Andrew Culver’s Weblog

Josh, with twisted hair and flying hands,

He sits upright to strike ethereal chords,

And sometimes causes goosebumps with his words,

Or makes me dream of strange and distant lands.

He plays alone, or sometimes plays in bands-

How does this beauty come from keys and boards,

Dead wood that seems to conjure kings and lords?

His eyes are beacons, his hands are magic wands.

This Josh must be some kind of holy wizard,

To make pure sound and beauty from thin air,

And harmony from the disunited notes;

Perhaps like Jim he is some kind of lizard,

In his dark blazing eyes a far-off stare,

While on his sound waves sail his golden boats.

Josh plays piano

Chopin, Bach, Rachmaninov

While I watch TV

Wallace Stevens is traditionally thought of as a difficult poet. While his poems do sometimes meander and lose their coherence, the real difficulties lie in his attitudes towards religion. The early twentieth century was a time when man’s faith in spirituality was shaken, and Stevens’s poetry responds directly to this challenge. At times one notices a sense of spiritual emptiness in his observations. And a close look at his poems shows a tendency to use poetry as a method of philosophical inquiry. His poetry has been divorced from the divine, as has modern philosophy. This religious skepticism is what makes Stevens such a strong representative of the modern age. There is, however, a constant spiritual yearning in his work that suggests his skepticism is not easily maintained. He seems to be almost desperate to replace religion with a poetry that will comfort our spiritual urges. It is this difficult task which provides the true challenges to his readers. Stories of Stevens’s deathbed conversion to Catholicism are not completely unbelievable, given the constant spiritual tension in his work that seems to cry out for a resolution.

“Sunday Morning” is a poem that seems obsessed with the absence of religion. Stevens uses colorful details to enforce the presence of this sensual, earthly life. “The pungent oranges and bright, green wings/ Seem things in some procession of the dead.” There is no spiritual life in these objects. Stevens’s narrator vacillates between opposing ideas, in the way Frost’s narrators often do. In “Sunday Morning” there is a tension between the need for something eternal and the intellectual dissatisfaction with the eternal. “She says, ‘But in contentment I still feel/ The need of some imperishable bliss.’” Stevens answers the woman in the next line – “Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,/ Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams/ And our desires.”

He goes on to quibble with the idea of a Christian heaven. “Is there no change of death in paradise?/ Does ripe fruit never fall?” He wonders if there are “rivers like our own that seek for seas/ They never find, the same receding shores/ That never touch with inarticulate beauty?” For this narrator paradise could not be where earthly beauty comes from. It is not even believable as a place. It logically could not exist. The very impermanence of life causes its beauty. Yet there is a persistent discontent with this earthly existence. “We live in an old chaos of the sun,/ An old dependency of day and night,” he tells us, reinforcing the opposing ideas of faith and skepticism. Stevens seems to be admitting that religion, once it is gone, cannot be simply forgotten. The idea of eternity and paradise is too powerful to be reconciled or replaced with “Complacencies of the peignoir, and late/ Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair.” He is in a philosophically difficult position.

Perhaps Stevens’s trouble comes with the relative newness of atheism as an acceptable philosophical position in the early twentieth century. He is struggling with ideas that were not easy to digest – a world without a God, a world of pluralism and irreconcilable opposites. In “The Death of a Soldier” he appears to be shocked by his own understanding of death. He connects the death with the seasons, which is one of his usual devices, perhaps to lend meaning to an impermanent existence. His focus on the seasons may be a way of understanding a perpetual cycle that continues without us. “Life contracts and death is expected,/ As in a season of autumn./ The soldier falls.” There is something comforting about meditating on seasonal change. Seasons are a paradoxical example of change and permanence – a constantly repeating cycle. Reinforcing the Godlessness of this death, Stevens tells us that “He does not become a three-days personage,/ Imposing his separation,/ Calling for pomp.” There is nothing Christ-like in this soldier. Yet why would he go out of his way to tell us that? If this is a truly Godless world Stevens portrays, why is he so obsessed with reminding himself, and us, of its Godlessness? Again, this may be due to the relative newness of atheism, or it may be due to Stevens’s spiritual yearning. The story of a deathbed conversion is not totally unbelievable, given the spiritual tension that is so present in his work. It seems that Stevens’s characters and narrators are in a state of suspension – not willing to accept atheism but unable to embrace Christianity.

