AN ACT OF PUBLIC SERVICE, by Spencer Dew
Spencer Dew’s work is featured in THE2NDHAND’s 10th-anniversary anthology All Hands On: THE2NDHAND After 10, due out in July. Order you copy here. The next edition of So You Think You Have Nerves of Steel?, where Dew originally debuted this piece, in Dec. 2010, happens June 7 in Charleston, W.Va.
In December in Chicago I performed, at the request of THE2NDHAND, a “public service announcement,” and while that event itself — temporal, of the moment — is gone, I’d like to say something about the spirit behind it in the hopes that such actions will continue, radical tactical strikes against a world of insularity, ego, and possession, aesthetic guerrilla operations, instantiations of a pure ideal of friendship and community.
For a living, I’m a professor of religious studies, and lately, in that regard, I’ve been thinking about tarot cards, the various designs, their function, and, unrelated to that but nonetheless related to my attempt at “public service,” Satanism, particularly the modern American varieties.
What I fundamentally disagree with most Satanists about — and I’ve known some more or less nice ones — is this idea that all that matters is the self, the repeating rhetoric identifying life as foremost an opportunity for selfish pleasures.
Look, I understand the rage against Christian hypocrisy (and would identify most strands of modern Satanism as basically sects of such Christianity, dependent upon it), but as much as I might agree with the whole “if someone slaps your face you better not turn the other cheek, you better destroy that person” shtick, at the same time I insist that the most important thing in this world is friendship, both in its intimate senses and in the wider sense of community, pub culture, artistic collaboration, a giving of oneself for the other, not as part of some mythology of redemptive sacrifice, but as part of a way of relating to others which celebrates the possibilities of humanity, remaining rigorously and not naively committed to our species, even when our track record is so profoundly disappointing.
A world in which people are all selfish isn’t an acceptable world, and while a world in which people offer honestly and openly of themselves, to others, might be a utopia, it remains nonetheless an ideal worth striving for, and it seems to me, too, that this is the kind of stuff THE2NDHAND so frequently exemplifies, not just in hybrid performance events like the Nerves of Steel event I took part in or collaborate-creation experiments like the Pitchfork Battalion operation, but in the magazine itself, voices on the page, together, put there so some audience can take them and use them and live with them.
So, tarot decks: Me, I use Rider-Waite; I’m partisan, I find the allure of implied narrative addictive, the details of design, the random Rorschach immediacy of each image and—as a writer—I find something fascinating in the way tarot readings lay down narrative card by card, moving piece by moving piece, and how, if you use a deck all your life, or for half of your life, as I have, each time a certain card comes up—the Five of Pentacles, for instance, that testament to the human heart, survival—it resonates with earlier appearances, making a palimpsest…
I could say much more, but I only want to gesture toward my motivations. While ostensibly on something of a miniature book tour to hock copies of my new book (itself an attempt at something like collaboration), overcome with a real revulsion at all the ego and ownership inherent in making art, I decided the best “announcement” of public service I could make would be a sort of gift, a way of offering the audience entrance into the possibility of collaborative work, an offer of friendship through use, pushing into this notion of fragmentary narrative and the random arrangement of the tarot.
Thus, I coined 25 titles, unconnected to anything but hopefully associative, intriguing, etc.
And I produced 25 tiny little texts, implicitly pieces, each, of larger stories.
And I selected, for their sense of practical value, 25 quotes, about art or life or the world.
What I did next was take some pictures, images, generally abstract, Polaroids, each a unique and irreplaceable quote-work-of-art-unquote, and I randomly assigned one title and one quote and one fragment of story to each of 50 such cards — 2 sets, just because I didn’t have enough time to make a full 50 unique cards and, honestly, I didn’t know how many people would show. As it turned out, 50 was not enough; “Nerves of Steel” attracts quite a crowd.
The point was — the public service — maybe random members of the audience can do something with these materials, make something, somehow use them, be moved by them, pass them on… be inspired to replicate some form of generosity, to undertake a selfless risk.
The actual artifacts are now all out in the world, dispersed, but the textual components, perhaps still of some potential value, are included here, a record of a moment, a testament to a hope… or a dream: the dream of hundreds and thousands of artists making flurries of free objects, distributing them randomly and unexpectedly, a dream of a drab day’s commute becoming, suddenly, a laboratory for wonder, the dream of art as a gift, perpetually regifted…
25 titles:
Doing Your Stint in Rehab All the Same
A Model for and of the World
My Swift and My Armour
Crab Season Far From the Coast
How Her Sister Fills the Same Shirt
From Your Futon in Marina Towers Watching the Filming of Transformers 3
The Day Jay Bennett Died
In the Glow of the Corner ATM
The Flies of Wendy’s
Shit out of Luck and in Nashville
Our Gulf of Tonkin
North Carolina Beaches Are Like That
Products and Their Uses
Septic Shock
Chicago Typewriter
The Girl from the Reenactment of the Eastland Disaster
Rent Boys, Asphyxiation, Youth
Weed Street
Girls of a Certain Terroir
Hydrating After the Rash
Dreams of Downloading Porn Images Onto the Desktops of Public Computers
Assorted Structures Based on Time
The Giant Red Indian of Pulaski Avenue
Fiddle and Accordion in the Sleeveless Night
Another Television Expose Without Me in It
25 fragments of narrative:
I still smell her brand of body butter when I dream. I find this less disconcerting than comforting, which, in turn, I find deeply disconcerting once I’ve left the house and started the day and seen her in the fleeting forms of too many women who are not her. In objects, too, I recognize her: the curves of certain compact cars, the sheen of the bar’s varnish, the lune of lemon skin at the lip of my drink.
Out, then, into the teeth of the cold, up the salted metal stairs to the platform where the ads for harelip reversal surgery in developing countries — some kind of charity, complete with a web address — flap back and forth in the wind. I would rather advertisements be for pleasant things.
Of the many things she’d misheard in childhood, none so enthralled her as the idea of a curator’s egg. She assumed it had some connection to the fairies, since they were always putting things like souls or worlds in eggs. If you press your fingertips hard enough against your closed eyelids, you can see their reality, the fairies. This was another relic of childhood, though once her mother had caught her doing it and told her that she would go blind.
