Counting Change (Dance, You Monster)

          I attended a talk by Anni and John Furniss at Powell’s. I realized with a start that I hadn't been to a single reading here since before the pandemic. I used to come here nearly once a week. Of course, there aren't as many readings as there used to be, and I usually don't recognize the names of the people reading. 

        The couple was there promoting their book, The Blind Woodsman. John is a woodworker and makes bowls and other vessels in his garage. He is indeed blind, and keeps his eyes closed due to nerve damage in his eyelids. Anni is an artist and writer. The two of them paint a portrait of a couple with numerous physical and mental challenges who have found peace through their art and their love for each other. Their story is aggressively inspirational –the book is subtitled “One Man’s Journey to Find His Purpose on the Other Side of Darkness”- and I would find the whole thing tacky if they weren’t so genuinely sweet and unpretentious. My own eye and foot issues seem petty compared to what they have been through. On the other hand, they have each other, and I feel envious, then ashamed of my envy, then angry at my shame. 

But loneliness is a key aspect of my personality. Who would I be without it? I did text Nurse N. one last time on St. Patrick’s Day. She hadn’t responded to my last text, and I figured she was done with me. She surprised me by answering back, saying this was her work number but I should call or text her anytime at her personal number, which she included. I responded that I would give her a call this week and she responded with a heart. 

I called her a few days later and we had a nice talk. I found myself eager to paint a rosy picture of how things were going. She didn’t reveal much of herself, was content to grill me about my health. She did say the plumbing in her house wasn’t going to be fixed for another month, and that in the meantime she was staying at an Air BNB in the Pearl, across from the old post office. She kept saying “we,” but she still has never mentioned a man of any sort in her life. It could be that one of her daughters is staying with her. More likely she just doesn’t want to admit that she has a partner, for some reason.

During the conversation she was friendly but not flirty, like I was secretly hoping she would be, now that we’re no longer professionally entangled. She did say she should stop by sometime, and I told her I would love that. When I got off the phone I felt a little let down, then embarrassed for being so needy, then frustrated at being so easily embarrassed.

        Anni read passages from the book, which they wrote together. She teared up a number of times, then made fun of herself for doing so. They sat close to one another, constantly touching. My poor vision blurred them into one mass. She recounted the time she tried to get a taste of his experience by putting on a blindfold and trying to count the change in her pocket. Numb and flattened out as I am emotionally, I could sense the warmth radiating from them. There was a good-sized crowd, and most of them seemed to be friends and relatives. The room was positively filthy with love.

        Afterwards a local poet I know came up and said he wished he could have made it to my reading a few weeks back. He asked how it had gone, and I said great. Armed with a slideshow of my poetry comics, I had spewed out a feverish soliloquy about wrestling with the necessity and futility of art. Everyone had laughed a lot, which was intoxicating. But there had been none of this sweetness, I offered no promise of redemption, just a flood of tics and neuroses. You work with what you’ve got, I guess.

        I didn’t buy their book, but I picked up a slim catalogue of Paul Klee pictures. Klee was closer to a poet than a painter in some ways. This book included one of my favorites, Tanze Du Ungeheuer zu meinem sanften Lied!, or Dance You Monster to My Sad Song!, which is about as perfect a title as I can imagine. 

        I talked for a while to the friend who had told me about the reading. She works in the education department at the museum. I feel so removed from that place; I pass it almost every day on my way back from treatment, and marvel at the construction, thinking about all the changes that are going on inside without me. When my friend regales me with tales of the dysfunction and melodrama, I’m glad I’m not there to witness it. “Everyone misses you,” she says, which is kind but I know isn’t true. I miss them, but can’t imagine being back at work. My life has become so consumed by my medical routine, by my daily visits to my hyperbaric family. It’s difficult to believe that I only have a few weeks left. I know there’s a part of me that is going to miss this weird experiment, though it will be a relief to be able to see clearly again.  

        I take the streetcar home and when I get off at the corner of 11th and Jefferson, I am blinded by flashing lights. The intersection is crammed with ambulances and cop cars. I hear an onlooker say that someone got hit by a car. As I pass the Plaid Pantry, I say hi to a scantily-clad young woman smoking with the guy who works the counter. Long braids snake down her back to brush against her ass. “How you doin’ sweetheart,” she says. 

        The guy tells me he’s the one who called the cops, though for some other issue. “I saved that dude’s life,” he says. “And I didn’t even mean to.” 

        “That store is a swirling vortex at the center of this city,” I say. “I don’t know how you do it.” They both nod. 

