I just noticed Tony opening a bottle of prescription medicine, which is nothing new. And yet, I curiously asked him about it.
“It’s Lexapro,” he admitted.
“I didn’t realize you were still taking anxiety medication.”
“Yep,” he replied. “It’s easier to just take it rather than worrying about how to quit.”
Indeed.
Tony is a bit morose, but he disguises it well. He’s been searching for simple pleasures all evening in the hopes of drowning a piece of his despair. A few drinks and three new digital albums later he’s still camped out on the couch in his underwear waiting for tomorrow to kick his ass into gear.
Tony has dreams of grandeur and he has reached a point when it is harder to believe in their truth. He is now usually older than the people he reads about in magazines. His tux is becoming worn at the seams. His belly is a wee bit round. And so he drinks.
I sympathize with my friend but I refuse to meet his late-night fate.
I, too, have watched some opportunities come and go, and find it harder to picture my face amongst those in the glossy periodical pages. But I can see the path to recovery. It starts tonight although I will begin tomorrow. I just finished my first semester (sorta) of teaching in the library. I have two weeks and some change before I must return to my job. I have the luxury of a new calendar year. And my boyfriend just called to say he missed me.
And so I resolve (with the hopes of eventually finding myself in duct tape pants and eyeliner prancing on stage or accepting the Nobel Prize in literature) to be smarter with my money and make a budget. I will go through those boxes of trash and old mail. I will meet my deadlines and try hard not to be late for meetings. And it is probably time to write for real, and stop simply piddling with penile memories. Exercise? Well, if everyone else is going to do it, why can’t I?
And so I write these down to begin to hold my ambitious moments accountable to my real life. I am ready to grow up and not just get older.
Tony (in name only) is an old, retired librarian. He lives alone, in a smallish (250 sq ft) room. On the stereo he plays either Mahler or Tupac while he knits his hats to sell at the market. Tony is not whom we are used to, and that’s okay.
Life for Tony wasn’t easy, nor was it difficult. For the most part it simply was. He went to work and returned home each day. (Only occasionally calling in sick.) He read some naughty books and some that were considered to be great. He enjoyed drinking while sitting home alone, and he usually sat home alone. He rarely exercised and he always indulged.
Retirement became an excuse to put off the things he was already putting off. Knitting filled his time and yarn was cheap. Whenever Tony tired of knitting he usually drank a bottle or two, turned up the stereo, and took a nap.
Tony is napping as we speak.
When he dreams he dreams of the things he does when he is awake. And occasionally, only occasionally, he dreams of the things he would like to be doing. Now is one of those times. Behind Tony’s closed lids lies Tony next to a beautiful man. They are both naked, and Tony is smiling. As far as he is concerned he never needs to wake up. Lets hope he doesn’t.
He is a most peculiar man.
In these deep solitudes and awful cells,
Where heav’nly-pensive contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing melancholy reigns:
Is it better to have a mind or a muscular middle? Is he worth more if he shines in a picture or in a poem? And where do I derive value? Does it matter if we’re all matter? (If only I could whistle…)
Shrines! where their vigils pale-ey’d virgins keep,
And pitying saints, whose statues learn to weep!
Though cold like you, unmov’d, and silent grown,
I have not yet forgot myself to stone.
Dante Terrell Smith has been reborn. Or so he appeared on stage last night.
He performed in front of a large screen-display of the Milky Way, with snippets of old soul music blasting and one of two t-shirts hanging from his neck as he began to remove it three songs into his set but never quite got the job done.
And he grinned, from ear to ear, the pleased-as-punch look of a young boy on his birthday. Singing high, or low, semi-yelling, usually out of tune, but pitch-perfect nontheless if you take into account mood, scene, and lyric. And the Mighty Mos seems to always consider these things.
“I’m not looking for you to agree with me, or for you to understand me. I just want you to respect me.” And with this exlanation the odyssey began from high energy to mellow to “aca-polka” spoken-word sets lambasting governments and human corruption.
It was pure hip-hop perfection from the beginning to the end. I left feeling cleansed in a way my childhood trips to church never inspired. I do not believe in a God, but I am in awe of this man.
“See me, want me, give me, trust me
Feed me, fuck me, love me, touch me
This whole world is cold and ugly…”
Tomorrow I am going to a concert. I will dance and drink whilst Mos Def and Talib Kweli sing and rap. All snow will melt, all children will behave, and the world will be at peace as long as the music continues and I am there with my lover and my friends enjoying every last bouncing moment.
If I were inclined to pray, this would be the appropriate time for me to say “Amen”.
