House of Nezua [Libro]

The man with the very large head lifted his chin because he was expecting an answer. His interest had greatly increased when he learned that Mictli had attended Brown University. Mictli didn’t care so much that the man found such a relatively unimportant fact of worth, he was more fascinated by how the man’s words and way of speaking were like plucking fork tines in Mictli’s mind. He heard the man’s voice as both musical and metallic, a dull nickle-plated tone with an unexpected twinge of melody weaving about. There was a rhythm to the older man’s speech that communicated the real questions in his soul, as there is with every person who uses speech in some way. Questions both found and denied, hidden to the speaker or held central in the cognizant mind.

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He sits back into the lawn chair, and the vibration of the ships causes the entire earth to tremble. The entire cluster of cities rising into the evening sky shakes Niqo’s very bones, his glasses, his balls, his teeth, his glass of scotch and the chair he sits upon as well as the numerous tiny, red, glass, figurines dropping one by one from the edge of the window sill inside his small dwelling—but he can’t hear them and even if he could he’d not turn and try to catch them, because none of it matters anymore.

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He slides the prong from its jack with a greasy, measured motion, holding his breath and unconsciously tensing all the muscles from his thighs to his neck as he does. It is always an unsettling and repulsive and…yes, delicious moment. But how grossly vulnerable he feels, then, even all alone under those fuschia light racks. In that moment of transition, how revealed and unpeeled and defenseless and suddenly deprived of the glowing circuit-lit haze of comfort, his artificial womb.

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i went to the art store yesterday and spent twenty dollars on pens. twenty dollars is no small expenditure and no casual choice when you need five thousand dollars or so for your mouth. but i won’t let poverty crush me, steal pens and color and joy from me. so i went and decided to bring home a good pad of paper and a pocketful of pens.
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so today is the day of the root canal that i hope will end this immediate crisis, which is a toothache that recedes and flares up at will and to such a degree that my life gets hijacked over it. of course, that is not really the issue. the issue is the broken teeth and the decay, and the pain is just the body saying GET THE FUCK WITH IT, KID. i still am amazed that to keep your teeth as whole as possible you need to pay about two thousand dollars for a tooth needing root canal and crown. but they’ll yank it for $100 or so. as if whole teeth are a luxury, as if chewing doesn’t become very hard when your teeth aren’t meeting up and healthy, as if you dont feel like something ugly and shameful when your smile begins to fall apart. but some of us can’t even afford the preventative work very often, or regularly. that’s why the poor people have gaps in their mouths so often. that’s why rich people can have such pretty smiles. i hate their pretty smiles like diamond lights winking down on the toothless and toothachey and toothwanting. i hate it like i hate all the gaps that stand between the hardships of the poor and the well-padded pantries of the well-to-do. i wanna be the santadontist for poor people; i’ll come round at dawn and hand out pictures of myself pulling rich people’s expensive dental work apart in the middle of the night. if we can’t bridge the gap one way, we can do it another…

it’s always a bit intriguing to me…sad but not in a way where i pity. it’s a desperate understanding i have for these people. it’s a horrible ache to uncurl the fingers, even if i’ve never touched them, watch them, drop them, on their way to the sun. those people you meet who burn with such a windwhipped flame, blown skyward by indignation or a festering fury or an inseparable sadness that they shoot inexorably on an arc aimed perfectly toward their own destruction. their lives are upended, spiraling, fractured, always darkening and utterly gothic tales of wreck and ruin. the friction and conflict they meet on their jagged way seems to soothe their overheated souls and they only respond to each incident with a deeper lean forward.
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odis has moved out.

it’s kind of weird. i find the absence of odis a little strange. offputting. unsettling. he was my first contact and friend in this joint. i mentioned him here, where i first moved in.

i came out of my apartment the other day to hear him talking with m—-, taking the last of his stuff out. couldn’t believe it. he’s been here six years. been here since the first day i moved in, i know that. always been cool. always ready with an extra cerveza, always willing to chill. came and went at some funny hours, but i don’t care about that.

i walk past his window feeling a bit strange now. i try not to look up. it’s just a little too empty, too silent there.

