Boilerplate Phrases 1 Sitting at a bus-stop, across the road a team putting water in the streets. A few lean up against the reel of PVC vein, smoking. One man in goggles and earmuffs mans the drill; others leaning, smoking by the stack of bit extensions will help him out as required. The first section gets in alright. The crew stub out their respective cigarettes on the respective sundry construction site item each has been leaning his elbow on as they move to lug over an extension. They jack it up first to the bit already in the ground and then to the drill chuck, then go back to leaning, smoking. This new section gets halfway in alright but then it just falls off at the chuck end. It makes a sort of springy pinging noise, like a branch on the skeleton of a galvanized steel leaf. I pick it up: it has already lost whatever kind of fibrous webbing may have formed the leaf itself. I pull the arms of the skeleton away, ping, spring. I strip them all away to leave the bare stem between my thumb and forefinger. I don't know what to do with this thing, it just quivers there (the drill bit quivering stuck in the hole, vibrating and bent a little below the yet spinning chuck) between my thumb and forefinger. Maybe I could use it as a kind of steel toothpick. I am happy that the bus is here to relieve me of finding a purpose for this bit of flashing. I flick it towards some of the leaning, smoking ones who look, as they defer the task of repairing the fault among themselves, like they should know what to do with it, or at least how to treat it, better than I ever could. 2 Things seem different on this bus but I realize after a while that I am still thinking about the scene back at the stop. I thought I was thinking about my childhood but I am thinking about how when you're a child and you see all the big machines you think wow, to work those things must really be something, and that must be what I'm going to school for. But now the only thing in my mind is a looping clip: the steel rod quivering in the earth, one of the leaning, smoking putting all his weight on his feet at last as we pull away, and slamming a sledgehammer into the end of the rod, while the operator in his goggles and earmuffs stares blankly ahead and the chuck is still revolving down, as if a decision has been made, by general consensus and with the onus unanimously attributed, to push the pipes through by brute strength—and it only sets the vibrations going anew. 3 Out of the bus and along the frustrating sidewalk. I knock on his door. Fourth story flat, he shares it with one other guy, just run away from home or some such. He isn't in and I am thankful; the younger one, that is. My friend lets me in. He shows me the kid's room and I draw a less than favorable picture of him in my mind. We sit back out in the living room over a beer. It's just after lunch or about two. He's waiting for me to say something. “So what's been happening?” I do my bit. “Not much.” He's sucked half his beer down already. Fuck, it's been a while; how did this use to work? “So, working?” “Nope: there's something that's changed. No more waiting tables for me, man.” “Well, that's good, I guess. Living off your art, then?” “When I can, yeah.” “And who's this urchin you've taken in? Some kinda protégé, perhaps?” “Perhaps,” he smiles. “Yeah, aprotégé, perhaps, of sorts, yeah.” He nurses that. Nurses his next beer. Rolls them around each other in his silly hands, his empty head. He chucks me another; I'm falling behind already. Nah, that's just him getting through them, like old times, the bastard. “So anything worth showing me?” I say. He laughs. “No, no. Dry spell right now. Reduced to whittling: ha!” He pulls out one of those bone-handled knives and some knotty bit of wood, starts flicking away. Good God, what am I doing here? “How in the hell are you supporting yourself, then? And this little brat; how's he pay his keep?” I demand, pretending to be fed up. But I'm not going anywhere. “Parents gave me a grand to sort my life out.” “Jeesus! I thought we'd both outgrown that kinda shit, man.” “Yeah, well,” he shrugs, “whatcha gonna do? I'm in a dry spell, tolja. The kid's got money. He'll fork out a little more if he thinks I'm helping him become a better”—he flourishes a hand—“artiste.” Fine, my second. “Where's he get his money, then?” “Breaks concrete or some crap. Goes in for that physical labor bullshit for some reason. Good eye though.” Sure. “Maybe he's got something to show?” He springs up, “Sure thing, man. Here, I'll go grab some of his work.” Stopping at the door, “Oh, hey, I think we're out now; head down to the corner while I find something for you?” Coming back in the door with a grocery bag of beer, I