Next Stop, Please.

I remember, back in the summer of 1999. I had just received a Masters Degree in Irish Theatre Studies from the Samuel Beckett Centre at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. You bet I capitalize all that. The diploma hangs in my closest with the others, not framed, edged folded down, slightly bent and thumbtacks nipping me in the ass when I slip by the unscrupulously structured closet to grab some stockings and skivvies. A sort of crab walk is necessary, since this closet was designed and made by an idiot Polish Brooklynite who “knows” kitchens, but in designing the one in between the two apartments on my top floor of this precious building, flanked by Irish bar, brewery and winery, decided to place outlets smack in the middle of the opposing wall around the outside of the wide, galley style kitchen, about 4 feet up, in case a midget or some South American Indian type needed to plug in their deep fryer. In doing so, he also failed to include any on the wall which houses the large, grey granite counter top. My baby, I call it. I have had spreads on that thing that could choke a horse. Wine bottles like bowling pins, dips, breads, multitudes of meats, Croatian fests, Whole Legs of Lamb and roast beefs and chickens….pot lucks made by drunks who woke up the afternoon before but always delivered with meatballs and guitar shaped Ohio-influenced mountains of cheese and meat sculptures……cocktails, gins, cats crawling, my ass upon it, dishwasher rumbling remnants of the feasts, yes THAT countertop….no outlets. Across the kitchen (granted only about 3 feet but one would hope to maneuver themselves, party or no, without long cords stretched over ovens and gas stove tops), there are outlets on both sides of the stove. Each area of counter which houses these outlets is about the size of a large shoe box, ok a box of big, tall boots, but still, not exactly a workspace. He knows kitchens. Dumb Polack. I didn’t learn nearly enough from my electrician father, but he would be rolling in it to see how this man set up shop here. Though he would have loved the place all the same. What he did when it came to the bedroom closets was simpler, and less electrical. Because the bedrooms were small, he forced into the back left portion of each a closet which was the shape of a medium sized almost walk in closet. Except, you didn’t open folding doors and stretch your arms out wide. You opened a regular door and walked in, and the clothes and shelves were on your right, facing out. So you had to crab walk your way in, in order to face your things. I hate the feeling still of being in there every morning, myself shoved in the face of my many clothing choices, colours practically swimming up at me, never spending enough time at the back, where my collection of vintage dresses, pinup girl dresses and various flouncy and special things which I used to wear all the time, sit sadly now, only occasionally let out or snuck into a day’s wear. So I shimmy practically past the diplomas, bending the corners further with my shoulder and thumb tacks as said, saying good morning as my ass removes at least one per visit.

They exist there, hidden, not talked about unless someone asks why I love Ireland so much or why I talk about this film or book or why I have words to an impossible beast on my right scapula blade, at the centre of the labyrinth of Chartres, the ultimate Christian symbol, staring out at one and all, warning ‘keep away….unless you have the mettle to work your way around this maze, its corners flanked by scarabs and knotty Egyptian lotus leaves…’ “If you’re gonna try, go all the way” as Bukowski says to me every few days or so, looking back at me as I sit on the toilet at 2 or 3am, makeup running and feeling like I’m at an airport. Once the ticket’s bought, you’re already halfway there. He laughs that low, pickled moan at me as I stumble back to the bedroom, still drunk and dizzy sometimes, still moving my arms as if in the dream I’m having, still hoping to return to the orgy or the nightmare or the ecstatic vision of doubles and familiars which sheathe me as I climb back into the bed. The diplomas in the shadows of the darkened closet. When the summer of ‘99 hit, I was just after (see, this is one of those times when I use Irish speak. I’m not ashamed to do it. While there may be an inflection or a tone, I have never been one of those people who went over, spent some time, and came back with full Irish accent. If anything, I simply spoke lower, more humbly, less loud, though I only ever yell and speak crass when on whiskey or with my family – you had to shout to be heard at Holiday dinners, and we liked it just fine that way. Some boys in Belfast told me I wasn’t like any Americans they’d met, and I liked it just fine that way as well).

