She closed the door behind her. It was done gently, but still, it caused the loudest noise he had ever heard. He knew English like it was his second language, although it was his only one, so just after she closed the door the words “I love you” came stumbling out of his lips.
But that was too little, and it was too late. There was no fixing what he had done.
He had fucked up, and from now on he would be forever fucked over.
When I was a child I understood that what the sun does is produce light, and what light does is reveal the world for all to see. This is good because it allows us to make correct judgments, to learn, and to observe each other. Also, that same light gives life to all of the plants, which give life to all of the animals, which is what we are. (In some grade there was something about it being important in the formation of precipitation, too – I think.)
But I disagree – not with what the sun does – but with the “fact” that it’s good. My reasoning for this disagreement is that this world is fucked through and through, from its core to its pimples, (i.e. Yellowstone) and so it does not deserve light. All light does is reveal the rapes, the murders, the destruction of forests, the hurricanes, the child abductors, the military savages, the mosquitoes, the sexually transmitted diseases, the people who laugh in libraries, etc.
Fuck that. I say keep the light away. Fuck it. Keep everything in darkness because nothing is worth seeing. I want to be able to love, to trust, and to care, and the only way to do that is in ignorance.
The sunlight prevents me from being happy because it reveals to me that the only thing around me is evil – and I’d rather flounder in the unknown while at the mercy of the wanton cruelness of the universe than live in a reality where I’m forced to say that I love what is hideous (as light reveals all things to be).
I don’t want to be this way, that’s my problem. For twenty-two years I’ve been this way, miserable and critical, but it’s getting old. There’s no value in this. All I’ve been able to get out of these feelings is a career as a journalist, and it’s laughable if you’d call that a career as a writer. (If a journalist is a writer then a fence painter is a master painter and both of these categories are useless because all of humanity is contained by them.)
God, what a shitty person to end up being. Even my body is mediocre. Actually, no, it isn’t. I said that to flatter myself. My skin is painted on my bones, and my muscles are more tar than human. Being a sedentary cigarette smoker hasn’t exactly kept me fit. Every time I run or fuck I feel my muscles strain like I’ve been stabbed; I feel like my sinews are about to snap, about to let my body collapse, so that my eyes will roll around and look up from the puddle of skin between my toes, a gooey mess which had once been my face.
But at least I’m moving now, sealed in the cabin of a train, ripping through the countryside as we lurch ever closer to New York City. Movement has to bring something with it. You can’t be moving and not change. Right?
Honestly, this experience is a little underwhelming. I always imagined trains would feel as big and as fast as they are, but now, being inside of one for the first time, they feel as mundane as everything else.
So far the only thing that I’ve been inspired by on this trip have been the leaves on the trees we passed, the ones that twist up into yellows and oranges and reds in their final moments, making sure to look beautiful before their fast approaching death, after which they will fall to the ground, only to be swept away or crushed under foot, turned from perhaps the most beautiful piece of nature into the snack of slugs.
Will our lives develop the same way? Is the only difference that instead of slugs, we are eaten by worms? I feel like it might be that way. It would explain why I’m so ugly. I’m at the age where, no matter how hard I try, all I can be is green and underdeveloped.
I overheard a mother and a child arguing. I thought about the words in the conversation. It’s odd that everyone has a personalized concept of “mom, dad, home,”etc. When I look inside of myself and try to dig out what those words mean to me it takes a few seconds of staring at nothing. After that, grassy field after grassy field of Ohio flash before me. There are cows everywhere, all of them chewing. I’m in a car, passing the state by. Most of my memories from that time are in a car. I used to wonder about the way life moved back then. Never figured that shit out. When I try to recall “mom” or “dad” there’s nothing.
Originally this trip wasn’t supposed to happen. The editor stated, “We’re a local paper and there’s no reason for us to outsource the news when there’s already enough to report on happening all around us” Our paper is based in the middle of Pennsylvania. She doesn’t even like to cover stories about Philadelphia or Pittsburgh.
She’s the single most boring woman I’ve ever met. Even her cats hate listening to her. They bury their heads into whatever piece of furniture is nearby when they hear the scratching of her throat as she prepares to speak. I know this because she invited me over to have wine one night. I went because I used to have a thing for cougars. (Used to. Now that I’ve fucked her, that fetish is dead.)
Either way, if I had to stay another day in that town, I would have blown my brains out. I said I would pay for it, so I was allowed to make the trip. The idea for the article was given to us by a Mr. Watt, some novelist in Philly. He wrote our dinky little operation about some shitty home that basically works like a halfway house located in New York City.
He said that miracles happen there, and that it was a sublime chance for a journalist. I decided to make the story happen. I’m not particularly inspired by the city or by the lead, but at least I don’t have to be held hostage in that fucking cubicle, in the middle of Cowshit, Nowhere.
Leaves were falling all around as the train pulled into the second to last station. The ground was an open grave for them that people crunched through, as they rushed to say hello/goodbye to someone coming/going, or as they rushed to get the fuck out of there and to where they wanted to be. They looked like ants, maybe. Something small, at least. Something small, forgettable, and quick to die. That’s what humans looked like to me right then.
