The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard: Library of America Special Edition

by Ron Padgett

  I remember rick-rack earrings.

  I remember big brass wall plates of German drinking scenes. (Made in Italy.)

  I remember Tab Hunter’s famous pajama party.

  I remember mammy cookie jars. Tomato soup. Wax fruit. And church keys.

  I remember very long gloves.

  I remember a purple violin bottle that hung on the wall with ivy growing out of it.

  I remember very old people when I was very young. Their houses smelled funny.

  I remember on Halloween, one old lady you had to sing or dance or do something for before she would give you anything.

  I remember chalk.

  I remember when green blackboards were new.

  I remember a backdrop of a brick wall I painted for a play. I painted each red brick in by hand. Afterwards it occurred to me that I could have just painted the whole thing red and put in the white lines.

  I remember how much I tried to like Van Gogh. And how much, finally, I did like him. And how much, now, I can’t stand him.

  I remember a boy. He worked in a store. I spent a fortune buying things from him I didn’t want. Then one day he wasn’t there anymore.

  I remember how sorry I felt for my father’s sister. I thought that she was always on the verge of crying, when actually, she just had hay fever.

  I remember the first erection I distinctly remember having. It was by the side of a public swimming pool. I was sunning on my back on a towel. I didn’t know what to do, except turn over, so I turned over. But it wouldn’t go away. I got a terrible sunburn. So bad that I had to go see a doctor. I remember how much wearing a shirt hurt.

  I remember the organ music from As the World Turns.

  I remember white buck shoes with thick pink rubber soles.

  I remember living rooms all one color.

  I remember summer naps of no sleeping. And Kool-Aid.

  I remember reading Van Gogh’s letters to Theo.

  I remember daydreams of dying and how unhappy everybody would be.

  I remember daydreams of committing suicide and of the letter I would leave behind.

  I remember daydreams of being a dancer and being able to leap higher than anyone thought was humanly possible.

  I remember daydreams of being a singer all alone on a big stage with no scenery, just one spotlight on me, singing my heart out, and moving my audience to total tears of love and affection.

  I remember driving in cars and doing landscape paintings in my head. (I still do that.)

  I remember the tiger lilies alongside the house. I found a dime among them once.

  I remember a very little doll I lost under the front porch and never found.

  I remember a man who came around with a pony and a cowboy hat and a camera. For so much money he would take your picture on the pony wearing the hat.

  I remember the sound of the ice cream man coming.

  I remember once losing my nickel in the grass before he made it to my house.

  I remember that life was just as serious then as it is now.

  I remember “Queers can’t whistle.”

  I remember dust storms and yellow skies.

  I remember rainy days through a window.

  I remember salt shakers at the school cafeteria when the tops had been unscrewed.

  I remember a job I once had sketching portraits of people at a coffeehouse. Table to table. During folk singing intermissions. By candlelight.

  I remember when a Negro man asked me to paint a big Christmas picture to hang in his picture window at Christmas and I painted a white madonna and child.

  I remember one year in school our principal was Mr. Black and my art teacher was Mrs. Black. (They were not married.)

  I remember a story my mother telling of an old lady who had a china cabinet filled with beautiful antique china and stuff. One day a tornado came and knocked the cabinet over and to the floor but nothing in it got broken. Many years later she died and in her will she left my father a milk glass candy dish in the shape of a fish. (It had been in the cabinet.) At any rate, when the candy dish arrived it was all broken into many pieces. But my father glued it back together again.

  I remember a big black rubber thing going over my mouth and nose just before I had my tonsils taken out. After my tonsils were taken out I remember how my throat felt eating vanilla ice cream.

  I remember one morning the milkman handed me a camera. I never did understand exactly why. I’m sure it had something to do with a contest, though.

  I remember Marilyn Monroe’s softness in The Misfits.

  I remember the gasoline station in the snow in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

  I remember when hoop skirts had a miniature revival.

  I remember waking up somewhere once and there was a horse staring me in the face.

  I remember sitting on top of a horse and how high up it was.

  I remember a chameleon I got at the circus that was supposed to change colors each time he was on a different color, but he only changed from green to brown and from brown back to green. And it was a rather brown-green at that.

  I remember never winning at bingo, though I’m sure I must have.

  I remember a little girl who had a white rabbit coat and hat and muff. Actually, I don’t remember the little girl. I remember the coat and the hat and the muff.

  I remember radio ball game sounds coming from the garage on Saturday afternoons.

  I remember hearing stories about why Johnny Ray was such an unhappy person but I can’t remember what the stories were.

  I remember the rumor that Dinah Shore was half Negro but that her mother never told her and so when she had a light brown baby she sued her mother for not telling her. (That she was half Negro.)

  I remember my father in black-face. As an end man in a minstrel show.

  I remember my father in a tutu. As a ballerina dancer in a variety show at church.

