From: Dean O'Leary <do@polyphemus.net>
To: sil@kali.org
Subject:

I've taken to spending some time down at Flippers. Taken to sitting in back. Taken to eating free peanuts from wooden bowls. Taken to wondering about my daughter. Wondering what she's doing. Wondering if she ever wonders about me. She must be twelve or thirteen by now. I wonder Sil... I wonder what will happen to her. Sometimes I want to call her up and try to explain that life is, well, I was going to say big, but that doesn't cover it does it? Life is something. I believe that much. I can not define anything anymore, but I still believe here and there where the sousing isn't done. In perpetual turning over you could say, cud chewing stuff, that's what I would want to talk to her about. But see that's why I don't, because I want to talk to her, not with her you understand. She'd be sitting there like a crumpled poloroid, thirteen in peg-leg acid wash and there'd be me sitting at the end of the bed unable to look at her, hunched over in a crumpled cheap suit, grumbling about how big life is. I mean can you imagine the disappointment a thirteen year old would feel learning that her father is me?

I know what you're thinking, why do I think of these things when I'm sitting in the back of a strip club picking at peanuts and sipping cheap lager while eighteen year old junkies cavort? I don't know. Strip clubs are a cold shower. When you listen to too much of that slickness, the glamour sort of shit that hits you in the face the minute you make the top of a SoHo stop stairs, sometimes I have to turn around and run back underground or I'm afraid I'll throw up on the first well dressed white person I see. Then I ride back to Brooklyn and you know how from the bridge everything looks dirty and dilapidated... And then Flippers is just down my new stop, between my stop and my house, depending on which zig-zag I take of course, but lately I tend to take the zig and then the zag, well, actually it's more zag then zig, I've always thought of zag as a left and zig as a right, I don't know how other people think about it, or even if they do, but I zag and then I zig and then there are the mirror tint windows I can't help it I have to go in, and the glitter and neon and skin, but here it isn't stylized or remodeled in plastic, what's the grad school phrase? remediated... No remediation of the flesh, left right here in its pre-transmogrified state. Of course they only have peanuts and beer. I usually don't spend much time, just a couple of beers after work, chat with the bartender a little, and watch the girls and think of my daughter. But not in some sick sense or course, I know you know that Sil, but I have to say it. No, it's more like a wistfulness that's best left in pop songs, but for a short while it feels good. 



From: Dean O'Leary <do@polyphemus.net>
To: sil@kali.org
Subject:

I didn't mean to imply that the breakup with Melissa has turned me into an ascetic monk, as you put it, or that I'm anti-sex, and I know those aren't your words, but I felt your suspicions between the lines.

I get the opposite reaction in the corner market. A pretty woman smiles at me in the corner market and all I want to do is rub up on her leg. Perverse eh? Maybe. Maybe shopping for food is sexier than shopping for sex. Of course I'm not shopping for food because I don't cook. I do buy bubble gum though and head over to the strip club to chew. Because I like bubble gum. That way I can go in and sit for while without diving straight into the peanuts like they're the first thing I've eaten all day.

I quit another job. Not sure if I told you I had this one. I was working at a club down by the river, I was supposedly head of security, but I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do exactly. Anyway last weekend some kid stabbed another kid over a girl or a drink or maybe the color of his bandana, I can't remember, but I realized that preventing that was my job and apparently I sucked at it so I haven't gone back since. 


From: Dean O'Leary <do@polyphemus.net>
To: sil@kali.org
Subject:

No I don't think it was my fault exactly, I mean all I did was watch the cameras in a back room and then call the bouncers on their headsets. And I found out yesterday that the kid lived and he's more or less fine, only one kidney now, but the doctor I called said that you can live just fine with only one kidney. In fact, he said almost anything you have two of, you can live with just one of. I suppose you have to make adjustments, but you won't just die. Though he did say that the kid was lucky. I told him I didn't really think that losing a kidney was lucky and he said that it was better than dying. But he's never died so how is he so sure about that?

And you know Sil, not having children is counter-evolutionary and goes against almost everything in the universe. At the same time, not raising your children is also counter-evolutionary and best only contemplated when all sharp objects have been locked away and the long distance service has long since been shut off.