After we arrived at the final station, I got up and walked off the train carrying my sole suitcase in my right hand. Getting out of the station was pretty easy. Once I was free of it, I fished out my pill bottle, shook out two blue pills into my left hand and threw them back. After I put the pill bottle back in my pocket, I fished out my pack of ciggs.
The breakfast of champions.
I traveled through the city for a while, walking just to walk. The streets were narrow and the buildings were mammoth. A harsh colour, I couldn’t tell if it was a grey or a black, dominated the impression of the joint, like how bright grey does Philly’s concrete. Everything was buzzing. There was neon tucked in corners I didn’t think there could be neon.
After a few minutes of wandering I went into a coffee shop. It was packed. I stood behind someone. People were everywhere, but mostly they were waiting, either for a seat, coffee, or the restroom. The lines moved a lot faster than I expected, and soon I had my mocha. The flavor was pretty standard.
I sat by the window and spent a few minutes examining the street. Clouds had moved in overhead, but they looked like playthings next to the titans of architecture that lined every street.
After I had adapted to the tones of the town, I could see that it wasn’t just a grey or a black city, but a city of accents. Suddenly everywhere little specs – little gems – appeared within the city. An orange here radiating from the reading light of a second story apartment, a blue here reaffirming that yes, that is a diner, and yes, it is open 24 hours, another orange for Chinese food, a red for cigarettes, a grey smog, all of the different shades of car.
Beautiful.
I looked away because staring at the city began to feel like staring at a light bulb. Inside seemed to me like France during the height of its revolution, when everybody was with a cup and a pen, furiously jotting down every thought, praying that some of them could be worked into reasonable laws for a man to live his life by. In the case of this coffee spot, I imagined they were praying that their sped-out thoughts could be reformed into passable papers, so that they could earn their showy and useless degrees, proving their worth as an intellectual in a terrifically unintellectual age.
When the sun began to set I headed to my hotel. It was close by. The building was spectacular in the same way that every building here is – being over thirty feet – but other than that it felt like any other hotel, just stretched out like an image in Photoshop.
The lady at the front desk was mechanical. There was no excess to her, not in fat, makeup, or words. She asked me my name, punched it in the computer, then gave me my card. There was nothing else to do, so I walked away and took the elevator. It shot up 24 floors in a matter of seconds.
It almost made me feel sick.
As soon as I entered my room, I stripped down to my undershirt and skinny jeans. I sat on the bed and ran my fingers through my hair. More than anything, I craved a j.
That was the one thing about my life. I’ve never liked it, I’ve never liked me, and most people I absolutely hate, but drugs, drugs are okay. Anything that makes me feel like I don’t want to die is okay.
Even if they’re illegally or immorally obtained, I don’t give a shit. There’s no need to ask questions about where my fix comes from. Don’t stare at the teeth of a gift horse. Their carnivorous shape will really fuck you up.
When I woke up, I felt better than I usually feel when I wake up in PA. The light that was tearing its way inside the hotel room was a different light than the one a few hours away. It danced its way around the carpet until it reached its first obstacle. Instead of being stopped, it started kissing the dresser, first on one foot, then the other. After that, it started crawling its way up the rest of it.
A half hour later it had reached my chest, and I knew that soon enough it would try to invade my eyes. At that point would come the decision between rolling over and facing the day. At home it would have been roll over and sleep for two hours, but here, well, there was a schedule. I could sleep in on work days because fuck the editor and fuck my job, but it’s good practice to keep your meetings with clients – as a journalist and as a human.
When I arrived at the home I chewed a couple pills, then knocked three times on the front door. A pudgy, red man answered it. I asked him if this was William Skrivner’s house, and the man confirmed that it was. He welcomed me in.
The man introduced himself as Peach after I sat down at the kitchen table. He brought me some tea, then promised he would get Will in a moment.
I assumed he meant Skrivner.
Moments later he brought out a man who I knew to be in his thirties, but that skeleton looked much older. He creaked and crept like winter.
The bones sat down across from me, then he introduced himself as a Mister William Skrivner.
He shook my hand.
He asked me why I came, and I said I came to learn. He asked me what about, and I told him that I wanted to learn about this home, who lived here, and how they stayed alive.
He curled his coal black beard.
“Then you need to meet Daniel.”
Peach nodded, then he went into another room and brought out a man who looked to be in his twenties. He was covered in words – on his hands – up his arms – along his collar bones, and around his neck.
He sat at the table with his hand over his lips. Skriv told him that I wanted to learn about the way they lived, who they were, and how they survived. The man looked nervous. He was chewing on the inside of his hand while staring at the middle of the table. Both of his legs were shaking.
After a few minutes he was still silent.
To try to help with his anxiety, I told him that I didn’t need an explanation right then. I said that he could write it for me.
Once they heard that, both Peach and Skrivener wanted to write stories of their own, and that’s what they did.
Here are their tales.
