On the subway ride there this girl was sitting across from me. I didn’t know how old she was but I thought maybe kindergarten or something. She was sitting in her mom’s lap with this blue plaid dress on and stockings and shoes and she smiled at me. Then my nose felt itchy so I rubbed my finger against it and saw that she did the same thing. Then she laughed and her mom looked at her and then at me. I rubbed my eye with my finger and then she did the same and smiled and waited for me to do something else. Her mom didn’t smile at me though. I think maybe she thought I was trying to abduct her kid or something. The girl had one arm wrapped around her mom and I thought I could outsmart her by using both hands to do something so she wouldn’t be able to mimic it. So I rubbed both eyes with both index fingers. But she outsmarted me instead by using her forearm to rub both eyes at the same time. And then she started initiating (ping) and stuck her tongue out at me and put her hands on the side of her head like extended ears. I stuck my tongue out too in public but I didn’t do the ear thing. Then her mom took her off the train on the next station. I got off on the stop after theirs.
On the surface I ended up on a busy street and started walking towards the center of the city. After a while I found a store and it was called Billy’s Gun Shop. It had lots of guns in the window and a red neon sign that said ‘GUN’. I wanted a shotgun. There was this balding guy in there behind a counter with his hair combed back tight against his scalp in a ponytail. He was locking a glass cabinet that contained a couple crossbows with one of those circle-type kind of keys. “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to buy a shotgun.”
“Ok.” He looked at me and put his hand on the counter between us. I noticed this clock behind him with roman numerals and a pendulum and a door for a cuckoo or something. (alien) “Do you have anything in particular in mind?”
“I wanna kill people with it.” He looked at me kinda funny. I remember thinking that was the wrong thing to say so I smiled and said, “I’m kidding. I wanna get one as a present for my boss. I don’t know much about guns though.”
He didn’t smile back. I remembered that in Pinky and the Brain Brain would always say that he’s a lab mouse trying to take over the world and people would just laugh at him and think it was just a joke. “Really?”
I tried not to look at him and my eyes wandered around the shop. I wanted a shotgun but I said that already. I think by now I was back to normal and not acting mental like before but I was already in the gun shop asking about a gun. “Ya, it’s his birthday. He’s gonna be 50.”
“Hmm…” He voice relaxed a little. “So what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a stock analyst. Investment banking stuff, ya know?” What I mean is that usually when I’m in a store buying clothes or something and the shop assistant walks up to me and starts giving me advice on stuff I always end up buying something without really wanting to. There’s a kind of threshold here that was passed.
“Interesting.” He opened one of the counter cases with his left hand using a long key that was notched on both sides. “This is a real nice one. Real wood too.”
I looked at it. It was black and had a wooden thing you pull back on. I was annoyed he used ‘real’ twice in a row. “Ya, it’s pretty good, but is it powerful? My boss goes hunting a lot. I think he goes after deer and stuff.”
The guy looked at me funny. I was thinking maybe I said something wrong and you’re not supposed to go after deer with shotguns or something. But I already told him I don’t know anything about guns so I wasn’t too worried. “Ok, how about this one?”
He showed me another one. It looked bigger. I think it was the barrel that was bigger. I lifted it and it was kinda heavy. “Uh… How much?”
“Nine hundred.” I don’t remember if that’s what he actually said or not but its my story so I can say whatever I want. I mean it’s not all that important anyway.
“That’s a little too much. Can I get the other one?” I wasn’t sure how much room I had left on my credit card and I didn’t have any of Pedro’s money left. The clock behind the counter chimed but nothing came out of the cuckoo door. I think it was like 5 or something.
“Sure. It comes with a carrying case and a pack of shells.” He asked for my ID and my name and my current address. I told him and then I think he checked my record for crimes or parking violations or something on a computer screen. “Ok, everything looks good.”
