I went to the beach a few days ago to clear my mind. In the past and most of the time since, when I feel the need to clear my mind I drink a bottle of wine in the coarse of an hour, and wait for its clarity to warm my blood. When I am on the beach though, or anywhere in San Francisco for that matter, clarity is stone cold sober and is so loud I can barley hear the trolly or the pleas of the homeless or even the waves crashing onto a boulder littered beach.
I say, 'the beach' because the Midwestern Ryan does not understand that in California, there is more than one beach. When I tell someone from here about my day trip to the beach, they ask, "which one?" and start listing a quick handful of beaches within 30 miles and get confused when I tell them I have no idea where I was. I have been to so many beaches here, none of them are the same but they are still beaches, and I am so happy to be on one that I don't think to look around me at a sign that clarifies, for no other reason that telling someone where exactly I am, the name of the beach. I'm to busy looking at the world to look for a sign with words on it, of a place, that I am already at. To me that's like walking out of the climax of an inspiring movie, to find out what theater number you're in.
I don't care about the names of places, it's just semantics. In the same way I hate when people argue about weather or not it is appropriate to refer to a carbonated beverage as a soda, or as a pop; I hate when people ask the question, "which beach?" I don't care if you call soda, pop. Both names bring the same mental image of a sugary, bubbly liquid and; when I say 'beach' does it help form a mental image of a beach if I preface it with a name? I don't know which beach, because I don't give a shit which beach. A beach is a beach. Still, people want to know which beach. Not that I uncovered an important truth about myself sitting at one, or that I cried watching a pelican scoop up a fish in his neck skin while walking on one, or that I had sex with strangers on one; they just want to know, which one.
I ran into a similar problem in Chicago when I refereed to Navy Pier as, "the beach" on a subway.
"Let's go to the beach," I tugged at Kevin's coat arm, "it'll be fun!" I loved tugging at his coat arm, I loved hanging on his arms, locking myself in their mass on the street. It was satisfying to know that the city and him were mine for the taking.
"There is no beach in Chicago Ryan," he said to me in total seriousness.
"What do you mean there are no beaches here? I was on one last week!" I snapped, throwing my hands in the air for emphasis.
"You were on Navy Pier, which is not a beach, fresh water lakes don't have be..." he stops himself mid sentence, points his finger in the air to tell me to hold on, and asks the guy next to us, "is there a beach in Chicago?"
The man who was fat and looked like he just got done auditioning for a Sopranos screen play, thinks for a moment. His thick black eye brows moved in the manor of a kindhearted mobster and he said, in a low voice, "No, oceans have beaches. Lakes have shorelines and water fronts."
I couldn't believe it. We entered a loud tunnel so I had to yell, "a beach is when you have SAND and WATER, Chicago HAS sand and water, so CHICAGO HAS A BEACH!" I was starting to laugh at how hard I was defending my stance on beaches, and because I had to yell, two women a few seats away chimed in. The first woman yells, "They're right, Chicago doesn't have a beach," and the second woman nods in agreement. I looked around myself and saw that everyone on the train car was now involved in the Chicago beach debate, unfortunately it was 20 against one.
Defeated, I stopped talking and looked out the window for a moment before Kevin grabbed my hand, looked in my eyes and smiled one of those smiles that brands itself to your cornea's, one of those smiles you never forget, one of those smiles that freezes itself in time, creating an entire universe of preservation, that will never exist for any-other reason than to petrify that smile; and he kissed me. I believe in that moment we were in love, and that love is frozen in time with that smile, with that kiss.
When we got off the train the sun was setting behind buildings, creating lines of lite and dark on the grass, on the water line, of which we were bound. When we got to the water we bought a coffee and took turns sipping it and holding hands and then not holding hands. We walked on the beach for an hour or so.
Don't ask me which one.
I couldn't tell you.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Chicago Bed
I remember, lying in that bed
I had bought it for 40 dollars
from the guy who used to rent
that room.