Stevens uses winter, as he does frequently, in “The Snow Man.” Here he uses it to signify a spiritual desolation – a complete absence of spirit in the world. It is a world of changing, soulless phenomena. The use of winter shows us that to this narrator something is terrifying, miserable and depressing about this spiritual absence. “One must have a mind of winter/ To regard the frost and the boughs/ Of the pine-trees crusted with snow…and not to think/ Of any misery in the sound of the wind,/ In the sound of a few leaves.” The idea that there is no intelligence beyond nature is terrifying to the poetic speaker. Stevens’s atheism is a precarious philosophical admission. He is almost crying out for a dead God. There is nothing of Nietzsche’s joy at proclaiming God to be dead, and none of the philosophic confidence of Stevens’s teacher William James, who dealt with the issue by psychologizing religion.

Stevens’s philosophical and poetic method of inquiry reaches an almost Whitmanian height of celebration in “The Idea of Order at Key West.” The metaphor of the woman singing by the sea suggests a sense of the success of poetry creating the world it describes. “She was the single artificer of the world/ In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,/ Whatever self it had, became the self/ That was her song, for she was the maker.” Stevens’s doubts appear to be resolved in this image. Art, here, becomes an ecstatic resolution to Stevens’s religious tensions. The singer of the poem creates a self out of the sea, and resolves humanity’s wishes with the emptiness of the natural world. In a section that calls to mind Walt Whitman’s chanting to the sea in his “Sea Drift” poems, Stevens posits a vivid image. “Tell why the glassy lights,/ The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,/ As the night descended, tilting in the air,/ Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,/ Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,/ Arranging, deepening enchanting night.” This is finally an answer to the uneasy atheism of his philosophy. Poetry and art, in this poem, successfully create a spiritual union with a spiritless world, satisfying Stevens’s religious desires. Stevens at last achieves a much-needed transcendence.

Religion is an uneasy subject in Stevens’s work, and he attempts to solve modern religious doubts with poetry and the imagination. He has varied success at this, considering the difficulty of the task. He is obsessed with the fragmented nature of modern reality and desperately tries to reconcile the innate need for religion with the inability of religion to attend to modern man’s needs. There is an understanding that religion needs to change or poetry needs to change to adapt to a monumental shift in human consciousness. If Wallace Stevens did indeed have a Catholic conversion in his final hours, it must have been at the end of a long poetic quest, the fruits of which were too perilous or too difficult to maintain.

Here is what you will need:

Li’l Smokies

Buttermilk Biscuits

Velveeta

Dijon mustard

Minced Garlic

Paprika

Milk

Butter

Directions:

This one is a little tricky, but it’s surprisingly simple. Begin by assembling the pigs in a blanket. To do this you roll the biscuit dough around a li’l smokie so it completely covers the “pig,” if you will. Assemble as many as you will be serving. I will leave that up to you. Once you have assembled them put them on a baking sheet that has been buttered down so they don’t stick. Put them in the oven on 400 for about ten minutes, or until the crust is nice and golden.

The sauce:

Here is the fun part. Put the velveeta in a pot with some butter. Wait for it to melt and put the dijon into the mix. Be liberal with it. Taste it and see how much you feel like putting in. Have fun with it. Stir frequently. Once it has all melted together, add the garlic and the paprika and stir vigorously. Remove from heat. Add the milk and stir vigourously. Once it has the consistency you like, cover and let it sit.

When the pigs are done, take them out and pour the cheese sauce over them. Make sure you cover every last inch of them with cheese. Just drown them. Serve and enjoy! I suggest eating them with a fork.  

Here is what you will need:

Campbell’s cheddar cheese soup

Velveeta

Sharp sharp SHARP cheddar or a well-aged gouda that is really tangy and pungent

A mild cheese, like havarti

A good, strong parmesan cheese

Macaroni

Butter

Minced garlic

Directions:

1. Boil the macaroni for a few minutes. Do not cook it all the way through.

2. Drain the macaroni. Put it back in the pot and add the Cheese soup, butter, and the velveeta. These will form a cheese base so the dish is nice and thick. Add the minced garlic and cook until the cheese is all melted and hot and the macaroni is cooked.

