“Because my love is strong
And my heart is weak after all”

“He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was. . . .”

for D. P.-L. and V. P.-L.;
your papa misses you both very much

•     •     •

Prologue

I have a desk here in Austin, Texas. It used to be in Baltimore, Maryland. It has traveled great distances in order to continue performing its duty as a writing surface. I am grateful. I wouldn’t want any other desk, and I’m sure this desk wouldn’t want any other master.

And see: I have here on this very desk a list of things I have promised to talk about this week. Promised whom? Myself, I guess.

I shall hold up the note and read it, and then I will transcribe its contents for you here. That way no one will be confused as to what they’re getting themselves into.

Ah, yes. I am seeing now that it is written haphazardly and sloppily. I must have scribbled in the dark—and under the influence of alcohol, or perhaps with a mind and body that were heavily sleep-deprived. Anyway, here it is:

“Newsletter 011:

1. Village of Berries / Williamsburg
2. Janet George’s house (party)
3. Ayesha kissed me on the head as she said good-bye
4. Thai food with J. and A.
5. Deer Tick & Friends (excerpt)
6. Painting with Perri
7. Bus station
8. Moving to Texas
9. Living in this place + Alex’s presents
10. ‘Get off that bike’
11. Good-night”

That’s all I have written down. These aren’t chapters—they’re ideas. However, there will be chapters, just for fun. I will assign stories under titles arbitrarily.

Yes, and at the top of this list—this list of ideas—there is a picture of a cat, and in a little speech bubble he’s saying this: “Guys. I fucking killed someone and I need your help burying the body.” There is also a phone number with a Baltimore area code. I won’t put that here. God knows where that line leads.

I suspect I am to compose a whole Newsletter off these one-line descriptions of my life for the past month. That’s what I had in mind, I’m sure, when I clumsily jotted them down late one night, I can’t remember when.

I finally have a space of my own to write this thing. See, I’ve been cooped up in a car or living in someone else’s house or sleeping on a floor somewhere for the past two or three months, and I haven’t been able to concentrate. Now I can. I’m so happy about that.

This desk has traveled 1,500 miles in order for me to sit down at it tonight and write to you all. I’m happy you’re here. Hello! Let’s be happy for one another, and celebrate our existences through language transmitted through satellites and cables and wires.

Joy!

•     •     •

Chapter I:
“Do You Want A Barrel? I Will Make You A Barrel.”

I awoke on Christmas Day to a kitten licking my face. It was Lucy. She wanted me to wake up and love her. I said, “OK, Lucy.” I loved her. She loved me. We were both very happy I had woken up.

I knew there were old people in the house, which were Jason’s grandparents, so I made the adult decision to clothe myself in more than boxer-briefs. I stumbled downstairs with a head full of lead balls. I felt weird and disoriented. I had slept very little.

I turned the corner and entered the living room. Jason’s grandmother stood up and smiled. She pulled me close to her. “Merry Christmas, Ryan,” she said. “It’s so good to see you.” Jason’s grandfather shook my hand. Jason’s mother and father gave me a hug each.

The fire I had started the night before was still burning in the wood stove. Everything was warm and cheery. Everything was beautiful.

“Ryan—” said Jason, “you need to call your family. They’re upset that you’re late.”

And there it went: Gone were the feelings of mirth and happiness; out went the light in my heart. I had a family, I realized, and they were angry with me on Christmas.

I called my little sister. Her voice was husky and dark. Something bad had happened. “Where are you?” she said. “And what aren’t you here yet?”

“Mom said 10:30. It’s 10:07,” I said.

“She’s locked herself in her room,” she said, “and she’s very upset that you’re not here yet.”

“Merry Christmas, Kendall,” I said.

“What?”

“I said ‘Merry Christmas’.”

“Just hurry home before she has a meltdown.”

•     •     •

I drove home. I was leisurely about it. I arrived just before 10:30, which meant I was on time, and not at all at fault for anything that any reasonable person could accuse me of. It was Christmas Day, I thought, and there didn’t exist a single reason to be angry at anyone at all.

My family was angry. “Why are you late?” and “Where have you been?” and “Why didn’t you pick up your phone?” were asked repeatedly by nearly every member of my family.

“I was told 10:30,” I said.

“Yes,” said my grandmother, “but you don’t actually show up at 10:30. You show up earlier.”

“What?” I said.

“It makes sense to me,” she said.

“That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever,” I said.

I wished I was back in bed with little Lucy. I would let her lick my face all day if she wanted to. I didn’t give a damn about opening presents and pretending to be normal.

•     •     •

My mother finally descended from her room around 11:00. She looked worn down. I hugged her and told her I loved her. She hugged me back. She said, “I love you, too.”

We opened presents. It was joyless. It had been done to death. Christmas, as far as I was concerned, could end forever on that day. What was the point any longer? It had become a room full of adults who were unhappy to be doing things together. It had become stale and sad.

I received a few books I had been asking for—and a new pair of Adidas Sambas, which I was very happy about. I’d been kicking around in the same Sambas for three years, and here they were, new as they could be: black and white and brown and beautiful. I put them on my feet and began reading One Man’s Meat by E. B. White. I felt OK again.

I made a cup of tea and talked to my mother’s boyfriend. He had given me $100 in airline credit, which is just about the best gift anyone could ever ask for. He knew, somewhere in his heart, that I was a dude who had places to be, and so he tailored my Christmas present accordingly.

“Thank you, Bob,” I said, “for giving me the present I like the most.”

“Yes,” he said, sipping a cup of coffee. “Yes, indeed.” Bob was a man of few words.

•     •     •

The morning became the afternoon, and that meant it was time to leave. My grandmother and I collected our things and packed them away in her car. We were headed West—out to the Village of Berries, where my two dear cousins are from time to time. They were there on this day because it was one of the few days of the year they were required to be there. They were fifty miles away, opening presents with little excitement—tired of the routine, tired of presents, tired of the whole damn charade—yet I knew in my heart, much as they knew in theirs, that the day would be worth it once our wheels rolled down the driveway as a sort of organic fanfare, announcing the arrival of dear friends. We would see each other and be happy. That was something. It certainly wasn’t nothing.

Yes, and we drove and drove—drove on highways that were empty of people, for people were at home with their families, snug and warm and happy. My grandmother and I left because we had to leave. We weren’t snug and warm and happy at all. I brought it up at a gas station outside of Winchester, Virginia.

“You know,” I said, “I just don’t like Christmas anymore.”

“Oh, me too,” she said. “What a waste of time. Your mother gets upset over Kendall, and Kendall gets upset over her, and it becomes a big damn mess. I’m done with it. I don’t look forward to it anymore.”

“I just want to see you and my mother and Kendall. I want us to just get along—to be happy around one another.”

“Boy,” she said, “if only. And here I was just thinking the same thing.” She smiled and rubbed my back. “You and I—we think alike. We’re good friends.”

“Yes,” I said, “we sure are.”

And on we drove. My grandmother periodically handed me apple slices and grapes without my asking. “I have to make sure you’re eating right,” she said. “I’m your grandmother, after all.”

•     •     •

We arrived at 2:00. We were greeted by two black labs—one of whom was energetic and crazy with happiness. The other was old and tired. He looked up at me with drooping red eyes. “Hi, Finn,” I said. I rubbed the top of his head and around his ears. Finn lay down on his bed and curled his tail around his enormous body. He was sad about Christmas, too.

My dear cousins, Ned and John, gathered around the front door and said “Hello” and “How are you?” and “Merry Christmas”. And so too did my aunt and uncle, who were happy to see us, and not at all inclined to yell and scream and complain. They were perfectly content to give hugs and offer food and drink and warmth. Like that morning at Jason’s, it reminded me of what Christmas could be like, if only my mother and little sister didn’t want to rip each other’s faces off.

•     •     •

The three of us—my dear cousins and I—we started a fire in the downstairs wood stove almost immediately. We’d done it since we were boys, and now as grizzled men we continued our fine tradition, albeit with little enthusiasm. Logs were brought in, newspaper was shredded and ignited . . . and three happy faces were lit up in yellow and orange, and warmed by the aftermath of our labor.

“What now?” I said. “What do we do now?”

No one offered any sort of response. We had twenty-four hours to kill before we set out for Williamsburg, deep down in Virginia. There we would surely sit by many more fires, and share many meals together. But for now we were stuck in the basement of my aunt and uncle’s house, tending to the fire with little else to do.

John strummed the guitar and sang. Ned stoked the coals and dashed about here and there online. I sat glumly on the couch. I was hungry. All the fluids in my body were boiling. We’d built the fire up too much, and had made our section of the house uninhabitable.

I stood up and opened the sliding door. Cold air flooded in, devouring the hot air.

“Thank God,” I said.

•     •     •

Midnight came. I had the keys to my grandmother’s car in my bag. I retrieved them and showed John. I told him my mind was wandering, and I was feeling antsy and weird and sad, and that the only thing that could possibly save me was a night drive. He told me he felt the very same way.

We got in the car and sped off in the direction of God-knows-where. Moonlight shone overhead and slipped through the trees, creating thin beams which spread upon the road before us. Dead leaves hung from dead trees. Everything was black and blue and sunken.

We drove to a forest not far from the house. I killed the engine. We talked about girls, and about missing girls, and about loving girls. We sang along to Deer Tick songs and felt pain in our chests when a lyric hit too close to home.

“I am the boy your mother wanted you to meet, but I’m broken and torn with halos at my feet . . .”

“I just want a kiss, a kiss good-bye . . .”

“And you know that I’d wait an awful long time, but you gave up and shoved me aside . . .”

When the cold began to creep in, I turned the car on and asked John where we were headed next. “Go down this road right here,” he said pointing to a winding road to the left to us. It looked spooky as hell. I knew immediately that we had to drive down it.

•     •     •

We zipped down backroads in a car that didn’t belong to us—going too fast, talking quietly, whipping past dark greens and blues and purples while the heater kept our hands and noses from having to feel the bitter cold.

When we found ourselves on a straight and open road, John pointed to a hill up ahead. “Pull over there,” he said. I eased on the brakes and brought the car to a rest on a small slope just off the road.

John opened the door and stepped outside. He rubbed his hands together. He bent down to look at me, as I was still inside the car. “Cold as fuck,” he said.

I opened my own door and felt a rush of frosty wind soar through the car. I shivered and zipped up my coat. I put one foot outside, and then another. I stood up and closed the door, reluctantly leaving the womb behind.

•     •     •

Outside the sky was bathed in a translucent purple veil. Smoky gray swirls infected every cloud so that the surface of the sky was eerie and dark and carved out of coal. Everything under it looked sick and beautiful at the same time. In the distance I could make out the trees which lined the vast meadow before us, smeared in blackness.

I walked over to a white fence and stood by John, who was now puffing away at his sixth or seventh cigarette of the night. “Beautiful out here,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “like the traces of a post-apocalyptic storm. These colors are practically supernatural.”

I listened to the wind whistle through the trees, which rose up to meet me. My face went numb. I didn’t have a cylinder of fire pursed between my lips. I had only the blood in my own body. It failed to warm me.

•     •     •

John, sensing that I was cold, told me it was all right with him if we moved on. I was happy to get back inside the car. Once the doors were closed and the cigarettes were extinguished, I turned on the engine and let the car warm up. I beat my hands against my chest to stimulate circulation. It was a trick I had learned years earlier from having read “To Build a Fire”.

I put my foot on the accelerator and pressed down hard. The car rocketed down the lonely stretch of road, taking us with it. John leaned his seat back and stared ahead with half-shut eyes.

“You tired?” I said.

“A little,” he said. “Not too much.”

“Yeah. I just want to keep driving, but we have to get home. So much for Christmas, I guess.”

“Yeah.”

When the opportunity to turn around appeared, I made a small circle and headed in the direction we had just come from. I anticipated every bump and curve and straightaway. I delighted in the familiarity of it all. I wanted to keep driving and driving, hoping the sun would never come up—and at the same time I very much wanted to be in a bed, soothed and warm, drugged and lonely.

•     •     •

The fire was nearly dead by the time we came in through the basement door. The room had grown dark and frigid. John picked up his guitar. He lit a cigarette, inhaled, blew out a cloud of death and strummed a gentle melody. I wished Ned was still awake, wished he could be with us. But it was just the rat bastard and me, talking vaguely of loves long gone, and of abandonment and guilt and regret. There was little to say that hadn’t be said before.

“God damn it,” I said.

•     •     •

I crawled into bed just before four in the morning. Something resembling sorrow touched me from head to toe, and I found no peace under the layers of blankets that rested on top of me. There would be no relief in sleep. My dreams would be dark and hollow and full of faces I missed so much and so hard that it made my heart squirm in my chest.

John was subduing his own demons on the other side of the room. He too was flickering on and off, battling consciousness to avoid feeling pain, and yet resisting sleep and the nightmares that come with it.

As a matter of nightly routine, my own dreams consisted of six or seven compartmentalized horror stories of hearts stomped and tears shed. John’s, I wagered, were no different.

I lied to myself. My brain told me this: “Close your eyes, this won’t hurt a bit.”

And then I hurt.

•     •     •

That night I entered a dreamworld resembling Baltimore. It was gray and stale and dry. There were no cars on the road, no people on the sidewalks. No birds. No rats. It was only me, stranded in my least favorite place, wandering aimlessly through Mt. Royal, up and down St. Paul Street—and Charles and East Oliver, near Green Mount Cemetery. I got lonely. I walked to MICA, where I hoped to find the only other person I knew in Baltimore.

And then I found myself back in a day I had lived before—in late May of the same year. There she was, waiting for me outside the library. She stood by a bench with her arms folded, staring at the ground with faint blue eyes. Her hair was pulled back and she was wearing the same shirt she’d worn six years earlier, on the day she took a train up to visit me. We were meeting under very different circumstances. There would be hugs, no kisses—no “I love you” and “I want you”.

She stood alone, looking pale and fragile and air-thin, like a whisper or a breeze, too sensitive and wonderful and impossible to exist in such a harsh place. She belonged in Heaven.

I approached her with my hands in my pockets. She wouldn’t look at me.

“Madeleine,” I said. She didn’t answer. She continued to stare at the ground, at her shoes, at leaves blowing across the sidewalk.

And then she moved her head slowly, higher and higher, her eyes studying the way the light hit my skin. Finally she met my gaze. Her face was porcelain, faintly accented with pinks and reds from a night of crying and little else.

It was then I could look into her eyes, which were quivering pink orbs—bloodshot, hollow, impossibly sad.

Something I’d heard before looped in my head: “I’ve never seen eyes so hurt, the kind the scream my name . . .”

I wanted to reach out and touch her, but was afraid I would turn her to dust. I could only watch as she stood in the pale sunlight, achingly beautiful, unsure of what had happened to her world.

I turned and began to walk away. An intense numbing feeling stopped me. And then pain surged through my dream-body’s nervous system, which meant it was being destroyed. Soon the illusion would vanish, and with it the image of the girl who used to love me. I panicked and turned again to face her, but she was nowhere to be found. I looked up at the sky and opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Everything around me disappeared into a tunnel of screaming black nothing. I woke up.

•     •     •

In my waking life I was being summoned to rise by my dear grandmother. Only four hours had passed. She asked me to get dressed and come down to kitchen for breakfast. I felt exhausted and sad.

I put on the same clothes I’d worn the day before and rubbed my head with my right hand, which made my hair look even worse. I looked around the room. The light pouring in from the window hurt my eyes. I coughed. John’s bed was empty. He’d had already woken up and wandered off somewhere.

Downstairs there were croissants and bananas and apples and a carton of orange juice. I ate a cold croissant and put a banana in my back pocket. I stumbled outside without bothering to tie my shoelaces.

Ned and John were loading things into the car. The sun was boiling my eyes in my sockets. I put on a pair of sunglasses and began helping them put luggage in the trunk.

“Are you all right with driving?” said John.

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

I pulled the banana out of my pocket and ate half of it in one bite—likely to the disgust of curious onlookers. I sat down in the car. I ate the other half. I put the key in the ignition and turned it until the engine fired up. It was a four-hour drive to Williamsburg. It was going to be a long four hours.

•     •     •

I spaced out for the first two and a half hours. Ned and Jack switched off playing music. We sat in traffic for a while, and then moved again. Then more traffic—more sitting. Finally we were clipping along at 75 mph as I attempted to keep up with my uncle and aunt and grandmother in the car in front of us.

My subconscious whispered into my mind’s ear: “You’re getting sad again.”

“Yes,” I said.

“You’re sad because nothing’s working,” said my subconscious.

“Yes,” I said.

“Hmm,” said my subconscious. “We just can’t get a break, huh?”

“No,” I said.

“Then how about I cut this wheel and ram us into a tree? Subconsciously, of course.”

“No,” I said. “I love my cousins.”

“Relax. I was only kidding. Come on. Anyway, so long.”

“Bye.”

My eyes began to roll to the back of my head and my eyelids drooped and my body shook and my hands trembled. It was time for someone else to drive.

John took my place. I fell asleep instantly. I was taken from reality into an empty black space where nothing hurt.

“Finally,” I said.

•     •     •

It was cold when we arrived in Williamsburg. People were happy and all around us, walking down the sidewalks and in the street. There wasn’t a somber face to be found. The day after Christmas was just about the best day of the year, it seemed.

We pulled into the parking garage of the Williamsburg Lodge. We got out and carried the luggage up a flight of stairs and then took the elevator. Upstairs the buildings were brick with wood trim. Everything was quaint and simple and wonderful.

“Nice place,” I said.

“Yeah,” said John. “It’s all right.”

Our room wasn’t ready when we checked in, so we relaxed in my grandmother’s room, which was made entirely out of aged wood. We sat on funny chairs and sipped complimentary coffee and tea. I flipped through a hotel guide and discovered that they had a spa.

“We have to go to this,” I said to Ned and John, nearly shaking. “We have to fucking go to this.”

•     •     •

Later that night we dined at The King’s Arms, which was an upscale restaurant that only served colonial food. The dining room was lit by candlelight. I had something involving vegetables and pasta while those around me sucked down fistfuls of meat. I ordered a mint julep and had a glass of wine. I sipped a beer. Quickly I found myself giddy and stupid. I was intoxicated and better for it. Cares drifted away. Money was no longer an issue. Girls were unnecessary.

Yes, and I was pleasantly vacant during dessert. The eyes were buzzing and red, and the mouth was turned upward to form a ghoulish grin, and the hair was tossed and greasy and stuck to the temples.

I was sloppy and wiry and full of pasta and undercooked vegetables by the time the night’s entertainment crossed the dining room floor in full colonial garb. He asked us for song recommendations, and our table was the only one to offer up any sort of suggestion as to how the man should play his guitar and penny whistle.

“Green Sleeves,” said my uncle. He smirked and adjusted his glasses. He took a sip out of his wine glass.

“Yes, sir,” said the man with the guitar and the penny whistle. He played it beautifully.

Afterwards, my uncle handed him five dollars. “Great,” he said. “Just wonderful.”

•     •     •

We exited The King’s Arms with bulging guts. I myself was fostering a broken heart and something of a headache.

“That mint julep—” said my grandmother, “boy, it must have been something, all right.”

“Sure was,” I said. I hiccuped. I was drunk in the presence of my grandmother.

The air was frigid and hurtful. It numbed the tip of my nose. I zipped my jacket up and braved the cold as best I could. John and Ned spotted a fire on the road up ahead, so we meandered down the long dirt road in the direction of warmth.

In the distance I could make out mothers and fathers and little children. They were gathered around the fire, hands in front of their chests, absorbing whatever heat they could. The buildings surrounding them were twinkling with candlelight. In their glow I saw moths and little insects fluttering about. Everyone was looking to escape the cold.

I was the first to reach the fire. There was a small pit with several logs roasting inside. The pit was dug into the dirt road just outside a small tavern. I let the fire warm my chest and arms and legs, and then I turned around and let it heat the rest. I hiccuped again. I needed to be in a bed. I did my best to feign sobriety. I had very little success.

“I want to go back to our room,” I said to John. “I need to lie down.” The two of us began walking toward the Williamsburg Lodge. Ned soon followed.

I looked ahead at what appeared to be an enormous Christmas tree. It was at least a hundred yards in front of us. It was lit up by bulbs shaped like ice cream cones. They were the biggest Christmas lights I had ever seen. Something about it was wonderful and magical, which surprised even me. After years of being disillusioned by the whole thing—by Christmas—I was mesmerized by the spectacle across the lawn. I walked towards it feeling like I had no choice but to do just that.

Soon everyone was gathered around it. My grandmother was particularly impressed. She sidled up next to me and wrapped her arm around mine. “You’ll let an old woman lean on you, won’t you?” she said. She smiled. I could see her breath escape her mouth and dissipate into the bitter black night.

“Of course,” I said. “I don’t mind at all.”

“I always think back to that Christmas we spent in Europe,” she said. “I will always remember it as my favorite Christmas. Vienna is so beautiful at Christmas time, isn’t it? I don’t think I’ll ever see it again.”

“I don’t know if I will, either,” I said.

“Nonsense,” she said. “You will.”

The tree shined and shined. It lent its soft white glow on my grandmother’s face. She was wrapped up in a shaw and a scarf, but I noticed that she smiled again.

“I’m just so happy to be here,” she said. She patted me on the shoulder and rubbed my back.

“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”

•     •     •

When we got back to the hotel room, John pulled out a box full of pipes and tobacco and so on. He invited me to walk around the grounds. He wanted to puff away at his pipe and talk about philosophy and women and sadness. I said, “OK.” I said, “Why the hell not?”

I washed my face in the sink and stared at myself in the mirror. I looked long gone. There were ten years of sadness behind my gaze, and my hair was sloppy and long, and my five-day beard had become a two-week beard. I smacked myself until I woke up a little, and opened my sore eyes wide. I was ready to smoke a pipe and talk about philosophy and women and sadness. “Let’s go,” I said to myself. I put on another layer and zipped my jacket up tight.

John was sitting on the bed when I walked into the room. He was packing two pipes full of black tobacco. “Ready?” he said. I nodded. We left out the side door. He closed it behind us, shutting out the light and warmth and the two of us reentered the wintery nothing we had been so happy to escape only thirty minutes before.

John handed me a packed pipe. I placed it between my lips and smelled the tobacco. “It’s strong stuff,” he said. “Maybe stronger than you should be smoking.”

“That’s all right,” I said. He lit a match and held it up to the tobacco in my pipe. I inhaled until flames and smoke appeared. I let out a cloud of gray air and puffed some more. “Make sure you get a really hot cherry,” he said, “and then let it sink down to the middle. That’ll keep it lit.” I vaguely understood what he meant.

He lit his own pipe and smoked it like a pro. I had to be relit several times until I got the hang of it. The smoke felt strange in my throat. It floated and then stayed there until I let it escape from me.

We walked around the hotel grounds, up and down the walkways and in between all the buildings. Everyone who passed us seemed annoyed that we were smoking.

John had an expression on his face which I envied. It said this: “I don’t give a fuck.”

•     •     •

I drunkenly took a bath when we got back to the room. My face was hot with alcohol. I filled the bathtub to the brim and hopped in. I daydreamed about my furry little boys, and wondered what they were doing. I prayed in my heart that one day I would see them again.

Yes, and I stayed until the water turned lukewarm. I shivered and dreamed and dreamed. When it was time to get out, I did so reluctantly. I wrapped myself in a white towel and sat down on the floor. I stared at the wall with dead eyes. I let memories and illusions play out on the white space before me.

When I was done slobbering on myself, and crying like a child, I stepped out into the room. Ned and John were asleep. I crawled under the blankets and joined them in dreamland.

•     •     •

I was awoken the next morning at an hour which seemed unreasonable to me. It was ten a.m. My aunt and uncle knocked on the hotel door and beckoned us to join them for breakfast. They left, telling us to meet them in the lobby in fifteen minutes.

Ned opened the side door and reported that it was cold outside. I rolled over. I felt like I never wanted to wake up. John was wide awake. He was beside me. We’d slept in the same bed.

He coughed and swore. He put on a little knit hat and buttoned up a flannel shirt, feeling perhaps a little sad, a little hollow. He knew, just as well as I did, that there was nothing outside our room that could make “it” go away. “It”, of course, was the pain of abandonment—of mental anguish.

“I need a vacation from this vacation,” said John.

•     •     •

We spent the day wandering around Williamsburg. We saw how silver was wrought into spoons and forks and kettles, and how shoes were assembled, and how blacksmithing was done, and how newspapers were printed two-hundred years ago. Each shop was warmed by an enormous fireplace, with small logs piled up just beside it or stacked neatly outside. The tradesmen and tradeswomen were adorned in traditional colonial garb. They spoke of older times, and cracked wise at their employment in trades which were no longer valued by the world, and of their anachronistic existences. It was a splendid day to be alive—to see it all happen.

