The Ghosts of Jay MillAr (16 page)

to watch Van's latest television like a painting. (He insisted we all

call him Van, as though he wanted to become a parody of his younger

self, grown hip in the August of life.) It was the only way they knew

how to do it. No one was aware of it, but he was painting secret rooms

for them, places where everyone could live and where nothing made

sense. How often had we all dreamed of those rooms! Everyone was

finally becoming comfortable, able to ease into their own skin. The

breezy days of summer had come to realize that a red stroke was

perhaps a fine toenail. Or a brown one an eyeball, looking at your

tits or cock as you lazed in the golden window. Or this blue smudge

was the sky covered with flecks of small green birds over the ocean.

But the yellow was always the sun. Of this we were certain. Deep

down we all wondered how long would it take us to figure out

he was so full of shit? Only his wife knew what he was really up to,

and she wasn't saying anything, preferring to sit quietly beside him

holding his frail, bone-like hands. She didn't mind his recent

affairs at all, but she would often turn to look for the secret

doorway in the corner.

Perfectly Ordinary Dream #3522 (February 14, 2014)

It was very nice for us to have met Nietzsche's father at the olde house
where the philosopher had grown up. And to discover that he was now
younger than his own sonne despite the diagnosis that had left him
riddled with a terminal cancer! These days he was aging backward
through time. This was obviously the only logical solution, and we
could tell he was happy to oblige. Our friend still seemed in awe of his
father's full head of long curly hair after all those years of baldness. It fell
past his shoulders now, and the white whiteness of his grin, a kind of
smile really, no, actually it was a smile come to think of it, a real smile,
one that had seen beyond the picturesque view of his own existence
now that his sonne had finally come to visit. At any rate, it was nothing
at all like his sonne's grimace. The two of them were rapidly moving in
different directions now, away from each other through the moments
of their dissent. And this was fine to us, people outside their circle of
birth and regeneration, a group of onlookers who happened upon the
two of them when the psychology of our age could no longer apply on
an individual level. And they were so cute sitting in their chairs, his
father's indicated by a sign which read ‘Nietzsche's Chair' and the
following inscription:

We sat together for hours, sipping lemon lager on the rooftop. Each of us offered an idea in regard to approaching the world in absolutely human terms, one side pushing the against the boundaries of happiness and despair, the other shrinking into the absolute of perseverance. ‘Keep it simple', said his father, ‘It is the nature of the world to protect all fools'. Each of them went through the family photo album in the sunshine, one page at a time, telling each story in the shade of the trees.

Perfectly Ordinary Dream #4127 (March 30, 1928)

The rollerskating was fine, and Ray had the knack, but somehow

it just felt like running, nothing special. What he expected to happen

and what was actually happening were two polarized events that

could occur simultaneously, much like the past and the future,

being only shadows of the present, could occur

in a shared moment where neither exists. It was a calculated addiction.

Tomorrow, in the bar, she became suicidal, turning up the air conditioner

as high as it would go. Several of the customers became

white with grief beneath the permafrost, looking like drunken ghosts

of people he once knew. She insisted that he drink glass after glass of

fine scotch, even though she knew he would only make himself sick.

'I am in the middle of a CRISIS', she exclaimed, and ordered him

another drink. Ray wanted to know what was the matter, and in

response she ordered him another drink. ‘When it comes to poetry',

she finally said, ‘there is no such thing as time. It is all of time meeting

in a bar at the same time' He decided it was stupid to be there.

Meanwhile, in another room of the mansion, Sal was discussing his

upcoming wedding with his fiance Lyllith, his mother-in-law, and Ray.

'The Female Spirit shall surely outlive the male spirit', said Sal. ‘And

considering how it is that I live, considering how stupid is my life, I don't

suppose I can afford this marriage presently. Perhaps at a future time.'

And he vanished as quickly as Ray had appeared in the room. Outside Ray

wondered what he had done to deserve this, for it seemed his friend would

only propose marriage to young beautiful women in order to tell them

about the female spirit. Was he trying to instruct them? he wondered.

Was he trying to lure them away from the vacancy of fashion? Ray and

his wife laughed long and hard over that one, and he took her hand in his.

'We should call you Man too', he said earnestly. They walked through the

snow to their car, each flake falling into that dream in which he had lost the key.

Perfectly Ordinary Dream # 4301 (December 31, 1999)

Kurt's party was a great success. Everyone he knew was present,
his wife Gwendolyn, wearing her wedding dress, her family and
friends arriving via motortrain around the bonfire (thoughtfully prepared
by the best man). His family and friends were already present,
seated upon the available cushions, drinking beer, listening to the
percussionist slapping rhythms upon his thigh. One guy we met
thought he had an in because we were in the wedding party, but when
we introduced him he only embarrassed us, telling Kurt he could take
him places, make him a huge star. He went on and on about a brilliant
man at the beginning of his career. We actually had to steer him away
from the guest of honour, explaining to him that our deaths are far more
important events in our lives than anything leading up to them; how we
choose to face that frontier is our only reason for living. ‘Now leave Him
be', we said in unison, ‘for he is busy living'. It was a great speech, and
everyone fell silent while Kurt hammed it up with baby Francis. Around
midnight we heard the clocks banging, and someone threw a half-filled
beer bottle through the window. As it splattered on the asphalt below,
a drunken gunman, who had been waiting all night for a chance to
demonstrate his songwriting abilities, appeared at the window and
began firing at Kurt Oswald. Bullet holes appeared about his head as would
a halo, holding the wild, triumphant look in his eye. A signature photograph, if
ever there was one. Neither Gwendolyn, nor baby Francis let out a scream,
but looked on with admiration. This, after all, was their family reunion.
Kurt finally slumped in his chair, gambler style, and we all said goodnight,
to Kurt as well, who thanked us for coming, (he shook our hands most
vigorously, although I admit there was something odd about it), until the
gun-man accidentally shot out the light and we watched death throes
seen only by strobelight.

Perfectly Ordinary Dream #4555 (July 7, 1997)

In one of Pound's lost polaroids we find a cat in the shape of a human
dancing. It is a black cat against a black background, absolutely
grotesque, a puppet of souls. In another, there is an infant sleeping,
accompanied by a simple melody: ‘kyrie, kyrie, kyrie..' In a third among
the hundreds lost, there is a potted flower sitting beneath the photo-
copied page from bissett's
Sailor,
pinned to the watercolour of a space-
ship beside the shelf holding the radio and a collection of compact discs
and tapes. You can listen to the music. On the other side of the window
hangs a bird feeder where sparrows and other small birds, as yet
unnamed, gather to take the seed. Each one of them holds a polaroid in
their beak, an entire flock of clouds. Pound's polaroids were lost at sea,
and at the present time, not one of them has been found.

Perfectly Ordinary Dream: An Essay (January 13, 1971)

Everyone needs a Book Thug. In fact, every publishing company should adopt a Book Thug, and then we'd see what could become of the industry in this country:

It
was so exciting now that his new imaginary publishing company, Book Thug, had produced a first edition of poems. He had been out of his mind for weeks, planning it into being, and now that the imaginary deluxe edition by some obscure poet who had already received her half of the profit had hit the streets, manuscripts were pouring in from every obscure writer he could imagine.

While other publishing companies busy themselves producing massive quantities of identical textual material, in often boring and unattractive physical states, Book Thug only produces imaginary books in small editions, say between fifty to one hundred copies. (Oo! there's one now!) Each one is an original, hand-made copy, and a delight to behold. Not only that, Book Thug splits the edition (the profit) with the author instead of paying her the usual ten percent royalty: