He hesitated a moment, biting down on his answer before he'd managed to complete even one word of it. Then he shrugged his shoulders, turned out the palms of his hands and said with a chuckle of defeated resolve, "Probably forty."
It was half past eleven at night. Paul was up in the room working, preparing something rake-shaped, which he'll use tomorrow to gather the loose cash that collects about the feet of his great friends. Tony, Karl and I sat in the Library, a tall room agleam in the low bar-room light with dim lamps and a patterned wallpaper of hunter green and silver stripes. Outside, snow was falling. We sat in a corner of the room by a window that over-looked the powder-sugared landscape of snow-covered mountain chalets, luxe boutiques and, in the distance, the lighted bottom of Ajax mountain, the gondola there, the shops. No one passed in the streets. Occasionally, two bars of creeping light would herald the slow crawl of one of the hotel's courtesy S.U.V.s., and shortly thereafter, that too would disappear from the window's frost-latticed frame. Light from a street lamp outside cast over Tony's face the most forgiving of glows. In the orange of that night and that space, it was easy, especially in my meager of the man, to forget he was nearing fifty. The lines bordering his eyes melted away and became smooth skin that appeared taught and new.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Dishes
I go to the kitchen to wash the dishes. There is only one sink. I can't wash wine glasses and saucers and coffee cups and forks and knives and a frying pan in one sink. I must separate them. Organize them into flights. So I empty the sink onto the counters, and I stack the plates, and near the plates I situate the frying pan. This will be the first flight. Then I line up the glasses and the yellow coffee mugs. This will be the second flight. Then the silverware - or the metalware - and the knives. Those will be last, because I hate nothing more than washing utensils by hand. All the while the sink is filling to full with hot, soapy water. I dunk the first flight, and take the scrubber, and the debris of meals eaten muddies the water a broth-like brown. Pieces of dried meat sink. Pieces of dried other things float or find stasis. The water is unfit to clean dishes. Flight one finished, I drain the water, and the sink growls as it sucks down the last drink. I clean the sink then refill it with new hot water, pouring orange dish-soap as it fills. The suds rise until there are more suds than there is water. I drop the mugs and cups and glasses into the sink, and they fall with a dull thud.
I'm scrubbing when the slope of West 10th street catches my eye. It is as it ever was, as it ever looked from inside this house, through that square window with the wide wooden blinds. Someone has placed a box on the sidewalk outside the community health center across the street. Someone walking their dog has stopped beside the box, is looking into it, perhaps it holds something worth examining. I haven't seen what's inside. A little black girl wheels down the slope on a plastic tricycle. From the kitchen, where I am finishing flight two, I can hear the squeak of the toy she rides. She is gone. The sink growls down the second flight's dirty water, and I draw more into its basin, pouring more orange soap.
Soon, I will never look out this window again, I think. Flight three will have to wait until I've dried flight two. There's no more space on the drying rack. And I've begun to cry.
I'm scrubbing when the slope of West 10th street catches my eye. It is as it ever was, as it ever looked from inside this house, through that square window with the wide wooden blinds. Someone has placed a box on the sidewalk outside the community health center across the street. Someone walking their dog has stopped beside the box, is looking into it, perhaps it holds something worth examining. I haven't seen what's inside. A little black girl wheels down the slope on a plastic tricycle. From the kitchen, where I am finishing flight two, I can hear the squeak of the toy she rides. She is gone. The sink growls down the second flight's dirty water, and I draw more into its basin, pouring more orange soap.
Soon, I will never look out this window again, I think. Flight three will have to wait until I've dried flight two. There's no more space on the drying rack. And I've begun to cry.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Exercise 1: The Reluctant I: Restlessness
I can see him through the glass doors at the back of the house. He lies sort of supine on the banquette, three quarters of his body sheathed in a blanket, his laptop open, the light of the screen tracing in midnight silver the lines of his face, the bridge of his nose, his naked eyes, his shoulders, the slight swell of his chest. The blanket moves as he breathes. How does the night sound to him, I wonder, from inside the walls of this house. Do the rhythmic sounds of the world reach him where he is? Has his memory relented, now that walls have saved him? Has he forgotten his dreams of blue. . .
A car passes on West 10th, climbing the hill slowly. He can tell the car's speed because of the way the gravel sounds under the weight of the its tires, and the beams of light moving through the slatted wooden blinds of the front windows cast shadows that creep languidly across walls, the things hanging there, and the black bathroom door opposite where he lies.