ask, “So how come you couldn't see me 'til the weekend if you're unemployed?” “Oh, my parents were in town.” He's found a bottle-opener but I can't see any artwork. “Oh yeah!” He lobs the opener and is out of the room before I catch it. He's a frisky bastard with a couple of beers in him. He returns with a few large sheets. The sketches are average, the oils mediocre. “Yes, you can see he needs a little work.” I smile. “No, no, he's not that bad, really. This is far from his best, man.” “Yeah, whatever. How'd you find him, exactly?” “Oh, you know, I advertised. Ah, to hell with the kid! And to hell with you too, fucker. Here, have a drink.” I'm still smiling. One for me and a couple for him without much going on. Then I say, “Say, you still got that old record player collecting some dust?” “Sure do, man. To the bedroom!” Phew, a reason to get out of the couch, I was losing him to that glaze in his eyes for a second there. “Hey, bring those,” he says as he prances the way to his room. I follow him in, six-pack hanging from my finger. An easel and untouched canvas are in one corner, the record player in the other. A desk under the window. Bed on the opposite wall. Big room on account of being so bare. No pictures on the walls. We sit and drink and listen to records. The kid comes home after a while. He looks in for a second then goes to his room. This brief introduction doesn't improve my prejudice against him. After I've made a few more beer runs my friend falls asleep sort of sprawled. I've prevented a couple of spills but I see stains all through the flat. I'm not one to judge anyway. He's passed out, I finish off the last bottle and settle down back out on the couch into a pleasant sleep. 4 I wake to my friend screaming something about his huge hangover. It doesn't do much for my own. I hurry down the street again and get some more beer. We sit around in the morning warmth and try to get the drink to soothe our headaches. It works out alright. slowly working our way through the supplies. The kid arrives home from work and has a beer with us some time in the afternoon. I'm a bastard, fending off his congeniality. He ensures I'll forget his name by shaking my hand, then proceeds to tell me how much he enjoys his work. Art school wasn't his thing, he says. Good Lord, I'm drunk quicker today. 5 I wake up. I'm at my friend's. Again? This takes a while to ascertain; I'm getting ahead of myself here. I wake up. I close my eyes, it's so bright. Everything is hard. The cold of the ground seems to have some kind of icy grip on the back of my head. Tearing it away is freeze-burn, I feel like I've left most of my hair and part of my scalp on the floor. Raising myself up creates a little triangle of pain in my head there, between the raw red patch of blistering toothsore cold and my pulsing temples. A bloated hand/arm steadies me against a cold, hard wall. I must have been lying on it. I feel it with my other hand, having for the moment control over my own balance. God, it's so inflamed it frightens me. Never such a case of pins and needles. I begin to massage it, flex my arm a bit; must get that blood moving. Suddenly this swollen appendage takes a mind of its own. A firehydrantload of blood surges into flattened, tape-hose veins. For a moment I am shocked into ignoring the intense brightness of my surroundings and behold my hand working its fingers of its own accord, mechanically. I am wholly unable to stop it or control, it seems, the whole right side of my body for a full ten seconds or so. I'm scared but it is all over now. I steady myself once more and, despite my reeling head, manage to stay upright. Ah, that was fucked... and now, complete amnesia stretching as far back as perhaps that second bottle of wine or so. Yes, again, and terribly hung over. 6 In the dawn patch of his expanse of carpet I slip into one of those stares I hate on other people. What is this exercise? Where am I leading this cross-purpose torpor? I used to think it was doing me some good; now I'm only rediscovering earlier thought-tracts. And in vain, all in vain. My faith in mankind has not been resurrected: it has been exhumed to be buried but a little bit deeper. Mankind is snoring on his back through that open door I hope he chokes. I congratulate myself on renewing an acquaintance with reality? I congratulate myself on a reunion with an old drinking buddy, on squandering away two wholly inebriated days. As I sober up in this melting spotlight the misty marks emerge bizarrely at unexpected points, singled out in books, in unlikely phrases, I am sure, but it all hurts my head just now. Enough of that stare! Imagine someone were watching, what term of abuse! Dazzler. I reel