What was said from the pulpit about Anglo-Saxon heritage, the glorious future, pale as the bits of semi-congealed spittle that built up in the corners of the preacher’s mouth. There was probably a word for it, she thought. There was a word, after all, for the cheesy discharge that builds up under the foreskin, an attribute of a true Anglo-Saxon bear of a man. Maybe it was the same word. In any case, knowledge of a thing’s existence is not the same as knowledge of a thing. This is what she thought during the sermon, digging little crescent moons into her palms with her fingernails, to stay awake.
The blender at first seemed clogged, muddled up, but soon was outright refusing to spin in certain substances. It had developed taste, and with that, a hunger. Cake batter was of no interest, nor anything like pumpkin peanut soup. What the blender wanted, we soon discovered, was blood.
Some troll who, in the comments section, posted supposed messages from the dead girl. Daddy, I’m alive, and Daddy, why did you do this to me.
We were generally disgusted and specifically entranced. Nothing as titillating as sharp American chrome, streaked with scalp.
And after all this, the pregnancy turned out to be a false alarm, something the doctors attributed to stress and some mineral component of some herbicide used heavily in the leafy greens that constituted her recent raw diet craze. I chucked the ring down a storm drain. I couldn’t deal with the idea of a refund any more than I could deal with the idea of following through.
The gristle ended that trite myth about how everything is useable. A tripe myth, more like, thought Tonia, at the taco shop, folding a napkin back in order to deposit within it the masticated contents of her mouth.
She packed up all the biodegradable picnic cutlery and made it clear that she considered the entire outing to be, now, a disaster, made it clear that she wanted the bus to come and take them all back to the facility, back to their rooms.
In my dreams she was reduced to parts, to aspects, to her nape, for instance, or down along the slope of her blonde breasts. In my dreams she was more or less alive again.
The date clicks over on my watch. This is one way I measure the time, alone.
“Some cultures put on plays with shadows,” he explained. “Others use children. I prefer a combine of the two.” My partner and I checked our angles in relation to him, but we let him talk, let him show us his theater, his laboratory. He explained each tool and technique. “I am an artist,” he said, as we handcuffed him.
A line of weather, said the captain, as we braced ourselves against it. In the roaring, someone shook open a paper bag.
Wes had just been explaining how his ponytail worked as a barometer, how his sideburns, somehow, were involved as well.
Nature magic and coffee, he said, steadying himself with a hand pressed against the roof, against the illuminated no smoking and seatbelt signs. Neither of those things work at this altitude.
The peas with pearl onions were forgotten in their freezer bag, a tragedy lamented over the marbled beef pieces and the cut-glass boat of celery stuffed with cream cheese. Later, we mourned the loss while scraping the dishes and drying the stemware, polishing the margarine’s silver globe.
The fake fire still crackled below all the seasonal mantle bric-a-brac. Looked at from a certain vantage, the room was as it had been before.
Uncle Pete, still in the largest parts of the Santa suit, poured himself another Scotch. He looked down at the tree, considered making a remark about how the fire extinguisher foam resembled fresh-fallen snow, turned it over in his head, the phrasing, then decided against it.
I studied the bus stop sign, the night owl icon, the tiny cipher of a map. I pretended to ignore her as she screamed about the lack of taxis. I studied the beet slices scattered about in the road’s snow, the candied walnuts. By the time she started lobbing the baggie of vinaigrette against the icicles on the awning of the window store behind us, she had calmed down. It became a game: she tossed the baggie up, caught it, tried again. Then there was a rupture and her fur collar was soaked, and I managed to flag a cab just to spite her.
“I worry about my finances,” he said, drinking sweet wine, like bums, only in excess, in his living room with the couch from his parents’ basement and the recliner he’d bought when he moved in. Karen’s stuff was still in boxes, except her rocking chair, a family heirloom, and some kind of wall art, fabric, with stitches, intended to be abstract. The wine made my teeth ache. “You’ve got this place,” I said, “You’ve got your job, and when she gets back, you’ll have your beautiful fiancé.”
After sundown, we spoke again without consequence. I had my own worries, but I made jokes about them. He went through a list of girls we’d known, and later we got his cordless and made some calls, which is how he ended up in the rocking chair, moaning to Stephanie Prescott, who was in L.A. now and high when we called. “I don’t want to get married,” he said, many times, talking to Stephanie till nearly dawn.
I stopped in to watch the Cubs get slaughtered and because I’d spent all Saturday morning trying to fix someone else’s mistake, fielding calls from three layers of bosses, all about integrity and our reputation, but, as it turns out, it was Halstead Market Days, and everyone at the bar was wasted, draped in beads, playing with these pocket-sized vibrators some women’s health clinic had given out and arguing about who had the worst job.
Then the girl whose father owns the kefir company that sponsors that strip of highway north of Koreatown bought a round for everybody. She was wasted, draped over her girlfriend and her girlfriend’s ex-girlfriend, a lawyer who was promising to help the kefir company sue the Nazi group that desecrated the highway sponsorship sign with all the anti-Jewish slogans. We’re Muslim, the girl kept saying. Were they trying something clever or were they just that dumb?
We’d invented a drinking game for the governor’s trial, but that was back when the tapes first got leaked, and now that he was in the courthouse every day, signing autographs on the way in and out, we designed a pool for the outcome, each chipping in money, hoping, for instance, that if he got his own talk show, Morgan and I would win enough for that vacation I’d been promising her.
The couple from Dartmouth were in favor of Montessori education, and that was about all we heard about from them for the hours we were out together.
She was just over four feet, all of it where it mattered, hands the size of a silver dollar, a tiny puppet of a girl. Her only chair was a drum stool, which she scooted from room to room.