He zippered up the gun in a case and put a box of shells on the counter. When I gave him my credit card I was already wondering if there was some way to return the gun. After he swiped the card I signed the receipt and gave it back to him. Then I said, “Thanks.”
“Sure. Come back anytime.” I think now you can’t do that anymore; they make you wait a couple of days. But this was a while ago. He handed me the case and the box.
I walked out the door and was on the street again.
I had the gun in its case in my hand. I was carrying it. I was thinking of how stupid I was to buy it. I figured maybe I could stick it in my closet next to my dress shoes or something. I wanted to stop doing dumb things. I felt like… I felt like this one time I was talking with this Vietnamese kid and he was saying how his country was attacked by the French and the Americans and how his people fought for their homeland and I just kinda stood their quiet distracted by his pride when I should have said something like, ‘What do you mean your country? Where are you living now? What color is your money? You’re an American pig like everyone else here.’ If I just thought correctly the first time I’d be ok. But I guess everyone feels that way at times.
I headed back to my apartment. I took the subway again and nothing really interesting happened but at least I didn’t know that nothing would happen. Actually there was this poster that was kinda strange. It looked that Picasso self-portrait with the beard except he had horns like a goat or something. I think it was an advertisement for one of those 70’s disco compilations. There was an acronym on it but I forget what. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Pedro’s KCFU thing for all of you that are trying to read into everything I say. That reminds me, on the way back I was wearing these sandals called BATA’s which in Singapore-speak stands for Buy And Throw Away. They’re only sold in Asia though. Here they’re under a different brand name I think. I remember hearing once that the CEO had a corporate jet. I was wearing them on the way to the gun shop as well.
After I got out of the subway terminal I saw this girl get out of a bimmer. She had on this tight white top with her arms showing and this short silver miniskirt that flashed in the sun as her legs shifted across the street from me. Sometimes when you see something beautiful you just melt and wanna crawl under a rock because it’s like God but I didn’t feel that way when I saw her. I didn’t wanna crawl under a rock; I wanted to crawl under her.
Rewind
I don’t remember what happened next but later I was with that met at the copper stature girl in this lounge playing pool. I didn’t have the gun anymore though. There was a lamp over the table. She was bent over the table. I was feeling kinda funny. Maybe I was drunk or something. There was a speaker somewhere playing 80’s hair-band music and I had a cue in my hand and she was across the table from me looking at me with a baseball cap and hair straight down past her shoulders. I said, “Hey baby, are you goin my way?”
“That depends.” She gave me this smile. It was red. The lamp I mean. The lamp had red stained glass. It had this handmade kind of look cuz the glass was thicker and darker in some spots. “Where are you going to take me?”
“Come over here and I’ll tell you.” I hit the white ball. It banked the side and hit the two ball and then the two ball went into one of the side pockets. I guess I was shooting pretty good. I mean well. I think maybe two balls are blue but I’d have to look that up to be sure. She walked over to me, her clothes pretty tight with denim shorts and white T-shirt. There was a couple behind us on a couch and I could hear smacking and sucking noises from them between the 80’s hair b
and songs from the speaker. “Closer.”
“How’s this?” She was whispering in my ear. Her hands were on me. They were…I don’t know where they were. I felt the red and I think the lantern was making me sweat. I kept on wanting to doze off so I’m pretty sure I was drunk. “Where baby, where?”
I smashed her face with the pool stick.
I remember seeing the stick hit her jaw but I didn’t hear anything. Sometimes funny stuff like that happens. Not hearing but seeing I mean. Her hands went up and around her face. Her jaw was red and she pulled away from me and the pool stick stayed in my hand.
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t look at me either. I put the pool stick down on the table and stepped towards her. She was docile and didn’t step away. I kissed her on the forehead with I think Bonjovi in the background. Bonjovi’s from New Jersey along with Bruce Springsteen and me.
