by M.R. Bradie

 

     Hey Kid, do you still wash your hands in red wine? What sort of trip were you ever on to pick up such a strange habit?  Was it that dark girl, the one you began to love, who taught you to do that?  What else did she teach you? And who else was she teaching? Can you still remember why she cut you off, stopped coming to the door, answering your phone calls, your letters, your computer messages?  How long did it take you to get over that?  Or did you ever? Do you deserve to?  Do you want to? 

      Then what came next?  How could you ever allow your world to fall apart the way it did? Why would anybody ever choose that path?  What were you expecting to find, as you slouched from town to town, job to job, person to person?  Did some sad change or damage occur in your head, that icy night on the highway through Oklahoma City when you spun out, burst into the concrete barrier, demolished your car and escaped with your life?  Why was your seatbelt off and your pants undone?  What kind of person plays with themselves while they drive on an icy interstate highway at 3am?  Do you still feel so lucky?  Who did you think you were?  Were you right?  Is the void everything you ever expected it to be? 

      Ahh, so you call it the void do you?  You like to play with it and change it around do you?  Voidus Maximus?  Did you buy a piece of property from Alternate Surrealestate DisInc.?  Null space?  Visited Vector X lately?   Did you shake hands with the coroner at the ticket booth of Dreamgate Frontier?  Are the agents  knocking at your door?  Have you supined yourself upon the plastic alter amidst the temple of the Solar Lotteria? Or are you merely delusional?  Are you afraid of facing something larger and so much more real? Are you hiding from a vast, ugly, violent, suffering world that never stops vomiting blood?  Are you still intent on finding that hole, between the fibers of reality ... that last resort?  Is  your skull merely indulging your mind by screaming at your flesh from the inside? 

      Or, have you simply dismissed your dreams and aspirations without even attempting to put up a fight? Where did you expect to land as you willfully allowed yourself to be sucked into the vacuum of infinite mirrors decoration?  Can you defeat the automaton with laughter before it consumes your motherland, or will it obliterate you as well?  Can you still laugh?  How many times per day?  Per hour ... minute ... second ... micro ... ?  If there lies salvation in hope,  what's left  to hope for? 

      Do you remember the man  who lives in your Korean neighborhood, the one who's made you keys in his key shop on several occasions?  Do you remember his fucked up face, replete with distorted hair lip and operation scars, inborn deformities?  Do you remember that Sunday when you were leaving through your alley and you saw him, all dressed up in his best suit instead of the rags he usually wears when he's in the tiny key shop, with his two happy looking kids on the back of his beat down 125cc CitiBike scooter?  How did  you ever guess where he was going?  Where does a man go on Sunday  dressed in his best suit?  Do you remember the big fucked up smile and wave he flashed you?  Did you find it harder to detest blind faith and religious worship after you saw that? 

      Do you realize that chain-smoking is inherently a nihilistic act?  Or do you actually think you're going to be one of those mutants who manages to prolong their body's ability to withstand the erodingonslaught of life through applied vice?  Who do you think you are this week?  Who were you last week?  Are you able to annihilate those future visions long enough to listen to your self?  Can you?  Will you? 

      Do you remember your roots?  Did you ever have any?  Did you ever even try?  Do you recall that toast you made the other night, over bottles of cheap Korean white wine chilled in a bucket of ice, "Here's to those who try and those who don't."?  Why did you say that?  What did it ... mean?  Or did it just sound good in that instant? 

      When was the last time you wrote a real letter?  When was the last time you felt like you truly knew your Mother and Father or one of your three sisters?  When was the last time you put your ego on the shelf to dry out for a while?  What does ambition look like in the daylight?  Does it look like gold ... or putrid mold?  Has your insistence on self-love clipped your ties to the blood that began your life?  Will you put them off until it's too late ... or will you be lucky enough to have that peace before the end, after the end ... whenever that end may come?  You know they're trapped in a rather ill society don't you?  It's not hard to tell that your motherland is hemorrhaging from the inside, is it?  What's it like over there, after all of these things ... these big ugly things that have happened? 