in the couch. Somehow we in our wisdom spout all manner of dark criteria for this air of humility and gratefulness—a ploy. Dazzler. It's always going to be hard. You do feel a bit bad, though, looking at the rest of the world. Ah, always a crap shoot: people yearning for a new life draw others in, get engaged, enraged, excited, pleased, and, from the moment they are introduced, they start to argue. The prize is a dirty, tactical life. It is, by definition, bullshit. Their hearts and minds harbor an abhorrent fondness for salty language; a resemblance in which burn the young. Listen, they flee to a land where there are no violent bullets or perfect explosions. Our rainy afternoon is an enchanting place where they plan to remain. Want has a monopoly for violent. She hatches her plan. You'll only truly win while they are hard at work with freedom. Exact. Violent won freedom. What are these nonsense vows I have made? Yes, it is becoming clear now, as the spotlight melts into my own rainy afternoon: this is what went before. The voices in the margins, stage-drawing me out of their own, left a pleasurable, trick-scribed world all in my ears. I persuaded myself for a few days that it could possibly be the habitat of a remarkable person, the cause which most of us have never studied. But the gifted author and sole star of the city, all men are created equal. My ideas were not knew. I led that first conception to all sorts of places in a kind of ecstasy until it was leading me and right back to the beginning. Time for change. If there's time, change. I mean, really, how am I ever to love anyone, anything, anylife, when all I do is think? 7 Resolved, home to bed and then out into the world with a rested head for life! Oh, I feel distinctly naked: no baggage of any sort, all my pockets are empty. No books, paper, envelopes under my arm, no satchel on my back, no heavy overcoat making me the crowd. Proudly down the street in my body and my body only, nothing else to prove myself. I have my wit, my education, my good looks, my capacity. Not a thought clouds my mind. I know, inherently, undoubtedly, with failsafe assurance, that I'm going to be oh, kay. I'm attending a party. A do. I've wangled my way into the association of one of those college buddies one has who's doing everything right. I never liked him at school, of course, but somehow I've managed to convince him that I'm doing alright for myself. In any case, shaved, bathed, hair trimmed properly for the first time in a while, shirt ironed, shoes polished, and feeling rather good about myself. Party's at seven. It begins well. I know next to nobody and so many of these fuckers know who I am. I'm a little surprised. Never gave a shit about them and yet attendees approach me by the flock, delighted “to finally make your acquaintance!” Yes, the evening must continue in good spirits! Wonderful, wonderful: I don't even have to think, just go along with whoever or whatever is happening at any given moment. I have made so many new “acquaintances” that I am beginning to regret my resolve to not bring any sort of notepad. Oh, a bunch of people are heading out on the town! But no, I decline their offer: a thing met with unspoken approval by a certain young woman I'm at this point engaged with. My, my: I'm watching my intake and admiring hers! Another glass? There's always a girl. These things happen, people and drinks and good times. We share a taxi and I walk the rest of the way from her place to mine, fondly committing the route to memory. Pleasantly tipsy and the pink sidewalk rolling out fluorescent before me, I arrive at my home and my bedroom and reach neither for a pen and paper nor radio nor remote control but slide blissfully beneath my sheets and let the wine lull my empty head to sleep. No need for a beer in the morning to cure my hangover: I won't have one. 8 Two nights later and fuck I wish I could ignore this stupid sun through my eyelids. Fuck I wish I didn't have a hangover alarm clock most every morning. And yet who was I kidding, trying to deny it? It's pretty fucking accurate. Stop drinking around two or three a. m. and be confident you'll rise in four shitty hours to a blinding holocaust in the sky and world war three in your head. Okay, so it's a nice house, no doubt full of nice people. I know these things because I am in a bed and it has sheets and the sheets have been cleaned in the last month. And what's that sound? Water. Waves. A beach. A beach-house. A rich house. Wealth, even here, in the guest room. Look, little lights and tiny paintings on the wall and a needlepoint prayer above the headboard. Shit: they have a guest room. I've never been in a guest room in my life. Fuck, a