Phillip

Phillip was my friend.  I sat behind him in class and he had wounds on the back of his neck that always looked to be in the process of healing but never did; his whole neck, a warmth to it that if you looked closer looked to be boiling.  He didn't talk very often and his body carried about in a slightly limp demeanor; his recollection on my mind strangely calling about the movement of a slinky.  We played in chess club together; I assumed he would grow into our little circle of friends.  I was in my phase where I would watch the news everyday after school and looked down on people who chose to remain ignorant.  I decided he was smart when I decided I was smart, but he was timid, and for that I think I liked him more. 

Two girls started coming around to visit our games at lunch.  It was nice to have cheerleaders, annoying girls that we could ignore.  One was Phillip's girlfriend, the skinnier one, and her friend, after a few visits, it came to dawn upon me like that time she got up and blew me on the couch—the chubbier one—that they were there for me, too.  I was uncomfortable at school and played flattered victim.  Sometimes I'd get phone calls from the three of them; his girlfriend would say, Here, talk to Phillip.  I had gone over to smoke weed with them, assuming the friend wanted to flirt around, and Phillip's girlfriend walked in on us afterwards.  Jane seemed unsettled, revealing it was her friend's idea to follow me around.

I didn't want people to find out about Jane and me, because I had a reputation in my head of who I was, and those girls did not watch the news, all right?  She had a pot party when her dad was gone, and I went over to her place and she had invited a couple more guys from around town.  We sat around her bed smoking, and I was waiting, but one guy didn't hesitate and they were under the covers and I could hear her jacking him off.   I walked out of the room while behind me the sheets were rustling; her townhouse was quiet and I noticed their carpet in the hallway.  I walked down the stairs and closed the door behind me.  Then I rang the doorbell as I left.  

Sometime later prank calls started coming in.   Phillip had told me before his girlfriend searched through the white pages to find my number.  They would send Dominos Pizza to my dad's work and our house, and my dad would get enraged—they were rubbing it in my face.  Jane wasn't her real name.  That's what she called herself.   It was really Golan.  I called her a piece of meat—a familiar term as of late—over the phone when I would call them back that summer, all three of them laughing, Jane, the girlfriend, and Phillip.

I walked in preparing myself to ignore her, anticipating her ignoring me.  My neck felt so heavy.  I walked past her and into my room from the gym, closed the door and took a shower.  When I came back out they had left.  She hadn't looked when I passed and at night's end I felt disappointed.

Everyone was good-looking and American in her group.  I didn't want to take my shirt off in the pool because I was hairy and no one had hair yet.  I smoke like my dad next to them at the beach; I felt old school.  They say they're this or that, third generation, but they're American.  I was judgmental and off-putting.  I was the only cool blank the kids said they knew.  I grabbed the dog's leash from his hands and hoped she noticed.  I walked her out of their circle.

My head wasn't in the right space.  I stared straight ahead until I became conscious of my foot running and it became heavy and an exercise.  Then I'd have to fidget, shuffle my body until before I knew it I could happily be running again.  One was crossed over the other.  That was today's position.  I stared straight at the facilitator, beyond her into the board, then into the white around my vision, burning inside, not sure what I was trying to prove.  They were sitting next to each other—and only when I consider how am I to capture, not jealousy but frustration at my peripheral sensitivity, do I understand the language of poker tells.  It's like a bag of tricks gathering on the side screen of my mind.  I hoped I was called on so he could interrupt and try to give me advice and I could punch him in the face.  Or I could say No when he asks if he could give me advice in front of her and say I stay away from self-help gurus in my recovery.  It wasn't me anymore, or it was, stripped.  

Anything I said I would be directing at her, against her, projecting, I guess, in group—nurturing in my hands, a baby snide remark to break open the morning after she speaks her truth.   Were that giddy little voice often circulating these premises try to pop up, the voice I hear but never on my voicemail,  in the hostility separating the two states, we would be like foreigners, like my dad reading my blog while I'm high.  The more languages you know, the more men you can fuck.  Kinda like that.  I was ashamed to be the face behind the goofy voice, what a fraud.  My ex was of my culture, but told me she only agreed to date me because I was an English major.  She had hoped I was a liberal.  Now I look back on that cynically, and didn't look up in group when she spoke of her past but fumed, when I realized, I had early on been spotted by an ex of mine.