3. Grate the sharp cheddar into the mix. Stir vigorously.

4. Grate the havarti into the mix. Stir vigorously.

5. Remove from heat IMMEDIATELY. Cover and wait. The grated cheese should be melting beautifully into the mix.  Sprinkle the parmesan on top of the still-warm macaroni mix and allow to cool for at least a minute before serving.

NOTE: You can choose to augment this dish with tomatoes or roasted bell peppers, or peas for that matter. I will leave that up to you. Have fun with it. The trick is getting the consistency of the cheese just right, but once you’ve done that, go sailing and have a ball with it.

I was sitting in the hot tub by the indoor pool, enjoying myself, when Marty walked past me. I knew it was bad news. He stopped. His eyes were intense.

“Andrew, hey, you heard about hockey practice this afternoon, right?”

“Oh, no…I didn’t hear.”

“Yeah, the team is getting together and going to the rink, so we’re going to need you out there with us. I’ll come by your room in a half hour.”

“Yeah, okay.”

He left. Goddamn it. I was not doing this again. It was a waste of time. I got out and hurried back the my hotel room, got dressed, and looked out in the hallway to make sure no one was around. I put on a sweater and a scarf for the cold, then walked quickly through the lobby, past the bar and into the snow. Thank God! I had avoided Marty! Then I saw him at the other end of the parking lot, unloading some film gear out of a truck. I hurried out of the lot onto the street, looking back to make sure he hadn’t seen me.

The street was icy and snow drifted down as I walked through the town of Red Deer, Alberta. What the hell was I doing here? Where was I going to go? I didn’t care. Anywhere was better than the hockey practice.

I didn’t get it. My character was not supposed to know how to ice skate or play hockey. Why did I have to be at hockey practice? Was it for humiliation? All I did was skate around, trying not to fall down. I couldn’t believe they were filming this movie in the middle of nowhere. I walked through the snowy, empty town, finally coming to a downtown area. Oh good. Maybe there would be a coffee shop or something. I passed a grain and feed depot for cows and horses. Then some kids rolled by in a beat-up truck and looked at me.

“Hey fag!”

“He’s a queer, eh?”

“Look at the hoser!”

They snickered and drove off. It was probably my scarf that made me stand out. God, I hated Canada. Patrick, the star of the film, kept telling me Canada wasn’t all like this. I’m sure there were good parts, but this wasn’t one of them. The whole town smelled like cow manure from the countless farms surrounding Red Deer. I mean, the name for God’s sake. Any town named after an animal is not a place you can find a good California roll, or a even decent burrito. Maybe I could even find an okay cup of coffee. I passed the town hall, a brick building with a statue of the first mayor out in front. That was the main tourist attraction of Red Deer. Then I came to an embankment. Down the embankment on the street below was a cozy little coffee shop called Suzie’s. It looked warm and friendly. I was tired of all this cold and all this snow.

There was no stairway so I walked down the muddy hill. But my foot slipped on some ice and I lost my balance, careening down the hill and landing in a pile of mud. I got up, shocked and angry, and looked at my pants. A giant smear of mud ran from my boots to my waste. My jacket was smeared as well. My whole left side was pretty much drenched in mud.

I looked at the coffee shop. Some old men turned around and regarded me with mild interest.

“You sure took a spill, eh?”

“Yeah. I’m not from around here. I guess I’m not used to the mud.”

I was so bored that I wouldn’t have minded hanging out with these old guys for awhile, but I figured I was in no shape to go into the coffee shop. I looked at my watch. It was too early. Marty might still be at the hotel.

I walked around for awhile and found a giant supermarket. I was so cold I didn’t care about my muddy clothes, which had dried by now, and went in to walk around. The people in this town were overweight and had bland, drooping faces. These were simple farming people. I bought a couple of chicken nuggets from their hot food section with some loonies I had in my jacket pocket.

Finally it was safe to go back. They were either in practice or back from practice by now. I walked to the hotel and entered the lobby. Dave, one of the grips, was sitting at the restaurant and called to me.

“You fell in the mud, eh?”

“Yeah.”

“Man, you really took a spill, eh? Ha ha ha!”

“I guess I did.”

“Hey, did you hear? Our checks aren’t coming until next week.”

“What? Our checks are late?”

“Yeah, they said there’s a problem with the funding.”

