Concrete Dust

Nothing for it. A new bag in the vacuum, and I go over the stage twice, then mop twice. TR wiped down the two tables that were on stage. He stopped back by, after teaching, and he, D and I cleared the stage. The classroom abuts the back of the stage, and there's a set of double doors. The stage piano, another baby grand, lives on a rolling platform (it doesn't move easily) which has to be rolled away from the doors, so they can be opened, then rolled back forward and locked in place. Then the piano gets rolls through, under the velour drape, and onto the stage. This is an enormous pain in the ass, but we only have to do it a few times a year. Safely accomplished, but I'll need to clean everything again, I'll wait until after the Stanley Steamer guys come tomorrow to clean the theater seats, which are also covered in concrete dust. Then I can vacuum the new carpet, which still suffers installation debris. I have to clean the downstairs hallway, so that the various workers don't track dust back on to what I've cleaned. It's a nightmare, but I'm beginning to get it under control. Someone smashed my mailbox, with a baseball bat I'm guessing, so I need to get a new one tomorrow and cut a board to fit the bottom so I can mount it on the post. Fucking vandals, I just don't get it, I wish them nothing but ill will. It's a sport, out in the country, to drive around with a twelve-pack of Bud Light and an aluminum bat, switch off the driving, and smash mailboxes. Why not just split wood? I'm supposed to get some thunderstorms, and it looks like I could, so I might have to stop writing. I already see some lightening. Rain. Better go. Quite the light show and thunder, to parse the time, but it's moving off to the SE and not a concern to me. I wore a throw-away set of clothes today. Wanted to stay in town and have a beer, but I knew I could beat the thunderstorms home if I left right after work, and I chose to do that, get my ass back on the ridge. Artillery in the distance. Rolling thunder. My writing window, where I face when I'm writing, is almost always the leeward, and I leave that window open, most of the time, for eight months of the year, because I like to smell the world, up here it's fecund and deep. I have to go, it's getting fairly vicious. Quite the spectacular storm last night. Quickly lost power and phone but it was fine because I would have sat in the dark, anyway, to watch and listen. Drifted off to sleep afterwards. This morning, early, the power came back on, I just rolled over and went back to sleep. A little dicey, getting off the hill. Slick at the top, but the drive in was lovely; it was still raining lightly, had rained hard in the night, and all the new color was washed of the dust and pollen. In toward town, the greens were stunningly beautiful. I took a group of college kids through the print show, first thing, last thing I did was take another group through the Carters. In between, TR and I got a start on cleaning the concrete dust from the downstairs hallway, which serves as backstage, and the percussion trio playing on Friday night all dress in black. I think I can finish cleaning it tomorrow, then clean the new bathrooms and mop the back hallway and the main gallery on Friday. I was having a smoke outside the back door, and Fatima pulled up, got out, looking great, and wondered if she could book me for three of her classes on next Wednesday, to do the whole museum. Of course she can, it'll take up my entire day, but we are, after all, a museum, and I am the best at this. I hit my stride when I'm bullshitting about twentieth century American art. It's just that I know so much detail, who was there, what was said, I know specifically where they were; I've sat in that same room many times since, usually my living room, it's not really comfortable or uncomfortable. Figure it out. I find my lifestyle leads me toward, first, removing a comma, and then justifying that: in the way the world worked, it wouldn't matter. If therefor then. Still no phone, so me and my modem are high and dry, no way to SEND. On the way home today, technically yesterday, daydreaming, I'd stopped for gas, picked up a burger and fries. There were a couple of people at the lake, and I didn't feel social, so I drove down to the turn-around where Mackletree Creek runs in. It's a fine spot, sandstone ledges, what I think of as creek-bank growth; not many thrushes anymore, but there are always crows, dining on the tossed bits of food. I'm not anti-social, but I don't want to waste my time, and I often stop, on the way home, looking for some mediation between the outside world and the inside world. Bear with me. There was just a ruckus in the outside world that broke my concentration. Two coons and a single piece of meat. That turn-off, where the creek runs into the lake, is also where I get my throwing rocks, the fines are