Elevator Ride Girl update:

She stood so close. That was the main problem, the one unshakable fact. All the rest of it could be argued away, like the odds on a prop bet. Improbable? Sure, but the chalk doesn't always win. But then, the one irrefutable intrusion on my little fairy tale elevator ride — she stood so fucking close. It explained everything. She stood in my physical space, which meant I also stood in her physical space. Me, a complete stranger, and frankly, typically viewed as a gruff unapproachable stranger. And me, a much older stranger. Twenty five years, at least. Yet, there we were, almost chest to chest. Almost mouth to mouth. Her, weight on her toes, pointed up. Jesus, as unlikely as it may sound, she was definitely stretching towards me. It's not made up. Her extended to her physical limit, reaching up. To an impartial observer, as if lovers.

A week later I saw her in the hallway. A daytime fire alarm was screaming in my apartment, the voice on the intercom shrill and futuristic. Please exit your apartment now! Do not, I repeat, do not use the elevators! Please, exit your apartment now. I had been napping — still recovering from the surgery — and surely looked like disheveled hell when I stepped out into the hall. Looking around for smoke, wondering if this was a fire drill or the real thing. Within seconds she was stepping out of the unit two doors down. My very pretty neighbor.

She startled seeing me. I suppose she wasn't expecting to find anyone else home this time of day. But her mind connected the dots quickly enough and she smiled. A warm smile that might have been practiced. But I'm no expert. She stepped closer even though the exit is in the other direction. To collect me, I suppose, when she touched my elbow. A gentle tug. A pull, maybe. The warmth in her fingers, the trace of palm. Her scent, when she leaned in. What do we do now?

Her story, delivered somewhat nervously, like from a liar who realizes after the words have been spoken that he didn't put much thought into the story: she had a window between classes and had stopped home for a bite of lunch, and a quick nap, time permitting. If I seem edgy, she said, it's because the fire drill ate my nap. Hmmm. That would make me edgy too, I said. I lied, but if she caught it, or cared, she didn't let on. I lied because nothing makes me edgy. I am edgy. Always edgy. More than edgy. That others can't see this amazes me. So for me, no need to lie about it. But, I allowed, maybe it's different for a girl. Such a pretty girl.

We took the stairs down and down — if she slowed her pace to accommodate my weakened one I didn't notice. And not because I didn't look. It was like we'd been taking walks for years. For fifteen levels we gabbed about this and that, mostly question and answer, introductory stuff, like that first you-come-here-often drink at the bar. Well, better than that, but there was a similar unease, a similar uncertainty, that we couldn't walk off or shrug off. Probably because of the lie, but maybe something else. When we hit garage level, 4th floor, she got off because, she said, she had a mathematics class to teach at the university, and, well, the fire alarm ate her nap. I escorted her to her car. Waved when the late model Mercedes pulled away.

A decent fellow would've let things be. Left things alone. He'd have taken the unexpected win that fell into his lap twice and called it a day. Maybe availed himself of the multiple sensuous impressions she'd imparted when he found himself in time of need. The scent of her inflating an otherwise listless hour or two. I suppose. I can't really speak to what a decent fellow would do. Whatever another fellow does, or doesn't do, might as easily be attributed to cowardice as decency. Which would make him a pussy fellow and not a decent fellow, now wouldn't it? That's been my experience anyways. Most so called decent fellows would fuck you right in the ass, given the chance to get away scotch free. Given only half a chance, a lot of them.

I added two plus two and got four. Simple enough. I found her class schedule online. Office hours. Rate a Prof scores, and comments. Facebook. Blog. Linkedin. Result: Single, 26, adjunct professor at University, PhD candidate Mathematics (topology) at (different) University. Fluffy dog named Spank that she saved from the shelter. Spurs fanatic. Family in Laredo. Father proud of his little girl's accomplishments. So she has stated. Repeatedly, across multiple platforms. Youngest sister is 14 and the only pictures show her wearing a white dress with a flower pinned into her long black hair. Thick luxuriant black hair, like her older sister. Dad is shown within arm's reach, smiling. Surely proud of his girl. Both of his girls.

There's more. Much more. I'll update again when I can.