      Do you remember where you where when the incident at Columbine High occurred?  Can you still feel the stickiness of the vinyl lounger and the dull throb of that needle in your arm, as the blood was sucked from you arm by the centrifugal device at that place, the Alpha One Plasmapheresis Center in downtown Portland, Ore.?  What was it like to lay on that bed, waiting to finish, get your vein bandaged up and receive your $25 for food and cigarettes,  when you saw on the overhead television set that the insane shooting had occurred less than twenty minutes away from your parent's house in the labyrinthine suburbs outside of Denver?  What was it like to wait, your pint being sucked out in measured mechanical slurps, not knowing?  You couldn't just yank out the tube and run to the phone, could you? You were relieved when you called your mother and learned that it wasn't your sister's high school weren't you?  Distance is a vague sort of quantity isn't it, kid? 

      You know that society is suffering from every sort of post industrial detritus conceivable don't you?  That's why you bolted to Asia upon the first opportunity offered, right?  And now they're dealing with this horrendous business of airplanes crashing into buildings and mail order viruses, aren't they?  But for all the media coverage you've consumed, can you even imagine what must be going through the daily psyche of your average work-a-day stiff over there?  You can't can you?  It's too much to process isn't it?  You'll just have to wait to get back there and see, won't you?  Will you? 

      Do you remember that lethargic beer guzzling sloth bitch at that bar on Kwang-ali?  It must've been something like September 15th ... a few days after wasn't it?  Didn't she actually say something about all those people who died when the buildings went down,  like, " Well, don't you think they sort of deserved it?"?   She said it with a drunken smile didn't she?  How did that make you feel?  You wanted to destroy her didn't you?  It triggered every emotional button in your person, didn't it?  Who would say something like that?  Why?  What sort of effect would she hope to achieve by allowing such a shitty thing to drizzle from her swollen anus of a mouth like that?   You know a lot of people feel that way though, don't you?  What does that mean about the human spirit?  Was she telling you that you deservd it? 

      On the other hand though, New York isn't the only arena where life holds such a cheap value, is it?   Life tends to slip away like rising steam anywhere you go, doesn't it?  Isn't that it's true nature?  Do you find that hard to accept?  Does it leave you wanting to curl up and assume the position as the lords of inevitability have their way with you?  Or does it make you want to live harder ... drag more lifestuff out of the few remaining moments?  You managed to contain your rage after she said that didn't you?  You told her to " Buy you a beer or fuck off." didn't you?  Do you recall?  How much did you manage to hold in?   Where did all that anger go?  Did it merely dissipate ... or does it burn like the coals in back of any given kalbi restaurant?  Hey, wasn't there a rock'n'roll album by Don Caballero entitled That Which Burns Never Returns? 

         How much do you remember?   How much does one truly need to remember?  What's the actual worth of a thousand glistening nights?  Will you crumble under the psychic weight of two thousand habitual criticism addicts?  Or can you reduce their aural slings and arrows to the fleeting septic swamp gas that it really is?  Have you ever tried to weigh the ejaculate of your average academic who happens to be suffering a low grade case of literate Turrets's Syndrome at the end of the week?  There's surprisingly little there, isn't there?  Sometimes you just have to ball up your fists and laugh, right? 

     Everybody goes down in the end, don't they? 

      Do you remember that fellow from Virginia?  That bloke you met at Dong Ah's blues bar across the street from his jazz bar near Pusan National University, wasn't it?  Didn't he dig all those old heavy metal records you were spinning?  Don't you think he was hip to Motorhead and The Ace of Spades?  It doesn't take a genius to grasp the less-than-subtle nuances that Killed By Death or that Moog solo in the middle or Frankenstein have to offer, does it? Wasn't his name Russel I.?  He wasn't a teacher was he?  No, didn't he claim to be a student, studying Korean at PNU?   Strange sort of character wasn't he?  How did he ever manage to fill two extra books of pages, taped into his passport by the US Embassy of Somewhere?  Wasn't that the craziest goddamned passport you ever did see?  Hadn't that guy lived in Bangkok longer than he'd lived in Korea?  How many yarns did he spin?  Did he disappear a few weeks later?  You never saw him again did you?   How many times did you hang out with him?  Three or four?  What was it he told you about his friend in Bangkok?  The fellow had written a novel that the publishers refused across the board?  When he described the plot, about the universe imploding and a legion on interstellar dimension traveling rangers dispersing across cosmos on missions to control the ensuing chaos, didn't you get a chill throughout your stoned nervous system?  Where do you think Russell was off to?  That translation of the Tao Te Ching he did and had printed up was downright sublime wasn't it?  You've still got it, stacked with the other books on your floor, don't you? 

