Jeff Stewart

9 am.  Gym clothes.  Coffee.  Email to manager inquiring about Playboy magazine censorship guidelines, so I can send off a story.  Feed the dog a biscuit, let him out to piss and shit along the shore, then back inside for more coffee.  Eat a banana.  Stretch.  Blast Slayer’s Reign In Blood and ponder another tattoo.  Skip the shower, skip the shave. Check phone for messages.  Reply to messages.  Check on-line sales.  Check bank account. Hunt for cheap liability auto insurance. Reject call from 617 area code trying to collect an overdue bill from two years ago.  They call every day.  Last time I called the kid a fucker, then vowed not to waste my anger on them.  Internet porn session.  Open file of the new book and read over last night’s work.  Edit.  Addition through subtraction, usually.  Sunny outside.  Planning workout and thinking about breakfast, thinking about the summer book tour, thinking about the road and the blue eyes of my dog running toward me at a desert rest stop.  All the colors remain.  Nothing need be lost to the years.  Update blog.

He leans forward and lights a cigarette.  Coreen stares at us,                                                “Oh.  That’s not true at all.  Texas has a lot of beauty to it.  True, it has some bad qualities, but anywhere does.”                                                                                                                     “Don’t try and sugarcoat a hillbilly shit sandwich.”                                                                    She shakes her head at him and looks over to me,                                                                     “Oh, I don’t want to have to elaborate.”                                                                                          No time to elaborate.  The fire and wind and flowers are fusing.  I check my watch and wipe off the back of my neck.  The cherry sunsets of Venus are lost, the vastness of its lemon iron heart is lost.  Streets streaked with penny gold and pussy lace velvet windows are gone now, gone forever, and where they once stood is now a city with a blank face.  Sun dead and grey, fields which harvest nothing but replication of dirt and weeds.  We have been left and forgotten here.  Left to breathe, fuck and rot.  Which is fine.  I imagine it was always like this.  It has always been a displaced sky.  I smell their skin from across the room.  It’s sulfuric and salty.  I remember Angel’s take on the ocean.  She said it was delicious.  I saw it for the first time in 6 years with her.  We had parked by the pier in Pismo.  I had tasted her stomach beneath the bloody wind.  We had intercourse in full view of the water, and I had convulsed into her from behind, my hands lightly holding up the back of her dress, yellow and insane while she gripped the rail at the end of the pier.  Two bums were fishing off the side behind us.  We were quiet and heavy there, and gulls made hungry swoops close to us but the fishermen on the shore threw stones at them.

We were hungover when we pulled into Vegas.  It was around two in the morning.  We had been caught fucking in the bathroom at Exxon in Kingman, Arizona.  Some guy and his kid walked in.  I had my hands on her hips, her palms were pressed into the mirror over the sink. I looked into the mirror over her shoulder at the guy and his kid.  All I could think to say in the state I was in was, “I thought I locked it.”  She started laughing out of sheer awkwardness, which made me laugh.  The guy hustled his kid out of there.  We finished and took a nap in the car.  Bad idea to stop for a quick drink and a game of pool to wait off the heat.  It became an all day drunk, and it led us to the gas station.  Fast forward to Motel 6 by The Strip, we had been driving since Tucson, seeing her family there.  She was crazy and fun, I think we were maybe twenty-four or twenty-five.  We passed out long, and I woke up and walk to the am/pm for a jug of water and some food.  It was grey in Vegas.  She had never been there.  When I walked into the room she was leaned against the headboard watching TV,                                                                                                             “How’s Vegas in the daylight?”                                                                                                           “An old whore without make-up.”                                                                                                       I went to the sink and brushed my teeth, and while I did the entire novel I would later write, the one I am polishing now, proofreading, so on -the whole book front to end rolled out in my head while I brushed my teeth.  I wouldn’t write it for almost 15 years later, because there were some parts missing that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.  It was one of those ideas that just kind of wait patiently for you to put it all in place.  I had fun with this particular book, Flotsam for Jetsam, because it’s pretty much a book where not a lot of heavy or bad shit goes down, not a lot of teeth kicking or blood pouring out, which is where I am most comfortable with my work, be it a poem about a fucking flower, or a novel about a kid becoming a man while driving homeless in a van across the states working odd jobs. But with Flostam, I lightened up a bit, and let some love and light and laughs in the window.  It’s also sampled in the post “Far in advance” on this site.  I am not sure when it will hit the market.