He shuts his laptop, which claps together with a slight noise, and resituates himself on the banquette so that he sits completely upright. With his arms hanging between his knees, he listens to the room, regarding with searching ears the sounds of air conditioning, perhaps of cobwebs and dust and a few dry leaves moving infintesimally within the space. Desperately, he wants to find something different about the night, something, something new to know about the room and the way it was at this particular hour.
He reaches behind himself to turn off a lamp that hangs from the bookcase there. He turns it back on.
"I'll never sleep," he whispers.
Resigned, he stands. Touching with the palms of his hands the small of his back, he stretches and wonders whether he ought to fold the throw beneath which he'd previously lain. He decides to gather it instead into the corner of the banquette, thinking there was something remarkable about the way it looked gathered there. Eric would appreciate this sort of beauty, he thought. And if Eric would appreciate how the trow gathered in the corner of the banquette, if he agreed it was beautiful that way, that there was some design element to the throw even when the throw had been little more than dropped in one spot, then it wouldn't matter if he didn't fold it.
Feeling neither appeased nor certain he'd made the right decision to leave the throw there, he walked slowly toward the bedroom door, careful not to step with too much weight on the unavoidable parts of the reclaimed wood floor he'd long ago identified as the sentients of the house, always on guard in the night to catch the sleepless and make known to all within those walls their shameful, secret movements.
"Let's try this again," he thought, opening the door, closing it behind him. From outside the room, the muffled noise of careful feet creeked in the beams of the floor as he tried unsuccessfully to spirit himself back into bed.
A car passes on West 10th, climbing the hill slowly. He can tell the car's speed because of the way the gravel sounds under the weight of the its tires, and the beams of light moving through the slatted wooden blinds of the front windows cast shadows that creep languidly across walls, the things hanging there, and the black bathroom door opposite where he lies.
He shuts his laptop, which claps together with a slight noise, and resituates himself on the banquette so that he sits completely upright. With his arms hanging between his knees, he listens to the room, regarding with searching ears the sounds of air conditioning, perhaps of cobwebs and dust and a few dry leaves moving infintesimally within the space. Desperately, he wants to find something different about the night, something, something new to know about the room and the way it was at this particular hour.
He reaches behind himself to turn off a lamp that hangs from the bookcase there. He turns it back on.
"I'll never sleep," he whispers.
Resigned, he stands. Touching with the palms of his hands the small of his back, he stretches and wonders whether he ought to fold the throw beneath which he'd previously lain. He decides to gather it instead into the corner of the banquette, thinking there was something remarkable about the way it looked gathered there. Eric would appreciate this sort of beauty, he thought. And if Eric would appreciate how the trow gathered in the corner of the banquette, if he agreed it was beautiful that way, that there was some design element to the throw even when the throw had been little more than dropped in one spot, then it wouldn't matter if he didn't fold it.
Feeling neither appeased nor certain he'd made the right decision to leave the throw there, he walked slowly toward the bedroom door, careful not to step with too much weight on the unavoidable parts of the reclaimed wood floor he'd long ago identified as the sentients of the house, always on guard in the night to catch the sleepless and make known to all within those walls their shameful, secret movements.
"Let's try this again," he thought, opening the door, closing it behind him. From outside the room, the muffled noise of careful feet creeked in the beams of the floor as he tried unsuccessfully to spirit himself back into bed.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Exercise 14: No Ideas, but in Things
Andrew empties two scoops of vanilla protein powder into a shaker-bottle half-filled with soy milk. He fastens the lid on the bottle, twisting it past what's necessary, then shakes the mixture. He pops the lid open and empties the drink into his mouth.
Through the small, undressed window above the sink, a foggy gray light suggests the apparition of a coast. California, veiled in a writhing morning of tulle-clouds and low, dense fog, doesn't hide what he told me last night was Malibu. It's marked by the colossal slope of darkness - one I'll never forget - that ends what can be seen of the coast through that window. And somewhere past there, around the bend, behind the dark mountain - El Matador.
Andrew's face moves to and from in the kitchen as he carries vitamins and a glass of water to and from, to and from, breaking the morning view through the window into blinking glimpses. He looks here and there, regards with regent's eyes the details outside - the apartments and houses, the fog, the miles of ocean, God only knows. Then he looks at me though not quite at me.
