Dark Cars

I don't like being behind people, especially people with darkly tinted windows. Pain in the ass. Can't see ahead. Library, laundry, liquor store. Poked my head in at the wedding reception, lots of fragrant people and ribs cooking in the alley. Below the floodwall I reassure myself that there is the Wrack we need for the Show, need to get down there with a chainsaw and some trucks. Refound the hawser tangled in a tree at water's edge, 2 inch braided nylon, colorful, we can unbraid and use for lashing, found another prolate spheroid. Sitting on a convenient stump, I stare at one of the debris fields, considering the physics involved. There was a spin to it, for sure, powered by the river's flow, but contained by two large logs that were wedged between trees, the water dropped out from under it, and what we see, now months later, is something we might call a River Turning, which oddly mimics the show we follow, Far From The Tree (a Turning Show). We could call our show Not Far From The Tree, or River Sticks, but I like River Wrack, because everything is not sticks, there are burls and balls and even a miniature fire truck that must have ridden in on something's back, there's a plastic tiger, a GMC enema bag (?), and all the shoes we didn't collect that we should have collected, flip-flops and tennis shoes and whatever those other plastic things are called, we could have carpeted the pergola with shoes. There's another show I'd like to do, The Debris Field, where we'd photograph the field and reconstruct it, as close as possible, using all the parts. You could walk around it. Found art, the physics would be apparent. It would be transparent and almost meaningless, a simple backwater, yet, something. And something is better than nothing, usually, a nod toward direction. The phone rings, I could not answer, clearly an option, probably a telemarketing call from India, but my parents are dying and my daughters need me, so I pick up the phone, it's another call about the Direct TV thing I have to have before February, I tell them to fuck themselves and slam the phone back in the hook. Nowhere near as bad as what I told the Palin people to do. That involved a camel's ass and a needle, sundry angels and the head of a pin. They were confused. When their finger was off the trigger, I kneed them in the groin and broke both their arms. I'm a passionate guy.