Flu-induced half dream diary

1.
long after things started improving i began to wonder if the witches had put a spell on me. in retrospect, i knew it all started with the first drag from that mentholated cigarette. i realized something, whatever it was, had changed when i listened to mingus' "let my children hear music" three times without knowing it was on repeat. i also became aware that i couldn't stop moving my feet back and forth, back and forth. i'd noticed that much earlier, actually, but attributed it to the mugwort which i am no longer accustomed to. when i finally turned off the music i listened to the ticking of the clock, which would occasionally mute itself, as if Time were taking dramatic pauses through the vast, spaceless night.

it seemed as though i hadn't slept so when i awoke i asked myself what it was i'd dreamt and my answer was "the theme of the dream was pink" and, whether or not this image was in my dream, i've attached to that sentence the image of a framed pure pink on a white wall. i only mention this dream at all as a kind of validated parking; to show i slept at all. i felt achy and weak. my girlfriend was there, looming above me and sorting through her work clothes. i've told her about dreams before but usually they are more interesting than that.

i must have fallen back to sleep because when i woke again she was gone. i had a lot of stuff i wanted to do with my day, primarily finish painting my bedroom. i'd left the job unfinished the previous afternoon, before vanessa came over and took me to visit the witches and the transvestite, (friends of hers). the main witch had filled the house with paintings of naked female vampire creatures with third-eyes in their vaginas. i spent most of the evening playing with the cat, zora, who was also transgender, or was a female with testicles. vanessa helped the witches cook pasta and the transvestite mostly stayed in her bedroom, probably studying victorian literature, which she had a masters degree in. after dinner we all watched a movie in someone's bed. before the movie we smoked a cigarette to help digest the meal - i don't usually smoke cigarettes. the transvestite did not watch the movie with us, she took over the kitchen after we evacuated it.

the longer i laid in bed the more difficult it became to get up. i couldn't fall asleep either, things just got strange. existence turned into a series of half dreams in a half sleep. i was like an exhausted treasure hunter, hunting aimlessly for sleep without a map; contorting myself as if i were a key and sleep were a door i could unlock. the sun would go down and the darkness was preferable, not because it was easier on my eyes but because maybe i would not notice myself when i got back from work. somewhere in the course of things i'd become a hologram. inevitably, the real gus was going to come in and either A) be terrified when he saw me or B) climb into bed and take up all the space. in darkness, even the moonlight through my window would burn my eyelids. i was obsessed with sleep. the clock ticking along beside me, the hissing radiator with its steam sounds, and my feet flapping crazily off the edge of the bed, doing some kind of satanic dance. time passed, perhaps days went by.

2.
i went into the kitchen and my roommate was there with her nephew. they were picturesque, sitting in chairs, drinking wine and talking to two ancient looking mongolian women via skype. they smiled up at me as i came in and i waved silently at the mongolian women in the computer. the four of them were speaking in mongolian while i looked for my box of blackberries in the refrigerator. they were talking about me, concerned about me.

"hi gus, i didn't know you were home?"

"yes, i've been in bed. i heard you listening to that cee-lo song. first in the explicit version and then in the radio version. i heard you making love with your boyfriend, and i'm glad the burns on his hands are improving."

her nephew laughed and said hello. we shook hands. i knew him because he lived with us for a while. i liked him. our conversations were mostly about bruce lee, who is currently buried in washington state. my roommate's nephew does not sleep in beds but prefers the floor. i never found my blackberries. perhaps i didn't own any. i returned to my bedroom empty handed as the mongolian women waved goodbye from mongolia.

3.
i asked god how many hairs were on my head and god replied, "what language has the least words?"
"i don't know god, which one?"
"i'm asking you because i do not know," replied god, "but it is the only language in which i can answer your question."

i was accepted into, and then dishonorably discharged from, a street gang. there had been a misunderstanding about my credentials. during that time, my glasses were rendered useless were i not wearing my contact lenses beneath them.

much earlier, it must have been 1998, my mom tricked people into thinking she could teleport by way of a secret passage in the house we lived in. i tried to explore the route on my own but wound up with a colony of stray dogs following me back out of the dishwasher and into the present. there was a nervous rabbit there too, who the dogs were trying to give a heart attack. that was a dream and it was overwhelming -- and so was the one in which a million orbs appeared in front of my eyes and each one was a question i was supposed to answer. explanations, one after another after another, shooting from me like a machine gun -- like my feet, revolving like a tennis ball gun -- hurling questions at me instead of tennis balls.

4.
kevin returned from europe and was sitting at his drum set. my bass guitar was suspended over my chest by strap-locks. it came to pass that i mentioned the sickness that had plagued me. i was surprised that kevin did not remember it, did not remember my physical absence or at least my mental absence. i know now that i got sick and got better within a two week period, because that's how long kevin was in europe. he told me about madrid and i told him about the night i watched blazing saddles with those witches and their strange ceremonial daggers and the job applications i submitted in the throes of a hallucinogenic illness that spoke through my ankles. the whole band was very excited for my job interview. outside, the streets were still covered in snow.

