The last several days I’ve sat in this chair to write I’ve felt a sudden dread descend over me, an inexplicable urge to be up and away from it. This chair, this computer, are like a house that is haunted, complete with a voice intoning “Get Out!” in supernatural basso profundo. My writing has been short, therefore, and not particularly sweet. It has not been the sort of thing I would copy and paste into The White Lodge. Events are occurring closer to home than usual. Detachment and humor are subsequently delayed. Re-telling the personal tragedies of the people close to me is inappropriate, until time turns their stories into comedy and I’ve come up with fictional characters resembling them in such a way that they would not recognize themselves, unless they were particularly bright.

 

I’ve not been on a very even keel myself. But, concurrently, my business seems to be growing. The phone rings quite a lot. Word of mouth within a particular circle is fueling this growth. I shall have to take on a second helper. Elizabeth is sufficient to the task except that she works elsewhere three days a week. I could almost provide her with full time work, and of course at a much higher rate of pay that she’s getting at the other job, but what I cannot yet do is guarantee it. I’m on a fourteen day schedule. This month I may be brimming over with work, and next month I may be without any at all.

 

Funny story. She has a fan club, does the Amazing Monkey Girl, the White Tornado. I got a call from a member of the local big shot set on a word of mouth recommendation from a new customer. I explained that, depending on the day of the week, I work either alone or with a helper. She said, “I understand you work with a girl named Elizabeth. It has to be on a day of the week when you have her.”

 

I told that to my caterer friend and she said that soon I’ll be sitting behind a desk with a fat cigar in my mouth shouting into the phone, “You want Lizzie? It’ll cost ‘ya.”

 

Well, I shall have to go solo on Tuesday because it’s the WT’s wedding anniversary and her husband has arranged a room in a very swanky resort hotel – the kind of place we work in, not the kind of place we stay. A fool and his money… comes to mind. I like watching the chambermaids come out on their break. Hubba hubba. But she tells about this bit of romantic intrigue and my hand goes up. “I don’t want to know. Suffice it to say you want the day off.” And then I add, “Enjoy yourself. Happy anniversary,” like I’m imparting some kind of paternal blessing. And actually, I do feel quite paternal, and I believe she casts me in that role.

 

What’s my problem? My problem is her husband isn’t me. No – I don’t have a thing for my helper, not specifically. It’s any pretty girl right now. I just don’t want to know. I assume married people have sex from time to time. They don’t need my permission, and the thought of it has no place in my mind. Yes, I’ve got a touch of envy. It’s like having a cold, except that colds are imaginary and sins are all too real.

 

My caterer friend lives the supernatural Hamlet of Hickwick, as you know. It’s out in the country. I was over there Friday night picking up food. She has a neighbor across the way who has a couple of hay bales set up at the end of his driveway, a scarecrow, a witch’s broom, a deer skull – you know, Halloween stuff. She informs me her neighbor has somehow managed to demonstrate a girlfriend. “That’s a woman’s touch,” she says, referring to the decorations. She drives all the way from East City, 90 miles away, on weekends to be with him. Says I: “How does he get a bloody girlfriend? He’s an albino living in a trailer! What the hell?”

 

She laughed.

 

So I got an early morning phone call from a lady friend having relationship difficulties. She lives with a guy as if they were married – you know, playing house. She tells me, “He thinks that having sex with me will make everything alright again. Why are men like that? They think that just because…”

 

“Don’t finish that sentence,” I shouted down the phone.

 

It’s really all about accepting responsibility – having a woman, that is. I was not very good at it. Join the club, some might say. But you know me – I’m not a joiner. No, it’s the biggest responsibility a man can take on. My brother is the only man I know who did it right. He said he would not even begin to date until he was made partner and had a sufficient income for the task – living as he does in a very expensive area. And well, he turned 40 when he became a partner at last. Then he got married to a very pretty, very traditional young woman later that same year. They had a baby. They live modestly in a condo. He drives a forty thousand dollar car, and I kid him about it. And he shrugs. He says, “The judge drives this, my clients drive this. They’re stupid, but it’s just the way of the world.”

 

The idea of taking on that responsibility fills me with a nameless dread. Have I changed sufficiently, have I finally grown up enough to take it on? I don’t know. I think not. I love my freedom. I don’t love my loneliness, but I love my freedom. There’s a thing I like to say when Elizabeth asks me can she do this - can she do that? – Do we have time? I say, “The day is ours to do with as we please.” That’s being self-employed. Sometimes it’s like having forty bosses, but I can decide to just keep driving and blow off twenty of them any time I want.

 

The day is ours to do with as we please.

  

I inherited a ton of plants recently, rescuing them from the coming frost. They are the kind that will continue to live indoors if they are cared for. My kitchen looks like a rainforest. I’ll have to sort it out today.

 

Yesterday I was on a job helping a lady put up her Halloween decorations, which is kind of funny. Earlier this week the WT asked me what kind of decorations I was planning to put around my place. I said, “What?”

