I finally had to shut my mind to ward off the chattering of the young college students. I was riding the university shuttle bus to Georgetown with that segment of youth - the rich kids - who feigned weariness with the world yet breathlessly gushed about shoes and trust funds.
The university hall was a modest, well-lit room, with a couple of tables against the back wall with trays of cookies and refreshments. Rows of simple metal chairs faced two long tables that had been joined to form the panel. Most of the students were seated when I arrived.
This segment of youth had no trust funds, colored faces that had turned out to see the panel of nine lawyers of color, alumni of the university, speak about their experiences in law. Because we were lawyers - thoroughly disassembled and reassembled by the Great Machine of society - we took turns complementing each other and outdoing each other in smoother and more impressive maneuvers. Laughter punctuated the event.
While someone at the far left was speaking about how wonderful it was to work at the legal department of a gigantic media corporation, I finished my carrot stick. I was speaking suddenly out of a sense of urgency. Biting back the nausea of the evening, I disarmed the room by making a quick joke about the funny thing that happened to me on the way to the forum - I had nose surgery, and touched the splint. Then I launched into the message that I had to deliver as if on a mission.
There was a disease within the Great Machine, a sickness that only those who cared about the common good could sense. The engine of change and protection within the Great Machine was government. But that engine was being dismantled. Lawyers, as tools of the Great Machine, had the power and responsibility to ameliorate the sickness that everywhere the headlines screamed each day. But you, dear students, will find it hard to become tools of change. We with our many colors are all in the same group, and the ones who have written the rules are not in this room. So I caution you now: the rules were not written for you. You will have to work hard. But persevere. You will be able to do it. We sit before you here today as proof that it is possible.
The mission was accomplished: the nine of us had stepped out of the misty chamber of the past, time travelers with a message, but only I had apparently retained the memory of our temporal journey and of the charge that had been laid upon us by the masters of history. Being the single witness to history, the mission had been saved.
I sat back when it was over and watched the students fan out to speak to the panelists individually; a group was headed towards me, a black woman and two Asian men. As I answered their questions, I felt a sense of relief. The nausea was receding, leaving me with the certain knowledge that I was less detached, perhaps not detached at all. For what witness could tell his story in utter detachment?
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Chapter 19
For days my consciousness remained suspended, protected by the consolation of work. In the mornings, the dry leaves would congregate on the edges of the sidewalks; I had no discourse with them. Passing the newspapers in their dispensers, the headlines attempted to scream but their sounds were muffled, my consciousness protected by detachment. In any event, I was certain that the headlines were not screaming about the faceless and the numberless.
For days I had been holding down my regular caseload and at the same time attending what seemed like endless training at the United States Attorney's Office. Though I had been litigating cases for a couple of years now, no one was a true prosecutor until he had trained with the Feds. And so I plunged into the dizzying details of opening statements, the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, probable cause, search warrants, Miranda warnings, direct examination, hearsay, the exceptions to hearsay, drug test results, gun certifications, objections, preparing witnesses, impeaching witnesses, cross examination, and closing arguments.
Attorneys - by the time they become attorneys - have been thoroughly disassembled and reassembled by The Great Machine, that colossal, invisible system that sometimes goes by the inadequate term of "society." As such, they are ready with automatic expressions of sympathy when I volunteer information about my nose surgery, thus relieving them of using energy to look at my face and its nose splint nonchalantly. That energy could then be shunted to other productive uses, like parking their cars in the morning.
For days, the telephone would ring at my office with people on the other end who had things to say. One day, the telephone rang and an investigator introduced himself, explaining that he was assigned to my assault case. It was his job to develop a case, if any, against the nightclub in question. The irony - the leaves gossiped about this as I passed them once - was that armed as I was with prosecutorial weapons, the assailant would likely never be seen again. But the irony could not penetrate detachment. Thus, the energy of my interview with the investigator traveled along the telephone lines, igniting the awesome engines of Government as its great wheels began to creak and turn in the direction of the unsuspecting nightclub owner and his employees.
For days I had been holding down my regular caseload and at the same time attending what seemed like endless training at the United States Attorney's Office. Though I had been litigating cases for a couple of years now, no one was a true prosecutor until he had trained with the Feds. And so I plunged into the dizzying details of opening statements, the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, probable cause, search warrants, Miranda warnings, direct examination, hearsay, the exceptions to hearsay, drug test results, gun certifications, objections, preparing witnesses, impeaching witnesses, cross examination, and closing arguments.
Attorneys - by the time they become attorneys - have been thoroughly disassembled and reassembled by The Great Machine, that colossal, invisible system that sometimes goes by the inadequate term of "society." As such, they are ready with automatic expressions of sympathy when I volunteer information about my nose surgery, thus relieving them of using energy to look at my face and its nose splint nonchalantly. That energy could then be shunted to other productive uses, like parking their cars in the morning.
For days, the telephone would ring at my office with people on the other end who had things to say. One day, the telephone rang and an investigator introduced himself, explaining that he was assigned to my assault case. It was his job to develop a case, if any, against the nightclub in question. The irony - the leaves gossiped about this as I passed them once - was that armed as I was with prosecutorial weapons, the assailant would likely never be seen again. But the irony could not penetrate detachment. Thus, the energy of my interview with the investigator traveled along the telephone lines, igniting the awesome engines of Government as its great wheels began to creak and turn in the direction of the unsuspecting nightclub owner and his employees.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Chapter 18
The television reporter was in need of a bath. But so was everyone else in that forsaken country so the smells did not matter, merely part of the background. In the foreground, the local warlord had agreed to give an interview and tell the world how carnage had become as normal as the dust storms. It was dry morning in the village, before the blistering heat would overtake all but the warriors. With a sweeping gesture, the warlord - drooping robes over his thin arm, for no one was fat - pointed out the trajectory of his men. From this temporary base, the warriors - with no formal education, no employment prospects in the modern world, no understanding of the international order - would ride out and rid the land of its rot: the former inhabitants, all of whom had been terrorized into taking flight with only the clothes on their frail black forms, dragging their elderly and carrying their children and breadbaskets: refugees all whose lives were every day sapped by the scorching rocks of that sun-baked wasteland. Each day, the warlord's men on horseback drew ever closer with their spears and machetes until the scorching rocks cooled with the blood of nameless, faceless, numberless beings whose story would never be told in the evening news. The warlord grinned at the camera: a near-toothless grin, a smile beyond good and evil, like an earthquake or a tidal wave.
About 6,500 miles to the west, across an entire ocean, I was crossing the street and heard:
"Oh God! What in the world happened to your nose?"
My field of vision temporarily expanded, in a sort of spasm, and I took her in: an old woman - fat, dressed in layers of old coats - clearly homeless and mentally ill, shuffled past. Her two small, black eyeballs were lost in the clumps of flesh that collected on her blistered, wasted face. Those tiny orbs registered my nose splint for a moment, then moved on to the other senseless objects of her senseless world. Only her frozen, open-mouthed grin - nearly toothless - bore witness that she had once spoken.
About 6,500 miles to the west, across an entire ocean, I was crossing the street and heard:
"Oh God! What in the world happened to your nose?"
My field of vision temporarily expanded, in a sort of spasm, and I took her in: an old woman - fat, dressed in layers of old coats - clearly homeless and mentally ill, shuffled past. Her two small, black eyeballs were lost in the clumps of flesh that collected on her blistered, wasted face. Those tiny orbs registered my nose splint for a moment, then moved on to the other senseless objects of her senseless world. Only her frozen, open-mouthed grin - nearly toothless - bore witness that she had once spoken.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Chapter 17
When I awoke the morning after the surgery, it was too late to pretend that it had been a dream - though it had seemed like a dream due to the complete absence of fear. Occupying the lower third of my field of vision was the splint, a piece of grey plastic fastened to my nose to keep it in place while the broken bones inside healed.
I laid in bed for what seemed a long time; the dark walls in the apartment turned into shadows light and dark. For a moment, I thought the sadness had come to sit at the foot of the bed. But I turned and saw it was only the lone tree in the corner; I had watered it but it still needed more attention.
The man in the bathroom mirror, that one there with the black and white beard, tried to speak but I would not let him. Quietly - for what was there to say and to whom? - I dressed and stepped out into the grey morning.
Avoiding the crowded escalator that descended into the station, I opted for the elevator. A woman with a baby entered the elevator before the doors managed to shut. The baby made gurgling noises and the woman cooed in a foreign language but I could not see them as I had placed them behind me. The splint was affecting my eyes, pulling them down, narrowing their field of vision. To compensate, my hearing sharpened; life became all sound.
In the train car, the furtive glances rustled, the hushed sounds of eyeballs moving in their sockets and eyelashes fluttering. Newspapers creaked but necks craned heads above the papers to see this Creature that stood there under the electric light that was totally emotionally detached. The doors chimed, flung open, shoes thundered, coats flapped, and suddenly I was surrounded by backs and shoulders in a smothering crowd - cut off from all view. I breathed in the blind silence.
I laid in bed for what seemed a long time; the dark walls in the apartment turned into shadows light and dark. For a moment, I thought the sadness had come to sit at the foot of the bed. But I turned and saw it was only the lone tree in the corner; I had watered it but it still needed more attention.
The man in the bathroom mirror, that one there with the black and white beard, tried to speak but I would not let him. Quietly - for what was there to say and to whom? - I dressed and stepped out into the grey morning.
Avoiding the crowded escalator that descended into the station, I opted for the elevator. A woman with a baby entered the elevator before the doors managed to shut. The baby made gurgling noises and the woman cooed in a foreign language but I could not see them as I had placed them behind me. The splint was affecting my eyes, pulling them down, narrowing their field of vision. To compensate, my hearing sharpened; life became all sound.
In the train car, the furtive glances rustled, the hushed sounds of eyeballs moving in their sockets and eyelashes fluttering. Newspapers creaked but necks craned heads above the papers to see this Creature that stood there under the electric light that was totally emotionally detached. The doors chimed, flung open, shoes thundered, coats flapped, and suddenly I was surrounded by backs and shoulders in a smothering crowd - cut off from all view. I breathed in the blind silence.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Chapter 16
I never fully understood what happened to me or what they did to me in that room. The clock on the wall said a certain time; there was some friendly banter with the doctor who took photographs of my face for the "Before" in "Before and After." There was some more friendly banter with the anesthesiologist who ironically broke his nose years ago and never bothered to fix it. And there was yet more friendly banter with the nurse as they wheeled the stretcher down busy hallways to the operating room:
"Have you had anything to eat? Juice, crackers?"
"Are you offering me any? 'Cause I'd sure like some - haven't had anything to eat since last night."
Then there was the awkward shift from the stretcher onto the operating table, trying not to flash my ass to the operating crew as I struggled in one of those silly hospital gowns. The hairnet I wore was too big for my head. Then I saw another clock say a certain time and the anesthesiologist's hand came down on my face with a transparent mask that shot oxygen into my nose, winds that scattered the dry leaves down the hallways in my body.
Then Dr. Who appeared again, telling me that he was going to spray medicine down my nose to help with any bleeding. Suddenly, rivers of acid were rushing down the hallways in my body, searing away all the dry leaves.
"Holy shit!"
There was ringing laughter in the operating room at my response, perhaps from the doctors moving about, but the ringing seemed to come from the equipment. Everything was glaring bright: the machines, the lamps, the walls. Everything was antiseptic. Everything detached.
Somebody was injecting something in a tube connected to me. It would make me sleep, he said. There was a digital timer on the wall next to the clock but I didn't know what it was measuring. Then I looked up and the nurse appeared to be a walking avocado in her green smock with scores of avocados printed all over her or were they lemons it was hard to tell what the timer was timing perhaps another world where someone feared for me like a person paid to cry at a funeral because I never noticed the fear or the absence of fear but only that suddenly life mattered less and less and meaning was sliding helplessly off the bright walls and then
nothing.
