I'm going to read the title story from this piece,
and I guess I should say that this book is called
"fictions" by the publisher, Fiction Collective,
but, actually, these little pieces
are all hybrids of some sort or another,
and the piece that I'm going to read, the title piece,
"The Garden in Which I Walk," you know, I actually
argued with some people about whether this was a prose poem
or not.
I actually think of it as fiction.
But this whole book has things that are kind
of uncategorizable, I guess.
I guess that's a good thing, but, you know,
some may think not.
It's hard for applying for things,
the uncategorizable writer.
Anyway, "The Garden in Which I Walk,"
and it's one of those pieces that the title sort of
works into the piece.
"The garden in which I walk is in the shadow
of the forty-story Church office building.
There are peonies, white, pink, mauve.
There are delphiniums, daisies, bamboo grass, chicken-and-egg,
coleus of all colors, forget-me-nots, tiny violas
with yellow centers.
There are sprinklers which mist even the concrete.
There is brownish concrete when wet, otherwise grey.
There is a fountain where water shoots out like a waterfall
into an enormous granite bowl.
There is a statue of a handsome religious leader holding hands
with and looking into the eyes of his dear wife.
There are accompanying bronzes of children dancing
in a circle, very joyous.
There is a slight breeze.
There is a man pushing his bicycle along,
pushing it along gravely, but seemingly without destination.
There are sprinklers which mist even the man's bicycle as he
traverses the narrow walkways.
There is a sharp squeaky sound coming from a nearby traffic
light which reminds me of a car burglar alarm.
There are no burglars.
There are no people coming into or going out
of the forty-story office building (it's Sunday).
There's me walking along in my new black shoes (avoiding
therefore the misting sprinklers) and my black hat.
There is the man with his bicycle
who is now going in the opposite direction
from the first direction in which he had been headed.
There are no bugs discernible to the naked eyeball,
there is a bigger breeze, there is the black hat tilted, blown
askew by the breeze which has now the force of a wind.
There are fat mounds of dirt beneath each clump of flowers.
There are no weeds, no errant plant
growths, no unruly anthills marring these dirt mounds.
There are mountains in the distance
which have jagged peaks like the mountains of Switzerland.
There is snow on some of the mountains
even though it is August.
There is a moderate amount of religious fervor in the air.
There are cars speeding by which are
visible over the ridge of the waterfall-like fountain.
There are minuscule chips of stone
embedded in the concrete over which the fountain water flows.
There is a shadow on the garden from the office building,
an actual shadow from the forty-story office building,
and a figurative shadow, call it historical.
There is a man who is now pausing with his bicycle,
staring idly at the Lady Banks roses.
There is a certain kind of comfort being offered here,
that is to say a certain precious, adorable kind
of comfort that invites you to surrender everything in return
for a nice vanilla cream pie.
There are no pies.
There is instead a profusion of flowers
everywhere in this garden in their perfectly manicured,
well-maintained beds, growing as per arrangement,
according to plan with no weeds.
There is everywhere the grim overhang of the office
building, but then there is also the sky which
is a pale cloudless blue, and the breeze which
accelerated into wind and now is stronger wind,
and the mountains with their little jagged frozen snow caps.
There is me running after my hat, which is dipping
and soaring with a mind of its own
into the fountain bowl where it fills with water and sinks.
There is the bicycle man alerted by the clomp-clomp of my shoes
on the pavement and veering his bicycle toward where
I am running after my hat.
There I am sitting by the side of the fountain,
my arm submerged to the elbow trying for the hat and swearing
loudly with no fear of offending anyone,
having momentarily forgotten about the man
with the bicycle who is now unmistakably moving toward me,
pushing his bicycle which has a creaky wheel.
There is the wind dying down.
There is a penny in the crack between blocks of grey
aggregate.
There is me gazing intently at the penny
because there is the man heading toward me, coming closer.
There is the man offering to retrieve my hat.
There is the man with his arm submerged
to the elbow in fountain water.
There is a mustache on the man, speckled with white
at the very ends as if he had been drinking milk.