It was the most comfortable bed
I have ever slept in
made love in
been sick in
cried in
I loved that bed.
The bed I had before was a
mattress I found on the curb.
It had more lumps on it
than mites.
I could feel the age of that mattress
when my skin became clammy
with its skin.
I wrapped it in plastic one day.
To keep it's skin on the inside.
Plastic sheets at age 23
seemed appropriate
I got drunk and peed in my sleep
dreaming of toilets.
I always woke up when
He or Him or They
would leave.
Those plastic sheets,
were louder than pots.
or pans.
I do not miss that bed
or the things I did in it.
But I remember lying in that bed,
The one I bought for 40 dollars,
from the guy who used to rent,
that room.
He was an actor.
Before I moved in he threw a big party
to celibate the completion of his first
independent film, in which,
he was nude.
He was nude the first time I met him.
He was in the room, that would become my room,
I pulled away the sheets and curtains
that made our walls,
and hung from 50 feet above
from rafters.
"Hey," he said, sitting naked on the bed.
"You want this bed?" he asked.
"Forty bucks."
I would often lye in that bed on cold nights
and watch the rafters change colors,
red
green
yellow
red
Chicago nights were many colors but mostly,
red
green
yellow
There was a particularly cold night,
that I remember most.
It was 8 degrees and the blizzard
was gently ripping through our walls.
That night,
we wrapped the windows in plastic.
To keep the heat on the inside.
That night, I was watching the rafters
change colors,
wondering why there was a stuffed bunny,
next to a bicycle tire
next to hanging hooks
wedged in the bars of the ceiling.
I got that feeling.
But quickly ignored it,
and imagined myself floating into the rafters.
I heard heat rises, and it was so cold.
I sat up to finish my tea,
it was cold my then,
and I filled the mug with
the bottle of whiskey i kept
under my bed.
But then that feeling.
It was more of a question
than a feeling.
I looked up,
green
why do I,
yellow
feel
red
so fucking alone?
I wrapped myself in blankets,
To keep myself on the inside.
I had bought it for 40 dollars
from the guy who used to rent
that room.
It was the most comfortable bed
I have ever slept in
made love in
been sick in
cried in
I loved that bed.
The bed I had before was a
mattress I found on the curb.
It had more lumps on it
than mites.
I could feel the age of that mattress
when my skin became clammy
with its skin.
I wrapped it in plastic one day.
To keep it's skin on the inside.
Plastic sheets at age 23
seemed appropriate
I got drunk and peed in my sleep
dreaming of toilets.
I always woke up when
He or Him or They
would leave.
Those plastic sheets,
were louder than pots.
or pans.
I do not miss that bed
or the things I did in it.
But I remember lying in that bed,
The one I bought for 40 dollars,
from the guy who used to rent,
that room.
He was an actor.
Before I moved in he threw a big party
to celibate the completion of his first
independent film, in which,
he was nude.
He was nude the first time I met him.
He was in the room, that would become my room,
I pulled away the sheets and curtains
that made our walls,
and hung from 50 feet above
from rafters.
"Hey," he said, sitting naked on the bed.
"You want this bed?" he asked.
"Forty bucks."
I would often lye in that bed on cold nights
and watch the rafters change colors,
red
green
yellow
red
Chicago nights were many colors but mostly,
red
green
yellow
There was a particularly cold night,
that I remember most.
It was 8 degrees and the blizzard
was gently ripping through our walls.
That night,
we wrapped the windows in plastic.
To keep the heat on the inside.
That night, I was watching the rafters
change colors,
wondering why there was a stuffed bunny,
next to a bicycle tire
next to hanging hooks
wedged in the bars of the ceiling.
I got that feeling.
But quickly ignored it,
and imagined myself floating into the rafters.
I heard heat rises, and it was so cold.
I sat up to finish my tea,
it was cold my then,
and I filled the mug with
the bottle of whiskey i kept
under my bed.