I opened my eyes and it was another room, one of those curtained bays, overlooking a central station with doctors and nurses moving like traffic. A clock on the wall was whispering that an hour and a half of my life had been detached, beyond reach. Dr. Who appeared and told me that my nose was now straight and that I would see him again in nine days to remove the nose splint. Thank you, doctor. Then came the juice and crackers.
"Have you had anything to eat? Juice, crackers?"
"Are you offering me any? 'Cause I'd sure like some - haven't had anything to eat since last night."
Then there was the awkward shift from the stretcher onto the operating table, trying not to flash my ass to the operating crew as I struggled in one of those silly hospital gowns. The hairnet I wore was too big for my head. Then I saw another clock say a certain time and the anesthesiologist's hand came down on my face with a transparent mask that shot oxygen into my nose, winds that scattered the dry leaves down the hallways in my body.
Then Dr. Who appeared again, telling me that he was going to spray medicine down my nose to help with any bleeding. Suddenly, rivers of acid were rushing down the hallways in my body, searing away all the dry leaves.
"Holy shit!"
There was ringing laughter in the operating room at my response, perhaps from the doctors moving about, but the ringing seemed to come from the equipment. Everything was glaring bright: the machines, the lamps, the walls. Everything was antiseptic. Everything detached.
Somebody was injecting something in a tube connected to me. It would make me sleep, he said. There was a digital timer on the wall next to the clock but I didn't know what it was measuring. Then I looked up and the nurse appeared to be a walking avocado in her green smock with scores of avocados printed all over her or were they lemons it was hard to tell what the timer was timing perhaps another world where someone feared for me like a person paid to cry at a funeral because I never noticed the fear or the absence of fear but only that suddenly life mattered less and less and meaning was sliding helplessly off the bright walls and then
nothing.
I opened my eyes and it was another room, one of those curtained bays, overlooking a central station with doctors and nurses moving like traffic. A clock on the wall was whispering that an hour and a half of my life had been detached, beyond reach. Dr. Who appeared and told me that my nose was now straight and that I would see him again in nine days to remove the nose splint. Thank you, doctor. Then came the juice and crackers.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Chapter 15
The wind was whistling bitterly when I came upon the crime scene in the cold. There, on the sidewalk, a television set had been murdered in the night.
The thing lay like a cadaver face-down on the sidewalk. So I could not see its telltale blank expression to know that it was truly dead. But its power cord trailed on the ground, twisted, away from any life-sustaining outlet. I turned and rushed quickly to my apartment, sanctuary from the wind.
Beneath my new bathroom light bulb - a light still emotionally detached - I thought I recognized the face in the mirror. That evening, the Vietnamese lady at the salon had done a good job of restoring my face; time had done the rest. Still, you can never go back, said the face. Indeed, the Vietnamese lady said, "You nose still a little crooked."
But for her that wasn't the point in keeping the beard. She trimmed it and said, "Keep it. It look good." I imagined television stars getting this treatment, complete with shampoo, walking out as new people - whole new personas! - even though one day the television stars would all end up dead with their power cords pulled out.
Ah, but to be truly new - that required a nose job. And as fate would have it, I had one of those waiting for me tomorrow. "Your new nose, sir." said the doctor. Then, just like on TV, there would be an unmasking before a mirror and I would gasp in wide-eyed wonder at the brand-new old me, while in the background there would be some clapping and a couple of nurses laughing, carefree, and -
Wait - in the mirror, I thought I detected a new pattern . . . that face, eyes blank, said, "You cheated death." You should have laid there, face down on the steps, your pretty neck broken and your brain trailing out of your skull like cords . . . but - dancer that you were - you twirled and fell mostly on your hands. Death slunk away, the blood on your hands not enough for even a prime time special. Do you not know? Having cheated death, you are now detached from life.
About 6,500 miles away in the desert a television news reporter was left alone in that whole wild country to tell the world in pictures the story of the slaughter. He came upon a man, face-down in the dust, his entrails trailing away in twisting cords . . .
The thing lay like a cadaver face-down on the sidewalk. So I could not see its telltale blank expression to know that it was truly dead. But its power cord trailed on the ground, twisted, away from any life-sustaining outlet. I turned and rushed quickly to my apartment, sanctuary from the wind.
Beneath my new bathroom light bulb - a light still emotionally detached - I thought I recognized the face in the mirror. That evening, the Vietnamese lady at the salon had done a good job of restoring my face; time had done the rest. Still, you can never go back, said the face. Indeed, the Vietnamese lady said, "You nose still a little crooked."
But for her that wasn't the point in keeping the beard. She trimmed it and said, "Keep it. It look good." I imagined television stars getting this treatment, complete with shampoo, walking out as new people - whole new personas! - even though one day the television stars would all end up dead with their power cords pulled out.
Ah, but to be truly new - that required a nose job. And as fate would have it, I had one of those waiting for me tomorrow. "Your new nose, sir." said the doctor. Then, just like on TV, there would be an unmasking before a mirror and I would gasp in wide-eyed wonder at the brand-new old me, while in the background there would be some clapping and a couple of nurses laughing, carefree, and -
Wait - in the mirror, I thought I detected a new pattern . . . that face, eyes blank, said, "You cheated death." You should have laid there, face down on the steps, your pretty neck broken and your brain trailing out of your skull like cords . . . but - dancer that you were - you twirled and fell mostly on your hands. Death slunk away, the blood on your hands not enough for even a prime time special. Do you not know? Having cheated death, you are now detached from life.
About 6,500 miles away in the desert a television news reporter was left alone in that whole wild country to tell the world in pictures the story of the slaughter. He came upon a man, face-down in the dust, his entrails trailing away in twisting cords . . .
Chapter 14
(Two weeks ago, translated from the Spanish)
"Don't worry, mother. I'll be fine. Fine, fine, fine. Well, my right wrist was sprained and my left hand, the tissue there was damaged; it was swollen. And my nose was broken. And my head was cut. But that stopped bleeding."
"No, I don't know who he was. Some nut! He was bothering me. Security put him out. I guess he came back when I was leaving - punched me by surprise. I didn't see him until he was there. The punch wasn't bad; it was falling down the stairs, that was bad."
"I think he was caught. That's what one of the security guys said. But then he escaped. I don't know what happened. Yeah, the cops were called but they never showed up. But there's going to be an investigation into how the club handled this mess. They all locked their doors and disappeared. I was left outside in the cold holding my head and my nose - both bleeding. That's not how this kind of situation is handled."
"No, I'm not going to work tomorrow; it's my day off. I'm on my way to I___'s house now. A friend is taking me there. I___ will cook for me. I'll get to spend a day out there away from everything. Although with I___'s new baby, I guess it won't be all that quiet . . . "
(Tonight, translated from the Spanish)
"Tomorrow is the surgery. Yes, that soon. I have to hurry up and wash some clothes because I don't have any to wear. So I can't talk long. "
"No, I'm not staying overnight. I got someone to pick me up and take me home. Then another friend is coming to stay the night. The doctor said someone should watch me overnight."
"Well, what can I do? I have to go on. This is nothing compared to operations that other people get. I'll try to call tomorrow if the anesthesia doesn't have me too sleepy. Good night, Mother."
"Don't worry, mother. I'll be fine. Fine, fine, fine. Well, my right wrist was sprained and my left hand, the tissue there was damaged; it was swollen. And my nose was broken. And my head was cut. But that stopped bleeding."
"No, I don't know who he was. Some nut! He was bothering me. Security put him out. I guess he came back when I was leaving - punched me by surprise. I didn't see him until he was there. The punch wasn't bad; it was falling down the stairs, that was bad."
"I think he was caught. That's what one of the security guys said. But then he escaped. I don't know what happened. Yeah, the cops were called but they never showed up. But there's going to be an investigation into how the club handled this mess. They all locked their doors and disappeared. I was left outside in the cold holding my head and my nose - both bleeding. That's not how this kind of situation is handled."
"No, I'm not going to work tomorrow; it's my day off. I'm on my way to I___'s house now. A friend is taking me there. I___ will cook for me. I'll get to spend a day out there away from everything. Although with I___'s new baby, I guess it won't be all that quiet . . . "
(Tonight, translated from the Spanish)
"Tomorrow is the surgery. Yes, that soon. I have to hurry up and wash some clothes because I don't have any to wear. So I can't talk long. "
"No, I'm not staying overnight. I got someone to pick me up and take me home. Then another friend is coming to stay the night. The doctor said someone should watch me overnight."
"Well, what can I do? I have to go on. This is nothing compared to operations that other people get. I'll try to call tomorrow if the anesthesia doesn't have me too sleepy. Good night, Mother."
Friday, November 30, 2007
Chapter 13
The doctor said he could be as aggressive as I wanted him to be. He was, of course, talking about how aggressively I wanted to pursue the perfect nose. I wasn't after the perfect nose per se. I just wanted my natural nose back, which coincidentally happened to be perfect.
I was in yet another examination room. For the eleventy-twelfth time I was describing the assault to yet another doctor. Each time, the experience was like a flashbulb going off in my head - a silent shutter clicking - capturing the memory like a photograph that each time receded further away. The photograph was 18 days away now.
The doctor - in my mind he was Dr. Who after his power to transport my nose back in time - explained the options available. He was a young Asian with flawless bone structure and a perfect nose that at least inspired confidence in the painful procedures I was soon to endure. Dr. Who said that he had to offer the option of doing nothing, which I immediately waived away. Then he described the first procedure, called Closed Reduction, a name that gave no inkling as to its nature. Closed Reduction involved using tools inserted in my nostrils to move the broken bones around in the nose and align them correctly.
Should the perfect nose not result from Closed Reduction, Dr. Who then described three other progressively more invasive procedures that would prove increasingly effective. They involved incisions and insertions and anesthesia and long recoveries. But, he stressed, there was no guarantee. I was going to ask him if he had gone to law school as well as medical school but thought better of it.
Dr. Who summoned to his computer screen the image of the CT scan that was taken at the emergency room 18 days ago. There, in bright x-ray yellow, was a picture of my skull, brain, and other insides of the head. Dr. Who pointed out the dark spots - the sinus cavities - which were supposed to be dark. Then he pointed out the bright spot - my brain - which he said was likewise in good order, by which he only meant that there was no brain bleed or skull breakage.
I stared at my brain in faint wonder . . . that strange object that was both camera and subject - from which sprang crying envelopes, Korean greetings, lives that flipped like coins, stupid and senseless headlines, captive dreams, the sadness that speaks, trauma, empires racing across the earth, time travel, wolves, satellites, ice ages, earthquakes, patterns, Dr. La-la-la, the Eyes of Innocence and Experience, and all the madness of the modern world.
Moving away from the bright spot, Dr. Who pointed out the bone of my nose, which was supposed to be a perfect triangle but which was in fact a jagged triangle showing fractures in at least seven different places. That was when I realized that serious pain was headed in my direction from the future, like a cresting wave still invisible under the ocean.
Dr. Who asked me to email him photographs of me prior to the incident to aid him in the reconstruction of my nose. We scheduled surgery for Tuesday, a little soon I thought, but better to rush headlong into the ocean than to wait for the tidal wave.
On his way out, Dr. Who reminded me to make arrangements to have someone pick me up from the hospital and watch me overnight, as I would be too disoriented from the anesthesia to get myself home. "Doctor, who?" I wondered. Who in the modern world would one day wade into these memories, not-yet-surfacing?
I was in yet another examination room. For the eleventy-twelfth time I was describing the assault to yet another doctor. Each time, the experience was like a flashbulb going off in my head - a silent shutter clicking - capturing the memory like a photograph that each time receded further away. The photograph was 18 days away now.
The doctor - in my mind he was Dr. Who after his power to transport my nose back in time - explained the options available. He was a young Asian with flawless bone structure and a perfect nose that at least inspired confidence in the painful procedures I was soon to endure. Dr. Who said that he had to offer the option of doing nothing, which I immediately waived away. Then he described the first procedure, called Closed Reduction, a name that gave no inkling as to its nature. Closed Reduction involved using tools inserted in my nostrils to move the broken bones around in the nose and align them correctly.