 

“Dude! Don’t be a scrooge,” she said, “You have to decorate – for the kids. Are you very religious?”

 

“Well, yes, but I’m catholic. We invented it.”

 

“So you gotta do it!”

 

I explained that I used to decorate the house for holidays. After my wife left, and for a couple of years, I continued to decorate for Halloween, get a Christmas tree, hang stockings – all that. As if she would come back – still pretending to have the family I had lost – doing all those married things. But it’s been ten years now that I’ve been single. (And the WT is too young to have been anything for ten years, I realize.) My explanation – excuse – fell kind of flat.

 

She said: “Dude, you’ve got a great place. You don’t know what you’ve got. I’ll help you with it. All you need is a woman’s touch.”

 

“If you address me as Dude one more time you’re fired.”

 

“Dude, that’s so funny.”  

  

 

  

 

Finger Blood. I have no idea. I only know I like it – that bass in the middle.

 

I had a friend once who told me he thought about committing suicide while listening to the Velvet Underground “Sister Ray.” Red was the color of his carpet, he said. Hearing the song again – Song? Really? – brought back such fond memories for him. It’s hard for me to imagine that fellow ever considering suicide. He drove a bright orange Ford Festiva, but otherwise I couldn’t see any reason for such depths of hopelessness. His Dad had Bose speakers, back when Bose still had some lows. He was a writer. He worked at a gas station so he could stay at home and write his novel. But he ended up doing something else. Went to school for Psychology. An interesting fellow. He never ‘tried’ to do anything – he just did things, eliminating that word ‘tried’ from his thinking, (I guess the notable exception being suicide), and just went ahead and did whatever he set out to do. Some endeavors failed. He moved on. Eventually, one endeavor succeeded, and I gather it is the same one he is currently pursuing – something to do with computers in Chicago.

 

Oh that’s right – he worked for the same company my wife did, but I think at a different time. That woman changed jobs every two weeks. I think she ‘tried’ too much. Well, in any event, she could be very trying.

 

So it’s an interesting piece. It’s sort of an anchor for this playlist. What the hell am I talking about? Finger Blood – you know, the only song on my widget that I haven’t deleted to make room for another. It reminds me of some little bit of the Paul Winter Consort album – “Icarus(?)” – I think that was it. Oh, I have it in my albums, but I don’t want to turn on a light yet to find it. Seven o’clock in the morning and it’s still dark, thank God. I like this time of year for that aspect of it, if for no other.

 

You know I like darkness, and I mean by that literal darkness or paucity of light. I don’t mean spiritual darkness or dark thoughts, or any of that daffy stuff. I feel safe in the dark, safe from ugliness. Dark is a warm embrace. Dark is the saint who shields my eyes from seeing what you have done to my world with your vinyl siding and your plastic telephones, plastic toys, plastic everything. And everything is plastic, including our ever changing bodies, because things are made of particles of changing matter, and these particles are molecules made of atoms, and the atoms made of protons, neutrons, electrons, the protons made of quarks, and the quarks made of – nothing. There is literally nothing at the heart of matter. There is no unifying principle contained within things.

 

Some have said things are thoughts, but that is not completely accurate. The word ‘are’ – the verb ‘to be,’ is the equal sign. When you say ‘things are thoughts’ you are saying Things = Thoughts. Incorrect. It is correct to say ‘things are made of thoughts.’ That’s just New Age laziness, the arrogance which supposes we are God rather than made by God. Now, if you want an equal sign here’s one: Taxation = Theft. That one’s perfect, mathematically speaking.

 

Oh, I’m in a mood. You don’t have to tell me.

 

So I guess it is accurate to say that literal darkness is an equivalent of spiritual light in my way of thinking. I do sleep with my eyes open when it is sufficiently dark. In the darkness I am free of my body to an extent. I travel very far, saying it is The Squabbler who travels.

 

Now, beautiful bright sunlight is another matter. It depends on the character of the neighborhood. If you live in an ugly house I would prefer to see it only in total darkness, but if you enjoy beauty as I do, then I will visit in the broad, bright sunlight. I am the one who shows up at your door, taps on your windows, and scares your dog.

 

That’s what I think of when I hear Finger Blood.

 

This is my second Thursday, October 10, 2007. I already lived this day. I just awoke from it. My helper was buying the very same house we were preparing for sale, and we were screening “Blade Runner” while working. She said she had already seen it, but it was OK because she liked it.

 

Yesterday someone I know was painting on the outside of a window while I was cleaning the inside of it. Well, he owns the building and I was working for one of his tenants. It was a second floor window and he was standing on the porch roof. Below was the other main street of our tiny village, and the funeral home across the street. Lovely, beautiful bright sunshine. I stuck my head out, and we traded some banter. I told him not to splatter so bloody much.

 

Do you want to come out here and do this?