Therefore, I was just after doing two medical studies for money, which were simple, and looking back, not as scary as they seemed at the time. One was for a diabetes drug and the other for a birth control pill. Both were post being passed by the FDA (criminals and liars, all) and it was the side effects they were testing. I do think I may have gotten a sugar pill at least one of the two times….also, the first time included passing hours watching terrible action films in a room with the big and burly, most black male population, who had just been given a viagra like drug. You can guess how that went. No rapes occurred, but the looks in their eyes was beyond anything primitive. It was as if modern technology was baiting them and their impoverished cocks to fight-kill-maim-steal for it, removing all the sexuality and humanity and even animalistic quality out of the act. Manchurian candidates for fucking. That’s what they did to them, for those few hours. So, I go through these studies, and received said closet-hanging-thumbtack ass scraping diploma from the Samuel Beckett Centre of Trinity College Dublin, Ireland in the mail. I hadn’t been able to financially get back for the graduation, and wished I had stayed for another year. Maybe do a PhD. But I don’t think I had that in me at 23, if I even do now.

Greenpoint. That summer was so hot, and I had no A/C. Back room of front half of railroad apartment. Dorian cat, young and just off the streets, then working at the Barnes and Noble Union Square. The Fiction/Poetry section felt good to me, even though I had just received, you know, a Masters Degree. When I was moved to the 3rd floor sections, which included art, music and photography it was still ok, but it also featured self help and the months spent stocking and organizing and answering questions about the various self help piles of shit I waded through was probably responsible for my intense anti self help feelings of today. The reasons have changed, as have my experiences, and foundations of why and the references about “us”, the ones who hurt and grieve and need, but that set the tone for sure. Smelling baking cookies and coffee at the café, hearing the Cuban music of “Buena Vista Social Club” all summer long, intermingled with Roy Orbison, both wonderful but the first one I cannot listen to anymore, and the second I have forgotten was played then, so it’s brand new to me again and liquefied with new associations. Spalding Gray came to read once, and is now dead of suicide. So did an Irishman who read his book about growing up in a family of cops, and some other notables who have passed from my memory. But it was, on a scorching hot July day, I was getting off the bus in bright 4 o’clock sun, as I had worked the morning shift and was tired, my feet, my brain, my hopes and dreams. Unsure of so much. Nothing’s changed, it seems, just the players get moved around and my back hurts more. Bukowksi is laughing again at this, that laugh that one does when they’re midway sipping alcohol , their mouth practically in the rocks glass, and their shoulders shake up and down a little, their muffled laughter seeming even more rapacious and self contained that it’s underwater and bubbling up at you. That they can’t even stop drinking long enough to laugh at you in the open air.

I forgot what number bus it was. It went from the Bedford stop all the way down to Kingsland Avenue, where I lived. This pale, skinny little girl not much older than I was, gets off the bus and like a bullet, like a shot, like a bottle hitting the bar floor, a bird let loose from its cage (her body was holding something in, you could tell, behind the 2 or 3 people waiting in the front of the almost empty bus to get out at their upcoming stop, she wasn’t moving or fidgeting much but you could sense it in her, about to do……something), she hops down the steps to the street, waiting for the person in front of her to leave her enough space for her clearly planned exit, and a skip in her step leads to a brief, but walloped bounding for her next steps away from the bus as she yelled with all the anger and glory she could “I’m FINISHED with this BULLSHIT JOB and BULLSHIT PLACE and I'M GETTING THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!” Which was then followed by a strange sound, like a laugh born from a grief stricken cry, so breathy and garbled, that she didn’t have the chest concavity or mental capacity all at that moment to release it without it sounding – off. I followed her down, leaving her plenty of space, and smiled at her as she then slowed down her walk, but kept up with her same re-releasing and brand new, un-heard of energy down Greenpoint Avenue. I walked, slowly and with little gait of my own to give, and felt so downtrodden in that moment that I might as well have just laid down there and died. I think of her often, when I know this moment will ultimately come for me and now that I can see it, somewhat, it feels different. It’s as if I’ve been inviting in one droplet of that energy for years, one quick step sideways in my walk, one minute jolt in my shoulders when waiting to enter and exit a place, one more second of a gleam flashing across my eyes….so by the time it comes, I may just look exactly the same as I do now. My insides have been birthing this freedom for more years than I care to say. I’ll think of her again, when the time comes, and you may not see anything new about me, or excitable or happy on the surface, because it’s not something that brings any of that. It will make me myself again, at all times, places, with all people, and under all skies. And for that walk off the bus for the final ride home, tattered degrees in my arms, dysfunctional outlets and backwards closet in my house, and Irish words in my head, I’ll look for her on up ahead, and see what she’s up to now.

M. Lucia