Should the perfect nose not result from Closed Reduction, Dr. Who then described three other progressively more invasive procedures that would prove increasingly effective. They involved incisions and insertions and anesthesia and long recoveries. But, he stressed, there was no guarantee. I was going to ask him if he had gone to law school as well as medical school but thought better of it.
Dr. Who summoned to his computer screen the image of the CT scan that was taken at the emergency room 18 days ago. There, in bright x-ray yellow, was a picture of my skull, brain, and other insides of the head. Dr. Who pointed out the dark spots - the sinus cavities - which were supposed to be dark. Then he pointed out the bright spot - my brain - which he said was likewise in good order, by which he only meant that there was no brain bleed or skull breakage.
I stared at my brain in faint wonder . . . that strange object that was both camera and subject - from which sprang crying envelopes, Korean greetings, lives that flipped like coins, stupid and senseless headlines, captive dreams, the sadness that speaks, trauma, empires racing across the earth, time travel, wolves, satellites, ice ages, earthquakes, patterns, Dr. La-la-la, the Eyes of Innocence and Experience, and all the madness of the modern world.
Moving away from the bright spot, Dr. Who pointed out the bone of my nose, which was supposed to be a perfect triangle but which was in fact a jagged triangle showing fractures in at least seven different places. That was when I realized that serious pain was headed in my direction from the future, like a cresting wave still invisible under the ocean.
Dr. Who asked me to email him photographs of me prior to the incident to aid him in the reconstruction of my nose. We scheduled surgery for Tuesday, a little soon I thought, but better to rush headlong into the ocean than to wait for the tidal wave.
On his way out, Dr. Who reminded me to make arrangements to have someone pick me up from the hospital and watch me overnight, as I would be too disoriented from the anesthesia to get myself home. "Doctor, who?" I wondered. Who in the modern world would one day wade into these memories, not-yet-surfacing?
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Chapter 12
To those with an active imagination, the rain signaled the End of Days for poor 2007. The wind blew the cold droplets, sometimes stinging the face. I had missed most of the fury, having spent the day in my little office cave.
Now I shuffled through small piles of wet, mangled leaves - the little-noticed victims of time. In the day they had fallen from the trees, the collective sighs of the year. In the night, rain and human shoes had trampled many into wet smears on the sidewalk soon to vanish from time. Somewhere in the world, every day, war and famine made thousands of people vanish the same way.
With these cheerless thoughts, I hurried home but stopped short across the street from my building. There, at the door, a woman was struggling with her purse, looking for her keys perhaps. I could go there and open the door; we would both enter. But my face would be too close to her in the lobby's light. So I waited there across the street until she entered. The nearby streetlamp was the only moon tonight; the sky pitch dark.
Moon-faced, that is how I remembered him, standing there for one brief moment on the stairway before he delivered the surprise blow and ran away. I imagined his moon face walking along the sidewalk, talking to a friend perhaps. Passing me in the night, he would not notice. But I would follow, calling 911 and providing my police report number. In moments the police car would arrive and I would identify him, turning his words against him, "Hey, remember me?" He would be arrested and tried for assault. I would suggest that the federal prosecutor check Moon-face's immigration status, which would result in his detention for deportation to El Salvador.
I did not imagine a rock thrown at the back of his skull; I did not imagine tacking him to the ground in the dark. Nor did I imagine my shoe stomping his face, crushing his nose; again stomping, this time breaking his neck. Strangely, there was not enough anger for all that.
Finally, I crossed and entered the building alone, safely passing from one cave to the next. I opened the apartment door with my left hand, pinning the mail under my right arm, stifling the cries of the envelopes filled with pleas for donations to aid the victims of war and famine.
Now I shuffled through small piles of wet, mangled leaves - the little-noticed victims of time. In the day they had fallen from the trees, the collective sighs of the year. In the night, rain and human shoes had trampled many into wet smears on the sidewalk soon to vanish from time. Somewhere in the world, every day, war and famine made thousands of people vanish the same way.
With these cheerless thoughts, I hurried home but stopped short across the street from my building. There, at the door, a woman was struggling with her purse, looking for her keys perhaps. I could go there and open the door; we would both enter. But my face would be too close to her in the lobby's light. So I waited there across the street until she entered. The nearby streetlamp was the only moon tonight; the sky pitch dark.
Moon-faced, that is how I remembered him, standing there for one brief moment on the stairway before he delivered the surprise blow and ran away. I imagined his moon face walking along the sidewalk, talking to a friend perhaps. Passing me in the night, he would not notice. But I would follow, calling 911 and providing my police report number. In moments the police car would arrive and I would identify him, turning his words against him, "Hey, remember me?" He would be arrested and tried for assault. I would suggest that the federal prosecutor check Moon-face's immigration status, which would result in his detention for deportation to El Salvador.
I did not imagine a rock thrown at the back of his skull; I did not imagine tacking him to the ground in the dark. Nor did I imagine my shoe stomping his face, crushing his nose; again stomping, this time breaking his neck. Strangely, there was not enough anger for all that.
Finally, I crossed and entered the building alone, safely passing from one cave to the next. I opened the apartment door with my left hand, pinning the mail under my right arm, stifling the cries of the envelopes filled with pleas for donations to aid the victims of war and famine.
Chapter 11
I scurried out my building door in the morning cold towards the train station. In the dawn light, I had discovered that my emotionally-detached bathroom light bulb had died overnight. Having waited for more sunlight to shave, I was now running late.
But I was wrapped in the warmth of my big, wool coat. I had retrieved it from the dry cleaner the week prior. The Korean lady had smiled, jovial and squinty-eyed, emerging from a forest of hanging garments. "An yung ha se yo," we had greeted each other.
Then, pointing at the beard on my face, "Oh! You new look!" she had said. Then she noticed the splint and her face flipped into a frown. I explained that a bad man had hit me and I fell down. But I was OK, I lied. "Kamsam ni da," we had thanked each other as I left: the civilized convention of "Thank you" restored order in our universes.
Once home, I took the coat out of the plastic covering and stroked the lapels - all the blood had been cleaned away. For a moment I was thrilled by the sensation that life could return to normal, to what I knew to be normal. But we can never go back, the sadness said from a corner. This was true, I knew. Even my recent time travel attempt had been a total failure.
And so I studied the cracks in the sidewalk until I reached the train station, secure in the knowledge that work was waiting for me with open arms. Work: the way the modern world suspends consciousness.
But I was wrapped in the warmth of my big, wool coat. I had retrieved it from the dry cleaner the week prior. The Korean lady had smiled, jovial and squinty-eyed, emerging from a forest of hanging garments. "An yung ha se yo," we had greeted each other.
Then, pointing at the beard on my face, "Oh! You new look!" she had said. Then she noticed the splint and her face flipped into a frown. I explained that a bad man had hit me and I fell down. But I was OK, I lied. "Kamsam ni da," we had thanked each other as I left: the civilized convention of "Thank you" restored order in our universes.
Once home, I took the coat out of the plastic covering and stroked the lapels - all the blood had been cleaned away. For a moment I was thrilled by the sensation that life could return to normal, to what I knew to be normal. But we can never go back, the sadness said from a corner. This was true, I knew. Even my recent time travel attempt had been a total failure.
And so I studied the cracks in the sidewalk until I reached the train station, secure in the knowledge that work was waiting for me with open arms. Work: the way the modern world suspends consciousness.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Chapter 10
When I called the doctor's office, the receptionist delivered his interpretation of the x-rays. It felt a bit like my mother reading a message to me over the phone from the mortgage company off a sticky-note she had posted on the kitchen refrigerator.
The doctor, the receptionist explained, said to tell you that you need to keep the splint on the arm for four more weeks and that he wants to see you again in four weeks. The fracture has not moved, so that's good. He said you can also get a splint where your thumb is not held like that so that your thumb can move. Oh, you can get one of those splints for the wrist, yes. I don't know, oh they have them in any pharmacy; we have one downstairs. It's an over-the-counter; you don't need a prescription for it. Yes, sure, you can make an appointment now. Yes, the fracture has not healed. These things take like six to eight weeks sometimes.
I detected that the receptionist had lapsed into some Armchair Medicine at the end there. What did she know about how long the fracture on my arm would take to heal? Perhaps she had seen this sort of thing happen often, to the point of routine, and the patients on the other end of the telephone line merely nodded, uh-huh, OK, in a kind of distracted, unthinking acceptance.
The day had been like a coin tossing in the air since morning. Suddenly the coin landed with Disappointment face up. Earlier, when the coin was still flipping in the air, the doctor had walked into the exam room and informed me that he could not do the x-rays in his office because my insurance company would not pay for them; I had to go to a separate "facility." I had to prompt him to offer to send me to a radiology clinic on another floor of the building, as I wanted to avoid re-scheduling this visit for lack of x-rays. He agreed to view the x-ray report, which would be available within an hour, and I could simply call the receptionist to learn about his findings.
I grumbled that this country needed to get its act together and provide real health care. Unfortunately, the doctor replied with a pleasant smile, the direction we seem to be going in is towards more "facilities" and "fewer choices." It was a simple, telegraphed message, which would be lost on the distracted and the unthinking. I got it: the doctor was opposed to nationalized health care.
"How does it feel?" He took off the splint and moved my wrist.
"OK, I guess." I complained of soreness, probably from the splint itself.
"That's fine," he said.
In less than five minutes I had my x-ray prescription and saw the last that day of the doctor with his pleasant smile, his tanned, middle-aged complexion and his blond, curly hair. I walked out while the flipping coin made an arc over my head.
Every day in this, the wealthiest nation on earth, millions of patients attend five-minute "That's fine" exams with disinterested, smiling doctors who send them flipping through the air to all manner of busy, clattering "facilities" at the promptings of enormous health insurance companies. Every day the insurance companies flip the lives of patients, like so many coins, until they land on the ground, dollar-value face up.
The doctor, the receptionist explained, said to tell you that you need to keep the splint on the arm for four more weeks and that he wants to see you again in four weeks. The fracture has not moved, so that's good. He said you can also get a splint where your thumb is not held like that so that your thumb can move. Oh, you can get one of those splints for the wrist, yes. I don't know, oh they have them in any pharmacy; we have one downstairs. It's an over-the-counter; you don't need a prescription for it. Yes, sure, you can make an appointment now. Yes, the fracture has not healed. These things take like six to eight weeks sometimes.
I detected that the receptionist had lapsed into some Armchair Medicine at the end there. What did she know about how long the fracture on my arm would take to heal? Perhaps she had seen this sort of thing happen often, to the point of routine, and the patients on the other end of the telephone line merely nodded, uh-huh, OK, in a kind of distracted, unthinking acceptance.
The day had been like a coin tossing in the air since morning. Suddenly the coin landed with Disappointment face up. Earlier, when the coin was still flipping in the air, the doctor had walked into the exam room and informed me that he could not do the x-rays in his office because my insurance company would not pay for them; I had to go to a separate "facility." I had to prompt him to offer to send me to a radiology clinic on another floor of the building, as I wanted to avoid re-scheduling this visit for lack of x-rays. He agreed to view the x-ray report, which would be available within an hour, and I could simply call the receptionist to learn about his findings.
I grumbled that this country needed to get its act together and provide real health care. Unfortunately, the doctor replied with a pleasant smile, the direction we seem to be going in is towards more "facilities" and "fewer choices." It was a simple, telegraphed message, which would be lost on the distracted and the unthinking. I got it: the doctor was opposed to nationalized health care.
"How does it feel?" He took off the splint and moved my wrist.
"OK, I guess." I complained of soreness, probably from the splint itself.
"That's fine," he said.