John Olson says

"Turning words into art is unnatural. It begins with a contrary attitude. It says, I am unhappy with the way things are and desire to make things different. Rather than represent the world, I will make something wildly and savagely new. I will defy logic. I will invest in new perceptions. I will combine and recombine and fabricate and juggle until something that I have never experienced is experienced. The process is alchemical. The process is violent. It goes to the heart of creativity. It disrupts and shatters. It is splendid with provocation. It is an aggression against banality. It is sharp and loud like a janitor scraping frost from a window. The hectic bounce of steam on a street after a truck roars by. The anarchy of waters, the comedy of the face, dangerous feelings vented from a cage of skin."


Lovely, huh?

But now I think I've been doing it all wrong.

liking tom howard

This story

http://willowsprings.ewu.edu/archives/74-Howard-Bandana.pdf

forced me to read it much faster than I am accustomed. As stubborn as I be, that's impressive. Plus, I usually don't like "this sort" of story. What is real, what's at stake? It's like playing poker for funsies. It's not fun.

Yet. I totally dig this story. You whipped my ass, Tom Howard. You da man.




p.s., I've been thinking on this story all day and have decided I hate it.

elevator ride

She was already on the elevator when I returned from grocery shopping. Early afternoon, two forty five, almost the perfect dead zone for human contact. Except for today. She had parked on four and I failed to notice her when driving past and on up to my parking spot on five. I'm sure I looked. I always look.

The doctor said no driving for six weeks, minimum. Lifting restricted to five pounds, pending further examination of the wounds. That's why I was only going to buy a few things at the grocery store. Dairy and produce, a few cuts of meat. A whole chicken, maybe. But then it got to feeling so good to be out and about. Fully ambulatory, even if restricted. Driving my car to my grocery store, shopping for what I want. Free. Free to drop whatever I wanted into the shopping cart.

When the elevator doors parted there she was. Standing just inside the door, to my left. By the control panel. I needed to pause the elevator but she was in the way. Rather than step into her space I asked would she mind holding the elevator while I went about loading my groceries stacked outside the door. One bag at a time. Reduced to using two hands to lift one goddamned bag at a time and then groaning at that. Fucking pitiful. She smiled the smile one smiles while dropping an envelope into the passed collection basket, or while dropping a dollar into the bum's tin or grimy hand. The fully gracious but detached smile. Or is it fully detached but gracious smile? Either way, it sets me off. The poor you, poor poor you, poor piteous you, smile.

"Let me help you?" No. Fuck no! Can't you see - I've got it. "Please?" Without waiting for another mumble she stepped in front of me and grabbed up the remaining four bags and set them down beside the others. Turned and faced me, square on. Smiled. Rolled up a sleeve to show me a muscle she had an hour earlier been working on at the gym. Smiled an almost laugh. Posed like a bodybuilder, while the doors closed and the bell chimed. Posed one way then another. Finished posing and stepped closer. Cut the elevator like a skilled boxer cuts the ring. Cornered me. Just like that.

Her standing close. So close. What did I notice first? That's easy - the wash of her breath across my neck. Her breathing, full, deep, came in rushes. Like a pretty dainty soundless bellow? Sure, like that. Just as sudden as that. There's no planning for this sudden taste of her. Her breath pouring across my neck. Jesus. Her breath bending me over. Pulling my face and head down, towards the source. Compelling me to lean into it. To lean into her. Drawing my face into her breath. Then she is pouring breath into my eyes and I feel I might weep. But one needs oxygen to weep and I find myself without such. My own breathing long since stopped. I picture: a bent stickman, mouth agape, a silent gasp.

I didn't weep and I didn't suffocate. I got air into me somehow without choking, while appearing, I think, somewhat normal in the process. But I knew there was nothing normal about this predicament. Me: a shell, weakened to almost death, empty, barely a cardboard box of a man and quite fully ashamed of the implications. Her: so spectacular as to defy description, intelligent exuberance pushing against her every seam, clawing and shouting, even when just breathing. It was not lost on me that we were like two opposite ends of a spectrum, two distant outliers.