perfect. Who would ever imagine that you would find a place where there were perfect throwing rocks? Another day cleaning the theater and the downstairs hallway. Stopped at the hardware store and got a new mailbox, then parked at the bottom of the hill and installed it, walked in, because there's a 100% chance of big storms tonight and tomorrow morning, and I don't feel like taking a Nantucket sleigh ride in the morning. The phone is still out, three days now, and I found the culprit on the way home. A large dead oak that must have hit the line pretty damn hard. The phone line is inside a shielded cable, very strong, and they keep a certain slack in the line, to absorb shock. Usually works, but this was a big tree. I'll catch one of the Frontier guys tomorrow, they meet for morning coffee in a parking lot out back. Better I tell them, because the lady I talk to in Nashville isn't going to know the area. Three-tenths of a mile from where Booby's sawmill used to be. Had to turn on the window AC for Black Dell, 88 degrees inside when I got home. She labors above 78. Enjoyed the walk in because that whole array of miniature flowers are coming up in the disturbed ground of the median. I usually walk up and down in the outside rut; and it's best, if you're going to look closely, to look when you're going uphill, leaning downhill can lead to serious injury. This could be the year of the squirrel, along with the cicadas, they're everywhere, and bark like small dogs when they feel I've invaded their space. I have to deal with territorial squirrels, and two pair of jeans that are impregnated with concrete dust. I can do this, I'm a professional. My turf, my call; I'll wash the contaminated pants in a separate washer, no big deal. Professor Longhair. The Cincy Percussion Trio. Coming tomorrow, a John Cage we're not supposed to hear. These guys are reconstructing Cage's music from mere notes. I think I'll have to stay in town for that. Send a note from town saying I can't send from the country, because, back of beyond, I'm the end of the phone line and not a high priority. I'm sympathetic, because they'll have to send out the tree guys and the phone guys, probably cost a couple of thousand dollars for my thirty bucks a month. I understand I'm a liability, but I had been promised phone service. "Broke Down Palace", The Grateful Dead in rare form, and I only heard it because that fucking pack of dogs woke me. Want to shoot them all, I was having great dream, in which I was the hero of my own life story. A pastiche that involved second cousins I lusted after. A great dream until these goddamn dogs entered the scene. I had left the radio on because I was listening to the news, Boston; West, Texas. But I drifted off asleep and the words were just a patter-song, playing against the rain. Information takes many forms. I can almost make sense of things, in a linear fashion, first one thing, then another. I have to laugh., because that is SO not the way life happens. Fits and starts is closer to the point. I try not to do anything I can't justify. Bottom line. After that, I just make things up.

Another day, lovely walk down the driveway, blackberry canes just beginning to bud, the red maples in the bottom are leafing, the poplars leafing too, from the top down, as is their fashion. Myriad miniature flowers. A white trillium. Much to be done for the concert, Percussion Group Cincinnati. I finish getting the theater ready, the bathrooms, mop the hallway from the elevator to the stage in the basement; and after lunch the group was there to unload. They had done a show in the morning for elementary school kids at Portsmouth West, a performance they call "Music From Scratch" where they do a show using objects they find in the classrooms. Their vehicle is an extended-cab van and it's packed to the gills, packed better than any vehicle I've ever seen. A huge number of instruments. More drums than I've ever seen in one place. They set up, which takes a couple of hours; I check in every once in a while, to listen to them plink, and to talk with my friend, The Music Guy, Michael B, who will be reading the text for a John Cage piece from the 1942 "Credo In Us" which they're actually not supposed to play (there are copyright issues), but these guys are Cage scholars. Cage wrote pieces for them. So they swear the audience to secrecy and play the piece anyway. It's brilliant, written for Merce Cunningham (who is rumored to have 'collected' the text, they're all quotes) and his dancers. There are radios involved, prepared piano, and the largest xylophone I've ever seen. All three of them play it at the same time in the last piece they do "Chilean Songs" and it's a knockout. They play under and over each other in a way I never would have thought possible. The concert is wonderful. Then that aspect of theater that the public never sees, where you grab a quick