beach, huh? Okay. I guess if I'm not going to sleep through this godforsaken dawn I may as well go for a stroll. Let's get out of here. I don't really care to check the bedrooms: who knows why I'm here, who cares? Hallway. Stairs. Kitchen. Ah ha! Food never stays down very long: I drink about a quart of water out of the faucet. Quiet now, where's the... ah, front door. Fuck. Sun. Fuck. Driveway driveway driveway... street. The beach must be down the street. All kinds of rotten animals jogging and trotting and strolling and chatting and generally showing off some kind of material comfortability all down the street. The streets are bright enough without your false glitter. I'm stumbling down the street, wondering how in the hell I landed in this 'burb, this stinking neighborhood, where a casual interest in the contents of one of the cute whitewashed letterboxes yields glossy mail-order brochures for gourmet cat food the price attached to which could buy me a fucking month of food. Human food. And I'm greeting these bastards with my best three-hours-sleep good morning smile, 'cause, hey, I'm a nice guy. Perhaps I ought to ditch the beach and track down an indiscriminating bottle shop. A quick rifle through pockets filled with paper receipts and maybe half a dollar in change reconciles me to the beach. Ha! an “indiscriminating bottle shop” indeed. Not in this part of town, man. I'm painting a picture of the beach in my head based on the old dodgers in their sweaters and these young mutts in their headphones and skin, all heading from or for the beach. Well, here we are, how well did I construct the place? A++, it seems: it's littered with wealth running up and down below the tide mark and wealth's best friend getting its crap picked up in plastic bags. All of them animals alike, wealth and his friends. Some of them just the shedding of animals, snake-skins, husks of wondering what happened and when. Some who are feeling pretty good about themselves are picking up pathetic piles of beer bottles left behind by affluence's wimpy youth the night before. Go over to that trash can and pull them out as they righteously dump them in. Chuck them in a recycling bin, demonstrate the worthlessness of their effort. Laugh at their faces as they are outdone by someone not shrouded in pricetags... ah, fuck it: I never have the balls to make a good scene. I sit on the tide-wall. Behind me is a million-dollar mansion. In front of me is just glitter: natural and unnatural, neither very pleasing. I close my eyelids and let the searing white turn into warm pink. I am thinking about my lack of courage, even when I know a fear of these bastards to be ridiculous. I'm thinking about the relevance of self-criticism in this environment. The subject exhausts itself almost immediately. As I curse humanity like a dog I sense no hypocrisy, for that is how I treat myself. You're just another fucking despicable animal yourself. Quit your mangy philosophizing. No, instead of bothering my sanity over convolutions in thought I soon find myself thinking (having opened my eyes), holy shit: the “domesticated” pets all this precious money buys are pretty fuckin' ugly. Look at those two runty things, their pushed in faces, barrel flanks, and toothpick legs on which they dance around each other, feinting as well as a being can with such an utterly graceless corpse, and ducking away from themselves as if retreating from their own unbearable features. I've known dogs to have beauty as a woman can have her natural beauty without make-up, but these look like the fiftieth generation of constant crossbreeding, a new strain in the mix at every opportunity. Is this some kind of trend? Something so stupid that it catches on amongst the rich and unhappy; you know, like something you'd see on a billboard or (gasp!) television? Ah, no, that's not what it is. Now I realize that it's not just the dogs that are gracelessly dodging around each other's sad existence but their owners also. Here I am smiling genuinely at these soul-sucking bastards and what they give back is something stuck on their face like a hefty donation to charity with all its bundled benefits. I'm smiling because I am happy: they expect recognition for being happy in exchange for their ‘smile’. They want something from happiness, the bastards. Soul-sucking, ravenous, yet empty husks of bastards. And that's why they bought the fucking ugly dogs and the birthday-cake houses. They haven't got much interest in beauty: put something beautiful on the shelf and its beauty immediately departs, leaving behind something that can be bought and sold. For money. Money doesn't even exist anymore. One day (let's get out of here, leave the beach behind) one