"Ready? They're down there by now." He says.
I nod, holding my breath, biting the inside of my lip. The pull for the zipper of my wetsuit flutters at my legs in a gust of wind coming through the open patio door. Beige carpet - better than cold wood - spreads through my toes. He closes a wooden cabinet.
Suddenly we are descending morning stairs, and the roar of the ocean is bigger than the fog, bigger than the mountain I agree is Malibu, bigger even than the ocean itself. The sound of crashing burrows deep into my ears. To the right of the hill, just beyond the tops of houses and sand-strewn "pads", the twin stacks of El Matador rise out of the Chevy plant and into the fog – two of a kind, built for a purpose, a purpose, to industry, they serve.
Andrew does not speak to me. Or if he does, I can't understand him through the water flooding my brain. The nose of his board angles down the hill. He hurries toward the water, toward who waits for him there. I try to keep up, but I lag behind. I only find him when he stops running.
In the parking lot, his friends are active wiggling into wetsuits, waxing boards, surveying the surf, or saying good morning with elaborate hugs and loud laughter. I squint at the ocean and try to reflect the hour in my face. The wetsuit, once a Christmas gift, hugs my body tightly. I’m only tired, I’ll say . . .
Through the small, undressed window above the sink, a foggy gray light suggests the apparition of a coast. California, veiled in a writhing morning of tulle-clouds and low, dense fog, doesn't hide what he told me last night was Malibu. It's marked by the colossal slope of darkness - one I'll never forget - that ends what can be seen of the coast through that window. And somewhere past there, around the bend, behind the dark mountain - El Matador.
Andrew's face moves to and from in the kitchen as he carries vitamins and a glass of water to and from, to and from, breaking the morning view through the window into blinking glimpses. He looks here and there, regards with regent's eyes the details outside - the apartments and houses, the fog, the miles of ocean, God only knows. Then he looks at me though not quite at me.
"Ready? They're down there by now." He says.
I nod, holding my breath, biting the inside of my lip. The pull for the zipper of my wetsuit flutters at my legs in a gust of wind coming through the open patio door. Beige carpet - better than cold wood - spreads through my toes. He closes a wooden cabinet.
Suddenly we are descending morning stairs, and the roar of the ocean is bigger than the fog, bigger than the mountain I agree is Malibu, bigger even than the ocean itself. The sound of crashing burrows deep into my ears. To the right of the hill, just beyond the tops of houses and sand-strewn "pads", the twin stacks of El Matador rise out of the Chevy plant and into the fog – two of a kind, built for a purpose, a purpose, to industry, they serve.
Andrew does not speak to me. Or if he does, I can't understand him through the water flooding my brain. The nose of his board angles down the hill. He hurries toward the water, toward who waits for him there. I try to keep up, but I lag behind. I only find him when he stops running.
In the parking lot, his friends are active wiggling into wetsuits, waxing boards, surveying the surf, or saying good morning with elaborate hugs and loud laughter. I squint at the ocean and try to reflect the hour in my face. The wetsuit, once a Christmas gift, hugs my body tightly. I’m only tired, I’ll say . . .
Monday, October 5, 2009
Chinatown, Exit Bruno A Enter David H, and David H Builds a Tower of Ice Cream Cartons
Ok, so today I bought a camera - a first for me actually. I hate lugging crap around so, since owning a camera entails using it and using it entails lugging it around, I've always avoided buying one. But, now that I'm in Singapore, and now that I know that Singapore is pretty cool (at least that it looks pretty cool), I've finally broken down and bought...a camera. I guess that this would normally be the part in a blog where you would find proof of such a purchase in the form of pictures etc. However, just because I own a camera doesn't mean I know how to do anything fancy with it, like moving pictures out of it and into my blog. That's a lot more witchcraft than my Christian upbringing will allow me to - *scrolls over icon of photograph in blogging toolbar*
"Add picture"
Oh.
Well I haven't taken any yet, anyway, so...You know...
In other news, I went to Chinatown today (funny that Singapore has a Chinatown at all, considering most of the people here are in fact Chinese) to finally drop off the Shiraz film so it could be printed. So I did that, and then I bought the aforementioned camera, which I successfully haggled all the way down from something obscene like 225 singa dollars to 150. Very proud, very proud. By the way, I've been really upset about the whole issue of cameras since I got here, actually. I thought about buying a one in the states, but I was sure that a camera (because surely all cameras are made in Asia) would be cheaper IN ASIA. That, my friends, was not the case. Be warned, fellow globetrotters: cameras are mas expensivo in Asia. Mysterious though it seems, it is very true, and tragically so at that.