        “Saved that dude’s life,” the guy says, and flicks his butt into the parking lot and heads back inside. I tell the woman to have a good night and I continue on to where my building looms over the freeway.

Strawflowers

        I feel like I’m walking underwater. My mind is muddled; reality and dream and memory and even things I watch on TV are all shuffled together. My blurred vision has made my already-shrunken world collapse even further on itself. Time is meaningless aside from doctor appointments. I have slipped into a hole and I feel that when, if, I ever get out of it, the world above will have completely changed. 

        I know it seems like I over share, but really I show impressive restraint. There is a lot I don’t talk about publically, for fear of hurting people, or risking them recoiling in disgust. I don’t want to further alienate myself. I’ve written a lot this week, but it’s mostly things I can’t share with anyone. And despite my efforts to make things entertaining, a lot of this shit is just really boring. 

        I did talk to a new therapist this week. Intake is always exhausting; you’re trying to explain clearly where you’re at, and they keep probing for you to explain your entire life history. I spewed out as much as I could, and at the end of the session she said, not unkindly, “Well, that’s…a lot.” She’s blind, and I wonder if this helps her concentrate on what she’s hearing. I know that talking is not going to solve my problems but I need to do something. I don’t feel able to keep my world from completely unraveling.

        My mind is muddled, I feel like my head is buzzing with static. I meditate twice a day but can’t reach a state of equilibrium. I stare into space a lot, unable to focus on the fuzzy shapes. I continually try to remind myself of what I still have. I can read, I can write, I can draw. I can walk around, I can eat, I can pay my rent. Olivia jumps into my lap each morning as I drink my coffee. I’m lonely but I still have friends and family who care about me and help me out. The future is uncertain, but when has it ever been otherwise? 

        Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day, and it’ll be the twentieth anniversary of one of the happiest moments of my life. I know it does no good, but it’s difficult to resist the temptation to look at that memory and compare it to where I am today. It’s like looking at the before and after pictures from the old Faces of Meth shock pieces the paper printed when I first moved here, except the before and after shots have been swapped. And this will be the first St. Patrick’s Day without poor Shane McGowan, so I can’t even play the Pogues without weeping.

        But Spring has besieged the city. Cherry blossoms are exploding, daffodils and crocuses and tulips and a thousand other blossoms are jockeying for attention. The citizens of Portland are exposing their pale winter flesh to the sun, and it’s a good thing I can’t really see it; these first few weeks of nice weather are a nightmare for the lonely and sexually stifled. It’s only March, though. The nights are still chilly, and we could still get snow. The only plants on the balcony that survived the winter are the lavender and columbine, both of which look happy. I bought a few lupines to keep them company. Last weekend I bought a bunch of seeds –strawflowers, Thai basil, two types of zinnia- and will get them started in egg cartons today. I have no confidence that any of them will sprout. But what a wonderful surprise if they do. 

 

The Snellen Chart Blues (Eyeday)

  After weeks of waiting, a woman from the financial company handling my long-term disability claim calls. I answer her questions and explain my current predicament. She sounds as bored as I would if I worked for a financial company, but by the end of an hour I have her laughing. She says if my claim is approved, I won’t get any checks until next month -the same time my treatments are scheduled to end. I haven’t received a paycheck for two and a half months, and am surviving on my small savings, plus my tax return and some help from friends. I try not to worry but I have moments when it feels like my head is going to explode from the stress.

It does not help that my eyesight has grown substantially worse. I can only see clearly for about two feet in front of me, everything else is fuzzy blobs. I like impressionist paintings but it’s scary being trapped in one. The nurses say that what I’m going through is common, and that my vision will return to normal once the treatments are over, but when they have me read the  eye chart this week, they seem concerned. The only thing I can read with any certainty is the top E, and even that is blurry. They have me sign a form promising I won’t drive a car or operate heavy machinery. The doctor says she wants me to see an eye specialist as soon as possible. I feel crushed with fear, and leave the office without the usual friendly farewells. 

The sun is mild and bright as I wait for the bus. My mind feels scrambled and I decide to get something to eat before going home. Unable to focus or make a decision, I wander aimlessly until finally calling the ophthalmologist. They say they can squeeze me in this afternoon. I grab a quick sandwich but don’t have time to eat it before I make my way to the eye doctors, which is right up the street from where I’ve just come. 

        I have to walk a long ways to get to the nearest bus stop, and when I get there, a grizzled man is sitting in the bus shelter with an open pizza box sitting on the bench beside him. The pizza looks untouched. I ask if I can have a seat. He glares at me like I’ve just insulted his mother, and slowly closes the lid and carries it off with his bags and a skateboard to a patch of grass behind the shelter.

