Cold War

1/24/91

I remember when I first heard the war had started. It was getting dark. Meg, Amanda and I were the only 3 left in the mailroom. That’s unusual isn’t it? Usually, by that time of night it’s only me. It was quiet. Usually the radio’s on. I was in the breakroom and when I came back Amanda handed me the phone. “It’s John … and Rick called. He wanted me to tell you the name of the war is Desert Storm. He said you’d understand.”

I can’t remember what John said. He called from work and we didn’t talk for long. Someone had turned Public Radio on. Serious low voices in constant stream. A man then a woman. No one paused to take a breath but they sounded very calm. I couldn’t hear the words. Amanda and Meg left soon after that.

Amanda hugged me before she left and I went right back to unpacking a box of books. I turned around and she and Meg were hugging by the exit - hard- for a long time and Meg hugged me too

before she left,

but the image of Amanda and Meg, there by the door, it stays and stays. I was thinking about Meg this morning. I worry about her. She hasn’t been to work for a few days. She crashes. I believe that’s what she does. Dark - crashes - gets as orange as her viaduct photos around the edges. I was thinking of holding her. People like that really need you to never let go. Of course, you have to. You have to and I was thinking of holding her and of her and Amanda. It was like they weren’t going to - let go that is - they just weren’t. Finally, and for once and for all of the embraces that ended before someone was ready for it to -- they were staying where they were. And even still, there they are. In my memory. When I’m 80 they’ll still be there in all their profundity - when I think of the war. Meg’s hold was the one that didn’t loosen. I’m sure of it.

Meg left a picture of 2 women - they looked Russian - dancing together. She left it in the closet (which was hers - and now mine) when she moved out. I asked her about it. She says she bought it for the frame. I hung it in the hall. Amanda’s been cold. She's just never been able to get warm since Sheldon left.
He sends her postcards from squares in Mexico.

A few nights after the war broke open, we were at the Wazee Supper Club and a man from Australia came up to us. We were talking about the war, which is of course the real reason Amanda has been cold, and 2 hours later they were making love in an alley. She tells me this the next morning as we’re working side by side. It was snowing last night. I can picture it. I can see the fire escape's and the purple skin, white rising breath and wet, black gravel.

She is so full and soft and clean as she tells me and she laughs and says, “Don’t try to picture it.”

And I laugh

How else do you make love to a foreigner when you’re lonely and cold. A bed would have been cheap. Purity is sometimes found only in the alleys. Other than underneath a viaduct, right now there’s no purer place in the world.

1/5/91

I am not entitled to these loves -- these lovers who pull the strands of hair from my face that they might see it better - that listen and admire. Uncommon callouses across the soft places of my mind. Numbness - mistaken as innocence, bland or pure. Sour can be pure, horror can … empty can.

Weathered wood staircase made from broken down crates. Ink words stamped here and there and that’s how you know it’s a staircase made of crates. The fire escape on The Spark where I live. The third stair panel from the bottom is made from a board that says “FRAGILE.“ I wore a black leather jacket and a dirty torn skirt with large work boots. My hair was dirty but my stockings were new and expensive. I covered my face and asked one of these men to take a picture of me standing by the staircase. He thought he understood. He thought it was artistic. I don’t think it was. For once.

1/8/91

Hardly any words in this place. Clean betrayal. No apologies and so right in our faces we can’t say much about it: “This is what I want - it’s what I’m going to do and this is how it will effect you.” Or maybe that last part hasn’t even been considered. We’re left to figure it out for ourselves. Clearly, I don’t understand the meaning of the word democracy or relationship or love. There are hardly any words available … At some point, I will have to find the word NO or ENOUGH or the actions that attach themselves to these words … in this place.

I can smell soot long gone into old red brick now brown and I can smell it in the thick light catching through the street lamps. Under the bridge a man is sorting through old boards - a pile of them - picking them up one at a time, then tossing them aside … as if he is looking for the perfect board -- a particular board. As if he could find something there worth keeping. At first, I hear the noise of the boards. It is a far away noise - but there he is. He doesn’t move as if he’s tired … or crazy or caring or cold - I am all of these things and I want to slow down and watch myself absent in his life. I wonder if he’s ever said NO or ENOUGH. Maybe he did and this is what’s become of him.

