A stream of consciousness (I do not recall the substance of it) reminded me of an incident which I used to think could have had a permanent impact on me.
I think I was 12 or 13 when I went to the back yard to take some bags of grass to the curb for trash pickup. The bags of grass had been sitting outside for an uncommonly long period of time (I think there had been a holiday) and while the bags sat outside it had rained. The rain on those bags caused the bags to fill not just with grass but some kind of gas. This phenomenon was common enough that no one would have thought twice about it.
The gas (if that is what I can call it) caused the bags to become unwieldy. The bags puffed up like balloons, making them hard to handle. The solution was to get a stick or a pair of scisisors and poke a hole in the bag to let the gas out.
As I poked a hole in the bag I took a deep breath, intending to fill my lungs with air but instead filling myself with the foul stink that burst from that garbage bag. My deep breath coincided precisely with the arrival of the stream of rank, revolting air that burst from the garbage bag. After my head clapped with the thunder of an instant headache I felt nausea soak my innards, rushing down to my deepest entrails and leaving that region of my system with a stranded feeling of baselessness.
The exhaust from the bag might not have raced to my face had I not also pressed the bag at the top, an attempt to empty the bag of air as quickly as possible and doing so but unfortunately sending it roaring down my body. It might only have been worse had I inhaled gnats or other insects living in the garbage bag — and maybe I did, and maybe today my innards host a thriving ecosystem of grass-loving maggots and worms.
….
Another stream of consciousness summoned a different memory recently. This stream of consciousness started with Alice, the demented elderly woman who lived upstairs from me on the upper east side, living in an apartment that was an absolute hive of roaches — the stream of associations started with her and ended with a woman I met at a bar a couple of years ago who opened her pants to show me her twat to illustrate her description of the bedbug problem she had at her apartment building. Her loin region was, as advertised, completely covered with bedbug bites, a fact that did little to stop me from imagining the roles reversed, a scenario in which my cock and balls were mangled by bedbug bites and to prove it I would whip it out and maybe even use my trusty keychain flashlight for extra detail, for extra scrutiny.
No, I would be arrested for that, and I guess this woman could have been arrested, but a woman opening her pants to expose herself is a gesture more subtle then the male equivalent.
….
I read me some Hart Crane this week. It takes many attempts but once you get in there you don’t want to leave. The writing is muscular. To call it “difficult” (as many do) is not entirely useful nor is it inaccurate. My breakthrough with Crane came this week when I saw a line in “Cutty Sark” that seemed transcendental to me, but in an earthy way. By my estimation calling something “transcendental” suggests that it connects to another realm and rises above human capacities. Crane said a shark’s tooth hung nervously from a sailor’s neck. That is a thick line, loaded with portent: the jangle of human nerves in the room find earthly expression in the erstwhile shark’s tooth swinging like a charm on a bracelet from a chain ’round the sailor’s neck. The chain (or string, or rope) is never specifically described, but it is assumed. The sailor’s shirt became a metaphor for passages between here and hell. “Cooler hells.”