In less than five minutes I had my x-ray prescription and saw the last that day of the doctor with his pleasant smile, his tanned, middle-aged complexion and his blond, curly hair. I walked out while the flipping coin made an arc over my head.
Every day in this, the wealthiest nation on earth, millions of patients attend five-minute "That's fine" exams with disinterested, smiling doctors who send them flipping through the air to all manner of busy, clattering "facilities" at the promptings of enormous health insurance companies. Every day the insurance companies flip the lives of patients, like so many coins, until they land on the ground, dollar-value face up.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Chapter 9
The headline on the Internet, the first object on the screen:
"Cheney's Heart Restored to Normal Rhythm"
Life is full of disappointment, I sighed. Another day had passed, for instance, and still no call from the supposed investigator who would be assigned my case. Another day had passed filled with senseless, stupid headlines but with no police detective to interview me about the assault.
"McCain Sees Progress, Problems in Iraq"
Stupid . . .
"Tourist Boom Threatens Antarctica"
Senseless . . .
"NOVEMBER 26, 2007 - Last week's release of the annual Federal Bureau of Investigation Hate Crimes Statistics Report documents and quantifies the increase in anti-Latino sentiment and community tensions we see across the nation. . . Some of the key points from the report:
"A greater percentage of crimes motivated by national origin are committed against Hispanics compared to the previous year. In 2006, almost two-thirds of all ethnic-based hate crimes were committed against Hispanics.
"Since 2004, the number of victims of anti-Hispanic crimes increased by 25%.
"While most race-based and religion-based hate crimes involve intimidation instead of assault, most hate crimes against Hispanics (and Asian Americans, Indians and gays) were assaults. Anti-Hispanic crimes are more severe. Unlike every other group, only Hispanics suffered a greater number of aggravated assaults than simple assaults."
I wiped away the news screen and turned to check email. Maybe those investigators are a bit busy.
"Cheney's Heart Restored to Normal Rhythm"
Life is full of disappointment, I sighed. Another day had passed, for instance, and still no call from the supposed investigator who would be assigned my case. Another day had passed filled with senseless, stupid headlines but with no police detective to interview me about the assault.
"McCain Sees Progress, Problems in Iraq"
Stupid . . .
"Tourist Boom Threatens Antarctica"
Senseless . . .
"NOVEMBER 26, 2007 - Last week's release of the annual Federal Bureau of Investigation Hate Crimes Statistics Report documents and quantifies the increase in anti-Latino sentiment and community tensions we see across the nation. . . Some of the key points from the report:
"A greater percentage of crimes motivated by national origin are committed against Hispanics compared to the previous year. In 2006, almost two-thirds of all ethnic-based hate crimes were committed against Hispanics.
"Since 2004, the number of victims of anti-Hispanic crimes increased by 25%.
"While most race-based and religion-based hate crimes involve intimidation instead of assault, most hate crimes against Hispanics (and Asian Americans, Indians and gays) were assaults. Anti-Hispanic crimes are more severe. Unlike every other group, only Hispanics suffered a greater number of aggravated assaults than simple assaults."
I wiped away the news screen and turned to check email. Maybe those investigators are a bit busy.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Chapter 8
I overslept, terribly, forcing dreams to keep me captive - despite the sunshine seeping through the blinds and suffusing the entire room. It did not help matters that as my body rebelled against sleep, all the dreams liquefied, evaporated in moments.
Without seeing, I knew the sadness was there, sitting at the bedside, whispering, as it had been whispering all morning.
Depression, in highly functioning individuals, is strictly a creature of the modern world, like a celebrity walking about the room brooding, fairly unaware of the fundamental elements of life. It mattered not that I had a fully-functioning mind (relatively), working limbs, otherwise excellent health, a good job, a family being maintained by me, and a handful of people who cared if I were to be erased from the earth. The tree in the corner of the room was still forlorn, sparse leaves drooping. When was I going to replace that thing, or tend to it?
The garbage piled in the kitchen, albeit in bags. The dry cleaner awaited my arrival to retrieve the big wool coat that may or may not still have my blood stains on it. I peered through the blind - the daylight seemed like a formidable enemy. At times like these, there was nothing for it but to seek the consolation of work.
Without seeing, I knew the sadness was there, sitting at the bedside, whispering, as it had been whispering all morning.
Depression, in highly functioning individuals, is strictly a creature of the modern world, like a celebrity walking about the room brooding, fairly unaware of the fundamental elements of life. It mattered not that I had a fully-functioning mind (relatively), working limbs, otherwise excellent health, a good job, a family being maintained by me, and a handful of people who cared if I were to be erased from the earth. The tree in the corner of the room was still forlorn, sparse leaves drooping. When was I going to replace that thing, or tend to it?
The garbage piled in the kitchen, albeit in bags. The dry cleaner awaited my arrival to retrieve the big wool coat that may or may not still have my blood stains on it. I peered through the blind - the daylight seemed like a formidable enemy. At times like these, there was nothing for it but to seek the consolation of work.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Chapter 7
The doctor entered, took two steps - it was a small room - and lifted himself onto the examination bed while I sat on the chair next to the bed, a reversal that did not occur to me until much later.
I told him what had happened that night, how the punch really didn't hurt, how all the damage was actually sustained falling down the concrete steps. In the course of this he said in his soft voice, looking up from his papers only as long as he spoke, "You have P.T.S.D., Post Traumatic Stress Disorder."
"P.T.S.D.? Me?" I thought. Isn't that only for war vets? But that would explain the pains I experienced where there were supposed to be none.
But the doctor said, almost under his breath, not to worry about it; the P.T.S.D. would fade. He always spoke this way, in soft, hesitant tones that gave the impression he was unsure of himself. He looked up at me for an instant, long and crooked nose prominent, and then hid once again in his papers, reverting to a shock of wild, black Indian hair in a white coat.
Trauma was everywhere - I wasn't entirely sure that my mousy doctor was free of P.T.S.D. himself. Indeed our very first experience - birth - is nothing but trauma. No one escapes that trauma without crying. If anyone tries, he is beaten until he cries. Welcome to the World: here is your trauma, baby. It remains to be seem whether death is equally traumatic, the sermons notwithstanding.
I told him what had happened that night, how the punch really didn't hurt, how all the damage was actually sustained falling down the concrete steps. In the course of this he said in his soft voice, looking up from his papers only as long as he spoke, "You have P.T.S.D., Post Traumatic Stress Disorder."
"P.T.S.D.? Me?" I thought. Isn't that only for war vets? But that would explain the pains I experienced where there were supposed to be none.
But the doctor said, almost under his breath, not to worry about it; the P.T.S.D. would fade. He always spoke this way, in soft, hesitant tones that gave the impression he was unsure of himself. He looked up at me for an instant, long and crooked nose prominent, and then hid once again in his papers, reverting to a shock of wild, black Indian hair in a white coat.
Trauma was everywhere - I wasn't entirely sure that my mousy doctor was free of P.T.S.D. himself. Indeed our very first experience - birth - is nothing but trauma. No one escapes that trauma without crying. If anyone tries, he is beaten until he cries. Welcome to the World: here is your trauma, baby. It remains to be seem whether death is equally traumatic, the sermons notwithstanding.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Chapter 6
In the aftermath of the assault, some interesting consequences have flowered - not the least of which is my new found appreciation for that most marvelous of evolutionary phenomena: the opposable thumb.
With my right hand in a splint that encases my thumb, wrist, and forearm, I have been left with one working hand; and although one hand is enough to type these words, there are unfortunately a great many vital tasks in the modern world that require the use of two functioning hands. For instance there is the tying of shoelaces and the fastening of pant clasps and shirt buttons, without which the American workforce would be compelled to commute naked or all work from home - with catastrophic consequences for the commercial real estate market and the fashion industry.
How is it that such a small but useful member resulted in the raising of human civilization? For scientists have theorized that the size of the humanoid brain truly increased and developed only after a freakish evolutionary mutation shifted the location of the thumb to become an opposable digit. The ability to grasp things generated all manner of brain activity, which in turn generated more ideas about what else could be grasped and thrown and scraped and pulled and pushed.
And before long, geologically speaking, we were racing across the earth in the form of gigantic empires - razing, pillaging, conquering, assimilating, selling, purchasing - a phenomenon that has changed barely in form and naught in substance over the millennia.
This leads me to reconsider the effect of thumbs on brain size. In fact, just over a week ago that night, a simian brute - clothed and probably employed, too - made a compelling case that the opposable thumb, even if it increased brain size, had no effect whatsoever on brain content.
With my right hand in a splint that encases my thumb, wrist, and forearm, I have been left with one working hand; and although one hand is enough to type these words, there are unfortunately a great many vital tasks in the modern world that require the use of two functioning hands. For instance there is the tying of shoelaces and the fastening of pant clasps and shirt buttons, without which the American workforce would be compelled to commute naked or all work from home - with catastrophic consequences for the commercial real estate market and the fashion industry.
How is it that such a small but useful member resulted in the raising of human civilization? For scientists have theorized that the size of the humanoid brain truly increased and developed only after a freakish evolutionary mutation shifted the location of the thumb to become an opposable digit. The ability to grasp things generated all manner of brain activity, which in turn generated more ideas about what else could be grasped and thrown and scraped and pulled and pushed.
And before long, geologically speaking, we were racing across the earth in the form of gigantic empires - razing, pillaging, conquering, assimilating, selling, purchasing - a phenomenon that has changed barely in form and naught in substance over the millennia.
This leads me to reconsider the effect of thumbs on brain size. In fact, just over a week ago that night, a simian brute - clothed and probably employed, too - made a compelling case that the opposable thumb, even if it increased brain size, had no effect whatsoever on brain content.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Chapter 5
The rushing sound of the train and the clacking of the wheels mingled with the dark of the tunnels, oddly comforting. Patches of light darting against the dark walls outside the window drew my attention away from staring half-lidded at the back of the seat before me. Faster the patches of light came - until one swooped past and ripped my consciousness away.
I was standing in the middle of my apartment, in my underwear, holding my big wool coat. It was the night of ten days ago - the cold realization that I had somehow traveled in time rooted me to the floor. It did not occur to me to wonder how I had managed time travel. My hands clung to the wool coat. Five hours from now, this coat would be covered in my own blood.
Or did it have to be this way? To think that I could toss the wool coat aside and avoid the anguish and expense of explaining to the Korean lady at the dry cleaner about removing the blood. My leather jacket was hanging close by. Blood would be much easier to wipe from it.
Wait, did I really have to bleed, though? Alone in all the universe perhaps I was possessed with the knowledge of what would happen this night. I could easily choose another nightclub rather than that particular one. I could simply ask for an escort up the concrete steps to the sidewalk. I could spy his face in the crowd and merely avoid him throughout the night.
The possibilities were endless . . . just as endless as they had been the first time this night took place in history.
Slowly, the thought formed, the cold certainty that possibilities are always the same in number. I could not prove this mathematically, not in this lifetime. But the epiphany would not be denied. The only difference this night, it seemed, was that I was aware of the endlessness; I could slowly name the choices like pearls pulled out of the rushing waters of the future.
But what effect would my actions on this night of the past have on my future? Could I be certain that only my future would be affected? What if I went to the other club and someone bought me a drink and I took it and this act sets off a chain of events that would result in the assassination of the President of the United States? How many Emperor moths would die in Tokyo?
I was not prepared to be the Destroyer of Human Civilization - not, at least, to save on a dry cleaning bill. Here then was the great irony of time travel. The increased awareness of the future availed me not. I was paralyzed, unable to choose from among the visible futures, as if I were wholly unaware of them - as if I was, in fact, living in the present moment . . .
Ascending towards the surface world and the cold, cloudy night air, two women passed me by on the moving escalator. They were speaking French; I thought one of them stared at the beret on my head as she climbed past but I could not be sure. My head was bent downward, staring at the metal steps, listening to the clack of the machines beneath.