“Oh great. Jesus. I’m gonna run out of money if I don’t get my check.”

“You can still eat here for free, just charge it to the production.”

“Okay. I gotta go clean up.”

“I’ll be in the bar, come hang out!”

I walked towards my room when Marty rounded the corner with his hockey gear. He was all sweaty and tired and followed by some of the other guys.

“Hey, nice of you to skip out on practice,” one of them said.

“Hey, Andrew, can we talk for a sec?”

I stopped. Marty came up to me.

“Hey guys, good practice today. I’ll see you at eight for the character workshop.”

I looked at him.

“Andrew, I have to say, and this isn’t just coming from me, but we feel like you’re not really part of the team.”

“The team?”

“Yeah, a lot of the guys, and myself included, feel like you don’t really make an effort to include yourself on the team. And it’s really hurting team morale-”

“Marty! There’s no team. It’s a movie. It’s acting. There’s no real team at all. It’s all make believe. What does it matter? My character isn’t supposed to know how to play hockey, I don’t see what the point-”

“Andrew, Andrew, Andrew…listen, I know it might be frustrating coming here and it’s a weird new environment, but I really want you to start making an effort, okay? It would mean a lot to me. I mean, I believe in this movie a hundred percent. This is my baby, you know? It’s my heart and soul. I think it’s a very special story we’re telling. And I really want everyone to treat it like it’s special.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll treat it like it’s special when I get my paycheck.”

I walked away and went to my room to change. I went to the bar that night and had a couple Molson’s Canadians, then went to the hot tub and sat there for about an hour.

Later on the production had to stop because there was no funding. I spent a lot of time in that hot tub, waiting to hear what was happening. When the production finally collapsed we had to go home in a stolen production van because there was no money for plane tickets back. But by then spring had come and the drive through British Columbia was wonderful. It was like Switzerland – pristine wilderness and farm land for miles and miles. So it wasn’t all bad.

Geoffrey was only at my house for a couple of minutes before I asked him if he wanted to go to Mrs. Knutsen’s.

“Okay. I have some money,” he said, jingling some change in his pocket.

Geoffrey and I went into my mom’s room where she was typing furiously at the typewriter. She was lost in another world.

“We’re going to Mrs. Knutsen’s.”

She gave me some money and we went out to get our bikes. As we rode down my long driveway we looked over and saw my dad chopping wood. He held a large axe in his hand and his face was sweaty and grimy. He regarded us stoically as he wiped beads of sweat off his brow.

“We’re going to Mrs. Knutsen’s,” I said, trying to convince Geoffrey that my dad was a normal, talkative kind of guy.

“Be careful,” he thundered ominously, and swung his axe into a log, cleaving it viciously in two. Geoffrey and I kept riding. We were quiet for awhile.

“Um, your dad is a little scary,” he said.

“Yeah. Elliot also said that.”

“Well, it’s just that every time I see him he’s carrying an axe.”

“Yeah. He has to make firewood for the winter.”

“And he doesn’t talk much. Do you think he’s ever killed anyone? He could hide the body in the woods and no one would know.”

“Whoa. I should ask him. That’s a good question.”

Pretty soon we rode past Mrs. Olsen’s place, the old hermit lady with the dogs. Pretty soon, as always, her two dogs ran out to the fence and began to bark loudly and stupidly at us.

“I hate these dogs,” Geoffrey said, throwing a rock at them.

“I saw that!” screamed a voice from the trees. Mrs. Olsen came out of the woods pointing a shaky finger at me.

“You’re Andrew Culver, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“I know your mother. I’m calling her right now. I’m telling her what you’re doing to my dogs.”

“We weren’t doing anything,” Geoffrey said. “They were barking at us.”

She got right up to the fence and glared at us.

“I have been watching you,” she hissed. “I know all the things you do. Spying on the neighbors. You’re a nuisance and everyone knows it.”

“Oh Jeez,” Geoffrey said. “Let’s go.”

We rode on as Mrs. Olsen shouted. We got to the top of Ware Road and rode our bikes along Skyline Boulevard through the Redwood path.

“This is where Jenny Gwartney lives,” I said as we passed a house with several broken-down vehicles in the front yard.

“This is her house?” he said. “Let’s see if she wants to go to Mrs. Knutsen’s with us.”

