Sunday, June 8, 2008
Oscar Sloane returns
Felix was voluble today. Oscar sighed, relieved.
"Xavier fue de Monterey," he recounted.
"No Monterrey"—he added, a rich effusion like froth from the motor of a sleek luxury vessel around the r. "In California. He was from there. He used to come into my shop. He was good with his hands, he helped me fix things—sometimes he helped my brother-in-law repair his nets. He chose his words carefully, as if he were carving them in stone. Each one a commitment. Each one an effort. Each one a burden. He was running from something, I had figured that out. He met Mariangeles’s mother when she served him supper one night. She thought he had money. He did have something valuable with him. I heard it was pearls. There were rumors. But I wouldn’t say they didn’t love each other. Tu sabes—whatever that means. I think you know what that means. I mean, I think you know what I mean. It was like that with you and Maria, no?"
A creaking in the hull woke him. He lay for a minute in between before pushing himself up and pulling on his clothes.
The days had begun to glide past and thoughts were like burrs catching on a silk sheet. The image in the cave returned to him with a shock followed by a long ache—as if he had done something he was doomed to relive—twist and turn though he might, it would return when he closed his eyes.
That morning at breakfast Oscar glimpsed his reflection in his tin cup, wan and elongated. His head seemed to go on forever. He could just make out the dark stubble around his thin moustache, which had been a crisp line ashore. His eyes looked almost bruised in the silvery convex. He tipped the cup so that his nostrils loomed. His hair stood up like a soft brush. The men at the table looked at him and looked away.
His mind rehearsed the days he had spent in the town. He sifted for details. Again he saw Lupita sitting outside her door like a sentry, her daughter a stoic giantess nursing a thick-bodied child. There were no more tamales. Lupita’s laugh was hollow as she told him to come back tomorrow for puerco and elote. She seemed wary as he stood there. He was just trying to figure out what else to have for dinner. Pozole? She smiled, but her eyes were cold. Yes, you should go, she had said without warmth. You should go west. I think it is time for you to go.
A thick coiled rope flying through the air, a dark hand closing on it. The crew dispersed. Oscar went south.
He stepped down from the bus and it chugged away with a burst of exhaust. The rains would come soon. The rays would thrust themselves with an ecstatic convulsion above the surface of the lagoon, the mangoes would ripen—apricot teardrops, swollen red livers filled with jelly, globular coconut-scented mangoes—thousands of them. Birds would peck at the pits in the split lush orange, leaving them clean.
"Xavier fue de Monterey," he recounted.
"No Monterrey"—he added, a rich effusion like froth from the motor of a sleek luxury vessel around the r. "In California. He was from there. He used to come into my shop. He was good with his hands, he helped me fix things—sometimes he helped my brother-in-law repair his nets. He chose his words carefully, as if he were carving them in stone. Each one a commitment. Each one an effort. Each one a burden. He was running from something, I had figured that out. He met Mariangeles’s mother when she served him supper one night. She thought he had money. He did have something valuable with him. I heard it was pearls. There were rumors. But I wouldn’t say they didn’t love each other. Tu sabes—whatever that means. I think you know what that means. I mean, I think you know what I mean. It was like that with you and Maria, no?"
A creaking in the hull woke him. He lay for a minute in between before pushing himself up and pulling on his clothes.
The days had begun to glide past and thoughts were like burrs catching on a silk sheet. The image in the cave returned to him with a shock followed by a long ache—as if he had done something he was doomed to relive—twist and turn though he might, it would return when he closed his eyes.
That morning at breakfast Oscar glimpsed his reflection in his tin cup, wan and elongated. His head seemed to go on forever. He could just make out the dark stubble around his thin moustache, which had been a crisp line ashore. His eyes looked almost bruised in the silvery convex. He tipped the cup so that his nostrils loomed. His hair stood up like a soft brush. The men at the table looked at him and looked away.
His mind rehearsed the days he had spent in the town. He sifted for details. Again he saw Lupita sitting outside her door like a sentry, her daughter a stoic giantess nursing a thick-bodied child. There were no more tamales. Lupita’s laugh was hollow as she told him to come back tomorrow for puerco and elote. She seemed wary as he stood there. He was just trying to figure out what else to have for dinner. Pozole? She smiled, but her eyes were cold. Yes, you should go, she had said without warmth. You should go west. I think it is time for you to go.
A thick coiled rope flying through the air, a dark hand closing on it. The crew dispersed. Oscar went south.
He stepped down from the bus and it chugged away with a burst of exhaust. The rains would come soon. The rays would thrust themselves with an ecstatic convulsion above the surface of the lagoon, the mangoes would ripen—apricot teardrops, swollen red livers filled with jelly, globular coconut-scented mangoes—thousands of them. Birds would peck at the pits in the split lush orange, leaving them clean.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Bound for Tucson, Arizona
five-minute poem Securing the blue tarp over the foredeck
Garbage jettisoned
The scream of jet engines
Up the stairs
I would wave to imaginary journalists
In LA—the flight’s been cancelled
Waiting for the bus to Motel 6
A family, frizzy-haired mom, florid-faced dad in a Hawaiian shirt
The daughter’s wearing black, oversized sunglasses with ironed hair, her brother all in white, his sunglasses are white, a skinny black tie over his white shirt, derailed on their way from Des Moines or Kansas City, shuttled to a cheap motel—finally, puffs dad, and they follow him, carried off into the night—how did this happen?
I walk toward the ice machine on the ninth floor
Muffled shouting on the phone
The next day we share a cab, the guy fits the eight bags and the cat and some other guy’s stuff
Stoic soldiers in camouflage
I’m sure I saw a TV star—a coy glance and a little wave in the international terminal
Where I went looking for food
And I feel larger, in relief
We look at real estate with our new friend Alex, fellow aficionado of vintage appliances.