The most exciting trade—and I mean this with no sarcasm—was the creation of barrels. The cooper, or barrel maker, was a fine gentleman: a rotund and jolly and amiable one. He sat alone in his workshop, carving wood and bending steel hoops and talking to everyone who had any questions to ask about how exactly a barrel was made. He was the best tradesmen we’d met all day (which was a toss up between him and the silversmith).

A daring older gentlemen in the front row was the first to speak up: “How exactly are barrels made?”

“Like this,” said the cooper. “Just like this.” He used a U-shaped carving tool to gut a chunk out of a rectangular slab of wood.

“Are they watertight?” asked a woman in the back.

“Sure are,” said the cooper.

“Naturally? Or do you have to apply some sort of lacquer?”

“Naturally, ma’am,” said the cooper.

“Oh my,” said the woman.

“Yes,” said another man, “and do you bend the rings yourself?”

“Sure do,” said the cooper. “That’s the easiest part.”

“Why’s that?” said the man.

“Because the metal is easy to bend,” said the cooper.

“And do you have the blacksmith create the rings, or . . . ?”

“No sir,” said the cooper. “They are not made in Williamsburg.”

“Where are they made, then?” said the man.

“Somewhere else,” said the cooper.

•     •     •

We visited the gardens of rich dead Englishmen, and the simple offices of a local governments long since disbanded. When we were outside on the main stretch, I noticed something tremendous: In every part of Williamsburg there were families milling about with smiling faces. Mothers and fathers and boys and girls strolled the dirt and cobblestone roads with a slight hop to their gait—excited at the possibility of seeing a townsperson in colonial dress, or a horse—all of them bundled up to ward off the cool December air.

I myself was as happy as I ever get, and not at all bundled up enough to do anything but warm the outermost layer of my skin, which even then was in dire need of a second of third layer, or a hot beverage to course through the veins just below the surface. I escorted my grandmother around, taking her this way and that way until she was satisfied with having seen everything that was to see. Williamsburg is awfully small.

Yes, and we stopped for lunch at a local eatery, all of us famished. There was no amount of food that could fully satisfy us. I had an enormous pecan salad topped with goat cheese and blueberry vinaigrette. I also shared some of Ned’s french fries, as he was feeling awfully generous on that particular day. I sipped tea and real root beer—and gulped down entire glasses of water before refilling and having another go. John was brave. He downed an entree that at first I believed to be too rich for one human being to consume in one sitting. It was some sort of pasta monstrosity—covered in cheese and dashed with ground bacon. When he spooned the last bite, I felt a little proud of him. I wanted to shake his hand. Instead I silently poked at a mound of goat cheese.

Once lunch was finished, and the bill was taken care of, and our stomachs were modestly filled, and our moods sharpened and our energy replenished: we visited a peanut store and a pewter shop. Both were as interesting as they could possibly be, given their wares were so simple.

At the peanut store, John bought a large sack full of dry-roasted peanuts. My grandmother found pickled watermelon rinds, and for whatever reason decided that she had to have them. Ned and I were content to leave the purchases to everyone else, and instead ate chocolate-covered almonds and cashews. It was free and better than anything else we could have possibly been doing.

A small elderly woman approached me from behind. She tugged at the sleeve of my jacket and asked that I turn around. It was my grandmother. She was holding up a jar full of watermelon rinds packed in a dark translucent slime. She shook the jar once and smiled. “These are going to be a hit at the senior center,” said my grandmother.

•     •     •

I could tell you about the brass quintet that played all of one and a half Christmas songs for us before the fire alarm went off, forcing us to evacuate the building. I could tell of the very museum we evacuated, and how I fell asleep in a chair next to maps that were two-hundred years old, and how I nearly tripped into a display box housing muskets and blunderbusses that were just as old. Or maybe you’d like to hear of the rain and the wind that herded us under a large oak tree.

But I sure as hell don’t feel like writing about any of that. It happened, though, if that means anything.

So there’s that.

•     •     •

The three of us—Ned, John and I—we spent the evening watching a six-hour marathon of some sort of television program that focused on buying storage units and selling the contents for stupid amounts of money. At first we watched with indignation (“This is so stupid!”), then with amazement (“How the fuck was there a jet ski in there?”), and finally with love (“I love this show”). During commercials, I would brew tea of coffee for everyone, as we had been hoarding it and getting refills every time the maid cleaned our room.

At some point John and I left for the spa. I was excited to utilize its many features. As it turns out, most of the unusual and tantalizing features were for paying customers only, and so I never did get to discover what exactly an “experimental shower” is.

Still, John and I had a really eventful and productive dip in the hot tub. In between children splashing wildly, we were able to utter complete paragraphs to one another about the future of VIII Nothing Publishing. John told me he was working on getting a grant from his university, and that there would be travel and hard work ahead. I told him it was God damn worth it.

I tried to swim in the pool, but there were too many children in there. They were noisy and rude. I got out. I stepped back into the hot tub and let myself melt into nothing. John felt like speaking with nothing.

This is what he said: “Ryan—” he said, “let’s get the fuck out of here.”

I stood up and walked over to a plastic chair where my corduroy pants and rivet belt were hanging like a flag. I dried myself off and put my clothes on. I felt weird and awkward just then. I wanted to be somewhere else, but had no place to go, so I followed John out of the pool area and into the gym.

As we walked past the treadmills, a young woman stepped out of the yoga room and sized us up. She looked at me, then at John, then back at me. She winked and said, “Ow!” She smiled. I didn’t do anything in return.

“Did you see that?” I said to John while crossing the parking lot.

“Nope.”

“Some girl winked at us.”

“Can you blame her?” said John.

•     •     •

I fell asleep when we got back to the room, my hair still wet from the hot tub. I went into a sort of fever dream. It was terrifying. It was the sort of nightmare one seeks psychotherapy for. In it, I communicated with dead friends, and told them I wished they were still alive.

“Sorry,” said Chris Economy, “but that’s just not going to happen. It can’t.”

“Yeah,” said Katie Beach. “Sorry.”

“It was nice seeing you, anyway,” I said.

And then there was the color green, and the feeling of warmth. My dead friends had disappeared, leaving me alone. Everything was wavering like shiny ribbon. I walked through endless spaces in search of a way out, never to find one. I stopped and felt a sensation in my stomach. I placed my hand on it and felt around. When I held my hand up to my face, it was covered in blood. I coughed.

I could make out the smell of coffee somewhere in the distance. It was John—back in the real world. He was brewing a cup at the foot of the bed. I snapped out of my dream and sat up straight in bed. The nightmare vanished behind my eyes.

I said “Oh” and “fuck” and stood up and walked to the bathroom. I splashed cold water on my face and oriented myself. I smiled and mouthed “Welcome back, you crazy fucker” to my reflection. I figured it was best I hadn’t taken an experimental shower.

•     •     •

We had breakfast and drank hot apple cider and all that. We cleared out our room and packed everything up in two cars. John and I agreed to meet each other at my grandmother’s house later that day, as we intended to drive in the direction of Richmond—to the row home of master portrait artist Janet George. There we would discuss our website, and our plans for starting a publishing company. That and we missed Wylie, who was a little gray and white cat that lived in Janet’s house. We were most excited about that part.

John echoed the same sentiment from the day before: “I need a vacation from this vacation.” I myself had had a splendid time in Williamsburg, and was sad to leave. I lamented the fact that it would be the last time I would see my family, as there remained only a handful of days before I would set off towards the Lone Star State with Jason.

But God damn if didn’t want to see Wylie the cat, too.

•     •     •

My grandmother and I drove for several hours. She told me about the war, and about how she went without food for weeks on end, and how the Nazis killed her father and so on. I had heard the stories before, but still I found them mesmerizing and incredible and depressing.

“When my time comes—when I go off to some other place, well, I’ll have graduated life with a Doctorate, I tell you,” said my grandmother. It was one of her favorite things to say. What she meant was that she was no spring chicken, and that the world had been cruel to her, and that she wanted some sort of recognition for the miserable years that she had put up with, even though she was the most blameless person I had ever known.

She smiled. She patted me on the back. “I’m just glad I have my family,” she said. “Thank God for my grandsons and granddaughter. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

With her free hand she turned the volume knob on the radio. Mozart flowed out of the speakers. It was sweet and light and magical.

“Mmm,” said my grandmother. “I just love Mozart.”

•     •     •

We arrived at the end of a long afternoon. The sun was setting, and the western sky was blood red and streaked with cold light. The clouds were dim and somber. It would be another two hours until John arrived to pick me up. Then we would depart for Richmond, listening to rock and roll as loud as we could manage. John would smoke like a chimney, and we’d talk about how good it felt to be alive just then, and speak of sorrows now familiar to use both, and console each other with music and laughter and abbreviated silences.

Until then, I passed the time with a tin full of Christmas cookies and a glass of peach tea. I listened to my grandmother hum along to invisible melodies as she moved about the kitchen, and wondered aloud if I could ever be as happy as I wanted to be.

“You will, Ryan,” she said.

•     •     •

Chapter II:
“A Sad Man’s Slumber”

John arrived when the sky was dark and the wind was cold. We would use the headlights and heater to ward off both. My grandmother attempted to rid her house of fruit and sweets and the Christmas cookies I was too full to finish, and so she collected everything into a plastic bag and sent us on our way. John had already packed the car with provisions for the long trip ahead, but we happily accepted what we were given and hit the highway as soon as we could. After a few mishaps and bad directions on my part, we were well on our way, rocketing down Interstate 95 while listening to dead rock stars sing about how hard it is to survive on this stupid godforsaken planet.

For the majority of the trip, John’s window was cracked, a cigarette dangling between his index and middle finger as he piloted the vehicle with one hand. The heat was blasting, which quickly chomped at the icy air zipping in through the window, and which kept the cabin temperature at a near perfect mix of warm and cold. We swapped off playing songs, singing along even if we didn’t know the words, and feeling that familiar bond of brotherhood that floats always just on the surface of our time spent together.

We drove for nearly ninety miles or so. The city could be seen on the horizon, lit up as though it were on fire, and it may as well have been. We took the offramp, which fed into the Broad Street, and it was there we raced in the direction of Janet George’s house.

John stopped for gas near the local Kroger, where a homeless man approached the car with pleading hands. He was mostly unintelligible, but John, sensing that the man meant no harm, offered up the only currency he had, which was a single cigarette. The man put it in his mouth, and John lit it for him. He waved good-bye and disappeared into darkness.

After that, it was only a matter of turning down Strawberry Street, and then onto Grace.

“Such lovely street names,” I said to John. He nodded and sparked another tube of tobacco.

•     •     •

It was bitter cold out when we left the warmth of the car. I buttoned my pea coat and thrusted my hands into my pockets. John grabbed his bag and locked the car. We approached Janet’s front door feeling awake and alive.

I knocked. A few seconds later I could make out the faint sound of footsteps coming down the long hallway which lead to the front door. The door swung open. There stood Janet George, looking pretty as always. She said something about the cats, and to not let them run out the house. The door was soon shut, and hugs were exchanged.

We set our things in the living room and played with Wylie. He had grown since I had last seen him, and was now a lanky teenager with big ridiculous ears. His little pink nose wiggled around as he sniffed our bags, curious as to where we’d been. I scooped him up into my arms and rubbed his stomach.

It was quickly decided that we should purchase some sort of alcohol in order to speed up the process of feeling wonderful around one another. Alcohol, the damn stuff—it has a way of lubricating the invisible stuff inside us. It makes laughter come easier, and kisses come sooner, and tears just a lonely shower away.

I was the only one amongst us with the power to purchase bottled ethanol, and so like a real sport, I did. Money was collected, and John whisked us away in his car. We ended up at the Kroger right off Broad Street, about where we’d met our homeless friend only a half hour prior.

I walked inside while John and Janet followed far behind, so as to avoid arousing suspicion regarding the terrible crime I was about to commit. We soon forgot protocol entirely, and everyone ended up in the beer aisle. I was fully prepared to purchase a twelve-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, which is an all around mediocre beer by anyone’s standards. I told John and Janet what I tell everyone when they ask me what kind of beer I like: “The shittier the better.”

“Just get Pabst,” said Janet.

John pointed to a colorful case of beer. “I want this one,” he said. It was something expensive and hoppy. I picked it and the case of Pabst up and walked towards the register, leaving my friends behind, for I was doing the work of a villain and a lawbreaker.

•     •     •

We were cracking open beer cans and petting cats as soon as we were back at Janet’s house. Her roommate, Courtney, was making brownies with another girl in the kitchen. She was singing and dancing all over the place. She had on velvety maroon pants, and so it made everything about the situation that much better.

Janet heated up some vegetarian chili and served it to John and me. It was quickly devoured. I downed a beer, and then another, and was well on my way to becoming roaring drunk so as to avoid the embarrassment of being a human being. I picked Wylie up with my free hand and slung him over my shoulder. He seemed relatively happy to be a cat.

Soon we were gathered around a small wooden table in the living room. Janet and John and I were seated on a long plushy couch near the windows, and Courtney and her friend were opposite of us. Everyone was happy and red-faced. We played a few card games to speed up the process of becoming even more red-faced. I had always avoided card games—and really, games in general—and so it was a new experience for me. Do this and then you drink. Don’t do this and then you drink. If you have these cards, you drink. If you don’t, well, you should drink anyway. It was a peculiar thing to be a part of.

One such game that I find myself now fond of was called “Drink While You Think”. The rules were elementary and self-evident: one simply had to consume alcohol while pondering the names of famous individuals whose first name alphabetically followed the previous drinker’s name. Which is to say, when the person before me said, “Uma Thurman,” I followed with an old friend I’ve never met, being “Vincent van Gogh”. Because of the two V’s, the turn shifted back to the person before me—such were the rules of the game. Caught off guard, this person ended up drinking a lot more than they would have otherwise. And this is how it came to be that everyone ended up being psychotically and stupidly and hopelessly drunk within a very short amount of time.

All the while we laughed and looked upon one another with curious-happy eyes. We ate brownies which were at first too hot, and sipped beer, and carried on like young people will until someone made mention of “going outdoors”—and after that there was no turning back, for we had to venture outside.

Courtney lead us out the front door, beer in hand, and down Grace Street. The five of us went jaunting along the frozen sidewalks, content to go wherever it was we were going. Janet and Courtney knew precisely where that was, but kept it a secret in hopes of surprising John and me. When we’d make inquiries, we were silenced with little smiles, and promises of something wonderful just ahead.

“It’s just a little further . . .” and “Come this way, and hurry . . .” and “You’re really going to love this . . .” were all said rather cryptically, and smiles were exchanged between the two girls, and my curiosity bubbled over and I wished very much to be a part of the big reveal. I kept my beer in my coat and took sips when we were covered in darkness, either by some lonesome building or row of bare winter trees, where only thin strips of moonlight shone through, creating sinister lines on the sidewalk which resembled spider legs.

Finally we found ourselves gathered around an antique car, restored to the day it was born, pale as a cloud and garnished along the tires in long elastic wires embedded with twinkling Christmas lights. The roof was wreathed with silvery garland and oversized plastic candy canes and a purple flamingo topped with a little Santa cap. Everything was splendidly gaudy. In the driver’s seat of the car was a life-size mannequin of Father Christmas himself, outfitted in traditional red suit, his vacant eyes surveying the statue of Robert E. Lee on horseback across the way.

“Maybe we built it up too much,” said Courtney.

“Yeah,” said Janet. “I guess maybe it’s not that great.”

“You’re both wrong,” I said. “This is a sight to see, all right. And it was. You had to be crazy not to find a little joy in something so stupidly colorful—so thoughtfully bizarre.

•     •     •

We must have walked back to the house, because that’s where we ended up. Time began to blur together, and a wonderful feeling of serenity blossomed inside my chest. I was comforted by the chemicals in my body, and by the feeling of being wanted somewhere, wherever that happened to be—which on this night was Richmond. A deck of cards was shuffled and shuffled again—and I was given a hand and told to pair one card with another, and this and that, or something or another, and so I did as I was told. The end result was that I had another beer, it being my sixth or seventh, and I announced to my friends that I had drunk enough, and that I had reached a point where the fluids in my body would do just fine, and that no more was necessary in order for me to coexist with such authentically beautiful human beings. At least I thought as much in my reeling brain.

I lurched into the kitchen and poured myself a cup of water, as is my custom (I am not built for hangovers), and downed it in one gulp. I had another. John joined me a moment later. He asked me if I wouldn’t mind accompanying him on the deck where he intended to cave to his bad habit, and of course I agreed and took my cup with me. It wasn’t long before the glow of tobacco was all that lit our faces, and beyond the windows I could make out the camaraderie of friends I wished to return to in the time it took for a cigarette to burn.

John glared out at the skyline before us—far into the distant neon, his lungs becoming blacker and more ragged with each puff of smoke. I was familiar with his expression and far away silence. It was the look of thoughtfulness and deep sorrow. Before I could comfort him with the only words I had in me, he motioned for me to get close to him. “Come here,” he said. He hugged me. I patted him on the back and we both resumed the empty trance we were in seconds prior, gazing out in the vast emptiness of the coal-black sky.

Janet joined us mid-cigarette, and sat down on a leather chair near a little table. We talked to her about our plans to publish all the writing we’d done in the last year, and of realizing our lofty, stupid dream to save literature. We told her we were setting ourselves up to fail, and that we looked forward to going down in flames—principled, full of heart, not afraid to die.

“Sounds good,” said Janet George.

•     •     •

When we were back inside, I called Ayesha and told her I was in Richmond. She told me she’d had a hard night, and that no one loved her, and that she needed badly to be in the presence of nonjudgmental saints. I told her I would be pleased if she would show up, and that there would be healing and acceptance—and alcohol. She said, “Be there in twenty minutes.”

It wasn’t ten minutes before I received a message bidding me to come unlock the door. I walked down the long hallway which would lead me to Ayesha, little baby Wylie slung over my shoulder. I swung the door open and a wave of cold air flooded into the house. Ayesha stood next to her bicycle, clothed entirely in black. “Hey,” she said. I led her into the house, and she set her bicycle down in the hallway and followed me into the room where friends were gathered and where the lights were warm and yellow.

I introduced Ayesha, and everyone said, “Hello!” and “Hey!” and “Nice to meet you!” Ayesha produced a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20. It was a rich, tropical red color. It looked like childlike and magical. She took a swig and sat down on the couch next to me. John picked up the bottle and, without asking, took a commanding gulp. No one flinched, and in fact we found ourselves respecting him more afterwards. “This is my cousin,” I said to Ayesha.

“Oh, so you’re John Blacksher?” she said.

“That’s me,” said John.

Ayesha stood up and took another sip of the concoction she’d brought with her. “You won’t fucking believe my night,” she said. And then she told us just why that was.

•     •     •

Eventually I walked Ayesha to the front of the house. She said she was going to go eat some pizza. I asked her what she’d done to herself, as she looked slightly different since the last time I had seen her.

“What do you mean?” she said.

“When did you get so beautiful? My God, Ayesha,” I said. I put my hand on the shoulder of my old friend. “You’re a real knockout.”

“Thank you, Ryan,” she said. Seated on her bicycle, she kissed me on the head and sped off down Grace Street. I watched my breath for a little while and then returned to the house, where I intended to pass out on someone else’s bed.

•     •     •

Time flew the hell by. It was nearly two in the morning by the time three young men showed up to cause utter chaos in our quaint living room setting. Of these young bucks, one was Courtney’s boyfriend. He was a real piece of work. His eyes were dull and dead, his hair long, and his aspirations did not sail above recreational marijuana use and the utterance of unintelligible babble. The stooges with him were, at least in my eyes, violent and dumb. They threw things around the room, drank all the beer, and generally acted like the horses asses they are for longer than should have been permitted.

I was fed up with stupidity and carelessness, so I quietly excused myself and found a quiet place to curl up and die for a little while. I locked the door so as to avoid nighttime visitors, and rested my spinning head on a pillow which smelled like lavender and baby powder.

The lights went out in my head, and everything vanished as soon as my eyes were shut. I was a happy man—irritated, but happy.

•     •     •

At some point in the night, I was awoken by a rude noise which came from the room’s second door. I had neglected to remember the second door. It was attached to the bathroom near the kitchen, and accessible by a folding white door. It was unlocked. In fact the mechanism to lock it had been broken off, and so I was left exposed to the wastrels who had come to ruin everything.

But it was Courtney who approached the bed. She knelt down beside me and felt around for human life, at which point she discovered my legs. “Oh my God!” she said. “I think there’s a person in here.”

“Yes,” I said. “Hello! It is just me. I was sleeping, but now I’m awake.”

“How are you?”

“Oh, just fine.”

“Yeah. Well, good-night.” She vanished.

•     •     •

A dream:

I wake up and stretch my hind legs and my paws and yawn. My mouth is open, and my sharp little teeth are extended towards the ceiling. I look ferocious, but I would never in my life bite anyone—unless we’re talking about my brother, whom I will playfully nip at when he won’t leave me alone, which is often.

I hop up on the bed. I have a little difficulty with the jump on account of my slight obesity. I brush off my shame and carefully approach the slumbering human before me.

“Mother—” I say in my own language, “Mother, wake up.” I paw at her face with my little gray hand. She stirs and rolls over. She doesn’t want to wake up just yet, but I’m very hungry; I must wake her up.

“Mother!” I say. “For God’s sake, feed us!”

Now her eyes are partially open, and she says one of the few words in her language that I am able to comprehend, which begins with my name: “Dante, no! I have to sleep a little longer.”

I jump off the bed pad over to my brother, who is curled up on a blue blanket that reminds him of our birth mother. He is twitching, and his eyes are half-open. He is making little noises which warn of the discomfort in his brain. What is he dreaming about?

“Virgil!” I say. “You contemptible oaf! Wake up!”

“What, what?” says Virgil. “What do you want?”

“We must wake Mother—” I say, “for I am famished, as I imagine you are as well.”

“I ain’t hungry,” says Virgil. “And anyway, why should I help you? You never want to play with me.”

“Hmph!” I say. I point my tail towards the ceiling, and lift my head in a haughty gesture of superiority. I blink twice and clamber back up the bed. Again, it is an arduous task—and here I shall make a mental note that I endeavor to lose weight in the immediate future.

“Mother!” I shout. “I must be fed! I have a condition, you see, and it requires that I am to eat at regular intervals. So please, for my health, I implore you to reassess your priorities and feed your poor son. For the sake of clarity, I will make mention that I am of course referring to myself.”

“Dante, no,” says Mother. “I have school today—I need all the sleep I can get.”

Once again I find myself on the hardwood floors of this accursed place—of this new home I am expected to call my own. My mind wanders where it often does, and I think of my dear father.

Alas! Where are you? At last mention, I was told you were 3,200 miles away, in the fair city of San Francisco. And now you are gone. Mother took us in the night—took us away in a cage. She brought our climbing tree—the carpeted monstrosity, if you’ll remember—and along with it all the cans of food you purchased on the last day we ever saw you, and the cat nip and the little bag of toys we love so dearly.

Father! How I long to see your face again. How I think of you fondly, and await the day when we are reunited. I have so much to tell you, and wish to hear of your many adventures.

What have you done to Mother? Why is it she is keeping us from you? Virgil and I—we love you, we truly do. It was not my decision to flee our home. Were I a bird, I would fly to you, I swear it. But I am a cat, and as you may be well aware, we are flightless creatures.

Yes, and she cried, Mother did, when she wrote you that long, long letter. She told us, “We have to go away for a while,” and “I don’t know when you’ll see your father again.”

Isn’t there something you can do to mend your relationship with her? Have you tried writing her? I am hungry. I know if you were here right now, you would gladly feed me. You would hold me and nuzzle me and tell me how important I am to you. You would say, “I love you, Dante,” and “I’ll never leave you, Dante.” You would rub my belly and scratch me behind the ears—and comb and pet me. You would open yourself up and allow every ounce of love and affection to pour out, so that I may be the beneficiary of your infinite adoration.

I would even let you trim the hair just below my tail. I am sorry that in the past I ran away when you tried to do it. I realize now that you did this so that I wouldn’t have any more litter box accidents. It was embarrassing; I was ashamed. I’m sorry, Father.

Are these tears?

Now I’m walking over to a sketchpad that Mother has left open. I pick up a felt-tip pen with both paws—I’ve been practicing—and with a bit of a struggle I manage to remove the cap with my mouth. I am scribbling something down on paper with the hope in my little heart that Mother reads it with consideration for my happiness.

It’s sloppy, and I am by no means fluent in the English language, but I manage to scrawl this out in wobbly letters:

“I miss Ryan.”

•     •     •

Chapter III:
“I was feeling a little sick and I wanted to be alone.”

