Arms and Eggs
| i guess i need the eggs. | my arms get tired. |
| i guess i need the eggs. | my arms get tired. |
| We are playing a game. It is not a nice game. The name of the game is, “stupid tattoos”. It is a pretty easy game to play.
“Barbed wire around the arm.” “Tribal anything.” “Screaming skulls with snakes coming out of the sockets.” It’s about a week before Christmas and we’re all bundled, from head to toe. I’m eating bread wrapped in tin foil, stolen from the kitchen at work. It tastes salty, and the crumbs are sticking to my green skirt. “Dolphins jumping over waves.” “Those orangey sun things, like on the sublime album cover.” “Britney Spears’ face.” My stomach feels gummy, still working over the too-sweet cocktail my manager had given me in the coatroom. It was pink, and had three different kinds of fruit in it. It came in a special glass. He stood and watched me drink it – good, huh? – and I nodded, set it down and cracked my knuckles. He asked if I wanted another, and I said no, thanks, I’ll be useless ha ha, and he laughs back and says oh don’t worry, you’re just the coat check girl, ha ha. “Your college mascot.” “Chinese symbols you don’t understand.” “Stars.” “I have stars.” “But yours are different. I mean other stars.” “Oh.” I gave him back the glass. He tipped it back, and the maraschino cherry disappeared into his mouth. What’s that? he said, taking my left hand and turning it over. Is that a tattoo? I said yes, sat with my limp hand in his, and waited. Huh. Didn’t think you were the type. I shrugged, returned the offending hand to my lap. My head buzzed with dream tattoos, full-sleeve tattoos, blue and yellow and green tattoos spilling over my shoulders in bewildering permanence. I wanted something undeniable, bold and obvious and screaming out loud, crawling out from under the cuff. “Anything that makes people ask, ‘What does it mean?’” I finish the bread and cover my hands with mittens. I hate where I am working in a way that makes me tired and listless. I think about Ward Cleaver coming home to a dry martini. The snow is falling steadily, and we make complete stops as we drive down Randolph, looking both ways. “The words ‘Beta Max Forever’.” “Lyrics to a My Chemical Romance song.” “’Freebird’.” We are trying to outdo each other, getting louder, shouting as we come up with still more ideas. We drive for a long time, warming, loosening scarves and removing gloves. Soft strings of white lights break snowflakes into a thousand pieces of the same unique dew, and we are laughing. It is so easy. |
About two years ago, I became obsessed with the fact that I was from Chicago. Not Chicago-proper, I’m a kid from the suburbs like most others, but my parents raised me to understand the city. I’ve known my way around the downtown area for as long as I can remember and I’ve been receiving speeches about gentrification of my parents’ old neighborhoods for even longer. Since beginning skating about 10 years ago, I’d take the train into the city to skate all over every weekend. This was well before I was 16. While I was still in those primitive, formative stages. When everything anyone suggested was a good idea. Hair dye. Breaking laws. Meeting strangers. Learning by failing. I was running, heart beating, fingertips spurting crimson, alive.