      Why does the innerspace call out to you so clearly?  Are you trapped on the planet of sound?  Why can't you care about the outer game a little more?  Wouldn't it make life so much easier if you picked up a few more of those societal expectations?  It would make more sense, wouldn't it? 

       What are all of these outer voices saying to you?  Can you hear them too?  Are you suffering from involuntary ventriloquism?  Is it sotto voce ... or is everybody else hip to some crucial detail about living that you accidentally missed?  Do you buy that? 

      Can understanding current global economic conditions make a man's life any better?  Where does the chain reaction of betterment begin?  Can the bloody squabbles between power mongers and religious fanatics make life any better for those who submit to their leadership?  If the middle east is truly the cradle (read 'crotch') of civilization , then aren't the monthly skirmishes wholly comparable to an irreconcilable case of herpes simplex three which fires up once or twice a month? 

      Who can know?  Who can know what?  Isn't relativism a cop out and an easy shot to take?  Why don't you just say ' fuck thinking in circles and start thinking in spheres'?   Wouldn't that be interesting for a while?  Can you conceive of a sphere capable of entering itself?  Would that be called an 'Aclipse'? 

      You like to make yourself laugh a lot don't you boy?  You miss those days of living with Aunt Robyn and her wife Emcee in their house in Esopus, NY, don't you?  Angry middle aged lesbians can be a lot of fun can't they?  They didn't like it when you left straight porn laying around the house did they?  Did you call them after that sick New York airplane-into-the-building-bullshit?  She was damn glad to hear your voice wasn't she?  They're 'okay' so-to-speak, aren't they?  Got a little dog to spoil like a child, right?  Would you try to remember to write them soon? 

      Hey, wouldn't they qualify as roots?  That's a nice feeling, to realize you've got roots, isn't it?  You won't ever forget that will you? Isn't 'family' important anywhere you go on Earth? 

      Do you know how many people there are?  Didn't you hear it was up to six billion?  That's a lot of folks out there just tryin' to get by isn't it?  With so many people, aren't there bound to be some problems? 

      Speaking of problems, do you remember last spring and summer?  What were you thinking?  Your summer began beneath the wheels of a Pusan city bus didn't it?  You are a lucky bastard, aren't you?   How did all that trouble begin?  Weren't you teaching company training in the mornings?  It was tough  to make a 9am class, showered and wearing clean clothes, wasn't it?  Why weren't you paying more attention to traffic while driving that sloppy 125cc DaeLim moped-of-doom through Allak Dong?  What song were you singing in that noray bong of a helmet that you wear, when you ploughed into that taxi and flew off into the side and then under the bus?  Didn't you expect to die?  How did you still teach that class with your bleeding hand hidden under your sweater like that?  Those company English students thought you had some sort of schizoid Napoleon complex, didn't they? 

      What led up to that summer?  Besides, that crash, what was it?  Was it that whacked out night after the fourth poetry reading at the Monk in DaeyonDong?  That night left you feeling dark and empty didn't it?  Why did you go drunk driving in Lt. B.'s car with him and I.V.? He didn't like your driving did he?  You have some weird pathological loathing for military officers, don't you?  It's something about their sense of leadership and authority, isn't it?  He tried to issue one too many 'orders'  while you were driving his car, didn't he?  You were both sodden on the 'juice', weren't you?  Why did you spin that donut in front of Camp Hialleah's Guard shack?  You knew that could get him in big trouble, didn't you?  He got so angry when you both got out of the car in front of the Dallas Club that he started swinging, didn't he?  Did he rip your shirt?  When did you realize that you were in the middle of the first fight you'd had since 9th grade?  It didn't take long for you to realize that if a set of G.I.'s walked out of the club while you were going 'round with him, that you were going to get a double or a triple ass kicking, did it?  Do you feel like a coward for putting the helmet you had with you on and head butting him into bleeding submission?  It was a surreal twilight dance wasn't it?  That drunk soju man sitting on the nearby bench got his eyes filled didn't he?  What did you do once  the good Lt. was sitting on the ground with blood dripping from his lips, nose and the gash on his forehead?  Did you really jump into a taxi with your helmet still on and ride back to Soul Trane for another drink with the people?  A toast to your failure at pacifism, wasn't it? 