I awoke in the early morning and found John sleeping soundly at my side. He was wearing all his clothes, and was snoring like a real bastard.

“Wake up,” I said.

“Huh—what?” said John.

“I’m really hungry.”

“Um, yeah, me too.”

I stood up and shook my head and ran my hands through my matted hair and slapped my face gently. My vast consumption of water the night before had afforded me a hangover-free day, and so I strolled into the hallway and then the living room with a clear head and wide eyes and fully functional brain.

The living room was post-apocalyptic. I almost couldn’t believe the destruction I was witnessing. Half-drunk beer cans were strewn about, and the the entire deck of cards had been thrown around carelessly, some of them sticking to the floor, caked with muddy footprints. And the couches were in odd positions, and there were pieces of brownie here and there, and someone’s laptop was still open and blaring some atrocity that I vaguely recognized as music. I felt deflated and miserable. The most tragic part was that there was no place to sit.

I rummaged around the kitchen and found a trash bag. I returned to the living room and threw away anything that was made of aluminum or had been baked in the oven the night before. I even threw away Ayesha’s empty Mad Dog 20/20 bottle, which had rolled under the couch. The cards were collected into their little box, and the floor was swept, and the couches were moved back to their usual positions. Everything was soon right again.

John walked into the living room and stretched his arms. “Yeah,” he said, “those guys from last night did this. The fat one was just knocking shit over left and right.”

“What a bunch of assholes,” I said.

“To put it lightly,” said John.

•     •     •

Soon we were outside, walking up Strawberry Street. We were on our way to Ayesha’s house. Ayesha insisted she was still in bed, and thus not properly dressed for venturing outside, and that she would need time for a shower and so on. That didn’t faze us one bit. And so we went anyway.

When we arrived on her street, I quickly scanned the addresses on the sides of the row homes and found hers. A black cat was in the window. “That’s Pickle,” I said. “That’s her cat.”

“If you say so, man,” said John.

“Pickle!” I said. I meowed, hoping he would answer me. The cat stared at me with hollow eyes, completely unaffected and bored with my presence. He jumped off the windowsill and disappeared into the apartment.

“God damn it,” I said. And so I called for my old friend instead: “Ayesha! We’re outside! Come let us in!” This went on for ten minutes. Nothing happened.

Finally I called her on the phone. “We’re out front, and Pickle just scampered off without saying a word to me, and I don’t know how much louder I can be about saying your name.”

“My apartment is in the back,” she said. “That’s not my apartment at all.”

“Oh. Then whose was it?”

“How the fuck should I know?”

•     •     •

Eventually we were let in. John put out his cigarette and followed Ayesha and me down the hallway leading to a small staircase. Ayesha pointed to a white door. “That guy is crazy,” she said. “He’s a hoarder, or something.”

John and I said, “Ah!” and “Oh!” and continued up the stairs.

Ayesha’s apartment was cozy and lived-in. It was practically a studio—a small kitchen, a bathroom and something of a living room were within arms length as soon as we walked in. I could make out a small room off the kitchen. “That’s my bedroom,” she said. I walked in. It was just wide enough to fit a mattress. Her sheets had a whole galaxy or stars on them. I hopped on the bed.

“My God!” I said. “What a nice place this is.”

“It’s all right,” said Ayesha.

“And there’s the real Pickle,” I said. I stood up and walked over to the little black cat standing near the oven. I scratched him on his little cat head and meowed at him. Pickle, like most cats, was unfazed by the fact that I could speak conversational Cat. He did what I can best describe as a shrug and padded off into the bedroom.

It was soon decided that we had to consume as much Thai food as possible. John in particular was eager to put food in his stomach, on account of the massive headache that was giving him grief. He said something about never being able to avoid hangovers, and Ayesha said she felt a little twisted up, and I told everyone I felt perfectly fine.

“Hungry as hell, though,” I said.

We left Pickle to take his afternoon nap, and locked the door behind us.

•     •     •

Ayesha drove rather erratically to West Cary Street, where I recognized a Thai restaurant I had eaten at before. It was called Thai Diner Too, which made absolutely no sense to me. I told John and Ayesha that I had once had a VIII Nothing business meeting there with Jason and Janet George. “She was very sarcastic with me—Janet was. I knew right then that I liked her a whole lot.”

“I’ll bet Jason was a shithead the whole time,” said John.

“Man, that’s exactly what he was.”

“Not surprised.”

•     •     •

After some trouble parallel parking, we started walking down West Cary Street with empty stomachs. Thai Diner Too was a short walk away, and easily identifiable from the street, for it was purple and red and exotic. The sidewalks were crowded with families and teenagers and weirdos and losers and jerks. It was an unseasonably warm December day, and so the whole world was taking advantage of Mother Nature’s bipolar tendency.

Once inside, we were seated immediately by a young woman. She put us in the back of the restaurant, away from everyone else. We sat near a big plate glass window—one of only two in the whole restaurant—and so we enjoyed a fine view of the sun, and felt its warmth on our faces and necks and hands.

Ayesha and John ordered something that I warned was unreasonably spicy.

“The last time I was here,” I said, “I overheard one of the waitresses say that the spiciest dish they offer is often disliked by people who love spicy food.”

“No, I love my food really spicy,” said Ayesha. John seemed to agree.

I ordered the pad thai, and asked that it be spiced at “3″, which was somewhere in between medium and mild. Ayesha and John did not heed my warnings, and ordered their noodles to be seasoned with the devil’s blood, which was somewhere around “8″ or “9″.

In the meanwhile we discussed the holocaust that was Janet George’s living room, and the three cackling jerkoffs that had perpetrated the whole damn mess. “One of them said they knew you,” said John. “Guy named Dan. He had glasses and short brown hair. He was all right.”

“Oh, I know him,” said Ayesha. “Was he with a big fat guy named Milk?”

“Yeah. Fatass was the worst of the three.”

“That guy is a total psychopath. All three of them are dumb as hell.”

Soon our food was delivered, and the three of us quickly shoveled heaping forkfuls of noodles into our mouths. It didn’t take long for Ayesha and John to realize that their food was almost inedible—spicy to the point of scorching their tongues.

“Fuck, this is spicy,” said Ayesha.

“Can’t even really eat it,” said John.

I finished my pad thai without any problems. I ate the whole thing. As it turns out, “3″ was the magic number.

•     •     •

After lunch, John and I milled around an independent bookstore while Ayesha split off to buy ice cream. Inside we once again discussed the possibility of starting our own dinky publishing company. I would pick up a book and talk about how shitty it was, and then pick up another book and extol its virtues. Of course there were a lot of books I hadn’t read, and many of them bewildered me. I’d fallen out of touch.

“Is this what people read now?” I said.

“I guess so,” said John, flipping over novels and reading their backs. He looked vaguely heartbroken at the state of modern literature.

“Shit, man,” I said. “What a joke.”

“Yeah.”

“We sound like old men.”

“Yeah.”

•     •     •

Ayesha dropped us off at Janet George’s house sometime in the mid afternoon. I stood on the stairs leading up to the house and waited for our next move. John lit a cigarette and went into a mental state where I could not follow.

“I’ve got a friend,” he said, letting smoke escape his mouth, “somewhere downtown.”

“The guy with the French name?”

“Yeah, Thibaud. Great guy.”

“Now, he’s the photographer, right?”

“Yeah.” He blew a puff of dark smoke into the sky.

John motioned for me to follow, and we walked to the end of the block and got in his car. We drove for miles and miles. The sky was washed out in a yellow and gray with the occasion dollop of sunshine found here and there on the road before us. We crossed over a massive bridge leading into the dirtier part of Richmond. John pointed to a row of trees off in the distance. He told me it was Bell Island, and said it was a remote patch of land connected by some sort of rope bridge. He said he’d been over there once with a guy he knew, a long time ago.

Soon we were in an industrial district. There were empty factories and desolate streets where no human beings could be found. We parked in a barren lot and walk across the street where we found a featureless white warehouse that had been presumably repurposed as a place for people to live.

John flipped open his phone pressed a few keys. “Thibaud?” said John. “Yeah, we’re right outside. What? It’s a white build—oh. Oh. OK. We’re not at your house at all.”

John stepped out into the street and we began walking right down the middle of it with no fear of being run over. This was an unloved part of Richmond.

In the distance I could make out a large man in dark clothing. He was standing near a tall brick structure. He had a phone held up to his head. It was Thibaud Guerin-Williams. He waved.

John and Thibaud talked about a lot of people I’d never met, remembered a lot of memories I had no recollection of, and spoke of lives I had never lived. I stood silently and waited for a reason to feel relevant.

Thibaud lead us inside his apartment complex, which had at one time served the city of Richmond as a trolley station. His home was magnificent; it had tremendously high ceilings, and everything was made of concrete and ribbed sheet metal. The windows overlooking the parking lot were easily twelve feet high. Up a winding staircase was an enormous loft.

“My God,” I said. “You live here?”

“Yeah,” said Thibaud. “It’s an all right place.”

•     •     •

We spent a lot of time talking in the living room. John picked up Thibaud’s Fender Mustang and complimented the red woodgrain finish. Thibaud nodded and said it was “a decent guitar”. He seemed thoroughly bored with all of the things that we found so amazing about his life, which lead me to believe that he was a total badass.

John opened his laptop and showed him VIII Nothing. He explained the premise, and talked about how beautiful everything looked when it was in black and white. Thibaud agreed to submit some photographs and brief accompanying poems. We thought that sounded neat as hell.

“Speaking of photography—” said Thibaud. He pulled out a magazine and flipped through it. “See, look at this shit. People love it, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why.” He then showed us semi-famous photographers online that he thought to be total shit. Most of what he showed us was painfully mediocre. Some of it was downright offensively terrible.

“People have bad taste,” I said. “Generally speaking, people don’t know what they like or why they even like it in the first place. That’s why we love our website so much.” I motioned to John. “No one will ever think we’re geniuses. There’s something wonderful about that.”

“I guess so,” said Thibaud.

Outside John and Thibaud started smoking. Thibaud had bummed a cigarette from John. The two of them puffed away for what seemed like a very long time. I stood vacantly towards the side and offered nothing in the way of conversation. I simply nodded or said, “Yes” or “Uh huh” or “You bet” at all the right times. I was ready to leave Richmond.

•     •     •

Later that evening we said good-bye to Janet and Courtney. I hugged them both. They thanked me for having cleaned up the living room and for coming to visit them and so on. John gave Janet a long, deep hug—a hug that is shared between those who have shared childhood together. “I’ll be back soon,” he said. He nodded and turned away. I followed.

We were on the highway within minutes, heat blasting and the windows cracked to let the smell of burning tobacco slip through and vanish into the sky. I was half-sick and drowsy, feeling drugged. I soon let sleep rest upon my head like a bag of sand, and left John to drive alone.

I awoke just outside of Manassas. John roused me from unsettling dreams—dreams I had dipped in and out of with the jostling of the car on rough patches of road. “We’re here,” he said finally, pulling into our grandmother’s condominium development.

He came inside for a few minutes at my request. We stood by our grandmother’s side as she sat up in bed with the news on. She told us she loved us dearly, and to visit her whenever we had a chance. John hugged her and started for the door. I followed him to the kitchen, where he gave his last hug of the night, of which I was the recipient. He laughed and called me “brother”, and said he’d be in Texas sooner than later. He opened the front door and closed it behind him, slipping out into the edge of December and ready to scream his lungs out on the long ride home.

•     •     •

Chapter IV:
“Where It Hurts”

That night I drove for seventy miles up interstate 95, headed north—headed to the doom-metropolis of Baltimore. It had been nearly three months since I had been there. I knew very well the emotions which would rise to the surface—knew that my heart would be twisted and beaten against the wall, and that my eyes would darken and fill with the tears of many lonely nights and a pain that refused to dissolve itself from my conscious mind. A three-syllable name belonging to a faint glimmer of a person I had once known was on my lips, daring me to utter it, mocking me with ill intent.

She had moved—or so she had told my father in November—and so I did not know where she and my boys now called home. Yet I prowled vacant and miserable streets with the fear that I might detect their presence, or make out the flash of a ghost-pale face belonging to her, and my world would melt into an amorphous gray lump, ready for the fire. The thought of seeing her made my heart squirm, and I held my chest and breathed heavily, feeling sick with pain. “Where are you?” I thought. “Why won’t you look at me?”

I rolled onto East Oliver Street with an aching head. The streets were rain-slicked and black and glistening. Garbage was everywhere. A lone man turned past the rainbow-colored bridge, strumming a guitar clumsily. He was singing some awful tune with a voice that was ragged and melancholy.

I parked in the back of the lot and stood before the hulking soulless block of bricks that was my home, spying the two windows belonging to my living room and bedroom. The blinds were drawn and behind them was only darkness. The sun hadn’t shone through since October.

There it was: the dead dream I had erected for myself nearly a year before—the last remnant of a life I had so very much wanted to live. I had stayed in that wretched city for the sake of a girl who loved me very deeply—had remained dutifully despite the chaos in my mind and the sickness that lay dormant in my heart. The sore had festered, and the sickness grew, and I had become weak and spineless. It was all over now.

“You are going where I cannot,” had said the note. I retraced the words in my mind and caught myself feeling mindless and desperately sad.

I had signed it, “Love always”—and now I stood alone in a tired square of the world with nothing but my trembling hands and blood-stained eyes. She was gone, and all that remained was my stupid empty apartment.

•     •     •

Chapter V:
“The Year 2012 or,
Deer Tick & Friends at the Brooklyn Bowl”

Something of an excerpt:

I awoke the next morning feeling rotten. I had a bus ticket in my coat pocket, which would take me to New York City. From there I would take the subway to Brooklyn.

Deer Tick was in Brooklyn—with Virgin Forest and Dead Confederate and J Roddy Walston and the Business.

Yes, and I got on that bus, and I rode it all the way to New York City, and I saw Deer Tick & Friends live at the Brooklyn Bowl, which was a cross between a bowling alley and a bar and a restaurant and a venue for live music.

And I kissed a lot of rock stars, and hugged a lot of strangers, and drank delicious brown ale that had come recommended to me by the head bartender. Without hyperbole, I can say that it was the best day of my entire life.

I was lead singer John McCauley’s New Year’s kiss. He swirled his tongue around the inside of my mouth. It was the very first thing to happen to me as the clock struck twelve, and the year 2012 began.

Later he approached me as I was sitting down on a leather couch with a beer in my hand, and pointed to me and remarked to those around us, “This is the guy who kissed me at midnight. That was pretty funny.”

[But I shall resist the urge to tell the whole story, for it is Chapter VIII—the final chapter, that is—of this long, long book I'm writing about a particularly dark six months of my dumb old life. It is called Injury & Aftermath, of which three chapters have already been published. Seek them out! The rest is coming, so do not despair.]

I left Brooklyn at seven a.m. the next morning, and was ferried back to Baltimore feeling more alive than I had ever felt before. This sensation would quickly deaden as we left the highway some three hours later, and reentered the city that I despise so very much.

•     •     •

Chapter VI:
“Whitewash”

I spent the next two days sitting alone in my apartment. I slept until two or three in the afternoon, and was terrified at the thought of looking out my window. What if she was walking down the street? I kept my blinds down and locked in a position that did not allow any sunlight in—as if there existed sunlight in the first place.

My apartment was musky and stale. There was still a whole mess of alcohol in the refrigerator, but I had no desire to get drunk. I opened the cider bottles over the sink and let them flow down the drain. I was over hard cider, anyway.

And so I took many hot baths, and read many fine books. I sat dumbly on my bed and daydreamed about Austin, though I would have been content to be anywhere other than Baltimore.

When I got sad, I’d take another bath, remembering the famous line from The Bell Jar: “There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.”

I’d dunk my head under the water and stay there until there was nothing left inside of me—until all the little bubbles had escaped from my nose and mouth, and I was only an empty, stagnant thing lying there at the bottom of the tub. And then I’d reluctantly come up for air when my head started to hurt, suck in a lungful and retreat back into my hiding place until the water went from hot to cold.

•     •     •

Perri Weldy called me on the morning of the third. She said she was leaving Philadelphia, and that she would be in Baltimore within two hours. She would pass through Pennsylvania and then Delaware, and finally she would enter Maryland, which I warned her was a despicable geographic location of ill repute. That didn’t bother Perri one bit. She said she looked forward to it.

Yes, and Perri was coming to town to do two things: 1) to see her good friend, now that we were good friends and 2) paint my apartment white. We would erase any memory of my existence there. I told her it would be easy. I said, listen: “I’m going to get some of that extra-thick primer—the kind you use when you want to get rid of dark colors. And then it’ll all go away, and everything will be white again.”

I bought the paint and the paint brushes and the rollers—and the plastic tarp and the pan and so on. I brought it all back to my apartment and waited for Perri to tell me it was time to drive to the horribly depressing bus station way the hell on the other side of the city, near the docks and the warehouses.

“We’re pulling into the city,” she said. It was around ten in the morning. I put on some pants, since I had taken them off, and hopped in my car. I took me a long time to get there on account of my incompetence. I took the wrong streets and ended up in the wrong part of Baltimore. Meanwhile Perri waited in a plastic chair, alone, maybe a little scared of the mouth-breathing hoodlums that seem to always be waiting around in Greyhound stations.

After twenty or so minutes of leaving a small, fragile white girl alone at the bus station, I finally arrived to take Perri away in the safety of my Jeep Cherokee. She seemed happy to see me—or did a very good job pretending she was, anyway. She playfully scolded me for being late, and I apologized authentically, and then I pointed at various locations around Baltimore and talked about how grimy and appalling and horrible everything was. “I don’t know, I think it’s nice,” said Perri.

“Yeah, well, after five years of this, I don’t think it’s so nice anymore,” I said.

•     •     •

We didn’t start painting for a long while. We dined at Aloha Sushi in Mt. Vernon—after walking six or seven blocks in the freezing cold. I ordered four different maki rolls, and Perri just ordered the avocado roll. “I told you it’s the only kind of sushi I like,” she said.

“No judgment, man,” I said.

Later she ordered edamame, which was over-salted. It was a crying shame. We ate as much as we could while Perri told me about the men who had loved her. I told her that someone once loved me very much, too. I told her I missed that person very much.

We boxed up the salty edamame and walked back to my apartment to not paint. We talked and made tea and watched Baltimore from my living room window. It was inhospitable outside, and we were happy to be through with it. There would be no reason to leave the house again for at least twenty-four hours.

•     •     •

Jason arrived later that night. He was in good spirits, and eager to paint—which was terrific because I felt like steamrolled dog shit, and didn’t want to paint at all. He and Perri made quick work out of one of my living room walls, turning them from red to white again. I spent most of my time packing up everything I owned into apple boxes. It made be bitter and sad. Leaving Baltimore was as much a triumph as it was a reminder of my shame, of my failed experiment at happiness. It was my little dead dream.

Yes, and we painted until we just couldn’t stand painting anymore, and until I got so sad I couldn’t do anything but sit in a bed with my two good friends and watch Peter Pan, God love it, trying desperately to abandon all the rotten feelings swirling around inside of me like a sick tornado.

By one a.m. everyone was asleep. I swallowed a melatonin without water and lay down between Jason and Perri. My bed was large, and could accommodate all of us comfortably. It was nice to be in the middle. It meant I didn’t have to ever feel alone. I was thinking about how much I like oatmeal when the power in my body shut down, and I evacuated consciousness in the blink of an eye.

•     •     •

“Sit with me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“This isn’t real.”

“I am real.”

“I know you’re real, somewhere, but this isn’t real.”

“What if I said it was?”

“I can’t trust you. I made you! You’re in my brain.”

“Do you want to walk them?”

“Well, of course I do, but they’re not real either.”

“Why don’t you just pretend?”

“Because that’s incredibly sad. That’s sadder than anything I know.”

“Sit with me.”

“It’s disappearing.”

“It doesn’t have to.”

“It is. Good-bye.”

•     •     •

Chapter VII:
“Trust Me, Son”

My father came to town on the fourth. He hated Baltimore, but he was there to help me pack my things up in the back of his truck so that we could both leave the city forever.

The sky was stupid and gray and sad when he arrived. He told me he’d kept his loaded gun in his hand while he drove down Charles Street, because he didn’t trust anyone not to kill him. “They’ve got nothing to lose, son,” he said. “And if they tried to touch me, I’d come out shooting.”

I introduced him to Perri, whom he liked immediately. He said she was sweet and upbeat and unfailingly nice. I told him he was right.

We spent the next eight hours hauling loaded boxes down a flight of stairs and out the side door of my apartment complex. It was miserable labor. We would take a few boxes down, and then come back up and feel pretty bad about how much was left over. I ended up disassembling nearly everything I owned, which was a real pain. When the truck started to show signs of being full, my father made his worried face. “There’s no way you’re going to fit all of this,” he said. “Ain’t no way, man.”

I told him I planned to pack my Jeep to the brim, and that I would make two trips to Virginia if I had to—to leave what I didn’t really need at my mother’s house.

He gave me an uneasy look. “No way all of it’s going to fit,” he said. He walked over to a window overlooking the parking lot and nearly hit the ceiling. “They’re towing my car! Ryan! Go stop them!”

I ran out the door and down a long hallway, and then down a flight of stairs. “Stop!” I said. “There’s a note on the window!”

The tow truck driver looked up from his clipboard without any emotion whatsoever. “Still can’t pack here,” he said. “No parking sticker.”

“Yes, I realize that, but I’m moving, so we had to park in the lot. There’s a note, see—” I walked over to the truck and plucked a piece of paper from the windshield wiper. “It says, ‘I’m helping my son move. I’m upstairs bringing furniture down. If you need to contact me, call me on my mobile phone at 703 . . .”

“Let me explain something to you,” he said. “If you don’t have a sticker, you can’t park here.”

“Let me explain something to you,” said my father, coming out the side of the building. “I left a note. We have permission to be here. I said I’m helping my son move.”

“Then you should have parked over there—” he said, pointing to a side street that was a football field’s length away, “and everything would have been all right.”

“You expect me to carry furniture all the way over there?”

“Sir, I don’t make the rules.”

“Can’t you just drop my truck off the lift?”

“You have two options,” he said. “First option: I take your truck down to the station, and you pay us $375 to release it. Second option,” he said, holding up his fingers in a peace sign, “You pay me $150 right now, and I drop the truck.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” said my father.

“Listen, listen: there’s nothing I can do.”

“Yes, there is. You could just drop the truck and give me a break. We were upstairs bringing furniture down, for crying out loud.” The tow truck driver was unfazed. He stood there with a dumb look on his face, his eyes half-closed.

My father swore and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. He flipped through a few one hundred dollar bills, which were for the trip down to Texas. “You’re eating into my gas money, man. I only have hundreds—no change.”

“I’ll take $100 then,” he said, smiling, like he was doing us a favor.

My father jerked a bill out of his wallet and slapped it down on the driver’s clipboard. The driver returned to his lift controls and lowered the truck.

“It’s theft, Ryan,” said my father, looking glum. “That’s all it is—it’s theft.”

•     •     •

Eventually the truck was packed sky-high. My mattress was the final thing to go on. It was sheathed in plastic to protect it and everything else from the rain. My father hugged me and said he was leaving. We both glanced up at my bedroom window. Perri was inside painting, much as she had been for the last three hours. We saw her stand up on a chair to get to a corner of the wall, and then step back down to put more paint on her brush. “She’s a sweet girl,” said my father. “She’s done a lot for you.”

“I know. My God, she really has,” I said.

“All right, son, I’m leaving. I’ll see you in a few days.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re making the right decision. I’ll be able to sleep so much better at night knowing you’re not here.” He pointed indiscriminately behind us, for anything he could have pointed out would have been convincing enough that the city I had called home for the last five years was a complete shithole.

“Trust me, son.” He smiled. I watched him drive off in the rain.

I walked back upstairs and announced to Perri that there was nothing left to do, and that we could go to sleep if we wanted. She had finished painting the entire bedroom, and was stepping out of it as I spoke, just as chipper as she’d been hours prior.

I had disassembled my bed and had placed it in the back of my father’s truck, which was presently barreling south on Interstate 95, and so we had no choice but to sleep on the floor.

I of course swallowed a melatonin to send me off to sleep. I didn’t want any idle thoughts to occur just before bed, didn’t want to think about the things I always think about—the ones that make me so very sad.

“Good-night, Perri,” I said.

“Good-night, Ryan,” she said.

 •     •     •

Chapter VIII:
“I’ll See You In Philadelphia”

I drove Perri to the bus station not long after we woke up. I stepped out of my car, walked around to the passenger side, and hugged her. I said, “Thanks for everything.” I said, “Good-bye.” I told her to come visit me in Texas, if she could.

“I’ll try!” she said. She disappeared.

I went home and knelt on the floor in the middle of everything I owned. I was weary already. “God damn it,” I said. “Man.”

