In this gym sauna  its air dry  hot  cedar    almost . .

 . . it almost reminded him of a sweathouse he enjoyed . no  he didnt enjoy it . . he experienced it . . . a sweat lodge an Indian friend built on his property at the edge of the Minnesota River

hed hacked a short black rectangular pool out of the rivers ice  prominent against its bluemarbled ice and the unspoiled white heaped gather of snow

they stoked a big open fire that night and into it dropped round river rocks

then with old iron tongs they fished them out of the red flames and brought them inside a low skinclad oval  trussed up on willow branches he bound and twined

inside  it was hot

  

hot  was an understatement

he had a dispassionate inkling he might be the main course for their evening meal

Stupid White Man roast

he didnt know this Indian that well  but they had gotten along on the construction site 

                           

inside the flap that hung over the opening to enter and exit the lodge stood a galvanized bucket filled with riverwater

                                                                            

Joe the Indian (unfortunate he thought  Mark Twain) ladled water onto the rocks and gorgeous

white steam billowed off them curling  filling the lodge

taking his breath away

it only got hotter

he never had a vision  saw it

he wasnt an Indian

when Joe eventually (none too soon) grunted at him  ending his slow scalding  they bolted out of the lodge and down a slight snowy decline to the rivers edge 

 

Joe motioned they were going to drop into the water at the hacked edge  upriver

he followed him into the black river like a lemming

they emerged  crawled out onto the downriver edge  naked  and stiffly went up the rise back to the sweat lodge

      

while the hot warmed him he wondered why his heart hadnt given out for the extreme physical swings from hot to frigid to hot again  and that wondering entertained him for the rest of the evening  lubricated with firewater  and Joes laughing                                                           

                                                                                      and then even later as he drove home through falling snowing illuminated by his headlight bolts

he sat on a slatted cedar bench in the dark

hed chased the last fatty out stoking the heat with a little trick he learned from a veteran hardass who he also chased out of the heat years ago

only because he tolerated it better than most

YES

he ought to feel bad about thinking of the fat man as a fatty  but he was  just because you have a membership to a health club doesnt obfuscate the fact that someones fat  

he was fat  he was enormous  the fat man knew it and he knew it  So roll the hell out of here fatty and take your slick snail trail with you as you go  please

a puddle of it remained  sitting beside him in the dark

he could hear it quiver

with fatty escaped he could finally relax and let the heat inside him

Robert Palmers Power Station  Some Like It Hot  played lightly in his musing ears

he opened his eyes

and took in the panel of plexiglass framed in the heatwarped door

it was light blue outside

then he closed his eyes again

where the door had been in his vision

in his closed eyes he saw a pitchblack ban stretched vertically as far up he could see in his head and as far down

it was firm

but then it began to slacken

it hung there wafting in the radiating heat  and then it began to turn on itself and coil 

spiral counterclockwise

everything turned in his closed eyes counterclockwise

he marveled when it didnt

                                

with its spiral loosening  its blackness began ebbing  he immediately missed its stark black band

hanging vertically in his eyes it reminded him of the black blinders applied over the eyes of the blackandwhite girlie snaps of his youth

obviously horizontal

whorizontal  some believed they were pornography

strapped over her eyes  her leaning forward  deeply  her breasts thrusted trapped in between her bent arms  swollen  nipples hard    neat trick!

some believed this was pornography   or art

strapped over her eyes and over his eyes  as he takes her from behind  the picture blurred by motion  theyre both slovenly

some believed this was pornography   or art

and then the coloring was altered  he was older  changing to a sepia-tint  more exciting   a girl on her knees  seen looking down  the blinder slipped over her eyes  a cock disappearing into her mouth

some believed this was pornography   or art

then sepia blossomed into Colour  brilliant  and unashamed

the blinders gone  snatched off their faces 

and then there was a skillful return  a stylised blackandwhite  a male model (or not)  mouth open  an artful arch  a stream of urine between his mouth and a man standing before him

some believed this was pornography   or art

it seemed to him in this near-scalding darkness the difference may have been in what
the blinders hid

what he couldnt see behind them

what was not revealed

the Mapplethorpe  the model was aware his sensibilities invoked  it was in his eyes   Art

perhaps if the women in those early snaps  if their eyes revealed something untoward

then pornography

but if willful  adamant and ardent   art

                                                                   its loose spiral  its blackness began ebbing

he missed the stark black band standing on its end

and its turn became quicker

its colouring more diffuse

a gray  a greying 

 

spinning

and spots like spores or mould erupted  and wound on each other like a network

at a Sudden

Xploding

like the surface of a black sun licked by solar flares                                                                    

                                                                                                Hanging There

shriveling to ash

collapsing

dissipating

                       Evaporated

Joe the Indian might have been impressed

but his brother rolled him that winter in Minnesota  fractured his skull with an empty whisky bottle

robbed him as he died outside the bar in the snow where they drank

1924,  Monday,  22  12. 14