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Thanks To The Living
The Dumaine boys did an outstanding job of cleaning the street today which I had noticed in passing earlier while airing up a tire at the Shell--have to make the U-turn at Dumaine. So I'm dropping by now because I miss them some; take some pictures, and Glynn says, "you takin' those over to your house?" and I paused before answering the slightly awkward question, thinking about what he said and then said, "yes." "To remember us by?" he said, and I was a little put out by the finality of that so I smiled condescendingly and said, "I don't have to come far if I want to remember you," and he acquiesced with a nod but essentially (and he and I both know this), yes, that, I guess, is exactly what I was doing. I should know better. The pictures I take when I am most apt to take them--in those two hours before dusk--never come out so good because the lighting is at odds with the blackness of their skin, and the results are lying representations of those warrior souls.
An SUV with Washington plates cruises by and I make eye contact with the occupants--only they aren't making it with me--and I am reminded of my recent reconsidering of an episode 13 or so years past in which I was in Texas (after a recent year and a half in Seattle) threatened by mail thusly--"what you did was wrong and I'm a get you for it," this with a Washington state postmark. What I did wrong was not fully evident at the time and now is no more so but getting "got" for something reminds me of this--just getting got, period.
I can't say he is a good friend because he's not but by reasoning that he is a better man than so many casual friends, and only 44 years old, and with that ability like Gatsby to see you as the man you want to be and reflecting that back to you before casually glancing off to attend to other business, it is with great sadness that I reflect on the news of his imminent death by cancer. I am jumping the gun accepting defeat so early but better now than later I say because the greater the early consideration the higher are the chances that what little useful courage I have will be used to convey my feelings to the living. "I'm going to miss you G, you are one of the few," and even your death will in the end uplift the living as we consider the unspoken message of your passing--are we accomplishing anything worthwhile? Is this what we want the final picture to look like? Is there something we should be doing that we are not doing? In your case G--with a beautiful wife and four daughters equally so, a booming business, and an undaunting pursuit of leisurely activities--the answers would be yes, yes, and no. And thank you for living as long as you will.
Birds Gotta Skim
Was down to the Bayou St. John this morning where it is rumored the jumping fish glitter at sunrise.
Those are my steps first after the Dumaine bridge but I have never challenged anyone for this right because there has never been anyone to challenge. It is my bayou alone for small stretches of time at any given sunrise. The water is oily black and still and does not invite the notion of living organisms but my trained fish will defy this Cheneyesque reality for this is true--the show must go on.
To the right is that aged coppery green dome which one suspects might harbor followers of a religion.
To the left is the Dumaine bridge, the purple striped paint job much faded now, and grey primer spots mark where the great anti-grafitti anti-artist has done his deed.
Beyond the bridge--obscured from view somewhat by two large live oaks--is the now almost completed renovated American Can Company, which will be housing for a pricier clientele than yours truly.
A pretty woman with ample bosom defined clearly behind the sheerest garment is across the mason dixon, I mean bayou, from me. She waves and I wave back, sloshing some coffee that has gone cold. Her two Rotweillers are doing their business and she steps carefully in the tall wet grass, plainly aware that her's are not the only one's who do that business there, and as it is not in fashion, or mandated, that owners scoop shit, caution is warranted. My side of the bayou is not conducive to shitting and although not unheard of, mostly is not an issue. And of course I do not stray as walker, runner, or sightseer too far from the parameters that define my spot. I've been coming here, not exactly frequently, but consistently, for seven years, and I haven't seen everything there is to see so why would I stray too far and risk stepping in someone elses shit.
Well, my fish, yeah I've missed you too, are done now, some good jumping today, and their legacy of foamy bubbles like that one might see in his toilet bowel after a night of sex is all that is left to remind me that fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly, and vice versa
The birds I can't hear anymore because humanity is a great distraction/attraction to me, which is to say I'm not alone anymore and sure that's as it should be but what was it they were saying this morning, the birds on my side talking to the birds on that side?