After some final packing, I loaded up everything I could into my Jeep—to the point where there was only room for me to sit down and drive. I couldn’t see out of the right window, or behind me, or use any of the mirrors except the side-view mirror connected to my door. I drove on the interstate for an hour and a half. I unloaded everything at my mother’s house, drove back to Baltimore, packed the rest up, and drove all the way back again.

It was hell.

•     •     •

Chapter IX:
“Highway Holocaust or, The Man From Tennessee:
A Play In Three Acts”

“Nil desperandum; nil igitur est mors ad nos.”

•     •     •

ACT I:
SCENE I

(The curtain rises on HAL and RYAN, who are busily tying down furniture to the back of a truck using ratchet straps. They do not know how to properly use ratchet straps, and are having some difficulty. Soon they will depart for Texas with JASON, who is at home doing nothing.)

HAL (grunting): Shit. I can’t figure this out. Ryan, you do it.

(RYAN approaches his father, sighing. He’d had a rough night and morning. He slept alone in an empty apartment and had to wake up early in order to haul a bunch of bullshit down to Virginia.)

RYAN: Here, let me see it. (Struggling with the ratchet strap) I hate these fucking things. But here, I think I got it.

(RYAN hands the ratchet strap back to his father and begins crying.)

RYAN: I hate my life! Alas—where are my cats? Why can’t I find something else to be sad about?

HAL: Son, you’re going to get those cats back. You just have to be patient. Or you could complain about it over and over in “The Starsailor Newsletter”. Your choice.

RYAN (wiping away tears): I think I’ll do the latter.

HAL: OK. Let’s go get that friend of yours. I’m sure he hasn’t even packed yet.

•     •     •

ACT I:
SCENE II

(Meanwhile, JASON is at home sucking his thumb and begging his parents to help him change his underwear.)

JASON (quivering lips): B-b-b-but I need help.

(JASON frowns, pulls up his pants and walks into his brother EDDIE’S room. EDDIE is sitting on his bed. There is a plump guinea pig on his stomach. He is scratching it on its back.)

EDDIE: What the fuck do you want? Aren’t you supposed to be—oh, I don’t know—moving to Texas?

JASON (sucking his thumb): Will you help Jayjay change his underwear?

EDDIE (without a trace of emotion on his face): Get the fuck out of here, asshole.

•     •     •

ACT I:
SCENE III

(HAL and RYAN, having hitched the Jeep Cherokee to the back of the truck, arrive at JASON’S house to start the long journey to Texas. HAL is hungry as a bear, and won’t let anyone forget it. RYAN is miserable and lonely and feels like the whole world is out to get him.)

HAL (approaching the house): Ryan Butler! How are you?

RYAN BUTLER (extending his arm for a handshake): Oh, hey, Mr. L. It’s nice to see you again. Jason isn’t ready yet. Last I heard, he was pissing all over himself.

HAL (not surprised): Because of Texas, or . . . ?

RYAN BUTLER: Oh, I don’t know. I just showed up, and his mom said, “Jason ain’t comin’ down. He’s pissin’ all over himself.”

HAL: I’m hungry, so that boy better hurry up.

(Suddenly JASON comes flying out the house with his pants unzipped. He’s stopped crying, but he looks like he could start again at any second. His face is red as hell. HAL looks down and notices that JASON’S shoes are on the wrong feet, and he’s wearing his mother’s nightgown.)

HAL (shaking his head): For fuck’s sake, Jason.

•     •     •

ACT II:
SCENE I

(The three men have hit the highway and are clipping along at a steady pace. HAL and RYAN are driving ahead with the Jeep being towed. JASON is following close behind with his motorcycle attached to the back of his car. He has since sobered up and returned to reality after HAL punched him in the face at a gas station two hours before. HAL and RYAN are able to communicate with JASON using a two-way radio.)

HAL (talking into the radio): Jason! Come in, Jason. Over.

JASON (scratchy on account of the radio quality): Yeah, Hal?

HAL: I want you to call me ‘Ranger Hal’ from now on. Got that? Over.

JASON: What?

RANGER HAL: You heard me, dipshit. I’m Ranger Hal from now on.

JASON: What’s my new name?

RYAN (taking the radio from HAL): You’re Dusty Jones—or Dusty J. for short.

JASON: Roger. I like that nickname. I think that—oh, shit. Shit! Hal, the motorcycle is tilting hard.

RANGER HAL: What do you want me to do about it?

JASON (on the verge of tears): Dude, fuck! This thing is going to start scraping on the highway! Pull over! Pull over!

RANGER HAL (turning off the radio): We’re not stopping. I’m hungry. That piece of shit can fix his own motorcycle. Or he can let it fall off and cause a huge accident for all I care.

RYAN: I love you, Dad. You’re the best.

RANGER DAD (smiling warmly): I love you too, son.

(JASON’S car explodes in a ball of fire. HAL laughs, kills a Budweiser and presses down on the accelerator.)

•     •     •

ACT II:
SCENE II:

(The three arrive in Tennessee late that night. JASON has minor wounds, but survived the crash. His car, motorcycle and all of his worldly possessions are nothing but burnt scraps sitting on the side of a highway somewhere in Virginia. He is surprisingly upbeat, all things considered. HAL and RYAN attempt to swing the truck around in order to park in the front yard of HAL’S house, but have some difficulty due to the Jeep Cherokee taking up so much space in the back.)

HAL: I can’t see that well, Ryan—do I have enough room to turn around?

RYAN: Uh, I think so. I don’t know, Dad. I’m really tired.

HAL: Well, we can sleep in a bit . . . erp, uh, hang on—

(HAL cuts the wheel and puts the truck in reverse. He begins backing up, but a horrible cracking noise quickly alerts him that he’s done something wrong. Still, he continues to back up.)

RYAN: Dad, I think you should stop moving.

HAL: It’s fine, Ryan. It’s—

(JASON approaches the side of the truck, flailing his arms in the air and screaming.)

JASON: Ranger Hal! Ranger Hal! Stop! The fucking Jeep just slipped off the hitch, and now it’s all screwed up!

RYAN: Aw, man. What?

(RYAN steps out of the truck and walks around back to examine the damage. The front-right tire is horribly mangled, and the Jeep is just barely hanging on to the hitch by a chain, which is wrapped around the axle. It is clear that no one is going to get any God damn sleep that night.)

HAL (furious): Jason, why didn’t you say anything?

JASON: B-but I did, Ranger Hal. I came up to the truck to tell you guys.

HAL (turning to face RYAN, whispering): You have the worst friends.

•     •     •

ACT II:
SCENE III:

(JASON and RYAN are standing in HAL’S basement, waiting for the artificial fireplace to warm them.)

JASON (yawning): I’m really tired. I think I’m going to get some sleep.

RYAN: Will you sleep in the basement with me? I don’t want to be all alone.

JASON: No, dude, I want to sleep in a bed tonight. There’s only a couch down here.

RYAN: I think a real friend would forgo sleeping in a bed in order to keep his friend company.

JASON (walking towards the stairs with his back turned): Then I guess I’m a shitty friend.

•     •     •

ACT III:
SCENE I

(After another day of driving, the truck pulls into a rundown motel in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Everyone agrees it’s the worst name a city could possibly have. As they step inside the lobby, they are greeted by a friendly HOTEL STAFF member, who has HAL sign a stack of papers promising he won’t steal the television or kill anyone. HAL is suspicious about the last part.)

HAL (with a wry look on his face): You honestly mean to tell me that I can’t defend myself in a hotel room that I’m paying for?

HOTEL STAFF: Sir, I don’t make the rules. Please, we’re all very tired—why don’t you just sign the forms?

HAL (unholstering a Glock .45 pistol loaded with hollow-point rounds): What did you just say to me?

HOTEL STAFF (glancing at the telephone): Uh, sir, please—uh.

HAL (now aiming the gun at the man’s head): I’m not signing that form.

HOTEL STAFF (shaking): Uh! Uh! O-OK! Just take the keys! For God’s sake, don’t shoot!

HAL (holstering the gun): And we want free breakfast.

HOTEL STAFF (confused): But sir, we offer a free continental breakfast to every guest.

HAL (unflinchingly, gritting his teeth): I don’t want anyone else to get breakfast.

(JASON approaches the counter, unaware of the events that have just transpired.)

JASON: Excuse me, is there any way we could have extra blankets in our room? I get cold at night.

(The HOTEL STAFF reaches for a bundle of blankets from beneath the front desk, but HAL misinterprets his movements as a threat to his safety. He whips his gun out and points it at the man’s head, firing one shot. The HOTEL STAFF collapses to the floor and begins convulsing.)

HAL: Look what you did, Jason.

•     •     •

ACT III:
SCENE II

(The truck pulls up to a shabby house off Guadalupe Street. The paint is chipping and the grass hasn’t been mowed in weeks, and everything about the property looks rundown and unloved.)

RYAN: Home sweet home!

JASON: This place is pretty cool.

HAL: We drove 1,500 miles for this? I nearly wrecked during that rainstorm outside of Dallas. You boys are crazy.

RYAN: I like this place, Dad.

JASON: Yeah, Ranger Hal, this is a nice place.

HAL (twisting his lips): Well, all right—yeah. It’s got its charms. But it would go up smoke in seconds if Jason here lit something on fire.

JASON: I would never do that.

RYAN: Yeah, Dad, Jason would never start a fire in the house.

HAL (putting a hand on RYAN’S shoulder): Son, I know a dumbass when I see one.

RYAN: I’m so happy to be in Texas. What a wonderful day!

JASON: Me too, man. I’m glad we did this. I love you.

RYAN (staring at the ground): Yeeeaaaaaahhhh.

(JASON attempts to hug RYAN, but he refuses.)

RYAN (whispering): Man, stop. My dad will think something is up.

JASON (leaning in close): Do you think someone could ever love me?

HAL (overhearing JASON’S loud voice): I’ll be the one to answer that: No.

(The trio laughs heartily.)

(Curtain.)

•     •     •

Chapter X:
“Well, Here We Are, Damn It, And Things Are Different Now”

I have lived in Austin for just over a month. It has been a wonderful month, more or less. I have wiled away my time working on this very Newsletter, and have been applying for jobs and drinking with friends and by myself, and spending my nights with this lovely human being I know. Everything is all right. That’s all I ask for, anyway—”all right”. It is not just sufficient, it is preferred.

One of the first things to happen: Alex, dear Alex, my friend and brother on the West Coast—well, he sent me two Christmas presents. The first was OK Computer by Radiohead, on vinyl. The second was Halcyon Digest by Deerhunter, also on vinyl. If you know anything about me, you know that I love Halcyon Digest. It is a fine album, the best of 2010, no doubt, and perhaps of “all-time” (though such awards are so lacking to me, because really, who cares?).

I have promised him I will obtain a record player in the near future. Then I will write him a long email, in which I may even review these two albums. It’s all very exciting.

•     •     •

Have I left you feeling strange? This was a strange Newsletter. It has the honor of being the longest one yet (by about ten thousand words), and the only one to include not one, not two, but three dream sequences. And I crammed a “play” (term used lightly) in here. If anyone out there ever has the desire to produce this play for the stage, please get in touch with me. I would be happy to share my notes. (Hah!)

It has taken me nearly two whole months to write this thing. Some days I worked on it diligently for hours and hours, and other days I typed in a single sentence and felt discouraged, not wanting to add anymore. But here it is! It’s here!

•     •     •

Do you know what someone said to me the other day? They said (or shouted, rather), from atop a six-story building, as I was biking innocently down the street: “HEY.” It was a young man in his early 20s.

“Yes?” I said, looking up.

“You need to get off that bike,” he said,  ”and you need to start drinking.” He held up a beer and chugged half of it right then and there, proving that he was a man who walked the walk.

“I sure will,” I said. I waved.

I turned to an old man sitting on a bench near a bus stop. He looked at me curiously, having overhead our conversation. I shrugged. “God damn it,” I said, “you’ve got to be kind.” I peddled off.

Welcome to Austin.

•     •     •

Do I miss Virginia? A little, yeah.

I certainly don’t miss Maryland at all. I was scorned and turned away from that place. I will pretend, however, that it was I who left Maryland freely. That will certainly make me feel better about my decision to move here.

I have this life right here, and I’m not really sure what to do about it. I try. Sure enough, I try. But I can’t be in Virginia, or Maryland, for that matter, and I don’t know when I’m coming back again. I shall remain here until I’m not supposed to here anymore.

I should go. It’s raining and I’m start to feeling rotten for having stayed in all day. What could I possibly do in the rain? Drive around in it, by God. I think I’ll do that now.

And I realize now, as I end this—and I am ending this—that this feeling of wistfulness, of longing, of holding on to the person I used to be, now turned a ghost . . . it could unmake something that I like. And I mean a lot of things that I like. This place, these people, these feelings. I have felt this for too long, since I was a young child, and now its infringement on my life is something of an invasion. It is a tumor. This feeling could unmake my whole world. It’s got to stop. So I won’t feel it.

So I say: “Good-night.” I say, “So long for now.” I will visit you again soon. Sleep, sleep. Coo, coo.

—Ryan Starsailor

I wish to be something else—or nothing else, if that is what is in store for me. I would find happiness as a cactus or a grapefruit. I would sooner be a dolphin or a blade of grass.

Sick to death of having flesh and hair and bones. I want to be supernatural. I want to be a breeze.

My twenty-four years have brought me here. I can’t bear to double my age. I’ll still be stupid—still human. And worst of all I’ll still be here on this good-for-nothing wet rock.

Wet rock.

Inside I find only rust and sad parts. It’s all gone to rot. I am not a vessel for the holy spirit, but rather a glass jar filled with spider eggs and broken harmonicas. I am a piece of gum chewed beyond its flavor.

I feel stretched. I feel weak. I can’t keep doing this.

Open me up. Take what you will. You may have it all. I’ve already been stripped of everything that matters—already been torn to pieces by love-marauders and blameless goddesses. I have been plundered and shaken and left to sit in this crater with my hands tied behind my back and my eyes sewn shut. I can hear locusts.

Too tired. Too tired to do anything. Too sad. Too dumb.

If you ask for me I will answer you. I will come to you. I will open my mouth and scream until the eyes water and the hands tremble and the legs bend.

Have you ever fallen down so hard that everything shakes?

I can hear a bayonet being fed into a wood chipper. Both are sick with rust. Everything smells like sulfur. Something hurts.

Don’t be foolish. Be brilliant.

•     •     •

Sit on the leather couch next to where the bands play and sip your stupid beer. Drink until your face is red with alcohol. Spill it on the armrest when no one is looking, and feel like a fool.

Get up. Find a reason to make any of this worth it. Stop acting like a child. Always sulking. Always messy.

No more games. No more fun.

Felt-tip pen on flesh. A clock. Tick tock.

Messy messy.

Wake up!

Leagues of concrete stairs our injured friend couldn’t climb bore us to the green hilltop, where the ocean can still be seen in all its tranquil cartography between fluted pillars of marble. We sought the highest ground, and found a lonely grove of three trees in tall grass, twisted by years of swift, briny wind. I clutched the plastic bag in my pocket, scooping it from the depths and raising it to my eyes. I looked, I looked, and I dove into the gray.

In that same moment of deep pangs, when nostalgia tumbled into me for the sake of a lifetime of memories that were not my own, when the being that once inspired these atoms seemed yet to breathe and to breathe through me. . . I knew, that what I held was dust.

I took from the same pocket a scrap of paper on which I had scrawled a brief verse. I crafted the words not to trumpet of paradise, but to rejoice of mystery from within mystery. The syllables rang hollow, collocated against the warm summer breeze and its salty tone, against the eloquent backdrop of cliffs and sea. When my words trailed off to discover their quarry intangible, I was glad for the silence.

I opened the plastic bag, and—mind strange, heart ashamed that my blood still flows—let my fingers sink in the ash. We drew out a modest handful each, and scattered it through the air.

The gray dust clinging to our clothes, we walked down to the hillside hand in hand, to gaze into the bright, endless blue.

I shook the mesh-iron chair and watched the droplets clatter across the stone deck. I sat with my coffee and looked out over the wall, down into the woods where the stream rolls on, the same stream that flooded over the bridge after days of rain and we waded across with our jeans rolled up to our knees and bottles of liquor in hand. The same stream that rolls under the bridge and past the trees where that woman told me she had carved the name of her lover when she was fourteen.

Now I listen to the orchestrated moans of the band she brought me to, the melancholy flame of a grating violin held in the arms of a heartbroken drunkard like the child he might have had by his dearly beloved. She told me of the days when she lived alone, smoking marijuana and cigarettes and drinking heavily in the dumpy basement apartment in the back of the antique store, listening to this music, left behind by her parents and her friends. I stand on the carpeted floor running through contrived exercises with the red-handled axe, pulling it to my chest on the upturn of a squat, the axe that brought us together, that I used to split wood in the falling snow with a cigarette clutched between my lips, moist flannel clinging to my skin, the taste of beer on my palate. The song she gave me, so strong, gothic, and sad, like the musculature of a dying horse. And the banjo player that lived across the river from her house when she was a child, the twang of each note drifting across in the evenings, bringing a smile to her face that was blissful surface to the ineffable profound. How she wanted to thank the mysterious artist, the musician who played only for the air, for finding a pair of ears he would never know about, two young organs that would ingest the chosen tones but never taste the burly voice of the chooser.

Note the way memories move, the transference of her story into my subconscious: the story of her traveling companion, the hurtling locomotive, steaming along beside her through the night for a thousand weary miles before veering from the parallel and away into the dark, blaring its whistle in what could only be a gesture of fond farewell. It is the dream substance of another seeping into my own, taking on a new form, crawling into fresh nooks, growing.

Note the way they twine and untwine themselves, like the newborn snake, four inches long and thin as an earthworm, minute scales the purest, brightest green nature can conjure, wrapping itself amiably around my forefinger, playfully nibbling at the skin, before sliding off into the grass, into invisibility, into memory. Into those same tunnels of gray matter where the hungry raccoon is still alive, there on the moist earth, just before the rifle barked and spat two bullets into its gut, and the thing squealed and spat blood, convulsing into a ball of fur and fluid and needle-sharp claws.

And there was the little girl on the sterile white sheets. Her eyes were closed, welded shut with yellow discharge. Her face was motionless, moon-pale and contorted. But all the bitter sadness, all the vain anger and curses and prayers it would never again express flowed in great auras of feeling from the face of her mother, who leaned over the bed and looked into those pus-congested eyelids as she had done sleeplessly for days. There was the strange elation when she passed away: Atlas watching the sky lift off his shoulders, ready to hold itself up again.

I moved through the fog and climbed the hill one step at a time, looking down into the ground, focusing my eyes as if on something distant, so that the dew-gilded grass blades slicing the dirt from my boots were lost in the blur, and some cold mirror lurched into focus.

(From all of us at The Starsailor Newsletter, which is exactly one person: Happy Christmas—if that’s what you’re into. If not, I don’t know, man. Good luck with whatever you’re doing.)

•     •     •

Part I:
“The Part That Has Nothing To Do With You”

Once the melatonin wore off, I was stranded on the edges of 4 a.m. I sat up and looked around the room, which was dark and sunken. I gathered that I had collapsed on the floor and fallen asleep. My face was warm with racing blood. My eyes were bloodshot and loose and spiraling out of control. I had no idea where I was.

I remembered one thing, which was at the forefront of my mind. This was it: I’d had a bad day.

The bottle of melatonin was next to where I’d been sleeping. It was open. I’d taken three or four, I wagered, and had fallen into a screaming mad delirium for ten hours.

I took it with the intent to go away for a little while—to sleep until I no longer felt rotten from the inside-out. I had departed from this world and became insane with melatonin—though only temporarily. For there I was: awake and drowsy and stupid at an hour when no one should be awake. I felt worse than ever. Everything was falling apart again.

•      •      •

I opened my computer and began writing something terrifyingly long. I wanted to touch the heart of a girl who used to love me very deeply. I wanted her to know that I loved her, and that I wanted to be her friend, and that I wanted my two little baby cats back. I wrote, in maybe ten-thousand words or more, that I needed to see those cats. I didn’t tell her that I was losing my mind about it. I didn’t think she’d want to hear anything about that.

I called it, I Want To Know You Forever, or The Thing Became. It is divided into two parts, which are “The Part That Has Nothing To Do With You” and “The Part That Has Everything To Do With You”. The first part is about my cats. It has nothing to do with this girl. The second part is all about her. It says, “I love you, and I’m sorry I hurt you. Won’t you forgive me? I’m trying so hard.”

I have yet to finish it.

•      •      •

The contents of this Newsletter—Issue 010, something of a milestone, I would say—were originally going to be this letter I have described and nothing else. There would have been no explanation. But I don’t trust the world enough not to hurt me. Too many people out there would rip me to shreds. They would laugh at me in private.

So you’ll have to do with this, whatever this is. This is The Starsailor Newsletter. We’ve made it to number ten. If  you’re still here: thank you. I love you for sticking around. It’s important that I write this thing, if you didn’t know. If you don’t like it, you probably shouldn’t read it. (Thanks for that sentence, Tim.) But because you’re here, you’re wonderful. Thank you for being my friend. It’s been a hard year.

•      •      •

I have done something I don’t like to do, which is to tease a piece of writing without any promise of delivery. That letter, the long one: it’s intended for an audience of one—maybe three. (It is her decision if she wishes to read it aloud to my partially English-speaking cats. Though, their vocabulary is limited to “food” and “treats” and “hungry”.)

But I will share something with you that is tangentially related. Believe it or not, this is a difficult thing for me to do. See: I’m writing this novella. I was stuck on chapter IV for the longest time. I just couldn’t bear to write it. It was about that girl and how I met her. Every time I sat down to work on it, I teared up. It hurt to bleed all that out.

I sure do miss her sometimes. And I miss those little baby cats. But that goes without saying at this point, I guess. Ah.

So you can read it. I’ve since scrapped the whole chapter and have started from scratch. Chapter IV is now about suicide and Texas. It is about swimming and friendship. I have named it “Lone Starsailor.” I think that’s neat.

I wrote it in the present tense, which is heartbreaking to me. I wrote it for one person. It is written simply, but don’t be fooled: it was a root canal every time I tried to add to it.

I have to let it go. I cannot look at it anymore. You can have it. Take it from me.

So long.

•      •      •

Chapter IV:
“He Loved Until He Was Told Not To”

We are in love.

We have met each other and we are in love.

•     •     •

I offer to drive you home. I will take you anywhere if you ask me.

We drive down moonlit roads. We drive past places I have lived before. We listen to music and talk. We are alike in all the ways that matter.

You are sweet and wonderful and different. That’s the part I like the most—that you’re different. And you love me. You love me, you love me, you love me.

I park on Old Church Road. It’s dark and spooky and warm. We get out of of the car. We walk through meadows at twilight. We hold hands.

•     •     •

We are sharing a dream. In our dream there is an oak tree. We lie beneath it—lie in the shade of the oak tree. The moon casts its glow over us and we are hiding from it.

Your face is spotted with pale light. It is outlined by the white orb hanging over us. You look beautiful. You look lovely. I promise in my heart that I will love you forever.

You tell me about your year. You tell me how you tried to kill yourself, and how you’re happy it didn’t work. You tell me about the pills and the whisky. They made you drink charcoal to get the pills out of your system. You say you’re happy now. You say you’re happy with me. You say you’ve never met someone quite like me.

I pull you close to my chest. I connect my body to yours. I want you to take it all. I want you to have everything.

I kiss your forehead.

•     •     •

We are walking. The sky is enormous and black before us. It is filled with little pinholes that allow streams of light to shine through. We are staring at the biggest pinhole of all. We are staring at the moon.

It has gotten colder. Our blood has failed to warm us. You ask me if we should run. I laugh. I tell you we should run.

We are running. We are racing by fences and patches of open land. We pass darkened houses. Everyone is asleep but us. We’re alive and we’re awake. The world is ours.

I ask if we can walk for a while. Our lungs burn. My chest is fiery and hollow. It is lit up like a Christmas tree.

We are walking down the side of the the road. I hold your hand. I try to warm you up but fail. I’m too cold. I’m colder than you.

•     •     •

We pass by a fence that is different from the rest. It is guarded by a black horse. The horse is grazing and looking at us with big curious eyes. You reach over and pet him on the head. He makes a noise of contentment. We name him Thor.

Thor is breathing peacefully. He is happy to be among new friends. We stay with him for a long while.

Now it’s time to go. We tell Thor good-bye. We promise to visit him often.

This is the last time we will ever see him.

•     •     •

In my mind there are words, but I do not speak them:

“I love you, I love you, I love you.”