25 quotes:
“Fastback, with competition suspension and front air spoilers, this ‘stang’ had a small-block 351 Cleveland. You could hear the baffle from five cars back. For this one too he had a drag-pack option with positive-action no-spin lockers.” –Richard Prince
“I write like a bird singing as dawn approaches. With (unfortunately!) anguish and nausea bearing down — terrified by dreams of night. I tell myself over and over, ‘Someday I’ll be dead — DEAD!’ What about the magnificence of this universe then?! It will be nothing. All my senses X’d out, new ones take shape, as elusive as waterfalls. A wind’s blowing harshly in my head.” –Georges Bataille
“I’m restless and don’t have a job. I’m poor and keep spending my money. But if the situation’s hard to put up with, it gets even more so. I live ‘from moment to moment’ — and the moment after leaves me totally at a loss. My life is a mélange — sensuality and diversion, luxury and table scraps.” –Georges Bataille
“What finally frightens you and throws you into disorder is the knowledge that desire makes you its victim. In becoming an object of desire you become flesh, without identity and without meaning. In extreme forms of erotic experience, you become meat.” –Ken Hollings
“A woman coming in makes the same rustling sound as one undressing.” –Alfred Jarry
“The more fearful the world becomes, the more art becomes abstract.” –Paul Klee
“The sand swallows burst out of their scupper holes in the bluffs and out over the transparent drown of the water, back again to the white, to the brown, to the black, from moving to stock-still sand waves and water-worked woods and roots that hugged and twisted in the sun.” –Saul Bellow
“The paranoiac has to be on the lookout, because hostility and signification are not two separate forces, but occur simultaneously.” –Jeremy Biles
“Nothing is more painful to the human mind, than, after the feelings have been worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of inaction and certainty which follows.” –Mary Shelley
“It is probably wise to distinguish between methodology in the sense of a method of discovery (how one goes about it) and methodology in the sense of a method of validation (how one justifies what one has done).” –Wendy Doniger
“Everything that exists is an analogy of existence itself.” –Goethe
“A Beethoven string quartet is truly, as someone has said, a scraping of horses’ tails on cats’ bowels, and may be exhaustively described in such terms; but the application of this description in no way precludes the simultaneous applicability of an entirely different description.” –William James
“Slash it with sharp instruments, rub ashes into a wound to make a keloid, daub it with clay, paint it with berry juices. This thing that terrifies us, this face upon which we lay so much stress, is something they have always wanted to deform, by hair, shading, by every possible means. Why? To remove from it the terror of death, by making it a work of art.” –W.C. Williams
“It is not easy to write in a journal what interests us at any time, because to write is not what interests us.” –Henry David Thoreau
“For hope is an alluring fruit which does not satisfy, recollection is a miserable pittance which does not satisfy, but repetition is the daily bread which satisfies with benediction” –Soren Kierkegaard
“Silence is so accurate.” –Mark Rothko
“It is my belief that our culture has lost a true perception of existence. It is veiled. We are only fumbling in what we perceive to be reality. For the most part we do not know we are alive.” –Paul McCarthy
“It is from my longing my making proceeds.” –Robert Duncan
“Bodies never lie.” –Martha Graham
“Why would somebody sing about how shitty their life is?” –Vince Neil
“There is nothing more mysterious than a fact clearly described.” –Gary Winogrand
“Our instincts and intuitions are dead. We live wound round with the winding-sheet of abstraction, and the touch of anything solid hurts us.” –D.H. Lawrence
“I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly, because they’re surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable.” –Robert Rauschenberg
“Clichés are the leprosy of art.” –Paul Cezanne
“They had chained him down to things that are, and had then explained the workings of those things till mystery had gone out of the world.” –H.P. Lovecraft
WAKE THE DEAD, by J S Khan
Khan is the monster in the labyrinth of your subconscious. You shall know him by his signs. Further evidence of his existence can be found in Thieves Jargon, the White Whale Review and A cappella Zoo.
“An attentive examination should ascertain a point, drawn in the middle of an empty circle, which is a fiction; the point is the tip of a long tendril, crawling out like a serpent; this worm, growing into a monster, is a concealed personality.” –Andrei Bely
An ego-monster of confabulistic contortions. Ra ra ra. What proportions. How do you think I’d look in that? Feel the bass bathing us in our little loft, our cozy love-nest, the beat thrumming in our chests, drowning out your own heart’s thumping. Simply fantastic. She’s like some goddess of nihilism, right? All that razzle-dazzle, plus a castle in the sky. That’s what’s up. Those clouds like melting lumps of coffee ice-cream, those twirling-whirling girls descending the winding staircase, their breasts glazed in strawberry syrup. Pinch ’em: ouch. Oh you silly man, you.
And after we grow glutted on all the new, supernew pop moosic videos and downloadable moovies (they’re nuthin’ but a buncha Gootube celebrities, anyway), we shall go out and wrangle up a whole slew of real-life, honest-to-God hookers we find showcasing their wares in the cyberspace classifieds. Who needs a pimp? Too many witnesses. Never had no use for a middleman anyway. Well, you know what I mean. Who’s not ambisextrous these days?
Real-life requires a hyphen, cyberspace none. Relax: we’re nothing but simulacra. Who would enflesh such fantasies?
Tell me: what’s your name tonight? Angel Fang. O please Ms. Gabby, scratch me, sniff me, burn me, scar me. Please pretty please. But do you think you could touch me, just once?
Keep your secrets, boy. No one cares.
And we shall go out jogging like we did that one night, remember? Early November, and the stars burning so, so lovely, Cassiopeia dizzy in her rumble-seat tied and shackled in the darkling depths above and Orion straddling the earth with his great ballsack gleaming, the full moon’s silver overflow enflaming us with its madness. But how could I forget such a romantic evening, such an exhilarating night, even after all these years? The thrills and spills? Why, sometimes I still think I can smell the body buried behind the First Presbyterian on Washington–
Enough playacting. We could go to K.T.’s, but it’s costumes only. Who’s vomiting on who? Never understood the raw magnetism of foam skin, slithy dragonscales or sly foxwhiskers. To charm the snake. O you wicked little. Once when maybe four or five on my rubber dolphin floaty in the pool. Tell no one. Had a dream once the Lion raped the Tin Man. Oh my. Are you ready to milk the moocow? At least real animals are warm. Cowboys and their mounts. Got pheromones like a rhesus monkey myself. Who’s a good boy? Jesus. Ass worship though — that’s something else entirely. Rituals in shaggy sheep pants get me in touch with my own roots.