I went back to my dorm and went into the bathroom and looked into the mirror for a long time. My sideburns needed trimming. There was a bit of caked blood on my face stuck where wrinkles formed lines. I guess it got on me when I kissed her. The lines they made me think about those canyons on Mars that water once kept alive but were beautiful in death. Beautiful in death. Like residual still existed.
I don’t know; my mind just wanders when I stare at a mirror. I guess it’s normal.
I felt like society was getting me down. This female sex expectation thing. Maybe I’m just silly. I remember when I was a kid I used to watch this cartoon that had this kid in it whose head was shaped like a pot. A teapot I mean. And he was in love with this girl that was drawn as a stick figure with like four strands of hair. Whenever she would say hi to him he’d get excited and his teapot head would explode and all his friends would come and get tea from his spout/nose/mouth appendage. I was so happy for him.
But now if I’d watch it again it would probably just be some of kind of phallic thing to me.
Society is one thing I can’t run away from… no matter where I went I’d still be in some city or state or country or something. I wish we had colonized the moon but I guess it would just be the same there too.
#
Went to a restaurant, ate some noodles, served plain tea with noodles, the tea was hot.
entropy dying down… etc.
#
Later I was walking back from where all the food trucks were on campus. They’re not there anymore because of the law changes but I guess some people still remember them. I was watching the brick patterns on the sidewalk under my Converses. Some of them were shaped in L’s that looked like:
_| _| _
_| _| _|
_| _| _|
and had gray tiles placed within the designs.
00100100
01001001
10010010 -> 24,49,92,24,49,92 -> mov al,24;
00100100 rol al,1;
01001001 jmp -1;
10010010
But that didn’t work. The full pattern wouldn’t work with 8-bits. And I couldn’t add another bit to the pattern size because the integer size was 8. I remember thinking that nothing would work because the pattern was base 3 but I wasn’t sure cuz maybe you can use base 6 or something. I was trying to figure out a way to use carry out to handle the 9th bit but I thought heard someone calling my name and that distracted me again.
#
Next I remember looking at my reflection in a window. I was inside I guess a coffee shop with a short iced something. Actually I’m not sure if it was next anymore. I mean I may have looked at my reflection in a window next but I’m not sure if the coffee shop thing came after the tile thing. It’s kinda like when you have a dream that you think built upon something you did in another dream but your not sure if the other dream happened the same night or some other time in your past. That’s what my memory gets like sometimes. Maybe I’m dumb or mentally disabled or something.
Anyway I was looking at myself in the mirror and I saw my hair was thinning. I’ve had dreams about thinning hair before. I remember one time picturing myself as this grotesque Garbage Pail Kid with a bloated pink head. I had these tufts of hair that sprung out in patches between the wrinkles in my scalp. I would snarl and you could see that there was no lack of nose hair. But it was only a dream I think.
There were three girls to my left sitting next to each other. Sometimes they would laugh but when they did they held their hands up in front of their mouths as if trying to keep the emotion in. And then to my right these two guys in black suits with blue shirts and silver ties smoking filtered Lucky Strikes. After a while the girls held up a camera and asked the guys next to me to take a picture and skipped me over. Made me sad like doves.
Outside the window I remember seeing a girl in a warm gray car pull up in front of the coffee shop. (kissaten no mae wo tsuuka site ta) She was looking backwards I think maybe trying to make a U-turn. I had this picture in my head of her feet on the pedals. The floor had this rug with a square opening where the gas and brake stuck out. The pedals were just metal plates held up with a rod out of the ground. And I remember seeing stockings. She had these blue steel heels on and would press down on the brake with only the front tip of her foot. Then she would switch and shuffle and the other foot would be down on the other pedal. But when you slowed it down there was a moment when everything was in the air. Like she could be going from break to gas or from gas to break or from break to break or from break to gas to gas to break to gas but you didn’t know until later. Or you would at least be able to guess if you knew before. But the car door prevented me from seeing anything really so I guess you could say that was a dream too.
