War Is Language : 101 Short Works (9781937316044) Page 6

  There are men with money and power. Others with great ideas, unfulfilled.

  It seemed he needed to be needed. So, I put my pen and papers down, leaned back in the chair, and waited. Quickly, the story unfolded. He told me about his travels in Europe, his being a paramedic for a while, but how he didn't like letting people die when they had no proof of health insurance, how he considered getting on with the fire department, but that he didn't want to dumb himself down that much to fit in with the guys, how he'd been in real estate for a while, how he'd been in the restaurant business longer, how he liked to drink three glasses of white wine and wash it down with a beer, but that not enough places have a good wine list and a good beer list, and how he hated anyone thinking he was a pussy for wanting white wine; he explained that there was a great neapolitan pizza place—coal fire and truffle oil— near Wellington & Ravenswood and a great new brewing company, Revolution Brewing Company, in the vicinity of Milwaukee & Fullerton, and also how he's getting married in June.

  He had to excuse himself to answer the phone. I heard more as he spoke to someone else. He's Russian, a Russian Jew, with a Catholic grandmother, who took lots of antidepressants. The old woman at the bar was shocked that a Jew had ever married a Gentile. She tried to contain herself, but commended his family on their success, their triumph over social stigma. He said that his fiancée is not Jewish. This shocked the woman even more. "Don't you know the lineage goes through the mother?" Meaning, he should marry a nice Jewish girl. He said, "We just want to be happy."

  My Server and the other server laughed at the man on the phone whose order was taken. Whoever it was became a detestable gargoyle in my mind: an individual incapable of trusting them to get his dinner right. I heard, “I’ll give you two French onion soups and a Nicoise salad. I know. No bread. Don't want you calling me back about sending you bread." He waited. Then said, "So, bread with the Nicoise salad?.” Later, “I’ll be looking forward to it."

  The primary concern of the day was My Server’s vision for the Cedar Hotel. He came back over and stood there daydreaming near the blue flowerpot with the red-and-yellow orchids pouting their polka dot lips, wearing his long white apron, white shirt, yellow-square-patterned red tie, and leaned forward on a leg up on the windowsill.

  “Boutique hotel,” he said, “like the Hotel Allegro downtown." We both stared at the eyesore across the street. I didn’t know what to look for to see what potential he saw. But I waited, silent, and he showed me its value. Location is everything. The building was so close to Carmine's, to all the happenings on Rush. He had me. It was a great idea. I got excited, thought about spillover clientele, suggested a blues singer. He said, "No. Not that. No."

  Sure. He knew the developer, a bit. Didn't think much of his choices to slap a neon sign on the front, stucco the ground floor, and open it up as a shit hole. My Server knew exactly what it would take. He knew what should be on the menu, how to get neighborhood signatures for a liquor license, how to decorate each of the rooms individually with great designers, how to get it up and running and make a great first impression.

  I said, "How well do you know the owner?"

  He said, "Not well enough to talk to him."

  I said, "It sounds like you've got most of it figured out. You never know, he might be receptive. Get him on the right day. Get him in the right mood. He'll listen."

  He didn’t refute me, exactly.

  We talked about structural integrity, gut rehab, what the rooms might look like on the inside, since it used to be a hotel for transients and the rooms have been shut up tight for at least five years. We talked about hotel developers, Miami's renovations, drug money in suitcases, and where to start.

  36 — Get Rich & Save the U.S. Economy in the Process!

  Sorting motivational accessories on Monday: bootstraps, grindstone, attitude, Calvin Coolidge's persistence for year two, Midwestern work ethic, humility, Che Guevara propaganda beret—size small, a whole pile of self hyphenates (e.g., self-reliance, self-control, self-determination, self-respect, self-sacrifice, etc.), then you get into the various abstract cultural ideals (freedom, liberty, 'Merican Dream, unity, solidarity). There's some leftover stuff, too. Like common purpose and shared vision. Not sure where those go.

  You'll say, "I'm capitalizing!"

  They'll be like, "Why?"

  You're like, "I don't know. Isn't that what we're supposed to do? I want to own my own business, be my own boss, innovate, understand the new economy, and be part of what’s happening now.”