Each consciousness pursues the death of the Other, don’t you know that yet? If I say yes will you touch me? Pinch me, punch me? No, but a tobacco enema might excite your bowels good. Give you some sweet ass cancer. Where are the nose-hooks, the ropes, the handcuffs? Where is your collar? Ready for your spanking? Tell me what is the safeword. I’m always a different person, don’t you know that? What a radical. No need for masks. But D.W. is just another pinheaded philatelist. What is it with collecting pervs? Can’t stop but lick it. You have to think like a futurist with these fetishmongers. Is one a precursor, a prehistoric throwback?
And we shall go out like we did that one night, remember, the moonbeams falling like tinsel, and our nerves ringing from the report of it, the cool autumn air and garden glistening under streetlamps, the evening rain still a swirling residue, stardrops of dew, and that sweet young girl or should I say delicious little woman finding you sprawled out on the sidewalk moaning, holding your legs with eyes pinched shut and lips pressed tight. Twist your ankle, ma’am? And you in the bushes, panning out from this close-up of my lips. I must say I looked the part: classic damsel in distress. And her the Southern belle lost in the big city, Dante’s Inferno in her backpack. Got a penchant for punishment, sweetheart? But oh we’ll get to that–
Stop it. Stop it now. Who’s pissing on who? No chip off the old block: I know what you like. Get your rocks off. Light’s on, where is your mirror? Where are your rattler and pacifier? Where is your gooey chewy, baby? Go sit in the corner. You know I love those pigtails. Want me to tickle? Stomp on you like a cockroach. Impale you on my stiletto heel. Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of a suppressed Victorian. Who would you rather screw: your mother or your sister? My father, natürlich. Classic test of a submariner. The salt in a sailor’s spunk. Tell me, what’s your most cherished fantasy? Child and parent, student and teacher, slave and master? You on top, me on bottom, you on bottom, me on top? I’ll pretend to be you, you pretend to be me. I’ll pretend to be you pretending to be me, you me pretending to be you. You the woman, me the man. I the man and you the woman. Both of us women, now both of us men. This is getting boring. If the shoe fits, the pantyhose and stockings. Real freaks, freaking out. Strange worlds produce strange people. Let me suck on your big thoe, like in Carnie Freaks IV: The Bearded Lady’s Revenge, when Dog Boy lapped her hinderparts, equally bearded, and she brained the muscleman whilst he devilishly twisted his greased mustachios — the thoe from offscreen suddenly squirming up his pimply arse, equally mustachioed. Ouch. Where is the Crab Man? Oh you know what I like.
Looking for the girlfriend experience? Lips locked on naughty. Look at me. Deny the orgasm. You bitch. Deprive the oxygen. You hhhnuh hhuuunhhu. Better stop looking at me. Never felt so disgusted, so ashamed, so used up, so new. So refreshed. Ah please don’t–
Stop being so fresh. We should snap up some hookers like you mentioned earlier. That will cure us — at least I hope it will cure us — of that night so noxious, so wondrous, when we went out and you brought the camera, remember, and Cassiopeia was literally flipping out in sheer ekstasis so we could both see straight through her floozy dress and Orion with his twin jewels throbbed over the birches and I began firing those Whistling Moon Travelers at you and you rolled naked in the grass all wet with dew and washed with the silver discharge of the moon your belly writhing flushed red sparks shrieking all around you snap-crackle-pop-pop-pop. Yes and that cocky businesswoman or should I say scared little girl who found me lying on the sidewalk shivering, dressed now and pretending, yes, eyes closed and lips pressed tight to keep from laughing. And us snatching her and swifting her to the cemetery near the old church where you whispered I’ve always wanted to, where I said let’s wake the dead, sweetheart, get their bodies rolling, their bones raised, their bones a-rattling, yes, both of us slightly drunk and her utterly soaked in fear when she woke facedown in the dirt over the buried casket, her pale ass gleaming in waves and pressed tight against the granite. Thumb’s up, thump’s up, fingerpoint: bang. Rats skitter past in shadowlanes. Oh please don’t. Her throaty sighs and highpitched whimpers. Shouldn’a of been out so late, sweetpea, mimicking her Southern drawl, but you’ll learn soon enough, darlin’–
Nothing to see here, nothing to know. Better keep on walking, Jackson.
What came first: sex or sin? Why does orthodox religion degrade women? Homosexuals? Shouldn’t all people be degraded equally? Slip on your nun shawl; I’ll be your priest. Confess all. Spit in my mouth. Do you need some lube? Some beads, some plugs? How about some nipple-clamps? A knife in your side, a gun to your head? Feel it in your ureteric bud. Aw, Ah twat Ah taw a puttytat. Yur so innocent and purty. You know I know what you like. It is only through the Symbolic we approach the Other, the taint of the strange, love. The skull’s lewd grin. Fat feeders and old farts too, sagging lips and wrinkled cheeks. Puckered dugs. Stretchmarks and cellulite. An imaginary image: rub it up against your gaping wound. And all manner of diverse stigmata. It’s that time of month — ready to re-earn your Red Badge of Courage? I know you know what I like. Are you a sneaky little dirtnapping little necknibbler? Suck my blood. Bruises and bitemarks and bloodstained sheets, oh please God don’t–
Will you let me watch? Please let me watch. What is your most-secret secret? Call me the Rape-Artist. I think hooking up with those hookers is your best idea yet, in fact several just popped up right here, just a click away, all this digital romance, this flesh unfleshed, this space rendered specious, it’s almost spiritual. Yes and the girls will come with their credit card machines and we will glaze their breasts in raspberry syrup, the girls will come and we will pay cash just in case we get too excited and we will glaze their breasts in cherry syrup, and I will let you watch as I glaze their breasts in chocolate or peanut butter or caramel syrup like I know you like like that night in November, just imagine, only remember, after our gambols in the park, you filming me clothed in nothing but the shadows cast by the steeple, enormous and rockhard, as I whispered in that girl’s ear and made her touch your Naughty Jesus, head pressed facedown in the dead roses at the foot of the tombstone. Smell the flowers, kid. Dribble-dabble all down your chin. That’s what’s up. Oh please don’t. Shutup. And that thick ass bent gleaming over the granite like a second moon itself and you forcing her orgasm and her moaning and Orion winking and Cassiopeia cackling and you striking her across her face and me striking her again across the face. Now fire away. Never been so disgusted, so ashamed, so excited. And the camera trembling raised in my right hand smashing her in the head one last time yes and the soft wet crunch and limbs going limp, bodies falling, oh God can’t–
Sthhhnuh… hhuuunhhu… huuun…
Mmmm. Huh?