bite to eat, then pack everything up, then load it out, every thing is heavy and it's late. I just stayed in town, not just because of the concert, but because I knew they were doing the main concrete pour in the alley today, and I was damned sure going to be there for that. It's a huge pour, nine guys; and there are five guys working next door, dismantling a brick parapet forty feet in the air, before it falls apart. I needed to be there so I could allow them access to the bathrooms because they drink a lot of Gatorade and need to piss. Bob's concrete crew are pretty good. I had a better crew in Colorado, and a better crew in Mississippi, but they are putting a reverse chamber down the middle of the alley, for drainage, and they spread on some colored pigment and imprint a stone pattern. It looks nice. TR and I go over to the pub for lunch and watch a bit of soccer. I have a pint of beer, because I'm going home after and intend a nice afternoon and evening of doing nothing but hunting for morels and reading. Which comes to pass. A couple of hours later I'm deep in the forest, with my kit, kneeling on my foam pad, looking at a perfect small white flower. Yesterday and today were the Bradford Pear sepal snow days: blowing and drifting petals that clog the gutters in town, but out here, in the country, the most exciting thing is that I find a large clutch of morels. Polenta is left-over grits, the way I do them, in a crock pot; I pack them into a tubular form, whatever's handy, then slice them, and fry them in butter. Morels in a cream sauce on top. Lord god. And that got me thinking about a risotto which I'll probably do tomorrow. A morel risotto would lead to a left-over fried cake, which, topped with an egg, might well be one of the best things ever. Looking down the pike here, just saying, I can't listen to the radio, it's too loud, I kill the breaker for the refrigerator, nothing but the hum of Black Dell and her harmonic overtones. The susurration of new leaves. I hadn't built a fire, and I wake up, at three in the morning, cold, temps have dropped to near freezing and the house is chilled, so I go through the motions, start a fire, burn a broken desk chair, rock maple, I pulled from a dumpster, roll a smoke, get a drink, it's the weekend, after all, and I have things to think about. I worry about the museum, the way the board is assuming a hands-on control, the way Pegi is losing contact, the fact that D might leave to become a full professor. I have to think about my place in all of that. I don't care about the politics, no vested interest. I'd just as soon retire, actually, look at very small flowers with a magnifying glass. The rest is all bullshit. The natural world is the only reality. Three crows and a frog. Take it or leave it. But I love installing shows, and that incredulous stare on the faces of college students when they realize my enthusiasm for the print show or the Carter collection is genuine ("possessing the claimed character...", I've always loved that definition) as I reel off facts about some particular time or place. I have three of Fatima's classes on Wednesday which will be fun but exhausting, and I know D wants to get the back hall and front entry painted next week. However nice it would be (future pluperfect?) to sit back in my rocking chair on the back stoop (I actually have a rocking chair, from Selma, Alabama, that sat through the marches) flicking ashes from a hand-rolled cigaret toward a coffee can half-filled with sand. Sometimes I almost know where I am, in the narrative, but usually I have to add connective tissue, which I later excise, to get me from one place to another. Timing is everything. Trying to reproduce the spoken voice is difficult, the leaps we make. There are a dozen people, maybe more, with whom I can say anything. They'll more or less understand. A figure of speech, a footnote. A side-bar. But I have to say, the green is exploding, even the oaks. Color comes into play, at first just a lonely saxophone, then a replete chorus with full orchestra; and those young leaves are soft, so when they brush against each other the dance is sexual. Sensual, leaning in toward each other. Hand around the waist, whatever that means; soon, I realize, I'll be encased in green. Spring unfolds on the ridge. Two Pileated woodpeckers, monstrous in the maze, their red crowns blazing, fly in to confuse the situation. Young squirrels bounce from tree to tree. Not quite depressed, but feeling off my feed, I watch from a certain distance. I don't want to be involved. I've had enough involvement. Usually it just leaves you breathing hard, wondering what you could have done otherwise. A moment at the edge of tears, the stages of grief. Somewhere deep in the forest, I don't know where I am exactly, but I know the road, Upper Twin, is off to my right, and I can always find my way back home. Enough morels