I was standing in the middle of my apartment, in my underwear, holding my big wool coat. It was the night of ten days ago - the cold realization that I had somehow traveled in time rooted me to the floor. It did not occur to me to wonder how I had managed time travel. My hands clung to the wool coat. Five hours from now, this coat would be covered in my own blood.
Or did it have to be this way? To think that I could toss the wool coat aside and avoid the anguish and expense of explaining to the Korean lady at the dry cleaner about removing the blood. My leather jacket was hanging close by. Blood would be much easier to wipe from it.
Wait, did I really have to bleed, though? Alone in all the universe perhaps I was possessed with the knowledge of what would happen this night. I could easily choose another nightclub rather than that particular one. I could simply ask for an escort up the concrete steps to the sidewalk. I could spy his face in the crowd and merely avoid him throughout the night.
The possibilities were endless . . . just as endless as they had been the first time this night took place in history.
Slowly, the thought formed, the cold certainty that possibilities are always the same in number. I could not prove this mathematically, not in this lifetime. But the epiphany would not be denied. The only difference this night, it seemed, was that I was aware of the endlessness; I could slowly name the choices like pearls pulled out of the rushing waters of the future.
But what effect would my actions on this night of the past have on my future? Could I be certain that only my future would be affected? What if I went to the other club and someone bought me a drink and I took it and this act sets off a chain of events that would result in the assassination of the President of the United States? How many Emperor moths would die in Tokyo?
I was not prepared to be the Destroyer of Human Civilization - not, at least, to save on a dry cleaning bill. Here then was the great irony of time travel. The increased awareness of the future availed me not. I was paralyzed, unable to choose from among the visible futures, as if I were wholly unaware of them - as if I was, in fact, living in the present moment . . .
Ascending towards the surface world and the cold, cloudy night air, two women passed me by on the moving escalator. They were speaking French; I thought one of them stared at the beret on my head as she climbed past but I could not be sure. My head was bent downward, staring at the metal steps, listening to the clack of the machines beneath.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Chapter 4
Pattern recognition: it is the secret to all life . . . how the human infant recognizes his mother's face and sees safety; how a pack of wolves know each other by familiar scent; how a serial killer whose MO is predicted falls captive; how faraway military exercises captured by satellites are interpreted as the build-up to war; how whole species rise and fall in the recurring periods between ice ages; how earthquakes add miles between continents.
I looked in the bathroom mirror and did not recognize my face; the beard growing there - while accomplishing its purpose by drawing attention away from the broken nose - created a portrait of another person. Who is that man? The right side of his beard has more white hair than the left side. Odd, I thought. The visual sensation was so unusual that I could not decide if the beard made the man's face younger or older. I might as well have been a castaway from the future, wild-eyed and bearded, howling about the End of Days . . . except that I was too sleepy to imagine all that.
I looked in the bathroom mirror and did not recognize my face; the beard growing there - while accomplishing its purpose by drawing attention away from the broken nose - created a portrait of another person. Who is that man? The right side of his beard has more white hair than the left side. Odd, I thought. The visual sensation was so unusual that I could not decide if the beard made the man's face younger or older. I might as well have been a castaway from the future, wild-eyed and bearded, howling about the End of Days . . . except that I was too sleepy to imagine all that.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Chapter 3
The hospital nurse forgot to tell me that my arm was broken. Apparently, I mean. That explains some of the knocking about I've been doing with my hand, useless with my wrist in a swelled and bruised state.
"You're kidding," was all I could say to Dr. La-la-la on the phone when she said that the x-rays revealed a hairline fracture in my right forearm. La-la-la was the doctor's name, I decided, because it was wholly inarticulate; like the voicemail message she left me with the wrong telephone number to call, her recorded name unintelligible - another wonderfully bright foreigner who had some trouble with English but no trouble with the medical boards.
"Oh, sorry. I meant to say 715 not 714," said Dr. La-la-la. She said that I should see a doctor as soon as possible to have my hand immobilized - Oh, and until then no typing or writing. Thinking soon and possible, I snapped the mobile phone shut and looked up at a clear blue Miami sky - 1,000 miles away from Dr. La-la-la.
I looked down at my hand. It stared back, gloating, reveling in the anticipated increase in attention as I realized that it held my fingers hostage. If I could not type or write I was effectively silenced. There was no use flattering it with a self-portrait; I could not draw hands to save my soul. Very well, then, I will write less.
But, before I go into that good night, how is it that we walk about our days so unaware of our palms and wrists, innocuous things that if slightly impaired could deprive us of a whole range of motions, from writing to exercise to bathing to eating to driving to beating someone up?
Upon reflection, there is not that much to write in the modern world.
"You're kidding," was all I could say to Dr. La-la-la on the phone when she said that the x-rays revealed a hairline fracture in my right forearm. La-la-la was the doctor's name, I decided, because it was wholly inarticulate; like the voicemail message she left me with the wrong telephone number to call, her recorded name unintelligible - another wonderfully bright foreigner who had some trouble with English but no trouble with the medical boards.
"Oh, sorry. I meant to say 715 not 714," said Dr. La-la-la. She said that I should see a doctor as soon as possible to have my hand immobilized - Oh, and until then no typing or writing. Thinking soon and possible, I snapped the mobile phone shut and looked up at a clear blue Miami sky - 1,000 miles away from Dr. La-la-la.
I looked down at my hand. It stared back, gloating, reveling in the anticipated increase in attention as I realized that it held my fingers hostage. If I could not type or write I was effectively silenced. There was no use flattering it with a self-portrait; I could not draw hands to save my soul. Very well, then, I will write less.
But, before I go into that good night, how is it that we walk about our days so unaware of our palms and wrists, innocuous things that if slightly impaired could deprive us of a whole range of motions, from writing to exercise to bathing to eating to driving to beating someone up?
Upon reflection, there is not that much to write in the modern world.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Chapter 2
I grow uglier with each passing day. The bathroom light bulb was totally emotionally detached. Staring in the mirror, I noted the mound of blood making its way from the side of my nose, passing below my left eye, bringing the swelling in its wake. It struck me as some kind of blue burrowing creature, like an animal burrowing under the snow across a white landscape.
A fly weakly collided with the bathroom mirror and flew erratically away.
On either side of the broken nose, two eyes stared back at me, one dark and swollen, the other light and intact. With a nod to William Blake, I christened my eyes: the light eye was the Eye of Innocence; the dark eye was the Eye of Experience.
And the Eye of Innocence said back to me:
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee.
He is called by thy name,
He is meek and he is mild,
He became a little child;
I a child and thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
And the Eye of Experience said back to me:
Little Fly
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brush'd away
Am I not
a fly like thee?
For I dance
And drink & sing,
Til some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
A fly weakly collided with the bathroom mirror and flew erratically away.
On either side of the broken nose, two eyes stared back at me, one dark and swollen, the other light and intact. With a nod to William Blake, I christened my eyes: the light eye was the Eye of Innocence; the dark eye was the Eye of Experience.
And the Eye of Innocence said back to me:
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee.
He is called by thy name,
He is meek and he is mild,
He became a little child;
I a child and thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
And the Eye of Experience said back to me:
Little Fly
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brush'd away
Am I not
a fly like thee?
For I dance
And drink & sing,
Til some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
Monday, November 12, 2007
The Incident: Chapter 1
"And before you clean the cut on your head, be sure there's no dirt under your fingernails first," said the nurse.
I was prodding at something under my right nostril before I realized that it was dried, caked blood from the broken nose. "So I guess I should cut my fingernails," I said.
"Good idea. I'll make sure someone comes in to give your tetanus shot." The nurse disappeared behind the curtain and I wondered what time it was, despite the clock on the wall of the hospital room attempting to communicate that message.
Later, I would learn that it had been eight hours that lapsed at the hospital - from the attack in the middle of the night - until late in the morning with the weak autumn sunlight shining on my disheveled form as I hailed a cab to my apartment. But it had seemed like much less time, an illusion of the modern world covered in the eyes-closed motion of a stretcher wheeling into rooms with machines that peered into the cranium but left the sadness undetected.
My apartment appeared as if I had returned from travel, quiet and expecting. It was all I could do to wash my face and wait for him to come. Sitting on the couch, the weakness from the loss of blood made itself known, knocking on my mind, coming and sitting beside me to whisper the thoughts of sadness.
When he walked through the doorway, we embraced briefly; I was too tired to show emotion. In the bathroom, he cleaned the cut on my head with a wet washcloth, dabbing until the dried blood liquefied. There was very little pain left. Then he showed me how cotton swabs dipped in alcohol could clean out the dried blood in my nostrils without causing a nose bleed. We sat on the couch and I handed him the fingernail clippers. My wrist was swollen and bruised; I hadn't the strength to clip my own fingernails. So we sat - he clipping my fingernails and me laying my light head on his shoulder. With each click of the clippers in his dark hands, I traveled back through the years; hands that had been an oasis in my long trek through the desert of the solitary life; hands that had offered a rose once.
It was the Love That Dared Not Speak Its Name, and it had come down to clipping fingernails in the low afternoon sunlight of the quiet apartment. For a time we said nothing - for what was there to say? He would soon enough return to his home an hour away; the children would be coming in from playing some game outside while their mother slept. There could be worse fates, I imagined. Fortune is fickle, handing out roses and breaking noses.
I was prodding at something under my right nostril before I realized that it was dried, caked blood from the broken nose. "So I guess I should cut my fingernails," I said.
"Good idea. I'll make sure someone comes in to give your tetanus shot." The nurse disappeared behind the curtain and I wondered what time it was, despite the clock on the wall of the hospital room attempting to communicate that message.
Later, I would learn that it had been eight hours that lapsed at the hospital - from the attack in the middle of the night - until late in the morning with the weak autumn sunlight shining on my disheveled form as I hailed a cab to my apartment. But it had seemed like much less time, an illusion of the modern world covered in the eyes-closed motion of a stretcher wheeling into rooms with machines that peered into the cranium but left the sadness undetected.
My apartment appeared as if I had returned from travel, quiet and expecting. It was all I could do to wash my face and wait for him to come. Sitting on the couch, the weakness from the loss of blood made itself known, knocking on my mind, coming and sitting beside me to whisper the thoughts of sadness.
When he walked through the doorway, we embraced briefly; I was too tired to show emotion. In the bathroom, he cleaned the cut on my head with a wet washcloth, dabbing until the dried blood liquefied. There was very little pain left. Then he showed me how cotton swabs dipped in alcohol could clean out the dried blood in my nostrils without causing a nose bleed. We sat on the couch and I handed him the fingernail clippers. My wrist was swollen and bruised; I hadn't the strength to clip my own fingernails. So we sat - he clipping my fingernails and me laying my light head on his shoulder. With each click of the clippers in his dark hands, I traveled back through the years; hands that had been an oasis in my long trek through the desert of the solitary life; hands that had offered a rose once.
It was the Love That Dared Not Speak Its Name, and it had come down to clipping fingernails in the low afternoon sunlight of the quiet apartment. For a time we said nothing - for what was there to say? He would soon enough return to his home an hour away; the children would be coming in from playing some game outside while their mother slept. There could be worse fates, I imagined. Fortune is fickle, handing out roses and breaking noses.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
The Cage of Years
Salted trail of tears
On a baby doll
Leaning in a corner
Of our Childhood Room:
Could we but have seen
That youthful dreams would not be free.
Down, around the years the Cage we hear
While against the window panes we lean.
Try as we might
The wings of dream to beat in flight -
Down the Cage falls, much too soon -
Feathers in the gloom.
On a baby doll
Leaning in a corner
Of our Childhood Room:
Could we but have seen
That youthful dreams would not be free.
Down, around the years the Cage we hear
While against the window panes we lean.
Try as we might
The wings of dream to beat in flight -
Down the Cage falls, much too soon -
Feathers in the gloom.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Flotsam and Jetsam
I pushed the heavy glass door of the municipal building onto the cold October rain. Leaving the building's concrete overhang, I walked briskly towards the train station's descending escalator.
