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[ocdsee]

[ocdsee]

Young Man, Big Sur

There exists, here, the sort of person, who you might find really anywhere, who, in green t-shirt and hiking shorts and pack, running shoes, an old well-worn and washed BIG SUR baseball cap; the green of the embroidered tree that separates the two words matching the t-shirt, reads the latest New Yorker on the train, who, while more at home in the woods; on the way up a mountain; at the river’s edge, still wants to stay abreast, in touch with what is going on in the city; the contemporary art world, the latest works of fiction, who wants at least some part of himself to remain true to who he once was, despite his reluctance to stay where he once was, who does not want to take the inheritance, but who, in the end, someday will.

[ocdsee]

One Year Later

Watching them in order, from first to last, that was the plan. Some of them– most of them he thinks–they’ve seen before. But they went to see the first on the big screen, as part of a series being held, where the print was old and damaged and crackled with grit and burnouts, and flashed with white freckles and flairs that had them thinking of seizures. The latter films he found online, a few they had on DVD already, tucked away in the closet, the DVD player unplugged and hidden away from view, ever since he’d bought the PlayStation. They owned only a couple of Blu-ray discs, and neither were on the list. The second film they had recently started, one evening in bed. Moved from one computer to the other on a USB stick. They’d gotten about ten minutes in before she fell asleep. Guilty, he watched another twenty before turning it off, shutting the computer, turning it off, and putting it on the stool by the dresser. On the stool: a new pair of running shoes, unused. He picks them up, puts the laptop down, puts them on top.

          They debated which they’d watched before; separately, earlier, or together, more recently. She hadn’t seen Ghost Dog, which given who she was, or more importantly at the time had been, he found extremely hard to believe.

[ocdsee]

Best Dressed.

Not often, but now and again, from time-to-time, on the train platform—where you are sweating in the heat in the middle of the day—or at the crowded intersection—strangers passing one another, the wave parting—a divine moment occurs: a lavender tracksuit, or at least lavender trousers, a lavender shirt. Maybe a waistcoat, which is white. A Ballers gym sack—the logo clear as day. And in the usual block lettering a yellow HBO just below, on the black bag on his back.

[ocdsee]

New Wave Dope Nod

In a t-shirt that I recognize as one of my own, not one of my own; he's not wearing mine, but one that I own, I mean: one just like mine. There is a man on the corner wearing a shirt that is the same as a shirt that I own. His is dirtier than mine, but somewhat surprisingly the print on his has faded significantly less. I suppose a rough life on the streets is no match for repeated and regular washing at the local laundromat.

          When I say he is on the corner, he is in the road, at the corner. His legs are limp, or going limp. His upper body is at a right angle to the lower—his head bobs back and forth and his arms are by his sides. He moves, softly, back and forth. In one hand a can of coke, in the other a black plastic deli bag. Any second a larger model car; an SUV or Minivan, or something altogether bigger, will take the corner, the light green, and the man in the same t-shirt as one that I own, that’s at home in a closet somewhere, will be hit. I could have been wearing it. A missed opportunity to feel in someway connected to the tragedy that is about to occur.

          His face will mark the bumper; the outline of his jaw, his ear imprinted into whatever it is that cars are made out of now, his can of Coke and a shoe flung upward first, and then outward, into the street. He will leave bystanders rooted to the spot in shock and then forever scarred. The driver will be blameless, and also in shock. He will be comforted by the scarred bystanders that have rushed over, have found their feet; have not yet realized that the man is dead.

         The man will be, finally, totally limp. A few minutes from now he will lie in the road, and the wheels of the cars around will skid to a stop, and everyone will rush over to the man on drugs, in a New Order Posse t-shirt, too late to do anything but call three digit numbers in emergency on their phones.

[ocdsee]

The Ocean Surf

(For D.)

I work in a town on the water in a bar where my job is to serve alcohol to people that come in and give me money in exchange for drinks. Sometimes there are other transactions, sometimes I receive more than just money, but this is the same at any bar—you will find me there, serving you the same drink you order here.

          There are two types of people that come to the bar, that I see and that I stand across from while they sit across from me. There are the people who will ruin my night, and the people whose lives I am ruining.

          You have your assholes, and you have your regulars, but these two groups are not mutually exclusive. I take money for the register and tips for myself, and I fill their glasses to ruin my own night or theirs.

A guy comes in, gives me hard time. Asks for a Jack and coke, and tells me I short poured him; tells me I’m short, that I don’t know how to pour. I top him up and leave him to it, without saying a word. Three of my regulars are halfway down the bar, halfway done, a few stools between them. I take their change and fill their beer glasses.  They lick the foam from their lips and chins, the edges of their grey beards, and when the rocks glasses they sip their harder drinks from are empty they suck what alcohol they can from the ice and the orange peel. Jack and coke calls me over.

           – This my first drink in ten years, he says.

          – …

          – You know, the last time I had a drink I tried killing myself.

          – …

          – Got close. Ten years ago, he says.

          In my bar guys like this appear like clockwork during the hours that I spend here. No matter what time of day the digital clock on the microwave in the back says, they seem to find themselves in the right place at the wrong time. Or me, the other way around. I sigh. Take his glass away and top him up, on the house. I take a five from my pocket and put it in the drawer. He nods, takes out a mess of singles and leaves them in a ball on the bar. This I acknowledge with a thankful nod.

          Down the other end I ask one of the others to tell me a joke, because I need cheering up, but no one remembers any; or can but gets the punch line confused. None of us laugh, all of us drink.      

