by Justin Chin
I wanted to see if you would be interested in this opportunity. I would love to know that you, as well as I, are benefiting from this. To have an offer handed to me like this is unheard of! The investment is $5,000; so it would be an investment of $2,500 each. This is broken down to $1,500 for clients and $3,500 for inventory — which by the way is $10,000 in product. The silent partner’s name, nor any portion of his or her identity, shall ever be revealed. Furthermore, the investor will not be responsible for any other duties other than light bookkeeping and will be allowed to purchase product at cost! Win-Win all around!
Please let me know what you think. I am so excited about the entire proposition. I also look forward to a time you and I can hook up again.
* * *
PLACES IN SOMEONE ELSE’S APARTMENT ONE OUGHT NOT TO HIDE OR DISPOSE OF ONE’S USED SYRINGES & POINTS
On top of the bathroom vanity; Between books on the bookshelf; Under the bed; In the cat litter box; In potted plants; In the drywall; Behind large heavy immovable furniture; In the cistern; Underneath the carpet in far corners of the room.
* * *
“We tell ourselves stories to live.” So begins Joan Didion’s brilliant essay, “The White Album.” It’s a line oft quoted by readers and writers and all manner of folk. Much less frequently quoted, however, are the final words of that essay, which read “…and writing has not helped me see it clearly.”
But it did, of course.
We lie to ourselves and to others because lies make for some of the most entertaining and endearing and fantastic stories. The act is even built into the name of the enterprise: Fiction.
But as the writer says: I don’t lie, I just stretch the truth.
We tell ourselves lies because we can. And because people believe us. A lie requires that belief, that paying trust. If someone knows you’re lying, then it’s a fail. It’s then not so much a lie as it is a bland untruth, an inaccuracy, a downgrade.
See how this works in regular life: we are often told that smoking crystal meth turns the user into a “different person.” Not quite as thrilling as The Exorcist unfortunately, not quite at all. It merely turns the user into someone he has long wanted to be, something he’s thought about being and doing. But this way, with this rationale, an exit strategy is put into place, just in case.
Consider: in the long history of the drug, the “different person” that emerges is always either Criminal or Slut, or very often both. You’d think that for a drug that’s been around for close to a century, that someone, just one person, might have turned into something interesting, like a world-class plate-spinning vaudeville act or a contortionist or the Vladimir Horowitz of the recorder or one of those clowns who does tricks with mathematics, or anything other than the criminal fuck-up who’s about to steal your iPad after shagging you.
We tell ourselves lies because we are the only ones who can fool ourselves.
* * *
THINGS THAT ARE NEAR, YET FAR
The end; The beginning; The reprieve.
* * *
Each week, we dutifully showed up and planted our scrawny butts in those pinching hard-backed folding chairs and plotted our bright and brilliant futures. Futures, most if not many, would not live to see. Our eyes watered and wavered away from the prize. If it was a stare-off, it wasn’t much of one. It wasn’t even a fierce glare. It was pinkeye, glaucoma, cataracts, retinitis, optical muscle fatigue, detached retinas, infected contacts, fungal growths, evergrowing blind spots, and eventually, blindness.
Everyone had a different stopwatch, each set to their own countdown. A whole room of ticking, seconds ticking away, ticking enough to be torture, enough to drive even the hardiest insane.
And then, time was up.
* * *
On Project Runway in the U.S., when dismissing a contestant, Heidi Klum says, “One moment you’re in, the next you’re out.” (Which is much improved over the original: “One moment you’re in, the next you’re on a cattle train and off to the camps.”)
On Project Runway Canada, when dismissing a contestant, Iman says, “You do not make the cut.”
On Project Catwalk, when dismissing a contestant, Elizabeth Hurley first, then Kelly Osbourne says, “You do not measure up.”
On Project Runway Australia, when dismissing a contestant, Kristy Hinze says, “Goodbye. And Good Luck.”
From this, what can we deduce about the national character of these countries and cultures? Which then of these countries can we deduce to be the most civilized?
And why stop there, why not:
“Your hems are unraveling like your promise.”
“Your A-line is D+.”
“Your Sunday is longer than your Monday.”
“Your dismal failures and lack of vision and creativity is the new black.”
* * *
THINGS THAT ARE FAR, YET NEAR
The end; The beginning; The reprieve.
