Current Fashion

Our main thief, everyone knew who it was, is on the lam. Good news, but it creates a vacuum, and thievery is rampant out in the country. Everyone's on some drug or another. Heroin is way cheaper than oxy, cheaper than beer if you drink anything other than Pabst. I keep a sawed-off shotgun in my umbrella bin; the perfect and deeply offensive umbrella bin is an elephant foot, but mine is just a poplar round, hollowed out with decay. I've never actually bought an umbrella, but they seem to accumulate. So I have three or four; several walking sticks, including a Black Thorn with a silver handle, a very sharp machete, a hatchet, and a couple of boning knives. Things I might use if I had to defend myself. A rake and a shovel; I keep a small pistol, cut into a book, close at hand, not that I would ever use those things, but that they were available. Quick run to town, drinking water, whiskey, some food, stop at the pub for chicken and dumpling soup and a beer, chat with Devin, get home just before a down-burst. New library books, the week's New Yorker. Sultry hot afternoon, but Black Dell bears it with a bowl of ice and a small fan, and I'm fine, when I strip down to my boxers and sleeveless tee. I wear only cotton in the summer, otherwise I stink; my personal response to synthetic fabrics is an acrid locker-room smell. They don't like me and I don't like them. Rained hard last night, so I got up to close down Black Dell, got a late drink and rolled a smoke. Still reading in the field of island biogeography and there's a great deal published in the last decade or so. The Basin And Range of Nevada, for instance. Also a new book, for me, Cannibalism, Headhunting, And Human Sacrifice In North America that I'm looking forward to. Sent to me by a foodie friend, because, I suppose, there are some recipes. Which gets me hunting the indexes in my fairly complete collection of Claude Levi-Strauss books. The area around my desk has reached a stage of terminal mess, that would appear to be totally chaotic, but I often surprise the (very) occasional guest, and sometimes even myself, by putting a hand right on the publication in question. Sara is sending me a book via the pub, and it'll be interesting to see if I get it. They like me over there, for three different owners; I upholstered the fucking benches, I fetch ice for the bar when they're busy, I've even bused a table of two. I've offered, several times, to wash dishes, which I would actually enjoy doing, but they don't take me seriously. Cory thinks I should be a bartender, because I'm a good listener, but that wouldn't work out, and I couldn't work in the kitchen, because that wouldn't work out, but I could wash dishes, which requires no knowledge aforethought and very little remorse. But I don't need to do it, and I hate driving after dark. Also, I'm working on this new larder list, which posits fewer trips to town, and indicates an alternative reality. Low profile, you have to keep this stuff secret, that the long-heads, actual Phoenicians, died out on Easter Island. Not trying to convince anyone, don't give a shit, I just read along, through the night. One night, this must have been the late 60's, Gerry Mulligan was visiting with Geraldine Page, and he played, after hours. Transcendent. I hadn't understood free jazz until then. What's not said. Miles. Then Cage, leaving everything out. There's a thread here somewhere.