The eye clinic is in an old bank building. It still looks like a bank inside. The lobby is crammed with people. I wait for a long time, and am starting to nod off when they call me back. The assistant runs a full eye exam on me. When she puts the lens machine in front of me and adjusts it, the letters on the chart are sharp and clear. It’s like a drink of cool water. Then she numbs and dilates my eyes and I can see even less than I could before.

When the doctor comes in, he seems impatient. He shines a light into my eyes and says he doesn’t see any damage but that I do have cataracts. He says I can have them removed in a year or two, and in the meantime I should come back in a few weeks to get my new glasses. I remind him what I’ve already told them four times, that my treatment doesn’t end until the middle of April, and that the doctor said to wait ten weeks after that before getting new glasses. For some reason this seems to irritate him and he abruptly stands up and says he’ll see me in June. 

They give me a slip of dark plastic to slip behind my glasses to protect my eyes from the dazzling sunlight. I’m so blind I can’t see the bus coming until it’s right there. Everything’s a fuzzy haze punctuated with golden bursts of sunlight. It like a low-budget dream sequence, Vaseline smeared on the lens. 

        Once I’m home, I feel like I’ve been hit repeatedly with a hammer. I am not sure if they’ll let me continue my treatments or if they’ll cancel them out of fear of permanently damaging my eyes. I come across an article in a medical journal about how bad oxygenation is for your eyes. It says it can actually cause cataracts, though it seems unlikely they would have appeared in only three weeks. I’ve only been in the chamber for three weeks. I'm not sure if they'll make me stop my treatments but I won't find out until Monday. I hate to quit now, but is it worth the risk of blindness? 

        I eat the rest of my sandwich, which I’ve been stealing bites from all afternoon. I want to cry but my eyes are too dry and strained so I just sit there, staring into the void, my head throbbing from the effort of trying to see. 

The Hyperbaric Patient Bill of Rights (Ceiling Tiles)

         When my movie -the last third of 2001, with its psychedelic light show- ends, instead of having them put another one on, I watch the C.A.R.E. Channel for a while, which shows a series of nature images –mostly mountains and waterfalls, with an occasional deer or goat- to gentle piano or guitar music. The website for the service claims that “This highly effective therapeutic tool significantly contributes to improved satisfaction and patient outcomes,” and it does, a little, until the signal cuts out and the nurses can’t get it back. 

        I feel tense and agitated. I try to meditate but I can only do so for short periods of time. My mind will not clear, it feels goopy and sticky with misery. I replay good memories but they quickly turn dark; dreams that transform into nightmares..

        I stare up through the curved acrylic. The TV is a reflective black slab hanging above me. It resembled the monolith in the movie. With it turned off, I really notice how loud the chamber is. It makes a constant sound partway between a hum and a whine. I hum to try to figure out what note it is. It seems closest to some kind of do. I idly wonder if this is what it feels like to start to mentally unravel

I concentrate on looking at the ceiling tiles, trying to really see them as accurately as my diminished eyesight will allow. The tiles are divided into quarters, each of which is a foot square. I focus on the quarter tile directly above me, a lower right hand one, and its own lower right corner has a quarter circle of light brown water stain. 

        Here and there the perfect grid of tiles is blemished by a sprinkler or recessed light canister, though none of the lights are on. The room is still bright though; I’ve never noticed where the lights are located. There are windows along the far end of the room. I can see the faint shapes of tree branches through the vertical blinds. Two large metal grids contain fans; there is one almost right above me. A single smoke detector hangs in the middle of the room. I go back to my square. It is off white and evenly covered with tiny gray dots, tiny holes. There are also lines of rough gouges that look like trails left by some small animals. I these are to help absorb sound, which of course doesn’t help me any with the whining hum. 

In the house I great up in on Wyoming Street, my parents’ bedroom was covered with similar drop ceiling tiles. In middle school, I read a library book called How to Hide an Elephant, and as a result I started hiding things in the ceiling tiles, standing on the bed and pushing them up from the metal tracks they rested on. One day I found a silver Parker pen on the street; it was sleek and smooth and I loved it. I hid it in the ceiling tiles and never saw it again; I don’t remember if it disappeared or if I just forgot about it until years later, at which point I felt really sad. Everything about that house makes me sad though, I never really got over leaving it, and I dreamed about it repeatedly for years. 

As I’m lying there, I think about how a truly great writer could make something as banal as ceiling tiles compelling. 