Then an odd thing happened: the discomfort of this predicament, of her, pushed into me, into all of me, into even the dark places I will not visit, and pushed words right out of me. Like a plumber's snake: winding and winding and winding, no telling what it will find? Well, this snake found words. Blurted shabby words, at the first. Like how a dope gabs. The first thought into the pea brain gets spat out, lest it be forgotten. But her breathing continued, uninterrupted. As before, as encouragement, or, maybe, as salve, and then blurted shabby words eventually became banter. Words and words and more words, Jesus, like a goddamned race or something to see who could get the most words out. Some laughter and smiles and I can feel her hand on my arm. No shutting us up as the lights on the control panel next to my head blink and blink.

another character with a life more interesting than mine own surfaces

Often I feel more geometer than writer. "Often," in this instance, means when I'm frustrated with process. With result. When I'm tired of exploring him, and instead would explore her. Or vice versa. But something prevents me. I feel a need to move along. Some instinct pushes for only length. Ignore depth. Get a snapshot of a duration. Two dimensional will do fine here. Character for illustrative purposes only. Make haste along the x-axis.

Other times I would dawdle in one spot, on one set of coordinates, indefinitely. I would latch onto this point, burrow to the very center, then expand, making the competing axes shake to accommodate this new scale of Universe. Shake it into four dimensions if need be. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, however many the stringers say there need be. I would have them all. Look! Damn it, look around. I could survive forever on what I find here. This miniature infinity.

Of course, the reader has long since yawned away. Or, at least, that is the fear.

Choosing a narrative path is pure terror. Writing this means not writing that. Or at least not writing it in that order. Not writing it then. And sometimes then is the most important thing. As the Poet has said, "But you already know this." Yes. This is no original lament.

But some days everywhere I look the world is on fire. Burning like a secret. And I so fear getting it wrong.


   

who the (expletive) am I kidding

A rhetorical question, I suppose. The answer is well known. I am, after all, a repeat offender. Which reminds me of a story. A story about my cousin Patsy, who was born into life on a poultry farm with four older brothers, and a stubborn as hell old man who served bacon and eggs every morning for breakfast. Patsy didn't like eggs. I don't know if she once liked, or didn't mind, eggs, and over time grew to dislike them, or, if she disliked them from jump street. But, either way, Patsy's dislike of eggs was sufficiently large to be classified as hate. And so some mornings she wouldn't eat her eggs. She'd eat the bacon and toast, drink her orange juice, and then ask to be excused. "Finish your eggs," my uncle would say. "I'm finished," Patsy would say. Then he would give her a sharp look and she would pick up her plate and take it into the kitchen, put it into the refrigerator.

Confession: I witnessed more than one of these breakfast "sessions." I too giggled with my brothers and my male cousins. I doubt that I actually thought it funny, but there was so much I didn't understand at my uncle's farm that I suppose I was relieved to find an easy enough way to fit in with the other males - just laugh at the girl along with everybody else.

At lunchtime my uncle would serve Patsy the eggs remaining from the morning. He wouldn't heat them, or doctor them in any way. The same plate would be set at her place at the table. A cruel anticipation would build amongst the rest of us - would she, or would she not, eat the eggs? Her face offered no clue - her face freely displaying the distress she felt. She looked continuously on the verge of tears. I thought: a word, a look, and she might spill.

And some times she did spill. Loud enormous fully expressed girl tears. She might also scream. Or pound a fist on the table. But never two fists. She knew to always keep a hand on the plate during the storm - a special hell to pay should the eggs hit the floor. After she'd fled the table, she'd be summoned back to retrieve the eggs and take them to the refrigerator for dinner.

Thinking about cousin Patsy recently, about her plight, it occurred to me that certain fates can not be escaped. Get born on an egg farm and you're going to eat eggs. Or maybe it's just that sometimes the cure is more destructive than the condition.

My attempts to finish John have in many ways mimicked the eating ritual of my poor cousin Patsy. I have gladly eaten the toast (with lots of jelly) and bacon. Drunk several glasses of orange juice. Cup after cup of coffee. And then pushed away from the table (desk) expecting - what?

Did Patsy ever sit down to the table expecting anything other than the uneaten eggs? Did she think they'd magically go away, replaced by her favorite sandwich meat or a lovely cobb salad? Did she really believe her father, my uncle, would ever relent from his particular form of justice?

It's much easier to ask those questions of cousin Patsy than myself. What did I expect when pushing away from John? Did I expect that I'd return to the metaphoric table to find a delicious meal consisting of everything I like and none of what I hate? None of what frightens me, intimidates me?