Once I got into tattoos a few years back, it seemed natural that I’d get a Chicago skyline. Or a Chicago flag. Maybe a combination of the two: Stretching from the lower left part of my stomach around my side, and to the lower left part of my back, I wanted the skyline of Chicago as viewed from Lake Michigan. I wanted the lake to be the sort of blue that looks like a cross between blue, purple, and nothingness. Then the skyline in the thinnest black line possible. I wanted the buildings filled in with the pattern of Chicago’s flag, light blue and white striped with red stars, as if the skyline had been cut out from it. I wanted the Sears tower to run parallel with my forearm, so that when I hung my arms at my side, the tendons in my veins would mirror a pinnacle of human achievement. I wanted the Northern side of the city wrapping around my backside, the rich areas stabbing into my bloodstream from the behind. I wanted the Southern side stretched across my abs, the side of the tracks that my father worked his way out of, muscling every inch of the way. I had the money saved. Then I got into another school. Realized that I’d be moving to New York. It was quite possibly the only other city in America that convinced people to have its outline permanently engraved into their bodies. So the plan was off. Postponed at least. I’d be living in New York City soon, and couldn’t afford to go throwing money around like that. I went. I lived. It’s expensive here. Tattoos were off for a while. It’s ten months later and now I have the money again. I’ve fallen in love with this city. Now I’m revising the plan for future ink. It’s not so much the fact that I live in a city foreign to the rest of my family that’s keeping me from simply revising the design. I love living in Brooklyn. I’ve given a lot of thought to something a lot like the Chicago tattoo. The viewpoint of Manhattan from the Williamsburg bridge that I ride my bike over every day. The skyline painted between the brick arches of the Brooklyn bridge. Even the outlines of the five boroughs, if properly placed, would be an impressing sight every morning for my remaining years. But none of that feels completely right. It’s not any of the bridges, the skyline, the view, the success of living in a place where I know nothing. The Chicago tattoo felt right because, in those times, I never saw myself permanently moving anywhere else. I’d talk about it, sure, but it was never a reality. I’m much more malleable now. I was always running within Chicago. Now I’m running all over the country. Maybe the world would be a better picture of permanence. There’s a weird ticking sensation you get when you’re being tattooed. It’s not completely painful, though you know it must be hurting. I won’t go and tell you that it’s more akin to pleasure, though there is some sort of release in the vibration of those machines. More than any of that, it’s awakening. You become alert, alive, aware of what is going on while you’re under the needle. Whatever is being drawn, it results in a feeling of permanence. The ink flows and runs through the needle tip and is forcefully shoved under your epidermis. It’s a scar that results in an art. Even joke tattoos that might be of our favorite Star Wars characters carry with them an element of seriousness, almost of piety (who doesn’t love Yoda?). We wish for even the comical to remain with us forever, even if we have to force the running ink to stop dead in our own coagulation. I think that’s why I won’t ever get a skyline of any sort drawn on me. There is no longer any permanence. I can up and move. I can flow. I can adapt. I knew Chicago well. Now I have no clue about it. I know New York all right, but I could learn London just as easily. None of these places have any meaning in the way that home once did. I’d like to be the ink. I feel as if I’m in the needle now. I do not belong below it. I’m more adept at flowing, at marking, at running than standing in place. I think of getting tattoos of cities or exact locales, of reality-based identifying factors now and my hands shake. My fingers glisten with the urge to open a map and run to anywhere other than lying prone on a table, white-knuckled, waiting for someone to be finish marking me for identification. |
| I’ve been working at getting my life into something of an orderly state lately – spring cleaning, if you will. Trash is being taken out before it spills over. Vegetables are being eaten, rather than turning to sludge in the crisper. Money is being put into savings accounts instead of being immediately transferred to its usual depository. My eyebrows are being plucked. It is an exciting time. In addition to these efforts (widely recognized by glossy magazines and the rest of modern world as Commendable Efforts For Improvement Of Life), I decided I would start running. Early Tuesday morning I woke, stretched, and put on my sweats and warm knit hat. I stepped out the front door, swung my arms twice and took off, brimming with pride and hope for this Commendable Effort in my new, improved Jaime Life. There is this fabulous scene in cinema history, in which Rocky Balboa, scrappy underdog, is running through the Philadelphia train yards as