      You didn't have anybody then did you?  Why did you feel so lost?  What happened then? You rode the night train to Seoul with a blue-blooded blonde and two Canadian Dan's, didn't you?  Drank a bit of the stuff did you? Did you really end up alone  at the Incheon airport later that morning with a pocket full of $3000 US?  What were you thinking about?  What weren't you thinking about?  Who were you expecting to become by buying a day-of ticket to the Fiji Islands? 

      What happened to you between June 9th and August 22nd?  Why didn't you take any  pictures while you were there?  Did you manage to skullfuck your death's head until it wore a happy face?  Didn't you see an island laid bare with sun and sand and surf and suicide?  That village was in pain, after Aca's (pronounced 'Aurtha') death, don't you think?  That healthy boy uncovered some unbearable secret and hung himself in the bedroom he shared with the other surfers in the village, didn't he?  How long did it happen before you arrived?  Month?  They were planning his 100 nights wake when you showed up there, weren't they?  Didn't they invite you to stay and share endless bowls of kava with them, as they said goodbye one last time?   What was his grandmother's name ... Boomboo, wasn't it?  Didn't she invite you into her kitchen for tea, and started telling you about him?  Did she seem bewildered with grief, questioning as to why a healthy 21 year old boy, working at a nearby resort, a teetotaler, rejecting Fiji's endless supply of booze, grass, Benson and Hedges cigarettes and even Kava, would hang himself at 5 pm in the afternoon, amidst the verdant Chong-Sue family village compound?  Did he know that there were wild papaya and coconut trees surrounding his room?  Did he forget that there were shifting sand dunes the size of the Bexco convention center and twelve foot waves that he could surf masterfully, less than five minutes walk from his sepulcher of a room.  Or was he simple sucked into a vacuum somehow connected with  island life?  Didn't she say, " But he was taking computer classes ... he had a chance to escape his circumstances if he really wanted to ... why?"?   Could you help feeling that you'd encountered some sort of paradox ... a Paradise/Prison Paradox, out there in the southern half of the Pacific Ocean?

      Is it possible that the basic cellular organization of life takes on fundamentally different configurations based upon the amount and intensity of sunlight that it receives on a daily basis? 

      Would you care to diverge from the Fiji thread for a spell?  Would you care to diverge for an instant?  Would you care to ascend to a realm where mortality is so thoroughly understood, that all conjecture concerning it's advantages and disadvantages is rendered moot?  How would you like to chop off the death's head?   Care to render the diabolical inert?  Is it possible?  Do you think the kid's ... the young ones ...  are wise to the ways of subliminal sublimation of sublimity?  What about Pokemon and Harry Potter and every other modern cash cow?  Do the children make them?  Do they sell them?  Do they buy them?  Do they ... consume them?  Do children have some sort of Alchem-mystical effect on the plastic bricks they so readily consume?  And when does this ability pass from the body? 

      And what about the adult fiction market?  Movies and stories and every possible sort of narrative and such?  Who makes them?  Who buys them?  Who lives them?  Who generates these stories about serial killers and psychological 'intrigue'?  Who creates political 'thrillers'? Have you ever seen true violence ... the everyday variety... the sort where a person's life is suddenly and unexpectedly  ruined or lost?  Was  it exciting?  Did it drip with the nectar of sweet drama?   How did it feel to witness it and walk away unharmed?  Where did it leave you? 

  " It's the difference between wrong and right ... that's the story of my life ..." - Did Lou Reed write this? 

 

( end part 1)