  “Why?” “You can’t.” “You’ll be one of them.” “That’s stupid.” “It’s too risky.” “Aren’t you a Democrat?” "No way. That would never work out." “Do you even understand the tax implications?”

  Pish-posh. It's fine that it seems nebulous. Give it credence. Give it time. What’s to prevent us from having cockfighting rings in the basement on Tuesday nights?

  But if you can stop the hurt from affecting anyone, from destroying anything, you win. Ten points. Keep your comments to yourself and just don’t tip her so much.

  "Yes! Let's do it."

  70 — Virgin/Whore

  Dear Fake Advice Columnist,

  I got raped when I was in college. Most of my friends did too. I don’t know why. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal. I don’t even really remember it. Disembodied trauma and shit. But I was wondering if I could have a normal sex life again. Nothing elaborate, just a sweet loving connection with the man I love.

  Dear Virgin/Whore,

  No. What are you talking about? You shouldn’t even think about having any kind of sweet loving connection. Who the hell do you think you are? Plus. That’s all a bunch of brainwashing, propagandistic bullshit. You’re liberated! Don’t let yourself get hamstrung by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It’s all crap, another created market branded to sell you off into a cult of prim piety. So. No. This is what you tell that sentimental sap of a boyfriend of yours: Why would I consult you? I got lessons from a real live dominatrix who showed me a contraption for home use on her sales floor. What? Nothing you say now matters anyway. I already spent the money. Just shut up and listen while I parrot her sales pitch about how this key-to-vinyl-heaven comes in a variety of custom colors. You like red. You should be happy. You wanted a surprise for your birthday. Just get over here, hand me the Allen wrench, and deal with it. This thing converts into seven pieces of furniture. I don’t remember what all the contortions are called. Only "fuck bench" lingers in my mind.

  12 — Ma Deuce

  That summer night, before I joined the army, I thought swimming would mean we’d hop a fence in some Canadian neighborhood. But no. We drove out onto a back road and then further down a rutted grass path covered with trees until the guy’s car gave up and stopped.

  I was drunk enough. As soon as I got out of that car I heard the roar, saw low orange clouds. Two guys, boys really, took us down a path to some sort of trestle or crane that reached out over the Niagara River. Now I don’t know the exact distance we were upstream from the falls. But I know the river was already anxious about going over that edge. Swift currents rushed over rocks. Eddying shifting waters surged in smooth swells nearby. Right under the trestle the water was just one smooth silk curl and deep enough. If I had to guess conservatively, I’d say we were less than a mile upstream from the falls. I shudder to think how close we really were.

  Civilization now has nothing to do with simpering sets of crossed ankles and ungloved fingers reaching for tea cakes. A woman has only to do with regulations. It’s a life of don’ts. One can only stand so long at a kitchen sink, pouring simple glasses of homemade lemonade. Such god damned relegation. A woman is not to enjoy standing under some inundating Niagara, or to love the concussion of the falls, to feel the doom-damning imminent thrill of maybe, just maybe, accidentally going over the falls.

  No one should, I guess. It’s not about equal rights anymore. It’s really more a safety concern. Still I think, “But what of Liberty?”

  A mo
re secure woman wouldn’t have joined the army, but I did and stood in a tiny little shed above the night-fire course in the Ozarks. I was with a drill sergeant who manned a machine gun. He shot live rounds out over the soldiers from my platoon, friends, who were low-crawling under barbed wire getting tear gas powder in their mouths. I backed into the corner of the shed and watched the shell casings pile up on the floor. He said to me, “Jones. You’re one of those serious privates, aren’t you?”

  I had a huge crush on this guy. He was hot, skinny, rugged, and drove a cherry red classic convertible Mustang from the ’60s. But when he said to me, “Jones. You’re one of those serious privates, aren’t you?” while magnesium flares burst over the live-fire training field where two hundred of my friends were, that crush ended.

  I agreed, I suppose. Who knows?