crisp morning rays shine down on his broad shoulders. His clenched fists surge through the air, cutting through any resistant morning mists. At one point, running through the old hood, a friendly stranger tosses Rocky a ball, and the two share a good natured chuckle as Rocky, never breaking stride, casually plays with the ball before tossing it back, the only thought reverberating in his head obviously being, Yes! I AM getting strong now! It was just like that! Brilliant! Sparkling! Filled with athletic wonder! For the first 1,026 feet. According to Google Maps, this exactly how far it is from my front door to the park, where it was that my body woke up, enraged to discover that it was not still in bed. It rejected this Effort, offered no commendations, and systematically shut down my every functioning organ. I died. Or at least felt like I’d died. Died, impaled by flaming spikes and flesh-eating amoeba which gnawed through my lungs and legs. Some girl in a fitted Northface pullover blithely jogged by with her two large dogs, looking me over as she passed. I could read the thoughts on her face: Ah. That’s nice. They’re handing out cozy college sweatshirts to the crazy bag ladies about town. This city. Forever improving! “Heeeeee….” I wheezed. She jogged home. Probably to pluck her eyebrows. I splayed out on the park bench, keeping my arms and legs moving, like a beetle on its back, afraid that if I stopped moving, that would be it. I’d really be dead. I had no ID on me, only my house keys, encased in orange monkey faced keyholders, and I could see the notice already: Dead girl found in park. 5’7”, roughly 115lbs. Magenta face; otherwise freakishly pale body. Ugly hat. Dumb keys. If this sounds like someone you know, don’t bother the Chicago police, because they will not give a damn. The night before, I had been Normal Girl Upgrading Her Life. Tuesday? Tuesday, I was a wriggling non-athlete. The Gregor Samsa of Ukie Village as the reckoning of my former, sedentary lifestyle struck just as I’d begun to make amends. I rolled off the bench, struggled to me feet, and slumped the 1,026 feet back home. After what happened on Tuesday morning, it may surprise you to know that I’ve kept running. Every morning. Ok. So, that’s only, like, five mornings. And yes. I have complained to everyone with a working pair of ears about the UNSPEAKABLE PAIN radiating through my ENTIRE BODY, how, through this pain, I’ve discovered entire groups of muscles I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW I HAD, muscles aching in places so random that all I can do is look at them and scream WHERE DID YOU COME FROM? WHAT DO YOU EVEN DO? But I’m going to keep moving, keep running. Because, damnit, I’m getting strong now. |
I’m twenty-three and live in New York City. I wake up at 7:30 a.m. By 7:45, I’ve had a cup of coffee and am showering. At 9:15, I’m on the train. At 10:00 a.m. I’m in the office or at a meeting. At 2:00 I take my 1-hour lunch break where I usually end up at 1 of 6 or 7 standard eateries. After work, I go to class. I drink an extra cup of coffee at 7:40, halfway through class. I’m home by 9:40, homework and other work until 1:00, then I sleep and do it again. On the plus side, I’m being productive. All of those things that your parents told you to do: move out, get a higher education, get a job, be self-sufficient, I’m doing that. I haven’t even been charged with any sort of crime in a few years. No, I’m still not allowed in Canada for a few reasons, but the rest of the world is my oyster (I blame that whole debacle with the Canucks on G.W. anyway). I’m eating healthier and agreeing with my parents when they call and voice their opinions on what I should or shouldn’t be doing. I’ve had food poisoning, 106 degree temperatures, broken bones, concussions and countless full-day hangovers in my life. I can say right now that nothing has made me feel more sick than looking at the average day I’ve just described. I’m tearing my life apart lately. I’ve begun riding my bike into work again. Now, I hop on a track bike (fixed gear, no brakes) and ride my way through Brooklyn and Manhattan through rush hour traffic. I’m quickly getting known for pounding on cab windshields and crosstown hustles that rival bike messenger paces. I sit at work extremely sweaty (not to mention smelling worse than bathing in Subway water) all day long and allow myself a full hour of free time for cruising blogs and watching dumb cat videos on Youtube. I’ve been staying up late again, casually drinking at night. Whether it’s coffee or alcohol, sitting on my stoop, giving hard looks to the drug dealers who walk past. Let them come, I’ve been looking for a reason to throw fists. I ate fast food twice in a row. Hell, I made a specific trip to Washing Square Park in order to go to an especially disgusting fast food joint that can usually only be found on the west coast or in the fatter southern portion of the country. I don’t care that it’s chicken, the breading on whatever went into my mouth that day was more pig lard than anything. Today I slept through my alarm completely. Eyes open at 9:45 am, I threw on clothes and ate a breakfast consisting solely of toast that was drier than a British