Odis talkin' about the flowers he planted over a year ago.

he planted a few bulbs under the soil, i’ve taken fotos of these flowers before last year or so.

i took this foto on the left just a week or two ago.

his story? odis came to eugene a number of years ago. recruited by nike, which essentially owns the town. he was an olympic athlete. this was the year, i guess or so the story is told, that the USSR swept the olympics aided by early use of steroids. nike didn’t want the big loss to reflect on them and their stock of athletes so they…dumped them all.

you almost felt meeting odis there had to be some kind of story behind his being here…not to be smallminded about it, but this area is…not particularly “diverse.” i mean…it is, actually. there are plenty of mexican enclaves, and native/indian communities and even reservations. but the area is hella segregated. and since i don’t live in the poorest part of town, around me are mostly white folks who really are convinced that wearing hemp, eating all organic food, and buying veggies at an outdoor market means they are fully enlightened. i don’t mean to be cruel. but race here is buried. and i guess that’s why living next to a black fella and an asian cat on the other side sort of helped me feel…buffered!

odis is a bit of a  gambler. he always seemed to be able to make it work. lately, as the signs come up in store to store announcing price raise or vacancy, we’re all learning our money doesn’t go as far anymore. maybe he missed a bet, or couldn’t recoup in time. for the first time in six years. or maybe our landlady decided she was tired of odd hours, late comings and goings, blonde women in a truck with Odis, who stands out in this neighborhood as it is. i loved looking out the window and seeing him and his little rowdy clusters of friends at night, idling, waiting to take off somewhere into the evening. maybe that bothers some…i like to feel there is life around me….

from what i hear he was late on rent and the landlady gave him “til monday” to work it out. he packed up and left. dont know if he’s still workin down the road at the gas station, i’ll have to drop by and see.

six years! not even a full month late. that’s all you get in this world, i guess, even if you pay rent on a place for six years. nothing to show at the end of it except some free newspapers that pile up in front of your door. memories of vegas, and being an olympic competitor.

i don’t mean to get overlydramatic. it’s not like he died. it’s not like we were close friends, but i felt comfortable with him living next to me, as i said. we let things be. we knew how to live nearby someone. the rest of the complex is nearly strangers. everyone keeps to themselves. nobody else starts conversation, most don’t look at you.

ah well. i know this post is jumbled. not sure its even warranted. i can probably find odis hangin around A—–’a, playin the machines, you know.

and yet. i feel his leaving here is a sign of something. dont know what, tho. i guess that’s why i’m writing this.

——

UPDATE: Related. this too.

it’s the gig of course, the job blogging. that’s what got me blogging at umx again, on political issues. i really had lost almost all urge to do so and took that long break. i wanted to do more vlogs, but forgot that this demands more time than i reasonably have…at least right now. even if i stop blogging. i seem to fill that time with other creative means. ah, well. i will get to video more, when i can. i generally don’t allow my creative urges turn into iron-tinged guilt trips because that’s a self defeating cycle. creative energy wants to be unbound and be given room to return or ebb at will. anyway, yeah. it’s not as if blogging for work reminded me of what i was missing or anything. it’s that i was getting frustrated that my voice was so edited. and rather than let this feeling interfere with work, I figured i’d remind myself i could vent, that i had a place to say it however i wanted to say it. no need to feel like my weekly paid gig was the place i had to get everything out. and even now, i wouldn’t say “blogging again.” i don’t even think it will last. either way, i’m keeping it open and easy.

i may travel this weekend to portland to shoot an event. and i may travel to portland next weekend to shoot another event. and i hope i land a few gigs i’m bidding on because my expenses go up a little this month. and i’m trying to save up for a couple things that are pretty important.

