Saturday - House of Biscuits

The familiar and expected smell greeted his nostrils as he moved into the driver's seat and began to fumble with the seat belt buckle. The car smelled like all old British cars, a warm and pleasant smell of leather and wood. He liked the smell, and he liked this car, but he was running late and he couldn't get the seat adjusted exactly to his liking, and the seat belt buckle wasn't quite right either.

'Fuck!' he shouted to no particular target. He just wanted to use the word. He loved this word. He never grew tired of this word. It amazed him how those four letters together could amuse him, help him relax, inspire him, express his every emotion. He thought this often, but did not think it right now, because he was running late and he had to get across town.

He decided not to fiddle with the seat or seat belt any longer, and he twisted the key and the car immediately coughed to life and he blipped the throttle a few times with his toe, and satisfied with the sounds generated by the engine he put the car in gear, looked over his shoulder for oncoming traffic, and speedily entered the artery of asphalt.

'Fuck!' he yelled as his coffee spilled, fortunately only on the dashboard and not on his pants or shirt, which were really looking great today. He spent only three minutes selecting this shirt to meet her in this morning, he knew right as soon as he saw it he was going to party the pink gingham with a blue tie. He was especially pleased that his thin jeans were fitting as well as they were.

The green car was hurtling East now, in top gear, switching lanes left and right through the slower moving cars, which were few as it was early morning on a Saturday. The brakes in the green car were not good, not good at all, and he was traveling much too fast considering this fact - which he did - but he was running late and he did not want to make her wait.

As he sped towards the understood meeting spot, he adjusted the rearview mirror so he could see himself, pick any wayward hairs or other unsavory items from his face, and he also elected at this time to adjust his tie, pulling it down, unbuttoning the top button of his shirt to give the effect of having just thrown everything on, as if he didn't quite care to look perfectly put together this morning, a look he liked to cultivate often, a look he liked to call 'Contrived Casual'. Sometimes he would leave one shoe untied or button his shirt wrong to maintain this look. It worked for him.

He was a little loopy still from the night before, the drinking, and the lack of real sleep, but he found the meeting spot easily enough, they had met there before, actually, a little coffee place that made biscuits that she would pretend that she shouldn't eat but secretly loved. She was always talking about being on a diet and working out in the gym, and how she shouldn't eat this or that, and he thought she was crazy. Or fishing for compliments. Or just acting like a normal woman. She actually was a normal woman, he decided. She said nothing she meant and acted crazy and expected him to read her mind. This thought brought him reassurance. This thought brought him relief. This thought freed him from any real culpability regarding relationships. The man believed that nothing he did would make any difference as far as getting along with a woman was concerned. He could be nice, be mean, be aloof, be available, be responsible, irresponsible, tell the truth or lie, and the result would always be the same. Women would judge him and react to him however they felt like acting regardless of his behavior. Everything was contextual, and determined by the mood of the woman he may be involved with, completely independently of reason or fact.

He hoped she would be in a good mood this morning.


He parked the car, grabbed his notebook, wallet and jacket, and jogged across the street while putting the jacket on. As he walked up to the glass door of the restaurant he tucked in one side of his shirt only, taking Contrived Casual to the next level. He opened the door and went inside.

He saw her at the table where she sat last time, in the back, in a corner. He saw her there and she looked great. She rose and walked to meet him in the middle of the room and he noticed she was wearing another jumpsuit, this one of chocolate brown velour. Earlier, while lurking about on her Facebook page and admiring her many photographs, he noted, with pleasure, that she owned dozens of jumpsuits in a wide range of colors and textures. Sometimes she reminded him of a superhero. Maybe this was because she fought crime at the district attorney's office. Maybe it was because she could leg press fourteen times her own body weight. Whatever the reason, he thought she was great. Maybe she was crazy? He hoped so.

