It's the weather that makes Los Angeles an extraordinary place, some say. The perpetual sunshine, seeming to make promises that, by all probability, will never be kept. Only it's easy to forget about the city's reputation for being unreliable, and the nauseating affect of being unable to take It at its word, when all that sunlight is blaring in your eyes. You avert your gaze though - to the pretty girl walking down the sidewalk here(she looks terribly old when you get close up), to the pretty girl sitting at the table there(she has an obnoxious laugh, an obvious moron), to the big billboards advertising movies that will soon be in theaters near you(can't believe they made them, and at so much cost!), to the Hollywood sign, through the haze on the hill, which incites everyone to say they've made it(being facetious, of course); essentially, you avert your gaze to any- and everything that promises even the tiniest bit of possibility and you hang on to it.
Then the "perpetual sunshine" fails to come through one day too, and the clouds roll in in giant, cold grey wisps, like steel wool strung apart, wet and nearly freezing over, and the rain comes down, always surprising everyone as if it were the very first time it had ever rained.
When it rains here everything changes. What usually shines brightly harsh golden yellows then glimmers all dull blues, reflecting only the stoplights and the headlights from traffic that is invariably backed up, and the hazy shadows of residents and tourists alike who seem to hover through the rain like ghosts. Sunglasses are taken off, ridding sight of that thin but affecting lens that seems always to remove individuals slightly from their surroundings; consequently, immediacies become restored to their rightful places, become more clear, more "real." The city is exposed for what it truly is and becomes ordinary and bleak. Bleak not in the old world Russian or modern day Bulgarian sense, but in the 1940's American romantic sense. Existence hardly goes any further than what happens in front of you and what happens in your brain.
It felt good, settling into my seat on the bus, in the rain, for the half hour long ride from West Hollywood to the stop where I would catch the metro into Downtown. I was reading "De Daumiere's Blue Period" - a good story - and felt as though I were all alone in transit. I had gotten to the part where De Daumier sits quietly at his desk in the main room of the Arts Institute(a university which teaches art via airmail from a two bedroom apartment in New York; the only other "instructors" besides himself, and also the founders of the school itself, were an old married Chinese couple), having just sharpened all of his pencils and laid them out neatly in front of him and knew not what else to do but light up a cigarette. I think the head of the school, who had been at a desk just a few feet away - and silent until then - came over to De Daumiere's desk to tell him that there would be no smoking in his "classroom."
These details of De Daumiere's story, if they matter at all, might be confused some due to the disorienting nature of what occurred a few moments later.
The bus hadn't traveled very far from the stop where I had gotten on when it happened. A smell wafted through the bus that made me look up from the book. I couldn't find the source of the smell immediately, but I could see it traveling in a wave like those seen in sports stadiums across the country all the time, only in this instance it was not the two hands being thrown up simultaneously, then put back down, it was a swift movement of one hand to the face, the thumb and forefinger pinching the nose, and a look of disgust. And as that wave finally reached me I saw him - a man very much sunken into himself from malnutrition, wearing rags and a scraggly beard, holding a plastic sack full of godknowswhat. By this time the smell had become overbearing - it was evident that he had just recently shit himself - but I did not follow suit of the rest of the passengers on the bus. He sat down in a seat that situated him in a such a way that he was staring directly at me in profile; I couldn't bring myself to humiliate him with the gesture of pinching my nose shut.
I fought through the smell as best as I could, trying to continue to read with the book repositioned slightly in the window so that the coat sleeve of the arm holding the book covered my nostrils somewhat - it never would have been enough. I read the same paragraph over and over and yet did not really read it once. My sight had become blurry. My stomach was nearly turning over. Some of the other passengers opened the windows near their seat as far as they could physically go - just a crack. The man muttered to himself incoherently. The bus driver pulled over unannounced. In a hurry, he walked the length of the bus, shaking his head as he opened every last window on his rig. When he came to the window above the man, he opened it vehemently, saying so others could hear, "Definitely open this one!" The bus driver retook his position at the wheel. The man sat still, staring forward with vacant, jaundiced eyes.
The thought occurred to me, unjustified at the moment, really, "Why do these things always happen to me? Why of all places did this man choose to sit there, right across from me?" Logically though, the man had probably just chosen that particular seat because it was in the back of the bus and had the fewest number of passengers around it(though he would've cleared any nearby seats with his smell) - the same reason I had chosen my own. His next move, however, still does not make any sense to me, though in hindsight I will admit that my thoughts may have somehow been related to the cause.
His next move was only a few blocks up. It began with a ghastly muttering under his breath and him rising to his feet(his legs wobbling beneath him), and ended with him sitting down in the seat directly beside me. I had to quickly snatch up my coattails to prevent him from sitting on them. The passengers in front and in back of me moved to different seats. I could hear a few of them laugh. It took immense concentration, but I did not react - not a single blink, nor a single gag(though my reflex is normally weak). I simply stared straight ahead as the bus continued forward and this man, it seemed, continued to inch closer and closer to my seat.
A few blocks more was all I could take. No amount of compassion could have kept in my seat.