In group we discussed building healthy relationships.  I snickered what the fuck is that.  She was seated next to me.   If our problems lie rooted in his own shit, she asserted, then she wanted to hear no more of it.  She didn't have to call it shit, I muttered, she could be a little nicer.  In my peripheral, I know she moved her chair away from me.

• like victim, then utter reactionary impulse

pink and green

I was born over there, and then I moved here.  Between that time, the only dreams I can recall are two.  One was of two sisters, and it was based on a true story.  Two sisters in a high-rise opposite ours, who—whom, is it?— the kids said were witches.  In the dream, I was hanging out of their window and they were about to let me fall.  There was an ostracized girl in the neighborhood, at whom we were supposed to throw rocks, or that she would throw rocks at us—I forget.  I'm getting an image of an old lady with purple frightening hair throwing cats, but I think that's just the Simpsons.  No, it is.  That's from the Simpsons, not my life.  The other dream was of a dead girl, in an elegant coffin in a room.  The room was all pink, the kind of pink from bedsheets and layers on a cake.  The curtains were creamy pink, as well, blocking the sun, but you could feel its presence throughout the room.  That dream most recently has taken significance in my mind, as I consider my life.  I don't think I just remembered it; I'm sure I've had it stored throughout the years, and it may or may not have come to the forefront here or there, or perhaps in some feeling or sensation of deja vu.

My favorite cartoon, like all the other kids—I don't think there was much from which to choose—was Nu Pakadze, a Tom & Jerry construct, a rabbit, and a wolf who smoked.  I fell in love with "A Million Roses," due to an episode from the show, where the wolf looks down at his reflection in the pond.  The day before setting sail, I watched the show with my cousin and gave him my tapes.  We were leaving.

In America, I was afraid of kidnappings.  That was the first thing I learned about this country, missing kids, milk cartons—my dad would walk us to the 7-11 down the street, where he later revealed he would be scared we'd want something he couldn't afford.  There was no such thing as sliced bread over there.  We were crazy about bananas when we first encountered them, now how dull, they were tropical and exotic.  My favorite toy was a plastic, little yellow corvette my dad bought for me during a layover.  I love airline food to this day, the tin foil over the meal and the surprise.  Now it's just the anticipation.  We didn't have much money; we stayed in an apartment with dad's friend's family.  They worked in a little sweat shop sowing T-shirts and shorts, pink, orange, and green.

Growing up, my dream was to live in a mansion, with a yellow corvette and a blond wife, and be a lawyer.  That's what I would draw.  I'd take a couple cushions out of our sofa and couch while my parents watched TV, and set them side by side on the floor with papers strewn across them as my desk, and I'd get to grading with a red marker or being a lawyer.  One time we were driving down a street—Colorado is the word I want to use.  Yes, it was, it was Colorado Blvd, across from the Galleria.  We saw a barefooted woman in a baggy dress sprawled on the ground near a couple steps on the sidewalk.  Her face was smudged with gray and her skin was dirty.  She was painting the ground with her hands.  There were empty tin cans in and around her bare legs.  Her mouth was open and her eyes were smiling; her face was happy and sick.  I'm not much of a fan of my sister's most recent work, the alien themes—I prefer her earlier stuff, and my themes seem to be witches and white snakes.  I had some Golden Grahams left, so I poured some soymilk over it in a bowl.  I unwrapped a hershey's little-finger sized bar, and broke it up into four and added that over the cereal.  I hoped it would melt over in the microwave, which it sort of did, but the bowl was too hot for touch.  So I used a towel to pour the concoction into a cup.  I lost some of the chocolate that had melted into the porcelain bowl after the milk

during equestrian therapy, I walked away from the group for a moment to linger by a little makeshift koi pond that had suffered from the drought.  I thought about a later episode of The Office, where Michael falls into one, and I decided I would look forward to watching the series again.  I recalled the relaxed air of binge-watching a show on my bed, a quiet wholesome joy.  The show could be viewed on Netflix and I felt the latter stages of how I used it.  We didn't have Netflix back at the house, and I could rent the series from a library; we didn't have a DVD player back there either.  I imagined a library full of DVDs, going to the bathroom, then browsing feverishly.