          After two more, I go back to Jack. I take the pour cap off the bottle and leave it open in front of him. A dare. I take his glass, dump it in the sink, and refresh his ice.

          – Okay? I ask

          He smiles, and I pass him the bottle and tell him whatever is left is left for him. My regulars look on, unimpressed—as much from jealousy as the questionable moral and real life repercussions of my generosity.

Someone remembers the part of the joke they’d been forgetting, and we gather around and nobody laughs, and we all know that we’ll be back again tomorrow. Me first, to open—to sweep and mop; to remove the chairs from the tables, restock the shelves and small plastic trays of napkins, umbrellas; of olives and cherries and slices of lemon—them second, to fill the chairs, and start the day, and take their time getting drunk on mine.

[ocdsee]

Almost Drowned

I spend an hour on YouTube, adding videos as bookmarks to a folder I have made especially for them. It has a special title I don’t want to share. I’ll wait months, maybe even years to open the folder and look at them again. Now and again I’ll go back, top it up. A few minutes here a few there, when I stumble across something good. Sometimes I’ll spend half a day or more in the wormhole, watching videos, bookmarking them; never watching them again. Sometimes I’ll watch only a few seconds, a couple of minutes of something, and add it to the folder to watch again later. In full, when I have more time.

          A reminder: I won’t.

[ocdsee]

[ocdsee]

8:28

My favourite joke is delivered in a blue shirt. Or at least it was, the first time I heard it. It has probably been delivered countless other ways too, in countless other shirts, but I know it in blue. There are probably several reasons why this joke has become my favourite over the years, several reasons why it works so well. The delivery is one. It’s as though it physically pains him; he appears anguished, it seems as though the joke is something inside that must come out, something he’d much rather not have to mention, rather than something he can’t wait to share. Halfway through the telling it, his hand moves to his face, covers his eyes, his head is bowed; the microphone waves close to his mouth. He gives off the impression of not wanting to be there, or at least is nervous; is regretting having to tell the joke, his jokes, to the room. He has the air of someone delivering bad news, someone with a social discomfort of some sort. Or perhaps he is trying to keep a straight face, his delivery flat.

          And then there is the joke itself. It is made up of simple parts, it is not complex. It is barely a joke. There is no punch line; it is simply a statement, made by a man in a blue shirt on a stage with a microphone. It contains twenty-three words.

          But to hear it is to hear the thing that he has noticed, that you have not, and that you are now acutely aware of. The idea of something that doesn’t exist, but could. The absurdity of it—so strange that it seems like the most normal thing in the world. Why wouldn’t it be real? A real place in a real world where the comedian exists, where the comedian goes? Wouldn’t you go there too, if you could?

          My favourite joke goes: “I went to a museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums.”

[ocdsee]

Infirm Action.

He’s more or less non-discriminatory in his book buying. In so much as he has a favourite book shop, or really two, and as much as he would like to support only those—and which would, to their credit, cater to almost all of his needs, satisfy most of his desires between them—he can’t, or at least doesn’t feel compelled to. Which concerns him.

          And so he has others. And he’s happy buying books from each, depending on where he is that day; where he has to go, where he ends up, or where he wants to be. He finds them fine, likes them all well enough for reasons specific to each; each with their merits, except of course for one, which he actively dislikes. And even then he has to admit that it has some worth considering, by virtue of its location and the late opening hours. There are, in fact, two that fit this same profile. He dislikes them equally, hates them both. But they sell books and sometimes he is there. In fact more often than he would like he is there, and so goes inside and later leaves.

[ocdsee]

Night of Joy

The edges of the day always seem to invade on what little space you’ve made towards the end, when you’ve just about given up, or have made the decision to put it down to bad luck—the lunar eclipse; mercury in retrograde every five-fucking-minutes, everyone you know letting you know. It’s not as though your defenses are down, more so you’ve not had any time to build them up. What position do you have to defend, if you’re always on your way from one place to the next? “Keep moving,” some individual will almost always offer up. Idiocy disguised as advice. That’s where all those bumper stickers come from after all—irritating people with something positive to say.

         Keep on Truckin’

         Robert Crumb, or not, it’s not any sort of advice.

         But who’s to say that any of us know how, or would want to anyway?

         And so the little things, that don’t add up to much, suddenly and slowly, depending on the night, begin to find themselves on your mind. One on top of the other, piling up—a straight line from the floor to the ceiling to the sky outside. And despite the motivational poster you’ve placed on the wall, across from the chair in which you now sit, you’re not so sure anymore if you have what it takes, to get from where you sit now to where later you’ll lay.

[ocdsee]

The Guy Cleaning the Room is the Worst Dude.

In yellow, the middle-aged Pakistani woman waits in line. Her synthetic climbing pants halfway cuffed to forever, a large patch of sweat between the pockets, her thighs. Half of whatever she is visible; the shape of something moving beneath; tinted, like the lens of a cheap pair of sunglasses, the gel you slide across a theatre light.

[ocdsee]

Cottage

On the bed, the mattress on the wood floor of the landlord-built sleeping loft, the sheets are a mess; curled around and over each other, twisted in braids of beige and grey and white. The pillows are halfway down, parts of clothing visible here and there—the lower arm and cuff of a sweatshirt, the stripes of some athletic socks. Survey the scene: his insides all over the edges—constellations of his unborn, sinking into the unwashed fibers of the borrowed bed sheet.