August
I awoke to the sound of Fred Copely walking heavily through the room with his cane; reread “the Referee,” a story I believed to be near completion my eyes welling with tears, I joked, it was so badly written. Unable to write for second day in a row, blamed first that I had taken a shower and then… blamed something else. Wrote a good piece in the afternoon which I later revised and disassembled. Later I lost the pieces I’d made and hid the ones I found.
Wrote letter to Rachel, read Herodotus’ account of the Greek confederacy enlisting its allies, washed my father’s car, cleaned my room, spent the evening looking through the window at the trees and street lamps beyond them. I am approaching thirty. Wrote for an hour in the morning, an hour in the evening, but reported to a friend “the novel verges closer toward destruction” joking. (There is no novel.) Fred re-arranged one of the two fans I’d assembled, placing it far from the mattress, then remarked he was moving to Germany. When he’s gone, what will we do?
Walked into a wall face first in the dark. In the afternoon tossed the ball to the dog and went directly to the neighbor’s lawn to fetch it no hesitation. I did not look at the house nor did I take the neighbor’s grass into consideration, I did not think of property rights, but instead seemed to see the ball before me “handle towards my hand”. Later, composed poem about the moon and joked (“handle towards my hand” was also a sort of joke) that its low quality might be a sign I should direct my efforts toward politics (President Lincoln was said to have been a poor poet). I remembered how I had retrieved the ball from the lawn without any hesitation This is the mindset one needs to get a job at the Dolly Madison library. In the morning, cleaned the carpet. Tim typed at the machine. I was thinking of Barzun again Our father who art in heaven.
Caught sight of Miss Lola Belle’s hands in the evening. I liked this. She dips glasses into the sink filled with detergent water, then rinses them (in another sink). She rolls up her soggy shirt sleeve; it falls down, then she approaches a patron. The raised sleeve will not hold, yet the gesture communicates readiness. To serve is all the pleasure of giving, without the harried-ness of capitalizing. I wish to say to her…. something… I don’t know what. That was at the bar. At the computer to write a letter, I saw a button reminding me of the game Solitaire. The game, this distraction, was accessible instantly to my touch, like the ball. The spasm of any muscle is what Kundera understood as excitement, erection, “sin”; if these spasms can be slowed, they can be stopped, “sin” will be slowed and stopped. Next morning hovered around the counter in the kitchen near the phone (I saw there messages, bills).
Took dog out. On returning, set the dog to his dish and urinated in the lightless half-bath. Fred, while I did this, told me about a passage in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus compares himself to Moses when Moses has healed the Jews (who have been stricken by poisonous snakes) by touching them with the iron image of a snake. “What Christ meant,” Fred said, “was that in the very same way that the iron snake had healed the bite of the snake, Christ on the cross was an image of sin that healed sin.” I objected. The bath was lightless. It was much simpler to explain the passage by saying that Christ crucified was a symbol of death that saved men from death than a symbol of sin that saved men from sin, I said. He said: “Sin and death are the same.”
Took dog out. Stared down dirt path and saw, in the far distance, a woman jogging. I recognized her as a woman I knew a little and would think to myself that I cared for. She is a woman of the utmost civility. She seemed happy to see me; I demonstrated no emotion; now I am not to see her again. Interesting that I had changed my shirt previous to leaving the house because I knew the grocery clerks had noticed me wearing it the day before. I had put on cheap sunglasses, too, “beefing-up the disguise,” as I joked. Purchased: a bottle of soda, a bag of dog food, a box of cat food, a box of pasta, a jar of tomato sauce. I watched these articles move down the belt. (But they see it’s the same old junk, I thought). When I returned, it was dark in the kitchen, I turned on the light. Fred sprang up from his bed in surprise. “I’m sorry to wake you,” I said. “No,” he said, “I was not sleeping.”
I lay outstretched on the couch, the faux leather one that Tim had found on the street. I felt hot and took off my shirt, pointed the fan toward my face, but found it would not turn, was broken. Now Fred is gone, Rachel won’t write, and Tim isn’t coming around with his bagels, but I keep on “working” and can not be stirred. (Still working but not eating and no longer rereading my efforts.)