...

(maybe it's the font I don't like)

Ah, Rudy.  That Rudy again.  As the officer says to Richard Hoover when he finds the stack of porn, God bless ya,' God bless ya.'  Kelly and Rudy treat my parents and me.  When dad joked he'd like five wives, Kelly retorted only if mom can have five, too.  Once, mom let it slip Joe Dassin may be handsome.  He doesn't let her forget, about Jordasen.

Rudy asked us in group to consider what book we'd like to start reading next week.  I felt like pleading, not another Latin man, please.  Rudy is Mexican; my dad told him he thought Cuban.  Rudy told group here's a clip of an interview with Don Miguel Ruiz.  I asked if he was a flamenco player and the words floated in the air.  I had been joking since the first breath of morning.  I was on edge.  People know not to fold a paper along its crease anywheres near me.  I felt like running out of the room blah-blah-blahhing with my hands wrapped around my head hearing him speak—on Oprah, with an accent, speaking of a woman who speaks her truth.

You can't mention the pool-man around him, you can't mention the cable guy; not the professor, not the tutor, not the director of the chandelier factory.  You'd think the awareness of the caricature would lessen the pain.  But it don't.  I think pain here is a most apt and sincere effort to convey a feeling, or state—a hapless frustration towards something so trivial to others, it's almost hilarious.  I could sense my counselor's grown tired of it.  I told him I could sense it and he conceded he felt helpless and frustrated.

Oprah asked about the people who make fun of her.  They don't even know me—what about those people?  He suggested they have nothing better going on.  I realized why I cringe each time we go through the Four Agreements.  There's a fifth one, I hear—that's beside the point.  Everything bounces off her.  She don't take nothing personal.  It's not her job.  He demonstrates every spec of her indifference, every God-loving act.  He cuts down my entire existence.  The son of a bitch praises her for not letting me bring her down to my size.  

I read an article on Yahoo! arguing against a 1984 world under Trump, as opposed to a Huxley vision.  It reminded me of the Orwell essay I read long ago.  A paper about using figures of speech seen in print, about the importance of sincerity in language; and if I can recall correctly, lazy in words, lazy in thought.  I wish they never invented vulgar words.  I wish I never allowed myself.  Just love—the whole and not the sequence.  I can't even be a darkness to her if she loves God.  

   

The day my ego was bruised

It all started when she didn't laugh at my joke.  Some reality show she was watching—she said I joke around too much—where the guys and the girls decide to strip naked on the beach and run in.  Probably they live together—came back from a club or somethin.'  I had made her watch Cobra the night before.  You know, it's been scientifically proven watching those shows lowers your intelligence by point something percent.  I don't know if I was cognizant of the blaring irony at the time; I bit my lip just now, if that counts for much.  You watch retarted things, too.  You always make me feel bad about myself.  She said I was rude.  She stripped me naked, yes she did.  I paused for a moment, apologized—in case she's ever interviewed for some memorial documentary.  She brushed it off and I hated her.  I've been cold to her since.  I note how frequently she eats.  I whispered to the house manager, she's got her ice cream in our fridge.  A pizza, too.  It's carrying over, I cried.  I went out and bought a bunch of frozen shit I didn't need.  And it's carrying over.

My head's gotten heavy lately.  That's how I fall.  I've found a niche exploiting my vulnerability.  I've been telling on myself, trying to impress them, that I'm trying to impress them.

Another writing assignment.  It's been feeling like college all over again.  I tried to tell her I'm not used to interacting, and that's partly true.  The last time I used—playtime was spent—I sat in a soothing, uncomfortable clarity.  It must have gone on for hours—by the door,  looking out into the backyard on my deskchair, chaining-smoking and hunched over.  I ran through a long list of people and friends I had subtly undermined in our conversations.

The group dynamic again.  They brush off the jokes I interject from the back of the van.  They don't see me as a serious man.  I bite my fist each time I do it again.  We love you, ____.  There was a slight before it, I'm sure of it.  So I put on my best suit and ask a lot of questions, seizing any solemn moment, an opportunity.  Wrestling inside, just let that one go.  And here I thought you were going to say something serious again.  You should have passed on that one, buddy.  I bite my fist each time I do it again.  Ever hear of: here's a thought, watch it pass?  I've been in a heated debate in my head, wherein I hate them.  