But then that feeling.
It was more of a question
than a feeling.
I looked up,
green
why do I,
yellow
feel
red
so fucking alone?
I wrapped myself in blankets,
To keep myself on the inside.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Homeless Heart Beats
I just got off at the Downtown Berkley BART stop, it is an
underground stop with the equivalent of four flights of stairs to climb
before sunlight can touch your skin. I'm tired today, and didn't feel
like dragging my bike, which is as ugly as it is heavy up those God damn
stairs, so I looked around for the BART police; seeing none, I jumped
on the escalator. Getting on an escalator with a bicycle is one of many
fine-able offenses and rules I try and break as often as possible.
Obviously the creators of BART's rules and regulations have never had to
carry a forty pound girls mountain bike from the early 80's up and down
subway stairs 4 times a day.
Some other BART rules that I regularly ignore are the no smoking signs I choose to observe and disregard, the penalty of which is a $250 fine. I drink alcohol on the train whenever I feel like it, knowing I will loose my public transportation privileges if I am caught. I walk on the yellow strip of braille flooring that separates me from the floor and certain death. I have also discovered that if you walk out of the emergency exit doors with complete conviction, you do not have to pay BART fair.
It's not that I don't care about order or respect the institution responsible for building a train capable of traveling under the ocean and delivers me to the most beautiful city in the world; because I do care and I do respect it. I just don't care to much these days about doing the right thing. I doubt the economic foundation of BART will be rattled if I jump over the gates now and then or run out of the emergency exit when I have no money; and unless I get to the top of the escalator and toss my bike at the people behind me, I don't think anyone's lives will be dramatically altered if I rise to the streets of Berkley California on stairs that move, opposed to stairs that do not.
The homeless man behind me on the escalator however, was profoundly affected by my decision to use it. Standing just one step behind me, he yelled through his beer dried beard, "You MOTHERFUCKING ARROGANT BASTARD, I WILL SLAP THE SHIT OUT OF YOU, YOU FUCK!" People were starting to look and back away from this man, but I was more concerned about the attention he might draw from the BART police, and that he might get me in trouble. I have already been kicked off BART for a multitude of reasons and I was in no mood to fight with train police again. "YOU FUCKING FAGGOT BASTART," he yelled, hitting the back tire of my bike. At that I turned around to get a better look at this man. Even though he was a step behind me, we were still eye level to one another. He was easily 6 and a half feet tall and thick. He was old and white, and had the jaw line of a junkie, the pupils of a dead person.
As I stared into this man's eyes he screamed so hard in my face that I felt his hot sick breath sting my nose hairs and my cheeks felt his spit, "I'M GOING TO SLAP THE FUCKING SHIT OUT OF YOU!" I was beginning to regret my decision to take the escalator, because while it is easier on my body, it takes about a minute longer and I was only half way up. I turned back around and gripped my handle bars, and started calculating how hard I was going to have to hit this man, and what part of his body would be best to do it, so that he would fall backwards and I could run. Would I use my fists, or simply donkey kick him with all my might.
By the time I reached the sunlight there were already security personnel waiting to confront the screaming man. "Shit," I thought to myself, "they are going to fine me for using the escalator," as soon as my bike hit the pavement I was on it, peddling into traffic; traffic being another thing I have no regard for. As I bolted through a crosswalk that was flashing the words, "do not cross" I looked back at the man who had picked a new target; the security and a woman selling jewelry on the sidewalk. "Thank God," I said to myself before taking a deep breath and hopping off my bike to walk it beside me. I had no idea where I was going.
It's always a weird feeling when I get to Berkley or San Francisco and take the first breath, because it is in that first breath that I realize I have no idea where to go or where I am in relation to the world. It is disorienting, it is intoxicating it is joy and fear and sometimes loneliness to take that breath and to look around myself and know nothing but four directions I can choose to walk or bike or trolly in. I will often stand in one spot for thirty minutes when I get off the train station, smoking cigarettes and deciding which direction to take, while leaning on my old ugly bike and soaking in the purest sun to ever bleed into my flesh. When I do pick a direction, I am free; from everything.