***

I was sitting at the table with Tom and Dave on Sunday.  The Surrounders stopped in, had a glass of Chablis, lingered, then left.  I shook my head and stared into my cards,                 “What a team those two make.”                                                                                                    Dave nodded, “Dirty fuckers.  That’s why gays are so meticulous, though.  They’re organized, tidy, hygiene-obsessed neat freaks because they take it and give it up the ass.  Pure compensation, transference at its finest.”                                                                         Tom lit a smoke, “And they’re usually good with money.  Think about being a gay Jew.  You’d fuckin’ have it made, considering of course that fucking a guy in the ass is your thing.”                                                                                                                                                   The bell sang out. Christine walked over and kissed me,                                                       “Hello, hot pants.”                                                                                                                               Tom shook his head, “Hot pants.” She had a new one for me every time I sat with the guys.  Dave leaned over and kissed her cheek, “Hi, doll.  If you want a drink help yourself.”      She poured a Chablis and sat next to me. I rubbed her knee,                                                     “How was work, mama?”                                                                                                               “Made forty bucks in tips.”                                                                                                          “Right on.”                                                                                                                                           She snapped her fingers, “Oh!  Tomorrow night, we’re going to Gary and Stephan’s for dinner.”                                                                                                                                                She put her chin on my shoulder and looked at my cards.  Dave and Tom stared at me.  I saw the scene in my head.  They went in, ordered twin lattes, talked to her, introduced their gay selves.  Then she told them her boyfriend works at Dave’s.  I reached up and put my hand on the back of her head.  I started to say something, then Tom and Dave broke out laughing.  She looked at them,                                                                                                     “What’s so funny?”                                                                                                                             “I’d rather not go over to Gary and Stephan’s,” I said, “They’re customers.  I don’t like worlds colliding.”                                                                                                                                   She wrapped her arms around me,                                                                                               “Oh, they’re sweet.  They’re making a huge dinner, good wine, come on.  A double-date. They remind of my neighbors in Los Feliz.  Please?”                                                           “Once.  Tomorrow night.  I’m not homophobic, mama.  But I don’t want to buddy up with them.  They’re sweet now because they’re sober.  You’ll see.”                                                   “How bad can they be?”                                                                                                                 Dave nodded, “Horny toads.  If they don’t propose an orgy I’ll pay off your car.”               She slapped his arm,                                                                                                                 “They’re men, after all.  They can still be my friends.”                                                         “Sure,” Tom said.  Her phone rang.  She looked at it then turned it off,                          “That’s Amanda.  I’d better go.  I was supposed to help her with the batters and salads for tomorrow, impulse display for the new case,” she touched Dave’s arm, “We’re not competing with you.”  He laughed, “Thank you, hon.”                                                               She kissed my cheek and stopped halfway out the door,                                                  “Lover.”                                                                                                                                                 We watched her drive off.  Tom trumped the book with the 3 of spades,                                 “You got your hands full with that one, dude.”                                                                           Dave took the next book with a queen over my jack,                                                                   “Hands full like a fox.  She’s a keeper, that one.”                                                                       Tom looked at me,                                                                                                                         “What are the owners like, John?”                                                                                                      I took the next book with a nine that walked,                                                                                 “Straight-laced, entrepreneurial, early risers.  Driven and shit.”                                                 “Are they solid?”                                                                                                                                     “I don’t know.  I don’t think Billy would understand a whole lot outside of the box.”             “Best neighbors to have,” Dave said.                                                                                               I took the next three books and handed the deck to Tom.  He shuffled.  I watched the table, “I can’t fucking believe we’re having dinner at the fucking Surrounders’ tomorrow night.”    Tom looked at me, “And you know they’ll have the hot tub ready.”                                         “Oh, they will,” Dave added, “hot tub, wine, the whole nine yards.”                                         Tom closed his eyes and shook his head at me,                                                                        “And you have to sit there and fucking take it.”  He smiled.  Dave looked at his cards,           “Lest you be taken as a closed-minded gay basher.”                                                                   “Be careful,” Tom nodded, “if those three take, become buddies, then your personal life will get surrounded.  Next thing you know, you’re watching blocks of Will & Grace on the nights you two should be fucking.”                                                                                                      “Not going to happen, Tom.”                                                                                                         “You watch, man.  You’re already like a puppy with a hard-on when she comes around.”     “Bullshit.”                                                                                                                                       “Bullshit my ass.  If she told you to jump up in the air and take a shit and you’d say how high and what color.”                                                                                                                              I nodded as I shuffled,                                                                                                             “Tom, someday when you become a man, you’ll meet a girl, too.”                                         The phone rang.  Tom grabbed it off the table before I could,                                                   “Pizza Guy.”                                                                                                                                     There was a pause, then Tom assaulted,                                                                                   “Ah… HA!  I got you, motherfucker!  You’ve now spoken to me.  You LOSE!”                       Dave laughed, “Give me the phone.”  He told Mikey that Tom and I had switched shifts.  We could hear him complaining to Dave through the receiver.  Dave cut him off,           “Mikey, quit being a bitch and come down to the shop.”  He hung up.

