WORK
BY TIM MILLER
FROM "STRING TRIO GHOSTS"
(A NOVEL-IN-PROGRESS)
12:00am
her
settle down to sleep, but a Proust sleep, rolling over in Remembrance—or In Search Of, depending on the translation.
no sleep. should sleep, after this week. can sleep, am tired enough, a handful of six a.m. strolls through the empty campus.
given enough time I will sleep, saying it over and over rama rama rama—rather her her her—think that was the first thing the book said not to do, something about the mantra not being used to tune out the mind but to tune it in—I should count sheep to induce sleep, not intone a sacred word of peace.
her
won’t sleep, want to sleep, however I can.
remember walking around the block saying rama and fifty minutes felt like five, that was timelessness.
she was timelessness, that staring
no radio either, temptations of talk or static or sports or classical music. rather be without sleep for five hours than be lulled into it by Nothing.
her her
I lied, not entirely conscious of it as I said it. I don’t expect anything. this isn’t hurting me. of course not. logically speaking nothing should ever hurt anyone.
her
her, there, in the Denny’s parkinglot, taking my arm. that staring, that deepdown ... shit, that deepdown, what is it? Nothing, it means Nothing.
perhaps you like me too much. yeah. perhaps. nice way of putting it.
looking out the window, past pane, past glass, past screen, by the time you get past it all there’s no reality to see, not even trees, barely a streelamp, all pixilated through the screen or with a reflection of the walls or drapes or light reflected off the glass.
her her her
her as always, her as will ever be, her without end, Amen. Om-men. and who her, what her, just Joan her, just this past week her? or Christine her, Mary her, nameless her I’m getting up early in the morning to see her? her her her her her Nothing—
Nothung! Stephen, smashing his ashplant down in reference to Sigfried, forget what Campbell says about it.
now onto Finnegans. that, too, tomorrow, Joyce’s Book of the Night, or is it Joyce’s Book of the Dark? whatever. Bishop, long as I know that. still worried that I actually want to try that thing, but I want to read about it first. have no money but that thirty, just enough, pathetic, car bills and creditcard debt and no job and I’ll probably spend more time finding a store with that book than I will in search of a job.
In Search of Lost Time, madelaine, that was timelessness, her staring. funny about Joan, Faulkner has figured all the way through, first with Between grief and nothing I will choose grief and just this week The past is never dead, it’s not even past.
I put you aside, as much as one can do something like that, but it was always all still there, you’re sitting right there, everything was always sitting right there waiting to be taken up again
rollover, no sleep, arm over my eyes, Selby does that in The Room, the recurrent image, puts his arm over his eyes, or fingers through my hair, I feel like a girl I play with my hair a lot, just nervous I guess
and I knew you liked me still when you brushed my hair with your hand because you did it carefully, only in a way someone who cared about me would do, almost as if you didn’t want to do it
well I didn’t think I should be doing it, I was cautious
cautious or conscious, and conscious of what, of nothing. to be conscious of nothing. prayer of Saint Francis, or the AA thing too, give me the wisdom to recognize the difference, conscious of nothing but aware of instinct, a refined instinct, not knowledge but wisdom, not sight or anything concrete but awareness, viveka, discrimination
and as you are probably aware it’s possible to have feelings for more than one person at the same time
I should turn on the radio. or not. won’t. will not. vil nut, fake German is easy to imagine, just the sound, like I must find vurk tomorrow
things will work out for you, you’ll forget about me, so many of my encounters with boys have been in the dark
but some of those encounters, out of a handful, maybe three or two or one—me i wanted to say, me—will live forever
deepdown stare will live forever, entwining hands searching hair or cupping cheeks or bringing face close enough but not too close.
and it will. nothing is wasted.
her
I think you like me too much. yeah, a way of putting it, not very satisfactory, as Eliot would say. Christ, how humble he was, his writing years between two wars largely wasted, or whatever he said in that telegram from St. Louis when he got the Nobel, I haven’t gone far, something like that.
a way of putting it a way of putting it a way of putting it
a way of putting it away putting it away away
putting her away, putting her aside
I put you aside but you’re still right here, you’ve always been
Nothing, Nothung, Stephen, his Emily is my everywoman
her her
her Nothing, Nothung, Campbell I don’t remember what.
turnover.
that deepdown
shit, what is that from
fine
stupid light, I hate the light, I always stare right into it when I turn it on—here, that’s what I thought, O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes—I’m thinking Molly’s thoughts, but no, wait, something else too, too many damn books, there, there, I knew it, He fell for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those deepdown, spooky loves
looks like I’ve fallen for the same thing, though I doubt I’ll shoot her just to keep the feeling going
Ulysses and Jazz, Molly and Morrison, I’ve never known anyone to start a book like she did, with three consonants, Sth, or Sethe, but that’s Beloved
Christ I’ve got to get some sleep
as a girlfriend you would hate me, we would never work
how do you foresee something like that
probably true, though
would we work, honestly, would we work
I thought so, but somehow by my age and supposed experience or my family and with what happened with Joe and dad I’m out of her league
what the hell’s this league crap, we’re all just human, that’s it, we like people
why do you like me so much?
well why don’t you like me?
I do.
well then why not me instead of him?
he does something to my head that you don’t.
well you do something to my head that others don’t.
what the hell else are you supposed to say, why do I like her and not half the girls I see when I visit her, why did I come back here and not stay in Hatteras
well that’s because I wanted to go to school up here but still
well why here, why home, why the Hill, when you know everyone will know who you are and will know what happened and if they don’t ask they’ll want to and you’ll see it on their faces
maybe it’s all just for attention, for the comfort of home, for the comfort of seeing Maggie and the whole group again, I don’t know
Christ’s sake I’m not going to interrogate myself on why I do everything
why do you like me so much?
to be honest I wish I didn’t.
thank God I have an excuse to get out of the house tomorrow morning, draining unemployment, empty house where nothing can wake me up, center of paralysis, either watch TV or fall back asleep only three hours after I’ve woken up, disgusting lethargy, repulsive inertia, inactivity, worthless stillness, in couch or bed or bath
her
then she calls sometime and I’m up, I’m always up at night, my nighttime like morning and my morning like nighttime, my day reversed, zombie from nine to six and limitless from six to three and back again
can barely even read, only in large bursts, no consistency, no structure, no discipline
and is it really all that foolish, wanting to be committed to someone, believing that that’s possible?
a way of putting it
rama
a way of putting it rama a way of putting it a way of putting it
a way of rama putting it away putting it away away rama
putting her away, putting her aside
her her
turnover.
that deepdown