That bitch . .

he met her earlier that morningnew to the job  she put together a small group of coworkerstheir friends and gathered at a bar that had an outdoor seating area  To bond she said

he discovered the bonding at that particular bar was because she had a thing for bonded liquor  Rye or whisky she asked they have Rittenhouse Rye or Colonel E H Taylor Jrwhich Id recommend  seventeen years oldnamed for the man considered the father on modern American spirits

he took her recommendation  sipped a neat double from a sparkling tumbler  she insisted

That bitch . .

she was talking about her mother

her father had run out before she was born

I would have aborted me if I were her

Then she sticks me with Tammy

her employment identificationhung from a lanyard which everyone had to wear said Tamie

Can you believe it  Because of a song Im Tammy 

She was a huge fan of Debbie Reynolds  Tammy and the Bachelor   What is a bachelorthey dont exist anymore

Men are older boys  

Are you an older boy

Donknow  You an older girl

Parried well    Anyways welcome to the crewhuh

Yes Thank you  You didnt have to put this togethernot for me

OhbutIdid  not for you really  Were not working yousee so Im sworn as any manager is  afterhours  to trot out the fresh meat when it comes in   And baby youre fresh meat

she made him blush
he didnt blush often

Aw  Thats sweet    Good thing Im married  Id turn you inside out

Tamie was bodacious  she was an electric redheadwhich he was never partial to  voluptuous  big ass big tits

narrow waistwhich he was partial to  she was likely a maneater meateater  and tossed the gnawed bones in a heap

in a corner   before she got married

What was I thinking

What were you thinking  I cant read your mind

Nothing  Colonel Taylors good

Yes  Thank you  I didnt know what bonded spirits are

Youre welcome  I like the things I like   Youre lucky I like you Management doesnt think youre a fit

Its my first day 

You dont fit the culture

Culture  I was hired to do a job not fit a culture

Theres that  Im impressed   You got sixty days to impress them or at least enough of them  Little bit of a democracy yet

he fit the job for twelve years before he lost it in a corporate buyout

he definitely didnt fit their culture

he kept in touch with Tamie

she became his go-to reference  I loved to be your reference  You know what the nicest thing about referring you is
he didnt    I dont have to lie

three years out from the buyout Tamie confessed to him she had an invasive cervical cancer

it turned out to be horribly aggressive

she didnt want to see him

shed talk on the telephone with him

probably the last time they talked she talked about her free dive off Isla Holbox the Yucatandid he remember

Like I can forget  You spiced up those underwater snapshots interspersed them with nudes of yourself

Wanted to make sure you were paying attention now you know what youre missing

I got eyes I got an imagination   I didnt miss a thing

Youre sweet

Ive been told Im hot and sweet  Really something to savor

Hah  I can imagine

she had trained the better part of a year to free dive in hopes of meeting a whale shark

she did

she almost drowned

I should have died thenyou know  I didnt know I was a drowning  I was lost I was caught up in its presence its black eye looking at me  my hands to either side of it  it didnt flinch or recoil  I was caught up in peace inside a scintillating azure web of shimmering light and warmth  awed and filled with her majestic presence       

Then I blacked out

I cant remember inhaling choking on seawater  

On the boat I remember spasming expelling watergasping for air  shitting myself

I should have died then underwater

But you know what I think now

Im happy my memory will remain alive inside of that beautiful female whale shark   when I . . when I wont have any memory of her

I am so happy for that

he couldnt answer her if he tried   Ahhmm he intoned

We decided to quit chemo it isnt working

I have to hang up now I want to go for a walk in the sun  Please take care of yourself

she hung up

afterwards she didnt answer his callsdidnt respond to his voice messages

then he called  The number you have dialed it not a working number

1149,  Friday,  22  12. 17

Debbie Reynolds  Tammy  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew3mtNZFrMY

he learned to-day that Baudelairelearned that Baudelaire  sitting at a small table in a Parisian café intoxicated by hashish and glasses of absinthe did not feel the wing of madness pass over his head

he loved that proposition thought it heady   deranging     a lightningsliver of Rimbaud etching Baudelaires shadow on a dirty woodslatted floor 

he read a new translation

it argued when Baudelaire wrote that passage he wrote imbecillite missing two accent marks

he wrote neither folie or demence missing one accent mark

therefore  translated  his wing of madness read wing of imbecility  Baudelaire had been experiencing a series of illnesses  he feared his physical weakness and feebleness  he believed they would finally incapacitate him   

eventually aphasia and heart attacks rendered him led him to lose his speech then robbed him of his ability to read and write his ability to write and read  a living death for a writer

he had shared that storythat passage more times than he could say since first reading it 

it was the wing of madness that encouraged him to find drugs  and intoxicated sit at a table with a red Bic pen in hand and scribble down the wordsthey came to him faster than he could record them  scribbleturning pages overmore pages a flurry of bloodied moths many dying skewered on the end of his pen until he eclipsed  and came down  and pushed back away from the slaughter  and saw before he turned his back on them to shower that he numbered them  so when he returned refreshed replenished for the next round session he didnt have to complete a jigsaw puzzle  he only had to order the pages or be ordered by them   

sometimes the stain wouldnt wash from his hands  and people who saw them were uncomfortable he didnt have clean hands  he would correct them  My hands are clean theyre only stained   he was proud of their queer patterns and without memory of how that blob happened or that curlicue happened or that patch of pointillist passion 

You see he told themsticking his hands in their faces my pen moves faster than my hand an is quite irreverent

of course they pulled awaybacked off  How rude

How rude  No  How rude to think my hands arent cleanhow provocative  I dont take kindly to insults

he did not

he did not take kindly to any entrance into his space  and he maintained a large space that was duly posted  handwritten signs  Trespassers Will Be Violated

he was inviolable

he was truss in sheaves of paper inky accelerants and willing to touch a match to the mess and go up in a whorling twister of fire and blackanblue voidsbreathless  panting   shrieking  happy to take with him the scornerstheir bleating followers happy to cleanse that piece of earth for renewal happy to feed the articulating mouths of insects and lay as fodder for vibrant fresh new growth

fuck the new translation

                    I have felt the wind on the wing of madness

0954,  Thursday,  21  12. 17

1047,  Friday,  22  12. 17

“We stand now in the midst of a severe mental epidemic; of a sort of black death of degeneration and hysteria, and it is natural that we should ask anxiously on all sides: ‘What is to come next?’” Max Nordau, Degeneration

Next?  Shaddup  he couldnt stand the shrill of a coward