  Not then but later, I thought back to the night I jumped into the Niagara River so close to those falls. Before deciding to go for a swim with the guys we met, this friend and I went out after her mom had gone back to the hotel. We met the guys at the bar. They followed us onto the street. Then we all four wandered. You know, somewhere together with nowhere in mind. I don’t remember climbing onto the roof of a grocery store. But we did and tossed rocks near the feet of unsuspecting pedestrians. You’d toss a stone and then watch a woman look all around for the culprit. Invariably, she’d never look up. Women don’t. We did not throw rocks at men.

  Anyway, after we grew tired of this grocery store roof game, one of the guys must have said, “You girls want to go swimming?”

  So what if I was a serious private a few months later?

  Who knows who jumped from the trestle first, but when it was my turn I fell somewhere between ten and thirty feet to the water. That stupendous current accepted my body like nothing ever had. I swam like crazy for the bank. I think my friend may have jumped more than once, but I’m pretty sure that once was enough for me. I knew I’d reached some kind of limit of my daring. I don’t think I was the only one. After a couple of jumps each we found what privacy was available as couples and made out on the high cement pylons.

  The drill sergeant ended up disgusted with me in that machine gun shed a few months later and seemed to feel I’d ruined his evening with my thoughtful awareness. Canadian boys on cement pylons are one thing. But it might have been nice to end up making out with this hot drill sergeant in the little shed with that .50 caliber machine gun. Instead he was all pissed off about me being so serious, so aware of bullets ripping out pieces of the sky. I didn’t apologize. What had I done but stare grieving into the night?

  I accidentally stepped backwards onto his hat when my feet were almost covered in shell casings. That did it. He could never forgive me now.

  At the river above the falls, I can’t remember the structure we were on, not really. I’ve tried to revisit the place in my mind, but there are only puzzle pieces that don’t fit well with lemonade glasses in hospitable hostess hands or with feet burning in sun-penetrating spit-shined Airborne boots. But I remember falling from a rusted, jagged, abandoned metal transom jutting out over the water from two huge cement pylons. I remember going down, down, deep down, under an orange sky cloud-filled. Those obfuscating cumulus vapors lay lowered right on top of the sodium lights and roar.

  38 — Grotto

  Her: Can you really contrive: a simple morning where the faded curtains lift out and away from a lovely dirty weathered-wood sill? For almost a million dollars you can buy a painting of a scythe in storage.

  Him: It’s up to me to learn, to teach, to know, to shatter the mug thrown and unharness its breakage, to witness its fall, then, again to harbor her remnants.

  Her: I wake up under a dumpster. I’m bound and gagged in a makeshift body bag. My neck nearly strangled with duct tape. I hear a slow bent vehicle in reverse, beeping, blue, warning pedestrians.

  Him: Do not love me symmetrically. Get out of here and let me shave.

  Her: If not that man, who is with me in the lightening and darkening of the sky with these stations of the cross, these mulched honorariums where iris and geraniums share the quiet with koi swimming near eternal and not so eternal flames flickering—purchased in earnest, in contemplative red desperation?

  Him: Thank God we don’t have to stand looking through a hundred yards of pine trunks, across manicured evening grass, to the infant fields of rising corn—momentarily allowing for the fireflies—together.

  Her: Exchange the lovemaking for life, for coming undone from the duct tape inside, for produce and bounty, for the bus pass, parking space, and retirement fund. Walk away. If you can, wait for the bus, alone. Do not call anyone in the sunshine under blue skies and don’t kick the children just because they’re not yours.

  Him: I don’t see anything happening, like water moved by tail fins.

  42 — Centripetal/Tangential

  She flips the channel. There must be a way to replace the mind. Stand up for peonies, pink. The stems are cut and crystal bubbles and rush filling goes under the faucet. Brunette fosters herself, again. Vases of flowers cold and wet should be carried with two hands and placed carefully down on a shifted white bookcase with a blue lake view. Hot air comes to look through the crystal, water, and stems. The air leaves embarrassed evidence of its hot-on-cold. Drops. Someone brunette should sit down, damn it, and wonder how cold vases surrounded by humidity can begin to draw rivers, oceans, and lakes out of the sky.

  44 — Creative/Destructive

  Men move without ever turning their heads to see if, maybe, someone they know is right behind them. Whereas women just run. They know. They know for sure. She is backed into a corner with a doe. Their four eyes rattle and scan the darkened rooftops. She wears a pinafore and wields a blazing torch; it is no use.

