the ceiling.
five
Wounded Women:
• TV too has wounded women. They wear leather, wear their anger on their full-sleeve tattoos. Angry at fathers, other abusing menemies: mustached uncle, sado/slutty ex, handsy priest. This anger is transferred to all men, even the plaid-shirted, soft-eyed virgin who wants to hold her tenderly, whisper sweet street-vernacular into her sleeping ear. She pushes plaid-shirt away, afraid of letting herself love, letting herself be vulnerable again. Episode continues after a short commercial break. Somehow plaid-shirt proves himself. He is there for her. Breaks down her barrier. She opens herself. Fucking ensues, etc. Maybe they cry in front of each other. Maybe they learn to see the world as something less than aggressive.
• TV never told me how to break down the barrier, and the truth is TV doesn’t know. Truth is those barriers stand. Barriers like grief, which sticksto Mom, sticks to Alison, sticks to them like gum in hair. Only option is to cut until you’re ugly, keep cutting, feel the ridges of your skull-scars as physical incarnations of your loss. Those barriers stand, and maybe they age. Age and become nostalgia. Age and become their own separate deaths: death of the sadness, death of the original feeling.
• Wanted to bring Alison to the birth of new feeling. Sad too. Birth of new feeling meant the death of old feeling. Alison already thought everything was dead.
six
Couldn’t sleep. Condo heat nonadjustable, no settings but on and off. It was on. Radiator rattling, ready to burst from the wall with the force of a freewheeling subway car, nuts and bolts airborne, machinery burning. I smacked it a couple times to no avail. Contemplated finding a hammer, fucking shit up, dueling to death. Smelled like death: sautéed mouse corpse. Plus the heat. Not even an all-encompassing heat that kills chill. This heat was menopausal: hot flashes upsetting my delicate balance. Hot air aimed straight at me in intermittent bursts. Then the quick return of cold. Sweating and shivering, I was up. Nothing to be done.
Wrapped myself in a flannel robe. Worn, holey. Soft, semi-holy. My housecoat. My smoking jacket. My uniform. Tiptoed toward the kitchenette. Benjy deep in unconscious unrest on the foldout. No relief from dreams. Face down, legs spread, biting hard into pillow. One shoe still on. Other sideways on the floor.
“Please stop,” his dream-self said.
Stop what? Excess of familial responsibility? Butt-spanking bogeyman? Nocturnal ball gag and ass-banditry (Pulp Fiction , Miramax, 1994)?
We were different that way. I woke sweaty and foul-smelling. He slept shittily. Even in dreams he bore the brunt with bit lip. Like a grunt on the front lines of some hellish nothing war. He took pride in his ability to survive without complaint.
Behind Benjy the sun strode from clouds, tentatively, out of annoyed necessity, like some dude emerging from fuck-bed, late for work, still admiring his conquest’s sleeping body, awaiting toaster waffles. Clouds went pink, then cleared. Boston skyline into view, temporarily inflamed by sun-love, twisted with diminishing beauty. In a matter of minutes it would all be gone, gray. Reminded me of coming down from mushrooms, lamenting my dwindling visions, but comforted by the coming concreteness. We were out of coffee.
Also out of cereal, bagels, waffles, bananas, grapefruit, oatmeal, all forms of prenoon nourishment. Couldn’t turn on the TV; didn’t want to wake Benjy, incite sleep-deprived wrath. No newspaper anymore—Mom had canceled our subscription. Nothing to do but watch daylight emerge, urge myself into daylight. Strapped on a pair of beaten boots. Needed to walk and think, escape condo confinement.
Walked the breakdown lane, slowly, smoking, freezing. Took off my headphones to hear the world: light purr of engines, fragments of music coming out the partially open windows of wind-bearing smokers, wind. Thought it would be funny if Dad saw me on
five
Wounded Women:
• TV too has wounded women. They wear leather, wear their anger on their full-sleeve tattoos. Angry at fathers, other abusing menemies: mustached uncle, sado/slutty ex, handsy priest. This anger is transferred to all men, even the plaid-shirted, soft-eyed virgin who wants to hold her tenderly, whisper sweet street-vernacular into her sleeping ear. She pushes plaid-shirt away, afraid of letting herself love, letting herself be vulnerable again. Episode continues after a short commercial break. Somehow plaid-shirt proves himself. He is there for her. Breaks down her barrier. She opens herself. Fucking ensues, etc. Maybe they cry in front of each other. Maybe they learn to see the world as something less than aggressive.
• TV never told me how to break down the barrier, and the truth is TV doesn’t know. Truth is those barriers stand. Barriers like grief, which sticksto Mom, sticks to Alison, sticks to them like gum in hair. Only option is to cut until you’re ugly, keep cutting, feel the ridges of your skull-scars as physical incarnations of your loss. Those barriers stand, and maybe they age. Age and become nostalgia. Age and become their own separate deaths: death of the sadness, death of the original feeling.
• Wanted to bring Alison to the birth of new feeling. Sad too. Birth of new feeling meant the death of old feeling. Alison already thought everything was dead.
six
Couldn’t sleep. Condo heat nonadjustable, no settings but on and off. It was on. Radiator rattling, ready to burst from the wall with the force of a freewheeling subway car, nuts and bolts airborne, machinery burning. I smacked it a couple times to no avail. Contemplated finding a hammer, fucking shit up, dueling to death. Smelled like death: sautéed mouse corpse. Plus the heat. Not even an all-encompassing heat that kills chill. This heat was menopausal: hot flashes upsetting my delicate balance. Hot air aimed straight at me in intermittent bursts. Then the quick return of cold. Sweating and shivering, I was up. Nothing to be done.
Wrapped myself in a flannel robe. Worn, holey. Soft, semi-holy. My housecoat. My smoking jacket. My uniform. Tiptoed toward the kitchenette. Benjy deep in unconscious unrest on the foldout. No relief from dreams. Face down, legs spread, biting hard into pillow. One shoe still on. Other sideways on the floor.
“Please stop,” his dream-self said.
Stop what? Excess of familial responsibility? Butt-spanking bogeyman? Nocturnal ball gag and ass-banditry (Pulp Fiction , Miramax, 1994)?
We were different that way. I woke sweaty and foul-smelling. He slept shittily. Even in dreams he bore the brunt with bit lip. Like a grunt on the front lines of some hellish nothing war. He took pride in his ability to survive without complaint.
Behind Benjy the sun strode from clouds, tentatively, out of annoyed necessity, like some dude emerging from fuck-bed, late for work, still admiring his conquest’s sleeping body, awaiting toaster waffles. Clouds went pink, then cleared. Boston skyline into view, temporarily inflamed by sun-love, twisted with diminishing beauty. In a matter of minutes it would all be gone, gray. Reminded me of coming down from mushrooms, lamenting my dwindling visions, but comforted by the coming concreteness. We were out of coffee.
Also out of cereal, bagels, waffles, bananas, grapefruit, oatmeal, all forms of prenoon nourishment. Couldn’t turn on the TV; didn’t want to wake Benjy, incite sleep-deprived wrath. No newspaper anymore—Mom had canceled our subscription. Nothing to do but watch daylight emerge, urge myself into daylight. Strapped on a pair of beaten boots. Needed to walk and think, escape condo confinement.
Walked the breakdown lane, slowly, smoking, freezing. Took off my headphones to hear the world: light purr of engines, fragments of music coming out the partially open windows of wind-bearing smokers, wind. Thought it would be funny if Dad saw me on
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