Really

Major Mopping used to say, outside of class, he was a real Stoic by the way, a Prussian whose sense of humor leaned toward killing cats before they could piss in the corner, that we should never allow ourselves to become involved. We never knew what he meant. He had an odd relationship with a lady who leaned toward leather and whips. If I 'poach' a bit of cod, what have I done, really? I know, I know. Language in flux. Often, when I'm extending this argument, I'm actually mopping the floor, not quite pretending to be a janitor. We could open with a scene of him mopping, we can see the modified chevron in wet patterns on the floor. The Bach Cello Suites in the background, maybe he hums a few bars; cut back to him, the night before, a drink in hand, pontificating about birds in the night. He's either hung-over or still drunk, or maybe this is just his natural state, quick cut to water flowing downhill. The next day he's packing paintings, shipping off a show. Nothing, really, means anything. God forgive me, I stuff shit in boxes. He does. Not to take myself too seriously, that I am, really, a janitor. A couple of posts would prove that, explosive diarrhea or vomit in the stalls, depending on how graphic you want to be. Then maybe a creeping light, he walks us through the dawn. Beautiful drive in this morning, they'd mowed the verges on Mackletree. I stopped a few times, to pick up trash, flushed a couple of woodcocks in the clear-cut. Park Ranger stopped and applauded my efforts, we chatted about the under-story and available light, and he agreed it was the worst tick year on record. At the museum I just started right in on crating paintings, about 11 one of Pegi's Cirque kids, Leo, came over to help, and to start learning the ropes. We worked well together, which surprised me, but shouldn't have. I'm easy to work with, and a good teacher, one on one. And we worked hard all day, with a break for a noon time talk by the sculpture artist. Afterwards, I took them (he and his wife and their little boy) to lunch. Anthony went with us. The table-talk was delightful. She teaches drawing and has a show upcoming in Springfield, Ohio, that I fully intend to see. She loved the Carter nudes. Then back to work, wrapping and crating, until the very sound of tape coming off the roll was driving me crazy. Every painting is wrapped at least twice, with plastic and bubble wrap, and each layer requires at least six pieces of tape, and if it's a watercolor, under glass, requires that the glass be taped as well; rolls of tape, more tape, probably, than the average person uses in a lifetime. Linsey, at the pub, knows I hate waste, and boxed all the leftovers for me to take home, a simple but odd dinner, a piece of this, a piece of that, and that's perfect, or I probably wouldn't have eaten dinner. I've lost weight, and really (!) need to eat more, but I simply get tired of chewing. K said that if I could market that, as a pill, I'd be rich. I don't care about people's eating habits, most people carry too much weight, I can't be bothered with their problems. I look like a starved victim from some purge somewhere, but it's not an act, I just get tired of chewing. Put the radio on low, in the background, and it's Sun House; I met him once, he really liked my sauce, I gave him a starter pint and directions. Maybe I'm not really me, but just a sauce, struggling toward awareness. I'll, it, comes to doing anything. Notice the way I avoided using the word 'really' there? I think about this. One thing I hate about language, is the way they keep taking words away from me. Gay used to be a fine word, for instance. I'm not careful in what I write, a little bit, in the interest of propriety, but usually I don't really care. Really. So I use words in- correctly. And I get into trouble. I'm that friend of yours, that lives in a tree-tip-pit and eats leftovers from the local pub. On the face of it, not something to be proud of, but if examined closely, maybe a good thing. Next you'll ask me about my use of 'closely' and 'probably' and we'd argue. I'll leave it up to the thesis committee, I rested my case a long time ago. What you read is what you get. A simple equation. X equals Y plus Z. Do the math.