I'm going to go and read, or I'll stay here and read--
[LAUGHTER]
I'm getting a little loopy, sorry.
The kids were so intent at the jail today.
I read these pieces too.
I have these pieces about jail in the memoir.
There's some jail pieces in that.
And so I decided to read those.
I thought that'd be a good idea.
And then it's sort of criticizing the guards
and stuff in the piece.
And then it felt really uncomfortable
because all these guards around.
And they told me.
They made me promise not to read certain things to the kids.
And I forgot what I wasn't supposed to read to them.
Like I had to say that I wouldn't read,
I think it was sexual stuff or obscenities or something.
But I didn't know if I couldn't read bad stuff about the guards
though.
It wasn't bad.
It was just someone else was saying
bad stuff about the guards.
It's from Some Ether, it's called "Soft Radio."
You guys are kind of young, maybe
I need to explain what soft radio is.
You probably know-- actually, Linda Ronstadt, she's
soft radio.
It's a type of music from the '70s that they
play on the radio and they called it soft radio.
"Soft Radio."
"I don't know if Ivan is dead and I don't know who to ask.
Thin the last time I saw him.
Yellow, the hospital made him yellow.
Percodan made two of him, one aching from the stitches, one
hovering above whispering it's all right, it's all right.
Demerol flattened the doctors into playing cards,
shattering as they fell on top of him.
Behind each-- outer space, release.
At 17, crystal meth.
We loved the ring of it, like a girl's name, like a jewel.
We stole candles and a crowbar, tore the plywood off
a ruined beach house to spend the night in a tilted room.
We knew what to take.
Marijuana made the world small, a pinpoint.
Opium left us in the shower counting tiles.
Valium liked to drive, liked the red lights of traffic
at night, the heater off the window, the soft radio.
It was easy.
Always a $2 coat on Avenue A. You could always sell your dog.
Maybe Ivan is still sweating, propped at his table
at Foley's, nodding though no one is talking.
His loft, a Pompeii, holes kicked in the plaster.
He pisses out the window, leaving long yellow icicles
to dangle over the heads of businessmen.
On the train today an advertisement.
A pill rising over New York like the sun, like redemption.
Radiating, promising a clear new day.
And the city, again, spotless.
The Statue of Liberty, perfect clouds, the water all clear.
I don't know if Ivan is dead.
The same restlessness walks a young man
through moving subway cars toward
or away from someone he might love.
As a woman on the platform opens and closes
an umbrella, an enormous lung.
As a man rolls quarters between his fingers
chanting anyone, anyone."