. I could have at least nodded and acknowledged his presence. I didn't even look up. I am such an ass. Vile shifty bastard. His phone rings. Miles gets up, leaves his book face down on the table and exits stage left. Some nights I have ambition and energy for nothing more than staring at my navel. Loneliness, you have served me well. Taverns and insurance offices in Chehalis with signs Welcoming Back the troops. Oh miserable war. A train blows past, screeching steel and howling. Let trains never die. Joe sits his book on my table and walks over to Kari. Nate comes out of the bathroom and everyone talks about his shit. He dumped. A man wearing all black, including a leather jacket, and a mustache, walks over to us, makes a lame eager joke about us reading books . . . 'Excuse me' . . . doopy smile . . . 'you're freaking everyone out. We have a high illiteracy rate in this county.' Then something about feces. At the end of the day, it's all about putting things in or out of your body."

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home