* * *
He said:
It’s not difficult to see how we are where we are today. In the ’90s, the influx of new HIV meds gave many folks a new door to open. Since one of the symptoms of this chronic illness is sheer fatigue, it’s not surprising that some would resort to methamphetamines to get up and on with the day. Welcome to the world of suburban soccer moms and long haul truckers. Unfortunately, no one thought to mention that some protease inhibitors would up the level of methamphetamines introduced into one’s bloodstream. See how this might spin awry? Actually, in Europe and Australia, this information was readily available, but here in the good ol’ U. S. of A, not a peep. Still, the public health folks should get on their knees and thank the scourge of the meth epidemic for saving their bony butts. It was somewhere to pin the blame on other than their failed efforts. Everyone needs an evil all-powerful nemesis in order to maintain balance and most of all, appearances.
She said:
Oh fucking Christ! Are you all cracked out again?
* * *
Do you have any enemies? Are you anyone’s enemy? What is your feeling on revenge? Given the opportunity without reprisals, would you? Is vengeance mine? or yours? What is your feeling about karma? Karma chameleon, you come and go? Eye for an eye? or Turn the other cheek? Cheek to cheek? or Tit for tat? Measure for measure? or Give an inch? Take the mile? or Stand your ground? Is forgiveness really divine? Can you forgive someone who doesn’t believe he has wronged you? Can you forgive someone who hasn’t asked for forgiveness? How many times can you apologize for the same wrongdoing? Divine retribution or Human payback? Forgive and forget? or Forget about it? Would you feel better if there were a punishment involved? Or would you just feel petty and spiteful? Hanging or Stoning? Caning or Beating? When is an apology not an apology? Is a reluctant apology or a mandated apology still good? Are you sure you’re not just being overly sensitive? or petty? What can you not forgive? Is someone forgiving you now? Should you be forgiven? Are apologies ever enough? Look who’s sorry now? Does sorry really seem to be the hardest word? What’s your apology worth, really? Or your forgiveness, for that matter? Is the slate ever really wiped clean? Are you having an asthma attack?
* * *
NO, IT IS NOT
Surreal; Kafkaesque; Epic; The least bit fair; The end of the world; What you need nor what you deserve; Untenable.
* * *
YES, IT IS MOST SURELY
Fucked up; A lovely day; A burden to bear, preferably in silence, definitely with dignity.
* * *
One day, you’re walking home at the time when everybody else is going to work, your nether regions feeling all swampy and slightly sore. As you pass reflection after reflection of yourself on passing doors of buses, on storefront glass, on car windows, you realize that you’re pushing fifty in a few years. And all the little piggies you’re playing with are at least two decades younger than you are, and they have no idea how you are broken nor do you have any clue how they are broken. All you have in common is this cracked piggishness, that in and of i
tself is admittedly undeniably delicious, but borne from such different and divergent things.
And then you think that maybe you have the answers, some answers at least, some stab at answering what’s going wrong, why it’s all coming apart, all the what the hell’s the matter questions. Not to say that your answers are in the ballpark of being correct, though they might be, but at the very least, they are plausible and they draw connecting lines where no one had thought to before, they suggest a possibility.
But by this time, no one is listening, no one is asking you anymore. No one sees you any more than a monster or a ghost, a lump in space and time, a problem, a workhorse, another one amongst the others.
* * *
I WOULD MOST CERTAINLY LIKE TO
Bend without fear of breaking, break without fear of judgment.
* * *
But I am a liar, a sinner, a barebacker, a drug user, a degenerate, a slut, a home wrecker, a bugger, a scoundrel, a hopeless delinquent, a sick fuck, a vile idiot, an abomination, a shit-eating punk, a psycho nutjob, a sociopath, a useless piece of trash, a bastard son-of-a-bitch good-for-nothing lowlife scumbag.
And you cannot, must not, believe anything — not a single word — that I say.
About the Author
Justin Chin was born in Malaysia, raised and educated in Singapore, shipped to the U.S. by way of Hawaii, and has resided in San Francisco for many years. He is the author of three books of poetry, all published by Manic D Press: Bite Hard (1997); Harmless Medicine (2001), a Bay Area Book Reviewers Association Awards finalist; and Gutted (2006), winner of the Publishing Triangle’s Thom Gunn Award for Poetry. Squeezed in between these were two non-fictions: Mongrel: Essays, Diatribes & Pranks (St. Martins, 1999) and the ur-memoir, Burden of Ashes (Alyson, 2002).
In the ’90s, Chin also led a double life as a performance artist: he created and presented seven full-length solo works around the U.S. He packed up those cookies in 2002 (with occasional relapses) and the documents, scripts, and what-heck from that period were published in Attack of the Man-Eating Lotus Blossoms (Suspect Thoughts, 2005).