  Nothing of disproportion remains even if you cut the fingers off elastic lace gloves to let red talons cross the wrenched sky with cigarettes, even if you ignore the tattooed sign of a thresher for sale. In God we trust. And there are no pink flamingos staked into the lawns on the money. What do we do to stop denying our destructive pram-sugar-cube culpability? “We don’t need another loan,” to acknowledge that greatest creator and greatest destroyer in a world of dreamscapes all filmed against a Southern California backdrop. Instead of looking up with blame and asking, “Why, God?” hold up a squealing piglet as if Lady Liberty gripped it by the hind feet. Let the crowd of extras get paid to clap to the beat whether they’re wearing bandanas, beards, fishnets, dress boots, or purple suits.

  A planned demolition exists between a woman in chains and a man in a red muscle shirt. She’s got her suitcase all ready to go. He’s screaming in long johns. Grand. That is their legacy. Or maybe stately is the best description for that broken row of lakeside weeping willows ruined by a storm’s wretched winds.

  For years they lined up and spilled down from some humidity-laden sky. During a storm intermittent ones were struck, killed, then chipped, chain-sawed and hauled off. Wind, unknown here, is more real than anything made with dry ice and a fog machine. We fight hardest for all that we are entitled to but must be aware that we are fighting not only for the best that we deserve but also, with the subversive nature of self-destruction, the worst.

  Who cares about the bolo tie, the red dye job, and the high school smiles? As Americans we must stop the entitled acquisition of our deservings.

  Fuck. We may have to bow down, humbly, and acknowledge, “Oh God.” Even with a hookah on a mushroom it seems, “We need a good price.” It’s the same in the quarry, in the brick barn, in the parking lot, with the mulch man, or cheered up with a big brother’s bright birthday bouquet of Mylar balloons.

  Just do it. Just say good-bye.

  The woman with the suitcase drives between the wilted lake and the blinking lined-up high-rises, soothed by her someday after an electric sky, entranced by the coming and going water meter owners on the bicycle path and also by this oncoming trafficked Lake Shore Drive—and oh God, the ache fall. Because we will damn well g
et it. Oh God the lightning crack in half and wood from which life barely knows the swirling flood in a sewer gutter splayed everywhere, and weight-bearing bent drowning branches in the grass.

  45 — Identity/Id entity

  Under bedrock, the world moves molten. It seems not at all possible when confronted by that crust of seeming solidity. But denial is dangerous. You and I both know that rock subverts great flows of magma. And below your exterior, your countenance, your pleasant tolerance, the self melts where mountains have yet to be made. You want a steam vent? I’ve got just the nothing causing that kind of defeated hunt for entrance. We both know there’s a way in. Because we see every kind of shattered earth: snowy streetlight near cracked asphalt in a parking lot, but also bedrock asunder, and exploding meadows. This is your version of loving, eh? Okay. But I have diligently done all that, picking over soft filth, pretending. Another damned mess made just to be cleaned up. Shhhh! I know. We don’t have to talk about it. It will go away. I’ll sift glitter and dust across that place where a steam vent can’t exist because I must obstruct my loving, knowing entrance to you. Just hush. Let the glitter come down through nothing, falling dutifully bright, and likewise weightless, flat. Don’t say anything. Not another word. Let this silence of my shaken may-as-well-go-on morning be like powdered sugar on a bundt cake. Uniform, perfect ash drifts down just the way nothing’s swept away from the dusted dark, which remains as its own reality. We may be able to prove and disprove ourselves sinister and sane continually. Just shut up about it. Get some slivered almonds on the way home, will you? And to these beginnings be, blessed white fires of belonging, undone and rapt, and so Pinatubo, so what? Rim unclosed and somehow surging, so much molten earth forced into our night sky—how can it be? It is. Not a cake. Not a steam vent. Not any kind of horrid, unprecedented eruption. Not anymore. It is nothing in the morning. Only. Undone and cooling wrapped valley spurs, through obsidian eyes, and so leave these unquestioned, these blessed white fires of belonging: me, yours, your only own pyroclastic flow.