Their bodies came together in a hug in the exact center of the large open room, and for just a moment he felt like he was on a stage again, acting out a scene from some tired and weary drama. He felt all eyes in the room on them and their hug, their forms an exercise in opposite geometries; his massive,bright and loose while hers was tiny and tight and brown. They both enjoyed the brief hug in their own way, enjoying different aspects of the brief hug - He enjoyed touching her tiny strong form, enjoyed stroking the velour stretched across her back - and She enjoyed the briefness of the hug, the civility of it. She found satisfaction by behaving in a civilized manner, and abiding proper etiquette, and hugging your breakfast date would be expected by the population enjoying their coffee and biscuits surrounding them.

After the brief hug, and with the momentum generated by the separation of their bodies after the brief hug, they returned to the table she had selected in the corner.

'How are you doing?' they asked each other at the exact same time, and then sitting down he answered 'Great' while she answered 'Fine' , again at the exact same time.

Once seated, eye contact was made over the tiny table, smiles exchanged, and he touched his hair and wondered if it looked disheveled enough. HER hair looked disheveled enough, he noted with some jealousy. He pondered her disheveled hair a tiny bit longer and began to grow angry. Wasn't he worth the time it would have taken to properly coif her hair? Maybe she had stayed out too late last night with someone else to take the time to style her hair, was that what had happened? He was beginning to get angrier, and when this man got angry, he got quiet as well. Maybe she was just being funny again with her messed up hair? Maybe this was meant to be funny like the time with the wig? Maybe he was jumping to conclusions again? Maybe he shouldn't get quiet yet? He saw an opportunity to get out of his bad mood and entertain at the same time, and he took it: HE WOULD MAKE A JOKE.

He often did this when he was nervous, with mixed results. As he still could not tell if what type of mood she was in, it was a bit of a crapshoot, but he went for it anyway:

TAKING MELODRAMA TO ELEVEN PART THREE - What I actually do when someone wrongs me, or I feel that someone has wronged me:

SO, I have been sitting inside pretty much the whole day - and don't even give me any shit about this, I needed it, I'm the motherfucker who worked 7 or 12 or however many days in a row before this without going to the lake or fishing or having friends over for board games or even getting drunk - anyway, inside pretty much all day EXCEPT for the time where I went to Fred Meyer to buy some brownies to go with my ice cream. Now I'm worried I have too many brownies and not enough ice cream, so I may have to go to Fred Meyer, AGAIN. So, I have been pretty much sitting around here, eating ice cream and brownies, and making sandwiches and soup and watching bad movies and sort of just feeling like shit in general, but I guess I am emailing and kind of writing my balls off, which is also a good thing, I suppose - the writing that is, not the balls off - and just sitting inside, feeling fat and old and generally waiting for life to suck some more before I die.

I did kind of play with the Rover for like four minutes.

the phone has been BLOWING THE FUCK UP all day, and I am proud to say that I have not checked messages yet, but some of these people (are they people? is this how real people behave?) have been calling AGAIN AND AGAIN without leaving messages (I bet) and some of these people are Joel and the guy with a mexican-sounding-name who paid for something recently, and that Will Sloop kid (Does HE think I am old and over?) and maybe Fred, but I;'m all like "Fuck THAT shit! I'm not answering that fucking phone. Call back. Do it. CALL BACK, MOTHERFUCKERS, CALL AND HANG UP AND CALL BACK AND SEE IF I ANSWER THE PHONE THEN! THINK YOU'RE ALL CLEVER AND SHIT? CALLING AND NOT LEAVING MESSAGES? Wait 'til I get your car in here. We'll see who's clever THEN, won't we? When I'm rubbing my balls all up on your door handles and steering wheel, WHO IS GOING TO BE CLEVER THEN???? " - Basically shit like that. Fucking phone. I just turned that ringer OFF. Fuck it. All these crumbsnatchers, don't make me hit the caps lock again Baby, alright? Please don't get me started about the phone.

So ANYWAY, eating too much garbage, emailing, the phone, staying inside, I smell my feet again. I don;t know why I have shoes on. I don't have anything else on, why do I have shoes on? Why do I smell my feet? I didn't exercise. ... OH THAT'S RIGHT, I HAVEN'T TAKEN A SHOWER IN A WHILE. That's why with the feet, the thing with the feet. so, THIS is what it is like when you just say fuck it and let yourself go at 39, and get all old and fat and go crazy like Howard Hughes, except you aren't rich and you never had sex with a movie star and you can't fly an airplane - so it is actually NOT like Howard Hughes, except for the part where you get old and stay in your room eating junk food and watching movies and going crazy.

