Memo
I’m sick of people being happy. I’m sick of people saying, “I am happy.” I’m sick of people packing up their lunches in blue vinyl bags that they bring back every day with a new, fresh lunch in it and then pack up the empty Tupperware at night, singing as they do it. And what about whistling? Christ, am I sick of hearing people whistle.
There was a cute looking man on the bus who kept running his fingers over his moustache. He and his wife were going somewhere together on the bus. His wife was talking about a deal she’d gotten on some blank video cassettes. She said she’d bought a whole case of them and they were going to last her for years.
“They’ll rot,” the man said. “You can’t keep them for years. They’ll be no good.”
“Video cassettes don’t rot,” the woman said. “Meat rots. Vegetables rot. Living things rot. One day, you’ll rot.”
“You can’t keep them forever,” the man said. “They’ll stop working before you ever use them.”
“Not if I keep them wrapped.”
“That’s true,” the man said. “Although, they’re not vacuum sealed.”
Leisure
I’m a little flabbier than I’d like to be, but, when you think about it, so what? Right? I mean, in the long run.
It’s hard to believe I’m here, actually. Actually, in a way, I’m not really here at all. I’m wherever I would have been. Down in the subway about now, I guess.
What’s that guy over there doing? Is he talking to himself or is he singing?
So, anyway, where was I?
I’ll tell you something, six months ago you wouldn’t have heard me say that: Where was I?
What I say is, It must be nice. I still say this, even though now it is me who it must be nice for. I still say the same goddamn thing.
I’ll tell you something else. This gut of mine, this flabby overhang, when I pictured myself in this situation, the flabby overhang never figured into it.
He is singing. I hate that. I hate a guy, where you know he isn’t right, and then he starts singing.
Anyway, what I was going to say was, if you ever looked over the fence and saw me here, you would be seeing a guy who isn’t here.
The height of laziness is the fact that I’ve got the newspaper here on the table beside me.
You have your reporters. You have your editors. You have your typesetters, etc. Some of these guys must get pretty dirty. You have all these guys, but you also have the guys who drive around in vans and put the papers in the paper boxes. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen these guys. It happens pretty early in the morning. I’ll tell you something, though. It makes me wonder about the whole operation. It gives me pause to consider.
Roger can’t see out his sunglasses. That’s how bad they are scratched. He goes into work and forgets to get the glasses off. He just leaves them on to try to keep the headache from getting in any further. There is some music playing in his head. He sits in the staff lounge tapping his fingers. You can’t see where his eyes are going because of the glasses. He’s supposed to be starting work pretty soon.
Alice comes in.
Roger says, “Hey Alice, you know that song, it goes, Ba ba ba ba ba ba, ba ba ba ba ba ba, ba ba bump bump bump bump, baaa. I should’ve known da da da da da da da, well, I’ve learned my lesson well in life and I’ve learned my lesson well, the roller coaster ride you took me on is at an end, if I never see your face again, it’s all the same to me, well I think the worst is over now, yeah, it’s gonna be alright, the morning sun is shining like a red rubber ball. That’s what the song is called, Red Rubber Ball.”
“I don’t know it,” says Alice.
She wandered across the tectonic plates of the store she minded with the Russian lady. They were all Russian. They spoke English well enough. The night fell, and they sat silently in the light from the flashing neon OPEN sign. They sorted pills and looked into each other’s eyes, till there was nothing left to do but love each other with gentle touches, eyes alight with the soft touch of love upon flesh and the waning hope of another day of wandering. If the tectonic plates fell in, they would sell their souls to understand what had stood beneath them all this time supporting their every endeavour without ever revealing, or reveling in what they had.
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