•     •     •

A year has passed. It is summer. Spring has vanished. It is never going to return.

fin

 •     •     •

That was all I could manage to write over the span of a month. It really gutted me to pick away at that thing. It feels good to leave it behind.

And you’re not listening, but I need to throw this out into the universe anyway: I love you very much, and I’m so, so sorry for the vicious monster I became. I hope you can forgive me. Please forgive me. I want to know you forever.

•     •     •

Part II:
“The Part Thats Has Everything To Do With You”

I left Austin, Texas on the 20th of December. With the exception of the night I have described—the night of melatonin and bad dreams—I cannot in recent memory recall a sadder day.

I had a phone conference with my psychiatrist while I was at the airport. He told me I sounded different. I told him he was right to think that about me. “I’ve been happy, yes, but I’m not so happy today,” I said.

“And why’s that? You sound fine,” he said.

“It’s because I’m leaving Austin.”

“It really is a fine city, I’ve heard.”

“Yes, it is.”

He gave me a six-month supply of the two medications that keep my brain on planet Earth. Otherwise I’d be all over the place. I’d be a crazy, ruined man.

He asked me how I was “functioning”—which is an important question for a psychiatrist to ask. I couldn’t take care of myself five months ago, after all. I wasn’t eating and I was sleeping for fourteen hours a day. I wasn’t functioning.

“Oh, I’m functioning, all right,” I said. “I have a job and everything. And I’m getting another one. And I know this girl, okay.”

“A girl, huh?” His must have sat straight up in his chair when he said that.

“Yeah, a girl.”

“Mm, I see!”

Dr. Hyman sure was happy to hear the word “girl”.

•     •     •

He told me I had six months to find a new psychiatrist—on account of my moving to Texas. I was sad to hear that. I wanted to stay with him forever. “You need to meet with someone in person,” he said. “You’re doing great—you just need to keep it up.”

“And,” he said, “I would like to be kept in the loop about how you’re doing and what you’re up to.” God bless him for that. He sounded like someone who loved and cared about me.

Thanks, Dr. Hyman.

 •     •     •

Before I went through the security checkpoint, when I would have to hang up my phone, I asked him if he wouldn’t mind writing me a brief note on his letterhead. See: Last August I was going to start a Master’s program. I was going to take a few classes to stay busy. But then I felt really rotten and wasn’t really existing anymore. I collapsed and lost the will to go on. I nearly killed myself, too.

So I didn’t take the classes. I dropped out of them. There was no way in hell my brain was going to tolerate anything more than was already dealing with, which was a lot. As it turns out, I dropped the classes too late—and was charged nearly $300 for doing this.

I explained all of this to Dr. Hyman. He would “hmm” and “oh!” as I said these things. I told him that the school would exonerate me of my debts if I could produce a letter saying I was a stark-raving lunatic for a little while.

“Certainly,” said Dr. Hyman. “I would be glad to. And just what should this note say?” I was getting closer and closer to the security checkpoint.

“I really can’t think of anything other than: ‘He lost his mind, but he’s OK now,’” I said.

The good doctor sucked in a lungful of oxygen. He exhaled. “I’ve got it,” he said in a grand voice. “Here it is: ‘Ryan [Starsailor] suffers from severe clinical depression, and was not functioning properly during the months he would have attended school. He began treatment in August of 2011, and was diagnosed as being Bipolar II. Please excuse him of any financial responsibility he would have accrued during this time.”

“Wonderful,” I said. “That’ll show them.”

“Sure will,” he said, making a popping noise with his mouth. “Sure will.”

•     •     •

As I have said, it’s true: I wasn’t functioning properly. I was a real mess. I was human soup.

I thought about this as I waited at Terminal 8. I was waiting for a plane to take me to Houston, and then Baltimore. It was delayed, so I had a lot of time to think. “‘Ryan [Starsailor] suffers from severe clinical depression,’” looped in my mind over and over.

“Severe clinical depression.”

It sounded so damning. How could anyone ever survive clinical depression—much less a severe case of it? Was I doomed?

And I remembered this commercial for an antidepressant I had seen the day before. In it, a cartoon woman is walking in a park. She is accompanied by a menacing black nether-nothing wearing a smirking cartoon face. He is a sort of black hole with teeth and eyes. When she attempts to step forward, he morphs into a hole. She falls in. He laughs. She struggles to climb out again. And then the drug is mentioned by name, and the black-hole-thing shrinks to the size of a small black balloon. He shrivels and looks sad. The woman is happy. She has a picnic with friends. But there the little black hole remains—waiting. He’s small but he still exists.

How accurate!

This thing still exists in me, and is brought out when I least expect it. It is kept at by an antidepressant and an anti-bipolar medication. It will never go away for good. It can only be pushed away for a little while.

I continued to think about this as I got up to walk down to Thundercloud Subs. I was feeling a little blue. I could sense my little black ballon growing into a hole. I was careful not to fall in.

And this is what happened, which kept my demons at bay: my favorite Thundercloud Subs employee was working. I frequent Austin-Bergstrom International Airport enough to know this guy on a friendly basis. I hoped to God he would remember what sandwich I wanted.

“Hey dude,” he said. I admire anyone who is over the age of thirty and is able to say ‘dude’ without it sounding stupid or forced.

“Oh hey, man,” I said.

“And what’ll it be? Veggie Delite?”

“Yes,” I said. I had been remembered.

“You got it, man. Hummus or cream cheese?” he said.

“What would you pick?” I said.

“Man, I would do hummus. But that’s just me—I’m a hummus guy.”

“Let’s do hummus,” I said.

To the horror of curious passersby, I ate the sandwich in something like forty seconds. The hummus was, without a doubt, the correct choice. I was happy again after that.

•     •     •

Yes, and so I flew home. I stopped in Houston and then to my final destination, which was the dreaded “B” word—Baltimore. I felt miserable just hearing it. “Baltimore.”

It was raining when we landed, of course. It is always raining in that godforsaken doom-metropolis—in that swamp of fools and fornicators.

Jason picked me up. He’s a wonderful human being for doing that. He brought me a honey crisp apple without even knowing they’re my favorite. “Thank you, brother,” I said.

“You’re very welcome,” he said. We drove off. We drove in the direction of Annapolis, which is the wrong direction.

“Um,” I said. “I don’t think you know where you’re going.”

“No,” said Jason, “I have no clue.”

•     •     •

Since that dreadful night, I have been staying in the Northern Virginia, which is a place where dreams go to die. I have outgrown this place. It is time to go. I’m only here for the two holidays that occur towards the end of December—and to retrieve my furniture and books and clothes and car and so on. I am here also to say good-bye. I don’t know when I’ll be back.

Here’s what I’ve been up to the past week: Nothing. I sleep until the late afternoon, on account of all the staying up late. Around four or five in the a.m., I’ll pop a melatonin and slip into a sort of peaceful coma.

Jason has a pillow-top for his mattress, don’t you know. It’s full of feathers. That’s part of the problem, too—part of the sleeping problem. I just don’t want to leave that bed in the morning. It’s too uncomfortable and weird and cold outside the cocoon I find myself in upon waking.

When I do get up, it’s because Lucy wakes me up. She’s a little tortoiseshell kitten. She’s brand new—only a few weeks old. I can fit her entire head in the palm of my hand with lots of palm to spare.

She wakes me up, and I’ll say, “Okay, okay, Lucy. For God’s sake.” And then we roll around on the carpet and play little kitten games. We’re becoming great friends.

Our friendship is almost out necessity, though. We’re roommates, and there’s damn near nothing to do but watch the rainclouds from this windows of Jason’s room. She’d be all alone if I didn’t stay in with her every day. So we play some more. We play all the time.

I’m falling in love with this cat. I need a cat presence in my life. It has been over five months since I have seen my own little boys.

I sure do miss those little boys. I bought them some Christmas presents. I don’t know when I’ll get the chance to give them those Christmas presents.

I’m getting sad again. I shouldn’t be thinking about this on Christmas Eve.

•     •     •

Yes, and it is Christmas Eve, all right. Or rather it was a half hour ago. As I have yet to go off to an unconscious state resembling sleep, I refuse to accept that it is Christmas. I will continue to pretend it is Christmas Eve.

It has been a fine one, as far as Christmas Eves go. I went to a candlelight service at my grandmother’s hippie church. It was weird stuff. I loved every minute of it. They have some really talented musicians there. We got to light candles at the end. The reverend told us to look around the room, and see the light shining. I did as I was told. It was a magnificent sight.

Later I found myself at the home of my dear brothers Jason and Eddie Long. They were watching television and ignoring my presence. I said some stupid things and no one cared.

They have since scampered off to bed in anticipation of the morning that awaits them. I told them they’d better close their eyes and go to sleep as soon as possible, or Santa Claus, the bastard, would skip over their house. They obeyed.

Good for them.

•     •     •

I am reclining in an easy chair in front of a crackling wood stove. I have just placed another log on the fire. It is cozy and wonderful in this room. Little baby Lucy is sound asleep on the couch to my left. Her little baby eyes are closed, and her little baby tail is wrapped around her little baby body. She is cute as a button. I think I will love her forever.

And I am ruminating on the days that lie ahead of me. I plan to spend the next week in solitude, maybe, in the doom-metropolis of Baltimore. It is the final days of my kingdom. Soon I will be Lord Baron of Baltimore no more. I will then be the Archduke of Austin. But not yet, not yet.

On the 31st I will travel to Brooklyn with Jason. We are seeing Deer Tick and Virgin Forest—and J. Roddy Walston and the Business and Dead Confederate. I’m not sure who the last two are. I guess I’ll find out on New Year’s Eve.

The show is called “Deer Tick & Friends”. Isn’t that nice?

And when the clock strikes midnight, we’ll be in the midst of rock and roll. We’ll be in the center of the universe. We’ll be in the greatest city in the world. I can’t think of a better place to be.

We’re probably going to end up sleeping in Central Park, or in a cafe or a gutter somewhere. It’s going to be a rip-roaring time, I’ve no doubt. I hope I end up with a bloody nose or a black eye or a few scars. I hope I end up with a missing limb.

I must be nuts.

•     •     •

When I return on the 1st—on the first day of 2012, no less—I will begin painting and packing up my pitiful apartment. I have not been there in over two months. I am not anxious to return to it, as I have said. But I must. And then I can finally leave it and the city it is in forever and ever.

Ms. Steph Malpass has said she can donate her time on the 2nd. We are going to paint and possibly order a pizza. And Ms. Perri Weldy is taking a bus from Philadelphia on the 3rd. We’re going to paint, too. We’re going to be paint like maniacs.

I have promised her we will watch Peter Pan. We might build a fort, too. Why not?

•     •     •

I have placed one more log on the fire. It will see me out to the end of this Newsletter.

But I think I shall retire. It is late, and though I am not at all tired, it would be a sound decision for me to close my eyes and see what happens. If need be, I may call upon the powers of melatonin. (I really ought to stop relying on that stuff, huh?)

Lucy is still curled up on the couch. I will pick her up and take her with me when I go upstairs. We will share the pillow-top mattress, and make fun of Jason in a language he does not understand, which is Cat. I plan to say, in various chirps and meows, that Jason is an idiot. Maybe Lucy will laugh, I don’t know.

Am I happy? I’m not sure. Tonight I am. That’s good enough for me.

Let’s go join Jason in dreamland, little Lucy.

Happy Christmas, friends.

—R. Starsailor

We set out over the river. Just as we thought ourselves free, bursts of water erupted from beneath the rafts. They were attacking from below.

They had taken on monstrous forms to stay our retreat. They were as the skeletons of sharks, yet longer, sinuous, with many tails and fins the color and strength of polished brass. Spines flashed as they breached and dove. Darkness and the murky river hid from us their true anatomy; they were no less, no more than the destruction they caused. They could have been many, or one swift as lightning.

This vision is burned into the back of my skull: as the fishers rowed  toward the opposite bank, and the boats were eaten from beneath, an explosion from the riverbank lit up the night for a split second. I saw the bulk of the thing as it rose from the depths and reared over the vessel just ahead of ours. Its head unfurled like a clockwork flower, revealing teeth or blades that grew radially from what seemed, in that instant of terror, to be both mouth and eye: purple crystal glinting, hungry darkness howling.

The light vanished and I was blinded. There were carnivorous sounds that froze my blood. The next burst of light only moments later revealed red clouds, splintered wood, and lengths of drifting rope in the current. I watched the tails of the thing crack the surface like whips as it turned to dive—it was a mechanical serpent, fueled by death, mouth and eye in one purple-black singularity.

Forever more, that is how I will remember our enemy: beasts that perceive and consume with the same organ.

          -Zoe

 ◊               ◊               ◊

The colony was ancient and unaware of its purpose.

Its geography was simple and beautiful. Carved out of thick forest, it rested on the western banks of the widest swath of a river that streamed south from highland springs just below a snowcapped chain of fog-shrouded mountains. The river split just downstream from the colony. One arm curved eastward to weave deeper into the forest and out toward the ocean, the other continued due south to sleep and fester in the swamps.

The river guarded the colony from the east, and all other sides were guarded by the wall. Twenty feet high and built of moss-spattered stone quarried in the shadow of rolling hills long ago, reinforced on the inside by spiked logs jutting at an angle just over the rim, it emerged from the river at the northern bank of the colony, proceeded west for over a mile, swung south for three, then turned east to disappear into the water downstream from whence it came.

The wall kept wilderness and civilization divided. On the inside were thatched-roof huts with chimneys that smoldered in wintertime and windows thrown open to summer warmth. There were rare groves of trees sprouting up from hillocks here and there, decorating the space between measured plots of farmland. But most of the space was tall tawny grass through which dirt roads twisted from one home to the next. All roads converged at the stone shrine on the central bank.

On the outside of the wall was endless forest. It was a place where the branches were so thick and tangled that no underbrush grew, where night and day were often confused, where navigation was impossible. It was a natural labyrinth orchestrated by chaos. A man could dissolve in those narrow corridors between trees, terrified and enraptured by the hungry sounds that echoed in the haze. There was one gateway into the forest: an ancient wooden door, thick and heavy, bound to its stone archway with rusty iron hinges. Hunting parties passed through the threshold, but never at night, and never to stray far.

To be sure, there was psychological darkness at work in the colony’s design. Nevertheless the inhabitants were meditative people. They practiced an art that was archaic, mystic, yet far from trivial. All of their culture, religion, politics, mythology, and philosophy revolved around this single art—this art revolved around a handful of coins, a hand of playing cards, and a wooden cube.

  ◊               ◊               ◊

Among the colonists was Aristokles, a frail man with tired grey eyes, hollow cheeks shaded with stubble, and wild brown hair. He was forty years old when sorrow struck his face, thirty or younger when laughter washed it clean. He was respected among the artists for his abstract imagination and his dignified, steel-spined gait. Rather than summoning his skills near his home, he chose to wander. He could be seen walking along the top of the wall, ambling in wide arcs through tall grass, wading into the river in the hot months, searching for a spot where he might engage in the art, cube held in the crook of one pale arm.

The cube was not the source of a shaman’s power. It was a channeling device. Every male colonist owned one, and treasured it above all other possessions. The cubes were one cubic foot in volume, carved seamless and smooth from the cylinder of a tree trunk. They were only frames; no walls, floors or ceilings, only a frame of empty space.

Aristokles’s cube was beautifully intricate. Though his hands did not craft it, they had mastered the feel of the object, and in turn its subtle magic. The wood was dark red in tone, and as stiff as marrowless bone. Air could whistle through it, clean and strong, filling its precise volume with invisible song. Each edge displayed a potent mythological text, engraved in runic symbols. He could tell each of the twelve stories by running his fingertips along the proper edge. In time he had discovered analogous connections among each trio of stories that met at one corner. He was fascinated by the tales, and would tell them whenever asked. To the listener they were only stories, but to Aristokles, with the patient machinations of a literary mind, they yielded worlds of insight. His dreams, furious with clarity, often parodied the cube’s mythology, and more than once reality had been invaded by the stories as well. He meditated on the recursive nature of the stories, but kept his faith secret.

Aristokles desired more time for his personal inquiries, but moments of solitary reflection were a rare luxury in the midst of a war.

The location of the front lines was unknown. But somewhere outside the colony, beyond the dense forest, beyond the sheltering arms of the river and the snowy peaks of the northern mountains, a war was being waged. The outcome would result in the extinction or survival of humanity. The colony had been founded to ensure victory. The shaman, the artists of the colony fought this war. They did not fight with steel or fire, with armies or force. Their stratagems were employed through the faintest movements of their fingertips, with the lightest tossing of their hands and swaying of their bodies, with their focus and brilliance, with sublime concentration on the voids of air within their cubes.

They became in tune with the power of Chance over all things, and they became intimate with vast metaphorical systems that lay just beneath sensory detection. They became able to influence cosmic events in the most remote location by making a minute movement over an exact space of time. The windows of time were short, the necessary movements precise, and human aim has never been accurate. If these difficulties did not exist, the art would not have been an art, and the war would have long since been won.

 ◊               ◊               ◊

The boats docked on the other side of the river, and we leapt to the shore with children in our arms. The fisherman followed, pushing what remained of the boats back out onto the river to distract the beasts. We thought we would watch those men die as they waded into the water, but the creatures would not come near the shore. The sinking ships drifted downstream, bursts of water-laced brass machinery following in their wake, tearing the wood to splinters as it was carried off into the night.

We tripped and scrambled our way over the stony beach and up the bank, then turned to face the opposite shore. All we could see were the fires in the forest and their orange gleam dancing like a mad spirit across the ripples in the river.

We fled to the forest and starved in terrified silence for days. It was early autumn and the nights were cold. Three days passed before we felt safe enough to light fires and to fish the river for food. But once our stomachs were full and our physical discomforts alleviated, reality struck and a heavy depression settled over us like a storm cloud.

Where would we go? What could we do? Most of our men had been swallowed or dismembered by the ferocious plague that still stalked the land. We knew from rumors that had met our ears months before the attack that the beasts held sway as far in every direction as any traveler had seen. We had remained unscathed until the horror of that night; now all of us knew and would never forget the carnal hunger, the cruel purposelessness of our enemy.

We had to assume they would come again. We had to build a wall.

          -Zoe

 ◊               ◊               ◊

The sky was confused on the day Aristokles was to gather with all shaman at the shrine. Brooding thunderheads were intertwined with mellow white clouds, and beyond was pure blue. Fast winds kept the array in visible motion and constant flux. He could smell the tension of captive rain; some force would not allow its cathartic release.

His dwelling lay at the north end of the colony, close to the river and beneath the shadow of the wall. His father had cut with his own hands a channel that led a ribbon of the river under a waterwheel built into the side of the hut. It gently spun day and night, churning the water and grating two millstones against one another. He lived there alone, sleeping, when he was able, wrapped in blankets on the straw mattress in the bed frame of the single room. He left his door open each day for the farmers who made flour. It was this service that allotted him his share of sustenance, and gave him ample leave to practice the art. Home had always meant the dusty scent of unmade bread.

That morning he walked out of his front door and made his way to the bank. Walking along the pebble beach was the quickest route from his home to the shrine. The chaotic sky reigned overhead, and being sensitive to such forces he found himself conflicted. But the cool flow of the river staid his anxieties, and he took to the common task that afflicted his mornings: remembering the dreams of the night before.

His dreams often featured the drone of the millstones, horror to some ears but a comfort to his own. But last night had been no routine vision of mountains being ground into powder. He could recall a blue mist rising from water, but all other images had vanished. He was left with a sense of awe he could not disentangle from the ache of nostalgic loss. The river whispered her eerie secrets: he possessed no cypher to her language.

The pebbles clacked under his leather sandals for a mile of time, and then he stopped short. Before him, crouched in the fetal position with toes in the water, was the craftsmen Kyriakos. He was carving images into a chunk of driftwood with a bone knife. Aristokles hailed him. Kyriakos was a scientist and mystic theorist, the designer of Aristokles’ waterwheel and one of the few and respected cube-makers. He had pioneered the process of chemically extracting salt from the silt of the river, and ever since had been allowed his share of the colony’s food to pursue whatever project that engaged his interest.

“What busies your hand on our strange morning?”

“Strange indeed, Aristokles,” said Kyriakos through his graying beard. “Spirits are at odds in the sky. I’m mapping out the supernatural struggle as my inward eye details.” Sarcasm, evasion, or a poetic expression of some glorious blueprint? Any and all were likely in the words of the shrewd craftsman.

“Did you hear of the meeting?”

“I know what’ll be said.” The old man was squinting at the driftwood, using the point of his knife to etch a minute series of lines between points. The picture so far was akin to a night sky, a network of white dots thrust into the brown wood. Aristokles was versed in astronomy, and could see, after crouching beside him, that Kyriakos was creating a false series of constellations on the true star-map—and during the day. Aristokles cracked the crooked smile of a conspiring intellectual.

“Allow me to hear your predictions.”

Kyriakos raised his eyes from the carving. His face had borne a permanent sorrow as long as Aristokles had known him. “We are closing in on the end. I can feel it in my palms.” There was a moment of silent reflection during which his eyes traced the changing contours of the river. Then, as if declaring the task impossible, he returned to his work with fervor.

Aristokles passed him by.

 ◊               ◊               ◊

The architecture of the shrine was meant to convey purity. In earlier times the place may have glowed. Now it held to its foundational concept in form but not in color. Set on four circular plates of marble stacked in succession of shrinking radii near the tallest edge of a raised bank were in turn four columns, unfluted, plain but for the miracle that they were each hewn of one boulder: no drums, singular cylinders. These columns held aloft a vaulted ceiling impressed with one continuous groove that formed a golden spiral.

The four capitals displayed elaborate stone masks facing, altogether, in the four cardinal directions. The eastern mask looked out across the river, its expression serene, philosophical, transcendent. The western looked across the colony, through the wall, into the forest, and it wore the brutal smile of exploratory conquest. The mask that faced south looked downriver with an air of foggy nostalgia, memory reaching farther than sight. The mask that faced north was of course a skull, its vacant sockets aimed upriver and beyond, reflected, perhaps, in the snow that feathered the mountain peaks on the horizon.

Aristokles climbed the four steps, passing beneath the northern skull, walking around its column, careful, placing each foot where it should fall. He was under the vault, and when he had walked the radius of the floor—twenty strides at a reverent gait—he came to the round table at the center. The table was not great in size, but all elements of the shrine seemed to lean toward this center, as if the spirits of the place were watching intently.

They should be. On this table was the strategic, topographical, moving map of the war.

Miniature hills and vast open fields once lush with growth but now barren, starved, festering in ash, were populated by thousands of glowing pinpoints and lines of two colors: purple and green. The map changed in real time as the armies marched across terrain upon which Aristokles had never lain eyes.

It was obvious that the power was in the hands of purple. Purple points outnumbered the green, and the purple lines that surrounded groups of points, representing, as the experts had told him, territory or at least temporary control, were beginning to encircle the green lines. Most of the green points were concentrated in a valley on which the purple were inexorably bearing down from the higher ground.

Kyriakos had been right. The shaman would gather and sit in a circle on the cool marble while Nikephoros made his speech. We are closing in on the enemy, the stout old artist would say, but victory is far from imminent. Let Chance and skill redistribute our abilities for the coming days, and then carry on.

Aristokles placed his hands on the rim of the table and set himself over it, a watchful god invisible to the combatants. The drama played out like two ant colonies at war on a plate of molasses. Aristokles was no tactician, and did not dare interpret the events of the greater armies. He decided to watch the minute actions of two scouting parties that were drawing close to one another. One purple speck of light, and three green. After a few minutes of stalking one another, circling and waiting, flirtatious evasions and seekings, the two forces met. The purple speck glowed brighter for an instant, and all three green points dissolved into haze before vanishing from the map.

Aristokles returned to the pebble beach to make use of his art until the gathering was over and the redistribution began.

 ◊               ◊               ◊

Legs folded, lungs expanding and contracting. Breathe in: one with the outside, part of the whole, all is with, selfless. Breathe out: severing of the self, separation from the outside, all is against, alone. Breathe in and breathe out until the invisible line between outside and inside is aware of itself. Transform observational peristalsis into intense, willed action. Eyes closed, daylight skipping off the waves of the river to splash in dull red heat across the eyelids. Eyes closed again, the second pair of eyelids this time, the film of dreams and distant recollections. Wide awake, the body is slowed. The heartbeat levels off to a steady tempo, calm quarter notes in a measure of unknown length, unknown signature, unbroken but for the occasional irregular pair of eighths. River sound in the ears, a rushing lull, a whispered roar.

When the mystery dissolves, when presence becomes dream-presence, when the mind is an open field without boundaries, when the strings of causality can be felt quivering at the fingertips—eyes open.

The cube on the stones. Cards with pictures and symbols arranged around it with deliberate geometry.

The space within the cube. Focus.