Too excited: couldn’t stop. But it is the same thing every time. Strange people produce strange worlds. What about those hookers? Too late. Poor little girl. Tell no one. Play that song again. One desires to please — but pleasure never satisfies desire. Un pauvre bébé. Well, pine away. Tomorrow always. If so, if so. Take it to the next level. My God, so good — for now.
But what if found out? The body casketless? Our commingled blood and juices?
Alone, in separate cells, we shall flagellate ourselves.
Nerves of Steel goes to West Virginia June 7
Richie “Ray Gene Bull” Tipton, an Appalachian musician, writer, soothsayer and social barometer. Tipton both screamed and crooned through the mic in his career as the front man for a southern-fried hard-rock band and a one-man, one-microphone, one-guitar performer.
McClanahan and Angel Babies (www.hollerpresents.com). Scott McClanahan is the writer of Stories, Stories II, and Stories V! His novel Hill William will be published by New York Tyrant books in Spring 2012. Angel Babies will begin recording their first album in 2011.
Nerves alumnus Ben Tanzer is the author of the books 99 Problems and You Can Make Him Like You, the forthcoming novella My Father’s House, and the humor collection This American Life.
House Band: Jay Hill & The Dirty Coal River Band is an Appalachian, dirt-stomping band with a “honky-tonk and roll” sound that mimics the heart and soul of the whiskey-soaked moan of a dimly lit barroom wedged between the hills and rail tracks of southern West Virginia.
Next stop (oh we wish) Nashville…
BOX, by David Gianatasio
Gianatasio (illustrated by Andrew Davis), a somewhat regular contributor to THE2NDHAND, is featured in a special section in our soon-forthcoming 10th-anniversary anthology, All Hands On: THE2NDHAND After 10. Preorder the book ($16) for $15 here.
The box stands three feet high and just as wide.
Inside is a smaller box, and inside that a smaller one still.
“Keep going,” the first box says.
“Is there treasure — some kind of prize? Because, if this is one of those stupid metaphorical things…”
The box chuckles. “There’s just one way to find out.”
The boxes keep decreasing in size. The last few I can barely see. I handle them with tweezers.
Finally, I’m left with empty hands and lots of boxes strewn across the carpet.
“That’s how it goes” the first box says.
Panting, shirt stained with sweat, I viciously stomp up and down, grinding the boxes beneath my heels. Finally, I tear the first box to shreds, cardboard fibers flying in every direction.
Wiping perspiration from my forehead, I stretch and step outside for some air.
All the houses on my street are boxes.
My house is a box.
The sky’s corrugated brown. It opens wide and a voice shrieks, “It’s one of those stupid metaphorical things, jackass!” as a humongous black heel stomps down.
‘THE BOOKMOBILE SHOWS’ (second and third looks at the painting), by Brian S. Hart
What follows is an excerpt from “The Diamond Kings of Clarence Checkeredfish.” The fiction describes high-powered, multicultural shows held in Bernalillo, New Mexico, during the 1990s. Hart has a background in science education, and is interested in puzzle-forms within experimental writing. This piece comes with Tagalog translation by Maida Moral-Buiza of Quezon City, Philippines.
Mr. Checkeredfish and Binibining Mayumi arrived back at the Holyoke school on this Friday. He handed to her her “Wall St.” ticket. “If we hurry we can catch all the shows! HAHAHA!” he said. She laughed, too. Her laugh is magical to him! She is gorgeous and sensitive! They turned in their tickets to the gentleman behind the table next to “Big Ben” at the entrance of the “Bookmobile.”
“So this is the new fish that arrived today!” Binibining Mayumi said. “One for each pot! You’re an idiot!”
Mr. Checkeredfish looked at her inquisitively, wondering about the “insult,” as she reached in to grab the little dory from her pot and throw her into the oversized III-2AA pot with the bigmouth. They chased one another frantically in circles before settling in.
“How did you know they’re compatible?” Mr. Checkeredfish asked.
“Science!” said Binibining Mayumi, a little mockingly.
“Oh,” said Mr. Checkeredfish. “I only know ‘anti-science,’” he said, not sure what he meant or if he was making a joke, a little miffed that he had been “one-upped.” Then they laughed at the “argument” and “made up” quickly with a kiss. They took their seats.
Built into the side-walls of the room are locked window cabinets aligned with dusty books. Some are on the methods of private schools. A few appear to be about local government from a long time ago. You could see through some of the windows red scrapbooks of yellowed out newspaper clippings and a bunch of old yearbooks. Not only did Mr. Checkeredfish have the key to access the classrooms, but he could if he wanted unlock those cabinet doors. Mr. Checkeredfish promised himself one day he would do just that, perhaps with a genius like Binibining Mayumi there alongside him ready to help with sortin’ out the info.
To the front is a stage area, beautifully lighted. It begins!
See! SPADES AND CLUBS, said Stevie Bingo. Don’t ya’ jus’ love th’ hatman!
Purple pages bet, he findin’ ‘un cancion’ t’ take his amiga honey to maybe gi’ her a lunch diamond. Ha! So brave t’ pull on leg and dynamo, he at least on the right trapeze, she getting ready to leap ’n’ tumble! Rumplestiltskin walkin’ tall keepin’ circus goin’ on schedule, said the Gingerbread Man.