Here’s the layout:  Meats and cheese wrapped together.  Sushi and olives.  Quiche.  A gorgeous beef roast surrounded by sautéed mushrooms and onions.  Orange peppers and a bed of lavosh bread.  Red and white wine.  Candles and Mahler’s Fifth.  I held my wine, “Mahler’s Fifth.  Nice.”                                                                                                             Stephan looked at me,                                                                                                                     “You know the work of Mahler?”                                                                                                 Christine laughed.  I slipped away and sat at the table out back.  The Jacuzzi was going, alright.  I looked at its surface and thought about the moon.

I hate to admit it, but dinner was excellent.  And away from the oppression of the clock ticking, The Surrounders were tolerable, though they’d been pacing themselves with the wine and the leering.  At least they had let me bring Lucy.  She ran the yard and hardwood floors, ate from under the table, made out like a bandit. I didn’t want to sit in the Jacuzzi with them because I knew they’d had sex in it.  When I’d expressed that to Christine on the drive over she laughed, “Relax.  Not like it hasn’t been treated since.  And if a chunk of something floats your way, just scoop it out like a June bug.”                                                       Not like they cared, but Christine brought a bikini.  I stood and drank on the deck.               “Get in, John,” Gary said.                                                                                                                 “No suit.  Sorry.”                                                                                                                           Christine laughed,                                                                                                                            “Oh, god.  You wear boxers.  Come sit next to me.”  The glow of the light beneath the water’s surface turned The Surrounders’ faces demon.  Christine mouthed me a silent please.  I set the glass down and kicked off my shoes.

I received a phone call from my buddy sitting in a bar out east this morning.  It went something like this:                                                                                                                      “Dude, I just got a fuckin’ text from my girl saying that we’ve grown apart.”                         “No shit.”                                                                                                                                                “A text.  Not a phone call, not a fucking note, a text.  A little square box of transmitted text that basically put me on a bar stool at 10 am.”                                                                             “How long you been seeing this one?”                                                                                         “Like three weeks.”                                                                                                                     “Grown apart is code for she wants to fuck someone else, or she already has.  Not to make you feel worse, but that’s all that is.  Especially after three weeks.”                                         He went on about their time together, then got around to listening for a minute.  He made a comment about how I should write about it one day, about people in this attention-deficient age, then said not to waste my time because they’d only read the first few lines and go elsewhere.  His boss called.  He ignored the call to wrap it up with me,                         “I should call him back.  Thanks for talking.  I can’t remember how long it’s been since I’ve had a real conversation with someone.”                                                                                         We hung up and I thought about it.  Last week I had a long conversation with a good friend who has a lot of shit falling down around him, but when we hung up I felt the same way, it had been awhile.