Well, I just left Rocheblave to get that coffee and sure I can greet the morning's glow on the bayou but you are supposed to wean yourself from this junky-like jive you doing here and get on with that work over there, but there's no talking to you, you autonomous son of a bitch. You will find your excuses to do it just your way.
Come on you two, don't fight, you'll wake the others.
Summer Fun
Deep in the southern heart of an inner city with streets meaner than you she has begun--after lengthy sabbatical--to torture the poorly educated children and they for their part keep coming: six, seven, eight, nine, "hey, close that door mthrfker," and the mantra "work or go" echoes until there is stillness. Later there is pity pat on the front porch.
When We Lose The Son
So I'm over early to Dumaine not so much to keep the punk ass street bitches from stealing my Sunday paper (I should get it transferred to Rocheblave I guess) but because I feel drawn to the electronic media which exists over here but not yet for awhile at Rocheblave.
There's something to say about all this New Orleans rain but...must I really? I tend to vere so much. And haven't the local headlines this last week said it all: "Rain, Rain, Go Away," and "Enough Already"?
Its like this the myriad images, to outline: It was cloudy in Austin once for sixteen days straight, or was that days straight over one hundred degrees? I think the former, and I was depressed, which I am not now, but chemically (like I know about chemicals?) there is a sense of remembering, triggered by this sunlight deprivation. How you like the bombast so far?
Then there was Oregon, outside of Eugene, across a wooden bridge over a bubbling brook into a treeless land lagoon surrounded by trees where I was heading for cigarettes. It was a mom and pop shop and they were loading their belongings into a moving van. The man said he never realized it could rain so much. They were getting the hell out. Relocating to Gulf Shores, Alabama. I couldn't imagine what the hell he was talking about. I was from Texas, happy, in love locally, and miles away from the acceptance of my eventual failure. I wished the man well.
Then Seattle, well, what are you gonna say? That's were they invented "sunlite deprivation." Of course, other parts of the globe lay greater claim but let's not confuse the issue with too many facts. That's where I started learning about the only kind of failure that matters. Was I depressed, sunlight deprived, chemically unbalanced? Who cares? I strapped all the good and bad tightly to my being, hunkered down on my mobile island, and left out of there, with damaged love, and lover, and some hope.
When we lose the sun the water runs cold. No, goddammit, not poetry, I'm talking about solar heat.
In the woods of Bastrop, outside of Austin, where I was being, for brief periods, a low elevation mountain man, in a literal shack, built by me with some advice, a chainsaw, hammer, nails, and lumber, and where one day (probably while I was failing in Seattle), a friend of mine and lover of another, a former prostitute who had come to the woods to cleanse, died of a heroin overdose. Before that, over the year or so I knew her she did on occasion shine with such lightness that as I think about it now my feelings are not so much of sorrow, but admiration.
Those sparsely populated woods were not comprised of nudists per se but it was understood that public nudity, on your own land, and at the community pond, was ok. "Public" being four or five of us spread over a hundred acres. So it was with an unparalleled sense of freedom that I would in the winter standing naked in those woods with a trigger operated hand sprinkler locked to the "on" position, and attached to the limb of a cedar tree, enjoy a shower. Winter in Texas one must understand is often a sixty degree day, and my water supply was run from a neighbor's pump, overground for several hundred feet, with black plastic pipe. The water in the pipe on a sunny day was understandably quite hot, and lasted more than long enough for my shower. These cleansings rank highly.
Likewise, on Rocheblave, my unfinished renovation project, where I live almost full time now, my bathing is reliant on solar heat until the water heater is installed and the gas is hooked up The gas meter is the last thing that will happen. I have to be pretty much inspectable/respectable for that to occur. I had the plumbers run the copper water pipes through the attic instead of under the well off the ground house because copper is precious metal to the roaming denizens of the night (read--crackheads) and the property is on direct route to the recycling plant a few blocks away at St. Peter and Rocheblave. You don't need much hot water for a summer shower but a little is nice and these last few weeks of sunny weather have aided me in my pursuit of greater comfort. The showers have been nice. Especially after five years of claw foot tub baths at Dumaine, which is not always elegant.