Nearby, under the concrete overhang and sheltering from the ceaseless rain, sat an aging, thin black woman, wrapped in a black robe like some death shroud, her face insensate, her body inanimate. Next to her sat an aging white man with dirty, fading blond hair, his bloated body in poor fitting clothes sat astride a manual wheelchair, two legs sticking out from his belly and ending at the knees like fat tree stumps.
White man and black woman: The top rung and the bottom rung of the ladder of power. Both were dashed against the rocks of the municipal building by the waves of history, like human detritus . Perhaps she was a Muslim refugee from a war-torn country. Perhaps he was a forgotten veteran from a war-torn era.
As I descended on the moving escalator, I looked up and saw the wall surrounding the station rise into the wet night and blot out the sight of the vagabonds. The refugee sat death-still, eyes closed to life. The veteran looked vacantly at the constant rain.
What was there to say to them? "Good evening, Mr. Flotsam. Good evening, Ms. Jetsam."
On the train, watching the lights play on the passing tunnels, I noted a handful of people in the car, going home from a long workday in the modern world, staring vacantly at the air before them. One woman had her eyes closed, head nodding.
Nearby, under the concrete overhang and sheltering from the ceaseless rain, sat an aging, thin black woman, wrapped in a black robe like some death shroud, her face insensate, her body inanimate. Next to her sat an aging white man with dirty, fading blond hair, his bloated body in poor fitting clothes sat astride a manual wheelchair, two legs sticking out from his belly and ending at the knees like fat tree stumps.
White man and black woman: The top rung and the bottom rung of the ladder of power. Both were dashed against the rocks of the municipal building by the waves of history, like human detritus . Perhaps she was a Muslim refugee from a war-torn country. Perhaps he was a forgotten veteran from a war-torn era.
As I descended on the moving escalator, I looked up and saw the wall surrounding the station rise into the wet night and blot out the sight of the vagabonds. The refugee sat death-still, eyes closed to life. The veteran looked vacantly at the constant rain.
What was there to say to them? "Good evening, Mr. Flotsam. Good evening, Ms. Jetsam."
On the train, watching the lights play on the passing tunnels, I noted a handful of people in the car, going home from a long workday in the modern world, staring vacantly at the air before them. One woman had her eyes closed, head nodding.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Drunken Stumbling
I was paying minimum attention. The article said: "There has probably never been a poetry at once as massively energetic yet as coolly nonchalant as [Francis] Picabia's in -"
What? How's that?
The article later said:
"But I'm telling disinterested lies / It's almost the same thing / The soul's truth / Is the great cowardice of academic / arrogance / Looking into your eyes / I'm content / In my forgotten solitude."
What? What does this mean?
I was lost; had taken a wrong turn down a road filled with criticism of post-World War I French poetry movements. I read the lines three times but realized they held meaning only in the fantasy of a generation now long forgotten, a telegram from a dead, blasted world.
The article also said: "He is so radically focused on the immediate presence of each line that the connections between them can be left to fend for themselves."
I'm content . . . In my forgotten solitude . . . no connection. It was no use. The words had arrived, yes, but like a letter in the mail written in a language no longer spoken - a letter in Akkadian.
But then the article said something in English. It said, "Drunken Stumbling" and it went like this:
I'm afraid that your memory
will go when you go
your lips
will leave
my lips
your heart
be gone
with the rest
I, too, have stumbled drunk, thinking, "Where did he go?" Down the long corridor of the years he is now farther away - what I remembered.
What? How's that?
The article later said:
"But I'm telling disinterested lies / It's almost the same thing / The soul's truth / Is the great cowardice of academic / arrogance / Looking into your eyes / I'm content / In my forgotten solitude."
What? What does this mean?
I was lost; had taken a wrong turn down a road filled with criticism of post-World War I French poetry movements. I read the lines three times but realized they held meaning only in the fantasy of a generation now long forgotten, a telegram from a dead, blasted world.
The article also said: "He is so radically focused on the immediate presence of each line that the connections between them can be left to fend for themselves."
I'm content . . . In my forgotten solitude . . . no connection. It was no use. The words had arrived, yes, but like a letter in the mail written in a language no longer spoken - a letter in Akkadian.
But then the article said something in English. It said, "Drunken Stumbling" and it went like this:
I'm afraid that your memory
will go when you go
your lips
will leave
my lips
your heart
be gone
with the rest
I, too, have stumbled drunk, thinking, "Where did he go?" Down the long corridor of the years he is now farther away - what I remembered.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
The Art Studio
In the cool autumn air, my friend brought me to the art studio to sketch. She had been coming to the studio for years on Tuesday evenings. It was my first time; I was a sketch pad virgin. There was a paid model. He was an old man with parts sagging and other parts in the right place. But he was beautiful. This was so because I had adjusted to seeing him with the same eyes as the other artists. Artists, I hear tell, only see beauty.
We socialized for the first hour with wine bought by the woman who rents the studio, an older well-to-do woman, beautiful for her age, tall and gaunt and all angles. It was the birthday of my friend, one of the artists. Her husband surprised her with a chocolate cake. Then we sat down to draw the life model for two hours. The old man took off his black satin robe and posed nude on top of blue sheets and white cushions under the glare of the studio lights. He was a professional so he only took one brief break and managed to keep his pose the whole time. Beautiful music played throughout, something Celtic I want to say.
It was a grand space with the artists' works posted all over walls that reached far above our heads. The place was a former warehouse that had been converted into a series of large rooms, what in New York became known as a loft, but this one was more functional - without any stainless steel fixtures or ultra-modern furniture. There were lots of canvases stacked against walls and paint lying about and stains on the hardwood floors.
The artists complemented my haphazard sketches. I forced myself to draw the things I hated to draw - hands. The apparent consensus was that hands are really difficult to draw. I gave up and drew the old man as a cloud. I love to draw clouds, having been fascinated by clouds since I was a child. I drew another abstract form of the old man, which is difficult to describe now but I did get compliments on that, too. I didn't know at first if the artists were being insincere or if I really did have talent that they recognized. I decided that they had seen enough to make that kind of judgment. So I committed to see how far I can take this art journey.
Maybe I will develop some real talent. Or maybe I will end up drawing clouds all my days. At least I will create a collection of sketch pads that I can share with my few visitors. We are on this world for such a short time. Art is one good way to invite one another to experience our vision of the world, rather than force our vision upon others, as in, say religious indoctrination or military invasion. Maybe Pentagon generals should take art classes . . .
We socialized for the first hour with wine bought by the woman who rents the studio, an older well-to-do woman, beautiful for her age, tall and gaunt and all angles. It was the birthday of my friend, one of the artists. Her husband surprised her with a chocolate cake. Then we sat down to draw the life model for two hours. The old man took off his black satin robe and posed nude on top of blue sheets and white cushions under the glare of the studio lights. He was a professional so he only took one brief break and managed to keep his pose the whole time. Beautiful music played throughout, something Celtic I want to say.
It was a grand space with the artists' works posted all over walls that reached far above our heads. The place was a former warehouse that had been converted into a series of large rooms, what in New York became known as a loft, but this one was more functional - without any stainless steel fixtures or ultra-modern furniture. There were lots of canvases stacked against walls and paint lying about and stains on the hardwood floors.
The artists complemented my haphazard sketches. I forced myself to draw the things I hated to draw - hands. The apparent consensus was that hands are really difficult to draw. I gave up and drew the old man as a cloud. I love to draw clouds, having been fascinated by clouds since I was a child. I drew another abstract form of the old man, which is difficult to describe now but I did get compliments on that, too. I didn't know at first if the artists were being insincere or if I really did have talent that they recognized. I decided that they had seen enough to make that kind of judgment. So I committed to see how far I can take this art journey.
Maybe I will develop some real talent. Or maybe I will end up drawing clouds all my days. At least I will create a collection of sketch pads that I can share with my few visitors. We are on this world for such a short time. Art is one good way to invite one another to experience our vision of the world, rather than force our vision upon others, as in, say religious indoctrination or military invasion. Maybe Pentagon generals should take art classes . . .
Saturday, October 20, 2007
4:00 A.M.
When he looked at himself in the bathroom mirror it was four in the morning and outside the frosty air was smearing the window panes with tiny liquid pearls. There in the mirror he saw reflected, in wordless presence, the sadness.
It was the same sadness that had been with him through all the years. But he had always taken pains not to see it, shifting his focus instead through one distraction after another. Mostly he just worked hard, long hours. Still the sadness was there - obvious in the silent, unfocused moments when the mind wavers. Despite the rumbling speed of his life, when distractions failed, he became aware of it as though gazing out the passenger window and noticing a vast, barren landscape.
That night he carried the sadness home in the cold under the misty streetlamps. The distraction that was the thunderous music of the nightclub had faded, leaving his mind and body exhausted. In the cacophony of that sound circus, he had twirled himself into profound distraction, one performer lost among the clowns and freaks reflected in the club's mirrors under the dizzying light.
Swirling in the club's madness there had been some fleeting words sung, something about sex and music. Visions of male faces with wanton stares - vacant windows - and liquid smiles, rushed past in the torrent of beating sound. And then the sound swirled into the drain of silence and the crowd poured out and someone vomited in a corner; he pressed his way out and walked quietly home.
There was no point to avoidance. Even if he should traverse that wide, barren landscape in an attempt to elude capture, the sadness always pursued without effort. How could he outrun the moon hanging in the night sky? He looked deep into the mirror and said, yes, I am here, to the sadness, and we will be together for some time yet.
It was the same sadness that had been with him through all the years. But he had always taken pains not to see it, shifting his focus instead through one distraction after another. Mostly he just worked hard, long hours. Still the sadness was there - obvious in the silent, unfocused moments when the mind wavers. Despite the rumbling speed of his life, when distractions failed, he became aware of it as though gazing out the passenger window and noticing a vast, barren landscape.
That night he carried the sadness home in the cold under the misty streetlamps. The distraction that was the thunderous music of the nightclub had faded, leaving his mind and body exhausted. In the cacophony of that sound circus, he had twirled himself into profound distraction, one performer lost among the clowns and freaks reflected in the club's mirrors under the dizzying light.
Swirling in the club's madness there had been some fleeting words sung, something about sex and music. Visions of male faces with wanton stares - vacant windows - and liquid smiles, rushed past in the torrent of beating sound. And then the sound swirled into the drain of silence and the crowd poured out and someone vomited in a corner; he pressed his way out and walked quietly home.
There was no point to avoidance. Even if he should traverse that wide, barren landscape in an attempt to elude capture, the sadness always pursued without effort. How could he outrun the moon hanging in the night sky? He looked deep into the mirror and said, yes, I am here, to the sadness, and we will be together for some time yet.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Our House
The house had too many rooms. Some were richly furnished. Some were sparsely laid out and others were empty. There were rooms with open doorways or simple archways; others had doors that required an effort to open. Still other rooms had locked doors but no one knew who held the keys. None of us knew how we got here since none of us could recall having been invited. Nevertheless, we were all guests in the House of Life, in for the Long Night, and it fell to us to find a safe and warm room to pass the hours until the arrival of our host with the morning light.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
The Congolese Line
I finished off the last of the routine, daily turkey sandwich and the last sentence of the article, surrounded by Americana - pictures of Reagan, Brezhnev, King, the Kennedys, and cowboys. Suspended in the brash guitar music and the loud laughter of Americans chewing on meat, the article stared back at me, accusing.
Everybody was blamed: The Belgians historically plundered the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Congolese political class - terribly corrupt - worshipped money and did little for their people to bring development, including critical schools and clinics. The international community - the French, the Americans, and others - manipulated the Congolese to obtain the best contracts for their national companies. The World Bank - itself lending the Congo billions that slipped through the drains of corruption - invested heavily in logging companies that were in the process of destroying the second largest forest region on the planet without regard to sustainable logging practices.
