"Jon-Erik Hexum: A Brief Tale in Three Parts"

I. Patrick

I’m trying to jerk off to her Duran Duran poster, but there’s just so much goddamned make-up and hairspray on those guys. I mean, I may as well be trying to beat off to the airbrushed cover of one of the old man’s Oui magazines that he keeps tucked away in the rafters of the garage. I found them while snooping around at age seven and became disinterested just as quickly when I discovered them to suffer from severe dick deficiency. Every once in a while, though, I still climb up there and peek in on them, like you would your grandmother laying comatose in a nursing home, just to make sure she’s still there. You know, to see if there have been any new developments. There haven’t. Maybe he’s forgotten that those musty old sluts are up there. I’m sure he has forgotten about Gran.

God, I’m distracted. I wish Kimberly would forget that I’m here.

She’s been in the bathroom for a good twenty minutes now, I can only assume wrestling with a slippery diaphragm or something. My eyes close and a vision of her in the bathroom crystallizes before me, one newly-shaven leg planted up on the sink like she’s airing out something that she left in the rain overnight. The spermicidal jellyfish slips out of her fingers onto the dirty tiled floor. She picks it up, covered in newly-trimmed pubes, and shimmies it in.

This certainly isn’t helping, so I shove that little horror movie vignette out of my head and I pull more fervently. Concentrate. David. Oh, yeah. Lee. That’s it. Roth. Now I’m firming up in my hand. Concentrate.

“Boy, you sure are excited.”

I flinch, my eyes springing open like a window shade in a Saturday morning cartoon. Adjusting to the light coming into the room from the open bathroom door, I can’t really see because of the sparkles swimming in my vision from clenching my eyes. A blurry, nude silhouette is framed in orange fluorescent light. Jon-Erik Hexum.

“What did you say?”

Even in silhouette, she looks nothing like him. But I’m desperate now.

“Did you just say Jon-Erik Hexum?” She laughs and jumps on the bed next to me.

Did I? Out loud? She pushes my hand out of the way and takes hold of my again-limp hog. I gasp, more shock than pleasure.

I squint and turn back to Duran Duran. They’re better lit now as the bathroom light splashes them like a stage spotlight. They still look like women. Like middle-aged women in a hair salon style book. Even the drummer, and he’s the only one remotely resembling a dude on one of their best days.

God, she’s slinging it around like she’s trying to twirl a drumstick over her head.

I manage to bleat out “I said, ‘Can we have some music?’” and feel the release of pressure as she unhands me. Suddenly, she’s in the floor behind me, recklessly shuffling through LP’s. A pause.

“Duran Duran?”

“WHAT? NO! God no!”

“But Steve said you loved them,” a tiny, disappointed, girlish whine at the displeasure of this bit of possible misinformation from her older brother. 

His reaction, when I told him this lie after practice, was: “So does my sister, Kimberly. Come out with Danielle and me tomorrow night and I’ll bring her.”

It’s obviously not why I told Steve that I was into them, and now I am not so sure I am. All-male band, somewhat effeminate, with full wet lips, who ask plaintively, “Is there something I should know?” Yes, Steve. There is. You should know that I’m into cock. And if the way things are going so far with your sister, Kimberly, are any indication, I am still sure of that.

Even though he didn’t get the fuck-me message I was shining brighter than the bat-signal, it resulted in a night out with him, away from school, and I was not gonna pass it up. Never mind that they were with us the whole time—his girlfriend, Danielle, and sister, Kimberly. As I survey the glossy lithograph of the band, straining against the yellowed cellophane tape affixing it to the pink bedroom wall, it strikes me that his girlfriend bears an uncanny resemblance to the guitarist.

Jesus, I just can’t look at these guys anymore. So I turn my head to look at sister, Kimberly. “Not Kim. Never Kim.” I watch her naked 13-year-old-boy body squatting over a pile of LPs. There is nothing sexy about it. I prop my head up on my arm and look closer, inspect, really, her mole-speckled ass. I glimpse her reflection in the full-length mirror on the wall in front of her and my attention is drawn to the roast-beef-sandwich-of-a-thing hovering over her records… like it’s surveying them, trying to decide for her.

