by Evan Dara
Make it beautiful
Make it beautiful
Make it beautiful
Here it is for you
Weakness into strength
Weakness into strength
Here it is for you
Something real for you
Here it is for you
Something real for you
Something real & Real for you
Something real so real
Weakness into strength
Proud and fearless strength
Make your weakness strength
Turn your weakness into Strength
Loving vengeance a
Pure pureheartedness
Loving vengeance a
Pure pureheartedness
Turn the dark corner
Into a vector
Turn the dark corner
Into a vector
Loving vengeance as
Pure pureheartedness
Loving vengeance as
Great & pure pureheartednes
Turn the dark the Dark corner
Into light’s vector
Turn the dark the Dark corner
Into unto light’s vector
Take the prison &
Strike the jailors &
Take the prison &
Strike the jailors &
Deny deny them
Deny deny them
Deny deny them
Deny deny them being
Great refusal the
Great refusal &
Negate negate negation
Negate negate negation
Great refusal the
Great refusal the
Great refusal ere
Ate refusal &
Practice senjunkin
Stand by senjunkin
Land by senjunkin
Live by senjunkin
Take the prison of the world
Wrest it back from the
Take the prison of the world
Wrest it back from the
Quantifiers the
Quantifiers the
Quantifiers cruel
Quantifiers &
What is that word un
Known to all men say
What is that word un
Known to all men say Enough!
Take the prison &
Turn the train around
Wrest it back from the
Make the train turn round
Take the prison of the world
Turn the train around
Wrest it back from the
Make the train turn round
Turn it turn it round
Turn it turn it &
The treatment don’t fucking work
Strike the prison in
Loving vengeance &
Strike the prison in
Loving loving vengeance &
Loving vengeance in Loving vengeance &
Strike the prison in Loving loving vengeance &
Loving vengeance & Loving vengeance &
Loving vengeance &
Off the racks & off the wrapping
Off the racks & off the wrapping
Off the racks & off the wrapping
Off the racks & off the wrapping
Fresh & new invisible &
Fresh & new invisible &
Off the rags & off away &
Off the rags & off away &
Off the rags & in the basket
Off the rags & in the basket
Creases colors crispness snugness
Creases colors crispness fitness
Briskness energy effective
Briskness energy effective
Creases colors crispness fitness
Creases colors crispness witness
Twist & splash & slap remove &
Turn & splash & slap remove &
Chill to water thrill to water
Chill to thrill to falling water
Chill to water thrill to water
Thrill to falling shower water
Hard & fit &
Hard & fit &
Hard & fit &
Like an ice pick
Hard & fit & like an ice pick
Hard & fit become an ice pick
Golden hair like gold an ice pick
Dip & sharp a blade an ice pick
Golden hair like gold an ice pick
Golden hair a blade an ice pick
Under water falling water
Under thrilling spilling water
Now an ice pick
Now an ice pick
Now an ice pick
Now an ice a
Chieve the calm that lights the way a
Chieve the calm that lights the way &
Mount & board & store & sit &
Mount & board & store & sit &
Store & sit & store & sit &
Gentle gently store & sit &
Landscape passing landscape sweeping
Landscape passing fanning sweeping
Fields & cows & silos sweeping
Landscape fields & cows are sleeping
Rolling trolling flowing going
Rolling trolling flowing going
Ruffing fanning flowing further
Ruffing fanning flowing spurring
Rumbling furling coolly moving
Rumbling furling coolly moving
Moving tooling moving tooling
Moving tooling moving tooling
Silo roofs on rounded towers
Skirts of earth & glinting unto
Townships unto carparks unto
Fencing unto signboards unto
Townships unto carparks unto
Streetlamps unto windows unto
Whir across the dry grass wheat fields
Rectangles & silhouettes &
Track the sun with your whir shadow
Sweep out to the misty distance
Ties & ties &
Ties & ties &
Ties & ties &
Ties & ties &
Ties to bind to
Ties in line &
Ties to bind to
Ties in line &
Ties untied to
Ties that bind &
Ties untied to Ties that bind that
Ripple out & ripple to &
Ripple out & ripple through to
Mouth to ear &
Mouth to ear &
Mouth to ear &
Mouth to ear it’s
Pouring flooding crackling leaping
Flashing churning charring streaming
Warming glowing curling cresting
Shining darting arching testing
Snap through seams of sealed defenses
Snake down walls & cloud-crawl ceilings
Burst through cores & pivot doors &
Course down ducts & air-space hollows
Down the stairwell down the hallway
Down the riser down the stairway
In the doorway in the shadow
In the corner in the basket
Down the ladder down the trellis
Down the walkway down the passway
In the dumpster in the soffit
In the crawlspace in the endwall
Forward moving forward unto
Rushing huffing & world-twisting
Forward moving forward unto
What must be & What must be &
No alarm & no alarm have
No alarm & no alarm &
Down the stairwell
Down the hallway
Down the riser
Down the stairway
No alarm &
No alarm &
He said can make no alarm &
In there in there
In there in there
In there in there
In there right there
Chosen to be
Chosen to be
Chosen to be
Chosen to be
In the desert
With an ice pick
In the desert
With an ice pick
In there right there
In there right there
In there right there
Then a right there
Now an ice pick
In a desert
Now an ice pick
In the desert
Then a right there
Then a right there
Then a right &
Then a right &
Now an ice pick
In the desert
Golden ice pick
In the desert
Then a right &
Then a right &
Then a right &
Then a right &
Then a right then
Then a right then
Then a right then
Then a Right Then And hup to check to see, he hisses the pavement with heavy leather, here’s the primary engagement, here is the terminal deflation, there will be no more second-level participation, no lunge to braking, {that} reign is over, who could want that—?
