Jack of Clubs

My dear _______,

You don’t want to hear ‘this’, but I will tell you none-the-less. It’s only right, though you will have to keep this secret. Jack is lost. He already knows how you will hurt him, so just let him disappear. Now, I’ve said it.

Jack is jack-nothing to you. There’s no future. You like him as nothing, more, nothing more. Jack blames you, the one who takes his call. He now sees that you are the problem – He is just, he is just a symptom. You make too much of him. You make something ‘other’ of him. It is unreasonable. It’s jack. Just jack. This cannot continue. Let it fade to black. Leave the theater. Forget the secret utterance that signals “I am lost now” … Knowing, it would be easier to remember the madness, les sottise de valet… Pardon my jack-French -- I apologize.

(jack)I …
become tiresome.
(jack)I …
remain mysterious.
(jack)I …
Already lost.
(jack)I …
saying nothing.
(jack)I.
Jack
Just stops.

Like you, Jack must take a stand. You will call him selfish because of it, but he just doesn’t care anymore. Carefree.

Three facts:
1. Jack will not.
2. She will not.
3. We will.

Everything around Jack means nothing. There is no measure so Jack lets loose. He becomes hopeless; secreting what is felt in the blood and bones to see if he can trigger something beyond himself. My sorry Jack of Hearts bleeds. The hopeless hopes there is a witness. The nameless wishes to remain anonymous. The romantic looks for an interpreter to read the cuneiform, to decipher these cuts; an historian to remember the deluge.

Jack pillages the future from all this cosmic trash … Blinded by the unexplainable…
So, continue.

Find
‘this’

Mustard

Jack sat on pins and needles. Anxious, sometimes... Still, waiting for the familiar to arrive, his own familiar -- a suspect double he imagined would lift him from the malaise of knowing nothing -- the anathema of the jack-ass. The familiar, Jack thought, the jack-ass thought, would arrive in a golden carriage, in a flash of light, with an explosion that could not be ignored. Jack would know it had arrived from within -- he'd feel it ... suddenly alive -- bursting with joy and goodwill... Everyone would be surprised at the change. It would seem that Jack was no longer jack, but larger than himself ... still outside of himself but comfortable with this positioning.

The new Jack would look down on the old Jack with an aristocratic disdain. He'd try again to forget the Disaster. The starless, moonless nights... The Wagner Opera would stop running in his head, replaced by popsongs and jingles.

It will not arrive today. The double is careless this way. Couldn't care less...

"It is good to have goals. To have ambitions..." Jack thought as he waited. "But, it is also good not to want." What Jack really wanted was to not want. But, old habits are hard to break.


Lesson 6: night 3

jack-destiny tells us...
the saga continues...
find amity between the hypnotic and the operose...
assemble the insolent apparatus...
dead-duck proclivities dishonors the hic et nunc...

Bunny, ______ left the carnival to live a better life with the Psychoanalyst. Though she had not quite had enough of herself she had had enough of Jack. The lack of Bunny in Jack's life was not a cause for gloomy thirst or hunger, so much as the impetus for celebration. The white noise, the gray noise was gone for now and Jack hoped it would never return. It will of course, but for now he cherished the silence, the lack of thunderous downbeats and the shrill yet stolid warble of Bunny.

Though Jack had originally thought Bunny, ______ to be his familiar, it seems he had mistaken her for what he knew least of himself. He had had a change of heart. More foreign to Jack than Jack's own foreigness, Bunny was now just a speck ... of dust ... a shooting, fallen star ... something to be forgotten.


Lesson 7: day 4

jack-destiny tells us...
the saga continues...
exceed the chaffing hoi polloi...
ventilate through dialectic benevolence...
arrest and nullify efflorescent jack-abundance...

Without the momentum of the Arsonist or the blessings of Saint Augury -- the saga remains. Jack remains.

Antipodal Species

“Just being weird.” Jack said.
Jack imagined he’d say … as he stood in his room … before his desk, before beginning to write.
When Jill asked what he was doing,
Jack said, “Just being weird.”
… hiding out, standing before the desk … Jack thought this would lead somewhere but jack didn’t know Jack so it lead nowhere. Jill just walked away. The saga remains ... nothing happened.
“So it goes.” Jack said,
as he shook then nodded his head. Didn’t matter anyway, Jack didn’t know jack, jack doesn’t know Jack. He wasn’t brilliant or anything, though mostly he thought himself a genius, the originator of dreams, at least his own. Jack wasn’t brilliant; in fact, he was quite stupid, dim in this and that, at this particular moment, dimly lit, at this moment stupid. Impatient. Yet reticent.
Jack never said,
“Just being weird.”
He didn’t. He didn’t say jack – he didn't get the chance.
Jill remained silent, didn’t even see him standing there, awkwardly waiting for the chance to say,
“Just being weird.”
Jill didn’t care, Jill didn’t care for Jack, really, and only put up with him because she mostly thought he was mostly brilliant, though also mostly stupid. It depended upon the subject. In the matter of certain very specific things Jill thought he knew quite a lot, but in more common matters Jill thought he didn’t know jack.
He didn’t even know Jack.
None of this meant anything to either Jack or her, Jill. They were in some mysterious way using each other. Neither knew quite how the self was using the other but they were both quite certain that the other knew how they were using the other and in time would reveal this mystery. Jack reveals jack to her, Jill … Jill reveals jack to Jack. And so the affair was sustained by avoiding the subject, by remaining in anticipation of a hopeless revelation.
“Just being weird.” is a provocation.
Only. For Jack only. To Jill it doesn’t mean jack. Jill didn’t get it, not even the gesture -- Jack standing awkwardly in the darkened room uttering the words,
“Just being weird.”
… which meant just being Jack, just wanting, just feeling hurt, just feeling what should not be felt, not feeling anything since they had never really touched … Which meant just being the jack-ass that Jill though Jack was, just being what Jack thought Jill thought of him, just being weak. Jack was weak – in the knees mostly, but in the heart as well.