What was I saying?

OH, I KNOW. The Nugget:

The Nugget: I feel like I'm in a cocoon, and I know I have to come out tomorrow, but in the meantime I hunkered down in this building, in the dark (Like a caterpillar, get it?) and I unpacked all the shit out of my mind and spread it around me on the floor like I used to do with those dirty magazines when I still lived at home with my parents - but that is a different story- I spread all the shit going on in my mind in a big circle around me on the floor so I can pick each piece up and examine it and decide what to do with it, keep it? throw it away? and while I am doing this I am growing stronger or weaker , I'm not sure - but I am CHANGING is the point, like the fucking caterpillar, right? Evolving? I mean, I can feel this change happening, but I am looking at all this shit on the floor now, all of the stuff from my mind, and I know I can't fit it all back in there (remember the BLIVET?) and now shit is going to be different just like the caterpillar, and I have run out of time, it is Spring now, or Summer, whatever time it is when you have to tear out of your cocoon, you don't have any more time left to change, so you had better be ready to go, someone had better tell somebody to clear a fucking path, because IT IS TIME. That is what the last 30 or 40 hours have been like, a throbbing hot dark pocket to shift and fidget inside of while I eat too much and sort through my thoughts and try to cut some of what I believe in away and try to fit some other new belief in there, where it does not fit, I have to fool myself into believing new things, I have become good at doing this in the last twenty years, I can do it when I need to. So this is the time now where I hold my breath so I swell up and fill up inside this thing, I have to hold my breath as long as I can and tense my muscles and roll my eyes back into my head and hold still and begin to vibrate with tension and effort and I remain there like that for as long as I can, and if I am very lucky, and I mean VERY LUCKY, I will feel wings tear through the flesh and skin of my back and break apart this shroud I've been in, and I will be able to shake it all off and then move ahead actually better than I was before I went into it. If I am not very lucky, I will be able to swell up enough to break out of here, but I will not have wings. If I am VERY unlucky, I will be stuck in this thing for a long time. I'm thinking I'll be regular lucky this time.

That's what I've been doing. Now you know. ISN'T IT GREAT!!!? THE CATERPILLAR??

Maybe I'm more like a pollywog?

TAKING MELODRAMA TO ELEVEN PART TWO : i. am. AWESOME!

(Dude, I feel this way ALL THE TIME) :

The door rolls up slowly, but steadily. It is obvious the door is heavy.

The door rolls up to reveal the huge shop within, illuminated in bright light torn out of the fabric of the dark night surrounding it.

The camera moves in on the man, in through the door slowly and closes in on him as he works animatedly on some machine in the middle of this building: Tall, handsome, muscular, seething intelligence, he appears much younger than his XX years.

Camera closes in tight on his face, cheeks stubbled with coarse black hair, sweat beading on face, vein athrob on forehead, there is something dangerous in the set of his jaw as he performs some action, hands obscured in the bowels of some contraption.

There is no doubt: THIS is the principal character of this story. This is NOT the guest star, or an 'Also Starring' , or an 'Introducing' , or even a 'With' - THIS is the reason you are here, why you paid for the ticket in the first place. You can not take your eyes off of the screen, and you would trade ANYTHING to be him there, right now, in giant single-point relief.

Music begins to throb from the speakers, faint at first, unnoticed or mistaken for something else, then recognized as the score, then FELT like a sudden drop or rise on a roller-coaster, or a naked slap across the face. This music is AWESOME: evil, pounding, rhythmic, hypnotic, but there is something familiar about it as well, you know the words already, this song is old and redone and addictive and it brings your heart rate up a few points, you find your hand clutching the armrest of your seat like a vengeful parent would grab the throat of their child's killer.

The man on the screen is successful now! The wrong has been righted, he stands full upright at last, arching his sore back behind him to the left, to the right, accompanied by the noise of muted poppings as vertebrae and ligaments are once again properly aligned and home.


