1. first, to avoid confusion, accept this fact: first, there was him. and there was what was his. he is the only one you will know in each chapter. he is his own subject.
2. after the movie, in the bathroom. he looks himself in the eye, in the mirror in the eye, on the way out. he thinks, in reference to a thought earlier in the evening, during the movie, this thought, in reference to it, he thinks that yes, to one who loved him he could be considered beautiful. to the one who loved him, but also truly, in his own estimation too, he was beautiful. and he thought, even with his hair too long like that, when you slowed down these moments to almost stop them in place, he thought, in such a moment like that, that almost anyone could consider him beautiful. to the extent! he thought, again referencing the prior thought, and finally remembering the other half of the equation, he thought that anyone, the general populace, might consider him beautiful, too. very beautiful in fact–to the extent!–that he spent his life regarding and attending to the beauty of everyday life, in the present place, in the local time, the common smell, even in the flat light of the sun set upon the faces of the buildings in all the flat noontime hours, and the subtle dialects of common people on the street. the way that the construction workers looked at the girl as she walked down the street in a tank top with no bra straps visible. and then the way the neutered men, bald spots, bellies under voluminous white shirts with the flowing sleeves with acres of fabric resolved into starched triple-buttoned cuffs in countless tiny pleats, and conservative ties, and dress shoes, unpolished, with sensible vibram soles. how these neutered men, travelling in groups of 3 or 4 for support, in order that they might check themselves subconsciously in every moment in the projections of their judgmental comrades, but also that their comrades, who are indeed very judgmental, might check them not just through the projections but in the real world, too. to observe these men in the presence of a beautiful girl, exotic to them, kinky hair tortured into two punky pig tails spraying wide and irregularly from their elastic bands, her spaghetti straps on her tank top. she’s walking faster than them. he’s (the observer, dear reader) walking slower than all of them to observe her, as well as those in her sphere of influence. between she and him are the three neutered men in white shirts and ties and black shoes with vibram soles. they have just come out of an office building housing the central offices of a bank that was founded by the socio-religious leaders that established this city in what was then a desert wasteland. on the moon, as it was, as it must have seemed, at that time, if they could have conceived of being on the moon. and then…they made a bank there. this bank next to them. ambitious! optimistic! his grandfathers, god bless them. though the ancient wasteland is still apparent, breaking through the pavement of any flat parking lot in which no car has parked for 6 months. so, do you see it, now? how we were: he was watching them, watching her. and none of their heads moved to follow her. she was very short, of foreign stock. une exotique. they were very tall, of strong pioneer stock, noble frames, except the traditions of the hamburger consumed in the car had not served them well, with regards to the production and placement of flesh upon their noble frames. they were sway-backed now. you should see them naked. he wanted to see them naked. the sway back hidden under the voluminous fabric of the white shirts. the puffy sleeves offsetting the epic guts of these three men. they were very tall yet their heads did not bow in the slightest degree to follow the sweet ass of the girl. that’s what it was. he wasn’t meaning to be crude, it was sweet. in every sense, lovable, in jeans, with a beautiful perfect motion as she strode proudly down the street. it was sweet. he loved her, it was easy. but these men had given themselves away to him. they were so rigid, their heads had ceased to bob even with their normal walking motions. as they conversed with each other, one did not lean his head in slightly to better attend to the other. but rather, they had all become rigid as poles floating down the street by some mysterious conveyance. none of them wishing to betray either the following of the sweet ass with their gaze, nor even the mutual consciousness of the temptation.
3. reader, this is the level of cultural denial he had been dealing with his whole life.
4. leaving the movie theater, he thought, if he could capture the beauty in every normal thing, and gather it into himself, and hold it, and speak it, and give it away, that everyone around him would think him beautiful. that they would reveal their beauty to him. that they would add the beauty to that which he had already gathered, and was continually gathering. he wanted nothing less than communion, reciprocal exchange, mutual work, and common immortality, by any definition, even the loosest of them in which the shared cultural memory of his presence was all that remained. he swore it was enough. if he could only live in paris, for some significant amount of time, long enough to use public transportation without consulting a map. if he could have that, plus the heritage of a shared cultural memory of his presence, he could feel satisfied with life and welcome death as a sweet release and the giver of meaning to all that came before it.
5. earlier, on his bike, he was nearly two miles up the canyon when he came to a gate that was normally unattended. he had always ridden around it and continued on his way to the water treatment facility nestled 4 miles up the pretty little canyon with grass already golden brown even this early in june. with the orange sunset on it now fading. it was lovely. but there was a guard at the gate this time. with a patch on his arm signifying a private security company. no bikes, he said. only on odd days now, during the summer, and today was an even day. (to be honest, he didn’t remember whether it was odd or even days that bikes were allowed, when he was trying to remember later. he consulted the calendar, though, and determined just now that the day was even, and on that even day he had not been permitted to continue on his way. and therefore, it was the odd days, from now on, when he would expect he might be allowed into the upper reaches of the canyon.)