Nothing will be revealed, not even in time, not even over time. Rather, the tale of Jack is one of jack recurrence. The moment of anticipation for hopeless revelation will recur, though the exact phrase -- hopeless revelation -- will most likely not be repeated. Any revelation is an offering, a gift, a climax, a punchline with a rimshot and this tale is about becoming, or remaining at the point of Jack becoming something other than jack, Jack. This becoming will lead to nothing. Nothing will become of it … nothing good, at least. If not puzzling, these tedious affairs are at least a puzzle, to be resolved if not solved. And, even then nothing is offered in either regard. Nothing that will satisfy.

The puzzle, Jack requires a cure rather than a solution.

Apocryphamnesis

With the help of Nostalgia, Jack thought back across open fields of false memory ... the crooked ways and wishful thinking. He tried to keep a level head but as we know, Jack has the capacity to take what was once mostly perfect and destroy it, make it ugly ... now ... to take what seems balanced and knock it out of whack. What Jack had always thought was memory was not, not a remembering but a dismembering.

As he thought back to The City ...now... memory always failed, covered over with a gloss of urban splendor and decay. Lombard crossed Flatbush, Hope Street crossed Colfax ... J had the body of K had the body of L had the face of ... Even his recent memories of K-town, failures really, were covered over by some sort of sentimental goo. Disaster looked better -- enough to cause Jack to pine in its absence. One cannot see clearly when Nostalgia is in the room. Nostalgia is the detour ... the crooked way that leads Jack toward schmaltz.

Jack never looked for Disaster it just came to him ... occurred to him, welled up, beamed out, pulled in. Looking back, Regret was always the easiest sentiment to form because all it took was some pieces from a broken mirror and a handful of mud. Disaster and Regret are sometimes siblings, sometimes enemies, sometimes lovers. Disaster, when not affected by the engrammic erosion of Nostalgia, is indistinguishable from Regret. Disaster has the body of Regret has the body of Disaster has the face of...

Jack forgot. Or tried to.

Lesson in the Uncanny

Jack knows best. Jack knows better. Jack doesn't know jack! What Jack knows, and this is why he knows best, and better, is that Jack doesn't know jack. But, now Jack returns to the phlegmatic pretense of his office -- to what he knows best. Cleans the slate and starts again. This is Jack's hope at least, though he knows Saint Augury won't permit it. He is already jack-ass, too far gone, too far from the sea for everything to be washed away.

This begins in K-town, 9,000 miles from the City, with Jack lonely but not alone. Everything was bothering him, always had been, really... Since an early age Jack knew he was an old man ... born gray, Jack stayed that way. What was inside, though Jack would deny this, had always matched the outside... There were no differences to be negotiated, no mythology to maintain, no saga to be recaptured and transliterated.


First Memory:
Less than a month before Jack was born the Psychoanalyst gave his famous seminars. At the exact moment the Psychoanalyst began to speak, Brother-Poet abandoned verse for visual art.

Jack's birth was long and difficult, causing great pain to his mother and it was initially thought that the newborn Silosopher might have been damaged in the process. He didn't cry for days but continually sighed and cocked his head either left or right as if in contemplation. The Doctors and Nurses were baffled by this behavior, while Jack's parents worried for the health and welfare of their cherished runt. It was obvious to all that Jack was not a normal child and everyone wondered what would become of him, what Jack would become, if becoming was in the cards, the stars.

As Jack grew, childhood proved not to be his cup of tea. Already an old soul, an old man by kindergarten his tastes were well beyond crayons and eating paste. Jack preferred his great-grandfather's wine, his grandmother's inventive use of gestural profanity, and the pretentiousness of his friend's parents and his parent's friends to pretending with his own friends. He never was his own age.

___

Jack had always thought about writing this story. What prevented him from doing so was that he thought the saga ultimately boring. Even Jack was bored by the thought of it, so its retelling had for the most part remained limited to bar-time anecdotes, and drunken shanties better fit for bawdy nursery rhymes than literature.



