The mathematics of the cactus are all a conflagration, graduation to a higher pot and seed and someone please, crush the coma bones inside of me. Look, don’t stop, don’t struggle in the web; let it simply fall away from you as you lie still and quiet in your unending struggle of life, the life, the strife, the compass and the mirror and the magnet call for you to jump out some 300th-floor window and holler out loud as you plunge toward the earth helplessly and superbly to splash down like a watermelon prayer. I am no clock, I am no oven, I am no star-spangled wannabe, I am simply suffering inside of me, quietly fading, baking, shaving, correlating every mystery that abounds behind my eyes and what lie am I when I cannot speak because I am all shuttered up inside like a tender doll house in the direct path of a hurricane and to create what vision for what reason and in what season; the blues come rolling in like hot waves of wonder and puzzling jaunts through another circus day of wandering and piracy and misdirected lust and the cucumber just lays there like a slaughtered calf and we are all so different yet so much alike; all of us just pieces of matter and genetic code and surprise and secrets and lies and lovers in the night hollering emotions through a megaphone whilst some other peacefully sleeps like a dragon roll in some mountain of silver and put me in the coal cart, shove me off to the mine, watch me sail down the shoddy tracks, down deeper into the belly of mother Earth and she swallows me whole like a banana on a wedding night belonging to some jeweled princess who believes in the makeshift power of love and a fast, expensive car and a heartbeat that blips softly and with eventual end.
I spun the little silver spark wheel of yet another cheap cigarette lighter while looking out the window at laughter. What are you feeling anyways? Doldrums and doll parts. Synergy and the cycloptic hard on. Cordial Campari and warm butterscotch on my acid-tainted tongue. Rubies. Opals. Black eyes and black pearls. Lust, fever, hate, greed, hidden tears and body parts. Blonde locks and warm thighs, soft skin and big sad eyes. Crying and crying like some whimsical robot on aspirin. Bullets and magnets. Pulling and pushing. Upside down and right-side up. Confusion. Malaise. Tender wishes and bitter dreams, Coal. Diamonds. Needs and wants. Religion and secular demands.
I got it all wrapped up in a hard-boiled egg called brain and soul and the tortuous roll. Spider veins and spider monkeys on Judas Island down by the shore where fat men sail monkey boats and swallow big gulps of cheap American vodka. Swallow the burn, swallow the distaste, swallow the American voodoo. Witchy haunts and goblin hills, fog rolling over the swamp and all is said and done good night to the knights and their knots and their restless, shivering sleeps upon the waves of a cold wind Himalayan spot.
What is it about this disarray of life that eats at my guts on a hot morning in July while I stand in a sauna of soap and bleach in the kitchen of the Silver Taco Café in a town in the desert that has no right to be here.
I throw down a white towel and say, “Fuck it! I’m not working here anymore, Eeyore!” That’s my boss’ name, and everyone calls him “The Ass.” He is an ass. He treats people horribly. He yells, cusses, throws things around. Even over the simplest little mistake.
He gets in my face and points a finger. I think he’s going to poke out my eye. “You quit!?” he spits. “Right in the middle of lunch rush?”
“I’m going out to the desert and get drunk,” I tell him. “You’re not going to control my life anymore.”
“Go ahead. Idiot.”
I sit at the edge of the inkwell pool and suck on a bottle of tequila. I’m getting pretty drunk and everything is warm. Even the sun is warm. Black hook wasps are shifting about. I gaze over the edge of the inkwell pool. The water is dark, still, and I know so endlessly deep. I know I would die if I fell in there. Once in, there is no escape. The walls of the pool are vertical dirt and bend inward. It would be impossible to climb out. It’s a deathtrap in the desert. I stand up. I’m wobbly. My foot slips slightly. I think about the blue diamond lady. She wouldn’t even miss me.
I step back, strip off all my clothes, except my hiking boots and socks, and I yell at the sky. I howl like one of the coyotes crossing my path. I look around suddenly because I get the sense someone is watching me and probably laughing or aiming a gun at me. I work my way up a ridge and look out on the desert around me. Mostly flat, slightly rolling. Hard ground. Spotty brush. Distant hills swathed in a mist. Blue burning sky up above. Far off is a strange building and structure, like power pylons and a command center only orbital. I wonder if it is a gas plant or a helium ranch. There are sounds of machines coming up from beneath the ground. There could be an entire civilization down there. It’s faint but frightfully audible. And the air is hot and there is a slight breeze.