Umm...I had real beef ramen for lunch, but I bought it in a dirty foodcourt in Chinatown, so it was naturally very suspect. Consequently, I only finished about half of it. And then I meandered about for a while. While meandering, I noticed that everything in Chinatown is some kind of herbal remedies store, which I thought very odd. All the windows of these stores are stacked with plain metal shelves, and all the shelves are filled with big glass, screw-top jars, and all those are all filled with antlers or various other dried or pickled thises and thats. The stores are a little weird, but only because there are so many of them, and they're all lined up right next to each other. I'm all for antlers and pickled things in glass jars! Let the records show.
In other other news, Bruno A, who was one of my roommates, is no longer with us. He's in the Phillipines now. Ooops. *Philippines. Two "l"s makes a lot more sense than two "p"s - am I crazy? Anyway, for some reason, David H has assumed Bruno's place in the room. A most unfortunate acquisition, this David H. He's the second of the two 17 yr olds living in this apartment - the first of which, Leonardo W, has slept here since I arrived. So now it's me and the two 17 yr olds, Leonardo W and David H.
Though, it could be argued that another presence is strong enough to merit the distinction of being mentioned as a fourth roommate, and that presence belongs to the smell of Leonardo's shoes. For its powerful, powerful, pungent aroma, the smell of Leonardo's shoes is so constant and forceful a presence that it might as well count as our fourth roommate. Actually, now that I think about it, I might have had a conversation with the smell of Leonardo's shoes the other day, but I can't really be sure. Just as the cloud of the smell of Leonardo's shoes drifted over to me and began to speak, David H came hurdling into the room and scared it away by stripping down to his underwear the way he always so annoyingly does when he comes into the room. I actually can't focus on anything anymore, because David H is always doing or saying something annoying.
Just yesterday, I was washing my face when David H's pasty, lanky arms and legs - it should be noted that David H is only arms and legs, a very odd composition of parts for a model, in my opinion - appeared at the bathroom door with a very important question to ask.
"Ah-Ricky?" David H is from the Czech Republic, not that it explains the funny way he lilts his words when he speaks english. His words sound like how a deep spoon looks. If you can imagine how the way a deep spoon looks would sound, of course.
Anyway back to his question: "Ah-Ricky?"
"Yes David?"
"What is your favorite flavor of Ben and Jerry's?"
I stopped washing my face and looked at him blankly then sighed, "What?"
"Oh. Because. I am just wondering."
"Phish Food," I said. He gave me a dramatic wide-eyed look of disgust, which involved him rinkling his nose, furrowing his brow and raising his upper lip. It was the same look he gave me the day he moved into the room when he asked, much to the chagrin of the smell of Leonardo's shoes, if I had any spray to make the room smell better. "It's a flavor," I said flatly. And with that I went back to washing my face.
Soon enough the room grew a shade dimmer, and I knew that David H and his bright white arms and legs had disappeared from the frame of the bathroom door. I didn't think he believed me about Phish Food being a flavor, nor did I have any idea why he had probed me about which Ben and Jerry's flavor was my favorite.
Then today, after my excursion through Chinatown, I came home, walked into the room, and found atop the bookshelf by David H's bed a tower of empty Ben and Jerry's ice cream cartons with their titles proudly facing outwards in some weird display of triumph or something. At first I was slightly annoyed because I very plainly told David H when I ceded Bruno's empty bed to him last Friday that the top three shelves of the bookshelf were to be MINE. But then I saw the topmost carton of the tower, which read "Phish Food", and I had to smile. And then, since it's my favorite way to feel about David H, I went back to being annoyed.
Look the moral of the story is this: Don't talk to me while I'm washing my face, because in all likelihood, I'm probably feeling very broody about the looming prospect of camera-shopping, and you're probably David H, in which case, anything you do henceforth is bound to be ridiculed in this blog.
Ok, good.
*DUSTS OFF HANDS*
And just like that, day 26 in Singapore was over.