The Congolese forests are considered the planet's second lung, next to the dwindling Amazon rain forests, absorbing carbon dioxide that otherwise would flood the atmosphere and trap heat, raising world temperatures with disastrous results around the globe.
In faraway Africa, the cries of the villagers of Baloulambila, are not heard amid the laughter cutting the air in between slurps of old-fashioned American milkshakes. Powerless, the villagers of Baloulambila watch as the American logging company Safbois levels the forest, taking sacred trees, causing the wild beasts that were once part of the village diet to disappear. The schools and clinics that the company had promised are revealed for the lies that they are.
Somewhere, deep in the heart of darkness, a line emerged, connecting Baloulambila, the World Bank, Safbois, milkshakes, turkey sandwiches, laughing Americans, and ancient trees floating down a choked river . . .
I felt the cold of the line start to grip me so I hurried home in the neon night.
Everybody was blamed: The Belgians historically plundered the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Congolese political class - terribly corrupt - worshipped money and did little for their people to bring development, including critical schools and clinics. The international community - the French, the Americans, and others - manipulated the Congolese to obtain the best contracts for their national companies. The World Bank - itself lending the Congo billions that slipped through the drains of corruption - invested heavily in logging companies that were in the process of destroying the second largest forest region on the planet without regard to sustainable logging practices.
The Congolese forests are considered the planet's second lung, next to the dwindling Amazon rain forests, absorbing carbon dioxide that otherwise would flood the atmosphere and trap heat, raising world temperatures with disastrous results around the globe.
In faraway Africa, the cries of the villagers of Baloulambila, are not heard amid the laughter cutting the air in between slurps of old-fashioned American milkshakes. Powerless, the villagers of Baloulambila watch as the American logging company Safbois levels the forest, taking sacred trees, causing the wild beasts that were once part of the village diet to disappear. The schools and clinics that the company had promised are revealed for the lies that they are.
Somewhere, deep in the heart of darkness, a line emerged, connecting Baloulambila, the World Bank, Safbois, milkshakes, turkey sandwiches, laughing Americans, and ancient trees floating down a choked river . . .
I felt the cold of the line start to grip me so I hurried home in the neon night.
Massacre at Barceloneta
I awoke this morning with vague unhappy thoughts . . . there was a dream somewhere that I peed on myself. Maybe it was the morning cold. After I flushed the toilet, I sat down in front of the computer - and saw this article:
"SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Animal control workers seized dozens of dogs and cats from housing projects in the town of Barceloneta and hurled them from a bridge to their deaths, authorities and witnesses said Friday. Mayor Sol Luis Fontanez blamed a contractor hired to take the animals to a shelter."
It also said: "Fontanez said the city hired Animal Control Solution to clear three housing projects of pets after warning residents about a no-pet policy."
It also said: "But instead of being taken to a shelter, the pets and strays were thrown 50 feet from a bridge in the neighboring town of Vega Baja, according to Fontanez, witnesses and activists, apparently before dawn Tuesday."
Today is Saturday. For four days, this story has been marching up the long road to international consciousness. I am so embarrassed. I have barbarian brethren.
"SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Animal control workers seized dozens of dogs and cats from housing projects in the town of Barceloneta and hurled them from a bridge to their deaths, authorities and witnesses said Friday. Mayor Sol Luis Fontanez blamed a contractor hired to take the animals to a shelter."
It also said: "Fontanez said the city hired Animal Control Solution to clear three housing projects of pets after warning residents about a no-pet policy."
It also said: "But instead of being taken to a shelter, the pets and strays were thrown 50 feet from a bridge in the neighboring town of Vega Baja, according to Fontanez, witnesses and activists, apparently before dawn Tuesday."
Today is Saturday. For four days, this story has been marching up the long road to international consciousness. I am so embarrassed. I have barbarian brethren.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Postal Prison
The large manila envelope was stuffed in my mailbox and I pulled it out, noting the red scrawls and the tape that the prison had used to seal it when they returned it. In the yellow light of my kitchen I opened the envelope; inside was a standard prison form with the appropriate box marked: magazines not accepted, inmates must receive magazines directly from the publisher.
I shook my head with a rising sense of irony. The magazine I had included with my letter had an article reviewing a number of recent books, all of which flashed a harsh spotlight on the cancerous prison industry and criticized all aspects of this inhuman American institution. The sense of irony welled up, expanded against the walls of my small, narrow kitchen, slid across and out the window, like a cloud, joining the other invisible clouds of irony blowing across the fair city, the capital of the free world.
It is not enough to punish a man who has committed a wrong by removing his freedom of movement. The severity of the wrongdoing is irrelevant, it seems. Without this most precious freedom - movement - a man can do nothing but be still and wither like a wraith. Without movement, he cannot marry; raise children; gain meaningful employment; see the world. Technology may bring the world to the prison but they are taunting images - holograms.
Being penned in is not enough, no, he must be kept ignorant; deprived of the power of the vote; his spiritual faith even must be regulated. To kill is to become worse than a slave.
I took out a new envelope and sent my brother the letter to the prison address again, this time without the prison system's scathing critique.
I shook my head with a rising sense of irony. The magazine I had included with my letter had an article reviewing a number of recent books, all of which flashed a harsh spotlight on the cancerous prison industry and criticized all aspects of this inhuman American institution. The sense of irony welled up, expanded against the walls of my small, narrow kitchen, slid across and out the window, like a cloud, joining the other invisible clouds of irony blowing across the fair city, the capital of the free world.
It is not enough to punish a man who has committed a wrong by removing his freedom of movement. The severity of the wrongdoing is irrelevant, it seems. Without this most precious freedom - movement - a man can do nothing but be still and wither like a wraith. Without movement, he cannot marry; raise children; gain meaningful employment; see the world. Technology may bring the world to the prison but they are taunting images - holograms.
Being penned in is not enough, no, he must be kept ignorant; deprived of the power of the vote; his spiritual faith even must be regulated. To kill is to become worse than a slave.
I took out a new envelope and sent my brother the letter to the prison address again, this time without the prison system's scathing critique.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Dear John
Dear John:
I woke up this morning not having slept enough, yet feeling strangely refreshed. It must have been the invigorating conversation of the prior evening. Nevertheless, I groped around inside of me for the switch to flip but I couldn't find it.
You know the switch inside you, the one you flip and that really amazing person standing before you in life is gone - because you have managed to transport yourself miles away in every way. You have used that switch all too often, I imagine, instantly abandoning all those wonderful people. Well, I couldn't find the switch. The light of the morning didn't help me find it, either. I think I must have thrown it away, down a well, in a cavern someplace. So I determined to carry on, living the day without the switch.
I managed to read two whole paragraphs in the six minutes on the train. It's some progress - but most of the six minutes I spent thinking of silly things I could do to make you laugh. I wasn't coming up with much because I wasn't sufficiently caffeinated. As the train clattered on and the dark tunnels rushed past outside the window, I wondered what Kismet held for our future. In the end, if we could not laugh, the world would be a dark cavern with no light switch.
One of my new colleagues, let's call her Hilda, she could have been a strict Catholic school marm 50 years ago. Hilda was in charge of the Water Club (that's WC for short though I hear that stands for toilet in Europe). She would not allow me to drink until today so she could calculate the prorated expenses of each person who partook of the cooler. Still thinking about making your eyes wrinkle, I got some water and made some hot tea and with the caffeine thus produced threw myself into my work with the abandon of the flipped switch.
And then it seemed a whole other day had passed and it was time to go home in the sudden cold. Where did this cold originate today? I hope my mood didn't bring it on. Talk about bad kismet.
I got online just now and noticed that I had a new email message. I got briefly excited, feeling slightly caffeinated in my imagination, and looked to see who might have written, who might have sent me a little hello.
Some guy was selling a cheap calling plan to Europe, asking me to switch now. Spam: Kismet?
I woke up this morning not having slept enough, yet feeling strangely refreshed. It must have been the invigorating conversation of the prior evening. Nevertheless, I groped around inside of me for the switch to flip but I couldn't find it.
You know the switch inside you, the one you flip and that really amazing person standing before you in life is gone - because you have managed to transport yourself miles away in every way. You have used that switch all too often, I imagine, instantly abandoning all those wonderful people. Well, I couldn't find the switch. The light of the morning didn't help me find it, either. I think I must have thrown it away, down a well, in a cavern someplace. So I determined to carry on, living the day without the switch.
I managed to read two whole paragraphs in the six minutes on the train. It's some progress - but most of the six minutes I spent thinking of silly things I could do to make you laugh. I wasn't coming up with much because I wasn't sufficiently caffeinated. As the train clattered on and the dark tunnels rushed past outside the window, I wondered what Kismet held for our future. In the end, if we could not laugh, the world would be a dark cavern with no light switch.
One of my new colleagues, let's call her Hilda, she could have been a strict Catholic school marm 50 years ago. Hilda was in charge of the Water Club (that's WC for short though I hear that stands for toilet in Europe). She would not allow me to drink until today so she could calculate the prorated expenses of each person who partook of the cooler. Still thinking about making your eyes wrinkle, I got some water and made some hot tea and with the caffeine thus produced threw myself into my work with the abandon of the flipped switch.
And then it seemed a whole other day had passed and it was time to go home in the sudden cold. Where did this cold originate today? I hope my mood didn't bring it on. Talk about bad kismet.
I got online just now and noticed that I had a new email message. I got briefly excited, feeling slightly caffeinated in my imagination, and looked to see who might have written, who might have sent me a little hello.
Some guy was selling a cheap calling plan to Europe, asking me to switch now. Spam: Kismet?
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Honeycomb America
Under a slightly muggy September sky, I pulled the luggage along, its wheels rolling bumpety-bump over the cracks in the sidewalk and before long - a taxi. In a few moments I breathed heavily, exhaling relief as we whisked onto the highway to join the swirl of five-thirty traffic. My flight wasn't until seven-thirty. Even in the thickest of traffic jams, there would be time, I thought.
Oh no, traffic can be very bad, though only a short way, the deep blue turban of the cab driver was saying. I could not see his face in the rear view mirror. The turban was saying that he was going to take a short cut. It turned from side to side, eyeing the flow of traffic, ebbing slowly like poured honey.
All at once, all those cars pouring along the highway seemed to me like a swarm of bees, each one a distinct, oddly mindless individual, but all functioning in unison like an entity working for the greater glory of the Queen - the national economy, the numberless industries, the rearing of countless larvae through school and college. We were linked - each to each - like the interlocking connections of empty honeycomb cells: one driver leaves her office early and ends up in front of another, slowing him down so that he feels compelled to speed down his exit ramp but is caught by a traffic officer who slows him down further with a citation, preventing him from being home in time to let his son who has come from school into the house; so the child wanders around the neighborhood until the son of the man who employed the woman who left early from her office pulls up to the child in his car and offers the boy a ride.
In the next minute the whole swarm of cars swerved away, offering a clear trajectory to the airport exit ramp. The blue turban cannot believe it. "It is never like this, so fast, " he is saying.
"Never is a very long time," I say.
Oh no, traffic can be very bad, though only a short way, the deep blue turban of the cab driver was saying. I could not see his face in the rear view mirror. The turban was saying that he was going to take a short cut. It turned from side to side, eyeing the flow of traffic, ebbing slowly like poured honey.
All at once, all those cars pouring along the highway seemed to me like a swarm of bees, each one a distinct, oddly mindless individual, but all functioning in unison like an entity working for the greater glory of the Queen - the national economy, the numberless industries, the rearing of countless larvae through school and college. We were linked - each to each - like the interlocking connections of empty honeycomb cells: one driver leaves her office early and ends up in front of another, slowing him down so that he feels compelled to speed down his exit ramp but is caught by a traffic officer who slows him down further with a citation, preventing him from being home in time to let his son who has come from school into the house; so the child wanders around the neighborhood until the son of the man who employed the woman who left early from her office pulls up to the child in his car and offers the boy a ride.