1st annual! Performer 1 BURMAN A Craftsman make the tabla powerful t’ the “being Universe” (spotlight on)**olive garden** K fasta’ than the eye can see Q co-performer of Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia J representative of country, respectful to all 10 talented sitar player, p…l…a…yer…u…l…eaveme…m’numbat…wor…l…dseries…f…iv…e…runsscor…ings…ix…t’…on…e 9 student-audience stunned <Mr. Checkeredfish could just imagine hearing little Clarence readin’ Tjymnrixgdbchzevko, “W-h-e-n t-h-e S-u-n r-o-l-l-s o-v-e-r, I f-i-n-d m-y l-o-v-e. T-h-i-s i-s w-h-e-n t-h-e M-o-o-n d-r-e-a-m-s.”> Performer 2
LOPEZ 8 Peru pearl, one of South America’s greatest (spotlight on)**mauve** 7 drum, a peace symbol 6 “Really fantastic!” 5 girl hand ya’ flowers, surprise! 4 mistress of ceremonies (on behalf of audience) asks for encore 3 parent backstage wants to know more about Inca clothing 2 It’s time t’ love-dance, ladies get ya’self a charmin’ partner 
\La!…e…di…pi-b…l…u…esch…ez…c…a…k…ho!…v…oic…u…nd…e…r tab, Ms. Soj choose Stevie Bingo t’ hit single, Ms. S. Brown choose the Gingerbread Man t’ bunt ’m on up, Mrs. Winchester Universe wants to play is it the unconscious gal o’ milk that keeps the turning Sun, the round Moon, every mirror dreaming? Beaming smile together! \Love dance Performer 3 ROMERO A audience can’t believe, a song from \previous century K Xalapa gets mentioned (spotlight on)**cherry** Q song with part Latin rhythm, other part Native J the meaning of honor 10 beautiful song, a tribute to town 9 instances of local customs, complex analyses necessary, dressing up as Comanches Performer 4 ENCISO 8 recommendation o’ teacher, everyone at one time o’ another ought t’ see the “live” hoops 7 a good story gets told 6 Carnegie Hall opera singer 5 salut/congratulations o the lovely Amore Morning Sun and Amura Morning Cloud (spotlight on)**scarlet** 4 young, future star performer, popular with the girls <Look there! Time to go crazy! HAHA! Such big, big shadows on the wall! Could that possibly be little Shorty Gates there dancin’ away with…! The little guy Clarence Checkeredfish, Jr.!> 3 “This represents the best of our community…” 2
See! said Stevie Bingo. Moon cement blocks, 66! He! 2-dinosaur painting, the apatosaurus and…! said the Gingerbread Man laughing.
Wildcard Performance (spotlight on)**tumbleweed** Performer1 MARIBOL toss the flowers into the audience, look out, what a catch! talkin’ about som’ lawyer in Albuquerque picking his ass, kids laugh so hard, almost fall out of chair Joker bird sounds from the sky-flutes, raucous <And there! Is that Pirate Blue!? On the high blue seas…> <…searching for lost diamonds…> <…for her lady-pirates!> Performer 2 CRAIG start serious, the sheep head story, veteran of war, one an only “…waiting for the day…” Joker (spotlight on)**salmon** speakin’ out on what alcohol can do to a people.
See! HEARTS and DIAMONDS, said Stevie Bingo. Whatta’ Pirate Blue show, jumpin’… wata’ colorful imagination… so funny… right… ova’ th’ beach ’n’ ballin’ little bit o’ curl in div’, I’d say! Hi! Bat’s tossin’ outta’ yell belly rub cube, got silent Jet Li th’ Luohan Quin plan, coin got riddle watch Bruce Lee makin’ time outta’ somethin’ ever lastin’, said the Gingerbread Man.
2nd annual! Performer 1 HARJO A Stanford mistress of ceremonies makes nice joke, earns special round of applause K tremendous poet with deep and powerful images Q tight sound of band J did ya’ know woman-drummer Susan addressed Supreme Court and won, congratulations (spotlight on)**velvet** 10 the rise of Shkeme 9 standing ovation Performer 2 GRIEGO 8 “Happy Birthday, Sweet…” 7 (spotlight on)**orchid** performer 6 holy cow! what a guitar player and a half! 5 outward confidence, inward sensitivity 4 popular with the Mexican gals 3 personable 2 it’s a new song: gentlemen this time you get to choose a new partna’ f’ a dance <Shorty Gates hears the conversation. “Masaya ako bilang guro,” says Binibining Mayumi. “Gusto ko an psgiging isang guro,” says Mr. Checkeredfish.> \Stevie Bingo sacrifice fly to third choose Ms. Moon Z to dance with, and who’s this, Gingerbread Man ya’ step up to the plate and ask to dance with Amelia?!! She accepts with honor! Wow! Wada’ pick! Mrs. Winchester love/“like” “A”+ wood art 2 run score, “ae”rodynamic Captain paint friend Charlie Plume of “paper cup” “to” skim milk “words” wedding “rain” of the “endless” Universe plane, “ring!” moose “in” read, red spring “flow”ers “out”… \Love dance Performer 3 KNIFEWING (spotlight on)**red brick** hysterical K what a big, big heart Q smooth J gives CD to child 10 a winner 9 cares about everything Performer 4 MAILIEJEE 8 <Binibining Mayumi notices Mr. Checkeredfish’s ladder in the light booth. She points to it. It goes up to a trap door in the ceiling.> Front row of little children, faces light up <“Sundan mo ako,” she says to him, taking his hand.” Shorty Gates watches them.> 7 gorgeous and haunting sounds of the
armonica played by talented artist in (spotlight on)**purple-black** dress 6 <There they go! Shorty smiles. Mr. Checkeredfish takes Binibining Mayumi up…> school paper photographer onstage gets pictures of the antique instrument <…to the roof by way of the Magic Carpet.> 5 audience courteously stands for the National Anthem, then she plays “Over the Rainbow” 4 characters out of history seem to want to come alive again, Beethoven, Marie Antoinette, Mozart… 3 get on the note, melt 2 <Shorty Gates, do you see more shadows?> <Pirate Blue…> <…closes her eyes, imagining the diamonds of tomorrow’s dreams.> <Mr. Checkeredfish looks into Binibining Mayumi’s eyes. They dance. The leaves from the tree rattle lightly in the wind. “Salamat,” he says to her when the dance is over. “Maraming salamat,” she says. THE END>
A ROOM OF MY OWN, by Alana I Capria — Finale
For the previous part of this three-part serial from N.J.-based Capria, follow this link.
