Reading the spackle.

I knocked a hole through my ceiling the other night. Several holes, actually. The other night, I beat the hell out of my ceiling with an old black & orange hammer from Sears.

I beat holes in my ceiling – over there in the corner by the window – & then I climbed up into my attic & I poured water down the holes.

It was the best I could come up with at short notice.

I had to see him.

Once I created the water damage, then I called my landlord & I screamed

about how the water had run down
& destroyed 5 of my very best paintings
& stained the wall
& given my cat (Bike) pneumonia.

So then the landlord, he sent the guys.
He sent the guy who finds the phantom leaks.
He sent the guy who puts up new drywall
& he sent the guy who paints.

& most of all, he sent the guy who spackles.
A little guy – Mexican – English-less – wearing a flannel shirt over an old //vote Dukakis ‘88\\ T.

I doubt this little guy has a 3rd grade education
or papers letting him work this side of the border.
But he’s the guy who spackles, so I knock holes in my ceiling & then I crouch in the corner in my mask with my arms around my knees & I watch him.

In the ridges of his spackling there is magic, you see. This spackle guy, he is an artist & a prophet & he doesn’t even know it. He thinks he’s just covering up seams in the drywall, but he’s Nostradamus & he’s Michelangelo squeezed into one body.

& when he leaves, I lie on my back under the fresh spackling
& I see it.

I see how you are going to die
& who killed Kennedy
& what the Year 5321 will look like.
I see a picture of Forever.

Who needs tea leaves?
Who needs clouds?
Who needs the Sistine Chapel?

I relax my mind
& I’m reading the spackle
& it’s almost time for some new water damage.

Your typical crackhead.

The City came to tear down the trees. Not ALL of the trees, but rather, ONE of the trees. The one which used to grow by the curb outside my bedroom window.

It was a very old tree - older than me, I suppose - but the City came to tear it down because crackheads stored their pipes & their lighters & their cheap rock cocaine inside a hollow place in the tree trunk.

It wasn't the tree's fault.

I went outside to watch them tear down the tree. Some police officers came to watch, too. They parked at weird angles all over & turned on their lights & red & white & blue flashed on all the houses.

While we were waiting, the police told me some things about crackheads.

//Your typical crackhead can smell an officer on the beat from a mile & a 1/2 away.\\

//Your typical crackhead can take 3 bullets at 20 paces & still lift up a car.\\

//Your typical female addict can give birth to baby crackheads 5 times a year.\\

//Crackheads cannot perceive the color blue & when pursued or scared, have been known to dead leap a 15 ft. fence.\\

//The eyes of longterm addicts will gradually migrate to the sides of their heads like rabbits or other hunted animals.\\

After hearing these things, I think I might want to do crack.

I've never lifted a whole car before!

The funny little man.

I met a little man on the street yesterday. A funny little man with a lip ring & I'm pretty sure two too many fingers. He counted clouds in Base 12.

The funny little man with the lip ring & I'm pretty sure two too many fingers, he tried to hire me as his lawyer.

I said I'm not a lawyer & don't know a thing about the law.

//Aren't you?\\ he asked me. //Aren't you that arrogant chick? Roundabout 32 years old? Red-haired attorney? Stands about 5'7" & gets a lot of speeding tickets?\\

I looked at him like he was speaking Chinese, which is a language I do not know. //No.\\ I said. //I am a 39-year old hermit saint. Heresiarch extraordinaire. Dark hair. 5'1". Masked.\\

How is it a body comes to make a mistake such as that, with me standing right there & all?

Maybe on top of the dozen-or-so fingers, maybe he was blind, too. Some guys have all the luck.

I met a little man on the street yesterday who mistook me - ME! - for a young urban professional. He wasn't all that funny, actually, when you get right down to it. I don't know quite why I ever said he was.

After I met him, I went home & painted what I figured the mythical red-haired lawyer probably looked like. Some redheads are witches.

Watch the skies for their brooms!

The Grok.

Please let me introduce myself, on the off-chance I have not previously done so or circumstances have been such that we have not crossed paths some other way before now.

It is really so very thoughtless of me. I know you deserve better.

Me, I’m Amnesia Grok. That’s A-M-N-E-S-I-A & G-R-O-K, & not Lady Gaga nor Baba Yaga, not Adri Anna nor Our Lady of Fatima, & I’m not Saint Teresa nor the Queen of Siam.

I’m just Amnesia Grok & it's a pleasure to finally meet you & how do you do?

& this is where I live & this is where I stay most all the time. I don’t go out much, you know. It’s just easier this way, now that I am so unwelcome in so very many places.

I have thought of even closing up the door with cement & with bricks. Once & for all. To keep the inside in. To keep the outside out.

Simile: I am like an Anchoress.
Metaphor: I am an Anchoress.
Future Perfect: I shall have become an Anchoress.

I am not sure which one it is right now.

When I am an Anchoress, then my people will come & they will shove little things between the bars on the window. They will push in foods & fresh paintbrushes, shampoo & strings, fabrics & some little scraps of paper.

...for me to use...

& in exchange, through the bars, I will push out colorful gloves I have sewn that week & paintings of delightfully disfigured monsters, some new poems I have written & always more puppets of rags.

...for them to sell for some money... So that my people can bring me more foods & more fresh paintbrushes & more all of the rest.

What? Well, fine, but admit it: It’s no more or less of a vicious cycle than your intolerable life, now is it? & besides, I know what it is they say about me out there. I listen through my headphones to what it is that the neighbors say, & my headphones are quite crisp & quite clear, so I hear every word.

I hear the neighbors telling their children – little boys & little girls – telling them to be good & to behave & to do what it is little boys & little girls are supposed to always do.

They say //Wash your hands before you come to the table. Eat your peas before you leave.\\

They say //Brush your teeth up & down & back & forth, even those places where it's very hard to reach. Go to bed when you are told. Say your prayers before you sleep.\\

They say //If you don’t, then the Grok's gonna come & the Grok's gonna get you!! The Grok! The Grok!\\

I hear them through my headphones. I hear the children shriek & squeal. Out of fear of the Grok, the children do as they are told.

But I’m still Amnesia Grok & it's a pleasure to finally meet you & how do you do?