Two Cities, One Story: A Portland-Brooklyn Exquisite Corpse
“Martyrs, bullies, and causes in democratic filigree entwined in terrible ways. And where others saw fragmentation, I saw a terrible unity. The truth was that anybody could have done it. I could have done it if I didn’t shake every time someone slammed a car trunk shut or think the birds were children screaming and garbage trucks were tanks. If I wasn’t that way, I could have blown it up.” (30) My distinguishing characteristics felt like tits and ass and blond. Sexual things. All I had. (31) “Human meat had a particular smell.” (32) “Nothing was solved when the fight was over, but nothing mattered.” (33)
“As I settled down to sleep in that new bed in the dark city, I saw that it was too late now, too late for everything. I would not be given a second chance. In the hours when I woke, I have to tell you that this struck me almost with relief.” (34) “I know you’re not thirsty. That’s bullshit. Stop lying. Lie the fuck down, my darling, and sleep.” (35) “My dad didn’t come home that night either and there was no food left and I’d spent all the money he’d given me. The next morning I walked down to a Safeway grocery store and stole two cans of soup and a loaf of bread.” (36) “All men contain several men inside them, and most of us bounce from one self to another without ever knowing who we are.” (37)
“What is sorrow? I thought. What is sorrow but old, worn-out joy?” (38) “Words never mean what we want them to mean.” (39) “Someday I would change my name to Shut Up and save everybody a lot of time.” (40) “Out of the sad sack of shit that was my life, I made a wordhouse.” (41)
“New York City in life was much like New York City in death. It was still hard to get a cab, for example.” (42) “I don’t want to fade away, I want to flame away – I want my death to be an attraction, a spectacle, a mystery. A work of art.” (43)
“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere – on water and land.” (44)