P.S. Ben and Jerry's don't come cheap here in Singapore. 22 bucks a pop, in fact. I'll let you ruminate on that for a day or so. Clearly we have a mystery to solve - the mystery of how David H is able to afford so much Ben and Jerry's.
"Add picture"
Oh.
Well I haven't taken any yet, anyway, so...You know...
In other news, I went to Chinatown today (funny that Singapore has a Chinatown at all, considering most of the people here are in fact Chinese) to finally drop off the Shiraz film so it could be printed. So I did that, and then I bought the aforementioned camera, which I successfully haggled all the way down from something obscene like 225 singa dollars to 150. Very proud, very proud. By the way, I've been really upset about the whole issue of cameras since I got here, actually. I thought about buying a one in the states, but I was sure that a camera (because surely all cameras are made in Asia) would be cheaper IN ASIA. That, my friends, was not the case. Be warned, fellow globetrotters: cameras are mas expensivo in Asia. Mysterious though it seems, it is very true, and tragically so at that.
Umm...I had real beef ramen for lunch, but I bought it in a dirty foodcourt in Chinatown, so it was naturally very suspect. Consequently, I only finished about half of it. And then I meandered about for a while. While meandering, I noticed that everything in Chinatown is some kind of herbal remedies store, which I thought very odd. All the windows of these stores are stacked with plain metal shelves, and all the shelves are filled with big glass, screw-top jars, and all those are all filled with antlers or various other dried or pickled thises and thats. The stores are a little weird, but only because there are so many of them, and they're all lined up right next to each other. I'm all for antlers and pickled things in glass jars! Let the records show.
In other other news, Bruno A, who was one of my roommates, is no longer with us. He's in the Phillipines now. Ooops. *Philippines. Two "l"s makes a lot more sense than two "p"s - am I crazy? Anyway, for some reason, David H has assumed Bruno's place in the room. A most unfortunate acquisition, this David H. He's the second of the two 17 yr olds living in this apartment - the first of which, Leonardo W, has slept here since I arrived. So now it's me and the two 17 yr olds, Leonardo W and David H.
Though, it could be argued that another presence is strong enough to merit the distinction of being mentioned as a fourth roommate, and that presence belongs to the smell of Leonardo's shoes. For its powerful, powerful, pungent aroma, the smell of Leonardo's shoes is so constant and forceful a presence that it might as well count as our fourth roommate. Actually, now that I think about it, I might have had a conversation with the smell of Leonardo's shoes the other day, but I can't really be sure. Just as the cloud of the smell of Leonardo's shoes drifted over to me and began to speak, David H came hurdling into the room and scared it away by stripping down to his underwear the way he always so annoyingly does when he comes into the room. I actually can't focus on anything anymore, because David H is always doing or saying something annoying.
Just yesterday, I was washing my face when David H's pasty, lanky arms and legs - it should be noted that David H is only arms and legs, a very odd composition of parts for a model, in my opinion - appeared at the bathroom door with a very important question to ask.
"Ah-Ricky?" David H is from the Czech Republic, not that it explains the funny way he lilts his words when he speaks english. His words sound like how a deep spoon looks. If you can imagine how the way a deep spoon looks would sound, of course.
Anyway back to his question: "Ah-Ricky?"
"Yes David?"
"What is your favorite flavor of Ben and Jerry's?"
I stopped washing my face and looked at him blankly then sighed, "What?"
"Oh. Because. I am just wondering."
"Phish Food," I said. He gave me a dramatic wide-eyed look of disgust, which involved him rinkling his nose, furrowing his brow and raising his upper lip. It was the same look he gave me the day he moved into the room when he asked, much to the chagrin of the smell of Leonardo's shoes, if I had any spray to make the room smell better. "It's a flavor," I said flatly. And with that I went back to washing my face.
Soon enough the room grew a shade dimmer, and I knew that David H and his bright white arms and legs had disappeared from the frame of the bathroom door. I didn't think he believed me about Phish Food being a flavor, nor did I have any idea why he had probed me about which Ben and Jerry's flavor was my favorite.
Then today, after my excursion through Chinatown, I came home, walked into the room, and found atop the bookshelf by David H's bed a tower of empty Ben and Jerry's ice cream cartons with their titles proudly facing outwards in some weird display of triumph or something. At first I was slightly annoyed because I very plainly told David H when I ceded Bruno's empty bed to him last Friday that the top three shelves of the bookshelf were to be MINE. But then I saw the topmost carton of the tower, which read "Phish Food", and I had to smile. And then, since it's my favorite way to feel about David H, I went back to being annoyed.