Second Memory:
Brother-Poet, who now called himself the Artist, came into Jack's life early on. When they met it was immediately obvious that Brother-Poet, the Artist had little to teach Jack. Brother-Poet, the Artist who was Jack's elder, found this rather frustrating, since his employment depended upon his success in educating Jack. They argued endlessly, not over aesthetics or color theory but over what one could offer the other. It was minutes after one of these heated discussions that Brother-Poet, the Artist suffered a debilitating stroke, and hours later died.

Jack was introduced to the Psychoanalyst while at University, but it was not until after college that he was introduced (in)to psychoanalysis. The latter never really worked for Jack, as even here, on the couch he found himself somewhere else and the Psychoanalyst refused to interpret daydreams. Though Jack paid dearly for the sessions, he never quite bought them as curative. He considered the sessions to be research, and from the Psychoanalyst he learned how to draw.

___

That was then. Not even Nostalgia (stepmother of the muses) could overcome the shortcomings of jack-memory. The stacks of children's blocks ... a wood framed shanty ... the ticky-tacky flat.

First Commotion of Saint Augury

It ended as quickly as it had begun ... but the saga continues.

The night before, Jack's world had been populated by and occupied with Disaster so he was not surprised that in the morning he remained jack-ass.

Before coffee he was still trying to convince himself that Disaster was a good thing -- that Disaster signaled real progress... That any reversal was the beginning of momentum... But, as he rummaged through the rubble of the night before, Disaster began to lose its appeal for Jack. There had been a change in the weather -- from hot and humid to cold and clammy. All that was left were gray and jaundiced mementos, shards of glass and scraps of paper ... puce and pea-green puddles. Junk really...

By mid-morning Jack stopped thinking, started thinking about something other than thinking. Which is to say -- Jack woke up from the Arsonist's hex. jack-ass faded and something else of Jack, in Jack emerged. In an instant, Jack, no longer Jack or jack-ass decided to allow this becoming of what he was not. He thought without thinking that he had it in him to make this change -- to crack the code of the otherly, to learn the language of the orderly, to sort sagacity from the sordid. He just might.

Jack started to plot a course.

"collect weapons ... foster logic ... clean your plate ... listen carefully ... suppress desire ... clear your mind ... ignore curiosity ... travel ... don't overthink, methinks ... let go ... oil the squeaky wheel ... keep busy ... romanticize nothing ... avoid labor ... retreat ... follow birds ... feel less ... get out ... fidget ... stop dreaming ... confront everything ... remain hidden ... capture the moment ... muster the strength ... suppress desire ... clear your mind ... ignore curiosity ... covet ... follow passion ... relax ... overthink, methinks ... demonize the enemy ... prevent collapse ... advance ... tribulate ... play ball ... feel more ... enter into treaties ... be brave ... take notes ... lolly gag ... avoid conflict ... swagger ... equip yourself for Disaster ... prevent the idiotic ... be resourceful ... tread lightly ... just think, methinks ... dismiss everything ... repair the broken ... remain idle ... amplify ... cross swords ... balance ... stay put ... carry a big stick ... feel, more or less ... do not despair ... foster audacity ... brown-nose ... reject everything ... be the bigger person ... throw it all away ..."


By late afternoon Jack had lost interest in the rigors of Saint Augury, returned to jack-ass and took a nap.

Cosmic Trash

All this damned cosmic trash, from here and there, the TV and the radio, from the love of jack-life, killing jack, the way Jack kills himself. I'm not talking suicide. I mean cold blooded murder -- the death that is integral to sublimation. I mean a death that signals progress, the death that occurs when optimism seems stupid, when it means absolutely nothing. If there were jack-love I am sure it would kill Jack – she always does, she always has. And, Jack, perhaps would hate for this pattern to change, it is too beautiful, something to be proud of, awe inspiring -- wanting, but it doesn't seem safe, bright, dark enough. Just a bunch of wind...

There is just too much difference between them. They sat there, apart, babbling, challenging affection. Jack warned her, then apologized, so sorry for his Being, jack- being, not being able to make up his mind, his self-palavering mind.

.moving backwards

You write in your head when you look.
Understood.
But it seems looking is not enough.
Understood.

the variety store pocketbook stained with grape kool-aid
bad rubber check paintings
a phone book

"I'd call you but I'd rather not have to talk to you. I can't afford the charm; I can't afford you period, period(.)."

Mistake.

(left coast) forget the beatnik capital, the dead-dead ways, the circus ring around your neck. How well trained Jack thought he was, he thought she was. This had, has to change.

Mistake.