That's all I wanted to say: that my showers this week--what with the incessant rain and clouds and no hints that a sun even exists--have been cold. Which reminds me of the campground at Palenque...
Still Surviving
I had been complaining about the lack of birds in general and specifically those not visiting the Mulberry tree over along the side of the house when a response to my complaint came to me--this was 5-20something, 2001, the weather perfectly cool, crisp, and sunny--in the form of a female cardinal. I was lounging on the side porch with my friend and ubiquitous helpmate, the ice cold budweiser. The Mulberry tree I could almost touch.
The female cardinal drab as they are was soon joined by the vibrant male and I'm being very, very still even at the risk of letting my beer go warm. I was so happy to exist at that moment enjoying what promised but did not turn out to be a love story. I did however get a real nice unmagnified view from about five feet away of the bright red male munching the few remaining berries with his black beak. Two weeks previous I had been begging the gods for more berry-eating birds and now this--a male and female cardinal; St. Louis; Jim Louis. Could it mean something, something good? Should I be embarrassed to reach so far in my mental meanderings?
The mosquito with his frail hypodermic sucking the blood from my left cheekbone made me move and the cardinals did flee. When I reoriented my field of vision to include the world at large I was shocked to see the still surviving feral black and white kitten two feet below me on that little incomplete strip of concrete, doing the scratching backflips--to the left, then to the right, then to the left, a bit awkward and unpracticed. When I went for my budweiser on the step below me and towards the kitten, it became aware of me as if I had previously not existed, and I had to wonder is such a thing possible? To exist and not exist in blinking fashion?
The kitten bolted away from me and all the risk I represent, true to it's surviving nature.
Day Job
Night Job
The Floating Slim Dandy
A few days ago I met with a professional smarmy maggot--that's not the real title of his profession, but then my name is not really Slim Dandy either--and I signed away my rights to Dumaine in exchange for...nothing. The maggot was giggling with my ex partner as I rushed from the scene and even though for her part she was insulting him I don't think he really got it. He felt he had masterfully orchestrated a coup. I mean who in their right mind would sign away a possession of some value without triplicately signed documents stating what was in it for him? Slim Dandy is who.
The maggot's office was done up with art aplenty and the overall effect left me a little queasy as I considered would my criticism of this framed art be insulting to his children, or a bona-fide working artist? Either way, I can only offer as summation that what the art was lacking in quality it sure made up for in quantity.
Me and the ex were supposed to come back to this creep to rework our wills to my advantage but once outside I made it clear I would not be coming back. "I'm not worried about Dumaine parity, we can work something out, or not."
I don't describe the maggot as a creep merely to pile on insults but because his reptilian manner and lack of humor contradicted what could have been a pleasant business transaction. Examples are better but I can offer none except to say he had the essence to inspire the many jokes which are made at the expense of his profession.
So anyway, I'm one property lighter. I feel like I could almost float.
,
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?
This kid makes fun of me.
No Mercy
Fermin asked me did I want one and I said sure so he went into the Dumaine foyer where all the school supplies, toys, and kid stuff is stored and cut me a two by three version of his ninth grade graduation picture from Bell. I used to keep my unloaded shotgun in that foyer closet with three hollow point slugs stacked nearby but moved it elsewhere the weekend we kicked Shelton out because the imprisoned Sr.'s advice to M "to be careful" echoed inside me as good advice.
In my forty plus baby boomed years the expression "code red" has mostly been a phrase used in jokes and as a way to suggest an irony regarding situations that aren't really that serious.
And the idea of parallel universes is perhaps written off by many as the fancy of science fiction geeks but I suggest otherwise, as geek, freak, republican, facist, or whatever category fits me on the given day. In America, of which I study, one can if one looks, see the evidence of worlds which exist in a parallel but diametrically opposed relation to each other. What I think confounds the most of us who would even consider such foolishness is the obvious similarity between the opposites. It doesn't make the kind of sense we can easily digest, we the body of people whose biggest conundrum is the answer to the question--"is Pepsi ok?"