 

You should hire a pro, you cheapskate.

 

Well, you can have the job.

 

By ‘pro’ I meant someone who gets paid. That would mean you would have to pay me.

 

What do you charge?

 

More than you can afford.

 

Then the funeral home director appeared across the street on the sidewalk in front of his place, holding a coffee cup in his hand. He shouted up:

 

Are you sure that color’s going to match when it dries?

 

I don’t care.

 

Well, I’m the one who has to look at it every day.

 

I told him to hire a pro…

 

You know, what amazes me is how you can take a ten minute project and turn it into an all day affair.

 

You sound like my wife.

 

Don’t make him laugh. He’ll fall off the roof.

 

Oh, untimely death a specialty.

 

Could I have an open casket after falling from here?

 

It’s amazing what they can do with make up these days…

 

As long as you don’t break the fall with your head.

 

And so it went. Life in a small town. It’s amazing we get any work done at all.   

Oh well. Leonard Cohen is reading and Herbie Hancock is playing piano. That's what I'm hearing anyway. You may be hearing The Three Stooges on Dr. Demento. This song widget is random. But if it's not Leonard Cohen you're hearing right now you can hear me continue to experiment with my sound stuff by pausing the Stooges, or whoever, and clicking on the imeem controller. I'm trying to get the kinks worked out.

No, there's nothing by The Kinks in here. "Waterloo Sunset" I rather like. Who doesn't?

If it is Leonard you're hearing then please don't touch the imeem thingy. What a voice he has! I'd have to smoke a million more cigarettes before mine got there.

It's just a poem by Poe.

Just? I hear you say. Or, I wish I heard you say.

I wasn't in any mood to write. But talking into a microphone always lifts my spirits.

 

 

There’s a door in this place that opens into several versions of my parents’ house, the house I grew up in, and sometimes I visit. Whenever I do I don’t remember where I am visiting from – whatever location my exile has taken me in time. I suppose it doesn’t matter.

 

I visited last night. They were away, so I had turned in. I was in the Playroom as it came to be called. It was our TV room at one time. It was at another time a sort of library and catch-all room, guest room. It was my grandmother’s room in her final years – that would be my mother’s mom – and I believe it had been the room where my mother had taken care of my Dad’s mother when she was dying, years and years before. In other words, as good a place to sleep as any.

 

Mom and Dad came home. The sound awakened me. I could hear my mother’s voice, and when I remembered she had died I became suddenly extremely glad that she had risen. I thought of her in her coffin, how different she looked. I thought of how tiny she had become in those last ten years, and how I knew it was still her only because of her voice, and I wondered which version of her might come into the Playroom to see me. I knew it would be more courteous if I were to arise and greet them, though. They were speaking cheerily about ordinary things.

 

People are busily pulling in their docks in preparation for the coming winter. The boats still race around, some of them pulling hearty swimmers on skis, in defiance of the approaching apocalypse. I think of Werner Herzog’s retelling of “Nosferatu” – the people eating feasts on tables covered in scurrying and foraging rats because the plague has descended on the town and one might as well debauch before the inevitability of death. Eat, drink, be merry.

 

Lakes don’t have tides – least not the small, landlocked variety – but as we pulled our dock in, preparing the summer house to be closed up for the winter, the tide was out and in, then out again. Diving into the clear water still wearing my tee shirt, I half walked half swam as necessary to the floating dock. The brightly colored autumn leaves were falling into the water, but it was so very warm. Cold was a memory, and an anticipation, still buried under blankets in the bones, fast asleep. There were other people’s children to be picked up and carried to their young and pretty mothers who were awaiting them with arms outstretched. A huge table was laid on the sand for a feast, and a buffet line was forming. We had run out of plates so we were improvising with various things.

 

A naked young woman waved as she came by with a plume of spray and golden hair on water skis. She wasn’t one of us, but from the other family down the lake. They watched a lot of television. We didn’t really socialize except to say hello, nice day. Perhaps it will rain tomorrow. Tie down the boat before the twister comes. Here comes the twister.

 

There were green soft shelled crabs everywhere suddenly, and the sun went behind a little cloud. It had been good to visit, but I didn’t regret it to close the door. Squabs came over and locked it – turned a key in the lock, gave me a withering look, comical in his bathrobe, only just awake.

 

I didn’t get the chance to see her – my mother, that is. It got crazy with all the preparations and all the family there. That was as it should be. In the rooms behind that door everything is always as it should be. Everything makes sense to me there. Not like here.

 

But I heard her voice. We said hello across the void. I know we will talk again, and that’s why I don’t miss her. She hasn’t gone anywhere in space, only in time, and it was ever thus. We are time travelers, all of us, traveling from foetal transparency to the parchment of the tomb, and we are many ways in between. In reality we are lights, we are fireflies, we are flickering sparks from a great warm fire that burns eternally. Our minds possess the keys to all our many doors.