It’s dark and I’m a little scared. If I intrude on him, he’ll intrude on me. I’m walking home and I don’t know why. I’m not looking for perfect. I wouldn’t know the perfect board if it were given to me formally. I wouldn’t. But, there’s a large hefty trash bag stuck in the bare branches of that tree. I don’t remember that tree ever being green. That could bespeak my own loss - or maybe it’s dead. I wonder If that black bag will be there still by spring - flapping. It is sometimes a black living thing slowly struggling there forever - it will always be there - how would it get down - a strangling menace, pop art, my doppelganger, a phantom, a man, a big black bear.

Notebook Revisited 1

10/52 - Inability to Fly
Originally uploaded by LouiseKnight

December 21, 1990

I was in prison once. The guard refused to look at me.

In the cold, too far from anything but snow. Memory leaves thought behind when you're this cold -- becomes its own entity. A Remember of snow romanticized and crunching under my feet. Something different entirely than what surrounds me now. I can still hear it … crunching … but it's too late. My skin is frozen. My skin is wood. My skin is gone. The only thing that survives this is the essence of ice itself … is that what it takes to survive? Or is that what death itself will be - messages of frost from my mother - my ancestors - myself when I was six.

January 4, 1991

Behave as if my smile is enough … as if you believe I really mean the words I say. I finally grow silent. The light moves so fat and fast in front of mindless metal and there are some people around here that believe so much in what they think - they spray paint their words on dirty cardboard - or they put themselves up high, turn their back to you and expect that you’ll listen to their head for two hours. Don’t care if you are still there when they turn back around. Know you will be. Don’t care. Not Really. They KNOW they are right.

I think maybe they can see me up here - whatever I used to hide in a basement is on a pedestal. I hope I don’t get a lot of visitors. I’m still in prison after all. The guard won’t stop them but the guard still wouldn’t like it … too many visitors ... too much light. The sentence just keeps growing longer - I can feel it - a writer’s sentence to the sentence - no rehabilitation for the run-on. Shallow. Said before. Still unsaid. Maybe if I keep the heat low - stay cold - watch the lights from my window as it darkens - lights that can never hurt me unless I understand them.

viaduct notebook

racing the earth
Originally uploaded by hawkinsjosh

The following excerpts are from a journal that’s about 20 years old. One of the few that’s in an actual Blank Book rather than a simple spiral notebook, so it stands out. It also stands out for its place in Time - its time - my time. I was living over an art studio - The Spark. It was just across the 20th Street Viaduct. Cross that and you’d be right by Union Station -- not far from where I worked in a bookstore warehouse and too, the Art Student’s League - a handful of blocks farther into the city. This area had not yet been metamorphosed through redevelopment projects. It’s unrecognizable now from the place I knew. Most people would probably say that’s for the better and it’s much improved. I don’t really feel that way.

I was going to school and had a lot of interesting, thoughtful and creative people in my life. I tend to remember that time so ... fondly/idealized. Everything was just right. Striking then, the tone of this journal. Fairly dark (if that’s the word?). Something hurt and even a bit angry's conveyed . I don’t remember really feeling that. Something comes a cross a bit scared and …cynical ??? Not sure how to peg it. Such things don’t and haven’t really ever - felt/feel like a component of my constitution. I wonder that I perhaps tackled those shadows and darker forms - my “Hyde” side - using language - with so much upfront-ness … a certain aggressiveness, even - and in so doing was able to keep these aspects from really weaving their way into the pattern of my perspective or stance. I don’t know.

There’s a lack of artistry and disorder to the words that make them very ... artistic and clear to me as I read it now (of course). So obviously ironic that it isn’t at all. Some other author - vaguely familiar. What “she” says hits me pretty hard, sometimes. Talking about the people she works with and for - the booksellers and artists - and the strangers - and men - and herself - through metaphor or more direct narrative - she isn’t though … she’s not really talking about any of it. Just moving through herself - looking, I think. She’s only around twenty years old, after all. I shake my head at her - but still keep reading . So, I think I’ll be revisiting this journal for awhile here. Posting excerpts “as is” - keeping my sticky little editor that wants to change or add just a word or two - out of it. I think she has something to offer. I’m just unclear as to what that is right now.

So. Stay tuned.