day I'll sell up on my bank account. Isn't there some law about the employer having to pay out in cash if the employee wants his wages that way? It's a sobering thought to realize that when your parents tugged you along to deposit your penny jar you were being consigned to a system that lasts the rest of your life and beyond. You think one day you'll go back and draw out your little piles of coins and splash out on some of those tangy worms from the corner store. Later. When you're older and Mother Says it's okay and you don't need the nice people at the bank with their lollipops and smiles to look after your painstakingly, pay-phone-change-slot-checking-ly earned savings any more. But it's all a lie. A gyp. You're never getting that first impressive deposit back. The nice lady with the smile poured your change into the receptacle behind the counter and handed you back a clever piece of paper. The penny jar evaporates into screeds of electronic data and you've signed your life away to a debt that keeps you guessing, that keeps you peddling, keeps you borrowing, leaves you clutching nothing but pages and pages of transcript, and skims what it can when you die. Ah, grim thoughts, but all they make me do is hone in on the nearest ATM to find out how deep last night's cut me. I'm never gonna sell up on the good old empty monolith that is my bank (It's empty but it hums. Hums with an electric hum as it keeps the tally, the ever increasing tally). I'll forever be putting off that final withdrawal. I'll never get the guts to ask my employer for wages in cash—shit: what employer? what wages? From what bank account, exactly, will I be making a fucking “that last withdrawal”? They're all in the red. I shove the plastic into the glow and it beeps and clunks and won't even lend me a tenner for some breakfast. Shit. I use the maybe half a dollar in change to catch a bus. Lucky I crashed somewhere near home. I still have to get the kind old lady behind me in the queue to front me the rest of the fare. The cheapest fucking fare and still I fall short. Fucking oil mongers. When you're catching a bus and you know you're shy the fare, always get on last but never the very last. By the time most everyone's on the bus and the one or two behind you are anxious to embark, their carefully counted out change held tight in their fists, the driver will normally be willing to let you slide just to avoid the hassle. And if he isn't, the person behind you (because old people are slow and all these newborn young pricks have no sense of etiquette these days) is likely to be an elderly soul and only too willing to get you out of a jam. The aged are always such suckers for a charity scam. And Jesus Christ if it isn't a fucking school bus. Gotta steer clear of that back seat. Must preserve what sanity I have left. Oh no, wait. Looks like wherever I sit the fucking kids and their fucking radio are going to take care of the remnants of my mind. Parents gawk at their retarded children when every day they send them away to the establishment to the tune of ten dollar drum machines and the lyrical content you'd get from a two-bit pimp. Why anybody would want to hear about such strange sexual abberations on the morning bus to school, I don't know, but that's all they push the kids these days. Maybe they'll figure out the sex scam a little earlier; maybe it's a good thing... but they'll all have retail jobs by the time that happens, however accelerated the process, and it shall be much, much too late. 9 Fuck this. Maybe it's the ‘music’. Maybe it's the guilt of not being able to pay my fare. I'm getting off early. Back on the scummy sidewalk. Back on the streets but at least removed from shitty company. Kicking down the sidewalk. Step on a crack, break your momma's back. Momma—huh! Wonder what she's doing today. Dear old Mom. 'Cause when love is gone, there's always justice. And when justice is gone, there's always force. And when force is gone, there's always Mom. Not her fault I'm kicking down the sidewalk... break your momma's back... la la la la la... Ain't got much to show for it. 