it occurred to me the other day all of a sudden that there are like three women i see regularly in my travels/errands that normally would be in the “asking out” zone. as in, i’ve seen them enough times and had friendly conversations and positive response that it wouldn’t feel outlandish to ask, and further, a healthy male in my position would probably do so. i haven’t…and i haven’t been angsty about it or anything. it’s not that i think i’d be rejected. it’s not that i care so much about that. after all, what i’m thinking of when i say this is not sexual. or even romantic. i guess i just miss the company i used to always have when i was married, living together and such. i’ve gone past the howling loneliness that pervaded the joint most of last winter. i’ve made it out the other side. i’m glad, i’m proud, that was the point, it needed to happen. and yet, i still don’t want to get romantic with anyone.

thing is, i know despite how i might try and word it, there’s just no asking a woman to hang out casually without the idea that there is an endgame. if i asked any one of them, they wouldn’t take it that way. and since that would be the case, i know that even if one said yes, i’d be disappointed. i’m not looking to start all that up. and yet there’s really no way to ask a woman to hang out and watch a film or play video games and not have it sound like a pick up line. it would be in the back of her mind. the anticipation, good or bad, it would color everything. who am i kidding. it would probably be in the back of my mind, too.

anyway, i don’t ask. and it’s okay. for now.

she is very happy and she is a very smart person ive seen that since she was small. lately she’s taken to really embodying the independence i’ve always tried so hard to instill into my girls. i know how important that will be in a world or culture where men will be forever telling them who they are and how they can do things. as a parent always hard but important to remember not to take things personally, especially when they are things you want them to learn. so of course i take it in stride when she pushes me away or wants to do everything herself. usually i’m very proud of her. sometimes i laugh, like when she wants to fast-forward the movies herself. it used to be “scary part, scary part!” in moments that were too intense, like in A Bug’s Life and the grasshoppers crash through the ceiling and intimidate the ants. or in Spirited Away when Yubaba grows huge and wraps that hand around Sen’s neck and i would know to ffwd that part but now she figures why ask papi to do it and she wants the remote and says “fasforward mySELF” so i let her. of course sometimes she doesnt understand how specifically you have to aim it so she’ll fastforward most of the movie and be sitting there wailing “pushplay pushplay!” as she hammers on the buttons to make it stop. in most pictures she has a distant dreamy look because she tolerates the camera that papi always has but for the most part, doesn’t care for it aimed at her, being a sensitive person. that’s the look you see here, tho it works well for many pictures as “caught thinking deeply” it’s really a look where she’s trying to ignore the lens. she’s as beautiful as the mountains and the sky.

and i’m mourning the loss of so much hair, after three years i’ve shaved it. it was longer (and heavier) than its ever been and i had to grow it out again finally because it was long when i was a child and it feels very comforting to have long hair. and i flirted with growing it long again for about 20 years, but always backed off when it got to that difficult stage that hair as thick and wavy as mine gets to when it begins getting longer. so i loved that i did it finally, and i did love how warm it kept me in winter. but it is extremely a hassle in warm weather and i did want a change because now that i’ve proven to myself i can grow it long again it was beginning to feel very cumbersome. plus the long white hairs are fun but i’m not quite ready to be a wizard (tho before long i will be) and suddenly i’m wondering if i should have just cut it to my ears or something, my shoulders. i just cut off three years of time. wow. i could have gone backward just a year or two at once. but i had to have the drama of the clippers, didn’t i? yeah. you know i did.

i do still love the look of a queue, or modifications thereof, but what i forget each time is how much work they are to maintain. to sleep on. to keep neat. i could investigate a local place and see how much they would charge to maintain it. shave, braid, etc. but i’d rather spend my time on writing, art, video, or music than on my hair, to tell you the truth. eh. i may just shave it entirely and begin growing it again.

my first thoughts were of going back to the big loose curls stage. something ive not yet done for more than a day. well. dunno, maybe. i got messed up when i first shaved my head because i loved it so much. and then you know, i love hair, too. so i’m always going back and forth and actually i guess i’m bored of doing things with my hair in a way. maybe i’ll just shave the whole thing for a while. whatever. when your hairstyle is your most pressing concern, your life is pretty damn groovy. and i’ll be the first to admit that i’ve got much bigger problems in front of me than what to do with my hair. can i blame the fixation on the 70s? why not.