I walked my bike for a long time today after the homeless show down on the escalator deciding where to go and soaking in the beauty, the people the mountains. I thought a lot about what I would have done if he had actually slapped the shit out of me. I pondered this for a mile or so before ending up here, in the Gourmet Ghetto on Shattuck Ave sitting on a patch of grass that separates opposite flows of traffic. I'm sitting here getting a tan and watching people obey they cross walks and eat pizza a few feet from me.
Soon after I sat down here, It dawned on me that I have sat in this exact spot before, it is the exact patch of grass where, just two months ago, I listened to the steady pace of Bosnia's heart after we made love for six hours in his studio just a few blocks away. We had just finished our sex marathon not five minutes before lying down in the grass, my insides were still shifting back in place. At one point during sex, he stopped what he was doing and pointed at my stomach. When I looked down at it I could see my heart pounding blood into my gut, like a drum stick was beating me from the inside out, my skin stretched to invite the pulsing.
I've noticed a peculiar phenomenon with the human heart when I rest my ear to the chest of a man who I have just made love to. It beats in an irregular rhythm. It beats fast even though it is at its resting tempo, hard as if every vein in the body is parched of blood, it speeds up slightly with the inhale of oxygen and slows to a stop at the exhale.
If you listen closely, to a mans heart, only after you make love to him, to it's rhythm, while your ear is tickled by chest hair, you can hear the answer to a question before the muffled vibrations of his voice can answer you. As Bosnia's chest raised my head up and down I asked him, "will I see you again?" My voice sounded strange, like when you moan during a yawn and you hear your voice from within your body. Before he could speak I heard his heart speed up, as if I had just slammed an adrenalin needle into his chest plate. "I love the way I feel when I am around you, so what do you think?" he said. I knew in that moment that I would in fact see him again, but what his heart told me was that he would not see me in the way I want to be seen. The tempo of his heart raised because of anxiety and the knowledge that he was leaving the country to go back home to be with his partner of 5 years. I also listened to my heart, it told me that it would only make my stomach dance during sex, that it would not feel anything for Bosnia. That it would not feel anything for a while.
But that was months ago, and this patch of grass has been cut many times since.
Some other BART rules that I regularly ignore are the no smoking signs I choose to observe and disregard, the penalty of which is a $250 fine. I drink alcohol on the train whenever I feel like it, knowing I will loose my public transportation privileges if I am caught. I walk on the yellow strip of braille flooring that separates me from the floor and certain death. I have also discovered that if you walk out of the emergency exit doors with complete conviction, you do not have to pay BART fair.
It's not that I don't care about order or respect the institution responsible for building a train capable of traveling under the ocean and delivers me to the most beautiful city in the world; because I do care and I do respect it. I just don't care to much these days about doing the right thing. I doubt the economic foundation of BART will be rattled if I jump over the gates now and then or run out of the emergency exit when I have no money; and unless I get to the top of the escalator and toss my bike at the people behind me, I don't think anyone's lives will be dramatically altered if I rise to the streets of Berkley California on stairs that move, opposed to stairs that do not.
The homeless man behind me on the escalator however, was profoundly affected by my decision to use it. Standing just one step behind me, he yelled through his beer dried beard, "You MOTHERFUCKING ARROGANT BASTARD, I WILL SLAP THE SHIT OUT OF YOU, YOU FUCK!" People were starting to look and back away from this man, but I was more concerned about the attention he might draw from the BART police, and that he might get me in trouble. I have already been kicked off BART for a multitude of reasons and I was in no mood to fight with train police again. "YOU FUCKING FAGGOT BASTART," he yelled, hitting the back tire of my bike. At that I turned around to get a better look at this man. Even though he was a step behind me, we were still eye level to one another. He was easily 6 and a half feet tall and thick. He was old and white, and had the jaw line of a junkie, the pupils of a dead person.