'Cept a lot—no, a wad—of brown, sticky spit. I called my home. From a payphone. Dialed collect 'cause I had no change. So surprised they still knew my name... Nope, no reason to bother Mom & Dad. I'm sure they're just fine, working the tail ends of their existences into retirement, so I'll just stick to scrimping together the half dollar for mailing out their monthly reassurance: Dear Mom and Dad, Job is going swell. Still haven't met that girl yet. Read a book the other week... ahahahahaha swing one two swing one two hup-hup la la la la la... Scored some cash on the game machine. Had a blast... blazing—no, burning—green. ooooooohhh... I fell apart. I would not start. Doctor's bill is doin' more harm... than all the pain I've been dealing my heart. oooohoohh la la l—ah, here we are: Shitkick Avenue. Swing two three and hup, round the corner... and fuck. There in the cracked concrete driveway of good old number eleven, a fucking squad car. Fuck fuck fuck. Cross the road keep walking fuck 'em get outta here get outta this town this country nothing left get out out get out I've been in plenty of rooms with cops. I've seen plenty of people's reactions to their unexpected presence. Some come in, see the blue, and start bawling and screaming and tearing their hair out. Now that just doesn't help anybody. Tears start flowing and fists start hammering the poor busted sucker's chest how could you how could you as she buries her hair in his shoulder. Others just ignore entirely not my problem, man. I just live here ain't no problem didn't even like the guy. The rowdy ones don't see blue, they see red. Go find a better reason for arming the police. So I walk in, “What's happening?” I say. They get a reaction 'cause I pay most of the rent. Cops are gone living room what were you thinking man shelf-bunnies saw me two bottles okay but gets greedy goes back for a third but the attendants those bulges hey you as you leave in your pockets the police have been telephoned and are on their way. What were you thinking man man I got court in a week but they can't wait think they can sham me up with some other shit but I let 'em in let 'em in real smooth just keep 'em in the clean rooms and keep that coffee in their hand man what were you thinking it'll be okay gimme a lift to court next Tuesday? If I get a conviction over this my mom'll roll over in her grave. No look I'll carry the fine with me we'll be out and free by ten whatever man I'm taking a nap go out and find a job. 10 I rest, they're quiet, the murmers. Bridge & tunnel open the night close before the usual, dimly perceived backdrop descends. From the outer boroughs to our own daily heart, a substantial downtown lyrical sound, ‘Bridge & Tunnel’, the voices a pleasurable tick, quiet murmers inhabit our circumscribed world. A subway leaves its polyglot citizens and the larger notion of her background wondering about the anxious tone radiating from where liberty, equality, and opportunity brush by you on the street and have concrete meaning, imploring someone on a cellphone. Boilerplate phrases slop out in a stream of hot gossip bubbling around stump speeches and news cons. Now they are here before us, strangers in an acutely observed aria. A dystopian shandy. But it's daylight! no? and I awake shivering on my matress on the floor, my clothes in the corner, a pencil fallen from the end of a smudgy sentence written on the wall. Why? why must I think this... haven't the time at my disposal as others gotta get by. Someone has opened my door: bastards. I close it, make sure the curtains are doing their heavy job. Fall to the floor mattress again, rotten sleeping bag hasn't been cleaned or aired for months, musty smell intoxicates my dreams. Wretch this is one of our hottest video. This tiny innocent little girl came into our house with little much of idea of our intention. She told us about her life shortly, then we brought our black pal, which has huge dick. And he fucked her like in a way we never saw before. This is probably our hottest video, dont miss it! 11 Door is knocking drunk, Hey, take me to court go fuck yerself, y'wanna put gas 'n th'fucking thing go ahead and have a fucking blast my mouth is full of the corner of the mattress if he opens that door my eyes will fall out of my skull. Door is knocking more drunk aww fuck off it's me aww fuck's sake, I'm sorry, come in. Shit you don't look right, how long you been in here? Don't you move those curtains! What's that behind your back in that brown paper bag creased and worn round its glass neck oh you're good to me, you are. Only if you drag yourself outta this hole for a while a stroll in the sunshine will never do. “In the moonlight, then,” he says. “Look, I'm taking this girl on a date and you're coming too, and that lady you said you met.” Aww she wasn't interested in me. “Come on, now. Your flatmate said she left a message and you haven't been out of here for him to tell you to your face. What are you doing, pissing out the window?” I look at him sidelong. We both break into laughter. No more coaxing and I'm out of bed writing down that girl's number, giving her a call, leaving a message asking her out tomorrow Friday night with my friend and his date. No questions, he makes me promise. He'll provide the transport and the dinner. I need some clothes. A