6. continuing on his way, in a different direction, he still climbed higher. this achieved partially by means of a road running along the canyon wall, which appeared to be a climb, but which rode like a descent. on this road, along which he proceeded with so much less effort than he expected, he was treated to quite a vista of the whole city under the golden haze of the sunset. a few minutes later, he came to three hills. actually a single hill divided in three parts by leveled intersections. a hill steep enough that a walker would bend far over their toes, leaning in to the incline, on the way up, their hands dangling mere inches from the pavement. he was tired from the previous miles, but he had been reading about the challenges of work, how happiness derived from such impressive challenges as now faced him, although he had to recognize that he was lacking one of the principal elements necessary for motivation: the belief that the task at hand was actually possible for him to complete. but he knew something else, too: that the heavy sadness that had born down upon him all day could be remediated by the stimulating chemical surge resulting from physical exertion. and that if he trained himself to seek such physical exertion, and allowed the healing surge of chemicals to reinforce that activity, that he would have in his possession a much more potent formula for some kind of happiness than those around him who procured their chemicals from all the usual sources. the chemicals which he himself longed to acquire. so he began his ascent of the three hills. at the first intersection, a young couple waited to cross the road. they inched forward expectantly, waiting for traffic to clear so they could cross. he, on his bike, was now the only traffic, moving as slowly as some ancient sage with a walker on his evening constitutional. the walked with tennis balls on the back skids. that slow. yet the young couple, holding hands and therefore indecisive, waited. he pushed himself to pedal harder, faster, to the breaking point, to prove himself to them, his strength, his determination. to get out of their way. to avoid their gaze. he set his jaw and looked straight ahead and controlled his breathing. he passed them at a crawl. this was not sustainable, but lo, in the middle of the second stretch of hill stood another couple. this one, much, much older, and in possession of a dog. they did not move, but only stood there as he inched past them on the bike. he was dying inside now, legs crying out, lungs ineffective. yet still, under the gaze of this frozen couple and their curious dog, he had to continue. the second intersection, a flat, 15 seconds of rest, an eternal paradise, but now that was all ended and here he was on the final incline. he did not believe he could do it. he could not do it. he was moving too slow to remove his cleat from the pedal that held it fast. mustering everything, he sped himself enough for one stroke to free his shoe from the pedal, avoiding the slow-motion tip and crash that was the ultimate in humiliating bike events. he rolled to an immediate stop. he stood there. he looked around and saw the old couple walking now up the hill towards him, stooped far far over their toes, ascending the hill. even the dog was walking slowly. the humiliation was too great to bear, but he could not ride. he got off the bicycle, swinging his numb leg over the high seat with some difficulty. and he walked. two cars passed with bike racks on top. this was even greater humiliation. helpless against his pride, he mounted again, and turned his wheel downhill. he avoided their knowing gaze as he passed them, all of them. he knew they never believed he would do it, although if he had, perhaps they would have been filled with a renewed faith in human perseverance, and a renewed longing for their younger days when they had been hungry for such symbolic accomplishments.
7. walking so slowly home from the movie, he knew that there were two things which prevented this evening from being a perfect escape into the beauty of the ordinary times and places he inhabited: first, the infernal headache, which could not be stretched, meditated, or ignored into oblivion. and second, the memory of the late afternoon before the kids’ mother came home, when under the heavy sadness his temper had become brittle. and being forced to pick up the mess of toys off the floor for the third time while his little daughter ate the meager dinner foods she had chosen from the fridge to be rewarmed, he swatted at the lamp shade, causing some rucus. she called out, what’s that? then he kicked her cart across the room. not so violently, it had wheels after all and required only a small impulse to travel the short distance. but it struck the legs of the chair she sat on with some force, and some noise. something between the personal affront of her chair being struck, and the extension of her self into her cart, her primary tool since she could walk lo this year, and the violence done to those objects she vested with her own fears and desires, caused her to react to this outburst with considerable emotion. hurt feelings. he understood he had done wrong, but also that he was still angry. without thinking, he went into the kids’ bedroom and sat himself on her little hard bed, where she sat when she was in time out. she cried, in the other room, sitting on her chair, in front of the bowl of half-eaten Spanish rice. then he heard her moving. the scrape of the chair. the gathering up of bowl and spoon by the child. the top of her head was barely taller than the table. and she came into her room, and sat at her own tiny work table, and pulled her tiny chair up, and considerately leaned over her bowl to prevent spills. she was wearing her yellow rubber bucket bib. it was already holding several partial spoonfuls of rice. she wasn’t crying now, pleased with the novelty of her own solution to this setback. it was forbidden also to eat in this place. but he sat silently in his time out and she proceded. taking huge spoonfuls of rice, she shoveled them into her mouth. he began to feel pleased. he had made the rice in a lengthy process of simmering 6 days earlier. she cleaned up the bowl, eating the last grain with her hands. feeling better now, he wondered which part of this experience she would remember, and what emotions would attend the memory. later, walking slowly home from the movie, he froze at the memory of her appearance at the bedroom door, bowl carried carefully in both hands, the yellow rubber bucket bib. she was maybe 30 inches tall. wet cheeks but not crying anymore. playing the trickster, coming back into his world, where he was being, in hers. he cried some hot silent tears remembering this late at night. the parent feelings are strong. he feels guilty. he feels lonely for her, and with her. we wants her close. she is at her mothers house. it is his night off.
8. a block from home, 11:30pm, he saw the moon. it hovered almost at its summer zenith, in the clear black sky, emerging from behind a tree branch which also revealed, as he walked, the massive stone clock tower atop city hall. the glowing face of the clock and the full moon were of identical size and color, and hovered next to each other. the moon, too, had a face, he noticed. the smudges on the moon’s face suggested bushy eyebrows, peaked in the middle where they met, descending at the outer ends, giving the face the appearance of sympathetic suffering as it watched the earth. the face was turned towards the clock face, and now the clock struck 11:30. the moon hovered, still and silent. he continued walking half a block, and now the moon hung along in the empty sky. still watching. sympathetic.
