Fats Domino I’m Walking
Disappointment reigns today. Actually, it started taking root last night didn’t really have much to say to Bill. He seemed greatly annoyed the previous night with our discussion and his firm decision that we would never get together like that again.
And I, with just a hint of Pollyanna, was hanging onto hope, and perhaps it would, but it will not. Mike said he would leave if it happened to him, but I’m not leaving cuz I have nowhere to go, and neither does Bill, so we’re basically stuck together. Yes, there’s love, but I guess it’s more of a platonic love.
I am not going out to look for something. If I want something, I will save up my money and pay for it. I’ve done that in the past, and I will do it again. The price of being a selfish lover. A sex worker will do what you want them to do.
Mike is going on a cruise with his beloved in March? April? He’s very excited about it, whereas I feel like going on a cruise would be hell to be stuck with these people that I may or may not like. Bill can go, and I do not have to. Perhaps the way to do things going forward is to do them alone.
I don’t know, I really can’t say right now, but it is a remote possibility. Oh, Mike has been telling me that he lubbs me, which is the love language that he speaks to his beloved with. I’m trying to get him to stop doing that.
It is certainly true that my life was easier without sex, and then Mike came and showed me that I could have fun, and that didn’t last, and now I’m left holding the bag, so to speak, it’s not even a nice bag; it’s very disappointing, it’s bad.
At this point, I have to say I am grateful that they are both functionally illiterate, meaning they don’t read this here blog.
And I have mentioned to Bill and brought up to Mike that my feelings are transitory, basically, I might feel some way at 6:00 p.m., at 6:15 I might feel something different, so nothing is set in stone, especially when it comes to feeling, my feelings.
And they don’t read this anyway.
And wholly unrelated news, I am at the main fruit stand today, and it’s not so bad. Yesterday I messed up on an email, sent it to the wrong person, and expected to get chewed out about it, which is still a possibility with these passive aggressive fruit pickers.
It’s busy; there are some bold-faced names passing through. And some of those names will be at the smaller fruit stand with me tomorrow.
Friday morning, there is a meeting at the main food stand, which also has the capability for an on-camera meeting. Yancey is organizing it, and I asked him if I was needed to be there, and he said he would prefer it.
Now my hours are generally 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. but they do Friday and the timesheet goes in on Thursday and since tomorrow is Thursday the timesheet for the week will also go in but I’m not going to show up on Friday until the meeting giving myself another hour and make my life that much sweeter or at least that’s how it looks on paper.
So it’s all a big mess. And I suppose it’s mostly my own doing. Bill loves me. I love Bill.
Is it the same type of love? I really can’t say. I can say I am disappointed in the Christmas gift that he gave me. And I think my disappointment was noticeable. Mike remarked on it, and Bill didn’t.
It’s a device that will turn on should we lose power in the apartment. It’s for the computer, and the last time we had a power outage like that was probably 14 years ago. So basically, he has given me a gift that we hope not to use.
Did he use his imagination? Perhaps he did. Perhaps he has a limited imagination. I used my imagination to get Bill a few shirts. He seemed to like them. I got Mike a few shirts, which he gave to his beloved, which shows me I will never get him a gift again.
Yancey just introduced me to a young man named Derek Strawberry. Yancey usually tells people about my working in the music studios and the recording industry back in the day.
I regale them with my story of being at 6 West 57th Street and having a smoke when a kid came up to me, asked me how we could get his cassette into the record label.
It was then I had a moment and told him that the record industry was on its way out. I was struck by a premonition, perhaps a Cassandra-like thing, but I told him that soon he’ll be able to do this all on his own on a laptop distributed himself, etc., etc. For a twist, I tell people about that the young man was Kanye West, which makes them flip out.
The hopeful pessimist
A lot of water has passed underneath that burning bridge
A Google Gemini rewrite as a Samuel Beckett essay
The Unnamable Interval: A Monologue on the Fruit Stand
The light dies, or perhaps it merely fails to begin. Disappointment, that old familiar, has taken root. It did not arrive with a flourish; it simply was, like a stone in a boot. Last night, Bill—a silence between us like a wall of wet wool. He is annoyed. He has decided. “Never again,” he says, with the finality of a gravedigger.
I clung to a shred of Pollyanna—a foul, sticky hope. But hope is a mistake of the bowels. It will not happen. Mike suggests flight. One leaves when the room becomes unbearable. But where is the “away”? I have nowhere to go; Bill has nowhere to go. We are two umbrellas leaning against each other in a cupboard, waiting for a rain that never ends. We love, they say. A platonic rot.
The Economy of the Void
I shall not seek. If the void requires a presence, I shall pay for it. I have coins; I have memories of coins. A sex worker is a technician of the inevitable. They perform the script. No imagination required. No “lubbs.”
Mike speaks of a cruise. A ship of fools on a circle of salt. To be trapped with the living? Hell is other people, but a buffet on the high seas is its own circle of the Inferno. Bill may go. Let him drift. I shall remain, an island of one. Perhaps the only way to be is to be alone. I cannot say. The tongue is a heavy muscle.
Mike says “lubb.” A linguistic deformity. He offers it to his beloved, then offers the same scrap to me. I ask him to cease. It is a cluttering of the silence. Life was simpler in the wasteland of the celibate. Then Mike arrived with his “fun”—a brief spasm—and now I am left holding the bag. It is not even a fine bag. It is a sack of dust.
“Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. Yes, yes, it’s the most comical thing in the world.” — Endgame
The Fruit Stand Chronicles
I am grateful for their illiteracy. They do not read the record of my dissolution. I told Bill, I told Mike: my feelings are transitory. At 6:00 p.m., a certain despair; at 6:15 p.m., a different shade of gray. Nothing is set in stone. The stone itself is moving.
I stand at the main fruit stand. A purveyor of perishables. Yesterday, an email went astray—a digital scream into the wrong ear. I wait for the “chewing out.” The passive-aggressive fruit pickers move in the shadows.
Bold-faced names pass by. Ghosts of the social register. Tomorrow, the smaller stand. Friday, the meeting. Yancey—the organizer of futilities—desires my presence on camera. I shall arrive late. I shall steal an hour from the clock. A small victory in a losing war.
The Gift of Utility
Bill loves me. I love Bill. The words are hollowed out by use. For Christmas, he gave me a device. An uninterruptible power supply. A gift predicated on a catastrophe that occurred fourteen years ago. He has given me a monument to a darkness we hope never to see.
Bill’s Gift: A battery for a dead future.
My Gift: Shirts. To cover his skin.
Mike’s Gift: Shirts, promptly handed to another.
I shall never give again. To give is to invite the spectacle of rejection.
The Prophet of 57th Street
Yancey introduces me to a boy named Derek Strawberry. He speaks of my “career.” I tell the story of 6 West 57th Street. A cigarette, a kid, a cassette tape. I played Cassandra in the smog. “The industry is a corpse,” I told him. “Do it on a laptop. Distribute your own despair.”
I tell them the kid was Kanye West. They gasp. They believe. It is a lie, or it is a truth—it doesn’t matter. The bridge is burning, and the water beneath it is black.
I am the hopeful pessimist. I wait for the end, but I’ve brought a snack.