I begin to superimpose on it diagrams from freshman-year health class that I had committed to memory for multiple choice exams. Where in all those folds of skin do you put your penis? I cross-reference these with half-imagined glimpses of the Oui photo spreads my father had at some point used to pleasure himself. Is that the clitoris?

I had better remember fast. That thing looks like it’s about to make its mind up on a music selection and then it’s going to turn its rapturous attention toward me. I should just do it. And do it right.I bet the walls of her vagina are tight, constrictive. I may even bring her to orgasm. Maybe even make her ejaculate.

Nope. That kind of talk is too clinical, academic. It’s not working, though my free hand is. Furiously. At my dick trying to bring it back to life.

What made Steve think that I would be a good match for her? It couldn’t have just been the poppy, British New Romantic music. My eyes clench again. Even tighter this time.

Sting.

In Dune.

She’s grown impatient with her record collection, I hear with a harrumph, followed by her walking across the room and flipping on the FM receiver. static. The Pretenders. static. Fabulous Thunde—static. The Police. Oh God. Leave it here. She does. And I’m firming up again.

I open my eyes to find her bald cunt staring me right in the face, I mean right at eye level at the edge of her bed. Her clit, at least I think that’s what it is, points at me accusingly, as if to say, “I know what you are.”

How did I end up here, peering into her womb?

I’m pretty sure I smell gin. And I am nowhere near her breath.

A terrifying thought thrusts its way into my flaccid mind: What if I miss and it goes in her urethra? Is that even possible? It can’t be good. I can’t do this. There’s just nothing to work with down there.

My brain’s performing even more poorly than my hog, but I manage to ask “Got any grass?”

“Grass?” she repeats, drawing the word out.

“You know, marijuana.”

“I know what you mean. Just who calls it that? Are you from the sixties?” She’s clearly impatient now. Her tone is surprising, considering just how much she seems to want to fuck my brains out, “No. Steve usually does, but I don’t think he’s coming back from Danielle’s…”

“Where’s he keep it?”

“His closet. But he might have taken...”

“Let’s check,” I’m already digging around in her A-ha sheets to find my briefs.

“He doesn’t like me being in his room-- anyone in his room. And he’s gonna be pissed if we smoke up his pot.”

“You just said he won’t be back,” there’s no talking me out of it. Now, I have to be in his room… his bed… his underwear drawer. I’ve pulled my own underclothes on and throw Kimberly my white, button-down shirt, “Here.” Cover up that accusatory, gin-soaked, music-loving pile of medium-rare roast beef.

But now, even though it’s hidden behind my one good shirt, I still can’t get the image of it out of my head.

“Awwww,” she’s admiring herself in the mirror, stroking the collar of my shirt at her neck and fingering the embroidered monogram.

I am up and at her bedroom door, “Where’s his room?”

Friday, January 5, 1996 3:46 a.m.

I don’t know what to say.

These assholes didn’t even try to take me to the hospital. Not that it would have mattered. I mean, it’s pretty clear that I’m dead. Hell, it’s been about four and a half hours, and I haven’t taken a breath, so it’s a safe bet that I’m dead. My body over there hasn’t breathed. Whatever is left of me here, on this side of the room, doesn’t seem to breathe either. If I have lungs, I can’t see them. Or the chest that contains them. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be anything visible in the general area from which I appear to be observing the scene, aside from the thick coke-smoke hanging in the air.

Still, you’d think they would try to do something. Well, something useful anyway. Billy Joel (not THE Billy Joel, it's BJ's actual name) does make a half-ass attempt to resuscitate me. At least that’s what it looks like he is trying to do. Actually, it looks like he’s slipping me a sloppy, purple man-tongue and massaging my tits, and let me tell you, that’s no way to jump-start a pulse. Anyway, after about two minutes, his black and atrophied lungs run out of breath and, were I still in there somewhere and could taste, I know that his sour, dry, cracked-out mouth would have forced me to vomit myself back to life. But, now it’s too late for that. I no longer inhabit that sack of meat and bones in the floor. I will never vomit again.

So, OK. They finally come to terms with the fact that I’m dead, and Billy Joel's girlfriend, Sister, who's no uptown girl but may actually be his sister,  becomes hysterical for a few minutes. She sobs, screams, stumbles around with a palm over her gaping mouth. It’s a pretty good show. Convincing. I appreciate the effort. But, if she really cares, she’ll grab the keys out of the front pocket of my jeans, drag me by the feet to my car, and drive me to the hospital.

