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from Journal

by LEONARD MICHAELS

We made love all afternoon. Sonny asked, "Was it good?" I said, "Never in my life" etc. The irrelevance of words, the happiness of being free of all such clothing. I lie on my back. Dumb. Savoring dumbness. My mother said she found my father on his back on the bedroom floor, staring up at her with a dumb little smile on his face, as if it weren't bad being dead. He'd gone like himself, a sweet gentleman with fine nervous hands, not wanting her to feel distressed. It's a mystery how one learns to speak, the great achievement of life. But when the soul speaks -- alas it is no longer the soul that speaks.

Billy says, "Why don't you let me do it? Afraid you might like it?"

A huge fellow with the face of a powerful dullard stood behind the counter. He turned for items on the shelf and I saw that his pants had slipped below his hips, where he was chopped sheer from lower back to legs. No ass to hold up his pants. His bulk pushed forward and heaved up into his chest. He had a hanging mouth and little eyes with a birdlike shine. I bought salami and oranges from him, thought I no longer felt any desire to eat.

We made love all afternoon. Sonny asked, "Was it good?" I said, "Never in my life" etc. She said, "I should be compensated."

Alone, you hear yourself chewing and swallowing. You sound like an animal. With company everyone eats, talk obscures the noises in your head, and nobody looks at what your mouth is doing, or listens to it. In this high blindness and deafness lives freedom. Would I think so if I hadn't left her?

She pressed my leg with hers under the table. Conversation stopped. She continued pressing, then pulled away abruptly. She did it to excite herself, that's all. Her makeup was sloppy, her clothes were stylish. She'd start to say something, then laugh and say, "No." I'd never seen anyone more depressed. She said, "Driving to work I brush my teeth. I'm the invisible woman." I said, "I locked myself out of my office and my car. I don't even exist." She said, "I lost my checkbook and sunglasses. Nobody needs them." "I forgot my appointment. Nobody wants to meet me." She frowned. "You're trying and that's sweet. But I don't care."

Deborah's dentist, a little Jewish man, talks incessantly and she can't say a word because her mouth is pried open, under investigation by steel instruments, and also hooked like a fish by a suction tube. Nevertheless her dentist says things that require an answer, so she grunts and moans to say, yes, no, really, how nice, too bad. Last time she saw him he carried on about Buddhism, which he studies with monks in a temple. He said, incidentally, that he'd learned to levitate. She asked him if he meant "meditate" rather than "levitate." He said, "No, I mean levitate." She asked him to show her. He said, "No, no." She pleaded with him. He refused. She refused to leave. He said, "Just once." He turned his back to her, crouched slightly, and lifted off the floor. I waited for Deborah to continue, but hat was the end. She had no more to say. I snapped at her, "He did not levitate." She said, truly astonished, "He didn't?"

Sonny was my best friend. Then she says, "I met a man last night." My heart grew heavy. I couldn't count on her anymore for dinner, long talks on the telephone, serious attention to my problems, and she'll no longer tell me about herself, how well or ill she slept last night, and whether she dreamed, and what she did yesterday, and what people told her and she them. She said, "I don't know why, but I feel guilty towards you." I said, "What's he like?"

She said he is some kind of psychotherapist, divorced, lives in Mill Valley. His former wife is Korean, a fashion model. She made him install a plate-glass window in their living room so birds would fly into it and break their necks. She had them stuffed.

"Oh, I know the guy," I said. "Women find him attractive."

"How do men find him?" I was conscious of the danger.

"He dresses well. He likes classical music, and hiking. He goes sailing. He's a good cook. Doesn't smoke."

"You think he's a prick."

You can find the first three entries in Leonard Michaels' Journal here, here, and here.

"Your Moon" - Sun Airway (mp3)

"Waiting on You" - Sun Airway (mp3)

"Swallowed by the Night" - Sun Airway (mp3)

Comments

[Emily]

Thanks for posting these songs. Further research has taught me that the band is actually called Sun Airway. I think Oh, Naoko would be a cooler band name, but the songs are excellent.