Look the moral of the story is this: Don't talk to me while I'm washing my face, because in all likelihood, I'm probably feeling very broody about the looming prospect of camera-shopping, and you're probably David H, in which case, anything you do henceforth is bound to be ridiculed in this blog.
Ok, good.
*DUSTS OFF HANDS*
And just like that, day 26 in Singapore was over.
P.S. Ben and Jerry's don't come cheap here in Singapore. 22 bucks a pop, in fact. I'll let you ruminate on that for a day or so. Clearly we have a mystery to solve - the mystery of how David H is able to afford so much Ben and Jerry's.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Choked
There have been three new deposits to the apartment in the last two days. Three new men, three new boys deposited - one Czech and two Brasilians. And we are ten, now. Twenty legs pacing one dark wooden floor. Ten voices lamenting - in three languages and six dialects - the thick heat, the squalor, the price of rent, the dearth of castings, and above all else, the overcrowding. Ten minds filled with thought - or not - higher than God, lazily resigned, suspicious and afraid, proud and youthful, eagerly searching, adventurous and strange, hungry or starving...But I can't really say, can I? I can only count them, and there are ten. Only one is mine, but I can tell you that it gasps every minute for open, empty space.
In the room, Leonardo polutes my space with noise, Bruno with proximity, and both with their foreign language. Outside the room, Beau, Matej, Josef and David smoke into the space, so I can borrow none of that for my own. Robert had an accident playing soccer and dresses his wounds in the restrooms, leaving dirty bandages littered everywhere. The kitchen suffers from the abuse and neglect of my roommates. It's beyond my skillset to help the kitchen, so I avoid it. Eating is, consequently, quite a burdensome thing. Water leaks in the common restroom, and the tiled floor spends the majority of the week spored over with dark green mold. I can't even shower comfortably. And forget taking a bath, not that I would really relish having one in Singapore, anyway.
I miss hot baths. The curative properties of a piping hot bath, if you're of the sort who is disposed to liking them, are unmatched by anything else in this world. When I was younger, I would take one or two every day. At the ends of so many days, when the silt of defeat covered my skin and my heart and sat heavy on my mind, the clamorous roar of water pummeling into a deep basin of a tub was all I could ever find to ease me. And I would dissolve into it. First my mind, while I listened to the pounding water and removed my clothes. Then my skin, as I lowered myself in past the steam, past the lip of the tub, past the placid surface and all the way into the water, which aggressed over my body like fire at first. And then, rendered from my middle with a long sigh, all my sentience and consciousness would melt as well into the stasis cradling my being. Equilibrium at last...It's a kind of peace that bears you back into the dark ether as if you had never been born at all.
It's dark now. Saturday night, and through my window spill the sounds of Singapore -voices screaming, laughing, crying, faint music, giant leaves rustling in a hot breeze, a breeze which ripples the surface of the swimming pool below my room; I can hear the rippling water, too. A man calls to a taxi on the corner of Leonie Hill and River Valley. He is going into the night. A congested bus sputters a diesel chortle and disembarks. I am lying in my bed with my head propped up against a metal rail and my laptop in my lap. Outside my room, more voices - laughing, scheming up the night. Dishes clank loudly in the kitchen. Someone is preparing to eat. A brief silence. Leonardo clears his throat from across the room, though not to speak. A splash from the pool - I know who is swimming. All is relatively calm. This is a calm. One more chance to leave. Just get up now, run home the way you came and never look back. To familiar faces and arms that have held you...
Footsteps approaching the room with a clopping noise carry Bruno, wet with poolwater, back to his place, and he tells me the water was nice. "Iz cold in here," he says in his nasal, Brasilian accent. He gathers his shampoo and soap and walks into the bathroom to shower, and the space begins to move again. The currents of air softly churn. Leonardo opens his laptop and the currents intensify. Bruno returns, is dressing, is organizing the clutter around his bed, and it's already too late. Out of the dark and back into the night; the only way to cope is to realize - stuck between the past and the future is my body, paralyzed in Singapore. I cannot leave.
"What you want do tonight? Party?" Bruno asks. I cannot respond.
"Party!" Screams Leonardo.
I can't even breathe.
