Meg, Oranges and Scars

1/16/91

Not all things that die are buried. If once it was a cultural practice, now the trash and the half-living and even the dead themselves scale or catch in chain link fences illegally, because no littering or entry are allowed - and this is what the poets have to speak about - so we are often just quiet. The blank pages go wide and deep.

He could not understand why I would let them have what I still needed just because it was inside what was worthless. My car. They took it -- towed it because it wasn’t working. There are corpses like this everywhere, but mine was near an unfortunate sign. Wrong place, wrong time. I told them they could just keep it. They told me I would have to pay them for storage. A ransom note that was meaningless to me. So much of what we fight for to keep alive is dead already. We’re surrounded by machines that make the system’s heartless heart beat - not a life support system … a life-less support. Our system.

But I don’t know how to explain this to him. He’s eating an orange while we talk and in this moment - when we talk - there’s nothing more beautiful than watching him do this. I don’t love the taste half as much as the labor - I’d rather watch someone else though. Their tiny cuts burning - the ones by their nails - their fingers, cold - juice - sticky trickle up to their elbows if it’s a good one - this is a good one. He puts the peel on his knee and asks if I want a section. I don’t. I just like to watch …

1-17-91

The gallery told Steve (Meg’s artist friend) not to use orange in his work. Really. He lives below me in a space beside the Spark Art Gallery. He’s good - if you like abstract and really, what else is there. Meg told me that most of the pictures she takes under the viaduct turn out orange-ish. She tells me this over soup that needs salt but I won’t ask for any because I still like it and my hands still hurt. I don't like the idea of salt. I’d fallen on them under the viaduct walking to work with Meg. By myself, I walk over the bridge. We went under. It was cold and I slipped on the water frozen across the railroad tracks. I stepped up and slipped back - my legs were gone. I fell hard and I crossed my hands across my chest to break the fall.

Meg asked, and I said “Yes I’m fine.” I felt like I was going to throw up. Dizzy. “Your hands are bleeding - the skin looks torn like crucifix holes. Those'll scar for sure.” Ah shit meg - hush - but I had to laugh and she asked if it was some martyr-type anti-war protest. I don't think I said anything to that. We’re walking again and I can’t make a fist. I can’t really move my fingers. Dogs are barking and Meg thinks people down here feed the dogs lead to make them mean. “I took pictures of the dog that guards that dump.” She points - “Even that one turned out orange.” I am listening. I bend down for a loose railroad spike but can barely pick it up. She gets it for me and puts it in my purse because I ask her to - ‘Ah. You found a doorstop.”
‘Nope. A nicknack.”

It isn’t good to get stuck inside your head like both Meg and I do sometimes. I know she does. I can feel. To get stuck there and how should I ... and what can I ... and it isn’t good to drink alone and lately I’ve been making a lot of stupid mistakes. It’s hard to believe that a locked door can change your life - but war - our war - nothing is different.

Meg asked me "Why did you come here - why would you want my old apartment? There are mice and bugs and the neighborhood and the smell and …."

"Cheap rent. Why did you move out?"

The disc jockey. The guy across the hall. She didn’t listen to music for three years because of him. Not just his station,
not any station -
not even a record or a tape.
And if a car pulled up beside her with its radio on, she would plug her ears. 3 years. We’re walking home back under the viaduct and I’m trying to imagine what he could have done to her and of course she won’t tell me - only what she did in response - only her response.

2/15/91

I don’t know how to talk about politics -- about war. The people who do are liars.

Lying defined by lacking bravery to ask just one more question - the one that would get inside a solid pseudo-answer and blow it to bits. When that destruction fails to occur, it manifests … elsewhere. We lie to ourselves, first - and then bury the incident. But that’s only the first grave.

So, I’m standing in front of the courthouse at 7 pm in February holding a candle with 20 other people I know from work and many more I don’t. We try to talk we try to be silent we try to pray all at the same time we are trying. Someone burns the hair on their hand trying to warm it over a candle. That smell of burning hair. A run of terror through me and I don’t know why and then, I do. And then more people come. Not many have candles. They’re supposed to have candles. This is a peace vigil. We light candles and call our congressmen. I thought that was the point.

A group of young men - boys - a group of boys come walking towards us. Unusually beautiful faces. My feet are wooden. The pain of cold has gone. I’m surrounded by visible breath. Mine rises to catch in my eyelashes. Mist lifting before losing its separate utility in a common haze. I’m looking through this at them: young, beautiful faces with chains around their necks holding dog tags and some of them look scared. There’s one though - he’s about my age but when I look at him he’s a child. I imagine him as my son. Odd thing to do. I can’t take my eyes off of him. A strange passion in his eyes, a wild woop of light in his face. He has an American flag on a dowel stick down the back of his shirt. It runs the length of his spine, though unnaturally unyielding and without the wholesome curves. It juts up so the flag is above the crown of his head, held in place by a rope tied around his forehead. The rope is secured a second time in a knot at the front of his throat. He’s lovely. Really. I watch him with an empty mind while he walks the perimeter of our circle with his friends. He walks with pride and more strength than I have ever felt when it’s this cold - this February. We make eye contact --. What would we say to each other? What we have in common: both of us want to believe in and do something right. I think neither of us have found a place for this. I’m with a bunch of people who can’t even remember to bring candles to a candlelight vigil. What would we say to each other. I don’t know how to talk about politics. He has a rope tied around his throat.