Sel – Selwyn … ? Is that you—?
—’N it’s looming—
—It’s dodging—
—Cresting all currents, shunting in leaps—
—Saddling clear air, drifty tail draggling—
—Way, way over Lincoln Park—
—And—!
He pushes through the thickglass goldframe door, impossibly heavy but gliding on burnished hinges and rubber undertufting. We see him enter the building at 10 AM, not too early, certainly not too late, one among the muzzled hundreds moving through the canyonlike, vastness-shadowed atrium-lobby.
They are moving towards the Information/Welcome desk, heel-pop stepping towards elevator banks, bustling up long, slump-shouldered escalators, pulling napkins from Rebecca’s Café and Rivers To Go, inexhaustible sources of buns and cones of sustaining coffee. An up-perched foot accepts buffs from an omega’ed shoeshine cloth. A lipped slot in a squat FedEx dropbox receives a slatty package. Sheen springs from the mottled marble floor. A line, a clotty gathering, forms under the sign for the Visitor’s Gallery, waiting for an hour’s opportunity to draw energy from the world’s-end furor of the trading floor, the pits. As always, 30 South Wacker Drive is 30 South Wacker Drive. Is: the great early-September adrenalo-commercial retrieval.
Lincoln’s neck grates from the bubble-metal chain hanging upon it. He made sure to look slightly away, and dip his head, for the ID picture. He did things with facial muscles. He cut his hair. He had to be seen as himself, of course, but also not as himself. Then he scuffed the card’s lamination. Now, in one-piece coverall, charcoal-gray and baggy, and sturdy lace-up shoes, he is confident no one will recognize him. No one will see. He is walking swaying, and stooped, avoiding wicked speed. He is carrying clanking equipment. He is sure no one will notice. He is one man of ten thousand.
He lies full-long in the soot-dark slot. He is repairing a breach in a single-core cable, one that shouldn’t be there. With pliers and crimps he twists the strands to contact, makes sure the connection will stand to the Crowley he has just installed. He grabs a rasp and reduces the thickness of PVC on the adjoining wire, just to be safe. He is stretched out in a crawlspace behind the main chamber of a transformer room, 28 floors above the footworld. But this is his assignment. He has work to do.
What else could he do? What were his options? He had to get to work.
On break, he sees a paper, a Sun-Times, buckle-sprawled in the lower waste-slot of a silver sand-tray snubbed with butts, along the wall of the 31-40 elevators in the main concourse. A flash of type, in familiar curls. His name? Was that him in there? Is a careerist journalist recounting things?
No. Probably not. Almost certainly not. All the better.
Lincoln enters the building at 10 AM, transiting from huff-clang street-sound to inside-muted whisk and scuffle. Everywhere, they are moving. Swirling. A video without music. A rank congregation of vapors, swarming.
Inside, they are moving with particular industry. 6500 traders coursing to the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Plus unknown support-staff. Plus unknown building tenants, and temps, and guests, throughout both tall structures. Manicure men making plays, tincturing commerce with honesty. Plus, just then, the day’s densest stream of arrivals for a stint in the Visitor’s Gallery, to look down and watch, believing-disbelieving, crawling between heaven and earth.
Four hundred million contracts made here this year, value in the trillions. Lumber futures. Cattle futures. Peso futures. Rand futures. Russell 2000 futures. Euro FX futures. Weather futures. Furious yowling and hand-gesturing and scribbling onto palm-held pads. Puckery jackets, color-coded by brokerage firm, supporting tri-letter trading badges. Sternum-thrust surges for notice and position. Jigs, ambles and lisps. Quick-tinkle smiles when deal’s done. And this all day, forever.
We see Lincoln keep his head down. He inspects streaks, scuff, on the floor. He surveys passing waste-trays.
He’s in uniform, his Red Kap CT10, charcoal gray, the most common, most generic. It’s what makes him a custodian. That and nothing else. And, of course, his work. He is a custodian because of his work.
He wouldn’t be doing this if didn’t have to. But he has to. It is a question of necessity, survival. He – it – cannot be helped. Or stopped.
Once, 30 South Wacker was called the Rutherford Building. Now maybe it will be so again.
The custodian walks through the granite-walled atrium-lobby, on his way to work. Surely, he is a true custodian, tamper of false fires.
The custodian crouches inside an 18th-floor switchboard room, correcting a load imbalance in a secondary power riser. The building receives an 11kV feed, which is distributed through eight 1500 kVA: 11000/380V transformers. It is an immense load, more electricity than, in 1988, was consumed by the entire city of Rochester in a week. He is honored to be working on it. Respectful of it. Awed by it.