From: Dean O'Leary <do@polyphemus.net>
To: sil@kali.org
Subject:

Won't that be the greatest irony though Sil? If death and whatever is after it is somehow infinitely more wonderful than life? But like you say, there's no way to know without forfeiting life, although I read somewhere that someone called the orgasm a 'little death,' but I don't really believe that. And neither does anybody else or we'd all commit suicide. 

The corner market raised the price of Bubble Yum by five cents. I couldn't believe it, I mean what's five more cents mean to them? How many packs of gum can they possibly sell in a year, maybe five a day? It turns out that's about $900 a year, apparently that pays their rent for an extra month --just by raising the price of gum five cents. 

Anyway I switched to Trident because even though I have to chew at least two sticks of Trident to match every one of Bubble Yum it's still cheaper. And it's sugar free and good for your teeth I guess, though you can't really trust advertising. When I'm planning on going to the strip club I go ahead and pop in three pieces of Trident because the longer I can hold out on the peanuts, the better I look. I never knew so many people where allergic to peanuts. Yesterday I was sitting next to a longshoreman --yeah I know I couldn't believe it either, there really are longshoremen-- named Randy and we were talking about the mob and munching peanuts, but then this girl came on stage and he shut up and actually straightened up a good bit on his stool and assumed a pose that normally I would call religious, but he had already mentioned he'd 'abandoned the church and its lies,' as he put it, so it was something else, but anyway, he stops talking mid-sentence, sits up straight and lapses into some sort of trance. I excused myself and went to the restroom because Randy seemed like he needed alone time. I came back and he was gone. About twenty minutes later he came out from the private rooms with swollen eyes, all he said was 'her vulva lips look just like my wife's' and then he crossed himself and walked out the door. A little while after that a couple of paramedics came rushing into the club and everybody panicked like the medics were the cops or something and dashed out the door. I hung around for bit because I was curious. A couple of the girls came out of the back and ordered some drinks and told the bartender that apparently the girl with Randy's wife's vulva was allergic to peanuts and somewhere in the midst of the lap dance she gave him, well, there must have been some peanuts in his lap or something and she swelled up like a balloon and couldn't breath so the DJ called the paramedics. 

The whole thing made me think of Maya, she's allergic to peanuts isn't she?


From: Dean O'Leary <do@polyphemus.net>
To: sil@kali.org
Subject:

I wish I could sell chiclets Sil, but that's a Mexico only thing I think. Perhaps there's some law against it here. Besides, realistically, I might be too old to sell chiclets, even in Mexico. Or lacking in ailments. Now if it were me that had lost a kidney I might be able to do it. And man I'd have a total monopoly, I don't think I've ever seen chiclets in the states. Perhaps that's the appeal of Trident, it's sort of toward the chiclet end of the gum spectrum --though it lacks the crunchy shell. It does have the whole simple, primary color flavor thing going on. I used to look at the Bubble Yum and try to figure out which colors were which in the whole flavor/color scheme, but with Trident it's pretty simple, green for wintergreen, blue for mint, red for cinnamon, pink for bubble gum, though really Sil, what is bubble gum flavor? And why is it pink? I mean pink seems right for the flavor we call bubble gum, but is that just because we're used to pink being the flavor of bubble gum or is it because the flavor of bubble gum is actually a pink taste? At this point we just have to accept it and move on.

Anyway, I got a new job down at the strip club being a DJ. It's pretty good as jobs go. I sit in a booth and play whatever the girls want to dance to and then introduce them and hit play on the cd player and pick up a book. Lately I've been reading a book on the growth of this thing called fundamentalism. I'm kind of obsessed with this notion that the past was somehow purer, because sometimes I think it was. I mean, take for example Jimmy's Falcon or your and Scratch's trucks. Just sit back and absorb them sometime and then look at my Honda and tell me you don't think that perhaps the past might have harbored some sort of purity that got lost along the way. I mean I know it's a big load of crap, but I understand why people might yearn for it, so to speak. What I don't understand is the leap from 'I value these things' to 'therefore you must too, or be killed.' I mean these feelings and longings are not hard and fast facts, and yet all over the world people are being slaughtered in the name of whatever culturally induced hallucination of the past is big in that geographic region. I find it terribly compelling so I took my tips from last night and bought this book.