  I remember Anne Kepler. She played the flute. I remember her straight shoulders. I remember her large eyes. Her slightly roman nose. And her full lips. I remember an oil painting I did of her playing the flute. Several years ago she died in a fire giving a flute concert at a children’s home in Brooklyn. All the children were saved. There was something about her like white marble.

  I remember people who went to church only on Easter and Christmas.

  I remember cinnamon toothpicks.

  I remember cherry Cokes.

  I remember pastel-colored rocks that grew in water.

  I remember drive-in onion rings.

  I remember that the minister’s son was wild.

  I remember pearlized plastic toilet seats.

  I remember a little boy whose father didn’t believe in dancing and mixed swimming.

  I remember when I told Kenward Elmslie that I could play tennis. He was looking for someone to play with and I wanted to get to know him better. I couldn’t even hit the ball but I did get to know him better.

  I remember when I didn’t really believe in Santa Claus but I wanted to so badly that I did.

  I remember when the Pepsi-Cola Company was on its last leg.

  I remember when Negroes had to sit at the back of the bus.

  I remember pink lemonade.

  I remember paper doll twins.

  I remember puffy pastel sweaters. (Angora.)

  I remember drinking glasses with girls on them wearing bathing suits but when you filled them up they were naked.

  I remember dark red fingernail polish almost black.

  I remember that cherries were too expensive.

  I remember a drunk man in a tuxedo in a bar who wanted Ron Padgett and me to go home with him but we said no and he gave us all his money.

  I remember how many other magazines I had to buy in order to buy one physique magazine.

  I remember a climbing red rose bush all over the garage. When rose time came it was practically solid red.

  I remember a little boy down the street. Sometimes I would hide one of his toys inside m
y underwear and make him reach in for it.

  I remember how unsexy swimming naked in gym class was.

  I remember that “Negro men have giant cocks.”

  I remember that “Chinese men have little cocks.”

  I remember a girl in school one day who, just out of the blue, went into a long spiel all about how difficult it was to wash her brother’s pants because he didn’t wear underwear.

  I remember slipping underwear into the washer at the last minute (wet dreams) when my mother wasn’t looking.

  I remember a giant gold man taller than most buildings at “The Tulsa Oil Show.”

  I remember trying to convince my parents that not raking leaves was good for the grass.

  I remember that I liked dandelions all over the yard.

  I remember that my father scratched his balls a lot.

  I remember very thin belts.

  I remember James Dean and his red nylon jacket.

  I remember thinking how embarrassing it must be for men in Scotland to have to wear skirts.

  I remember when Scotch tape wasn’t very transparent.

  I remember how little your dick is, getting out of a wet bathing suit.

  I remember saying “thank you” when the occasion doesn’t call for it.

  I remember shaking big hands.

  I remember saying “thank you” in reply to “thank you” and then the other person doesn’t know what to say.

  I remember getting erections in school and the bell rings and how handy zipper notebooks were.

  I remember zipper notebooks. I remember that girls hugged them to their breasts and that boys carried them loosely at one side.

  I remember trying to make a new zipper notebook look old.

  I remember never thinking Ann Miller beautiful.

  I remember thinking that my mother and father were ugly naked.

  I remember when I found a photograph of a woman naked from the waist up with very big tits and I showed it to a boy at school and he told the teacher about it and the teacher asked to see it and I showed it to her and she asked me where I got it and I said that I found it on the street. Nothing happened after that.

  I remember peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

  I remember jeweled sweaters with fur collars open to the waist.

  I remember the Box Car Twins.

  I remember not looking at crippled people.

  I remember Mantovani and his (100 Strings?).

  I remember a woman with not much neck. On her large feet she always wore bright-colored suede platform shoes. My mother said they were very expensive.

  I remember corrugated ribbon that you ran across the blade of a pair of scissors and it curled all up.

  I remember that I never cried in front of other people.

  I remember how embarrassed I was when other children cried.

  I remember the first art award I ever won. In grade school. It was a painting of a nativity scene. I remember a very large star in the sky. It won a blue ribbon at the fair.

  I remember when I started smoking I wrote my parents a letter and told them so. The letter was never mentioned and I continued to smoke.

  I remember how good wet dreams were.

  I remember a roller coaster that went out over a lake.

  I remember visions (when in bed but not asleep yet) of very big objects becoming very small and of very small objects becoming very big.

  I remember seeing colors and designs by closing my eyes very tightly.

  I remember Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun.

  I remember bright-colored aluminum drinking glasses.

  I remember “The Swing” dance.

  I remember “The Chicken.”

  I remember “The Bop.”

  I remember monkeys who did modern paintings and won prizes.

  I remember “I like to be able to tell what things are.”

  I remember “Any little kid could do that.”

  I remember “Well, it may be good but I just don’t understand it.”

  I remember “I like the colors.”

  I remember “You couldn’t give it to me.”

  I remember “It’s interesting.”

  I remember Bermuda shorts and knee-length socks.

  I remember the first time I saw myself in a full-length mirror wearing Bermuda shorts. I never wore them again.