They don’t have to stick around or anything. They could just dump me at the ER door. Lord knows it wouldn’t be the first time. It would, however, be the first time I was dead when it happened. I’ve come close a few times, but I’ve always been lucky. Once, Fonda (the woman I love, her hippie parents wanted to name her after Jane Fonda, but the "Jane" part was just too plain) was scared shitless when I wouldn’t wake up after a long night of drinking and snorting Ketamine. So, she called a cab, lugged me down three flights of stairs and into it (bourbon gives that woman some upper body strength, let me tell you), gave the driver a 50-dollar bill, and told him to deposit me at the ER, “Keep the change.” This is what she tells me happened anyway. Used to tell me. She was pretty fucked up herself, that night, though. I don't remember anything like that happening. Besides, I don’t know any cab driver who’d do that and I know cab drivers who will do anything. Believe me.

BJ and Sister don’t even call me a cab. After BJ slaps some quiet reserve into his girlfriend and she retaliates by punching him hard in the nuts (good for her), what do they do? BJ hauls me over into a corner of the big empty room, leans me against the wall, and lights the pipe again.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Even if they don’t give a shit about me, wouldn’t it at least enter their minds that maybe the rock is bad? Maybe it could kill them, too? Maybe, just maybe, this would be a good time to quit?

For them, this is not even a remote concern. So, I’m dead, and I am stuck watching these assholes get tweaked out of their minds with my corpse rotting in the corner of a house I’ve never even seen before tonight. If they start doing it...

Wait. Am I stuck? I mean, I didn’t see any radiating white light to walk into. No angels descending on fluffy white clouds to lead me away. I didn’t see my dad, my grandparents, or Kurt Cobain waving at the end of a long tunnel.

I just assumed that this was going to be one of those situations where something traumatic happens and the spirit, my spirit, is stuck haunting the place for the rest of eternity. What a depressing place to haunt. I've gotta find some curtains if I'm going to stay here. At the rate they’re going, BJ and Sister aren’t long for this life either and will be joining me in this haunted crack-house. If they die here and I am stuck with them for the rest of eternity after what they did (or didn't do), I am going to be so pissed.

The thought of that possibility pushes me over the edge. I storm across the room. Float? Fly? I dunno. I somehow end up in front of the main door of my own volition, and, anxiously, try the deadbolt. It turns, clicking loudly. Yes.

I turn the knob and the wild winter air pushes the door wide open. The heavy door strikes the inside wall of the living room with a THUD that causes both Billy Joel and Sister to jump up from the floor where they have just begun talking animatedly about the best way to dispose of a body. The whistling air and dead night sky are even more ominous than the door flying open, and, for just a moment, I think I’d like to see BJ shit his pants in fright. But the revenge compulsion fades just as quickly as it came. Guess I’m not really a vengeful ghost. I walk across the threshold and look over my shoulder back into the house. They’re both backing up against the far, bare wall. This time, Sister isn’t the one going into hysterics; BJ is crying, wide-eyed, and looking directly at me. Through me. At the empty, open doorway.

There’s something I have to do before I can go. I don’t mean something I have to do like in a scary movie where the ghost still has some action left to perform before he can pass into the other world. Lead someone to where my bones have been buried in a shallow grave in the woods. Get someone to destroy the house in which I am trapped. I’m not talking about metaphysical red tape here. There’s just something I want to do.

I float back in and over to myself in the corner. Since I was able to open the door, it's worth a try… I turn myself over and dig in my pocket for the keys. Sister mistakenly gasps, “He’s alive!” as I pull them from my pocket. “The keys!” I can only imagine what this looks like to these two cracked-out bitches, keys jumping out of my pocket and making their way out the door, seemingly of their own accord.

Wait. One more thing. I glide (I dunno, it doesn’t feel like there’s ground under my feet) over to my stiffening corpse, grab my right hand and force my fingers into a fist. It’s a little tough to do so. There’s resistance, popping sounds. Maybe I’ve broken them. Doesn’t matter. I don’t feel it. They aren’t my fingers anymore. Not my fingers, but my sentiment. I make sure BJ and Sister are watching as I slowly uncurl the middle finger from the fist, holding it upright.