The squared volume of air wavers like heat off of sand. Adjust the mind, keep pace with the vibrations. Chance is at work in the motions of matter: in the river, in the shapes of the stones. Within this precise cubic volume of air there rushes billions of particles, pushed by the wind and swapped out for another set of billions each second. Within this precise volume there is no conscious design. Until now.

Now each of the billions of particles that passes through this space must first pass through the analogy of the self that observes, who alters their behavior by his very observation, and controls their behavior by altering the nature of his observation. Now the wind must pass not only through the smooth edges of wood and through this exact section of physical being, but also through the self-conceptualization of the acute spectator.

By carefully folding his observation into his willed selfhood, Aristokles has made his perception yet another muscle. He flexes that muscle, and the space within the cube bends, and the fate of the universe is changed ever so slightly.

 ◊               ◊               ◊

It wasn’t long before we discovered we were not the only refugees in the valley. Thousands of the displaced streamed down from the mountains and foothills to the north and through the forest to the west seeking shelter from the inhuman threat. They often worked their way along the river, and so would stumble upon our encampment. Few of those who found us carried on. Common sense taught that there was relative safety in numbers.

Yet beyond that simple truth was something intangible that dwelled about the place, haunting and serene. It remained unspoken, but we all knew it in our bones. We were being protected here.

Soon the projected enclosure of the wall had been expanded by several square miles. Every man, woman and child who arrived at our encampment was enlisted to work on the fortifications, to clear great swaths of forest, to build homes, to make farmland. We were no longer a mere handful of mourners hiding away in the woods. We were a community of dedicated individuals. One might have mistaken it for the blossoming beginnings of a city destined for greatness, had it not been for the sorrow in our movements, the revenge in our eyes.

Though the colony grew strong, each citizen felt the weight of the coming struggle as if it were already upon him. Soon the plague would have to be confronted. What had began as a series of predatory slaughters would transform into all-out war.

As the colony sublimated around them, the leaders among us sought not only the most strategic defense, but even then an obscure method of conquering the enemy. The beasts were becoming stronger out in the wilderness, while we were still recovering our senses, bracing ourselves for invasion, cataclysm, extinction.

It was the alliance between two great minds that brought about the revelation. Leon, soldier and strategist, held strenuous counsel with Anakletos, philosopher and craftsman. Together they reached this conclusion: The only way to combat an enemy with such incredible advantages was to influence probability itself.

          -Zoe

 ◊               ◊               ◊

The redistribution had begun. Three men sat on stools around a wooden table in the midst of a field, their cubes placed carefully to the side in the grass, eyeing hands of cards clutched firmly between thumb and fingers. Their names were Timokrates, Anaxagoras, and Phaedrus. Silver coins, dull-cornered hexagons embossed with curving symbols circumscribed in a forgotten language, clattered to the center of the table one upon the other. Phaedrus slapped his cards face-down and leaned back, arms folded, to watch the showdown. Timokrates placed his cards face-up on the table: two Quiet Stones, one Standing Tree, one Formless Air, one Boundless Field.

Anaxagoras revealed his hand with a flourish of the fingertips, each card clapping against the table in quick succession like a run of grace notes preceding melody. Three Bold Mountains and two Boundless Fields. Phaedrus whistled high to low, Timokrates groaned in disbelief, palms pressed white against his forehead, and Anaxagoras smiled as he collected his winnings, scraping the coins toward himself in one clean shovel-motion.

“Aristokles,” he said, “we missed you at the gathering. Take a seat.”

Aristokles sat, assuming the role of the fourth player. He reached into the folds of his cloak and produced the hand from the last game he had played. Anaxagoras began to deal out hands to himself and the other two players.

The game had been crafted ages ago as part of the system of shaman artistry. A handful of coins was possessed by each shaman, the quantity of which determined the potency of a shaman’s art. The cards were as old as the coins, each one embossed on stiff parchment with an elaborate hand-painted representation of a natural object. Trees, stones, bodies of water, meteorological forms, mountains, hills, fields, elements; all were accounted for in the Deck. The cards were in constant circulation, and no table-deck held all of them. They were said to be the mystic symbols of the types of power a shaman could wield with his spells, and were meant to be the subject of deep meditation, in parallel with the shaman’s cube, during sessions of artistry. The value of each card was indeterminate, and the winner was only proclaimed as such by an unspoken, collective interpretation of card-to-card relationships accepted by any given table of players. The purpose of the game was to distribute power (coins) and abilities (cards) in accordance with both the skill of the players and the chance of the draw.

Players left the game at the beginning of a hand, and kept their last five cards with them at all times. The last hand of Aristokles had been four Drifting Smokes and a Whispering Stream. He regretted to see the excellent hand shuffled back into the table-deck after the first round, but won a palpable sum with it before it was assimilated into the obscurity from which it had been assembled.

It was to be a lucrative redistribution for Aristokles. He doubled the number of coins in his possession before he left the table. Anaxagoras came away from the table with a slightly increased hoard, and by the twitching of his eyebrows as he stood up with his final hand, an inspiring set of abilities. Timokrates and Phaedrus lost much of their wealth, but retired with the same calm and friendly demeanor. It was, after all, the will of Chance that had robbed them of their power: surely Chance was on the side of the faithful, surely out of these subtle turns of events the human victory would be achieved.

Aristokles left the table with a hand that was, judging from the table’s determinations of value during this series of games, utterly worthless. Fanned out before his eyes were five different cards. One Quiet Stone, one Boundless Field, one Aimless Cloud, one Wandering Star, and one that Aristokles had never come across in all his years of card-slinging. It pictured a cartographic view of the colony itself, all in shades of gray but for the stark blue river carving its way southward, accurate to the last detail. . . except for the small bridge that extended from the central shrine to an island in the midst of the water that he knew did not exist.

The card was called Cunning River.

 ◊               ◊               ◊

Even before the wall was complete, the arms race had begun. We were stockpiling weapons and training the youth, racing against the monsters that lurked outside the colony. They were out of sight but never out of mind, and we could feel them like a heavy shadow creeping toward us from the periphery of vision, a motion that slides out of sight when the eye is brought into focus. The military men were playing chess with an invisible foe, fashioning an offensive stance out of a thousand pieces, unaware of the position of the enemy and even doubting its existence.

Once the idea of shaping Chance to our advantage had been spoken, it could not be forgotten. The wise-man Anakletos had long held certain theories regarding the nature of this universe. As the story goes, he had been silent for days, watching the river, when the philosophy struck him. The world, he claimed, is held together by a being’s awareness of it. To gaze upon the river was to alter, in miniscule gradients, the speed, the flow, the substance of its current. To observe was to reshape. And surely a creative mind, armed with clever and disciplined eyes, could change the way it perceived the river. Therefore, by ontological law, a man could bend the river to his will.

Toward the necessity of preserving our race, his philosophy was drafted into military service. Under the supervision of the commander Leon, Anakletos had begun to hone his new art and teach it to the next generation. Rigorous experimentation took place. Veteran soldiers would engage inexperienced recruits in mock battle; the former alone with their weapon, the latter armed in addition with a practitioner of the art seeking to manipulate the outcome. The results were beyond dispute.

Yet there were those who argued that there was another factor at work, the boundless variable known as faith. It was possible that the combatants’ awareness  of the practitioner was enough to strengthen the subject of focus, and to throw the opposing soldier off-balance. But however it came into being, was that not the desired effect?

The warrior-artist was born. It was not long before his craft met the less forgiving test of the battlefield.

          -Zoe

 ◊               ◊               ◊

The cube twitched.

Aristokles woke with a spasm, wiped beads of sweat from his brow, then stared into the sun until the sleep was burned from his eyes. She was past the zenith now and traveling lower. He was sitting on top of a rock with his legs crossed trying to remember his dream. He let his legs slide apart and his toes touch the earth. After a few gentle minutes of kneading his bare feet into the forest soil and looking through the sky, his gaze came to rest on the object between his feet. The cube. He focused, eyes straining. Had their been movement, or had it only been his imagination echoing another forgotten dream-image?

One instantaneous flash of color.

It lasted for the blink of an eye, and could have been the bright spot cloven into his sight by the sun. But no, the image had been too sharp, the colors too vivid. It had been the terrified face of a woman, blonde hair with eyes of blazing green, beautiful even in its contortion.

Aristokles recoiled, falling backwards off of the rock. He laid there, gazing upward into the blue for a long string of moments. Had he been granted the sight of a goddess? Had it been a vision into the past, or into the future? An image transmitted directly from the battlefield by the convoluted tides of coincidence? What had terrified, was terrifying, would terrify this woman?

After his thoughts had raged in every corner of possibility, he bade himself relax, and began steady breathing exercises. The vision had come to him with purpose, and had come to him because he had followed the will of Chance and brought himself out into the forest in search of a quiet stone. He sat up, groaning and running his fingers through his hair. He walked around the rock and found his cube, his last hand arranged around its sides. Near the left edge he had set the Quiet Stone, the first of his recent hand.

The second was the Boundless Field.

He picked up his cards and tucked them into his cloak, their dealt order still intact. He gripped his cube and jogged off deeper into the woods, heading for the nearest clearing.

 ◊               ◊               ◊

The wall was now almost complete. Its long arms extended deep into the river and far out over the land, cradling us in protective embrace. The last stones were laid and the sharpened tree trunks raised. The carpenters built the gate, and the smiths fashioned it with thick iron clasps and a massive bolt. A crowd gathered to watch as it swung shut for the first time, blocking out the terror of the outside world—locking us in.

The men were separated into two castes: soldiers and warrior-artsits. The castes were of equal numbers, and they were paired according to their styles of combat, their temperaments, even intellectual compatibility. One soldier to each warrior-artist. One man to deal and receive the blows, one man to twist fate in his soldier’s favor.

There was a time of great contentment with this system. But rifts in task soon become rifts in thinking, and all the wider for it. Leon and his soldiers grew disdainful of the warrior-artists. Why not bolster the fighting force with as many able-bodied men as we could muster? What’s more, the creed of the warrior-artists shifted further toward mysticism each time it was vocalized. The warrior-artists were scornful in their own right. Why deprive their purpose of a single man who could help turn the tides of Chance, when every mind set to the task brought them that much closer to controlling the fabric of causality?

The dispute was serious. But when the common enemy reared its formless head again for the first time in years, it was cast aside. One of the hunting parties had walked out the gates as twenty strong, and scrambled back in as three badly wounded, spouting tales of dark monstrosities devouring their companions.

The fighting force leapt into action. They were frightened, we could see it in their faces; but greater than fear was the hunger for the first militant confrontation with the enemy. They marched out of the gates in twos, led by the one hunter left with the strength to guide them.

And then, a miracle. Ragged, bloody, and filled with laughter, they returned. They had won. The beasts—so long rumored to be immortal, invulnerable, demonic—they had seen the beasts bleed and die.

The victory was only the first in a long and arduous campaign. So spoke the two great leaders, and they spoke no lie.

          -Zoe

 ◊               ◊               ◊

Two days had passed and Aristokles had brought about the visions of the woman four times, each in conjunction with a location delineated by the order of cards in his last hand.

The Boundless Field had led him to a wide clearing in the forest where wild grass swayed and insects hummed. After half an hour of intense concentration he had conjured the vision again. This time the woman lingered a moment longer within the empty walls of the wooden cube.

The search for a location symbolized by the Aimless Cloud had been far more rigorous. He had wandered through the forest for the remainder of the day, always with his eyes turned up toward the sky. No chance occurrences sparked an epiphany, no secrets were unveiled. He had reentered the colony with the evening hunting-party just before nightfall with a heavy heart, and retired to his dwelling. His sleep was plagued with intense dreams of wandering through vast expanses of uncharted territory, and as he walked he felt the blade-like pupils of crouching predators tracing his steps, set in golden circles gleaming from the shadows. He had started awake in the midst of night, and could not fall asleep again until he brought to bed with him the iron sledgehammer he kept for maintenance of the mill.

In the morning he had set out again, this time searching within the colony. He hiked along the dirt roads, passing farmers on horse-drawn carts and fellow shaman honing their skills in patches of matted-down field grass. When he sighted the hill from which a lone tree sprouted, he hurried off the path and up the gentle slope. He had reached into his pocket and gazed into the painting on the Aimless Cloud. This very hill, it seemed, had been sketched at the bottom of the picture, above which a great cloud was passing. He had sat down under the tree and waited.

The sky was clear but for one pure, white, lumbering beast. The vision came quickly this time, and he was able to sustain it for almost a minute. Her breathing was heavy as if in sexual passion, and her green eyes blinked in the face of some unknowable monstrosity. Was she being tortured, swallowed by the enemy?
She was seeking a listener. There was dark truth in her eyes, a yarn waiting to be told. He was determined to unravel it, and seek the center of the labyrinth.

That night he had leapt into the river at the north end of the colony and climbed the slippery birth-slope of the wall. He ambled along the top for nearly an hour before settling into the lotus position with the cube before him and the Wandering Star placed inside it. He looked up into the night sky: the stars like winter morning ice-crystals on black plate glass. One star, isolated from any constellation, winked and shifted, calling his attention. He poured his thoughts into it, imagining a huge, infinitely distant orb of fire, spinning fast enough to tear itself apart and fade into blackness. There and then the woman appeared to him for the fourth time, the vision burning through the surrounding night, so lucid he could almost hear her short breaths.

Aristokles saw a darkness framed in the green of her eyes, the silhouette of a malignant machine assembling itself out of a thousand fragments to reveal one striking purple disc reflected in the moisture of her quivering irises.

 ◊               ◊               ◊

That night Aristokles returned to his home. The machinery was droning on in the dark corner of the hut, muffled by the chuckling flow of the artificial stream. Ptolemais was waiting for him there. She had placed the sledgehammer on the rough dirt floor as if in fear or respect, and fallen asleep on the straw mattress. The woolen blanket hid her thin, curved frame up to the neck, but he could see she was wound tightly underneath, her extremities pulled inward to concentrate body heat. Her hair tumbled free across the blanket, thick and black, in tight waves. Her cheeks were hollow like those of a much older woman. Beneath her tight eyelids he could sense the oceanic blue of her eyes as they darted in circles.

He sat down on the side of the bed and ran his hands over his face and through his hair, gathering himself. He seemed to be squinting at himself from a great distance, trying to ascertain his own shape, to remember where he was. In the months before the fateful vision had befallen him, struck him like a subtle disease of the mind, he had courted Ptolemais in the fields of the colony, sipping wine and trading jokes and stories. A wave of guilt overtook him: lost in the depth of these past obsessive days he had all but forgotten her. Now he prepared himself, weighing phrases and apologies in his head, crafting a means of bringing her close to him again. But not too close. Not into the midst of these serpentine doubts. If he was to be, as the aura that enveloped him whispered, a sacrifice toward the discovery of higher knowledge, he would bear the fate alone.

Her eyelashes fluttered, and Ptolemais was eased out of an anxious dream by a calloused hand stroking her cheek. She opened her eyes and gazed up at him. She smiled, perhaps thinking herself, in a semi-conscious daze, wrapped in the familiarity of some moment long past that they had shared. But as the present seeped into her she remembered his long absence, and her lips tightened with concern.

“Where have you been?” she asked as she sat up in the bed. As the sheet fell from her shoulders Aristokles saw her smooth flesh, and felt, with some confusion, no desire for her.

“Stargazing,” he replied. He pulled her head to his chest and kissed it gently.

“I’ve been worried. You’ve been wandering again, as you used to. Everyone says you’ve become a man apart. Have you forgotten me?”

“No.” It was not a complete lie, he told himself. Surely he had kept her memory close on some level of consciousness. “I’ve been pursuing new methods. I have to follow my art where it takes me.” He was looking her in the eyes now. A cloud had passed across the moon, and the cool pallor had wormed its way through the windows and erected itself between them, firm and visible, thick as a wall.

“The shaman who pursue victory don’t need new techniques. They’re doing fine. Victory is near, they say. Why push into new territory?” She had wrenched away from him, frowning. Eyes downcast, her temper began to show. “They say you are already the best. You have the sight, and the gift, and the willpower. Don’t waste it. The art is a means, Aristokles. Don’t perfect it for the sake of your ego.”

“They’re dedicated to victory, Ptolemais. I’m dedicated to understanding what that victory signifies.” With a breathless motion of the lips he added, “They know nothing.”

“You’re so distant tonight. It’s been a long time. But it’s more than that.” She looked up at him. Desperation coursed through her question: “What is it this time? Are you forlorn or inspired?”

“They come hand in hand.”

With this he took her hand in his, and laid down beside her. They drifted away from the room, away from the bed they shared, and into dark individual spaces where they were each alone.

 ◊               ◊               ◊

After the first victory, the great campaign our leaders had spoke of crossed from conjecture into execution. The soldiers and warrior-artists were divided into regiments, and a disciplined hierarchy emerged. A different regiment marched out of the colony each day to scout out the position of the enemy, engaging them when necessary. They struck like packs of wolves, luring small groups of the creatures away from their herds and overwhelming them with a combination of force and artistry. Soon the groups were becoming self-sufficient, staying outside the colony on week-long patrols, returning only to bandage the wounded, bury the dead bodies that had not been devoured, and resupply.

There were whole months that went by when not a single regiment was seen within the colony. The occasional messenger would return from the front lines with news. The campaign was intensifying. Leon and Anakletos were developing their methods by careful experimentation in the field, coming to understand the new powers they wielded and  learning the weaknesses of the enemy. The resistance had evolved into a complex guerilla war, and by all accounts it was going as well as it could.

But old discontents began to arise. More and more soldiers were lost to the enemy, and Leon’s doubts about the artists grew. Anakletos insisted that his men were on the brink of revelation, that he needed the soldiers to buy him more time, and he needed more artists in his ranks. Soon, he said, they would be able to transform Chance into human design, to create a victorious outcome from the chaotic forces of the world. Soon the soldiers would no longer be necessary to his project.

Leon wanted to believe, but could not accept such an intangible course of action. His men were bearing the majority of casualties, and the artists refused to become soldiers to compensate for losses. Anakletos saw faith in their eyes, where Leon read cowardice and superstition.

It was during a tight spot in the campaign that Leon proclaimed all warrior-artists must either be drafted as soldiers or banished from the battlefield as cumbersome insubordinates. Many complied and enlisted. But Anakletos and his closest disciples would not concede what had become their religion and purpose. The artists had no tangible strength to resist the soldiers, and so those who remained in the fold had no choice but to go. Leon assured his old friend, with a final stiff handshake, that they could return to the colony and continue to practice their art in the service of the war.

Anakletos and his remaining men were unfazed. If their abilities were truly what they believed them to be, they could steer Chance toward victory without physical proximity to the soldiers. But new methods would have to be invented.

          -Zoe

 ◊               ◊               ◊

There were times when Aristokles was sighted as in a zoetrope, seen frame by frame through the narrow gaps between logs as he moved ghost-like within the damp triangular space between wood and stone, under the wall, below the angled trunks. He alone knew the secret to entering that secluded corridor: hidden by moving water at the north bank of the colony was an asymmetric void where one log was missing from the wall, forming an underwater entryway. The rite of passage was a struggle against the current and twenty breathless seconds.

The water ran down his face in streaks as he walked along the corridor, naked as an ancient statue. His cube and hand of cards had been left behind under his bed in the hut, stashed in silence while the first morning rays played across the sleeping face of Ptolemais. He needed more time alone, to contemplate the final card, the Cunning River.

The name suggested the river itself was consciously withholding secrets. The map on the card was ingrained in his mind: the image of a bridge extending from the shore near the shrine, leading across the water to an island that did not exist. Was the card so old that these objects had eroded away, swept off by the river or destroyed? Or was it a schematic meant for careful study and construction? Paranoia crept up his spine. The answer was close enough to taste—it tasted of old blood, buried tragedy. The other cards had led him to the vision of the woman with green eyes, each time more intense and lucid. She had a part to play in this yet. Aristokles could still feel her reaching up to him from a dark chasm, its stony lips closing together, inexorable and slow, to crush her truth and speak no more.

His muscles had gone tense without his approval. He slowed his pace and relaxed, and felt his heart rate diminishing. Aristokles reminded himself to think like those who had designed the card, to think like an artist. If the island and its bridge existed than there would be nothing extraordinary about the map on the card. The aberration was the only clue. He would have to find the bridge, or a bridge inward, seeking an island jutting from the midst of the stuff of life, a vacant space that the energy flow was forced by its own laws to circumvent and never touch. To contemplate this he would go to the shrine, the place where the bridge began.

Aristokles walked half the perimeter of the wall before doubling back. Now that his course was decided the way home seemed longer. He followed the narrow passage back down into the river, dove beneath the water, and swam up through the gap. He let the current carry him downstream, then swam into the man-made channel that led to the waterwheel. He grabbed one of the paddles as it came around, gripped it as it took him under, and held fast as it lifted him up above the hut. He jumped off and landed on the thatched roof, then tumbled down the slope and off the edge to land in a heap at his own front door.
He stood and brushed off the straw that had stuck to his wet skin. There was a broad smile on his face for the first time in days. He had not taken that way home since he was young.

Aristokles walked inside. Ptolemais had left him a breakfast of warm porridge before going on her way. He ate like an animal, crouching by the embers of the fire she had lit to cook the meal, drying himself. Then he slipped back into bed. He had only slept a handful of hours, and he would need full concentration for this final task. What’s more, he always thought more deeply once the sun had gone down.

The blankets were thick with Ptolemais’ sweet, fleshy scent. He dreamed of the woman with green eyes. She smelled just like his lover. She hummed a mournful folk song and danced a light dance as forest fires raged in the darkness behind her.

 ◊               ◊               ◊

Aristokles woke just as the sun sank below the forest. He dressed himself, stashed the cards in his cloak, and looped his arm through the cube. Then he was out the door, down the bank and onto the pebble beach, walking toward the shrine.

He looked out over the river. Thick fog was accumulating over the lapping water, shattering the moonlight into so many splintered points of vapor that it became one silver-blue haze. He had seen fog on the river before, but never like this. The heavy, earthbound clouds were swirling into shapes he could almost recognize, then dissipating before they could be given name or meaning. His mind was contorting its surroundings, as he had trained it—but those contortions were acquiring no definition.

There was another, invisible fog between himself and the shapes dancing across the river. Unfocused focus, intricate ambiguity, detailed opacity. No phrase could illustrate a film so fine, a lens synchronously convex and concave.

Halfway southward along the shore Aristokles encountered a familiar figure sitting cross-legged on the stones. It was Kyriakos. He had no tool in hand now, no astrological symbols scraped into driftwood. His vacant, open palms were placed on his knees, turned upward toward the shrouded sky. His eyes were wide open, absorbing the changing forms of fog into their glassy stillness.

Aristokles knelt down beside him. After a long quiet moment he posed his question.

“What do you see?”

Kyriakos did not stir. After what could have been an hour of drifting smoke and seamless silence, Aristokles stood and began to walk away. Then he came to a dead halt.

Kyriakos was whistling a tune. It was the song the green-eyed woman had hummed in his dream. The old man gradually broke off from the melody and descended chromatically in pitch until he could no longer intone the notes, and his lips vibrated with the sound of wind through an empty canyon. This too faded away as his single breath ran dry.

Kyriakos inhaled deep, and without breaking his gaze into the fog he said, “I see time.”

Aristokles passed him by.

 ◊               ◊               ◊

The warrior-artists returned to our colony, hearts heavy, spirits yet unbroken. It was the first time we had heard news of the war in half a year. Many believed that the army had been destroyed, that it could not survive so long in the field without returning to the colony. The artists explained the intricacies of the war to us, how Leon had established multiple base camps that the army periodically inhabited and then abandoned. The war machine had become a mobile city.

The news of the schism in the military was shocking, though predictable. The same tensions had been present as the regiments were first formed. Behind the artists’ shame lay a burning anger, but Anakletos was not about to let the transience of emotion come between himself and the goal of his faith. Once safe inside the wall, he assured his men that they would continue to refine their art in the service of the war, and that no grudges must be held with cataclysm still on the horizon. Then he plunged into seclusion.

Days passed as Anakletos brooded. Their power was undiminished, perhaps stronger than before, but they needed new methods to compensate for the loss of a true battlefield scenario.

Anakletos reached the conclusion that distance from the battlefield had robbed the warrior-artists of three things: their subject of focus, the influence of Chance on their individual power, and the influence of terrain on their individual methods of combat.

Anakletos chose to do what any man of faith does in the absence of the truth he proclaims. He created symbols for what had been lost.

For lack of a subject, Anakletos crafted an object. He let his hands run wild with the tools of a carpenter, following the flow of the wood, cutting away what was rotten and keeping what was dense. The result was the rough frame of a hollow wooden cube. With careful motions he smoothed its contours and gave it pure shape. It was perfect for his purposes. It had to be hollow, so that the emptiness, and not the object itself, might come under the sway of his scrutiny.