I think of death on a daily basis. I want to die. [But not painfully. Not with any amount of blood.] You tell me to live for something. To live for you. I know what I will live for. My room. That is all. That is all I have. A room and interior spiders and all those poisoned beasts. I cannot live for anything else. I’ve tried. But the knife was calling. And the razors. And the rope. And the gas ovens. And the vials of poison. All of them. And they were delicious. I lived for them. You could only watch. [Once, I went out west. I rode a horse through a bone cemetery. There were wolves lurking in the rib cages. A bear gnawed on a collection of pelvises. A bird of prey tucked several spinal cords beneath its tail. They all snapped at my feet. The horse ran because it was scared. It looked forward and I stared back, horrified by all the chasing creatures. They were hungry. Fresh meat hung around their mouths. Their teeth were red.] [Later, I went into a basement environment. I thought of time warps and sinkholes. I sat in that basement and lost myself in piles of antique stuffs. Porcelain dolls stared at me. Once, my room was infested by porcelain dolls. Both the blinking and unblinking kinds. They tried to bite me. I thought I could let them stay but they knew how much I hated them. I knew they would wait until my back was turned. They understood the window. So I smashed them into the walls until the porcelain cracked. I kept their eyes. All those pairs were stuffed into a desk drawer.] [I open it from time to time and they look up at me. Their pupils roll around the white paint balls. The mouths lost in the plaster walls scream my name.] [You should never witness this mess.]
{I will be a floorboard.} Maybe you will walk over me. And then I will shift and make you fall. I do not mind nails sticking through me. They offer texture as I sit. Then I can remain in place for much longer. I put up mesh screens. I place them all around me. You stick your face against the nylon wire but cannot push through. I am free. I have my little box and you cannot join me. I pity you. You do not understand my claustrophobia. If we are stuck in the room together, I will run out of air. It will hurt. The asphyxiation. The heart burn. [If I turn into the desk, will you put pressure on me? If you sit, you will break me. Then you will be alone.] That might not be a bad thing. The room would be preserved. If I cannot be in the room alone, then it might as well remain locked and abandoned. You don’t like the look of cobwebs, but I welcome the ambience. I will fit myself through the keyhole and return to the desk to write. You cannot lose the weight as quickly as I can. I will slip in and the door will stay locked. I tell you goodbye but you don’t believe me. This room is mine. Even the dust particles. I collect them on my skin and love the filmy weight.
I am a nervous person. Everything me twitch. When I feel pressured, the spiders bite me as hard as they can. They poison me from the inside out. Then my eyes turn red. Then my limbs turn yellow with jaundice. [You cannot see the discolorations as clearly as I can. They move in and out of my pigmentation. Sometimes I look darker. Then I look bright white. It is not a good look. I am either ethnic or albino. The yellow makes me sick. Creatures come in through the windows to suck the melanin out. I feel faint during the process.] [Sometimes I faint.] [Other times, my eyes roll around in my head.] (We used to make love at one in the morning every night. We reached for one another without realizing. Sometime in the middle of the act, I woke up fully and wanted you off. I never pushed you. I never told you that I wanted to be free of the weight. I simply lay still and let you work until we were both done. After you fell back asleep, I sat in the dark, dripping with body fluids, and hating you. I wanted to hold a pillow over your face. Often, I went into the closet and sat on the floor. Coats and pants sat over my face.} [In the morning, you would come to find me.] [I would be gone. Disappeared. Vanished. You would worry for hours until I finally walked over.] [You never knew where I came from.]
[I keep all the locks drawn. No one can get into my room without permission. Not even you. I do not care if you are standing outside beating the door for hours while I sit huddled inside. You will not get in unless I want you there.] [The spiders crawl around. They make webs in the shape of your face. I do not want them to eat you. I prefer you whole. If you are not, then I mourn. Maybe not you. But I mourn something. Loss of identity, perhaps. Loss of all I’ve ever known.] I have been making this room since I was a child. Let me describe it for you. [It is a single room. Four walls. A ceiling. A hardwood floor. A desk in the center. Before I embraced technology, there was a stack of journals in the center of the desk and many fountain pens. There was a good light. Then I learned of typing. First, I tried a typewriter but I made too many mistakes. Then I found a computer. I loved it. I put it in the center. It is always part of the room now. There are books in one corner of the desk so that if I am tired of writing, I can read. These are books on various subjects. There is a chair, a high-backed chair with a cushioned seat so my hips do not hurt after many hours in a seated position. The walls are all bare. There is one window, just to my right. The door is to my left. I am alone in this room. There might be space enough for a couch but I am hesitant. I leave the room as it is. It has bright white paint on all the encasing walls. There are no other adornments. There are no pictures in frames. There are no photographs. There is nothing. Just me, my desk, my window, my writing instruments. All the drawers but one are kept empty.]
You cry in front of me. You want to a part of my room but I do not know if I can do this. You should not spend your life according to someone who has always dreamed of being alone. You do not understand. [[My aunts have hanged themselves. My grandparents have submitted to electric shock therapy. My parents have each been institutionalized. Uncles have used guns. I am left. I am alone. I do not have genetics on my side. Do you understand? These feelings are a part of me. They are part of my makeup. They make me who I am.]] [You can be something else, you say. You can break the mold. You can free yourself. You don’t have to let those things dictate who you are.] You say all of that. But you don’t really know. [You don’t understand that I want to be like that. I like having that history. It makes me feel different. I want to be tortured. I want to hear voices and faint without warning. I want to be afraid. Of you. Of those thoughts. Of my family. Of myself. I want to know that the room will give me the solitude I need.] [You cannot give it.]
