R-Gulves: Attempt 1

Across from me diagonally down and to the right was a little black boy. He arched his neck and received a blast of water much bigger than mine. I arched there too and felt a meager stream against my pathetic tongue. I wouldn't have said white – despite the el's grime, the blue A, and all the yellow plastic bags. On one side, on the interior, I'm decorated like my closest friends. I love those little guys, even though they're only a couple. Honest (for the most part), dignified (according to a reasonable, if primitive, moral protocol), and frugal (or they wouldn't be my closest friends), they are spokes on a wheel that I'm proud to be turning on – occasionally run over, occasionally on top, occasionally apathetic. Maybe the lack of rotation in the early years has something to do with the rupture, a sick foreshadowing of the gulves I am currently trying to reconcile.

Expectant rays of early sun coated the steel grommets that greeted me every week, I learned what the phrase “morning dew” meant. I walked and slowly cultivated a distaste for walking. I learned the difference between black backgrounds and white sans-serif. I asked important questions and received important answers. We strolled, sometimes I sat, sometimes the pigeons squatted, and the roar and the grime and the grommets vibrated when the Concorde flew over our house at 5 p.m. Radios are for talk shows and sporting events and Bonnie Raitt cassettes. Radios are in cars and cars are weapons. The Gulf War proved a raging success and the pledge of allegiance was a chance to stare at Lady Ashley. I like marble counters and I adore center kitchens – certain complexions make more sense with certain hair styles, and these formulas were scrawled on the wooden planks which rested on the steel beams of the overhead ceiling.

Drawing on such topics exposes key vulnerabilities – so it's necessary to close it up for a while, to whisper at a distance, to follow the lead of my hero. To rise in expectation amidst the orange flourescence of a gymnasium where my little friends grew up, where so many methodical feelings and predictable let downs occurred. This was the place and time when and where prancing up the steel staircase yielded a swirling dust platform, and I was left with a view down at the asphalt. I settled then and I settle now – there are too many bright red stickers with key-punched courier black text indicating $6.99. This was my steel ceiling, the blue A. That is my Liberty, and that is what I thought.

Until in a flash of electricity everything changed. The planes grounded. I feared disease and looked to the center like a good dude should. I saw red and I retreated, my expectations were shattered I was a scared guy and a small, thirsty boy. Now I learned what the phrase “angels bowling” meant and I associated it with a very specific sound, but also a very literal interpretation of beautiful blonde people in white robes throwing strikes. Following through. Spinning.

The lunatic is in my head. Sly lateral socket movement causes intense hubris generation, which in turn stimulates digital fluctuation on an unprecedented and thoroughly irrelevant scale. The eye movement is paired with flankular cornicial ascendancy. Then the impotent lizard in me sticks out his pathetic tongue, and in that moment my royalty is legitimate. Fire. There is a fire in my power station. So there's a panic at the control station. There are backup plans illustrated with “elementary” precision, unfurled for the world to see but more importantly for the crew of my vessels. On trials and inundations, the first officer warns that plagiarism is not a laughing matter. That stealing and misrepresenting one's work is punishable by time in a small oak-paneled room with nothing but shelves upon shelves of sodium-free bread crumbs and Red Pack crushed tomatoes.

I'm all about reflexes. I have a full range of motion, document it. I want to remember the power of my muscles and bones. I want to look back once my muscles and bones go and remember the prowess of my fat ass. That assumes natural deterioration – we should all be so lucky. I love shellfish and secret societies, so let's start this off real subtle, Lady. Every random number generator I incorporate into web sites in the next few years will be a custom-built model of the organic deterioration of the range of motion of my appendages. So if you think that the time in milliseconds is an appropriate seed, think again. Actually I will think again, uhthankyou.

So off topic. I veered, at what point did I veer? The introduction was completely contrived and subverted my own intentions. I sabotaged myself at the very outset but tricked myself into thinking I was on track with the el avenue flashback. I mean the wheel metaphor was not as bad as you initially thought it, though it was very, very poor. I'm proud of what came right after that. I'm quite fond of the Pink Floyd bit too: I made up two adjectives there, but by then I had veered. The gulves are simply not reconciled. A failure.

Beady black eyes...deep light blue and deep light pink...the appreciation of soft cheese...the spectacular ridges, the expectation of nothing and the white light growing closer in the dark night. Moist wool stuck to my ankles and soles...the spiders, the chordata. The cavernous realization of a collection of soul utencils.

My cowardly and insincere desire to experience anyone else's pain.