There’s a guy I see every morning when I walk my dog.  He walks his dog right past me, and every single time the motherfucker gets within hearing distance, he pulls his phone from his pocket and looks into it like he’s texting someone.  It’s been bothering me for awhile now, but I always forget about him after a few yards.  Friday I remembered, and I watched him after he passed me.  And sure enough, every time the prick passed someone, out came the phone.  I understand not being in the mood to talk to anyone, but there is a true sadness and isolation he gives off, and it’s common today.  But I will say this, with elements like him removed, the day was beautiful.  The water of the bay was black chromoly and the birds dive-bombed the surface then shot back up eating in mid-air.  A really hot Asian girl jogged past us in red shorts that let her perfect ass bounce freely up and down, up and down, -all the sun and all the life of the bay and its air moved with a warmth that transcends all the petty things that burn me out.  I came home and checked my email, then plugged in the old electric and typed letters to some people who had been on my mind the last few months.

During a vacation last year, I wrote out what was later counted as 1,713 pages on yellow lined tablets.  I wasn’t in the best place to write, but I wrote a shit-load, as in 2 novels and a lot of stories, as well as a book of poems. When I sat down to transcribe the pencil stub scrawl to the screen, I was shocked to find that a lot of the work actually held up in my eyes, because I was worried that the words would be all escape.  One thing good that happened for me during that output of work was the re-ignition, if you will, of my love for description.  I was also able to learn about my writing even further, and pushed out my boundaries a bit.  By hand.  I hadn’t written in longhand for well over a decade, at least not in lengths of any kind.  Below is a small excerpt from one of the books I wrote during that time.  It is a long way off from being published, but here’s a piece of it, anyway.

***

A few hippies walked in and started setting up behind our table.  They carried cymbals and amps and cases.  I looked at their shirts and pony tails and sandals.  I paid the tab and we walked toward the ocean.  She leaned her head into my arm,
“I fucking hate hippies, Papi.”
“Same here.”                                                                                                                                       The whiskey and the beer had done right by the hangovers.  The trick was to get to a bar right away on Sunday and get buzzed again.  It negated the sickness, and stopping after a few shots and a tall backer was easier. The overcast made the day kinder, also. I fumbled for my sunglasses.  Empty pockets.  She reached into her bag and handed them to me,         “Afraid you’d have to go back?”                                                                                                    “Sort of.”                                                                                                                                               We stood at the edge of the dry sand.  The water was from everywhere, from places and times unknown to gods and Darwin.  All the beauty the sea holds hidden, the oldest of things beneath the fear of its depth, the mystery of all life tucked safely away in the catacombs of her body, in the hearts and thoughts of whales.  The sea floor more naked than the moon or Mars, more untouched by mankind’s infant comprehension than either of them.  The answer to everything waits in the recesses of her trenches, in the paradise of her undiscovered countries, a land beyond the throws of Shakespeare’s capture of death, beyond theory and faith.  The frost of a wave rolled up and clawed our feet.

It’s an exciting and interesting time to have titles out.  For the first time this year, e-book sales have usurped the sales of printed books.  I like what’s happening now, with the writer walking his or her own path, as opposed to relying on traditional publishing, which is still great in my opinion. As long as I’m writing full time I don’t care if they publish it on the surface of tampon.  As long as the music plays, the coffee or the glass of good red waits and the keys keep getting tapped, tapped, tapped.  That’s the reward.