As lightweight intellectual I can only offer primer material as example and it is this: last week, six blocks from here in the 2000 block of Dumaine the Andrew J. Bell school effected a code red on it's students because outside on the street at nine in the morning a dude with forehead tattooed No Mercy shot a cop three times, once in the back of the head, and the school immediately went into a lockdown mode that kept all persons in, in, and all persons out, out.
This is a situation that could be, but sadly is not, the definition of horror. The horror is our reaction or lack thereof, which can only look like affirmation. What a crazy world. Glad it's not the one I live in.
"You were in school last week when the cop was shot?" I asked Fermin.
"Yeah," he said.
"You heard the shots?"
"Yeah," he said.
"What happened?"
"They locked all the doors, made us sit down, and stay away from the windows," he said.
Me, I just nod.
The Limping Mr. Roaf
This is the first full week we, that is me and my boss, and one helper from my boss's brother's crew, have spent on the home of professional offensive lineman Willie Roaf, and I'm tired.
The carpenters are some imports from Mississippi, or Alabama, or somewhere, so we are not familiar with them or their ways. Their trimming work is adequate, and they put it up pretty fast, but they put too many nails in the wood and do not do any rough sanding on outside corners or caulking of exceptionally large gaps. They are nowhere near as good as the Sentilles brothers (even though the elder scarred me for life when he pushed the 380 pound Viking convection oven into my temple) who are the other trim carpenters (other that the avowed racist) we work behind. Even without bribery the racist and the Sentilleses are better than these guys and when you bribe them, hell, the Sentilleses especially, do so much extra finish work that the work day for a painter is easy and free.
Back at Roaf's, today was the spray day for oil based primer and I'm keeping my spraying boss supplied with whatever he needs and issuing orders to the other helper, and running (ok walking) here and there and about an hour into it this poindexter-looking carpenter comes in and I give him a one sentence summary of the situation, telling him if he can leave, then leave for about an hour and everything will be fresh, the air will be breathable, and the windows will be open.
I'm wearing a respirator so can't smell the fumes myself but assume the house must be pretty rich with scent. Now this poindexter is going to get to the bottom of things his own way and since I ignored his initial question as to what we were spraying-- because as I said I felt it should have been pretty obvious to a tradesman--but not this one, and he, as if now completely bereft of his considerable patience, practically scolds me as a dolt by saying loudly and slowly--"What-are-you-spraying?"
Painters, as you might imagine, are not the most revered of tradesmen and this goofy boy thought his attempt at an architecture degree and his affection for jargon-laden speech was all it would take to one up the likes of me--the long hair with the brownie glaze in his eyes. Well, I was in a hurry up to this point, not having really made direct eye contact with this boy, but, now called for, burned full rasputin into his querulous blues--and if contempt were love I would have been kissing instead of hissing-- "What does it smell like?"
Now of course this is my story and who's gonna be the hero (even when being an asshole) other than me, and so as it goes the poindexter blinked a couple of times while sliding off his high horse and almost apologized, "I don't really know, I have sinus problems."
I told him "oil based primer," and when he, still intent on getting to the bottom of things, asked, "how long will you be spraying?" I delivered the punch line of my initial summation, "one hour," and then dismissed him by continuing the duty for which I am paid.
By 9:30, which is three hours into the workday for us, we had the entire upstairs of the 13,000 square foot house primed, by spray and brush. The windows had been done previously. I was ready to go home and take a nap, but four hours later was sanding windows when my boss finally said, "let's get the hell out of here." I went downstairs and around the side of the house and washed the oil-based primer dust off my arms, and face, and out of my nostrils. As I came around the corner the builder we quit two years ago but have rejoined for this one job, is moving towards me with Mr. Roaf at his side and as it is clear none of us have time for the other I continue to swab my considerable nostrils with the wet rag, while the builder twangs opinion with southern accent, and Mr. Roaf limps.