the Nationalist (beta)
Everything is not okay, and the world is darkening to a deep maroon when I’m inebriated, and sitting by myself at the party that’s going on at night in the new wing of Funger Hall.
“and the Amazon never makes any sense,” someone says. Too loud, too loud, and banging. I’m listening to what may be the greatest game of ‘would you’ ever, but I only catch bits and pieces, and its not nearly as satisfying as I know it should be.
“I. M. Pei?”
“posthumously?”
“no”
“Yes.”
“Alan Greenspan?”
The next bit gets muffled out.
Both of them laugh uproariously.
“Steven Cambert?”
“No.”
“Kate Spade?”
“Before or after the breakup?
“After.”
“definitely not.”
“Before?”
“probably, Yes.”
“Dick Johnson?”
The rest of it blurs into the overbearing clash of everything that is bashing into everything else, and nothing is going on inside my head. Nothing subconscious, nothing Oedipus whatsoever. Things shine. Adam and Marcos frolic through my head, playing with each others naked bodies, becoming erect, sweaty, climaxing in the most unsatisfying way and the starting all over again, this time more effectively, correcting their mistakes, error ratios, efficiency. People mull past in predetermined packets of information, carrying the proper amount of electrons, sharing only the ones they need to. Suicides occur, bitches, and metal kids, emo kids, everyone basically, takes pills, and falls to the ground in falsetto death throes. Thousands of red lights impede my movement in all directions, and dramatic situations come over me in waves, lapping at me first, softly around me toes, before then they engulf me. Dawn, and Sheeda.
“Nothing, no nothing.” In a drunken stupor, all of the sudden smashed, completely utterly thrown away. I’m screaming at the top of my lungs. “Nothing. NO! Nothing exists inside of my head.” Serious as a heart-attack, I grab some innocent bystander, sitting next to me in this cavernous lecture hall, and scream into his face;
“NOTHING EXISTS INSIDE OF MY HEAD! I’m burning, I am imploding, the sonorous shock waves of impending doom are slamming into my face. The god-damn PLANE has crashed into the mountain.” Phlegm, and noxious fumes, and pouring from my mouth, splattering and overwhelming, the poor sap. Offending, and overwhelming.
There exists, at the end of the row, a small man, who isn’t all that attractive to me, until I hear him playing Bright Eyes from a very large set of wireless headphones, which attracts me for two reasons. Everything quiets down as he stands up, lacing his backpack onto his shoulders, and starts to walk away from me, and he’s wearing a pair of black, thrift shop jeans, that are too tight in the leg, and too small to hold all of his butt, so that some of it splays out of the top and of course he’s wearing black and white boxer-briefs, so none of his butt crack shows but there is a little bit of the small of his back, before his black tee-shirt starts, and he’s wearing a white undershirt which is sticking out in an enticing, and nearly intentional way. The volume crescendos back up into existence, leading me to believe that there was no volume change at all, and the world spirals and spins, and Jim Morrison is singing somewhere. And the Smiths, and Diana Krall all croon together forming an dark purple cloud that rains over everything with fat lavender drops. And I’ve fallen in love again, or perhaps for the first time, and he’s dropped a wrist-band, that’s damp with sweat, and makes me feel like an afghan.
Adam and I are laying in bed together, early in the morning, maybe three. We got in at about two, and made crazy love for about twenty minutes, and then fell in and out of sleep, while holding each-other in post-coital glow. It was a spiritual experience. My heart bled, my eyes wept, and mind raced, through dewy meadows, and light green woods.
The universe spun around a central point that was me, or more specifically, Adam and me, and humanity smiled, and the audience applauded our efforts in a subdued hum. Adam rolled over and his face was very near to mine, his nose nestled into the hair above my ear, and he whispered to me.
“I love you more than you’ll know.”
Adam and I were sitting, high, outside the Washington monument, on benches next to the rows, and rows and rows, of American flags, not feeling anything in particular. It was autumn then. Right before he died. We were shivering, or I was. Crisp air whipped at us, from all directions, strangely, not the least of which was up. We sat next to each other wearing our jackets, not touching, but clearly together. We didn’t say anything, and it was already over. Books were being read, somewhere. Children, who were too cute, with thrift store, eighties, plumbago, pink, and vinyl. Laughing, like nothing had happened, although clearly it had. The snot in my nose froze with each breath, and I turned to Adam with a my best look of longing on my face.
“I still want you.” I said, beating away the nagging truth that it was, already, over.