Jack has written a letter declaring his love because he knows he won't send it. Jack knows it isn't Jack she's leaving -- it's this place, this jack-place... So, it is Jack she's leaving. They both hold grudges -- it makes it easier.

stereotypes | fetishized body parts
the family | superheroes

70:
Three men loiter outside a barbershop. Their faces are hidden but historians wearing suits write their lives. There are uniforms and goals in this story. There's a clown in Jack's bed. A wealthy polygamist (pornographer) enlists women, their lives as yet unwritten (barbary), as subjects (law).

invisibility | silly perversion
hick-life | hick-love

80:
Three women turn their backs to Jack. They are unfit. There's a clown in Jack's bed. jack-sex belongs to the clown because Jack wants these women. They belong together. Jack wrote her body as more than one because there's a clown in his bed.

dishonesty | the idiot
the old school | power/desire

90:
Her smile is weak and there is only conflict. Jack's split so Jack splits for Bakersfield on a bus. There's a clown in his bed. The three women spit in his face.

simulated violence | familiarity
bourgeois journalism | mediation

00:
She's an ape, familiar. The ape woman is dead because her brain is too large, passive. There's a clown in Jack's bed tickling the ape woman. Bonds form so as to guarantee an end.

it's dusk now baby, so put your ear to the ground
listening for parenthetic angels
it only seems like jolly good fun

1. Jack pulls a rabbit out of a hat.
2. The rabbit, he thinks, is rabid because it bites his hand like she always does.
3. He tosses the rabbit out into the audience and it falls in her lap.
4. She brushes it away unaware of the gash it has put in her hand, maybe her face.
5. The blood frightens her and she glares at Jack.
6. Jack attempts to apologize for his mistake, her wounds.
7. She screams she is going to sue, call the cops, buy a gun.
8. She wants Jack dead, to make him pay, so she gives him her phone number.

Jack will not call. The number sits in a small tin box next to his bed, along with the numbers of others who want to kill him. If Jack had rented a different hat none of this would have happened.

Midori Frowns

They were sitting at the bar ... It was happy hour, harpy hour ... Jack stood at the edge of the party ... listening to the blabber of sophisticates ... on and on they talked -- the stock market, fashion, politics, Italian shoes ... on and on... Jack took mental notes, mental pictures and didn't say a word ... on and on they blabbered, speaking in tongues ... he and she and he and he, and the couple from the Bureau ... drinking cosmopolitans ... waiting for their table ... singing for their supper ... Jack didn't say a word ...

Jack's invitation had come late ... minutes before at the accidental meeting of he and she and he ... she, Midori, had known Jack before ... in The City ... when Jack was famous and she was not ... had said hello as they passed in the alley ... made the mistake of asking how he was ... it was her companions who made the invitation ... Midori frowned ... Now there they were ... sitting at the bar ... blabbering.

Midori was there so he and he would look better to the Bureaucrat and his wife ... Jack was there without reason, though surely played a part ... standing at the edge of the party ... Jack frowned ... was ignored ... there were no questions ... no introduction to he and the couple from the Bureau ... Jack, the shadow took mental notes, mental pictures and didn't say a word ... waited as they spoke in tongues.

They were drinking cosmopolitans when the maitre d came to show them to their table ... he moved his hand across Midori's ass as she spun her chair to stand ... Midori frowned at the snuskig gubbe, thought of slapping him and said, "I am just nineteen." ... she had told Jack the same five years before.

As the party approached the table, blabbering still, Jack realized this was no place for him ... there were only six chairs ... for he and she and he and he, and the couple from the Bureau ... nothing for Jack ... seated at the table, the party paid no attention to Jack standing there, the shadow ... on and on they talked -- handbags, cinema, psychiatry, Italian shoes ...Jack frowned again, didn't say a word, took mental notes, mental pictures ... headed toward the exit ... toward the alley ... toward the harbor.

"What a serious man."

Jack of Spades

My dear _______,

You wouldn’t just know ‘this’, so I’ll tell you. It should be known, though you will have ignored the signs, that I am weak. I know how this will hurt you, so let me make it clear. Now, I’ve said this before, again and again and again -- this must stop. No mas!

Jack has been jack-nothing for far too long… Longing to be other than nothing, more, nothing more. Jack chalks this up to jack, the one who takes your call. Jack waxing, you see, is not the problem – Jack is a symptom, made a problem, perhaps by an unreasonable, almost immediate desire for another than the ‘other’, any other, any other place – someone elsewhere. One can’t reason this, but Jack will try. This is where Jack becomes jack, becomes lack. I. Nothing will continue; everything will fall into decay – my own refusal of the moment… Forget it. Leave this behind, in the rubble of the immediate, the temporary, the moment that forms the “I am gone now” … It would be easier just to forget. I am certain you will find Jack mad in this, but it is the fucking truth… Pardon my French -- Jack apologizes.

jack continues.
And become tiresome.
jack continues.
And remain mysterious.
jack continues.
Already lost.
jack continues.
jack continues saying nothing.
jack continues without risk.
jack continues.
So, Jack stops.

Like Switzerland, Jack will not take a stand, which you may consider a mistake. A self-conscious, damaged, mad self-image. Only you would know. Jack can’t tell anymore.

Three predictions:
1. She won’t be able to keep the secret.
2. She will want to simplify things.
3. jack-obsession will destroy this.