“No, I don’t think so. Her dad is really mean.”

“Oh. Okay.”

As we passed by I heard a man yelling and some dishes crashing. Jenny always looked a little weird at school. She was a nice girl but I think her mom had left and her brother was a delinquent. He had stolen some stuff from school and gotten in a lot of trouble.

Finally we got to the two-story house of Mrs. Knutsen, in a clearing on Skyline across from the firehouse. We knocked on the door and waited. It always took her a long time because she was very old.

“Is your mom working on any books now?” Geoffrey asked.

“Yeah, she has one about a ranch and a cowboy or something.”

“Have you ever read your mom’s books?”

“No.” I was tired of people asking me that question. “They’re romance novels, Geoffrey. I would rather read Calvin and Hobbes.”

“She should write some stuff about Batman.”

“I know. Then I’d read it.”

The door opened slowly and Mrs. Knutsen poked her head out. She had a wrinkled old face with curly white hair and a kind old lady’s smile.

“Oh, I think I know what you’re here for.” She smiled and turned on the lights. My heart pounded with excitement as the room was illuminated. On the walls were shelves and shelves of candy. Gobstoppers, Sour Jacks, Jawbreakers, Big League Chew, Lemonheads…

Geoffrey got out his change and held out to her as an offering.

“Can I have a Milky Way?”

“Of course you can.”

She walked away and about three minutes later came back with the Milky Way. Geoffrey gave her his fifty cents and she turned to me.

“Um, let me see…” I stammered. I couldn’t make up my mind. “Do you have Dots?”

“Of course I do. Let me get them.”

She walked into the pantry and scrounged around for the Dots, then returned and handed them to me.

“Fifty cents.”

I gave it to her and we were about to leave.

“Did you know there are ghosts in my house?”

“I think you told me that before,” Geoffrey said.

“They talk to me.”

“What do they say?” I asked.

“Oh, they tell me stories. I’ve written some of them down. One of them was a lumberjack who lived on this mountain a hundred years ago. His wife died, you know, and he was here all alone. So he talks to me through the walls. Would you like to see the stories?”

“That’s okay, Mrs. Knutsen,” Geoffrey said, getting on his bike. He was clearly freaked out. “We’ll do it some other day.” He started riding away so I got on my bike and followed him.

We went up to the Firehouse and sat on a log eating our candy.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” I asked Geoffrey.

“No.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

“She just freaks me out sometimes.”

“Well, she’s the only place to get candy around here, so…”

“I just don’t want to hear her stories.”

We stayed there for awhile. Then it was getting late so Geoffrey went home and I rode my bike back to my house. By then it was almost dark and Jenny’s house was quiet. Mrs. Olsen had gone inside and my dad was done with his wood-chopping. The mountain was dark and silent, except for a few dogs howling in the canyon.

Ingredients:

Boullion- I like to use Better than Boullion. It really is! If you can’t find it, chicken stock or regular boullion will do.

Herbs- I like to use the Herbes de Provence at Trader Joe’s, but in general marjoram, thyme, rosemary, dill, and cilantro are great. Chop them up very small.

Chicken- Frozen chicken tenderloins work well. No preparation necessary.

Noodles- Rotini is good, or any pasta that is small and unobtrusive.

Lemons- Make sure you have some lemons available. You are going to need them.

Vegetables – onions, carrots, and peas.

Garlic- I like to have a few cloves of garlic for flavoring purposes.

Directions:

1. Start with the broth. Chicken soup is all about the broth, so really take your time developing a great broth. If you are using Better than Boullion, mix water and boullion according to your preferences. You can add water or boullion later so don’t worry about exact amounts. That’s the beauty of the crock pot. There will be plenty of time to tinker with it.

2. Put a half lemon into the broth with the herbs. Add the carrots. Chop the onions into very small pieces and add them according to how much you like onions. They will really give the broth a good flavor, so make sure there is a good onion presence. Add the garlic cloves as well. No need to dice them, as their very presence will lend flavor to the broth.

3. Add the chicken and set the crock pot on medium. Cook for about two hours or so. When the chicken is good and tender you may proceed.

4. Add the noodles and let them cook. When the noodles are good and tender add the peas. They shouldn’t take long to cook. Make sure you don’t overcook them as they will lose their sweet, wonderful flavor.