comedy club. I knocked a side mirror off of a cab with by swinging my backpack as I crept by a particular driver who’d cut me off three times. Even though I got all my work done on time, one of my editors felt the need to tell me I looked like hell. At the end of the day, class was cancelled. Unexpectedly. It was a relief from the norm, a blessing from the sky, a halo of light through my ever-booked calendar. I felt rejuvenated, alive, I received more stares than ever from the investment bankers that rode down the elevator with me at 5:45 (I left work 15 minutes early). Then, as I approached my bike to ride home and continue my lifestyle of debauchery, I suddenly realized there was no need. There’d been an upset, a rift; creating my own earthquake today was pointless. I left my bike locked up and walked to the subway. The urge was uncontrollable. F train, downtown, W-4th St., walk East: Trader Joe’s. My apartment was empty and my stomach, out of nowhere craved organic yogurt and maple almond cereal. Being raised in the suburbs of Chicago, this yearning for the natural, for the crowded grocery market, for the overpriced food, for the fictional feeling of levity above lowly supermarket shoppers, was uncontrollable once it began. I spent over 30 minutes in line alone. I spent over 83 dollars. I lugged my groceries home and got back on the subway to retrieve my bike. I rode carefully home, knowing that my organic, free range chicken breast would be defrosting no matter how long it took me. Without the norm, my life didn’t require rapture. Coming down the Brooklyn side of the Williamsburg bridge, I realized that I’d need to start concentrating on the continuation of my life-pattern that would begin again tomorrow if I wanted to continue to not sicken myself with constant reminders of how far I haven’t fallen from the tree. I stopped at a drug store, bought a carton of ice cream, and shoved the chicken back in the freezer as soon as I got home. A large spoon was the only dish I cleaned tonight. |
| i spend a lot of time on-line.
too much. greg shamelessly abandoned chicago for new york, where he makes documentaries about senegalese pop singers & my very favorite mixtapes. without them, i’d never leave my apartment. or get to feed sharks. elyse ain’t got NOTHIN on her. & as you get to know the girl, you’ll find that neither do most of your college professors. |
i spend a lot of time on-line as well. i like to pretend it’s not too much.
A group of San Franciscan Track Bike riders who do things right and make everything pretty. The movies are especially notable. This girl and her friends take pictures that make me want to forget the world and run to the mountains. Or to the outskirts of Seattle. Chicago-based music and culture website. Great reviews, honest articles, and a crackpot team that even puts out a VodCast. You might even find something by me. |
| March 24, 2008
I didn’t get into grad school today, which is another way of saying that I won’t get into grad school tomorrow, or for the rest of March, or April, or May, when my lease is up and, for the last time, I wake up to a fire escape and silver skyline and piles of headless fish on the front walk. |
We wear sunglasses. Jeremy is in shotgun and Brett drives. It is snowing and dark and a lit joint is glowing like the man’s nose on that board game Where you pluck plastic organs from cardboard cut-out limbs. No blood. The mountains are familiar, Breckenridge, I stand outside in the cold He’d come stumbling back into our rented condo, As they funnel back into the car they still laugh and I finish my smoke. My sister had asked what had happened to my eye Jeremy becks, “Come on, let’s get out of this shithole.” |
| Jeanie
The night security guard at work believes the following: |
I received a phone call last night. Late. Very late. It was an old friend. Who am I kidding? We dated. Seven years ago. Back then, the day after I broke up with her, I walked on crutches into the place where I’d always gotten my hair cut.Lisa was the name of the girl who cut my hair. It was a “salon” type place. I always felt awkward going there because it was the sort of “salon” that existed in a brown brick strip mall on a cloudy street sandwiched between a 2nd run movie theater and a Wal-Mart. There were always lots of women my mom’s age and less well-to-do, eyes blue-shadowed and bright red-lipped in that way that you only see in documentaries about people in trailers but then you walk two steps off the beaten path to the salon where the girl works who cut your hair since you were a baby and you realize “these are not trailer people, these are my neighbors and their shadow blue eyes do not want me here.”As I was saying, I walked in, on crutches, one arm still in an air-cast (that’s a type of cast that isn’t really a cast, you can take it off, but you shouldn’t because then you may unsettle things and you’ve clearly unsettled enough recently) and Lisa, now full-time cutting hair, part time designing images on a computer, and modeling at car shows on the weekends, looks me up and down. Her mouth drops open, scans from the cast around my ankle to my arm and to the top of my tousled hair that I haven’t touched in weeks.