for dinner tomorrow, and the buds of sassafras are set to burst. They're luminous in the last light, vibrating in the breeze. Two large dogs, Great Dane crosses, trail me for a while, but when I stop and look at them, they drop their tails between their legs and head back the other way. The word is out, I think, that if a dog attacks me I kick it in the throat and they usually die, ending most fights before they begin. I hate fights, try to stop them before they begin, if someone insists, I pick up a 2 by 4 and slap them on the head, fair play only extends so far. I keep a sawed-off twelve gauge shotgun at the back door, bird-shot, but stil. It's best not to disturb me late at night. Get your ass shot. Alvin Youngblood playing the delta blues, reminds of Mississippi John Hurt and Robert Johnson, late, tomorrow already; I'd had the radio on mute and crank it up when I go outside to pee, standard procedure, there might be something I want to hear. Worth listening to, I get a short glass of whiskey and roll a smoke, he plucks those strings so strongly. There's a song with no words, that he plays, about going up the river, and the harmonics build, he sounds like Leo, a cascade. Then he draws out some blues chords that stretch my heart strings. Things are coming my way, the best music I've heard in a while. Sounds like he's destroying a guitar. Not many people play with that much feeling. "Jackson High-Heeled Momma" might be the title of one song, mostly he just growled and played great guitar. He started in Carroll County, Mississippi, where I lived for ten years, what you going to do when your biscuit roller's gone? A nice segue into Doctor John. Set your thing on fire. Hey now. Blow wind blow. I heard him play at a roadhouse in Cruger,a garishly painted concrete block building with the acoustics of a gymnasium. She's so heavy. What do you want to be? One of the beautiful people. I think Paul is over-rated, Greg Brown is a way better writer of songs. Going to leave you at the station, I don't need no aggravation. Bonny. Mr. Nelson, round and round, "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues". Take me to the river, walk me in the water. End of the work day Monday and still no phone. I read all day, Dave Barry's new book, which I found a little flip, but I did have some good laughs, and Best American Essays 2002, which I picked up for a buck off the sale table in the library. Made the risotto, with shallots and morels, drop dead killer good. It's about all I ate today. Pissed about the phone. The ridge opposite is a wave of color. Enjoy the view while I can, soon I'll be engulfed, encased, in a sea of green. I get my big Monday clean-up, bring in the sheep-watering trough and heat water, shaved and washed my hair at the kitchen sink, then soak for a while, rinse with the sun shower out on the back porch. The wasps have claimed the front deck. I rub lotion everywhere I can reach, then sit on a towel until it all absorbs and I can get dressed. I know D will want to start painting tomorrow, so I put a pair of throw away pants and a tattered shirt in my pack. Wednesday I'm Fatima's docent pretty much all day. I do this better than anyone. Bullshit banter, I'm so good at it, the waters just part. Hey, what about history? I have to go sleep. This is exhausting. Barely get to sleep and there's a knock on the door, and it's that kid Travis, needing to use the phone. I explain that it isn't working and have him pick it up and listen, so his folks won't think I was just being a prick. I explain that I can't do anything about it, and no, I can't drive him over to his Grandmother's house, because I had been drinking earlier and I was still a bit buzzed. Give him a glass of juice, and send him on his way, down the hill with his flashlight. I don't like how this is developing, I don't live on the ridge so I can help a 10 year old kid score pot for his step-dad. I hate being interrupted, unless it's Phillip wanting to talk about doing a Beckett play, or B with a book that I really need to read, and they yodel, from a hundred yards away, to warn me of their approach. A sharp hard knock, in the middle of the night, is shocking; all those thoughts run through your head, "1984", police state, who would I call even if I had a phone, where's the shotgun? In another world I'd mentor this kid, he's bright, he sees the way the world moves, but I'm busy, very busy, as it happens, and I can't make room for this. I want to be alone. I don't know why this is. For the most part, I'm comfortable with a book and the quiet; though it's never actually quiet. Birds now, and a dawn breeze that rustles the soft spring leaves. I value my privacy to a ridiculous extent. My fall-back positions are a tree-tip-pit and a sandstone overhang; where I keep dry tinder, I can always start a fire.

Tom

Phone works. I'd better send this and start all over.