"Weird kitchen."
Gypsies in the palace
Saturday, May 10, 2008
I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul
I lean and loafe at my ease...observing a spear of summer
grass.
You sea! I resign myself to you also....I guess what you mean,
I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers,
I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me;
We must have a turn together....I undress....hurry me out of sight of the land,
Cushion me soft....rock me in billowy drowse,
Dash me with amorous wet....
I can repay you. (Whitman, "Song of Myself," 1855)
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul
I lean and loafe at my ease...observing a spear of summer
grass.
You sea! I resign myself to you also....I guess what you mean,I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers,
I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me;
We must have a turn together....I undress....hurry me out of sight of the land,
Cushion me soft....rock me in billowy drowse,Dash me with amorous wet....
I can repay you. (Whitman, "Song of Myself," 1855)
Careening Sea Wolf in the Barra lagoon
The voyage of the Sea Wolf with crew Baby Tallulah and Ruby the Cat is coming to an end. We trip over blocks and miniature maracas and accidentally lock knees while the cat makes a bed on our only towel and start to think, maybe it is time to try something new. Sailing offshore, Baby Tallulah squirms and cries while her exhausted mother throws up. We imagine life in, say, a boat large enough for another, adult-sized crew member. Maybe a boat that only makes short passages between Caribbean islands, something like that (I think, memories of massive discomfort still disturbingly fresh). We are preparing Sea Wolf for sale to another lucky person or persons as we ready ourselves to leave Mexico for parts as-yet undetermined. But, though the voyage of Sea Wolf, at least with us aboard, may be ending, The Path of the Blazing Sarong lives on.
Oscar Sloane at sea
He lay on his bunk listening to the sound of water against the steel hull, the unreasoning, unrelenting force of the sea. He had been playing solitaire. Now the cards appeared to be the tortured machinations of a malign consciousness that dogged his efforts to exist. In his windowless cubicle he imagined the sound of the waves rushing past the hull as the rush of blood in the womb. How terrible to be confined in the womb, tossed and jolted by an unseen, uncontrollable, invisible presence. The image of his dinner came to him unbidden. Ham and biscuits—it seemed strange that he had never realized how inherently unappetizing—no, how deeply revolting—these foods were. He closed his eyes again, begging elusive sleep to remove him from the wasteland of the waking world.
He found himself wearing the uniform of a gas station attendant, squinting up at the receding window in the cab of a gigantic semi. The driver looked down slowly, flames licking around his head. The tanks were bottomless and he stood for what seemed like hours with the pump in his hand, breathing bittersweet diesel until it had lodged in his lungs. Then the truck combusted, the driver rising up in a jet of orange, his malevolent laugh blending with the apocalyptic boom of the explosion. Oscar jerked awake. Feet were pounding along the deck. He pushed himself upright and grappled his way to the door of his cabin. Something had happened and through the haze obscuring his thoughts, he grasped that his journey had come to an end.
The ship’s frame shuddered amid waves that sent torrents over the gunwales, spray catching him in the face as he wrenched open the steel door of his cage. He saw whitecaps illuminated against the fluctuating dark surface of the sea, the familiar points of Ursa Major benign in the still, ecstatic arc of the sky.
With a crippled engine it would take days to return to port. The radio was bleating static and exotic accented English. He vaguely understood that another ship was coming to assist. He knew only that their vessel might never return, that Vallarta might not exist—his single certainty the present, endless moment in which he lay rocking in the prehistoric swells.
He had grown to anticipate meal times with the enthusiasm of a prisoner. One afternoon he lay, again, on his bunk after lunch. The tall African cook had sent out the food, which was growing pale and strange, with a faintly Gallic shrug. A paperback was propped in his hand, his mind straying from the suddenly pointless activity on the page. As the book dropped to his chest and the air around him grew heavy, Felix, the old man at the repair shop, appeared. He was wearing a blue bowtie and sunglasses that completely obscured his eyes.
He found himself wearing the uniform of a gas station attendant, squinting up at the receding window in the cab of a gigantic semi. The driver looked down slowly, flames licking around his head. The tanks were bottomless and he stood for what seemed like hours with the pump in his hand, breathing bittersweet diesel until it had lodged in his lungs. Then the truck combusted, the driver rising up in a jet of orange, his malevolent laugh blending with the apocalyptic boom of the explosion. Oscar jerked awake. Feet were pounding along the deck. He pushed himself upright and grappled his way to the door of his cabin. Something had happened and through the haze obscuring his thoughts, he grasped that his journey had come to an end.
The ship’s frame shuddered amid waves that sent torrents over the gunwales, spray catching him in the face as he wrenched open the steel door of his cage. He saw whitecaps illuminated against the fluctuating dark surface of the sea, the familiar points of Ursa Major benign in the still, ecstatic arc of the sky.
With a crippled engine it would take days to return to port. The radio was bleating static and exotic accented English. He vaguely understood that another ship was coming to assist. He knew only that their vessel might never return, that Vallarta might not exist—his single certainty the present, endless moment in which he lay rocking in the prehistoric swells.
He had grown to anticipate meal times with the enthusiasm of a prisoner. One afternoon he lay, again, on his bunk after lunch. The tall African cook had sent out the food, which was growing pale and strange, with a faintly Gallic shrug. A paperback was propped in his hand, his mind straying from the suddenly pointless activity on the page. As the book dropped to his chest and the air around him grew heavy, Felix, the old man at the repair shop, appeared. He was wearing a blue bowtie and sunglasses that completely obscured his eyes.
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