I’m literally (LITERALLY, like it’s happening right now) avoiding my girlfriend’s landlord because he is coming by between 8:30 and 4:30 to install carbon monoxide detectors in the building and he’s already warned her that if he finds out i’m living there he will have to rewrite her lease for 2 people and in doing so raise the rent…the new number being something beyond our budget. Dickish move, right? Whatever, it’s his building and her lease for now, and i don’t plan on getting caught. Not at the holidays. Not on Rex Manning day.
Wasted time at the post office, a few different coffeehouses, and at the copy shop making new zine inserts to send to Microcosm Distro before Thanksgiving and The East Bay Alt Book Fair, but the tools i really need (paint markers, long-arm stapler, cutting board) are in the apartment. Fuck. I’m hungry too, but don’t have any money with me to spend after paying for gas to get down and back from Vegas this weekend. There are oranges in a basket on top of the fridge. I can see them in my mind. Two, nearly the same size. I can smell what it would be like to rip my thumbnail into one—it would spritz citrus. I can almost taste them. But I can’t. There’s been a white van parked in front of our building since 9—it must be the landlord. He’s still there. I’m down the street, lurking. I haven’t showered. Kinda need to take a shit too. Library?
For a split second I wondered what Bukowski would do? Be careful what you wish upon a star, be careful what you read Bukowski for. It could happen to you. Easily.
Somewhere in this day of avoidance I get an email informing me a story of mine is being broadcast Friday as part of the National Day of Listening through Dimestories.org. It’s a piece about encountering death and discovering sexuality. Typical, right? Maybe - a young kid finds the dead body of an older neighborhood boy dressed as a woman. But the young kid can’t see that it’s a boy, he only sees a woman. The boy’s older brother narrates. The boys older brother knows the body is a boy dressed in woman’s clothes,
i’ve worked on this story for a while, like a few years, and i even got an earlier version of it published, but i never liked it. didn’t feel like i got it right. probably didn’t get it right now either, but maybe got closer. i’ve told it to myself so many times i feel like it happened to me, but it didn’t. has that ever happened to you?
Alright the white van is pulling out. It’s 5:30. If the landlord happens to still be there, i’m going to lie to his face.
Janey Smith’s Live At The Squat is going on at 8, boosted by Steve Roggenbuck. Never seen him perform his poems before. psyched.
~rjb