The bus came to a stop and I stood up. The man took no notice of me. I politely attempted to inform him that I was getting off - still nothing from him. The bus had only been stopped for a moment or two, I'm sure, but it felt as though it had been stopped forever and it would certainly be taking off again shortly. I had to act with haste. I threw my bag on the seat in the row in front of mine, then I grabbed onto the railing that extends the length of the bus at head level for those passengers that are forced to stand when the bus is packed, and I pulled myself up and over the man's crumpled, shit-stinking frame like some sort of frantic acrobat making his last act of desperation to save his life. It was terribly sad, but again I could hear the other passengers laugh as I grabbed my bag of the seat in one quick sweep of the arm and pushed through the back doors onto the street.
I was still about six blocks away from my usual stop at the Santa Monica/Vermont metro station, and much further from downtown. It was still raining. I lit a cigarette as I began to walk towards the metro stop. Neither the rain nor the cigarette could wipe away the smell that had permeated my brain. That smell, and the image of that man - so shrunken - it had created an overwhelming feeling of despondency within me. The sun would come out again later, and distractions would present themselves everywhere - but what matter? Walking towards the metro in the rain, having a cigarette, young and still in good health, good-looking enough, things felt bleak. And not bleak in the 1940's American romantic sense either, but more so in the modern day Bulgarian sense - the sense that a rainy day in Los Angeles has the potential to evoke.
Later, waiting on the platform at the metro, I was crouched against a wall, somewhat in a daze. Someone walked by me - a fellow passenger from earlier. He addressed me in passing, "That was some funny shit!" I have no idea how I reacted. Maybe I laughed with him, a little at least; maybe I looked up with surprise and ultimately said not a word to him. Either way, it seemed the most bizarre thing he could have said to me just then.
----
Hope everyone's set aside a few dollars for the new "SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE EARTH" audiobook, set to be digitally released at the end of the month. If all of us here at The Poor House can get our shit together.
Stay tuned
&
Enjoy,
Benjamin Font
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
From Slow-Motion to Dead Stop
Memory: tiniest thing can spark it.
Like the sangria I'm drinking on the balcony of a second story apartment in a building somewhere in West Hollywood, from which the lives being lived within 14 different apartments are visible at times - separate, yet connected. It makes me recall the fever I once had from drinking too much boxed sangria. For three days straight I drank nothing but the stuff - too sweet, and strong even. I was traveling at the time, sweating profusely from the build up of sangria in my system as I stood in line at the train station. I was out of sorts as I came to the ticket window, asking the man, with difficulty, politely as I could, "Do you speak Spanish?" I had meant to ask if he spoke English. The fact that he spoke Spanish was self-evident. He was a portly little Spanish man with a mustache. I was in Spain.
A few moments later - having stammered through the rest of the conversation with the man at the ticket window in order to learn that my train wouldn't be leaving from Barcelona for another three hours - I sat waiting for my train, embarrassed, the sweat now soaking through both of my shirts, and a pigeon took a giant shit on my bag. I nearly cried as I cleaned it off at the bathroom sink.
And before that, alone in my hotel room(basement, no windows), while the sangria still flowed box after box. I sat on the bed, allowing the sangria to wash down only saltine crackers. I could hear a couple in one of the adjoining rooms fucking, gasping incoherently to each other in Spanish. I closed my eyes and said a thousand Hail Marys.
That phrase, those words(in Latin though - the words that are now inked into my chest) - "Ave Maria." The same words I muttered to myself years ago in wintertime Lincoln, Ne., sitting up late night by candle light(in the 21st century!) in the frost covered window, staring across the train yard at the blinking red light I perceived to be the devil's beacon and believing myself to live out(through visions) the horrors of the boy I knew at thirteen who killed himself. I wrote it all down then. Eventually published it too in the post script to my first book, The Good Life of A Holy Idiot - it was entitled, "Requiem For Christopher."
Then there is the subject of these books of mine themselves, the publishing of which has led to many disintegrated relationships, romantic or otherwise, permanent or temporary. And how some folks have scoffed at the most recent book at the sound of the title alone - "I Am No One - an imaginary memoir." The word "memoir" inciting them to say, "Does the experience of a twenty-four year old in America really lend itself to create an engaging and insightful memoir?"
I think about every single person I have encountered while in their latter years. I think about the stories they tell of their youth, with more air in their lungs than they know what to do with and big smiles on their faces. I think about how the only difference in the telling of their stories and mine is that mine are told on the fly, while they're still happening, rather than years later when details have become more cohesive due to the invention that time will allow the brain to make. It is impertinent, though, for hindsight to play a vital role in a true story; in fact, it is better that they be told without it, when foreshadowing doesn't come of an oafish, conscientious hand, but of the subtle, intricate order of nature.
It should be mentioned that the result of this - this writing about youth while still presently living it - is an odd combination of somberness and elation; it creates a strange feeling of nostalgia for the current situation, one that breaks the heart while inflating it. It also allows for sappy, dramatic sentiments(as seen previously).
Back to the balcony then. Drinking sangria.