In the room, Leonardo polutes my space with noise, Bruno with proximity, and both with their foreign language. Outside the room, Beau, Matej, Josef and David smoke into the space, so I can borrow none of that for my own. Robert had an accident playing soccer and dresses his wounds in the restrooms, leaving dirty bandages littered everywhere. The kitchen suffers from the abuse and neglect of my roommates. It's beyond my skillset to help the kitchen, so I avoid it. Eating is, consequently, quite a burdensome thing. Water leaks in the common restroom, and the tiled floor spends the majority of the week spored over with dark green mold. I can't even shower comfortably. And forget taking a bath, not that I would really relish having one in Singapore, anyway.
I miss hot baths. The curative properties of a piping hot bath, if you're of the sort who is disposed to liking them, are unmatched by anything else in this world. When I was younger, I would take one or two every day. At the ends of so many days, when the silt of defeat covered my skin and my heart and sat heavy on my mind, the clamorous roar of water pummeling into a deep basin of a tub was all I could ever find to ease me. And I would dissolve into it. First my mind, while I listened to the pounding water and removed my clothes. Then my skin, as I lowered myself in past the steam, past the lip of the tub, past the placid surface and all the way into the water, which aggressed over my body like fire at first. And then, rendered from my middle with a long sigh, all my sentience and consciousness would melt as well into the stasis cradling my being. Equilibrium at last...It's a kind of peace that bears you back into the dark ether as if you had never been born at all.
It's dark now. Saturday night, and through my window spill the sounds of Singapore -voices screaming, laughing, crying, faint music, giant leaves rustling in a hot breeze, a breeze which ripples the surface of the swimming pool below my room; I can hear the rippling water, too. A man calls to a taxi on the corner of Leonie Hill and River Valley. He is going into the night. A congested bus sputters a diesel chortle and disembarks. I am lying in my bed with my head propped up against a metal rail and my laptop in my lap. Outside my room, more voices - laughing, scheming up the night. Dishes clank loudly in the kitchen. Someone is preparing to eat. A brief silence. Leonardo clears his throat from across the room, though not to speak. A splash from the pool - I know who is swimming. All is relatively calm. This is a calm. One more chance to leave. Just get up now, run home the way you came and never look back. To familiar faces and arms that have held you...
Footsteps approaching the room with a clopping noise carry Bruno, wet with poolwater, back to his place, and he tells me the water was nice. "Iz cold in here," he says in his nasal, Brasilian accent. He gathers his shampoo and soap and walks into the bathroom to shower, and the space begins to move again. The currents of air softly churn. Leonardo opens his laptop and the currents intensify. Bruno returns, is dressing, is organizing the clutter around his bed, and it's already too late. Out of the dark and back into the night; the only way to cope is to realize - stuck between the past and the future is my body, paralyzed in Singapore. I cannot leave.
"What you want do tonight? Party?" Bruno asks. I cannot respond.
"Party!" Screams Leonardo.
I can't even breathe.
Monday, September 14, 2009
The Contents of My Suitcase and Blogs that Should Have Been
Clothes, of course - nearly every piece I own and altogether too much. Shoes. Far too few accessory items; style is, it would seem, all about accessories. Ziplocs ziplocking toiletries. Three journals: my first ever - half filled; a leather bound one I bought before moving to California one year ago - half filled, but I'm still committed to it; and his, that which he bought for me in Amsterdam a few months back - only one page bears a thought of mine, and it is of he who gave the gift. Some mail I will never, in Singapore, address. Ibuprofen. An old dayplanner I bought last February for return-to-California scheming and planning. Flight itinerary. Every spiral notebook I've owned since August of, 2008. Bracelet from Hawaii. David Yurman dogtag. And books - more than I'll ever have time to crack: Cold Mountain for its iconic American romance; Through the Looking Glass and Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland; Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell; Charlotte's Web for studying (I'm writing a children's book); Poetry Slam for nostalgic purposes; House of Leaves because I know I'll finish it someday if I keep taking it places; The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes because it is a treasure, and I keep my treasures close; lastly, An Infinite Ache, a play by David Schulner, because reading it makes sighing feel so deep, and I need to sigh deeply sometimes.