When you are careless; Jack cares more, tears flow, and he only makes it worse -- my sorry Jack of Hearts. In Spades. Remembering the cuts; the willing wounds, and desertion. Forgotten daydreams.

Jack follows fancy backwards, toward uncertain ends … Imagining a future through the past … by way of … jack, and so imagines a classical future, recycled. Jack sees the future in the teardrop. Blinded by the impossible… Unexplainable fecula fills his mind.
So, Jack continues.

Love
Me!

The Demons of Color

Jack spent most of the night whining about this or that, sifting through the notes and chronicles, the clutter that filled his head. This was the first step, he thought, toward regaining full composure, toward revealing the impostor that he believed was occupying his space, his body, replacing what he thought was authentic with a fiberglass harlequin dressed in red, purple, and orange. Jack understood the symbology of the color scheme, it seemed simple enough -- red for lust; purple for passion; orange for honor, but why he was being replaced by a harlequin baffled him.

What did the harlequin have to do with lust, passion, or honor? For that matter, Jack wondered what lust, passion, and honor had to do with him. He then began to doubt his symbolic color system. It seemed too simple, too black and white. He thought that perhaps by complicating the symbology the reason for the harlequin, of the harlequin, and why the impostor of Jack was a harlequin would become clear to him.

The wise-cracking Chump uses his flamboyant tongue to show his neediness.
The Funambulist finds justice in fantasies of danger.
The enthusiastic Foil uses sophisticated rhetoric to wish the kingpin good luck.
The cruelty of Jake fills the body with unnatural energy.
The Mountebank uses a balanced profanity to make his claims digestible.
The Revolutionary Picador proceeds warmly toward excess.

These six demons face the sea. Their re-conglomeration takes what it can from these previous bodies, relocates the parts and molds a form from what has been pillaged.

What was secondary now becomes primary to the demons-becoming-demon ... But, still six demons remain.

The cowardly Polymath finds tranquility in envy.
The Arbiter of deceit is on the verge of changing his mind.
The technology of the jealous Pundit is not without its charm.
The illness of the Aristocrat is a hazard of loyalty
The confident Pragmatist uses vigorous persuasion
The intellect of the Quidnunc relies on the profanity of luck.

Any demon that is not used in the conglomerate is mixed with a fluid medium -- in this case, Baltic Sea water, and then applied to the new form.

As a surface, an old book will do fine but requires a process of erasure and must be combined with additional objects prior to the application of the war paint. A found key might be used as well but the lock it fits must first be lost or destroyed.

Anything will do in a pinch as long as there is a destructive preparatory process.

A Lesser Apocalypse

Lesson 1: night 1

jack-destiny tells us...
expiate the rustic moxie...
supplement radial cogitation with waggish wastefulness...
return to the carnival.

______ moved to K-town to get away from her boyfriend. Rather, to be with her boyfriend, which was an impossibility since he was behind bars serving time for some nameless petty crime. It had been six months since she'd seen him and although she remained faithful to him she was having doubts about the relationship. Together, when they were together, which had only been for two-weeks prior to his incarceration, they would spend their days and nights dreaming the Bonnie and Clyde dream. Living the dream was another matter. Impossible really, considering the smallness of the place -- and even beyond the limits of K-town their world was small... They only knew The City as an idea, though ______ had been their once, passing through on her way to Las Vegas. What they knew of the hyper-urbanity of The City had mostly come from television, from cinema, from the myriad songs written in its honor.

Lesson 2: night 1

jack-destiny tells us...
avoid the happy couple...
a prefiguration of suspect bliss.
What Jack wants and what Jack gets are entirely different,
though both fall under the heading of the grudge.

It was Las Vegas that appealed to Bunny and prior to her life with Clod she had stayed there for a short while. Married by Dead-Elvis, on a whim, to some White Knight who would soon prove himself gray if not black... The knight, the Black Knight was Clod to her Bunny back then, so the pattern of this story begins before the story itself. At least, as Jack knows it.

Lesson 3: day 2

jack-destiny tells us...
the saccharine aspect of Jack is sapped by reckless lubbery...
conspire with the sitting duck...
sanction bullish happenstance.

Bunny, ______ found Jack at the Flaxen Anger the night he said he wouldn't visit the pub. It wasn't until later that they actually met... ______ found Jack sitting alone, drinking alone, silent and alone. This, then, may be the beginning of the beginning. At least, a beginning... ______ wasn't looking for Clod that night, not another, but something else, something different. She already had a hardened hero in her bestiary and the scars to prove it, so she wanted something more in the vein of a chicken-hearted daredevil, a real dogged rabbit. For the moment, Jack seemed to fit the bill.

Lesson 4: day 2

jack-destiny tells us...
the crespucule of habits brings the unknown...
embrace the double whammy.

Lesson 5: night 2

jack-destiny tells us...
solitude is jack-revival...
but abatement falls to boredom...
consort, cavort, careen...
contain the mirthless jack-ass.

Critics

On
the street,
Dead-Elvis, the poet and his shoeshine-wife Dirty
meet Jack.