I look back with amazement at the time that has passed. Things have happened of their own accord, and I have adapted. I became tired, or caught up. Things came to a standstill, ostensibly. I was busy: held up in Nebraska over the summer due to circumstances out of my control, a trip back to the west coast, a few readings, some books written, a movie in production, etc. My face appeared here and there, but otherwise I disappeared. But I am rested now. The plumbing has been repaired in The Poor House and all the holes in the walls have been patched up too. The refrigerator has been restocked - meats, cheeses, eggs, booze. We've got everything now. If not everything, then at least enough.
The sangria is gone. A man on his own balcony on the third floor, smoking a cigarette and thinking about god-knows-what. But the main thing is that the ball is rolling again - things are moving.
Enjoy everyone,
K. Benjamin Font
IN FULL BLOOM, having sold out of the 100 hard copies, is now available for download.
I AM NO ONE - AN IMAGINARY MEMOIR, published in Nov. 2010, is available in limited handmade editions.
The American Haiku - a beautiful thing. Daily six word stories.
Like the sangria I'm drinking on the balcony of a second story apartment in a building somewhere in West Hollywood, from which the lives being lived within 14 different apartments are visible at times - separate, yet connected. It makes me recall the fever I once had from drinking too much boxed sangria. For three days straight I drank nothing but the stuff - too sweet, and strong even. I was traveling at the time, sweating profusely from the build up of sangria in my system as I stood in line at the train station. I was out of sorts as I came to the ticket window, asking the man, with difficulty, politely as I could, "Do you speak Spanish?" I had meant to ask if he spoke English. The fact that he spoke Spanish was self-evident. He was a portly little Spanish man with a mustache. I was in Spain.
A few moments later - having stammered through the rest of the conversation with the man at the ticket window in order to learn that my train wouldn't be leaving from Barcelona for another three hours - I sat waiting for my train, embarrassed, the sweat now soaking through both of my shirts, and a pigeon took a giant shit on my bag. I nearly cried as I cleaned it off at the bathroom sink.
And before that, alone in my hotel room(basement, no windows), while the sangria still flowed box after box. I sat on the bed, allowing the sangria to wash down only saltine crackers. I could hear a couple in one of the adjoining rooms fucking, gasping incoherently to each other in Spanish. I closed my eyes and said a thousand Hail Marys.
That phrase, those words(in Latin though - the words that are now inked into my chest) - "Ave Maria." The same words I muttered to myself years ago in wintertime Lincoln, Ne., sitting up late night by candle light(in the 21st century!) in the frost covered window, staring across the train yard at the blinking red light I perceived to be the devil's beacon and believing myself to live out(through visions) the horrors of the boy I knew at thirteen who killed himself. I wrote it all down then. Eventually published it too in the post script to my first book, The Good Life of A Holy Idiot - it was entitled, "Requiem For Christopher."
Then there is the subject of these books of mine themselves, the publishing of which has led to many disintegrated relationships, romantic or otherwise, permanent or temporary. And how some folks have scoffed at the most recent book at the sound of the title alone - "I Am No One - an imaginary memoir." The word "memoir" inciting them to say, "Does the experience of a twenty-four year old in America really lend itself to create an engaging and insightful memoir?"
I think about every single person I have encountered while in their latter years. I think about the stories they tell of their youth, with more air in their lungs than they know what to do with and big smiles on their faces. I think about how the only difference in the telling of their stories and mine is that mine are told on the fly, while they're still happening, rather than years later when details have become more cohesive due to the invention that time will allow the brain to make. It is impertinent, though, for hindsight to play a vital role in a true story; in fact, it is better that they be told without it, when foreshadowing doesn't come of an oafish, conscientious hand, but of the subtle, intricate order of nature.
It should be mentioned that the result of this - this writing about youth while still presently living it - is an odd combination of somberness and elation; it creates a strange feeling of nostalgia for the current situation, one that breaks the heart while inflating it. It also allows for sappy, dramatic sentiments(as seen previously).
Back to the balcony then. Drinking sangria.
I look back with amazement at the time that has passed. Things have happened of their own accord, and I have adapted. I became tired, or caught up. Things came to a standstill, ostensibly. I was busy: held up in Nebraska over the summer due to circumstances out of my control, a trip back to the west coast, a few readings, some books written, a movie in production, etc. My face appeared here and there, but otherwise I disappeared. But I am rested now. The plumbing has been repaired in The Poor House and all the holes in the walls have been patched up too. The refrigerator has been restocked - meats, cheeses, eggs, booze. We've got everything now. If not everything, then at least enough.
The sangria is gone. A man on his own balcony on the third floor, smoking a cigarette and thinking about god-knows-what. But the main thing is that the ball is rolling again - things are moving.
Enjoy everyone,
K. Benjamin Font
IN FULL BLOOM, having sold out of the 100 hard copies, is now available for download.
I AM NO ONE - AN IMAGINARY MEMOIR, published in Nov. 2010, is available in limited handmade editions.
The American Haiku - a beautiful thing. Daily six word stories.
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