I’ve only been that vulnerable in front of her once before then and I don’t think it counts. You can’t really help but be vulnerable when you are four months old and a strange girl in her late teens is swinging sharpened blades around your head snipping here there and your father is sitting next to you both looking around here there and up and down her here there. But I can only assume. I was four months old. She says out loud, “The first time you can drive yourself here, and you stumble in looking like that?” I am sixteen with messy hair and two casts on. I am a wreck. There is no way for me to be more awkward. I follow her to the back. As if the clientele isn’t giving me enough strange looks, the normally friendly girl who does nails looks at me like I’m going to split apart any second. I tried that once. That’s how this cast is on this arm. That’s why I haven’t been able to have my hair cut, the stitches had to heal. A two-story drop will hurt you just enough to make you look like you will split apart at any second. I guess the girl filing the woman’s nails is right. I ignore her. I can’t stand the noise that the file makes. Lisa sits me down to wash my hair. I don’t say a word and neither does she, her long fingers gently pulling the tangles apart, I can feel the milky whiteness of the lacquer on her nails. Her belt buckle, cold and hard, digs into the unbroken arm and I welcome the opportunity to be that close. She washes and conditions gently, pausing only when she feels the scar tissue where the stitches were. She doesn’t say a word. I sit up when she’s done rinsing and she swings a purple towel around my neck; one of the ones in all salons that has been washed and dried too many times and absorbs plenty of water but offers none of the warmth one expects from a towel. Nonetheless, she is just in time, scooping droplets of water from my neck before they can descend past my collar and cause discomfort for the remainder of the appointment. I stand and jump on one foot twenty feet over to the chair that I’ve always sat in when I get my hair cut. Lisa puts her hands on my shoulders, leans down, begins lifting my hair from its soaking wet resting place, mussing it up again, and asks, “So what are we doing with it today? Just a trim? Want to do something daring?” She is smiling and buoyant. I still can’t figure out if she always was smiling or if this was one of those traits people attain at their workplace, something they don’t even notice, but it’s proper for the job, so they do it. Like principals and being more firm than necessary, like doctors and appearing in control. “It keeps getting in my eyes. I don’t want to deal with it in my eyes. I’m okay with having to ‘do’ it in the morning, too.” I’m shrugging, knowing she’ll have more fun if she can be creative with my head. “Yeah… just go nuts. Let’s see what happens.” Lisa gets to work, an expert behind the scissors and combs. She darts about, spritzing more water, snipping here, lopping off there. It’s only been thirty seconds and she’s moved completely around me twice, already tangled herself in the cord that connects the clippers in her right hand to the outlet in the wall. “You mind me asking what happened to your leg and arm?” She’s broken it down. There was that wall, that comfortable feeling you have with someone you’ve known all your life that will, because of circumstances like being your hair dresser, never lead to judgment. Never will you suffer any ill because of what comes out of your mouth. She will not leave you disfigured because of anything you could say. You will not receive a phone call from your hair dresser at four in the morning, voices yelling, “what the hell are you doing with yourselfare you crazy you could have fuckingdiedareyoutryingtotearthisfamilyapart!?” Lisa will not do these things no matter what I say. “I drank a bunch of vodka. I took the rest of my dad’s meds and then jumped out of my window. It was dumb. The bushes broke my fall. Then I dumped my girlfriend yesterday. I had no reason to. I just don’t care.” I know my throat should be dry. It is warm, wet, and I want to keep going. I stop. Lisa comes back from the back room. It’s been about ten minutes. I really don’t know for sure. It could have been an hour, I guess. I had just sat there looking at myself, hair soaked, one ear showing through freshly cropped fringes, the other completely covered by a matted nest of hair. Her eyes are red and she sniffles once or twice. “Okay,” She pauses and I hold my breath, “Well… let’s get you fixed up.” She goes to work. Smiles. The whole time. We talk about cars. My hair looks amazing. I leave Lisa an extra large tip. My hair is short and pomped and I look grown up