A year ago I began this flood of revelations packaged as Tony. In fact, Tony was the excuse, the scapegoat, the muse. But Tony has been letting me down as of late, or shall I say that he is having problems getting up. As in, yes indeed, Tony appears to have gone soft.
I theorize that his impotence is connected to overuse. Or misuse. Lately I have been wondering if I just haven’t been giving the full story.
For every boy, there was also a girl. They provided my first kiss, an array of intimate touches, and companionship with a twist of inspiration. It seems unfair that I’ve been neglecting them, the fairer sex.
So it is imperative that we start somewhere, but the beginning is too predictable. Instead I propose we begin in the middle. In medias res, so to speak.
Tuta spoke with an accent and wore big shoes. This was my first impression as I discovered her in our freshman year seminar. And then she moved to my dorm, down the hall. Then I was introduced to her aesthetic sense (white lights, aquarium, self-drawn pictures) and ability to make ordinary items appear sexy. And women, she seemed to truly love the beauty of a woman. I was smitten.
We bonded over obscurity and eclectic energy. We both read Henry Miller. We drank and blew bubbles. And our sophomore year we made out in her top floor bedroom. Sitting with crossed legs facing one another we kissed by the windows. There was no reason to end it because it wasn’t going anywhere else. So we sat and kissed. Eventually I felt uncomfortable because I didn’t like the idea of her innocence being challenged. For some reason I always felt that Tuta was an innocent.
When she traveled she would mail me postcards with naked men on them. I sent her mixtapes with Catholic imagery on the cover. She would tell me stories of the beautiful women she met in Italy and Greece. I told her of my latest crush. We spent more time apart then we ever had together.
Then one afternoon a couple years later she called me because she had found an injured squirrel in the road. It had fallen victim to a hit and run. We carried it to her house and tried to think of a way to end its suffering. At first there was a call to the vet for euthanasia. And then we thought we might just put it back in the road so that it could be finished off. But finally we opted for a tub of water and some crumbled up aspirin. (Tuta felt that if she crumbled the “drugs” in the water it would have a soothing deadly effect.) While the poor creature continued to cough up blood I filled the tub and washed my hands in preparation for the merciful submerging in our baptismal bath. She screamed and I closed my eyes and the moment the squirrel hit the water it found a new life and began to struggle. But the process had to be continued and I forcefully held the creature until it snapped to its final rest.
We have never talked of that afternoon, although I still tell her about the boys that I love. She mentions goats and tall buildings and how she is trying to slow down her drinking. Neither of us climb trees but given the opportunity we both would.
Most people must grow old but I have a feeling that she and I will simply endure.
A (wo)man of genius makes no mistakes; (her)his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
Last month I wrote a post about how our desire for sex and sexuality is often given to us through pseudo-academic and artful means. I brought up all the hubbub surrounding the movie version of Brokeback Mountain, how people pretend to be moved by the story but in my opinion are just psyched to see Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal being sexy together on the screen. A reader named Carlos felt that I should be giving less attention to the movie and more to the story that spawned it. He had this to say:
“Often when a work of literature is used as the catalyst for a film, the original work gets lost in the shuffle. Ang Lee gets credit for his beautiful pictures, but those ideas came from someone else. Those images first formed in a writer’s head, and then on a page. I worry that we too often lose sight of that origin. That concern does not put forth that there is a higher value placed on either film or literature. It just asks that we remember those who work hard at their art, who imagine other worlds carefully and deeply.
So, here’s to Annie Proulx. I thank her for an amazing story and for characters imagined so clearly they could be rendered on screen.”
At the time I had neither read the story nor seen the movie. I still have not seen the movie (though I’ll admit I’m excited for the opportunity) but I just finished the story this afternoon. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely impressed.
And I’m not sure why.
I think it just happened too quickly. First there was conversation and camaraderie on the mountain. Then Ennis helpfully switched jobs with Jack. Then there was cold, some drink, and before you know it Ennis is running “full-throttle” into Jack and their lives are forever changed.
What concerned me was that I didn’t get the build up that made their union believable. I did not have a good enough impression of either man, or their interactions with eachother that would have helped me to see why that moment took them as strongly as it did.
That’s not to say that we don’t get to know them later, or that it isn’t terribly moving and sad as their lives continue. The image of the two shirts hung inside on another in the closet was perfect. And many of the other characters appear whole within two sentences. All I’m saying is that I have a hard time believing that these two men just stumbled into coitus as it was presented. And it made me a little distant from everything else.
Any insights, Carlos?
Me and Mr. Jones 