Fuck you, assholes! I know they can’t hear me, having now spent the majority of the night dead and screaming at them. Still, I have to do it. Last ride I give you losers.

I slam the door behind me on the porch and, in an instant, have the door to my rusted, red '88 Sentra unlocked. I pile in, slide the key into the ignition, and turn.

The old trap coughs a bit, but starts. I sure as hell thought this car would die before I would.

Thank. Fucking. God.

Yeah, and by the way, just where the hell are You in all this, God? Never forgave me for killing all those bag-worms with my bike as a kid, huh? Well, at least I’m not stuck in this You-forsaken place, so I guess You don’t hate me that much. Or maybe I’m just lucky.

I always was lucky.

Out of habit, I turn the heater on and wait for the car to warm up, even though temperature is something I no longer notice. I adjust the rear-view mirror because, as it turns out, the ghost me is shorter than the living me. Who knew?

I can see out the rear window now, but I’m no longer a part of the reflective image that affords that view. I've disappeared. And yet I'm still here.

Damn, I'm chatty.

Fake Picassos

A real Picasso, Girl Before a Mirror, 1932.

In an interview with Reinhold Schiller in 1974, Jewish, American, Objectivist poet Charles Reznikoff retells a story published in the New Yorker some years before:

A man was trying to sell a painting by Picasso, and the Man whom he was trying to sell it to looked at it and after a while said, "It's a fake." The man said, "A fake?" The seller said, "Look, I'm a friend of Picasso's. Let's go up there and ask him." So they took the painting, and went up to Picasso who looked at it, and said, "It's a fake." So the man who was trying to sell the painting said, "Why, I saw you paint it myself! I was in the studio when you were painting it!" Picasso says, "Well, so what? I've painted lots of fake Picassos!"

Reznikoff laughed and said:

And I can see that's true of writing, in a sense. People write, they write their best, they think they've done something very well, but it isn't as good as some of the other things they've done.

A cliché a day

keeps the agent away.

Write like no one is watching.

Rewrite like you have an audience.

Time deaths

It is not we who are dying from the moment of birth, but time, from the moment of its birth.. in the sense of a dramatic narrative with its unity of action. The whole, relentless plot moving forward to its inevitable conclusion. (Inevitable is the one chosen from among unlimited possibilities.) But also each individual moment drama leading into a subsequent moment drama, a unique encapsulated pastpresentfuture. Fragmentary time; as fragmentary as these sentences, each dying off in its own abbreviated

And objective time is, thus, not, as we once thought, the horizontal index vector, its origin unknown and somewhere to the left, that moves rightward through a space. It is instead a mirror image of the subjective time vector, which Zettl calls vertical, but in truth runs concurrently with objective time along the horizon and then drops and rises as our engagement varies, felt time diverging from clock time. The object of its drive? Zero time-- that point at which objective and subjective times intersect. Zero time on the objective vector, however, means death. The moment at which nothing changes, all time stops.

Death time encompasses that vector of felt time and its concatenated partner in which time drops off as it dies. The arrow falls off vertically as objective time dies, never to reach its destination along the distant horizon of the right. A destination of no destination, since time is not a bounded line segment of two points. As the arrow falls off, a possible direction is shot out along each point in the curve toward ever diminishing possibilities that have already been pruned from the sphere of light of all possible future moment dramas. Each moment dying off until the end of time. Of that time. That particular time moment. And on along the pulse.

Each moment drama dies off through denouement only to be the catalyst for the next moment drama. That next may be a moment whose drama may be that it is the last. And so the whole plot dies. But, it too, is the catalyst for the next plot. That next plot may be a plot whose drama may be that it is the last. And so the whole story dies. But, it too, is the catalyst for the next story.  That next story may be a story whose drama may be that it is the last. And so we exist. Our livesanddeaths fluctuating with the aesthetic pulse of time, inextricable from its formmessages in a hierology of destiny. (Destiny is the one chosen from among unlimited possibilities.) A book of metaesthysics. The book of the dead. A book, because the message is dead and so, too, must be the medium.

Simultaneous Narration

I've started this blog as one means of production of self over time. This construction will never be me and yet will be the only I that is ever really me. I have destroyed me, freeing me to rebuild me as an aesthetic self. You read, therefore I am.