5. Squeeze some lemon into the soup and stir it around.

6. Make sure the broth is perfect. Add salt, pepper, or Tabasco sauce if you want. Then serve and enjoy.

As we approached the planet the swirling gas clouds, white and orange, floated outside the window.

“Oh my God,” I muttered as my mom woke up on the bed.

“Are we there?” she slurred. “Where’s my cognac?”

“We’re here, mom. Look. We made it.”

“Jesus Christ.” She sat up and looked out the window. I couldn’t believe she’d made it the whole way. I got out my suitcase and started to pack my clothes.

“Sean, we made it…we should’ve brought your father with us.”

“He’s dead, mom, remember? He didn’t want you to die on earth?”

“Oh yessss…so nice of him. How much do we owe for the train ride?”

“The ship? You mean the ship, mom? He left us the money, remember? Come on, mom, we gotta get your stuff in the suitcase, we’re getting off soon.”

“Is this going to be a nice place?”

“Yes, mom, yes. We decided on this one. We looked at the brochures with dad, remember? Come on, let’s get your stuff together.”

The only reason I had patience was because soon I would be on land…I would be at New Rome, with the tropical climate and strange foliage and the flying lizards and the candy flowers.

“What about your trouble?”

She was finally gathering her things. She had a huge pile of jewelry she’d collected over the decades that she was putting into a wicker box she’d carried all the way from Earth.

“What trouble, mom? My debt? I told you, that doesn’t matter here. There’s no debt here. Everything is going to be fine.”

A giant bird swooped past the window, with a lizard in its beak. I stopped what I was doing and stared out the window. We were now coming down to the skyport, over a city of canals and bridges and large public gardens. It was true! All the pictures and videos were wonderfully, gloriously true. The city looked large and mellow. I was finally here. We would live in our little house that dad had bought us, and mom would live the last few years in peace, away from that goddamned planet that we had fucked up so badly. I was so tired and I couldn’t wait to get to our house with the pool and the porch. That was all I wanted. A porch and a rocking chair.

A knock came at the door.

“Jenkins? Sean Jenkins?”

“Yeah! Come in!”

The porter came in.

“This your mom?”

“Yes.”

“Ashley Jenkins?”

“Yes indeed.”

“You too are ready to get off at New Rome?”

“Yes sir.”

“Have a great stay.”

His smile was wide and genuine.

“We’ll be stopped here for a whole day, so you two take your time.”

He was about to leave.

“Oh, sir – “

“Yes?”

“How long will it take ‘til we’re there?”

“Just about a half an hour.”

He was about to leave again.

“Oh! One more question.”

“Of course.”

“Are the flowers really ten feet high here?”

“Absolutely, Mr. Jenkins.”

“And they smell like candy?”

“Just like candy.”

“Is it true that you can eat the petals?”

“Oh, yes. It makes the locals quite forgetful.”

“And it’s legal?”

“Hardly anything is illegal here, Mr. Jenkins.”

“Thank you.”

He left.

“Come on, mom, I’ve been on this ship for six fucking months, let’s get off as soon as we can.”

“I need a drink.”

“We’ll get one as soon as we get off.”

When the ship landed we were ready with our bags. The porter came to take them and we walked down the hall to the escalator. The warm, thick atmosphere hit my nose. It was musky and sweet. I knew those were the candy flowers. I would eat them with relish. Maybe I would forget everything. That was fine with me. I walked down the landing strip towards the runway where the bright sun, the first sun I’d seen in six months, was blazing beautifully. And my mother and I walked slowly into the brilliant white light towards a new world together.

I walked back down Adams with the Ralphs bag in my hand. I had two forty ounce bottles of Old English and a giant frozen pizza. I had found the pizza on sale for five dollars. The day was another hot and musty one. There was no breeze and the palm trees stood motionless, towering above me in rows. This was the smoggiest part of the city. Right at the middle of the basin where it collected. I couldn’t wait for nightfall so the heat would die down. On my left I passed the haunted house, as I called it. It was a giant Victorian with three stories hidden behind a tall row of hedges. It was always dark except for purple lights shining through the windows at night. I swear there was a belfry full of bats in that house. I had seen strange old people going in and out. Relics from a time before the freeways.