For lack of Chance’s influence on the artist’s power, Anakletos forged a great number of iron and copper coins, such as were used as currency in foreign lands. He had noted then that the coins seemed to be an analogy for natural energy, constantly changing hands as a representation of value, yet worthless without this motion. The warrior-artists needed to be surrounded by Chance, to be at its mercy, even where their power was concerned.

For lack of the battlefield itself, the various natural scenarios that determined how the artist would protect and empower his soldier, Anakletos created an innumerable deck of cards. Each one fell into a named category of geographic formation, yet each painted picture was unique. The cards would inspire in the subconscious those arenas of battle that were no longer physical realities, and thus strengthen their faith in the chaotic craftsmanship of nature.

The warrior-artists had crafted new tools. Now all they could do was practice the art and wait.

          -Zoe

 ◊               ◊               ◊

The fog swirled beneath the shrine’s vault, playing havoc with the shadows. The marble columns were spotted with water droplets that rolled downward and collected in pools on the floor. Aristokles climbed the moist steps and walked to the table, to the map. The pinpoints of light on the miniature battlefield produced an eerie glow, churned into luminescent foam by the fog. He leaned over the table and looked down on the war. The fog was thick enough that even his view of the map was distorted, and every group of points became one amorphous globule against the veiled landscape. Was there fog out in the field? he wondered. Were the soldiers groping for footing through this same obscurity? The purple mass had closed off all escape routes for the green, and was falling in on them as naturally as water moving downhill.

Aristokles tore his gaze from the table and walked to the eastern column of the shrine. He sat down on the steps, set the cube before him, and placed in the center of it the card named Cunning River. He then folded his legs underneath him, and after one upward glance at the sublime expression of the shrine’s eastern mask, he looked out over the river, deep into the fog, keeping the cube in his peripheral vision. He focused his thought on giving structure to the vapor.

In time, structure emerged. The fog above the water condensed, then curled away in tall curves that formed a series of arches over a pathway across the river. The path was weightless fog. Aristokles flexed his mind, and in a sudden, implosive rush of wind the path became solid. It was a wharf of rotting wood held aloft by poles set deep in the riverbed. The fog still held its parabolic shape above the bridge, forming a tunnel into the darkness. Aristokles sat still for a long time, afraid to move lest the vision dissipate. When he finally relaxed his mind, it held.

He stood and descended from the shrine. Trembling footsteps carried him to the high bank from which the bridge began. Aristokles paused before moving onto the wooden boards and squinted, searching for the exact point at which the wharf vanished into the darkness. Finding no division between wharf and night, he placed a foot on the boards and began to cross. Wood groaned beneath. He walked under the vault of fog, careful not to reach out into the vapor on either side of him; he felt as if he himself would evaporate if he touched the clouds with his fingertips, carried off into the crude dream from whence these shapes appeared. The river laughed from below, deep chuckles and high trickling—air passing through a heavy chest, brushing against rough patches of throat tissue.

The bridge led exactly where he remembered: straight to a door set into the weathered rock-face on the western side of the island. The door was tall and wide, two sloped edges meeting in a point at the top, the same flaking wood as the bridge. It was covered with splotches of moss, and from its boards two iron rings hung. He gripped one of the rings, rust flaking as he wrapped one finger around it at a time, fascinated by the intricacy of his muscles, amazed at his own dexterity.

He pulled open one half of the door and stepped into damp torchlight. The chamber had been carved out of the inside of the island. There was a guilty spirit to the place. To his left and right the walls were bare and craggy. Before him was the puzzle.

It was composed of nine stone tiles. Hundreds of bowl-shaped recesses had been hollowed into these tiles, an elaborate conduit of carved lines connecting them. Spheric stones lay in piles all over the floor. A feeling welled up in Aristokles: there was a river far greater than the one surrounding the island held back by this wall. The puzzle was the lock on a levy. The story was hidden, but the room’s logic was obvious. Of course the stones would lie just in this way, like scattered constellations fallen out of the sky, out of their own mythologies.

Constellations. . . Aristokles ran his hands along the wall, letting his fingers trace the lines, setting his balled fists into the dark, hollow spaces. He crouched down and lifted one of the stones in his hand. It was slimy and cold, and the weight was familiar. He thrust the stone into one of the spaces. There was a loud clack, and the stone held it place.

Now he was scrambling for more stones, rapidly arranging a shape on the wall. It was to be the form of one of Kyriakos’ contrived constellations. He couldn’t believe his memory of the driftwood carving was so vivid—he must have seen the shape before, somewhere else, a long time ago.

When he finished the picture the square tile on which he had arranged the shape broke from the wall and shattered as it struck the floor.

Hidden beneath it was a layer of granite, upon which text had been chiseled. It told of a nocturnal escape across a river from an inhuman enemy. As he read, tears began to stream down his face; suffocated in the steel grip of an emotion he could not recognize.

The text was punctuated with a delicate signature. He pronounced the name in a whisper. . .

“Zoe.”

The flash of green irises passed across his mind’s eye. “Zoe, beautiful terrified Zoe. . . was that your name?”

Aristokles stood, the torchlight playing over his face. It could have been a trick of the shadows, but wrinkles seemed to have been carved into his visage, as if he had aged years in a moment. He blinked, shook his head, blinked again, raised his right arm across his chest to clutch his left shoulder, lowered it again. He was aware of every hair sprouting out of his chin. He looked down and saw his feet, wrapped in sandals, and watched as his toes stretched away from one another, then settled in two neat rows again. So lucid, so much detail.

After another two hours of memory, confusion, and rapid movements of his hands, eight constellations from the driftwood carving had been recreated on the wall, every vertex accounted for by a smooth round stone. Eight tiles had been loosed from the wall and burst, one after the next, into porcelain-like shards on the cavern floor. His wide eyes had digested seven fragments of some mythic historical document, and they now moved, with inexorable slowness, over the eighth:

 ◊               ◊               ◊

For one cycle of seasons the artists practiced and perfected their art. With distance from the battlegrounds, their methods of incantation and meditative awareness came to revolve more and more around metaphysical vagaries and intangible modes of thought. They had abandoned all logic, and placed their faith in the cards, the coins, and the cubes. Their system became deeply subjective, and many feared they had lost touch altogether with their goal. Anakletos assured them that they were accelerating toward a singularity at which the war would no longer be the focus of the art—their control over reality would become so complete that the war would never have occurred. The trouble was there was no way to grasp such a result. How would they know when they had breached the wall of time, when causality was fully at their disposal? Could it be that this climax had already passed, and they now practiced on without knowledge as to their effect on the world, in stumbling, blind omnipotence?

The answers to these anxieties came trudging back into the colony, drenched and muddied from rain, bloody and wounded. They were a dozen men, and they were the last of the warriors. Leon and his surviving handful had returned to the colony, drained of all feeling in limbs and hearts.

Their stories unfolded as we warmed them with fire and sustenance. The enemy was too many, too strong, and too savage. No tactics could match their wolf-like brutality.

The war was lost. The final task was to wait for extinction.

The skilled craftsmen among us found a way to pass the time. Among Leon’s possessions was an extraordinary notebook that detailed the movements of both our warriors and the enemy throughout the conflict, complete with technical sketches of terrain. Within the shrine that marked the spot at which we first disembarked on this side of the river, the craftsmen constructed a fantastic machine with fragments harvested from enemy bodies. With living clockwork and mirrors, the monument would repetitively display the tactical movements of the war at the same speed they were executed, from beginning to end, unto eternity.

          -Zoe

 ◊               ◊               ◊

Aristokles knew the risk he had taken by leaving the island. He knew his art well enough to recognize the unique significance of a specific moment in time. If he should return at a different hour, in daylight or in twilight, or with different emotions or thoughts, the bridge was likely to not show itself, and to never show itself again. He had found the instant of passage, and it was (barring the possibility of a deranged, cyclic temporal system) the one and only instant of its kind.

But it couldn’t be helped. There was a task to be done.

When he found himself home once again, he reached under the bed and gripped the shaft of the sledgehammer, wrapping one finger around it at a time, cradling its gravity in his palms. Then he was following the path through the field, too afraid to walk the beach lest the mists show him anything more. He leapt up the stairs of the shrine and walked toward the monument. With one last look he saw the purple force streaming down on top of the green, purple sparks hunting, green sparks winking out one after the other.

Just as he swung the hammer down into the machine, a thought crossed his mind: How could the craftsmen have programmed their own extinction into its tactical history? But the thought, along with the miniature topography and battling points of light, was shattered upon impact.

Aristokles dropped his weapon and sank to his knees on the smooth marble floor. Within the great gash he had rent in the machine he saw steel gears twisting, fanged cogs turning, lights winking, mirrors flashing.

This was not the tractable reality he had been promised. This was the irreversible, merciless past, echoing on for an unknown span of ages.

 ◊               ◊               ◊

Tucked within folds of invisible fabric, real only in the void between two distinct  eventualities, the ninth and last tile of the puzzle lay unturned. The gateway had opened and closed, and just before the text yet hidden under the stone slab effectively ceased to be, it read as follows. . .

 ◊               ◊               ◊

 As we wait for the end, the warrior-artists have assumed one final, desperate task. If, in truth, they are, on some level however minute, able to alter the substance of Chance, to reshape the effects of causes, to control discreet events by controlling their own perceptions. . . then perhaps they can alter the flow of time. Perhaps they can reach backward and protect those who we once were, long before we were beyond salvation. Perhaps, if only within some dark pocket of untouchable space, they can produce another reality in which the war is only a myth.

          -Zoe

I saw Deer Tick three times in October 2011. It was the best month of my life. October was over, and I was left feeling pretty empty. I wanted to hear music again. I thought of bands that reminded me of Deer Tick. I thought of bands that make me good when I feel bad. I thought of Dawes.

And so I decided I wanted to see Dawes. Maybe they would be coming around to Austin. Every band, I figured, makes their way to Austin at some point or another. It’s the live music capital of the world. It’s the place to go.

As it happened, Dawes was planning on stopping by Austin. They were, I read, playing at the Moody Theater at Austin City Limits Live. I’m not really sure what that last part means. It’s just what I read. Is the Moody Theater in Austin City Limits Live? Is Austin City Limits Live . . . a building? I don’t know. All I know is that I wanted to be there, if God would allow me to.

God said, “Okay.” God said, “Just this once.”

There was a catch, and it was a weird one: you had to win tickets in order to see Dawes. I didn’t understand why that was. It seemed stupid.

Apparently it was some sort of celebration for a radio station I had never heard of called KGSR. KGSR wanted everyone to come out and celebrate their 21st year of existence—so long as one had a ticket. I figured there was no way I’d win, but I tried anyway. And by try I mean I registered on their website and didn’t understand how to enter the contest. I gave up. So much for Dawes, I thought.

•     •     •

Three weeks later I got an email informing me I had won a pair of tickets to KGSR’s 21st birthday celebration. It said, “Come on down and get your tickets!”

I said, “Sure, okay.” I had no idea how I had won. I hadn’t done anything at all—other than sign up to become a member on their website.

I went to that very website. It was full of stupid garbage. KGSR made it sound like it was the most exclusive event of the year. They made it sound as if Jesus Christ Himself would be there. They urged listeners to call in for a slim chance of winning tickets. I was confused. I hadn’t done that at all. In fact I had exerted almost no effort in order to win. Huh, I thought. Huh.

I invited Chantal. I told her Dawes was pretty good. I gave her North Hills and Nothing Is Wrong and told her to prepare to have a heart attack. She said they were okay. She said they weren’t as good as Delta Spirit or Deer Tick—two other bands I had forced her to worship.

That was a fair assessment, I said. I agreed with her only because Dawes lets their drummer sing every now and then, and when that happens it’s usually not a very good idea.

•     •     •

The night before the concert, I felt my phone vibrate in my pants. It was Chantal. She said her friend Carley was beside herself with jealousy over my winning a pair of tickets. She said she loved Dawes. I felt a little bad that Carley couldn’t come.

And then I remembered how lucky I had been. I felt pretty good about winning those tickets. I was maybe a little boastful about it. I told everyone about it “Dawes—” I said, “for free!” I was so very excited.

Thirty minutes later, Chantal told me Carley had won tickets.

“Sorry, man,” said Chantal. “They’re just giving those tickets away.” My chest sank. I didn’t feel like a special little boy any more.

“Tell Carley she can’t sit with us,” I said. “She might try to steal Taylor away.” I was of course referring to lead singer and principal songwriter, Taylor Goldsmith, whom I harbored a fierce crush on. I wanted him all to myself. I wanted him to sing “Time Spent in Los Angeles” into my ear and my ear alone. Carley could have his brother—the drummer. He could sing to her all he wanted, for all I cared.

I went to sleep that night feeling stupid.

•     •     •

The day of the concert was weird. It moved slowly.

But concert days are always weird. I get so excited that I don’t feel excited at all. I just want the day to be over with, and for live music to arrive. The fact that I have to eat and shower and walk and talk and breathe and blink annoys me.

I slept until the late afternoon to speed things up. I wanted to see Dawes so bad it nearly gave me a kidney stone.

And I knew they were headlining. I knew I would have to sit through three other bands before I got to see them. There was The Gourds, who, judging by their promotional band photo, looked like a bunch of old dudes with guitars. Then Givers, whom I had heard once or twice before. Matt Kearney would be the last person to separate me from Dawes, and I had no idea who in the hell that was. He looked like a real jerk. He wore a dumb hat.

I took a nap at some point. I fell asleep on the floor. I slept until it was time to go. I must have been awake for only ten hours that whole day.

The doors opened at seven p.m., but I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about seeing The Gourds, so I opted to make pasta instead.

I ate some pasta. It was just OK. I overcooked the noodles. The sauce was too cold.

After I’d finished what I’m sure can best be described as a sad meal, I hopped on my bicycle and sped down Duval in the direction of Chantal’s house. At the corner of San Jacinto and Dean Keaton, my phone went off.

“Ryan?” said Chantal.

“I’m on my way,” I said. I panted and took a sip of water. I had planned to make it to her house in less than ten minutes. I had less than five minutes to cut through campus and cross Guadalupe and do all of that crazy bullshit.

When the light turned green, I sped off like a real maniac. People were startled. I felt like a jerk. I wanted to see Dawes so badly.

•     •     •

I arrived at Chantal’s house in some obscene amount of time. I was covered in sweat—and coupled with the cool temperature, felt like I’d just snorted half a bag of blow. I was hot-cold. I was on fire and sick.

Chantal looked perplexed. She asked me if I was OK.

“Yes,” I said, huffing and puffing.

“Should I bring a sweater?” said Chantal.

“No,” I said. “God, no.”

We got on our bicycles. Chantal warned that she would kill me if the temperature dropped further. I had told her to calm the hell down. She frowned.

I opened the door and sped off towards downtown Austin. The sky was starless. The only thing we could make out was the big white moon. There was a ring of soft light around it.

Chantal was faster than me. She also knew where we were going, which was Willie Nelson Blvd. I had to laugh. Willie Nelson Blvd. was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard.

We stopped at stop signs, and waited at traffic lights. We let cars pass us. We biked like hell. I hoped in my heart that we’d waited long enough to miss The Gourds perform.

•     •     •

Willie Nelson Blvd. was a clusterfuck of rich people and laughing people and laughing rich people. It was crammed with cars and lights and pedestrians and pedicabs blasting Michael Jackson. “Hey, man,” I said to a pedicab driver behind me. I was counting on Austin friendliness. The driver didn’t disappoint. He was unfailingly nice.

“Hey, how are you?” said the driver.

“Great,” I said. “And you?”

“Doin’ good, man,” he said.

“So long.”

“Seeya.”

Before us there was a great building shaped like a cube. It was the color of a storm cloud. It had exposed walkways lined with glass plating and metal railings. It was lit up like a Christmas tree. It was the Moody Theater. “That’s it,” I said to Chantal. “There it is.”

People were eating and laughing and talking at its base. There was a restaurant and little shops making up the ground floor. Chantal and I crossed the street and locked our bicycles up. We crossed back over and tried to find a way in. It seemed impenetrable. We felt stupid.

Chantal spotted a set of stairs. They were partially hidden by a wall. We quickly made our ascent to the nearest group of people. They were entering through the lowest set of doors. We thought we could go in that way, too. We were told to keep scaling the building. “General admission is upstairs,” said a woman in a blue coat. She said, essentially, that we had to go way the hell up there in order to be admitted.

So we climbed and climbed. We made it to the top and got in the “will call” line. I gave my name to the man behind the table, and he quickly scanned an enormous list. “Ah,” he said. “Here you are.”

Chantal and I were given two orange bracelets. That meant we were third-class citizens. That meant we would be in the nosebleed section.

The lobby was swank as hell. It had leather couches and fancy bars and a terrific view of downtown Austin which wrapped around the entire building. I could make out lights and trees and buildings for miles in every direction. Chantal and I didn’t care about any of that, though. We just wanted to see Dawes.

Dawes was being kept at bay by a terrible force, which was The Gourds. I could hear them playing in the auditorium, which was just past the corner bar with the cute bartenders. It sounded like circus-jamboree music. It sounded like the kind of stuff that people in their fifties get their rocks off to. I didn’t want to go in, but I had no choice. So in we went.

•     •     •

 The auditorium was something like 95 degrees. It was hot with human bodies, of which there were many. There were a few people singing and dancing and clapping. Most everyone else sat stiff in their chairs, yawning and staring down below with neutral expressions on their dopey faces.

Yes, and they stared below, and not ahead, because the balcony hovered over the stage. It was at least thirty feet off the ground, and filled with rows and rows of empty seats. Below was a second balcony and finally the show floor, which had dozens of foldable seats arranged in neat rows before the stage.

And on the stage were The Gourds. There was a round gentleman playing a mandolin, and an old guy with a guitar, and another old guy with a bass—and a drummer and a keyboardist. They were rocking out the best they could, which was fair enough. Everyone seated in general admission that had gray or graying hair seemed to enjoy their rockabilly noise. Chantal and I looked at each other. We laughed. The Gourds were pretty bad.

They played what seemed like seven songs—but it could have been twelve. We’d come in mid-set, too, so surely the crowd had grown tired of their rock-influenced Christmas songs. Every time a song would end, the bassist would say the words “another” and “Christmas” and “song”, and there we were, listening to “another Christmas song.” The only one I remember was about how The Rolling Stones had never written a Christmas song.

And really, who gives a shit if they haven’t?

•     •     •

“We’ve got one more for you,” said someone, I don’t remember who. They ended up playing two more songs. The announcer from KGSR stood on the side of the stage with a set of white notecards in his hand. He tapped his foot to the music. He seemed anxious. He wanted The Gourds to stop playing just as much as we did.

Finally they left. They bowed. I clapped. I respected them, but wanted them to go away. I wanted Dawes to come out as soon as possible. Most of all I wanted to stop sweating so damn much. It was sweltering in that room. I felt claustrophobic and weird.

The man from KGSR stepped out on stage. With him was a woman in a black dress and white tights. Chantal turned to me: “God, white tights? Really?”

They talked about their radio station for ten minutes. They reminded us at least a half-dozen times that the show we were watching was absolutely free. “You paid zero dollars for this show, ladies and gentleman.” Yeah, okay.

And then they left, and everyone was happy again. A swarm of roadies descended upon the stage and picked it clean. They removed all of The Gourds’ equipment, and we thanked them silently for that. They began setting up for Givers, who were to perform next.

As it turned out, Givers required an unusual setup. There was a small drum set and a big drum set. There was a xylophone. I caught sight of a ukulele. Whatever they had planned, it was certainly going to be fucked up. It was going to be great.

•     •     •

Givers ended up being nuts. The guitarist yipped and hollered like a psychopath. He jumped up and down and shook his head and danced. There was a woman in the band, and she was great. She had a beautiful voice. And it was she, I found out, who needed to be stationed behind the small drum set and the xylophone. It was she who played the ukulele. I fell in love with her over the span of six or seven songs. At one point she head-banged and danced so fervently that her headband flew off and her long, long hair came down, draping her face with brown-golden locks that I wanted to run my hands through, as long as that wouldn’t be creepy to her. And then I fell in love with her some more.

Chantal pulled me in close. She put her mouth up to my ear so I could hear her. “I want to marry her,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said, “me too.”

•     •     •

Matt Kearney was boring. He and another guitarist played some boring songs about love, or whatever. The only funny part was when Matt insulted one of the corporate sponsors. I thought that was funny as hell.

I think I fell asleep for the rest.

•     •     •

Chantal made eye-contact with her friend Carley, who was seated in the front row of the balcony with an architect named Peter. After some mouthing back and forth, and hand motions which told us we should move, we moved. We sat down next to Carley and Peter. I waved to Carley and shook Peter’s hand. He did his best to give me a firm handshake. He did the manly double-pump. I didn’t play that game. I just gave him a regular, medium-strength shake that lasted half a second. I could tell he wanted more, but that’s all I gave him.

I stood up. “Excuse me,” I said. I walked up twenty stairs and asked an usher where the restrooms were. He pointed toward a wall and mumbled some directions. I thanked him and went in the complete opposite direction he’d been pointing. I found the restroom in no time.

Inside there were dozens of men eager to rid themselves of all the beer they had drunk. I stood in line and waited to use a urinal. When it was my turn, I did whatever it is I had to do. I got rid of all the water in me.

On my way back to Chantal and Carley and Peter, I stopped by a large window and looked out at Austin. I reminded myself it was home. Then I reminded myself I sounded foolish telling myself that. I called myself a dope. I walked away.

I returned to my friends. All I’d missed was the between-show roadie set-up. Something big was about to happen. I could feel it down below. I was about to implode. And then something boring happened again.

•     •     •

The radio announcers came back on stage. They thanked the sponsors, and reminded us once again that the show was free, and that we should all bow down and worship Texas Music Water and Twin Liquors and The Salt Lick and so on.

A woman behind us turned to her friend: “Who the hell wears white tights?”

Dawes was announced. They came out on stage. Taylor Goldsmith was cute as a button. He was wearing little man clothes on his little man body. I wanted to hug him and tie his shoes for him. I wanted to make him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I wanted to kiss him and put him on a school bus.

Then he picked up a white electric guitar and became my hero.

“Hey, how is everyone doing?” he said. “We’re Dawes.”

•     •     •

They opened with “Fire Away”—and then immediately drifted into “If I Wanted Someone”. I kept praying that they would play “Love Is All I Am” or “So Well”, but song after song went by, and still there was no sign of my favorite Dawes songs. I wasn’t sad, though. I just wanted to jump into Taylor’s arms.

Taylor’s voice began to give out during “When My Time Comes”. It shook and wavered. He sounded hoarse and breathless.

“I think my voice is telling me to quit,” he said. “But I wanna keep singing!”

So he sang. He sang his little heart out. It was beautiful.

•     •     •

They played both album closers—”A Little Bit of Everything” and then “Peace in the Valley”. There was a ten-minute breakdown during “Valley”, and every musician was given time to shine—except the bassist, who seemed like he didn’t really want to be anywhere at all. He was my brother in spirit because of that.

And then they left the stage. They put down their instruments and exited to the right. The announcers came back out, and we were once again assaulted by the blinding white tights. She said something dumb, and then the man with her said something dumb, too, and then they had both said something dumb.

“Dawes is going to play us one more song,” said the man-announcer, ruining the mystique of the encore.

They played “How Far We’ve Come,” which is their worst song. The drummer sang. I apologized to Chantal.

As soon as they left the stage the second time, everyone began to flood out the exits. No one wanted to hear announcer-man and white-tights-woman open their mouths again.

Chantal and I did our part. We ignored another shout-out to Texas Music Water—whatever the hell that was—and fled down what I assumed was a secret stairwell. It had been pointed out to us by a friendly and possibly shady usher.

Back on Willie Nelson Blvd., Chantal scolded me for the ten-degree drop in temperature.

We crossed the street. We unlocked our bicycles. We got on them and rode in the direction of home. The wind whipped around my body and easily pierced the henley I had on.

“I’m fucking cold,” I said. Chantal turned around and scrunched her face up.

“And it’s all your fault.”

“I was still falling in love when she said farewell.”

•     •     •

Prologue

The title for this week’s Newsletter is borrowed from a band called Dawes. They have a fine collection of songs with the same title: Nothing Is Wrong. I think it’s great—the name. It doesn’t hurt that the music is great, too.

The phrase “Nothing is wrong” is said three times during the song “So Well”. It is said nowhere else on the album. This song—it’s so wonderful. It has three distinct narrators: an old tailor, a boy, and a lonely musician. Each discusses the pain of the world, and how unbearable all of this. But there is a woman named Marie that unites them all in happiness. She’s sweet and gentle. All she has to do is smile. She reminds them, wordlessly, that “nothing is wrong”. Isn’t that lovely?