Aside: I recently read a thoughtful piece on Writing, the author making the argument that Writing need be Fun. I thought: if you're having Fun Writing, I'm likely not having Fun Reading. But my opinion is likely Minority. I also once told Writer Friend, as Criticism: you're just not smart enough to engage or entertain me with only your Brain - I need Heart.

(No, I'm not re-inventing myself as a Hunter S Thompson wannabe. A sudden Urge, that has mostly Passed.)

Like Jesus on the cross, taking all of our sins, Patsy's memory lives to inform me. John will ALWAYS be there. Your father is the same as my father. Long on memory. Insistent and inflexible. You need not like it, she tells me. Pain is mandatory, suffering is optional, she reminds me.

So. I can't be rid of John just yet. I have re-learned this fact. I am always pleased when I feel I've learned something important, even if it's a re-learning. Admittedly, there's some ambivalence then - shame does bleed through. But after I have dealt with the shame, the after-hue, the basking, often reveals what I call bonus truth. Bonus truth is like a silver lining, an epiphany, a realization, a blessing. Call it what you will. A little jolt of understanding. Connection with Correct?

Maybe bonus truth is like a gratuity from Above. Hey kid, good job on working through that re-re-re-realization (Fucker keeps impeccable score) and so here's a little something extra, for your trouble. Who ever turns down a gratuity?

My bonus truth: the poet Mudd was needed to introduce John. Not exactly, but in a "linking" sort of way. In a John way. And, if I've done my work properly, "in a Mudd way."

I wish I could describe the delight I experienced when the poet Mudd ambled his way into the Foreword. His bemused indifference, his famed obstinacy, his intellectual acrobatics, all combined to  offer counter-balance to an eager, mirthful, and uncertain author. Maybe the last is clue to the necessity of the poet Mudd - I never feel quite as certain as when conversing with Mudd. I am always Right, and he is always ... drinking? Maybe Fun will be found here now.

Soon enough I'll have a few words from the poet Mudd. And more on John.

after John

There was a girl. Of course there were before girls and after girls, but mostly there was a girl and then there wasn't a girl. At least that's how I demarcate, where I draw the lines. Where I drew the lines. And when I'm weak, feeling sorry, I'll say where life drew the lines.

The girl and I spent six months intensely entwined. Then no more. Then I was packed and driving, stopping in Texas only because, Why not? Distance the only prerequisite. I'd spotted her six years before she became the girl - yes, I knew, who doesn't know - but we'd only had the one night: music and drink, moonlight and pier, a borrowed blanket; water ripples I occasionally hear. We also had an unhappy after: letters and phone calls, her on a plane. Her back on the plane, two days early. Tears. Fucking sobbing. Locked doors now where before windows.

This morning I was thinking about the girl over coffee. Over writing. She's there, often, for a bit. Then I get down to business. Some days, anyways. This morning I realized John* and I had also spent six months entwined. Every morning waking to John. Talking to John. Coffee with John at my square solid wooden desk (the same desk Alan Mudd turned into a table to stack his liquor bottles on) and then hours at the computer - where today? anywhere is good, John, anywhere - and then late morning walks and trolley rides and some days coffee at Espuma with the poet: How's John, he'd ask, the poet knowing as is John as is me.

I failed at John as I failed at the girl. It should be admitted, it is true. He remains, like her, as placeholder now. When I am desperate for a certain feeling I will break him out, like I do with the girl. I told her once, the last time I visited her, when I write of love I write of you. What I didn't tell her is that I rarely write of love. And when I do, I flail at it, fail at it. Feeling like I don't know a damn thing about it. So I write of loss, that's what I understand. Of course, that too is of her. But now it is also of John.

Now, some good news: after the girl, after the reconciliation attempts and after trying many  approximate girls, eventually, came a second girl. The second girl got me to unlock some of those doors. And now, after several John reconciliations and approximations, comes after John. It's become time to tell someone else's story. Time to entwine again. I have a shape of things and an insistence. That's about it for now. But the insistence is strong. Which is why it's insistence. And I like the shape. I know the shape. Or it knows me. For now let's call it some combination of these four words: low city high rise.




* John is reference to John Duff, a fictional character from an unfinished novel.