a small folder of times i wish i had had a camera:
ogeechee rd, savannah, ga:
right before sunset when there’s a big gold slash against everything. golden squinting. a car was pulled over by savannah police in the gravel entrance of a trailer park. a red ford pick up pulled over in solidarity. the men around the car and the cop. loose chickens perched on the top of the chain link fence.
also ogeechee rd, savannah, ga:
height of summer. the fire hydrant by the sidewalk in front of the burger king, across from the sonic (i was on the sonic side, in the passenger seat of the altima ordering a corn dog and ocean water), open, spilling water, a man in regular pants and a regular long sleeve, on his knees in an effort to fill his cup. savannah pd is out of the car, trying to get the man away from the fire hydrant.
metropolitan parkway library, atlanta, ga:
returned a library book after hours, pulled out of the lot to look at an older man, a firefighter, sitting out in front of the truck, back mostly turned to the road. his boots are up on a table and he’s smoking a cigar, when he turns to look at me i watch his smoke rise directly above him. we both do a double take.
hapeville, atlanta, ga:
the studio is considered a crime scene. the whole road and the ability to leave taped off. the cops, csi, detectives, all double parked so no one can get in. the body is still in the road. she is dressed in all black. black t shirt, black leggings. i see her black hair looks pulled back. the body has been there a while. summer starts to sink in while she’s out there. i watch a detective drive .3 miles an hour and inch his way in a black charger between the double parked cars. my car is smaller than a charger. i get in the car while bobby guides me thru. the sun is my way, he is shadowed by it. his old cavs shirt the only spot of color against the asphalt, crime tape, black car, blue apd vehicles. i’m crawling toward him. his back to the crime scene tape as he motions me forward, a little to the left.
it feels like summer has been let up from hell. like someone let a beast out of the cage or the bag was left open. maybe summer has always felt like this and i’ve only been too young and not horny enough to notice. the heat and the violence rise. watching it closely, watching everything closely. on the drive home from the body, we listen to do you believe in life after love and i point out that “state troopers are out like fuck this summer.” accident after accident. young boys all calling someone while their car sits in the median, all the doors open, car crumpled. a girl with a blonde wig, or little shorts, or baby blue yoga pants standing around, watching these boys who have been trying really hard to be men for them, turn back into boys. lost, because she wouldn’t be standing there if it wasn’t for the boys anyway. these young girls get brought to the edge. in the summer, you follow a boy to the edge.
last night, i drank an espresso martini on the rooftop of the clermont hotel, about eye level with the moon. in my mind, i wasn’t being cool. i was asking the moon for something. not in words, and i don’t know what. the heat never absolved. crammed into the elevator going down, my friend david said he’d hate to stay at a hotel like this. shirts and polyester dresses clinging to everyone, damp. i saw a real beautiful girl. thicker everywhere, even the face. she was wearing white denim, an orange halter top, honey colored curly hair. there is no point in bringing her to life here. i do, however, feel like if we’re going to do this—be here, besieged by the landscape, there should be something, or someone, that can confront it. in my determination, the only possibility for that confrontation is to be intoxicated by a beautiful woman. the beauty, in these cases, orbits around the razor’s edge. they come from it, are it. they are the razor’s edge. what am i saying? i am saying when we look out at the world, a woman’s body, a small child playing, the enveloping agony of hearing a child scream, baby animals, car accidents, bodies on the ground, heat islands, trips to the lake—everything is happening at the same time. today was the worst day of someone’s life. today was the last day of someone’s life. for me, it’s just june.
primal june. jerk off in the work bathroom june. journal my feelings june. jaguar june.
people have been learning lessons all their life, getting wiser, at their own precious pace. not me. i have been a fool. acting like i am hiding from some great big evil. an awful luring spirit that will eventually catch me, my karmic debt totally stacked up from times i was wrong, too tricky, too devious. my wants and desires heinously overreaching. far worse than anyone else’s far worse, because i have no justification for why i do the things i do. i do think there is a jaguar living inside of me and i just had to stop hiding in my sleep, being too high to do anything but sweat, to get her to come out. she knows why she does the things she does: she wants to. she feels like it. she has to. she’s bored. she can. i could have learned this lesson already, i could already know how the world works and that i have a place in it and that i actually don’t need any more information than that. i could have known that by now. i was too scared to be here. afraid of being called on. afraid of being witnessed. i think we might be born as little beasts. i have been filing away at the beast, but i am never without it. the filing down, whittling away at the beast, that’s my greatest crime. i knew i was a beast. but so is everyone else.
i get off the phone with my parents. they speak in a tone unfamiliar to me. a great world of loss between us. when i get off, bobby says, maybe give them some feedback. you let them hang themselves.
i have nothing to say about people who lead their lives like victims forever. i see this behavior as no different than leaving clothes on the floor, not throwing away the empty shampoo bottle, dishes in the sink. why are you not setting the stage for the show? in my mind, everyone is always taking turns being the victim. i do not believe in a division of consequence. i do not believe in the perfect life. i don’t think you do either. because if you listened in close, you would find it so obvious that everyone has layers of hell to deal with.
i used to be on the teat of my mother, i told her everything. i told her everything so she could hurt me with it. i gave it up so she could beat me for it. my truth was her knife. so a summer came, and i yanked myself off of her. this was a few years ago. i say nothing. all information sifted thru, pre-packaged, careful. like holding in your stomach to make the skirt fit, but with way higher stakes than being fat. and now we have no relationship. that’s the actual truth. i can make a litany of reasons why the relationship sours. but that’s just chatter, that’s what gets blown up at the end of a life. the mechanics of the relationship: i said everything, it hurt. i say nothing, i have no origin.
one time, i had plenty of room to back up my car so someone could turn into the parking lot next to me. i just didn’t. he was struggling to fit and i just didn’t move. i am listening to the toads as i write this. i ate a popsicle for dinner, i don’t wear underwear to bed. my stomach feels solid and steel.
the medium fails. or else i fail it. i believe the people with domination over the medium are the people who would have had a camera, and would have stopped to have taken a picture at each moment listed. they might have even asked if they could pose the scene a little better. i simply am not the world’s most dedicated photographer. when i shut my phone off, i leave the house with no way of procuring evidence. i just have to be here, store it inside of me. do you also kind of wonder, maybe, that being unable to get the scene right, not feeling compelled to interrupt what’s happening to get everyone into their angle, their light, is also the way you fail to be the person you are inside of your head? in your mind, the perfect image that tells the story forever. in your hand, your cell phone and you take the picture because you saw something, but it looks so regular, looks so normal. and you’re thinking, well, this is real life. this is the real deal. we’re not on the internet, we’re here, with people. but maybe you should be thinking about the performance. the way you could improve. the discipline is not there. i’m not sure if i believe that, but i might try it on.
obsesseddddd with the way that this feels