The good news is that I don't have to buy the gum everyday before I come in. Unfortunately I can't let go of the ritual so I still buy it, but at least now I don't have to.


From: Dean O'Leary <do@polyphemus.net>
To: sil@kali.org
Subject:

I would imagine she does doesn't she? I mean don't most girls her age? Isn't there something terribly satisfying about the click-clack sound of the sorbum between the teeth that no teenage girl can resist? And the book makes a point of saying that your brain's memory development is incomplete before about eighteen months, so even though you can't remember it, there has to be some association with the lipsmacking of that period. But you can't go all the way back, you never can, so imagination forms a haze that turns your memories into something other. 

The strange thing is Sil, in spite of this book's obvious bent, I can't help but sympathize with the fundamentalists even though on the rational side I think they're insane. On the other side I understand what they're getting at, even if they go about it in the entirely wrong way and are probably actually getting at something very different than I am.

Oh and the girl with the allergy is named Caroline, but she dances under the name Brenda. And I told her that Maya had a similar allergy and she said it's the most common allergy in the states and that it's because they've been genetically engineered more than any other plant and I said no, Jimmy Carter would not have allowed it and the conversation deteriorated and now I don't think she likes me very much and you even less because I told her that you said the thing about Jimmy Carter. Sorry.

But on the bright side I get free gum now because I convinced the corner market guys to give me a big box of it and that I would sell it all to the dancers in exchange for some free gum for myself. And it worked because the dancers were always bumming gum off me anyway and feeling bad, so now I sell it to them and take the money back to the guys at the corner store who I've determined are not fundamentalists so I don't feel like I'm contributing to anything and I'm getting free gum.


From: Dean O'Leary <do@polyphemus.net>
To: sil@kali.org
Subject:

No I think you're quite right to raise that question, and yes they are Middle Eastern, but isn't it just as racist of you to assume that they are Middle Eastern just because they happen to own a liquor store in Brooklyn? But of course you were right so perhaps they're guilty of perpetuating racial myths and stereotypes, damn them, but actually they're Sikhs (Sikhes?) which isn't something that this book gets into but they've supplied pamphlets for me to read about Sikh, whatever that is, and they have a sticker on the lottery ticket machine that reads: 'I'm a Sikh and an American,' which I take must ward off racist acts of violence in some way, which is a shame because I think deep down they're Sikhs who happen to live in America and I hate to see them have to compromise that, but I understand.

That's part of the fundamentalist bent though, to fear anything outside of the movement. It's the ultimate estrangement from the other i guess. 


From: Dean O'Leary <do@polyphemus.net>
To: sil@kali.org
Subject:

Outside? I don't see much of the outside Sil so I couldn't comment. I walk from the apartment to the strip club. On Tuesdays I stop in at the store to pick up gum if I need it, but for the most part I don't see the outside. 

So I guess I can see your point.



From: Dean O'Leary <do@polyphemus.net>
To: sil@kali.org
Subject:

But what is the Other? I mean it's THE OTHER right? Other than, Other wise, Other ways, Other times, Other people, Other places, Other, it's close to Otter you know, and otters seem like they're pretty friendly so I don't know, but perhaps other people's association of other are different and so there's perhaps an element of uncertainty which leads to fear and other things, but that reminds me, I've adopted a cat. He showed up on the back porch one day like he'd been there everyday for all of eternity looking at me like it was clear that I was the one who had always been feeding me and so I did and he comes back every afternoon meowing. And it's a strange meow, half-plaintive half-demanding some expectation. Luckily the guys at the corner store have donated some Alley Cat to the cause. He's a strange cat too, slate grey with no other markings whatsoever. I named him Portland.


From: Dean O'Leary <do@polyphemus.net>
To: sil@kali.org
Subject:

No it's nothing so obvious as that Sil. I mean it's a cat. (I've had to stop calling it he or she because I don't know and I figure, if the species chose not to clearly differentiate, who am I to pry?)