There is a blemish on the man's cheek
and some freckles scattered over his nose, only densely,
so not quite scattered but gathered over his nose, which
is to say on his nose which is bulbous at the end
and has medium-sized nostrils.
There is the man's speaking voice which has a slight nasal
quality, though not unpleasant, a slight under-toning
of soprano, perhaps, and some bit, not at all consequential,
of shyness or reticence in his offer to 'fetch the cap.'
There is a kind of old world courtliness about the man which
is evident not only in his diction
but in his eyes which lower modestly away from my rather
blunt gaze into them, blunt because of the wish
to assess the man's motivations, whether he is normal
or up to something unforeseeable, a glint of which
I hope to catch in his eyes which lower and avert.
There he is taking a long piece of string
from the pocket of his dark trousers
and tying the end of the string to the v of a twig
he snaps from a very small acacia
tree growing in the middle of one of the flower beds.
There he is dipping the string with the twig end down
into the fountain and now scraping
my hat, which has the look of a bobbing
eggplant along the bottom of the fountain bowl
which is frothy with bubbling waters.
There is me looking at his eyes again,
just for that brief second that they meet mine before looking
quickly down to his task with the stick and string,
and finding in those eyes nothing noteworthy to report,
only that the pupils don't waver in size,
which I find only slightly disconcerting,
and the eyes themselves hold no expression whatsoever,
I may as well be looking into x's.
There is now a memory creeping into my mind,
just a little hint of something, an image of someone
with the same eyes from a horror film choking a woman,
first the eyes are what I recall and then the thumbs
on the woman's neck which are also very distinctive.
There is the man now reaching into the fountain once more
and this time coming up with my new hat, which
is of course sodden and unwearable,
looking more like a dead animal--
a rat or a fish--
than a once perky, beloved hat.
There are the man's thumbs which are similar in shape
to the ones of the horror film murderer
and there is the man smiling very broadly at me
as he holds forth the hat, very proud is his smile
and there is a tooth missing, a bicuspid.
There is also a tear on the man's plaid shirt right over
his heart and triangular so that I can see a section of his
nipple, which is very almost shockingly pink,
like a woman's.
There I am wringing out my hat in the fountain
and thanking the man for his trouble,
careful now not to make eye contact,
but just intent on their wringing motion, which
is the motion of my two fists going in opposite directions.
There is the man sitting on the edge of the fountain
and watching me wring out my hat,
making no attempt to leave on his bicycle
and also the sky is turning a violet color right
over the tops of the mountains and the breeze which
was at first light, then heavy, then slight again,
is at this point picking up so that the man's bicycle jiggles
precariously on its kickstand and then topples
over making a crashing sound which startles me more
than I might have predicted.
There is the man righting the bicycle and, at the same time,
there I am mumbling goodbye to the man and thanks
again, feeling a little squeamish now
and not grateful enough, therefore feeling also guilty
but squeamish nonetheless.
There is a creeping feeling across the back of my neck
and there is my heart pounding and there
is a sky turning navy blue.
There are flowers which are now dark clumps in their shallow
concrete beds, as are the dark silhouetted shapes
of the religious leader and his wife who are so fondly depicted
here, along with the joyous dancing-in-a-circle,
ring-around-the-rosy children from another century,
looking and feeling so peaceful and safe,
peaceful because safe, in that order,
among the gardens of their youths,
which is to say the garden of all of our youths,
so filled as they were with happiness and innocence.
There I am walking among all this beauty and kindness
and benevolence while behind me there
is the unmistakable sound of someone taking
measured steps so as neither to pass nor lag,
also the sound of a creaky wheel,
a kind of rolling along sound with a little glitch in it,
and a clinking chain which is very rhythmic
and to my mind portentous.
There I am walking alone toward the stone staircase which
will take me out of the garden into the real world of traffic
and darkness, where the dark I see from here
over the top of the stairs is solid but nevertheless lit
by the various moving and wavering car headlights
and the more stationary and reliable streetlights
and the occasional flashlight shone
into the all but impenetrable night
by someone who intends to either light our way or blind us."
Thanks.
[APPLAUSE]