The first note that kicks against my optic nerves are Evan's knees closing down hard on the bum's shoulders, pinning his arms like two pulsing tubes of processed meat. This is the first note in that my eyes are beginning to focus for the first time weeks, at least that I can recall. A new composition is always exciting. Very exciting.
We practice on abandoned train platforms. We use the homeless, turn them into zombies, (Yes, that is our work.) We are also science fiction writers. We smoke Bali Shag. Bugler and Kite are always too dry; Joker and Samson have stems and bird's eyes that tear through the paper. We always give money and smokes to the homeless.
The second note: My hands gripping a pair of scrawny legs that seem plastic through the torn wind-breaker's fabric. I almost stumble out of focus again and the whole damn composition would have had to be begun all over from the start at some later date, but Evan has the presence of mind to hurl an irritated "FUCK!" that punctuates in perfect nuance the icy tinge of my whiskey-soaked blood and body. I become aware.
I hear the clank of the Folger's Crystals can as Evan sets it down with purpose onto the slick pavement and rifles through the pockets of his navy blue pea-coat for a tube of white facial cream. So much color in this composition despite itself: Skin and brushed concrete white as snow, folds of cloth blue as midnight, combat boots and dress shoes as black and shiny as the mountains of filthy ice outside. The bum is breathing heavy, though he makes little more noise than someone in the midst of an unsettling dream, a dream not quite the full on, full bore nightmare that might wake him. (The best part of waking up...)
We should be models, but we have bad teeth and clothes never fit us properly. Evan looks like a Greek god that just escaped a labor camp, his hard shoulders threatening to tear the fabric stretched tight across his back, his belt loose even after I've watched him put at least two new holes in it over the past month. I look like the figure of Death from a medieval woodcut Calvin-Klein ad. I can picture myself, scythe in hand, chasing Fionna Apple through well-appointed Manhattan apartments, one-thousand thread count designer robes flapping behind me like morphine dreams. Our one attempt at making money off our looks, fueled as it was by Evan's desperate desire to buy his last lover a ring before she ran off, did not end well. We cannot be trusted under the influence of whiskey, wine makes us manipulative, beer makes us silly and unconvincing, and all three results the photographer sobbing threats of legal action amongst the ruins of an after-party.
We love Latin women, Persian women, Mediterranean women. We love them long-legged, olive-skinned, dark-eyed, Daddy-issued. We adore our dominatrices, our pole-dancers, our recovering runaways. We never go looking for them, but they find us. They find us, and they come at us mood-swinging. They keep us on our toes. Like all women they seek to manipulate, but only these stray-est of kittens make it all worthwhile.
We always dream as strangers watching ourselves and people we know. We ALWAYS dream as strangers watching ourselves and people we know...
We identify each other in the murk of smoke-blackened bars by way of a secret handshake called Delirium Tremens.
We want to overthrow everything so we don't have to pay for anything, unless it's with blood and fear.
Our blood.
Our fear.
At work, we have employee evaluations. I am told my work is exemplary. I'm a big asset to the company. In three years I have never called out sick or been even a minute late. They express vague concern at the fact I have never taken a vacation. I will be receiving a twelve cent raise. Times is rough. They tell me I should be happy to even have a job...
"Hey! No meditating! This is hoodoo-time!"
Evan squeezes the tube of facial cream which blobs out cooly dotting and dabbing the man's greasy black face. He begins to flail. He pisses himself. Down the alley three boys in matching black muscle T's pass by with a drunken girl in tow. She attempts to climb onto a bicycle chained to a metal post, laughing, too impressed with her own little escapades. It occurs to me I have to work in the morning. It occurs to me that this was my idea. (Uh-huh--Uh-huh)
Evan smears the cream over the bum's face. The bum's head moves side to side. For a second I feel like I'm in some back ally street spa--making this man over (and over). Evan slips the cream back into his pocket and grabs the coffee can, removing the lid and placing it over the bum's mouth. The bum's breath enters this short, tin tunnel with a soft, metallic moan. Evan looks at me sharply and squarely and at this cue I find weird jumbo crossing through the slur of my speech. My spine becomes an electric eel, and I commit to it whole-heartedly: "OOO-WHA-MAU-MAU-OOO-WHA-MAU-MAU-ZOWI-ZOWI-MOO-MOO-MAU-MAU--". Evan, streetlight pale, bald head kind of bobbing to the jumbled word-sounds, looks down at the can. It occurs to me that we are both grown men and very, very dangerous children...
Evan slaps the top back onto the can quickly, sets a calling card for "Lethe Staffing Solutions" neatly onto our mark's heaving chest, and is on his feet quick as a switchblade. We have a train to catch. I have to work in the morning.
In the weird, yellow tint of the subway car a man begins a gospel sermon with, "I don't want to scare anyone... I'M NOT! TRYING! TO SCARE ANYONE!"
Outside a hispanic couple fights like two dueling machine guns. I could listen to these two all night, though. They are screaming with life.
At home- I open my hall closet which I have christened 'The Evidence Room'-- micro-cassettes and mini DV's stacked in no particular order, a small box filled with scattered notes written on scraps of paper. I draw one at random. It reads: YOU ARE JASSY PARDUCHI. YOU ARE A PORN DIRECTOR FROM THE 1940'S. YOU ARE KNOWN AS 'THE KING OF STAG'----
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