Off
they go.
They steal some instant coffee and
head to Jack's flat.

The coffee is good and warm;
it tastes like shit – nothing like coffee.
They drink it anyway and talk
about how jaded they are,
how they only want each other out of boredom.
But, they don't... They just sit there

bored,
jaded, expecting and doing nothing.
They each think that the other has the stuff so
they don't mention it.
That would be bad junky etiquette.

Waiting, simple hints, more crappy coffee.

They all knew they were waiting for the same things to change,
for sobriety to be erased by narcotic affection,
for the other to offer it up first.

It's good to be thrifty with prices these days.

Today, Jack wouldn't wax.

Fool's Gold

The Arsonist bored a hole into Jack and poured in en förtrollande brygga och en mystiker spritdryck. He called this cocktail medicine. Though initially the drink made Jack feel much better, the effect soon took a staggering turn. Jack became jack-ass and decided to leave K-town for The City (not The City but The City). It didn't really happen (this way), but this is how Jack remembers it.

As jack-ass, Jack was polyamorous and the stars took note. They laughed and chortled, content with looking down on him -- he was an ass after all. They didn't understand Jack's circumstance. Jack brayed at the heavens, scolding the stars and planets for their outrageous insults, reminding them that he was once as high and mighty as they -- Asellus Borealis. The heavens were caught by surprise by Jack's blustery confrontation and quickly apologized. They had forgotten.

Jack accepted their apologies but the braying continued. They had offered no restitution.

Everybody knows the story, silence is golden... Right?

Just the facts Jack.

In general, especially in forgotten fairytales and minor-mythologies Jack and jack-ass have always been interchangeable. They come from the same picaresque tradition. It is only their bodies that differ. Even so, they are made from the same thing.

So, it should come as no surprise then that our Jack was an asinanthrope. In actuality, the Arsonist's elixir had little to do with Jack becoming jack-ass. This just comes naturally to Jack -- though usually after visits with the Arsonist of Flaxen Anger. Jack knew that he could sleep it off.

jack-domain

Jack never planned on being an incovenience but jack-being, perhaps all being just is. Justice. Knowing being is knowing nothing but the horror, the horror of one's self against another. Contrasting horror, the horror of the self against the suspect perfection, the horror of another; she can be nothing less than perfect, even in imperfection -- refractions, indiscrections cloud things, but the horror remains. Perfectly.

Off in the distance... The smell of rotting fish contaminates the neighborhood. Except there; where she stands. Standing contrary to, completely against the nauseating odor that signals Jack has made it home. Lemon oil, coconut oil, sweet intoxicating vanilla -- she stands for something. She stands against Jack. She is determined to destroy him. She is opium. More potent.

This space belongs to Jack.
He tries his best to scare her away, to deny her access, to push away, to push the limits. Still, she remains.
This space belongs to Jack!
He'll take as much as he can, like too much chocolate cake, too much sashimi. Still, she remains and this is the root of horror now -- that she becomes too quickly the queen of jack-domain, incorporated into Jack's terrifying empire.

In the cold New England autumn air so crisp and wintry though the leaves have not yet turned, Jack is more apt to wait for tragedy, assuming that it will emerge out of the horror, carried skyward with the smell of rotting fish, toward the other, the already, always perfect other.Jack wonders, waits for this to develop … Patience, patience ... For the crypt to be opened like his mouth … For his mouth to open and introduce the conclusion of the meeting, the confrontation. Jack is a sucker for his own patience, the insufferable waiting for the end.

…THE END…

The smell of something rotting - an egg, a body, fish, something - fills the air. On smelling this profanity, she tugs Jack's elbow, squeezes his arm. A gesture that is not performed out of affection; rather, she tugs and squeezes out of fear and disgust. Always.

Cloud Cuckoo Land

There is a short circuit... Rather, an exposed wire, fully charged, sending sparks flying. Jack uses caution. He whispers and sips rather than screaming and gulping. He will leave that to others. For now, Jack pretends at attraction, maintains a low profile; lumbering gracefully around the perimeter. Getting his feet wet. Gray ... Jack thinks he knows what he's doing ... he looks the part -- wide eyed, tongue out, leaning forward just a bit; sometimes his face shows what appears to be the hint of grin, childish almost, that of an expert dilettante. He lost his way. Jack enters the wrong neighborhood and is met at dawn by harpies disguised as muses. Throwing caution to the wind, Jack joins the carnival. He knows it won't last, carnivals never do. They are untenable as monuments... Blockades that cause detours ... vortices ... within vortices. Jack joins this circus, gets his feet wet. There is no shortcut.

PARABASIS

Execestides (Jack) had already made his exit, leaving the warzone for higher ground, carried aloft by the harpies disguised as muses. First there were three -- the dove, the pigeon, the swallow... Then there were four -- the owl, the kestrel, the osprey, the falcon... Then there were nine -- made up of these original seven with the addition of the buzzard, and finally the cuckoo.