  I remember playing doctor with Joyce Vantries. I remember her soft white belly. Her large navel. And her little slit between her legs. I remember rubbing my ear against it.

  I remember Lois Lane. And Della Street.

  I remember jerking off to sexual fantasies of Troy Donahue with a dark tan in a white bathing suit down by the ocean. (From a movie with Sandra Dee.)

  I remember sexual fantasies of making it with a stranger in the woods.

  I remember sexual fantasies in white tile shower rooms. Hard and slippery. Abstract and steamy. Wet body to wet body. Slippery, fast, and squeaky.

  I remember sexual fantasies of seducing young country boys (but old enough): Pale and blond and eager.

  I remember jerking off to sexual fantasies involving John Kerr. And Montgomery Clift.

  I remember a very wet dream with J. J. Mitchell in a boat.

  I remember jerking off to visions of body details.

  I remember navels. Torso muscles. Hands. Arms with large veins. Small feet. (I like small feet.) And muscular legs.

  I remember underarms where the flesh is softer and whiter.

  I remember blond heads. White teeth. Thick necks. And certain smiles.

  I remember underwear. (I like underwear.) And socks.

  I remember the wrinkles and creases of fabric being worn.

  I remember tight white T-shirts and the gather of wrinkles from under the arms.

  I remember sexual fantasies of old faded worn and torn blue jeans and the small areas of flesh revealed. I especially remember torn back pockets with a triangle of soft white bottom showing.

  I remember a not very pleasant sexual dream involving Kenward Elmslie’s dog Whippoorwill.

  I remember green Easter egg grass.

  I remember never really believing in the Easter bunny. Or the sandman. Or the tooth fairy.

  I remember bright-colored baby chickens. (Dyed.) They died very fast. Or ran away. Or something. I just remember that shortly after Easter they disappeared.

  I remember farts that smell like old eggs.

  I remember one very hot summer day I put ice cubes in my aquarium and all the fish died.

  I remember dreams of walking down the street and suddenly realizing that I have no clothes on.

  I remember a big black cat named Midnight who got so old and grouchy that my parents had him put to sleep.

  I remember making a cross of two sticks for something my brother and I buried. It might have been a cat but I think it was a bug or something.

  I remember regretting things I didn’t do.

  I remember wishing I knew then what I know now.

  I remember peach-colored evenings just before dark.

  I remember “lavender past.” (He has a . . . )

  I remember Greyhound buses at night.

  I remember wondering what the bus driver is thinking about.

  I remember empty towns. Green tinted windows. And neon signs just as they go off.

  I remember (I think) lavender-tinted windows on one bus.

  I remember tricycles turned over on front lawns. Snowball bushes. And plastic duck families.

  I remember glimpses of activity in orange windows at night.

  I remember little cows.

  I remember that there is always one soldier on every bus.

  I remember small ugly modern churches.

  I remember that I can never remember how bathroom doors in buses open.

  I remember donuts and coffee. Stools. Pasted-over prices. And gray people.

  I remember wondering if the person sitting across from me is queer.

  I remember rainb
ow-colored grease spots on the pavement after a rain.

  I remember undressing people (in my head) walking down the street.

  I remember, in Tulsa, a red sidewalk that sparkled.

  I remember being hit on the head by bird shit two times.

  I remember how exciting a glimpse of a naked person in a window is even if you don’t really see anything.

  I remember “Autumn Leaves.”

  I remember a very pretty German girl who just didn’t smell good.

  I remember that Eskimos kiss with their noses. (?)

  I remember that the only friends my parents had who owned a swimming pool also owned a funeral parlor.

  I remember laundromats at night all lit up with nobody in them.

  I remember a very clean Catholic book-gift shop with practically nothing in it to buy.

  I remember rearranging boxes of candy so it would look like not so much was missing.

  I remember brown and white shoes with little decorative holes cut out of them.

  I remember certain group gatherings that are hard to get up and leave from.

  I remember alligators and quicksand in jungle movies. (Pretty scary.)

  I remember opening jars that nobody else could open.

  I remember making home-made ice cream.

  I remember that I liked store-bought ice cream better.

  I remember hospital supply store windows.

  I remember stories of what hot dogs are made of.

  I remember Davy Crockett hats. And Davy Crockett just about everything else.

  I remember not understanding why people on the other side of the world didn’t fall off.

  I remember wondering why, if Jesus could cure sick people, why He didn’t cure all sick people.

  I remember wondering why God didn’t use his powers more to end wars and stop polio. And stuff like that.

  I remember “Love Me Tender.”

  I remember trying to realize how big the world really is.

  I remember trying to figure out what it’s all about. (Life.)

  I remember catching lightning bugs and putting them in a jar with holes in the lid and then letting them out the next day.

  I remember making clover blossom chains.

  I remember in Boston a portrait of Isabella Gardner by Whistler.

  I remember in Tulsa my first one-man show of brush and ink drawings of old-fashioned children. They were so intricate and fine that nobody could believe that I did them with a brush. But I did.