[But all you want is a couch, so you can sit in on my life.] I am still uncertain. You say all you want is that little bit of space. But that means I am taking away from my own to accommodate you. [That defeats the purpose.] [If I want my own space, my own room, I cannot allow anyone else in. Because then it isn’t my own. It is ours.] [What is so bad about just having our space, you ask.] You do not mean in terms of we need space. The plural speaking for the individual. You mean our as in our. As in, a shared space. A space I am uncertain I want to be a part of. [All I want is a couch, you say.] I do not know. A couch is a big investment. It means you will be taking up the space of an entire wall. That is a wall I cannot converse with. If I let the couch through the frame, I cannot speak to the inanimate objects as freely. You will want me to spend some time addressing you. I do not know if I am ready. [The point is my own space. So I can be alone. Without you. Completely unabashed. If I let you in, just know that you will get hurt. The spiders will bite. I will stab with a pen. Just be prepared for that.]
END
A ROOM OF MY OWN, by Alana I. Capria — part 2
For the previous part of this fiction from New Jersey-based Capria, click here. The final installment will follow May 3.
[[[There is a ghost.]]] It looks like me. It sounds like me. But you can tell the difference. The ghost is supposed to distract you, but when it touches your arm, you run away. You only want my fleshy self. But the flesh and blood doesn’t want you. [You ask if I am dead. I am not. I won’t lie to you. Not unless you want me to. And then I will tell you the truth because I never want to give you anything you want.] The ghost pretends to sit at the desk, typing and staring out the glass-less window. It beckons you toward it. I sit in the closet. I keep a thick wool veil over my face. I can barely see through the fabric. I hope you cannot tell it is me in here. You approach the ghost, then back away. The air around her is too cold. Your body temperature drops 20 degrees and your skin turns dark blue. You shiver and sink into the floorboards. You ice over. I cannot leave you to freeze. I climb out of the closet. I crawl to you. I breathe over your skin until you melt. Then you grab me. The ghost pulls you off. It gets between us. Chilled again, you press your back against the wall and wait for the spirit to retreat. I cry. The tears harden on my cheeks. I flick them away. They shatter on the ground and cover the plaster. The ghost holds my hands. She guides me back into my little room. She resumes her seat at the desk. She does nothing but pretend to stare at everything.
[Daily, I think of dying. Always in a painless way though. Sometimes I do not mind pain and other times I do.] Sometimes I am allergic to everything. To you, to the pain. My hands touch and I break out in a rash. [Think of the children who are allergic to water. How their bodies are constantly trying to kill themselves. I think I would like that. I am like that. But I do not like my situation as it does not hurt me. It simply leaves me disfigured and disappointed.] The spider things keep trying to break out of my stomach shell. They crave meat. I slam my hands in drawers to keep them still. They do not know anything about the word no. Someone said the spiders would be good companions as they are low-maintenance. They take themselves for walks. They hiss when things get too noisy. The problem is that they crave the skin of their keepers. [Like the monster in the latest movie. It wanted to eat its parents.] [Is it ironic that the entire time, each parent took turns at having a late-term abortion? The three-year-old creature was drowned but survived. The 18-year-old monster was circumcised without anesthesia.] [It was always crying.] [I am always crying but I lack chicken legs.] [My body is always together.] [That is part of the problem.]
The court system would like me to take me from my room and make judicial decisions. I cannot even decide if I should allow a chair into my room so that someone else can feel free to sit, let alone decree that a man should be jailed. [I could always say the innocent is guilty. Then they could be alone. Everyone should be alone. It is safer. You can trust solitude. But it can still drive you crazy. You are left alone with yourself. It is hard to trust yourself. When I look out the window, strangely shaped mammals start flying. They drop out of the clouds and make a beeline into a body of water. I do not like the stingers emerging from their tails. The appendages whip the air with a loud cracking sound. I think of the stinger puncturing my flesh and cringe. Many look up at me and try to bite. They cannot get me through the glass but the threat is enough. I want nothing to do with them.] [I want nothing to do with me.] [You shouldn’t either.] [All you want is a simple couch so you can sit and be close. I cannot give that to you. It is not that you aren’t deserving. You have done so much. You have been there for so long. But I cannot give you that little thing. There is no room for you. If we are so close, we will inevitably touch. Then I will hate you. I hate everything that touches me. Even the walls keep their distance. Even the floors and the ceilings. They touch me only when I touch them first. I stay on a chair so they cannot accidentally brush against me.] [When the poison animals outside bang against the window, the glass becomes soundproof. Nothing can reach me. The animals spell out your name in blood. They want me to know that they know you. They want me to think they can get to you. But they can’t. They are all in my head. That is why so many of them have my same face. We blink at the same time. We open our mouths the same way. We are hideous beasts. I try to hurt you when you are not looking. You feel nothing. I do not hurt you hard enough.]
<Someone might think I am crazy.> I am not. I am completely sane. There is nothing crazy about hating everything. And insisting on a good amount of distance. That is why so many people live in white rooms. It is safer for them there. They know no one can touch them. Then they get their drugs and feel safe again. They are smart. If I could, I would join them. We could all cry together. But separately. We would not want anyone thinking we are ready to be a part of society again. Because that is not true. Not at all. I would tell you not to visit. I would sit by a large bay window alone and contemplate breaking my body against the glass. [Sometimes, my room has large windows. Other times, they are small. I stick my head through the opening and the frames are either loose or tight around my neck. Often, I can barely pull my head back inside. I stay in place for longer than I should. The animals come to get me. The spider creatures bubble around in my chest and threaten to break out. If they emerge then, I will have no chance. I will be devoured in record time. There won’t be any binding string. Just me and the desiccation.] I am tempted to offer you a couch. To let you sit. Just for a few moments. Just so you can understand my room. [I don’t think you can.] [You do not know what this room means to me. You think I only want to leave you. But I think of terrible things daily. I want to protect you from them. Sometimes, when you are asleep, I think of cutting you, because I want to know what will happen. These are not normal thoughts. I can barely survive. I feel guilty saying I love you when I want to cause you so much pain. You deserve better. I should give you a couch to make up for all those thoughts but then, if you are right behind me, I will only keep thinking them. So many horrible, bloody things have the potential of happening in my room. You are just one of them.]