Traffic breathed around me, in and out with a constant roar. On my right was a huge ugly apartment building. It was a two story block with about thirty units crammed with Mexicans. In front was an atrocious cement parking lot.. Today some of the Mexican families were having a barbecue and the kids played with a bouncy ball on the pavement. An old black man was sitting and watching everything. A group of Mexican women looked at me as I passed. For a moment our eyes met. They didn’t recognize me and I didn’t recognize them.

I turned the corner onto Ellendale Place. It was a very wide street, full of two-story apartment buildings from the sixties and seventies. Sometimes I could swear there was no way of telling what decade it was. Los Angeles was full of neighborhoods like that, that took you out of reality. That’s what I liked about Ellendale. I passed a quiet little Korean church and got to my apartment. It was a two-story place with four apartments. Ours was on the ground floor. Malik was still on the couch on the porch. He was a really tall black guy I knew who would stop by sometimes. He was about six foot ten and extremely mellow. I didn’t know much about him. He had fallen asleep.

“Hey,” I said, holding up the forty I’d gotten him. He awoke.

“Ohhh…shit. I fell asleep.”

“Here’s yours,” I said, and gave him the Old English.

I went inside to put the pizza in the freezer. Then I came back outside and we sat together on the couch. It was a pretty nice day if you were under a canopy. The college baseball team lived above us on the second floor, and some of them had just started drinking for the day. As we sat, beer cans flew down on the grass. A pizza box sat in the hedge. Yes, the world was a mess. But I was fine drinking my forty. I wasn’t hurting anybody.

“Are you still doing security?” I asked Malik.

“Yeah, but…my boss is being a little difficult.”

“What’s his problem?”

“Well, I have to take the bus all the way from my parents’ place to the club in West Hollywood. And that’s pretty far, you know? And he gets mad when I’m late. I’m late a lot though.”

“That sucks.”

He started to roll a blunt with a cheap cigar he’d bought at the store. With the skill of a surgeon he methodically cut the cigar, emptied it on the ground, then filled it with weed from a little baggy.

“This is the chronic,” he said.

We sat and watched cars fly by and old Korean ladies walk past with groceries.

“You know what happened last night?” Malik said. “I was chilling with the homeys from SOA in Hollywood, and my friend Stress was pretty drunk and for some reason he started kicking my bike.”

“What’s his problem?”

“I don’t know! He kicked it so hard that the wheel got all bent. So I couldn’t ride it.”

“How did you get home?”
“On the bus. But it was really late, and I was drunk. I was really drunk, because I drank a bunch of vodka. It was like two in the morning and I took the bus home. But I fell asleep on the bus, dude.”

“When did you wake up?”

“I was at eightieth street. So I had to walk back home, like forty blocks.”

“With your bike?”

“Yeah. I had to carry it.”

Something about the story struck me as hilarious and I laughed out loud.

“Damn dude,” he said. “I went on a mission last night.”

I was feeling pretty good. The sun would be setting in about forty minutes and the heat was fading away. Our neighbors were playing old Mexican love ballads. In the dimming daylight all the elements of the city started congealing into one vast, moving panorama. A helicopter flew lazily overhead on its way to somewhere we would never know. There were many mysteries around us.

“I bought a pizza,” I said. “Should I cook it?”

“I was getting hungry actually.”

Malik never had enough money so I tried to make some food every time he came over. He always ate and was always grateful. I went to pop the pizza in the oven. As it cooked the sun went down and inky blue of nighttime stole across the sky. The skyscrapers downtown still had a tinge of rosy pink at their tops from the sun, and pretty soon that was gone. The neighborhood got pretty quiet.

When the pizza was done we both got plates and sat on the couch, eating and passing the blunt back and forth.

“This is good,” Malik said. “Thanks man.”

“No problem. You know, Epicurus said that you should never eat alone.”

He thought.

“Yeah. I could see that. I’m an herbalist and I believe you should never blaze alone.”

After awhile we were done and he got up.

“I gotta be going.”

“Where are you off to?”

“Work.”

“Are you gonna be late?”

He thought about it, then looked at his watch.

“Yeah, probably.”

“Sorry dude.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Then he was off, down the street and into the night. I never knew when I would see Malik again. He was kind of mysterious. At the end of the day you could never know him completely. He just came, drank a forty, and left.