He is grateful for this work.
With rudimentary tools he pursues his charge. An awl. A curved-claw hammer. An assortment of pliers. Dowels. Tongue depressors. A snip. A flashlight. A resistance meter. And soon, the Crowley is in place.
Fwehhhhsh Lincoln enters the building at 8:18 AM. It will be a long day, after a long weekend. He hadn’t realized how much he had organized himself around this (his work & something to go to), so when the two off-days came, he didn’t know what to do with himself. The work has not been unpleasant. So now he is ready, as his father used to say, to attack the week. And here he has responsibilities. He does not want to get fired. He smiles to himself.
The custodian sits Indian-style in a ground-floor LV switchroom, located down a lone-bulb corridor from Sachnoff & Weaver’s file-storage area. He is working with a screwdriver and an emery board, his flashlight taped to a nearby four-wire busway, one branch in a forest of possible metal perches. Patiently, meticulously, he refines the overcurrent protections in a 3-phase feeder circuit. When balance is established, he reaches for the package of quick-disconnect tabs that he had left there, under an oilcloth, over the weekend. His work is good.
On lunchbreak, he dares loiter in the lobby, back by an enshadowed wall. Eight paces from the human wallop he looks, then dips. Looks, then dips. His light does not alter a thing. The steps and presses keep their course. Even the Trib’s front-page screech, posted at the millionlayered kiosk, does not make a soul veer. Hewitt destroys Sampras [large]; Israel: Day of Blood [less large]. And the slop-gossip is just lubricant for their way. Scroll-bent pages tell of a Plimpton party that evening in New York, marking the release of Monkey Cheese, Monkey Dues, a comeback CD by Kid Chips. Paul McCartney is rumored to be the stop-in. The traders walk, with blood urgency, on.
1:16 PM. The custodian, in a graydust roomlet housing an 18th Floor power riser, preps the LeFavier junction for attachment. He presses two drops of contact fluid onto the micronodal clip, lets his gut slack when he takes the Crowley from it. By then the tape-sharps just fade & vanish, without stinging. He brings the metal hunk to the prepped junction. He sees
his hands clasping, grasping, splinting, wrapping – doing the work. It is as easy as skonking::::
… Stretched on the hard, hard bed in Motel 6, he had watched American television, with the sound off. For the last six nights he had stared at the cabled box between the terraced tops of his two feet. In the iridescent glow, he saw uncanny prefigurations of his intervention. Dramaturgies and response curves coincided all but perfectly with his imaginings. Mouth- and brow-movements seemed twinned. Blocking, color temperatures, eyelines, aspect ratios almost entirely accorded – he twisted and rammed his fist against the apricot wall between his wooden bedposts. Despite the crinkling, the tickling, he has kept a band-aid on his right big knuckles, protecting the oozy ick …
But there are differences. Telling ones. Now, no one is watching. A determination that is inexpressibly good.
When he had last spoken to Meijer Borah, there was no news. Like every Wednesday, there was no news. No word from Europe, not a rattle of progress from the Netherlands. Is he doing anything? Is that why Borah’s working so cheap? He thought to put him on guard. He asked for Carter Dardan’s new address, and about how to contact him. Ignite the competitive fires. The custodian has other structures to keep clean.
He is thinking about synechdoche. From UC. Part for whole. Part becoming whole. Here’s the crux. Not one without the other, implied, implicated, imposed. But the yearning, the need, to be both. Separately. And together. The second-level contradiction that only resolves itself in irresolution. He is more than himself. He is one, several, unfathomable multitudes of his own attributes. Both the diamond and the drill. But which takes precedence? And who pegs this, who determines? Does he even have a say? Spoken daggers. So the custodian, by himself, assigned by building maintenance, he laughs, is doing the work on himself. He feels it keenly, this irresolution that resolves into no irresolution at all. Hey: by not resolving.
Returning to work, down a thick-aired service corridor, past the deadbolted storeroom of Vestinger, Pepitone and Slocum, Inc., the custodian shoves open an unlettered door. Inside, reams, stacks and sloppy piles of FedEx tracking slips, thousands of them, on wooden shelves and Formica tabletops, swamping the concrete floor. All with multiple pages, of distinguishable colors. From slip to slip he sees variations, many of ’em, inexorable steps of obsolescence, as updated specifications are added, as timing and routing are refined, then hyperrefined, as tracking systems mature, become more nuanced, protective, proactive, water-tight. Things must get where they are going! He slams the door as he flees.
In the libraries, he had also seen the affinity between progress and reduction. Day after day, in one library after another, he had noticed the cadenzas of rapt attention played to minutiae, as larger concerns grew foggy with neglect. Increasing acuity of perception driving wider blindness, evident & necessary visions falling on eyes without feeling. It was evolutionary: to continue, to flourish & prosper, whittle yourself to the barest functional minimum, then pass this on. Again, reason has produced its flipside, history has worked its dull revenge. But through action, *he* would re-establish the larger structures. And establish proof: The part is no longer of the whole.