Execestides tried his best to fit in but was always at odds with the sky-circus harpies. He never liked taking orders and quickly grew annoyed with the constant pecking. He decided to put his foot down. He demanded from the harpies that he have his own room. Execestides put a deadbolt on the door to keep the harpies out but this lead to a different annoyance,

(knock, knock)
Who's there?

(knock, knock)
Who's there?

(knock, knock)
Who's there?

Everyone got a big kick out of annoying Execestides.

Jack took it in stride and the nonchalance began to pay off. HA!

Jack of Hearts

My dear _______,

As may be obvious by now, Jack feels he must explain, though an explanation may be entirely gratuitous -- too much, as it were... As may be obvious by now, though perhaps not, as jack-ego may have not allowed this to show through, Jack is something of a hopeless – which is to say beyond belief, beyond therapy or any other form of helpfulness, perhaps just hopeless – romantic – which is to say Jack is, emotionally, mostly in a daydream or a nightmare, or some sort of cinematic play. At least what can be said in all of this is that Jack is aware of ‘this’... And, so hyper-sensitive to it. Writing, waxing as he goes. Improvising, no -- riffing. Nothing of ‘this’ is spontaneous; rather, it is the contrivance of it all that forms the block, the wall, the never-ending interruption of feeling, once felt.

For too long now Jack has been a nomad, a hopeless, hapless wanderer. Job to job, place to place, person to person... And, Jack chalks some of ‘this’ up to that. Jack places the call. ‘This’ is not a problem in itself -- it is a symptom. One could reason this as such, and Jack does – the hopeless nomad has a lack of time. This is where lack becomes jack, becomes Jack. The nomad is the perpetual gleaner – finding what works best, what works most, in the moment... Finding, forging forgetting. Amongst the rubble of the immediate, the temporary, the moment that forms the “Jack is here now”, finding, forging, forgetting what could be construed as simply convenient. To a certain degree this may be true, and Jack is certain you will find Jack mad in this, but at another level there is only sincerity, and longing for a longer time –to know, to be, to rest... pour obtenir... pour savoir... plus de temps... pour Jack à reposer... Jack's French is bad, so Jack apologizes.

Jack stops short.
And become tiresome.
Jack stops short.
And remain mysterious.
Jack stops short.
And continues lost.
Jack stops short while jack continues.
Jack stops short of saying anything.
Jack stops short of risk.
Jack stops.
So, jack continues.

Neutrality is nothingness without being, so Jack is ghost. An apparition, aberration. A mistake. A mirror, broken, funhouse, again ... selfless, elseless, otherless. A mirror, a window, tinted, reflective. Self...ish/less... Jack no longer knows.

Three memories:
1. Her friends were socialites, so Jack was kept a secret.
2. Her life was too complex and she thought Jack simple.
3. There could never have been a “we,” an “us” beyond Jack's mentioning.

When atmospheric pressure is lower than the internal pressure of a tree, sap flows, bleeds from the cut. Which, explains this sorry Jack of Hearts. Predicting short-circuits, the goodbyes and farewells; the lack of will, and concern for what is fair. Time, timeless, less time... Still, Jack wonders who, really, wishes that Jack fare well... So soon forgotten.

Jack daydreams, follows fancy toward uncertain ends ... Imagining a future as if determined ... By want, by will, by way... Jack doesn’t forget, and so imagines a future with the world, gleaned; a future with the fantastic. Imagines... Jack sees the future in a broken crystal ball, at the facets edge, merging ‘this’ with that. Jack sees nothing but what can be, in the mind’s eye – the impossible... The indescribable fabula of the imagination fills his time, here and there.
So, jack continues.

Love?
Jack

Preface Redux

… puppy love, just drifted away, never really was exclusive, too catholic, too aloof, She got into cocaine and Jack thought that shit was jack, She was too young for Jack, She was obsessed with Tarot, their politics collided, Jack always thought she felt ashamed to be seen with him, Jack met her at a bus stop and then they went to her place -- Jack left in less than an hour, She only liked Jack because he scared her, they only ever really flirted, Jack became obsessively needy, her parents disapproved, there was just too much history, Jack was just a fling, one day she was just gone – vanished with all her belongings, Jack went away to school, She got bored, Jack wanted her more than she wanted him, she was a pathological liar, she wanted a family – now, her band sucked, he was too shy against her shyness, she was married, Jack thought that She thought herself better than Jack, the sex was really bad, She was too old for Jack, it was all pretend, Jack was too serious, She was weak, She ordered a California roll, She’d devoted her life to promiscuity, Jack was allergic to her iguana, he lost her at a rave, she became a vegan, Jack never quite figured out why, She was out of his league and nothing should have been started in the first place, Jack always felt slightly ashamed to be seen with her, Jack went broke, Jack knew he was asking too much of her but jack got the better of Jack, the earthquake ruined everything, She was too needy, he caught her with another man -- an actor none-the-less, She moved out of the country, Jack caught her stealing objects from his flat, Jack was weak, She thought his band sucked, “I’m getting married next week.” She said, Jack thought her art was mediocre, She was bi-polar and Jack got tired of the violence that occurred when she went off her meds, she perspired too much, Jack got jealous, Jack got bored …

These are how it always ends.