Advice (3,2,1,0)

 Advice 3

if you don't own
a lot of clothes
it's important to remember
not everybody
sees you everyday



Advice 2


all your heroes

had heroes

who they looked up to

to tell them

, in business terms

, what not to do


Advice 1

 the best time to get someone's advice
on something
is when you need reminding
that nobody knows
what's best for you


Advice 0

your nose stops running
when you stop worrying about it
and it starts running
when you realize you've got no tissue


January 3, 2011

The train pulls into the station and it's packed -- car after car glides passed you and you're psyching yourself up to do some gentle stranger-shoving. Then an empty car catches your eye. Thinking it's your lucky day, you and a few other naive commuters trot down the platform to the vacant car and look greedily over the abundance of vacant seats.

You may first notice a slumped over figure in the corner; probably sleeping, covered in blankets or coats, perhaps with a black garbage bag full of stuff on the floor near their legs. But more likely, the first thing you notice is the scent. That impossible stench of neglect so profound and low it can only exist in the greatest and most crowded cities on Earth. If you didn't transfer cars between stations you did so at the next stop.

But sometimes the scent is only terrible enough to evacuate a portion of the car. Such was the case on January 3rd, around 11pm on the M train. To be honest, for the first few minutes I was asking myself if the stench was coming from me. The smell felt weirdly familiar to me, it was a calm smell and I glared slyly at the tops of my shoes. When I looked up I realized many of my fellow passengers were holding their noses shut and shaking their heads at each other. The smell, I soon realized, was emanating from a man and a woman standing at the far end of the car. They were the only ones standing. The rest of us were seated.

They were tall. They seemed to be the largest people in our car, not obese or anything like that, they were powerful rectangles, planted alongside one another like redwood trees. The man stared out one window and the woman stared out another. They didn’t address each other, but they were obviously together. Aside from the rawness of their faces they did not look like New York's broken down and undead. It was confusing they should smell so bad.

The woman was statuesque, ferocious. High cheek bones. Looking - almost defiantly - out the window and at nothing at all. She was proud. Both of them were reasonably well dressed. They each had a large rolling suitcase in front of them. The woman had a knotted plastic bag on top of hers. The man wore a long brown overcoat. Just gazing out the window, the both of them. Tired. Tall. A little bit smelly. Crossing the Williamsburg bridge into Brooklyn.

The others continued plugging their noses and exchanging glances. Propping themselves up in exaggerated discomfort beneath the fluorescent lights of the train; making a campfire out of their mutual disgust. I was ashamed of them. If the smell was so bad they could have left - the other cars were just as empty. The fact is, they all secretly knew it wasn’t such a horrible smell. They were just trying to bring themselves closer to each other.

I wondered about the man and the woman. I wondered about their destination, their relation to each other. I imagined they were on the way to a new apartment. The stench they gave off was an accumulated stench. No person could develop an odor like that in just the three days we'd spent in 2011. They still smelled like last year. I think 2011 will be a better year for them than 2010 was. I can’t say the same for the other people on the train.

Spotting the Confederate

CHAPTER 11

...at the end of another virtually indiscernible path I found Peggy pulling in her fishing nets. We hadn't seen each other since the revolution. She'd carved out a little home in the cliff. We went inside and Peggy put the kettle on the hot plate. She was a pirate now and looked like stone. She had no decorations or furniture in her home except a wooden chair with a ream of wire on it. All was silent except the buzz of the generator; hard to believe we were still in the city.

I used her restroom and noticed the medicine cabinet was wide open and empty. The back of its door had a message scrawled on it in marker. Someone had used white paint to conceal the majority of the words so at the top I could only read the name "MARGARET" and at the bottom it said "THE KEY TO THE OPEN SEA" then a little more white paint, then the signature, "- THE DUCK" ....it looked like a love note or a dear john letter or a love poem where all the love had been removed. The whole thing was in upper case letters.

I told Peggy where I'd been but intentionally left out having seen the minister's children. There was something troubling about her now. She listened to me but hardly said a word; smoking and sorting out her nets, never looking at me. She said she needed to leave but invited me to stay as long as I wished. We shook hands and I was left alone, sipping tea on the back porch, looking out at the ocean, wondering about the duck. I overheard the minister's children again just a little ways above me, then I saw a man trying to walk across the precarious incline at the edge of the island without rolling into the sea. He was wearing a confederate uniform. The minister's kids saw him struggling and went over to help him.

I realized Peggy's house was actually a houseboat; not part of Manhattan. She had a dinghy tied to the back and I borrowed it...

The story of Manny and the blind man

Ever since he told it to me I've tried to write it. Manny's story about helping the blind man when nobody else would. He told it to me at work, during a slow day. He was mopping the floor and I leaned against the reception desk, completely captivated. Unfortunately every time I try to write the story it comes up short.

One time I was exiting the 50th St. Station on the 1 train and I passed the Dunkin' Donuts built into the station. I think that's the 1 train? Anyway, it was the station I went to with Maida one time and she got a small coffee:

There were two Indian guys closing down the gates on the shop. I think they were Indian. One of them was in uniform while the other was wearing a formal suit. As I passed them the sharp dressed guy asked the uniformed guy, "So, how was last night?" then there was a short silence in which they both grinned. The uniformed guy shook his head, laughed, and replied, "I had a lot of fun." And then they both laughed.

I wondered about the look exchanged between the question and the answer. Sometimes I try to fill that look with something and I can't do it. I'd like to fill that look with Manny's story about the time he helped the blind man get on the correct bus.

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