In the next minute the whole swarm of cars swerved away, offering a clear trajectory to the airport exit ramp. The blue turban cannot believe it. "It is never like this, so fast, " he is saying.
"Never is a very long time," I say.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Mecca at Starbucks
I did not hear the greeting at first; he said hello quickly in his low voice. I heard it again and lifted my head; my face had been buried in the article I was reading. At first I could not see his face. His tight white t-shirt was dazzling in the sudden brilliance of the neon streetlamp. His dark face was lost in the solid white until he smiled and then I recognized him.
In the mere seconds of this exchange I could only manage a slow but polite hello. By the time the smile was completed on my face, he had entered the cafe, no doubt to get his coffee before coming back out to sit here among the sidewalk tables.
My mind traveled backward across the months, reluctantly recalling the many times we had seen each other at this cafe and smiled politely, said a few words of greeting on occasion, even once engaging in two or three minutes of small talk. I traveled back across the months to the numerous times that I had seen him elsewhere, passing by on the sidewalk plugged into his music device, in the gym - sweating at the machines and plugged into his music device - at the gym showers, wrapped in his towel walking to a stall with his smooth black skin glistening. Always there was the polite smile and nod of the head but nothing more. His smiles were like tonight, noncommittal, like smiling to a fellow passenger on a train bound into the caffeine night.
Back in those days, I was the disciple of Beauty; wherever She was rumored to be holding forth, teaching Her devotees by way of example, I would seek Her out.
My face was buried again in the article. I sensed him pass behind me and pick a table near the end of the outdoor seating area.
Like all poor disciples, there came the time when I too grew disillusioned with my Prophet. Beauty had ultimately failed; Her teachings proved fleeting, the promised meaning never appearing with each disappointing glimpse. Still, distant as this Avatar of Beauty had been, I held the hope that I could one day say more than hello, sit comfortably and talk with him a while under the black sky and the neon streetlamps with all the people rushing by as they did just now, the constant tumult of pedestrians causing me to read the same sentence three times:
"L'Abri, though intense and strange, had not prepared Frank for the open money-grubbing cynicism of Big Religion in America, for the outright contempt many of the big pastors felt toward their followers and the commercialization of everything Jesus."
Or was it something else distracting me; yes, there it was, the thought that I should get up, walk over to him and offer him the magazine, talk about the book review on a founder of the Religious Right, or about the article on the Iraq War veterans who were routinely denied medical benefits.
I stood up. There, at my feet, I could almost see lines radiating from them along the ground in all directions, like spokes on a great wheel - lines that represented possible futures - one such line leading directly to the table at the far end, a return pilgrimage to the Prophet Beauty.
Then the French people arrived. The wheel began to turn. But tonight I would be crushed under the wheel if I stayed. The French people always came, a community of expatriates who talked long and loud and smoked incessantly, probably comfortable that no American would understand their conversation - they did not know that I understood them fully but had never responded to their greetings in anything other than English. Tonight the French would detain me with their talk and I would be rooted to the spot, glancing up as he left the cafe before I could say anything.
As I got up to leave, one of the Frenchmen greeted me; we engaged in polite small talk about the long days of work. Then I wished him goodnight and walked away, in the opposite direction of Mecca.
In the mere seconds of this exchange I could only manage a slow but polite hello. By the time the smile was completed on my face, he had entered the cafe, no doubt to get his coffee before coming back out to sit here among the sidewalk tables.
My mind traveled backward across the months, reluctantly recalling the many times we had seen each other at this cafe and smiled politely, said a few words of greeting on occasion, even once engaging in two or three minutes of small talk. I traveled back across the months to the numerous times that I had seen him elsewhere, passing by on the sidewalk plugged into his music device, in the gym - sweating at the machines and plugged into his music device - at the gym showers, wrapped in his towel walking to a stall with his smooth black skin glistening. Always there was the polite smile and nod of the head but nothing more. His smiles were like tonight, noncommittal, like smiling to a fellow passenger on a train bound into the caffeine night.
Back in those days, I was the disciple of Beauty; wherever She was rumored to be holding forth, teaching Her devotees by way of example, I would seek Her out.
My face was buried again in the article. I sensed him pass behind me and pick a table near the end of the outdoor seating area.
Like all poor disciples, there came the time when I too grew disillusioned with my Prophet. Beauty had ultimately failed; Her teachings proved fleeting, the promised meaning never appearing with each disappointing glimpse. Still, distant as this Avatar of Beauty had been, I held the hope that I could one day say more than hello, sit comfortably and talk with him a while under the black sky and the neon streetlamps with all the people rushing by as they did just now, the constant tumult of pedestrians causing me to read the same sentence three times:
"L'Abri, though intense and strange, had not prepared Frank for the open money-grubbing cynicism of Big Religion in America, for the outright contempt many of the big pastors felt toward their followers and the commercialization of everything Jesus."
Or was it something else distracting me; yes, there it was, the thought that I should get up, walk over to him and offer him the magazine, talk about the book review on a founder of the Religious Right, or about the article on the Iraq War veterans who were routinely denied medical benefits.
I stood up. There, at my feet, I could almost see lines radiating from them along the ground in all directions, like spokes on a great wheel - lines that represented possible futures - one such line leading directly to the table at the far end, a return pilgrimage to the Prophet Beauty.
Then the French people arrived. The wheel began to turn. But tonight I would be crushed under the wheel if I stayed. The French people always came, a community of expatriates who talked long and loud and smoked incessantly, probably comfortable that no American would understand their conversation - they did not know that I understood them fully but had never responded to their greetings in anything other than English. Tonight the French would detain me with their talk and I would be rooted to the spot, glancing up as he left the cafe before I could say anything.
As I got up to leave, one of the Frenchmen greeted me; we engaged in polite small talk about the long days of work. Then I wished him goodnight and walked away, in the opposite direction of Mecca.
The Old Couple - 09.16.07
In the brilliant September noon light, the old couple sat down to eat brunch; they were seated at a nearby table and I watched them. There was nothing remarkable about the old man and the old woman. Clearly, they were tourists: the old man's hefty camera hanging like a scarlet letter around his neck. They were dressed conservatively in long monotone shorts. The old man wore a dun shirt, the old woman a light striped blouse.
There was nothing remarkable about the old couple, I noticed, until they started eating. The old man said a word to the woman, which I could not hear. She nodded. She made a motion that seemed to complete the sentence that the old man started but did not finish. In time, I noticed - or decided - that the old couple's movements while they ate communicated whole thoughts to each other. They were married, I decided. In fact, they had been married for 40 years.
After 40 years, the old couple had probably said all that they had to say to each other. After living together for so long, words had lost their sense of urgency. It was sufficient to be present, to still breathe in each other's company. This is how wordless telepathy develops, slowly, over the long years traced by photographs . . .
In one moment, the old man lifted his camera and aimed the lens across the small table at his wife, who was aware of the powerful zoom lens but was wholly unconcerned as she turned the pages of a magazine slowly, waiting for dessert.
It was then I noticed that the camera must have been quite expensive, armed with an enormous zoom lens, the kind that professional bird watchers would have. The old man pointed the lens at his favorite bird - who had by now become accustomed to having her casual preening captured - and fidgeted with the lens, the magnifying strength of the lens being tested to its limit.
There I decided that the old man was peering ever closer into his wife's face, to see what she had not yet shown through her words or her motions. There I decided that the old man could see the cells of his wife's face, dying on her cheeks - and he snapped the photo.
Then he adjusted the lens, going deeper still, deep within the dying cells, where the molecules were in constant motion despite death. Deeper still, the atoms within were a blur of screaming motion, colliding in tremendous explosions that released sub-atomic particles, the building blocks of all reality - and deep within the particles were more particles still, awaiting discovery by scientists searching for something to say to the modern world.
Past the speeding, blinding collisions the lens penetrated to the very depths until at the end of the smallest matter, the old man's eyes emerged at the other end of the universe, where gigantic clouds of interstellar dust signaled the long-dead presence of ancient stars that had been torn apart by the gravitational pull of a black hole that sucked in all light, all gas, all matter into yet another universe. But the lens could not peer through the darkness.
The old woman put the magazine to the side and raised her head. In response, the old man let the camera hang from his neck. Dessert had arrived.
There was nothing remarkable about the old couple, I noticed, until they started eating. The old man said a word to the woman, which I could not hear. She nodded. She made a motion that seemed to complete the sentence that the old man started but did not finish. In time, I noticed - or decided - that the old couple's movements while they ate communicated whole thoughts to each other. They were married, I decided. In fact, they had been married for 40 years.
After 40 years, the old couple had probably said all that they had to say to each other. After living together for so long, words had lost their sense of urgency. It was sufficient to be present, to still breathe in each other's company. This is how wordless telepathy develops, slowly, over the long years traced by photographs . . .
In one moment, the old man lifted his camera and aimed the lens across the small table at his wife, who was aware of the powerful zoom lens but was wholly unconcerned as she turned the pages of a magazine slowly, waiting for dessert.
It was then I noticed that the camera must have been quite expensive, armed with an enormous zoom lens, the kind that professional bird watchers would have. The old man pointed the lens at his favorite bird - who had by now become accustomed to having her casual preening captured - and fidgeted with the lens, the magnifying strength of the lens being tested to its limit.
There I decided that the old man was peering ever closer into his wife's face, to see what she had not yet shown through her words or her motions. There I decided that the old man could see the cells of his wife's face, dying on her cheeks - and he snapped the photo.
Then he adjusted the lens, going deeper still, deep within the dying cells, where the molecules were in constant motion despite death. Deeper still, the atoms within were a blur of screaming motion, colliding in tremendous explosions that released sub-atomic particles, the building blocks of all reality - and deep within the particles were more particles still, awaiting discovery by scientists searching for something to say to the modern world.
Past the speeding, blinding collisions the lens penetrated to the very depths until at the end of the smallest matter, the old man's eyes emerged at the other end of the universe, where gigantic clouds of interstellar dust signaled the long-dead presence of ancient stars that had been torn apart by the gravitational pull of a black hole that sucked in all light, all gas, all matter into yet another universe. But the lens could not peer through the darkness.
The old woman put the magazine to the side and raised her head. In response, the old man let the camera hang from his neck. Dessert had arrived.
The Taxi Ride - 09.09.07
Pushing my feet in their worn-out sandals, stinging from the cold autumn air, I rushed into the cab this evening. The old driver, a shock of snow-white hair melting from the top, asked me how I was tonight. "Cold," I replied.
"Do you want a mint?" he asked. "If you keep your mouth moving you might get warm."
As we sped across the Washington streets with the bright lights and the sparse Sunday night traffic, the old driver kept his mouth moving. Mostly he mumbled. There was something about a strike. From time to time, I would say, "Hmm." I said this in various tones and at the right intervals to convey that A) I was listening; B) I was in general agreement; or C) I was at least not offended by what the old driver was saying.
Mostly people just want someone to listen. I listen, but what is there to say most of the time? How many different ways can you howl into this modern world? It's been some time since anyone told me a quiet story.
There was some cool jazz playing on the cab radio. Finally home, the old driver tried to overcharge me until I corrected him that I had taken many cab rides to my office. I knew the price to pay.
"Do you want a mint?" he asked. "If you keep your mouth moving you might get warm."
As we sped across the Washington streets with the bright lights and the sparse Sunday night traffic, the old driver kept his mouth moving. Mostly he mumbled. There was something about a strike. From time to time, I would say, "Hmm." I said this in various tones and at the right intervals to convey that A) I was listening; B) I was in general agreement; or C) I was at least not offended by what the old driver was saying.
Mostly people just want someone to listen. I listen, but what is there to say most of the time? How many different ways can you howl into this modern world? It's been some time since anyone told me a quiet story.
There was some cool jazz playing on the cab radio. Finally home, the old driver tried to overcharge me until I corrected him that I had taken many cab rides to my office. I knew the price to pay.
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