As I stared into this man's eyes he screamed so hard in my face that I felt his hot sick breath sting my nose hairs and my cheeks felt his spit, "I'M GOING TO SLAP THE FUCKING SHIT OUT OF YOU!" I was beginning to regret my decision to take the escalator, because while it is easier on my body, it takes about a minute longer and I was only half way up. I turned back around and gripped my handle bars, and started calculating how hard I was going to have to hit this man, and what part of his body would be best to do it, so that he would fall backwards and I could run. Would I use my fists, or simply donkey kick him with all my might.
By the time I reached the sunlight there were already security personnel waiting to confront the screaming man. "Shit," I thought to myself, "they are going to fine me for using the escalator," as soon as my bike hit the pavement I was on it, peddling into traffic; traffic being another thing I have no regard for. As I bolted through a crosswalk that was flashing the words, "do not cross" I looked back at the man who had picked a new target; the security and a woman selling jewelry on the sidewalk. "Thank God," I said to myself before taking a deep breath and hopping off my bike to walk it beside me. I had no idea where I was going.
It's always a weird feeling when I get to Berkley or San Francisco and take the first breath, because it is in that first breath that I realize I have no idea where to go or where I am in relation to the world. It is disorienting, it is intoxicating it is joy and fear and sometimes loneliness to take that breath and to look around myself and know nothing but four directions I can choose to walk or bike or trolly in. I will often stand in one spot for thirty minutes when I get off the train station, smoking cigarettes and deciding which direction to take, while leaning on my old ugly bike and soaking in the purest sun to ever bleed into my flesh. When I do pick a direction, I am free; from everything.
I walked my bike for a long time today after the homeless show down on the escalator deciding where to go and soaking in the beauty, the people the mountains. I thought a lot about what I would have done if he had actually slapped the shit out of me. I pondered this for a mile or so before ending up here, in the Gourmet Ghetto on Shattuck Ave sitting on a patch of grass that separates opposite flows of traffic. I'm sitting here getting a tan and watching people obey they cross walks and eat pizza a few feet from me.
Soon after I sat down here, It dawned on me that I have sat in this exact spot before, it is the exact patch of grass where, just two months ago, I listened to the steady pace of Bosnia's heart after we made love for six hours in his studio just a few blocks away. We had just finished our sex marathon not five minutes before lying down in the grass, my insides were still shifting back in place. At one point during sex, he stopped what he was doing and pointed at my stomach. When I looked down at it I could see my heart pounding blood into my gut, like a drum stick was beating me from the inside out, my skin stretched to invite the pulsing.
I've noticed a peculiar phenomenon with the human heart when I rest my ear to the chest of a man who I have just made love to. It beats in an irregular rhythm. It beats fast even though it is at its resting tempo, hard as if every vein in the body is parched of blood, it speeds up slightly with the inhale of oxygen and slows to a stop at the exhale.
If you listen closely, to a mans heart, only after you make love to him, to it's rhythm, while your ear is tickled by chest hair, you can hear the answer to a question before the muffled vibrations of his voice can answer you. As Bosnia's chest raised my head up and down I asked him, "will I see you again?" My voice sounded strange, like when you moan during a yawn and you hear your voice from within your body. Before he could speak I heard his heart speed up, as if I had just slammed an adrenalin needle into his chest plate. "I love the way I feel when I am around you, so what do you think?" he said. I knew in that moment that I would in fact see him again, but what his heart told me was that he would not see me in the way I want to be seen. The tempo of his heart raised because of anxiety and the knowledge that he was leaving the country to go back home to be with his partner of 5 years. I also listened to my heart, it told me that it would only make my stomach dance during sex, that it would not feel anything for Bosnia. That it would not feel anything for a while.
But that was months ago, and this patch of grass has been cut many times since.
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