I suppose that's pretty much it. A smattering of me. A good portion of everything I own...There's a model here named Adrian. He arrived in Singapore a week before I did and is here for nearly the same exact stretch of time as I am. The living situation in the model's apartment, which is tragic at best, drove him elsewhere, and I don't blame him, but that's not the point. Adrian is the oldest model of the whole bunch of us by a good twenty years - 32 to clients and the agency, but 40 to the rest of the world. So Adrian is a career model, and Adrian's whole person seems to belong to his career, and his career has made him into something of a strange man. Or strange for the modern world, anyway. Wisdom sits very plainly in his eyes and about his loose dress, his stride and stance, his whole carriage, buzzes something like a nomadic energy. You can just tell that he's a wanderer. Now that I've unpacked my things, I realize that almost everything I own is here with me in Singapore, and it makes me think about the past, about how I've been a wanderer, too - drifiting with all my life in bags like a gypsy or something, trying to find home.
There are 8 of us here. Beau J, the Canadian, Robert, the Australian, Matej K and David L, the Czechs, Bruno A and Leonardo W, the Brazilians, Adrian, who is from South Africa and not really here so much physically as spiritually, since he moved to his own place. And then there's me, of course - Ricky B, as the agency has named me. Reportedly, there are two more on the way. No telling how that'll work out, since the apartment has exceeded its capacity as it is. Though I do think Matej should be gone in a week, which is little bit early, you should know. He's sort of lazy and bad-smelling, qualities that don't tend to charm clients. Plus I think he got some girl pregnant within a week of his being here, but that hasn't been confirmed. We are all good guys. We are each completely different. We may not be the best ambassadors of our respective countries and cultures, but we are good guys nonetheless.
It's been 5 days here now, and there are so many blogs that I haven't written, so many stories I haven't told. That's the way it goes, though. I can only do so much, and adjusting has been really traumatic, if I'm being honest. I'm not in mourning for my lost Blackberry anymore, though I still think of it very fondly. New Blackberries will come, and I'll probably lose them, too. But maybe by that time, my t-mobil contract will be up, making the switch to ATT possible. Then new iphones will come! Either way, I feel like sanity is returning to me, and that should make blogging more possible and therefore more regular, which should give you more to follow.
From Sweaty Singapore With Love,
Ricky B
I suppose that's pretty much it. A smattering of me. A good portion of everything I own...There's a model here named Adrian. He arrived in Singapore a week before I did and is here for nearly the same exact stretch of time as I am. The living situation in the model's apartment, which is tragic at best, drove him elsewhere, and I don't blame him, but that's not the point. Adrian is the oldest model of the whole bunch of us by a good twenty years - 32 to clients and the agency, but 40 to the rest of the world. So Adrian is a career model, and Adrian's whole person seems to belong to his career, and his career has made him into something of a strange man. Or strange for the modern world, anyway. Wisdom sits very plainly in his eyes and about his loose dress, his stride and stance, his whole carriage, buzzes something like a nomadic energy. You can just tell that he's a wanderer. Now that I've unpacked my things, I realize that almost everything I own is here with me in Singapore, and it makes me think about the past, about how I've been a wanderer, too - drifiting with all my life in bags like a gypsy or something, trying to find home.
There are 8 of us here. Beau J, the Canadian, Robert, the Australian, Matej K and David L, the Czechs, Bruno A and Leonardo W, the Brazilians, Adrian, who is from South Africa and not really here so much physically as spiritually, since he moved to his own place. And then there's me, of course - Ricky B, as the agency has named me. Reportedly, there are two more on the way. No telling how that'll work out, since the apartment has exceeded its capacity as it is. Though I do think Matej should be gone in a week, which is little bit early, you should know. He's sort of lazy and bad-smelling, qualities that don't tend to charm clients. Plus I think he got some girl pregnant within a week of his being here, but that hasn't been confirmed. We are all good guys. We are each completely different. We may not be the best ambassadors of our respective countries and cultures, but we are good guys nonetheless.
It's been 5 days here now, and there are so many blogs that I haven't written, so many stories I haven't told. That's the way it goes, though. I can only do so much, and adjusting has been really traumatic, if I'm being honest. I'm not in mourning for my lost Blackberry anymore, though I still think of it very fondly. New Blackberries will come, and I'll probably lose them, too. But maybe by that time, my t-mobil contract will be up, making the switch to ATT possible. Then new iphones will come! Either way, I feel like sanity is returning to me, and that should make blogging more possible and therefore more regular, which should give you more to follow.
From Sweaty Singapore With Love,
Ricky B
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