The important thing maybe is that she finally did make a U-turn and when she did it her signal was blinking left when it should have been blinking right.
I saw the guy in the red cap again. I mean not again. I haven’t told you about that yet. That’s why I think this maybe out of order. But I tried to switch it around before and things were even worse. Like non-linear plot and stuff. I mean, cause and effect. I mean… I don’t know. Maybe I’m just dumb. I’ll tell you later how it could have been and you can decide. He had this silver bag on his shoulder. The guy in the red cap I mean. The red-capped guy had a silver bag on his shoulder. Maybe I should have made that another paragraph. Thinking is so hard sometimes.
The bag was plastic. No. What I mean is that bag was metallic like it shimmered silver and not just absorbed !silver. He was tall and stiff and had black collared shirt on. It was collared like a uniform. Anyway he walked slow and didn’t look to his sides much as he shuffled down the street. I remember he was tall. Although he couldn’t have seemed very tall on the street from the second floor of a coffee shop I remember him being tall.
Maybe I should have changed the order after all. (yappari ne)
He got to an intersection and turned away from me and I couldn’t see him anymore. And the car that the girl was in was vacant with its hazards on.
My bag started ringing. I mean, I heard this ringing and looked under my table and saw my pink bag and opened it and found a phone. I pulled the antenna and pressed a button with a picture of a green landline phone off the hook. I said ‘Hello?’ with a question mark.
“?!<>;’[}{]|)&^$%#@-+-_=:”,/~`” I mean there was static on the phone.
“Hello?”
“Señor?”
“Ya?” It was Pedro.
“Did you see him?”
“Who?”
“The éminence grise.” I thought he meant the guy in the red cap.
“Ya.” I meant the guy in the red cap.
“I see…” I don’t know what happened immediately afterwards. I mean there was static on my memory. I think he said something about Lot actually.
#
And then there’s the part that probably should have come before. I was walking outside and thinking about how much I hate computers. I’m sorry I can’t be more precise and tell you why I was thinking that. I was never very good at holding a thought let alone tracing i
t back to where it came from. And then there was Pedro again.
“Hey, señor!”
I didn’t react to him at first. Actually I think this passage might have fit in after the tile pattern thing nicely but it’s too late for that now since the book’s already in print.
“Señor!”
This time I turned to my left because I heard honking. And then I registered the two ‘señor’s Pedro had shouted. I saw him in a van with a mustache. I mean he had a mustache and he was in a van. Driving the van.
“There you are. Enter please, señor.” He was waving at me. Maybe the right word is flailing but I don’t know how to use advanced words very well. His hands were bulky and not slim like mine. They left trails as they moved. (he can read fortunes you know)
The van was parked in traffic so I walked across to it and got in the passenger seat. Strange was the van he had. It had these Chinese characters and a UPS logo that said ‘Worldwide Olympic Sponsor’ on it. The door had a picture of a big cat carrying a little cat. Once when I was a kid I had a cat. Actually no, not really. My dad never let me have any pets. I didn’t even have a tomagochi. My dad would never let me have anything besides maybe fish if I wanted to but I never wanted any fish. He told me once he had a dog when he was a kid but it died and he was really sad and he doesn’t want me to get sad when my hypothetical pet dies so he won’t let me have any pets. English is a difficult language because there’s no easy way to modify nominals with conditional verbal clauses. At least I can’t think of one right now. I said ‘hello’ when I got in.
“What happened to you? Did you not pick up the package?” Pedro used his hands and started shifting the gearbox. He kinda de-parallel parked out of traffic onto the sidewalk and started driving. “Worried we were that they had gotten to you.”
“Huh? What package?” I didn’t remember seeing a package anywhere. Maybe it was the one in my mailbox. Pedro’s truck smelled funny. Like peanut butter. I don’t remember what music he was playing this time but the mustache made him look funny. Especially when he smiled and his yellow potato-chip teeth showed between the Mexican accent English. “Your mustache looks funny.”
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