I know someone who makes me feel like nothing is wrong, too. I have my very own Marie.

•     •     •

Below the title, I have decided to omit any corporate sponsorship this Newsletter receives. Let’s take a break from that. Instead I have given you a line, which is also from “So Well”, which, remember, is on Nothing Is Wrong. (Had you forgotten?)

When I first heard that line, it hit me like a sledgehammer. I coughed. I was fortunate to not have any liquids in my mouth, or I would have sprayed them all over the place.

See, beyond the beautiful wording and sentiment, there is great pain hidden away. It is understood by those who have loved foolishly.

I have loved foolishly. I guess that’s why I liked it so much. Can you tell?

 •     •     •

Before we continue, let me just say that it’s important to like things that are good. Dawes is good. Dawes is a band from Los Angeles. They sing about how sad it is to be from Los Angeles. They sing of broken hearts—and of the rotten things girls do, and the rotten things guys do, too. All of it is beautifully painful. It is a serrated knife wreathed in roses.

Of the three bands that I have trumpeted as being Worth Your Time, Dawes is probably the least accessible. Deer Tick and Delta Spirit are easier to get into, I think. My God, though—Dawes are a collection of talented musicians. Taylor Goldsmith, the lead singer—I want to hug that guy and tell him that, really, nothing is wrong. He’d probably start crying and tell me I’m mistaken. I would say, “I know. I just wanted to make you feel better.” Then I’d hug him again.

So give them a chance. Don’t listen to them when you’re tired, though. You’ll fall asleep.

If you’re sad, they’re a brown microfiber blanket and a box of incense. If a girl has recently ripped your heart out, they’re your best friend, and they care about you.

It’s important to like things that are good. Why aren’t Deer Tick, Delta Spirit and Dawes the biggest bands on earth? Sadly, it’s probably because they’re phenomenally talented.

How’s that for having an opinion?

•     •     •

Incidentally, the lead singers from each band formed their own band. When I found this out, I damn near exploded. They’re called Middle Brother. So far they’ve released one self-titled album. Good God. This album. Please obtain it legally. Pay for it. You have my highest recommendation.

There are ten songs on Middle Brother. At first the order goes Deer Tick/Delta Spirit/Dawes. Each song is distinctive of the person who wrote it. It’s actually quite brilliant.

Taylor Goldsmith, of Dawes—his songs are caustic as hell. That guy had a string of really bad girlfriends or something.

  •     •     •

Are you sick of me shoving music down your throat? I’m sorry. Like I said several issues back, when discussing The Future by Miranda July—God damn it, you’ve got to give these things a chance. Practically no one else is, in the grand scheme of things.

If you’ve been around for awhile, you’ve realized that most people like dumb bullshit. They don’t even really know what they like or, more importantly, why they like it. This is how one ends up liking dumb bullshit.

Is it dumb bullshit if it isn’t one of the three bands I’ve talked about enthusiastically? Does it make you wrong to dislike one or two or all three of them?

God, no. Not at all.

But: Have you ever listened to something that someone else liked, and though you didn’t particularly like it—it didn’t catch you or something—you still recognized that the musician(s) behind the work were talented, and that you could understand why other people like it? My hope is that the true artistry behind the songs and albums I share are recognizable, even if it isn’t your thing. (Incidentally, “true artistry” is a screamingly funny thing to say. I’m sorry.)

I’m not asking you to have a (music-induced) heart attack or anything. I just want you to listen to something. If you like what you’ve heard, donate ($) to keep these bands going. (Buy their albums). For God’s sake, go see The Future! These things matter! If we don’t do something about it—if we don’t buy Dawes albums or see films written and directed by Miranda July—we’re going to be hooked up to some singular hive-mind consciousness and told to like dumb bullshit. (Maybe this is already happening!)

Hey, man, I’m just the trumpet-blower.

•     •     •

“I was still falling in love when she said farewell.”

God damn.

The best sentences are written simply. I believe that. If you arrange a combination of words just right, a sentence can have the effectiveness of an M777 howitzer. It can blow you to bits.

And thank God for that.

•     •     •

This is Issue 009 of The Starsailor Newsletter. This is the future. (Hah!) We’re here, we’re alive, we’re awake. We’re doing things that other people aren’t. We’re sending out a mass email of gibberish and self-indulgent self-loathing to the best people on planet Earth.

Take my hand. I will take you to places you don’t want to go. And then we’ll both laugh like hell about it.

•     •     •

Chapter I:
“I Want To Be Lonely With You”

I am 1,500 miles away from anyone who would possibly want to spend Thanksgiving with me. I spent Thanksgiving alone.

I’m not sore about it or anything. As I told Matt Stites just the other day: “I knew what I was in for.” I was eating a clementine when I told him that. He asked me what I ate for Thanksgiving. “A clementine,” I said.

 •     •     •

I got plenty of phone calls, though. Some told me their Thanksgiving wasn’t all that great, while others told me it was downright awful. Most everyone else just said it was “okay” or “good enough”. I liked those people the best.

My sister called me just before midnight. She was furious that I hadn’t paid $300 to fly home for a holiday that lasts twenty-four hours. I explained to her that it would have been wasteful for me to avoid feeling lonely for the amount of money. And anyway, I said, it’s just one night. I’ll get over it, I said. Missing out on Thanksgiving was a side-effect of moving to Texas, which in itself was the best thing that had happened to me all year.

“Yeah,” she said, “but you still should have spent Thanksgiving with us.”

“I’m all right,” I said. “Really, it’s not big deal.”

She told me what Thanksgiving was like in Tennessee, where she had driven to visit our father. She said it was practically perfect, as far as Thanksgivings go. “Except for the fact that, you know, you weren’t there.” It wasn’t flattering to hear that. She was angry about it.

“Jeb came,” she said. Jeb is our brother. Whenever he shows up to anything it’s a complete catastrophe. It is hell on earth. See, he loves alcohol. He also loves rolling around and crying while it’s in his body. Though when Jeb is intoxicated, rolling around and crying is the most mundane thing that can possibly happen.

He brought his baby and his wife, both of whom I have never met. He had wine in his system, and so was a horse’s ass for the duration of his trip.

At some point I came up. My father told him about my plans to move to Austin. He said the same thing everyone says when I tell them I’m moving to Austin.

“Austin?” he said. “What the hell is in Austin?”

If I had been present, I would have asked him just what the hell is in Baltimore. “Sadness,” I would have said. “And a whole lot of the damn stuff.”

•     •     •

So while a dozen or so people I know and love were happily eating meals together on the East Coast, I was somewhere in Austin, Texas, sitting at my computer eating a citrus fruit and pounding away furiously at keys to save my soul. I ripped myself open and let it pour out. I wrote Issue 008 of this fine Newsletter. In it, if you’ll remember, I discussed my cats. I thought out loud about my old life, now dead.

I sent a message to that girl I know—the one who won’t see or talk to me, or remember my name or my face or anything. I wished her a happy Thanksgiving. I told her I missed my cats so much, and that I hoped she was well. I sat in a chair in the living room and felt completely rotten from the inside-out. I wanted to jump off a building. There was a pain in my chest. It hurt to breathe.

She never replied.

•     •     •

Chapter II:
“Baltimore Blues”

I have a plane ticket in my name. The plane I am to board will take off at 5:05 p.m. central standard time, and land in a different timezone at 10:25 p.m. This is all happening on the 20th of December. What a nightmare that’s going to be—to go home. For I will again be forced to ride the Light Rail home—if I can’t find someone who wishes to drive all the way up to Baltimore to pick up my dumb jerk self. (Steph Malpass—call me! I . . . may need your help that night. Save me from the Light Rail!)

And then it’s Back To Baltimore. I have to repaint my apartment and pack and clean. I have to get out of there forever. I will do my best to never visit Baltimore again. Steph, did you hear that? That means you absolutely must move to California. And then we can be neighbors.

I will, as they say, “make a weekend” out of repainting that apartment. I will invite my brothers Jason Long and Daniel Lama up to Baltimore. I will tempt them with promises of love and laughter—and beer and wine. Together we will rid my walls of blue and red—turn them white again.

And then I can finally rid myself of all this pain, this intense mental anguish that has embedded itself into my brain like a railroad spike. I don’t even want to look at that apartment again, much less that city. But maybe I can tolerate a weekend of it. Maybe the motivation to abscond from that wretched doom-swamp of tyranny and misery will make all the pain go away—at least for a little while.

•     •     •

Yes, and then it will be Christmastime, for God’s sake, and I will have no choice but to descend upon Northern Virginia. I will see my family, and they will asks me all sorts of questions about Austin, and of happiness and love and employment and so on. I will say, “You’ll see, you’ll see.” And I’ll love them, of course, because that is what I am programmed to do—as their son or grandson or brother or cousin or nephew or whatever. “I love you all,” I’ll say, “but please: less interrogation.”

May I say something? Christmas truly depresses me. Look: I am aware this is a common sentiment. Or you may even think, perhaps correctly, that you’re not surprised at all since everything depresses me. But I’m not even talking about crass commercialism or familial bickering. Christmas day—my God. I usually just drive around in the rain. It always has to rain on Christmas day in Virginia. I go to people’s houses and I say stupid things and I sometimes get presents from the parents of friends who love me. Maybe that last part isn’t so bad. Still—the rain. The rain really kills it.

And my mother, God love her, she won’t let me slip by without any presents. She wants something for me to open. I think that’s nice—but I also don’t really want anything ever again.

I’ll usually give her a list of a few books I want. I’ve done that again this year. My uncle is always saying, “You can never own too many books.” So I have said “Yes!” to this. I have asked for books and more books.

I have also asked for a new pair of Adidas Sambas, because lord knows my old ones are old as hell. I’ve been walking all over the world in these dumb things for damn near three years now. (My uncle, as far as I know, has never recited an adage involving shoes.)

•     •     •

My sister has already set up the Christmas tree. She sent me a picture of it. It had some sort of strange filter on—so the tree looks pristine and faded and nauseatingly romantic. It’s a little jarring, because the beauty of the picture disguises a great truth about Christmastime in my mother’s home: it is utterly mundane. No one ever happy on Christmas day, because no one wants to wake up at 5 a.m. and open gifts.

My sister, see—she still likes the presents to be placed under the tree after she’s gone to bed on Christmas eve. We’re not one of those families that starts piling things under the tree the day after Thanksgiving (which is when she put up the tree, don’t you know). No, she insists on the illusion of Santa Claus. She insists on being surprised. And like a seven-year-old, she still wishes to wake up before the sun has risen. The rest of us follow her demands because we’re terrified of the repercussions.

Yes, and I go to sleep around 4 a.m. on Christmas eve (or rather, Christmas day), much as I do every night. I get precisely an hour of sleep before I’m dragged upstairs to gingerly remove wrapping paper from books for the next hour. I take my damn time. I make a cup of tea. I schmooze. I’m a laid-back guy on Christmas day.

She is the opposite. She makes towering stacks and eyes them greedily. Her ravenous carnage is over within minutes. She then complains of my imminent departure to the great West to see my dear cousins—and my dear aunt and my dear uncle.

•     •     •

On driving West: Every Christmas I drive the fifty miles to the Village of Berries. My aunt and uncle’s home is asylum from the cruel nonsense of the world. I go there to drink tea and to have fine conversations with wonderful people. There is no insanity to speak of. Everyone is calm, and everyone loves me.

As is the custom, I will take my grandmother with me. We are great friends. She and I will discuss how upset we are that we have to go on living in such a world. She tells me every year that because she’s survived for so long and endured so much, she hopes to “graduate” from life with a Ph.D. “I deserve one, anyway,” she says. “I had to put up with World War II, for Heaven’s sake.”

“Yes,” I say. “And I’ll graduate with a degree in Czech film.”

•     •     •

This year we’re spending Christmas in Williamsburg, Virginia. I haven’t the slightest idea why. I anticipate a roaring good time, though. I have no reason to believe that time spent with my dear cousins won’t be the best use of my time.

We are staying in a hotel. I love staying in hotels. I plan to takes baths and wear comfortable socks. I will order room service, and jump on the bed. I will turn on the heat and transform our room into an oven. Hooray for Christmas! Hooray for me.

I think everyone is going to end up being so happy when all is said and done. And I will be happy, too—until I have to leave for Baltimore again.

Hooray for Baltimore.

•     •     •

Here is what I will not miss about Baltimore:

1. Death
2. Despair
3. Unbearable loneliness
4. Gray skies
5. Panhandlers
6. Post-apocalyptic neighborhoods filled with derelict factories
7. Shitty pothole-ridden streets
8. Living in a city that has no money
9. $2-an-hour parking (see previous)
10. Constant reminders of my former life
11. Weeks of rain
12. Feeling like a wet cardboard box every waking hour

Really, it’s the best decision I’ve made in years.

•     •     •

Chapter III:
“I’m Sad You’re Leaving, But I’m Happy I Still Get To Know You”

There was a gallery opening on 51st St. the other night. It was in an apartment. I thought that was neat.

See: I get invited to these things sometimes. It happens. Usually I’ll go. I decided to go this time, because Chantal’s paintings were going to be hanging on the wall. That seemed like a good reason to go.

As it happened, my dear brother Jason Long was in town. He was visiting Austin to determine if he wanted to make it his home, much as I have. I brought him along hoping he would be convinced. I told him there he would find art and great people and warmth and laughter and talking—and free beer. He didn’t care about the beer. He can’t even drink the damn stuff.

“Still,” I said, “it’s going to be a good time.”

The show started at seven, but we didn’t leave until close to eight. I told him it would be better if we showed up an hour late. “That way,” I said, “people will really think we’re something.” I was of course lying. I also had no idea what I was talking about.

•     •     •

I lead my friends to the opening. I knew where it was because I had been there the day before with Chantal.

The thing is: In addition to being a gallery space—as I have said—the place we were going was also the home of two perfectly wonderful human beings named Jade Abner and Donnie Carver. It was in an ugly late-1960s barracks-style building up on 51st and Guadalupe. The exterior disguised an otherwise charming place to live.

When we arrived, there were a few people milling around outside. They had Lone Star beers in their hands. My eyes lit up. “Lone Star,” I said to everyone. No one heard me. “They have Lone Star.”

The door to Jade and Donnie’s apartment was wide open. I walked inside with a confidence in me I did not know existed. The room was full of nicely-dressed young people. I reached into a large cooler filled with ice and scooped out a Lone Star. I cracked it open with great aplomb. It fizzed to life. I shuffled around from piece to piece. There were books on women and artists blocking the entrance to the kitchen. There was a computer set up with looping videos. There were envelopes pinned to a wall.

Chantal had two paintings hung on the wall across from the kitchen. I knew both well. They looked fantastic side-by-side. My heart sank into my chest a little. I was proud of her.

I saw Chantal from across the room. She was wearing her brown boots, which meant she was in “galley opening mode”. She was talking and laughing and cradling a Lone Star like it was her best friend. She probably felt pretty awkward.

I approached her at some point—once I was on my second beer. “Um,” I said. “Hey.”

“You look miserable,” said Chantal.

I protested: “No, no! I’m fine. I just don’t know too many people.” I was all alone, after all; I had abandoned the group I had come with.

When I did see friendly faces, I tugged at their shirts from behind. Krista Norman was the first recognizable human being I noticed. I tugged. “Hey!” I said. “Hey, girl.”

“Ryan!” she said. She smiled.

And then there was Karina Eckmeier, who was wandering around the room taking pictures. She waved to me. She neglected to give me hug—and she always hugs me. She was too busy for hugs. I was happy to see her. I ended up in some of her pictures. In most of them I look like the dumbest jerk you’ve ever seen.

I didn’t feel hollow inside at all, which is how I usually feel. I was loving and affectionate. I let everyone know just how happy I was to be there.

Jade Abner and I shook hands, and I think I gave Allie Underwood a hug. I was getting drunker and drunker as the night went on, so the details are hazy. I know for a fact that I hugged Donnie Carver. “Welcome,” he’d said. “Thanks so much for coming.”

“Oh, Donnie, it’s really no problem,” I said. I hugged him again. We hugged like brothers.

•     •     •

When the lights began to swirl, and the ceiling began to lower, and the voices became louder and louder still—I found myself sitting on an apple-red couch near the kitchen. I had a beer in my hand and my eyes were buzzing with human electricity. In front of me was a mass of smiling happy people, each of them fitted with a beer the same as mine. I felt the warmth of the room I was in. It felt foreign and welcome.

To my right were fifty or so envelopes addressed to various artists and curators. They had been prepared by Allie Underwood, the girl I maybe hugged. A woman with black hair and bangs approached me.

“Did you smell the envelopes?” she said.

“No,” I said. “I can’t really smell anything right now.”

“Oh, well, you should smell them, whenever you get the chance. They’re scented with perfume.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

“Yeah. I love your shoes.” She was referring to my red Adidas Sambas, which are often the envy of everyone in the room. I had worn them on purpose. I wanted to be a red-hot jerk.

“You know,” she said, “I’m old, okay?” She didn’t look old at all. In fact she looked no older than me. “But when I was in, like, eighth grade—let me tell you, Adidas Sambas were the thing. Anyone who knew anything about being cool wore those things.”

“Oh, come on,” I said. “You’re not old. For God’s sake, how old do you think I am?”

“Twenty?” she said. “Maybe twenty-one?”

“I’m twenty-three,” I said.

“Holland,” she said. “My name is Holland.” She extended her arm. “I’m twenty-six.”

•     •     •

Chantal joined me on the couch. She sat on the arm. She asked me how many Lone Stars were sloshing around in my stomach, and I told her it was somewhere around four or five. “Five,” she said. “You’ve had five.”

“Yeah, it’s probably five,” I said. I smiled. Chantal shook her head and took a sip of her fourth.

We had a long conversation about something or another. Chantal told me my eyes were unfocused and dull. I laughed and felt my cheeks. They were red and warm.

And Jason was somewhere around me, looking at the envelopes on the wall. He informed me at some point that he needed to run away and piss on a tree. I told him I didn’t know why he felt the need to tell me, but I wished him well all the same. I followed him outside. He darted off down the row of barracks and turned right. He disappeared. I shrugged and felt drunk and stupid.

•     •     •

I went back inside and said good-bye to everyone. I tugged at Krista Norman’s shirt. “So long,” I said. And I waved at Karina Eckmeier, and nodded at Jade Abner. I hugged Donnie Carver and told him I loved him. He thanked me for taking out the trash earlier. I told him I didn’t remember doing that.

And I tugged at Chantal’s sweater. I told her we were off to Cheer Up Charlie’s downtown. I told her I didn’t know why I was going there, but that I had been asked to go along, and so I would. She said, “Okay.” She said, “I’ll see you soon.”

I hugged her. I opened my mouth and a torrent of stupid sentences came pouring out. She told me to be careful. I promised I would. My eyes were still humming. I ambled out the door and through the rows and rows of barracks-style apartments. I sucked in a lungful of fresh air and let it slowly leave out my nostrils.

The backseat of the car made itself welcome to me. I sat down and rested my head against the window, watching the streetlights as we headed downtown. “God damn,” I thought. “God damn, god damn.”

I was in Austin, Texas—awake, and alive, and happy to be anywhere at all. Nothing was wrong.

—R.

Some days I feel pretty darn worthless. When I’m feeling worthless, I go to Torchy’s Tacos™.

That last part—that should be the official Torchy’s Tacos slogan. Instead their slogan is “Damn Good™.” It’s “damn”, of course, because Torchy’s whole thing is that they’re sinful. They love that. They love being sinful.

Their logo is a little devil-cherub with a pitchfork and horns and everything. He’s red. He’s got a wicked little baby face.

So maybe “When I’m feeling worthless, I go to Torchy’s Tacos” isn’t the best slogan. Still, I can’t think of single a time I’ve been to Torchy’s when I didn’t feel downright rotten. Their tacos make me feel happy again. That’s actually kind of depressing, but it’s also the truth.

It’s also a hell of a testimony, if you ask me.

•     •     •

The only store I ever go to is off Guadalupe St., here in beautiful Austin, Texas. It’s a pretty small place. They have food trailers/taco trucks, too, so maybe I shouldn’t complain about the size. Still, there’s never a place to sit in the damn place. If I had to guess, there are maybe six tables—and three or four of those seat two people at most. Those are always taken up by couples or guys talking about computers. It drives me nuts.

The interior is red. It’s fiery and nice. There are clippings from newspapers on the walls which explain, quite boldly, that Torchy’s Tacos is a well-loved establishment where a lot of people have eaten. They’ve won all kinds of awards. They deserve those awards, though. It’s okay if they boast.

•     •     •

Yes, and having eaten at Torchy’s Tacos a half-dozen times since I moved to Austin, I can tell you that they’ve got a fine thing going for them. As I do not eat meat, I can only comment on two things they have on their menu, which makes this is a piss-poor review. I don’t care. I love Torchy’s Tacos, and I’m going to review them anyway.

I usually get the fried avocado taco. I get two of them. At $3.25 a taco, Torchy’s isn’t the most affordable place in town. For God’s sake, what a mark-up! It comes with (vegetarian) refried beans, cheese, lettuce, pico de gallo and two fried avocados. The avocados are choice, if I may say so. (God, “choice”—did I really just say that?) I don’t know what they bread these things in, but they’re practically decadent. They’re brown, anyway, on account of their being fried. That’s OK with me. They give you this sort of spicy ranch dressing to dump all over the thing, and make sure you do that, because it’s almost necessary. Now, I’m not suggesting that the fried avocado taco doesn’t have legs of its own to stand on, but that sauce really hits the spot.

And for God’s sake, insist on a flour tortilla. They’ll ask you that at the register: “Corn or flour tortilla?” It’s usually some dude with a great haircut. Just say to him, “Brother, I’ll take flour,” and they’ll really take care of you.

Get two tacos. Pay the extra $3.25 to double the size of your meal. One taco will not be enough to satisfy even the smallest stomach. Though yeah, they really pack those things. But two—two makes it a full meal.

If you want your meal to be under $10, ask for a water cup. Don’t bother with fountain drinks. You shouldn’t be drinking all that sugar, anyway. Water is probably a better taco companion anyway. Can you imagine washing down a fried avocado taco with, say, a Dr. Pepper? Good God, no. That would make me feel pretty rotten about myself and my place in the world.

And hey, they also have burritos. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention these things. See, you can specify what you want on the burrito. That’s pretty standard. They give you a bunch of choices, and most of them are delicious as hell. They’re . . . scrumptious, even, which makes me nervous to say. (Why is my word choice so suspect—even to me?) But see, they don’t give you a non-meat option. I suppose you could say, “Just leave the meat out.” But what good is that going to do you? The guy behind the counter with the terrific haircut might scoff a little. (Maybe that’s not true—the employees tend to be friendly and laid-back. Even still.) Look: Even if you do eat meat, do yourself a favor and ask if you can replace meat with a bunch of fried avocados.

This idea came to me one day and I’ve never regretted it. When you do it, act like the idea just popped into your brain. Throw them a curve ball. Say something to the effect of, “Aha! May I replace meat with some fried avocados?” Don’t mention a specific number of fried avocados or they’ll probably think you’ve premeditated this (admittedly) genius move. The guy behind the counter, after stroking his gorgeous hair, will likely seem a little surprised. He’ll say, “Um, yeah! We can definitely do that, sure.”

“Great! Let’s do that, then.” (Say that.)

And then you just eat the damn thing.

•     •     •

When do normal people eat lunch? Noon? One? I don’t know. I eat lunch at three or four in the afternoon. See, I don’t operate during normal human being hours. I stay up late and wake up late. What I’m trying to say is eat when I do. That way you’ll avoid the usual crowd, which consists almost entirely of degenerate youths. Around lunchtime this place is crawling with undergraduate neanderthals and their girlfriends. Is that a mean thing to say? I don’t know. It’s the truth. These guys are real mouth-breathers, believe me.

Don’t eat when they eat. And if you do, for God’s sake, don’t look at them when they eat. You’ll lose your lunch, for sure.

That place gets pretty crowded. And as I mentioned, there’s no God damn place to sit. You’ll be forced to, I don’t know, sit outside or something. The thought of sitting outside Torchy’s Tacos literally makes my stomach turn. You’ll be forced to stare at a barbershop and a Whataburger and a busy road. Don’t do that to yourself.

•     •     •

Torchy’s Tacos is a pretty all right place. It’s great, even. Go eat there. Get two tacos. Get a water cup. If you’re feeling ballsy, get that custom-made fried avocado burrito. Or just eat whatever is on the rest of the menu, which my meat-eating friends tell me is wonderful. Get the “Trailer Park”. Everyone always orders that thing.

And if you see me sitting alone, sit down across the table from me. Lord knows I could use the company.