        The hour passes fairly quickly. The diminishing pressure makes my ears crackle just before the only male nurse in the whole department pulls my rack out and slides it onto a cart. This part of the operation always makes me feel like a slab of beef being prepared for butchering. He takes my air mask and urinal and pulls off my blankets, then takes my vitals and checks my sugars. I sit up and swing my legs off the side and stretch for a few minutes before padding off to change. 

        On the wall of the dressing area, I see a sign I’ve never noticed before; Hyperbaric Patient Bill of Rights. There are seven of them, and it’s all pretty basic hospital legal stuff. “You have the right to: -Actively participate as a member of your hyperbaric team. –Know what treatment options are available to you.” The staff here is incredibly kind; the more time I spend with them the more I like them. Some days they are the only humans I interact with. This morning they were mercilessly teasing the man in the chamber to my right, who has only one partial foot. 

        “Wow, you guys are really brutal today,” he laughed.

        “Hey, you’re family now,” one of the nurses said. 

        “Oh man am I in trouble,” he groaned.

        At the bottom of the sign is printed, “Last Updated May 20, 2015.” Things were objectively so much better for me back then. Noodle was still alive, as were some of my other friends. My beloved cat Ivan would die a few months later. The pandemic was still a science fiction trope looming in the future. I still had a steady job, and could occasionally convince women to date me. “You have the right to have your pain adequately controlled,” reads the sign. Of course they mean physical pain. Neither familial love or cloud covered peaks can soothe this heartache; no number of ceiling tile holes will dampen the racket inside my skull. 

The Stove

         Before heading out I open my mailbox to get yesterday’s mail. I pull out a medical bill and a large glossy sheet of card stock, on one side of which is printed in big block letters, white on black, ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE, WHERE DO THEY ALL COME FROM? On the back it reads 58% OF AMERICANS ARE NOW LONELY, with the website for a local church beneath it. I give in to curiosity and look it up on my phone. “OUR VISION: to love Portland as Jesus loves us.” 

        I throw the flyer in the trash, and check the free pile. On top of a roll of carpet sit two CDs, one by Bowling for Soup and one by Hiroshima, and a small wooden stove that looks like it was made for a dollhouse. I chuckle at the odd pairing of CDs, but pick up the stove. It’s handmade, painted off-white except for the knobs and burners, which are blue. Two of the burners are crosses and two are circles. Its door opens, attached by two incredibly tiny nails. When the door shuts, it makes a warm little knock. I open and close it again and again -it’s a very satisfying sound- then head outside. 

        The air is cold and wet, it feel like it wants to snow. I walk very slowly down the slope into the holler. No one is around. The only movement comes from a pair of juncos hopping around, oblivious to the countless piles of dogshit. 

        Mark is on the porch of the coffee shop, two little dogs sprawled across his lap. The dogs look like Muppets, impossibly fluffy. Mark was a submarine captain, but not during any wars. Now he walks dogs. He’s a car nut; he owns a DeLorean that doesn’t run and a Lotus that does. 

        It’s too cold to sit outside but I do anyways. A pair of sneakers dangles from a wire; they’ve been there for years. Miniature daffodils bow their heads. I feel disgusted with myself. I ought to be writing poetry, not reportage, but I can’t seem to work the magic that transforms one into the other. My life, already small, has shrunken to a size I didn’t think possible. I sip my coffee and tell myself I’m okay with this, that there are worse things than an uneventful life. So I’m not the rich, famous artist I was supposed to be, is that so bad? I take the stove out of my bag, open and close the door a number of times, set it on the table. The door keeps falling open and I keep closing it but it won't stay shut. 

        I trudge back up the hill, winded by even this bit of exertion. I have been ill for so long and there’s no end in sight. The latest side effect is that my vision is shot. They assure me it’s temporary.

        What’s wrong with reportage, anyways? With my bad eyes, I will notice every pathetic little thing, will write it all down for…for what? What is the point of this accumulation of details, these ridiculous lists? What is the point of remembering the Swisher Sweets wrapper, flattened on the pavement, the moss on the parking lot curb stops, the sign with a  cartoon of a tow truck crying big, fat tears as it tows a car away? Why remember the painted over boobs, still faintly visible, on the wall of the power station? The three cans of dog food sitting on a tree stump? The metal bucket filled with cigarette butts, hanging by a chain from a bike rack? The puddle shaped like a wing? 

        What does it all add up to? 

        Nothing, it adds up to nothing. 58% OF AMERICANS ARE NOW LONELY. I feel weighed down with everything I carry around inside, yet completely hollow.