The hopeless _________, a preface.

Gardin Note

NOTE
The holes in the wall were too large or too small,
not level, too close, too far apart.
It would take 1 700 Crowns in all,
due to faulty hardware and improper tools.
The re-fabrication of the myth would not begin
until this task was complete...
the curtain could not open on the saga,
close on the previous...
and the mixtry would remain mystery.

Gray Matters

... gray ... colder than it has been ... it rained all night ... Jack left the window open anyway ... three by the time he went to bed ... sitting in the same spot ... at the same corner ... having the same thing ... the daily constitutional ... later, though he'd gotten an early start ... he spent the morning working ... he had not yet eaten, wouldn't till later in the day ... as usual, though this added nothing to his well-being ... an old habit ... old habits pile one upon another ... two rough-and-tumble, perhaps nicotine addicted pigeons fight over a cigarette butt, then a crust of bread, then another butt ... pigeon-one, the smaller of the two wins in every case ... wide-eyed and chirping unnaturally ... sounding like a whining puppy.

Jack waits for the the familiar ... it will not arrive today ... will it? It's all greek to Jack ... except for the routine ... seated, drinking the same ... She looks like... They seem to be... Jack looks and listens ... one might think he is learning something ... one might think he is busy ... Jack waits for the familiar ... will it arrive today? Nej ... perhaps ... no matter ... what Jack wants is untranslatable ... foreign ... she is staring at Jack, Jack thinks ... she's not looking at jack -- waiting for someone -- she doesn't know jack about Jack ... unfamiliar ... her gaze doesn't translate ... He looks like ... They are ... Jack can only guess.

NOTE
Though Jack had claimed he had not
visited the pub the next night,
indeed he did.

The sun comes out.

Curtains for Curtains

"Living so close to the Flaxen Anger is going to be dangerous."
Jack thought as he staggered home too early to be doing so. It was a long day and a short night, förlägenheten av hans sommar ankomst.
Tomorrow would come too soon, at five, or earlier -- with the sunrise and he pondered with darkened trepidation the prospects of his forced encounter with sommars dagen tidigt ljus ... knowing another long day would follow... meeting after meeting. Jack needed his keys, his mode of entrance and so much information -- taxes, conditions, a description of his responsibilities. It was difficult to think just now but Malloy, or Bloom, perhaps some character from Proust was trying to find the glue. What made him come to K-town, to this place, what made him want to stay. (etc.) He smiled at not knowing a damn thing...

As predicted, Jack awoke too early again and watched the sun emerge from behind the five-story apartment building across the courtyard. It was silent but for hungry birds clamoring for a breakfast gleaned from the moist patch of lawn.

"All is well."
he thought, falling now into a proper routine of daily busyness. Of business; of sustaining, though as yet suspect purpose. He would skip the pub the next night, writing instead, working instead despite it being a Friday. He didn't want to drink alone just yet, still feeling self-conscious about difference, about language. Even the mundane service questions made him nervous ... though he sometime understood full well what was being asked, Jack had not the skills to respond -- without elaborate mental activity involving translation to and from his and their native tongues. It was only a matter of time, he thought, before this anxiety would subside and some other mode of nervousness would emerge. His horoscope confirmed this, letting him know what he already knew. He must replace the inherited curtains.

Beginning to Begin.

This began in The City but will begin in K-town. Jack found himself in K-town not by accident but suddenly aware of middle-age, his own, and suddenly aware of being desparately alone ... not lonely, but alone. Previously, none of this had bothered him or mattered much as the recognition of being always seemed enough. But, now, for now he saw himself as a thing outside of himself -- an other even to his I. Though still contained within his self, himself, this other seemed a mismatch -- outside of his body, or how he understood it... It was as it was... Is as it is, as this is being written now, a postscript to the sensation, an epilogue to the saga that ends here. He had not thought to write the saga before this, until now ... For, this is Jack waxing. The saga had until now belonged to a separate tradition, a less literate tradition based in bar-time anecdotes, name-dropping, and non-sequential storytelling... blabber really. Still, Jack hoped, hopes to re-fabricate the myth here -- to rewrite, edit the self toward itself -- to cut and paste the I upon its absence here -- from memory and what occurs in the immediate... Blasted, mixed, commingled -- a mongrel constitution more significant to his own well-being than that of any reader, any possible reader, editor, or critic.

This, then, is today, any day, written through contemporaneous moments of inspiration and invention... Desperate, nostalgic, and cynically optimistic ... forgetting the immediate at the expense of the living moment, the living monument -- architecturally, a mausoleum ... mortar and marble, stacks of children's blocks, a wood framed shanty ... the ticky-tacky flat of the now and ever more, ever been ... a mixtry of hereness and thereness -- knowing neither.