He asked for Jack's number—Why didn't he ask for mine?  I wanted to start shouting out random numbers—11, 92, 12.  It's that flaming petulance, growing in me.  The Matts and Armens of the world again.  Jack's got in good with him.  He sits shotgun in the van.  Nick and him are boys, he says.  George had a job interview; we did mock sessions and schooled him in group.  He couldn't make eye contact.  He's a lovable bear, and said the interview went great.  He relapsed the very next day.  He was about to start school, worked on letters with his counselor for various courts, then she went off and quit.  Jack had took his spot about a week or two ago—he put on his hoodie and his head hung low.  He was quiet, I noticed, from the back of the van.  I'll show those bastards.  I'm the crusader for the humble guy.  

I apologized to Rudy after for being so defensive.  I said I realized only after what was my true vision of sobriety, but it was too private to share.  Prior, some of the guys talked about the face Natalia must make looking back, being stugotzed from behind.  The face transformed and I snapped my band.

I was itching to raise my hand.  Don't appear too eager; play it cool, play it patient.  I thought I'd have to pause in between the laughter.  Don't go and lose your mystique.  I envision gold, women, cars, gold cars on a TV screen that I won't see... But the lines weren't landing.  It was so flat.  Cause I'll be reading.  I felt naked again.  

We went back and forth.  It's all practice for me, I said, but I oozed a sheepish beseeching.  Every face was a body of water through which I was sinking.  I don't even know what the hell that means.  He said it was funny, but I didn't hear them laughing.  You're a good writer—I know it's important to you.  Ah, don't say that!  Then he said I didn't do what he asked, and I felt like my parents were scolding me, like she caught me insincere; she knew I want to have sex.  I don't compromise my writing.  The vision is there.  How is it not there?  I refuse to make lists—I don't know what else I ranted.   My body started to shake and I lowered my hands from view.  It was getting embarrassing.  He said I didn't ask you to make a list.  He made me tell him that in high school I read The Stranger under a tree during a field trip; and how fun and easy it was to follow War & Peace once I opened it, probably under some kind of tree, too.  On my bed.  There were no sweat stains from the back of my head.  He wouldn't let me slide, not me, he said.  I mumbled it was my ego, but it wasn't very audible.  I sank in thought once the attention was off, guilty inside, like I had committed a crime no one would admit.  The transferred face came back to life.

All those years.  Then God's cruel joke on me.  There was another writer in the group.  He had said, Rudy, come on, it's not that bad, Rudy.   Before I knew it he outdid me.  His vision was poetry—it didn't even rhyme.   I knew the jury was in.  He carried the reader deep into each sentence, descriptive adjectives, images, and the texture of granite.  He envisioned living in a community where social interaction was not like competitive jousting. 

she walks away, the sun goes down

I saw the Amy documentary in group today.  I broke slightly, sawing her body be stretchered underneath the burgundy sheet.  First the date on the screen, before the footage, before anything else—the day, the month, the year like your head being jarred.  A jolt, you know?  But psychological—more the nervousness or neurosis, when comes out the four with the flop and you have pocket fours.  Poker.  I knew what was coming, the final frame.  It felt good to cry, real.  I broke slightly.  It felt good to cry.  Sawing?  Idiot.  Feels good to laugh, to shake my head and laugh.  I put on my hoodie and wiped my tears, and they kept continuing, peaceful and soft—sweet, poignant, and determined.  It was listening to "Stronger than Me" that my mind wandered.  My insides began boiling.  I calmed myself down saying Amy was honest...not like that stuck up darwinist.  The elitist.  I don't judge Amy.  I don't have time.  The frame changes and it all comes back to me.

I could smell her when I came off the plane.  What a line, what a line.  Look at that line.  Ah, what a line!  Deserves something special to follow.  Here, get up.  Look at it from this angle.

I could smell her when I came off the plane. 

Now come around from the rear.  View it from the front.  Not a scratch, not a scratch.  What's that—what is that?  Ah, it's just a leaf.  It's winter, the wind, pesky crevices.  Come inside from the rain.