The man has a ridiculous bandana turned backwards on his head, upright, Aunt-Jemima-Style and with oversized bows like great bunny ears atop his crown. and he pulls this off in a triumphant gesture, and with it wipes of his hands and face, then installs it back on top of his head.

The music has begun to drop down now, and fade, and then silence entirely.

He leans back on the machine with his ass, and thinks about her for a moment, where she may be, what her hair may look like now, and then he spits on the floor. A beat passes. Another.

Suddenly, he turns around and fits the key into the ignition switch. He pauses just half a beat and closes his eyes before twisting the key to the right, and the empty canvas of sound is once again and immediately filled with the healthy regular idle of a very serious and threatening machine.

An exercise from long ago : TAKING MELODRAMA TO ELEVEN: Part One

(This is a guilty, self-indulgent pleasure. You think it. I broadcast it. )

Part One : WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO DO SOMETIMES, IF THERE WERE NO CONSEQUENCES TO CONSIDER, TO SHOW EVERYONE THAT I AM NOT TO BE TRIFLED WITH (When wronged, or I FEEL like I was wronged) :

I fantasize about ending my own life. I want them to KNOW how serious I was, and how WRONG they were. I want to die and dry up and turn to dust and blow away and fly into their eyes to sting and scratch them, I would find satisfaction finally, that I would know it was *I* causing them discomfort, while they had no idea.

I would like to end my own life by ceasing to eat entirely, just stop. I would become first smaller, and then thin, and then a few friends would notice and ask me if everything was okay, and then maybe become concerned or scared, and they may call my mother, who may visit me and begin to cry, and I would have to promise to start eating again soon, I would promise her, but I would be lying.

Around the time I began to feel faint whenever I stood up, I would go away on a trip to where nobody knew me, I would pay for this trip with the money earned from selling all of my most important and treasured belongings, all of my things, in the month or two prior to buying a one-way ticket to the seaside.

I may experience a tickle of doubt once there/here. I may see the beauty of the crashing waves upon the rocks along the shore, or the endless promise and possibility of the distant horizon, maybe there is a girl working at the post office where I send my postcards - to be routed through another destination before their stamps are canceled, their recipients never really aware of where they came from - This girl; young, beautiful, kind, understanding me more than she should, almost convinces me (effortlessly, without being aware that she does) to stay here in this world, not to give up. BUT, there is some final insult cast, an event, or, tragic misunderstanding that re-enforces my original desire to exit this smorgasboard of disappointment.

The local people do not know me. None but the girl care that I look sick and weak.

I will give what is left of my money to a needy and deserving acquaintance back home.

Once I notice I have trouble breathing and begin to lose my perfect eyesight - everyday foggy and blurred now - I buy a small boat. I buy a small boat that I find tied to a local pier, with a FOR SALE sign affixed to it with a phone number and email address, I buy this small boat without ever having to meet this previous owner of the small boat. I buy this small boat with an outboard engine, and I buy two five-gallon gas cans which I have filled with gasoline, and I must ask for help to load these into my boat, as I have become too weak to carry them by myself by this time.

FINALLY, in late afternoon on an Autumn day in this coastal town, I manage to pull hard enough on the rope to start the engine of my tiny boat. I manage to finally start the engine of my tiny boat, and as all the other boats - the fishing boats and the sailboats, and the much bigger boats head into this little harbor - I will pass them on my way out, my tiny boat jostled in the wake of these other boats, rudely lifted and then dropped, again and again, as I aim my tiny boat with the little bit of consciousness I have left, towards the distant horizon.

I will lift the bottle to my mouth once the sounds and sight of the shore are safely behind me. This will be the first time I have had a drink in months, and the liquid will burn my throat, now unaccustomed to substance of any serious intention. I understand this will be the last thing I ever drink. This thought reassures me.

My little boat steams on, now calmly across the flat brown water towards the spot where the sun will fall and extinguish itself in just a couple more hours. I will twist the throttle of my tiny boat's engine a little bit more to accelerate, racing the sun to that understood definite point straight ahead of us.