shower. A shave. One more withdrawal further into debt. I'm hanging my hopes on this night and I don't even know why. Back at home I fling open those heavy curtains and kick the grimy sheets off the bed. I get a bucket of warm soapy water and a sponge and rub the pencil off that wall as best I can. I'm sweating so I have another shower, clean the shower stall. I put the sheets on the line, replace them with a load of clothes been sitting in the corner for weeks. I grab the bottle my friend left, pour a reasonably soft drink, and read through my junk mail. That moon's coming out. Just after I bring the sheets in the phone rings and she'll come. Her voice rises at the ends of her sentences; I wonder whether that'll pass. I stroll the evening away, but not too late. I jog my way home, do a few press-ups on the bathroom floor, take my third shower. I climb into bed. However early in the morning it is, sleep won't come. You read in books about men perturbed by insomnia, the movies show scenes of people tossing in their beds but those depictions hardly represent sleeplessness. My bed envelops me, sucks me down into it, paralyzes me so that I may neither escape it nor succumb to it. ‘She’s only a girl' is not the type of rationalization that this breed of sleeplessness will ever yield to. 12 The subway leaves its polyglot citizens stranded at the depot, preacher poems in hand, wordless dry throats aghast; not even diesel fumes to suck in. Yes, the dreams when they come are difficult. Slick-pants kicks a gleam off his shoe and while I'm dazzled slips a stick of gum out of its powdered wrapper and between his already fresh gums. I watch him stride away, back to me, briskly unurgent. Ah, sleeping beauty hate in Boy London funwear; a broken face dream recurs. 13 “You had a bit to drink the other night. Are you like that a lot?” “Oh, no, no, no. No... not at all. God, was I awful? I'm so sorry.” “You were... forward.” “Oh. Look, I'm very, very sorry for anything... untoward I may have done.” “No, no don't be, you didn't do anything... too horrible. You... uh, you did leave a little early in the morning, though.” “Oh.” Crap! “You needn't have been so ashamed, you know; or to call me back.” “My, uhh... flatmate—” “Yes, your flatmate said—” I don't think we can ignore the other two much longer. I don't know how long my friend's been seeing this girl, but it doesn't seem to be going so well. She's all fiery inside you can see and dressed to contain it. They've been bickering ever since the soup; we've been trying not to notice. Too late: she throws down her fork. “Fuck you, man. You're a fuckin' maggot, you know that? You fucking maggot.” Well what the hell else can happen now? She storms off and for some reason my girl with her, like a fucking deer or something. No good my looking at him. I go after but she turns and just says “NO.” and I slink back to our table. Together we drift back to his place. Together we're trying to forget this fucked up night. It's working for him but not for me. Soon as he's passed out I'm out the door, on my way home, committing the route to erasure. I collapse for ten minutes but that doesn't work. I get up, splash some water on my face, and set out along the path I want to remember. She slams the door in my face. Fuck. Ah, what the hell's the use? I'm losing interest in her anyway. I'm tired of even thinking about her or anything anymore. The whole saga is kinda receding before me, like the ancients' view of time. I don't know what's coming up behind me, but I do know that I can barely see this girl in the ever-growing distance before me. My friend and his stumbling ways are already dropping off the horizon. Long ago did that sense of purpose vanish, trailing wisps of logic and decorum like a misty morning sunrise in reverse. More and more it seems these dreams are what creep up from behind. They seem to be enveloping me more completely every day. They are like my bed the night before a date: paralyzing, enticing. The misty marks emerge bizarrely at unexpected points. In everyday acts I am seized. Get outta there, will you? What, are you passed out? I need to piss, man! That stare! no good that stare! And quiet, the hum. No. No bueno. Aren't you listening? Your mouth is moving, you're just making noise. Listen! Boilerplate phrases slop out in a stream of hot gossip, bubbling around stump speeches and news cons. Now they are here before us, strangers in an accutely observed aria. A dystopian shandy. A barking harangue. Choke, creeping up behind me. Enveloping, yes. Yes, for a long time now, a long time now there has only been darkness. And who, who is to suppose that there is anything more than darkness chasing me up from behind?