I could smell her when I came off the plane.  I know where I'll go.  Artbridge.  They thought I could meet a nice girl.  Sent me over to dry out, experience a new kind of crowd, he said.  I drank the entire time.  He was supposed to send for me at the VIP.  My clothes were the most important thing.  He was late picking me up.  His coughing was a revving engine in park.  He was driving.  He was subtle, cool, and blunt in his tone—a sharp, jaded eloquence that went with a man with his name.  He danced around with the citing officer, subtle, subtle enough anyway to remind him.  He said don't wait for me at the flight of stairs.  He was magnetic to me when he would speak, eliciting a childlike response from me.  He was magnetic to me except for his breathing—the only decrepit building on the strip his foil wanted for the price of water.  It was a sensitive, principled matter.  Once, Zidane had visited.  He had the photo somewheres; now it was Persians on their New Years.

Artbridge was a haven for her, frequented by artists, intellectuals, sons of politicians.  We had sat opposite one another at our table, pissy, I wondered about the male waiter.  I would get angry when she would look back at a license plate.  My cousins rejoiced and said they found out she had been seen with a Persian, after I told them I had dropped her.  What I dropped was some brown mustard on my white Hugo Boss sweater—the stain and my heartbeat like a jolt to the brain—that made me flip about walking in.  She didn't notice.  She was sitting with some people, probably smoking, the bitch.  Intellectual banter—I would probably have to punch a guy.  I had been there taking shots, frequenting the place in the afternoons, telling their bar to put on Amy.  The morning she walked in, I was staring down at my shot glass, leaning my head on my hand, then over to my glass of orange juice.  Mariam had been sitting at the table next to me, with good posture and a book held up to her face.  I remember noting this bitch looks pretentious.  Mariam doesn't even know who the fuck I am.  She was waiting for her friend.

I had a couple favorite bars—the one with elephant peanut shells carpeting the floor, and the lesbian one, the entrance to which were some stairs that led down to a cellar.  Groups would come in for beers and a bucket of crawfish at the western themed place.  I always said I was going to eat, but never got to it.  The barkeep lady knew my preference for Radiohead, and patrons who couldn't read the jukebox would have me find them some Pink Floyd picks.  In the afternoons, the owner would sit near me with the barkeep.  He was young and classy with a beard, and liked Moby.  I would get up and play "Natural Blues."  I said bye to them the last day and told them thanks, this is my favorite place and they poured me a drink.  Sometimes I'd pass out over night at hourly motels waiting for my lady of the night to arrive.  I was always bitter she got to love.  At the lesbian joint, I tried to win them over.  The one next to me was mean but cracked a smile and said where's your drink?  It was a small, dark place and I would drink and be the only one dancing.  There was another drunk; we would drink and misunderstand each other, go outside, then come back in together with an understanding and a sprained ankle.  

Then I looked up, and my head jarred like it was on a spring.  She walked in, smiling at Mariam, the bitch who had the book opened to her face like a cunt. She stopped short, frozen, and wheezed out a hello that turned into a whimper.  I lit my cigarette and gave her the cold glare.  My body was shaking slightly, uncontrollably; she was looking down, with tears in her beautiful eyes, standing before Mariam's table with her hands at her side.  We didn't say anything.  Mariam asked for the check, closed her cunt and ushered her out.  The waitress sensed something was off.  I told her with the most spite I could muster, Get me another shot.  I tipped her big and left to go eat khash.  

Sometimes I would take cabbies to bars with me, before we would go off to find the hookers.  I was running out of money and drank all my relatives' alcohol.  I gave my cousin counterfeit gifts; he wore the jacket with pride.  I couldn't leave because of all flights over Europe being grounded on account of the black clouds.  I was tired.  On my last ride, I had the cabbie take me around the city looking for women and brothels, but there weren't any options that early in the morning.  We scouted various hot spots and districts he suggested—we passed by the lake.  I thoroughly enjoyed shooting the breeze with him and we were friends, until about three hours later when he told me his price and we started fighting.  He pulled over and called his brother, who arrived later holding his five year old son by the hand.  He mediated a compromise that wouldn't leave me belligerent.  They left me in a village I didn't have a clue where it lay.  I had had it with crooked cabbies, broken streets and black outs.  I walked into a little mom and pop shack and had them lay me out a proper table.  They had a daughter who was not good looking.  I told them to bring out the Russian vodka, none of that domestic shit.