novembre ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- remembering the ironic unibomber you know that song you wrote? it has new meaning now. judy called to tell me monday night. i was drunk already and just got drunker. when i woke up on tuesday after three hours of sleep, everything that felt far away suddenly lodged itself over my eyes like blinders for a clydesdale in central park. i went to work at seven and stayed just over two hours before being sent home for the week. at my apartment i made phone calls and cooked eggs because i thought i would need protein. i slept for another two hours before loading up my car with dirty laundry, work projects i took home, and an appropriate outfit. (i forgot to pack appropriate shoes. all i had were the running shoes on my feet.) and then i was driving to my hometown. six hours south, alone, in a car with no working cd or tape player. certain windows would not roll down. i kept sweeping my right arm through my bookbag to check on address book, sunglasses, allergy medication, anything. if my hand felt it, my hand would clutch onto it for at least a minute. i kept the headlights on the whole time even though i left oakland at three pm and it wouldn't be dark for another three or so hours.
somewhere between san francisco and san jose i lost my voice and familiar radio channels. two hours later, about half an hour north of san miguel, i lost the radio itself. the digital scanner swept over every frequency, looking broken and possessed due to the mountain range whose dark feet i was passing over, not stopping for an indeterminable length of time. not to be determined because i didn't know how to measure silence. i rolled down what windows would obey and listened to the air flap through. it sounded empty and left much room for me to work myself into hysterics, remembering things. i passed signs warning me not to pick up hitch-hikers for the next five to ten miles, and then passed prison complexes and understood. i watched the high electric fences and the big big lights in the sky and noted how the architects purposefully designed a building to house criminals that was devoid of any hope or beauty. it was pure function, cold and unfeeling, with little shrubbery. i passed this and various dusty gas stations, abandoned buildings and black fields for hours. there were no lights on either side of me for what might have been two hours, until just north of san luis obispo. the radio picked out one weak frequency -- some hard rock channel -- and i listened to metal for the next hour, feeling very tribunal and ironic. when i passed through the grade and into santa barbara county i could smell the ocean and burning rubber through the open windows. more radio channels and more cars. flashing headlights and billboards. at a shell station i parked beside a row of trucks with messages scrawled onto their dirty backsides: "wash me bitch" and "i'm gay. honk at me." at nine-thirty i pulled into my parents' driveway. my father came out to meet me with dogs at his sides. everyone had sad eyes but somewhere around pismo beach i turned into a prison complex, all function, and set about random tasks like eating and washing clothes and calling friends to hear scary words like wake. open casket. regrets. funeral.
i stared at the picture for a while, such stern hair for such a sweet little babyface. big eyes framed by thick plastic squares. small ears, round nose, high forehead. he would smile at me and hug me all shoulders and push his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose and ask me how i'm doing. i am fourteen through seventeen and i am hanging out with a big group of punk rocker boys but you are the only one who treats me like a girl, who would smile at me and hug me all shoulders and push his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose and write me notes and leave them in my drawer in the art room because we had the same art class just different periods and that went on for something like all school year and you had a crush on me and i didn't know it. we went to punk and riot grrrl shows in goleta. (remember the what-nots opening for excuse seventeen, and carrie brownstein hit on todd? you were outside drinking and smoking by then i think.) we were in cover bands. you and fletcher and todd made a band and called it the unibombers. practised in garages. made stickers at kinko's and stuck them everywhere. you learned to skateboard. we walked around downtown ventura at night, wandering between coffeehouses like two west and the daily grind. when we were bored we'd go for a drive to somebody's house. we'd be driving around in some car, me and all those boys, and there would be some sort of conversational argument. when no middle ground could be reached everybody would quiet down in the car and wait for your answer, and whatever you said would be logical and fair. i remember this happening at least once a week for an entire summer. those days all bled together in my memory, the "parties" at fletcher's house where it was just us hanging out and playing pool, talking to fletcher's pet goat named rodney outside, going through fletcher's dad's playboy collection and laughing at drew barrymore's weird looking tits. there were other girls around at times but i don't really remember them. jennifer, heather, laura who ran away and slept on rooftops. when i saw you last i ran into you at the parking lot of the ventura mall like a year ago. you had something green over your front tooth and i thought your tooth had rotted and i was all flustered as to what to do. say something? we hugged and you were all shoulders and you pushed your glasses further up the bridge of your nose and told me about your job with the water department, you were wearing a uniform and driving an official-looking truck and everything. there is more but i'll keep it inside because it is wednesday now and i'm going to your funeral in three hours. mark "buck" hatfield jr. 11:06 am - 01.22.03 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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