He didn’t look at me, and I turned to look back at the children, and the monument, and the line, and the reflecting pool, and the mall, and the Jefferson monument way far away in the distance, and the white house, and the pentagon, and impossibly far away New York City loomed, staring me down.
on Sunday we took the tube into London. it was January, I was wearing a black pinstriped suit from dimanca and deluca that cost Adam thirty five hundred pounds, and a black wool jacket with an enormous collar. the bass player trilled a three chord progression rapidly, too rapidly. it was cold. we got off at charring cross, and walked. none of the lights were on at the ICA. the mall was completely black. the trees in the park were dark and menacing. the underground sign flickered and died, the escalators stopped humming, and we were blind. nothing lit the way. something in London howled at an adult film theater somewhere close. the doors were thrown open. telefon tel aviv was playing an acoustic set, SRO, I was under whelmed. there was an open bar. Adam skitted off to get me a vodka and water, and whatever for himself. Gary Hume was making out with Billy childish on a huge silkscreen of a red circle. Michael Caplan, and Noam Chomsky were supposed to be debating the effect of the solidarity federation, and the entire IWA on international free trade, but it bottomed out, and everyone’s drunk, and wobbling. screens, and televisions edge into the sides of my vision. focusing, centering. Adam returns. thankfully my drink is in a tall glass, I drink it. there are no lights on inside. I think I see Michel Foucault walk by me, he stops, stares, moves on, makes silly noises, everyone’s watching Gary and Billy, especially Michel. lights in the distance get turned on. the temperature drops, centigrade. windows open, and doors slam against their hinges, locks untangle, there are no walls. the vast concrete space that is the inside of the ICA, opens up, and the lights in the distance, like the sun, on fire, not coming from any direction in particular. we awaken, and walk casually toward the distance. some people have canes. debutantes. very my fair lady, a day at the races. promenade, aimlessly through the darkness.
as it turns out the distance isn't that far away, and the shiny concrete drops off into stairs, and an amphitheater with nicely appointed chairs for everyone. Michael and Noam descend to the dais, where two fair high backs, and a side table with a stainless steel cylinder of a pitcher, and two tumblers await them. the sit, expectedly.
Adam pours over me. I pour over him, on the inside. he pulls out another drink from somewhere for me, and we both sit aristocratically, as, Michael and noam agree with each other in forceful voices, and masturbate each other. (which seems like a good idea)
The time between socially important events is speeding up all around me. Marco and Jamie are sleeping together now. Every hour on the half hour, and then every half hour, and then every fifteen minutes, and then every seven and a half minutes, and so on, until they reach a mathematical impossibility where they wait a infinitesimally small fraction of a second, but it seems to the outside observer that they are actually having sex constantly. It gets very academic. Bombings are occurring at multiple embassies simultaneously, and in a sequence that represents prime numbers, ticking off the universe; two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-nine, thirty-one, thirty-seven, forty-one, forty-seven, fifty-three. Something about addresses, and meters (metric) from the intersections of even streets, something about distance from Pennsylvania avenue. An equation, string theory. Equatorial Guinea, all the F’s, Finland, Fiji, France, Latvia, St. Kitts and Nevis (again) , Gabon, and in a bold move the Holy See, Qatar. The city is a grid of fires, and emergency vehicles, everything’s burning. The D.C. ABC office calls me, Konkwo was put to death, in an interesting turn of events, and his body is being shipped back to the Republic of the Congo, even though he isn’t from there. They thank me for all my hard work. I ask for a check. The kettle whistles, Adam appears with scones, and bagels and lox, and cream cheese, and Danish. We have tea. He sits quietly looking at me. I smile, he smiles back. There isn’t much to say. I turn on the television, C-SPAN is out, mysteriously. CNN is too. A satellites fallen from the sky.
When I was younger I was a bum for a while. People take a year off after high school and backpack around Europe, I was a bum. I hopped a train from where I was living in New York, and got as far away as I could. I got off and went dumpster diving for food in Michigan. There was a great specialties bakery outside Detroit that threw away all of their pastries at the end of the night, still in the pink boxes, tied with string. I spent a few warm weeks sleeping outside a park, under a huge tree that was spray painted with all sorts of crap. I wondered how many lies each branch held. The ground was scattered with pink boxes, and string.
I met a few people in Michigan there were two white kids with dreadlocks. Michael, and Isaac, who spent a few nights under my tree with me. They were on their way east. To New York. They knew someone with a van, who was in a hardcore band. They were going on a tour of Maryland, and then New Jersey.
I kept going west. I hitched a ride from a trucker named Bill, who was very nice. He had a wife, and two little girls in Mississippi. His oldest daughter was a lesbian. He dropped me off in Ohio, and he went back south. I hopped another train and got off in Chicago, which was noticeably colder, as the seasons changed into fall. When I got off the train it was very cold. Way too cold for September. I was thinking about old friends. People I’d love very much, but not enough to keep in touch with. Everyone sitting around a maroon table at a diner, late at night, laughing as hard as we could. We used to go out and laugh. I spent one lonely night in that cold city until I called my mother and asked her to wire me some money so I could get a bus ticket and leave. The bus depot was frigid in the morning. The concrete benches were like ice. My butt froze. My backpack seemed way heavier than it had in a while. Cutting into my knees the whole way. And I couldn’t sleep.
copyright 2005