and amazing and I radiate with energy as I crutch my way through the door even though another of the clientele has let it slam on my shoulder. I hobble through the parking lot and smile back at where I think Lisa is sweeping my head’s remains from the floor. So the girl called me last night. She wanted to know why I’d broken up with her so long ago. I’d done it on the phone; she hadn’t seen me. She’d just hung up the phone and I didn’t even have to give her a reason. She didn’t even know about the fall or anything. Now she was crying. Sobbing about how her life as a teacher wasn’t making her happy, that she was sad all the time, that the prescription wasn’t helping anymore, that she felt guilty because she had a great life and was still sad. It’s my turn. I act like nothing is wrong. I tell her she’s fine. That we’re all fine. That it’s normal. That I’ve been through things like that, feelings like that, and I’m fine. That she’ll work through it and that I have faith in her. In my head I can see her mouth twisting up into a smile as she lays on her bed staring at her ceiling while my drunken voice at 4 a.m. tells her that she has nothing to worry about. Thank you, Lisa. I wouldn’t have had the heart to tell her that nothing will be okay. That the worst is about to happen. That she will never be the same and it will drive her crazy. Cutting hair is much easier. Thank you, Lisa. |
oh, this charming city… Library of Congress, Call Number POS - WPA - ILL .01 .C545, no. 1 (B size) [P&P] |
This was found in SoHo. If you know what the area is like these days, you’ll agree that more people should be looking for this. Original Photo. |
| figure modeling yesterday. they posed me in my boots - white rubber galoshes - & planted a mug in my hand, applauding themselves over resonant choruses of cute, cute, cute! i’d just run from the el, late. it was cold. my legs were still raw when i disrobed, chapped & ruby, & the women ohhed, cooed, & brought a space heater up beside me. they are kind & broad hipped, & do not include me in their chatter. i am a breathing vase, a bowl of fruit with a pulse. they comment on the egg shape of my skull or the awkward curve of my spine. follow the bend in her elbow, the strain exhibited on that arm. the telling little bulges. just below her navel, the fleshy roll between her hips. dear? do you like sweets? back on the train, the man beside me read a book. dirty little secret: how to start your home-based adult entertainment industry. the little things we reveal. |
I sit where he did once. In a booth, drinking coffee and eating a muffin (banana nut $1.65) His words are tattoo’d on my arm ($120.00) And I wear sunglasses ($6.00 from a vendor on St. Mark’s) that were his trademark The waitress smiles as I order another ($2.25, though I’ll tip her more) I dig in my pockets and offer her more of my loan money (far more than I need). He screams at me (digitally, I know these are just zeros and ones streaming into my headphones ($65.00)) “HOW DOES IT FEEL?” Sorry, Bob, I’m afraid I still don’t know. |
Our Writing. His Illustrations.
He asks if I had a knife on me and, oddly enough, I do, and oblige him by cutting the twine from his stack of fresh newspapers. He thanks me, and I tell him to keep the knife, I’ve got another at home, I’ve no real need for it anyway, |
He was head over heels. For a moment he thought to himself, “Have I lost control?” but quickly dismissed the idea, knowing from all of the movies and songs that “if it seems so right, and it feels so right, then it has to be right.” It’s gotta be right. He was able to see the night’s sky, stars for the first time in months. |
| Welcome. My name is Jaime. I live 797 miles away from Mark. We frequently exchanged ideas, writing, pictures, passions. Sometimes they were interesting. Sometimes they weren’t. There’s no sense in hiding ideas. So here we have it. A web site. An idea each day. A picture, a paragraph, a word, a phrase, an essay, a story, a painting, a sound, a link, a color, a thought. This was all locked away and here is our key. We encourage you to comment, contribute, enlighten, engage.
We are 797 miles apart. The distance hurts. This helps. |
Welcome. My name is Mark. I live 797 miles away from Jaime. We frequently exchanged ideas, writing, pictures, passions. Sometimes they were interesting. Sometimes they weren’t. There’s no sense in hiding ideas. So here we have it. A web site. An idea each day. A picture, a paragraph, a word, a phrase, an essay, a story, a painting, a sound, a link, a color, a thought. This was all locked away and here is our key. We encourage you to comment, contribute, enlighten, engage.
We are 797 miles apart. The distance hurts. This helps. |