I go back down the ridge and gather my clothes. I’m too drunk and if I don’t get back to the car I will die out here. I’m starting to get sluggish as I walk. I throw the tequila bottle, and it smashes against a rock somewhere. There’s a mannequin and I kiss her, then run. I turn to see if she has made chase and there is nothing there. I finally stumble into my car, get in, start the engine, crank the A/C. I grab a water bottle and drink. It’s warm, but wet. I lay back in my seat and rest in the flow of cool air. I eventually fall asleep. When I wake the end of day is already crusting over. The sky is sheet metal gray and orange. I have a headache and a bad taste in my mouth. The car is almost out of gas. I put it in gear and drive back to the city in the desert.
He was lying still in the afternoon bed. There was the sound of a blizzard slamming its way through, even though it was March and officially spring. He went to his desk of confusion and filled out some lottery slips.
He had been to the National Archives of Nudity earlier in the day for a job interview. He felt it didn’t go well, but still had hope they would hire him as a junior archivist. He turned in his desk chair toward the window. He peeled the curtains apart. It was sunny and green outside. He saw wasps against the glass and bees dancing in the purple carpet of clover growing close to the ground. But he still heard the sounds of a blizzard inside his head. Nothing was making sense.
He turned back to his computer and decided to compose an e-mail to the woman who had interviewed him. He wanted to thank her and remind her—her name was Rose—that he would be a valuable asset to the organization.
He recalled her questions were odd, but he supposed relatable to the job.
“Would you grimace at the bounty of nude images you would have to look at every day?”
“Not at all… As long as they weren’t too gross.”
“Do you think you would easily tire of looking at nude images all day every day?”
“Sort of the same question… But I don’t think I would.”
“Where do you see yourself in five years.”
He scoffed. “Five years? I don’t even know what my life will be like five hours from now. It’s impossible to know. I don’t understand why interviewers even ask these types of questions. What’s next? Tell me about a time you gave exceptional customer service? I never gave exceptional service. Customers are ungrateful, distasteful twats.”
“I see,” she said, and she moved the pen from the edge of her bottom lip and placed it in a writing position. She jotted something down on a notepad of yellow, lined paper. “Then I suppose it’s a good thing we don’t have customers in the sense of the general public… Which I agree can be an utter nuisance.”
“A sheer collection of rudeness and stupidity,” he pointed out.
“Let’s get back to… Where would you like to see yourself in five years?”
“I would like to be well-versed in the job I am applying for today, and even in a position higher up so that I can share and lead with my learned wisdom.”
“So, you plan on sticking around if we hire you?”
“As long as you don’t fuck up my life.”
Dear Rose, thank you for taking the time to speak to me today about the junior archivist position at the National Archives of Nudity. I want to reiterate my interest in the position and point out that my skill set aligns flawlessly with the requirements of the job. I look forward to further discussion on this matter.
Best regards,
Lloyd Parsons
He hit send.
Rose never replied and he found himself peering out a window every day instead of going to a job.
“I suppose I’m useless to the world,” he said aloud to himself as he stood by a window in his house and looked out upon a seemingly dying world. “Seriously, though. What do I have to offer other than my own mad thoughts?”
It’s sort of how Stevie Nicks talked about Lindsey Buckingham in their early days, he thought, and how she would have to go work a “real” job to pay the bills, but Buckingham just didn’t fit that mold. With a little laugh, she said something like, “He’s a musician. That’s what he is.”
Lloyd went to the bathroom mirror to shave. “I think what she means is,” he began telling his reflection. “He’s not a waiter, he’s not a store clerk, he’s not a fast-food worker… He’s just who he is deep inside.” He pointed the razor at the mirror. “And that’s how it should be for all of us. I’m not useless to the world after all. I just don’t fit into what drives society. But maybe I don’t want to drive. Maybe I want to just gaze out the car window and look at the world and think about things and then write them down. It’s not a curse, it’s a gift! A gift the world wants to rip away from me and everyone else like me.”
Lloyd sighed. He plowed the razor through the white shave cream on his left cheek. The blade bit in, cut him. “Damn it!”
The white shave cream turned red, and so, he went out to the living room window and looked out while he bled all over the place. He was in a fevered frenzy and released himself in front of the world and it felt good for a change.
CEREAL AFTER SEX 