Distribution: 3 Printed in Urbana Sunday..
1 March 1998 FREE
| ...I had this yellow cigar box I was trying to hide..........At
various points...I think...it changed what was inside it..........I know
at one point I had the Nixon administration inside the box............But
I don't know how it got started but inside this box I had the country of
Kuwait......I was trying to put it under a couch in a house like the house
I lived in until I was fifteen............Then I heard someone coming in
the porch and I knew it was George Bush............Somehow...I had the country
of Kuwait in this small...like...yellow box............I knew that if Bush
caught me he'd... hurt me or something............I just knew he really
wanted that country........Kuwait.....I think...maybe Ireland was in the
yellow box too... So I was trying to get Bush out of the room but my teeth
kept falling out which was pretty weird............I didn't want George
Bush to see that my teeth were falling out because he was on my thesis committee.......And
suddenly also in the room were my Mom and Glenn...my friend from fifth grade......And
they were both mad at me...telling me I was very late...but not late to
get anywhere in particular...just late in general... and I tried to play
like I didn't know them...and I started speaking perfect Chinese...even
though I had no idea what I was saying... Then all of a sudden I was teaching
a class and I was really nervous because I didn't know how I got there or
what class it was and I was wearing only pajama bottoms and hoping nobody
would notice I wasn't dressed.........I think it was an introductory level
class on making a pair of Nikes...or something.... And every time I tried
to talk...the room would fall silent and Iraq would whisper something to
Jordan and giggle......Suddenly I was drifting on a cloud......Reclining
in this really uncomfortable lawn chair made of...woven barbed wire.........And
the cloud had this gigantic heart-shaped swimming pool filled with hot yerba
mate... There were swimmers leaving trails through hot water whose surface
was covered with invigorating herbs... I was just getting comfortable and
this...butterfly came by with a tray of margaritas and I tried to take as
many as I could...when I remembered that you can't sit on a cloud and I
fell through it. there was white and then sky ......falling......I awoke
in a torture chamber and... a figure in a dark hood....enchiladas... lifted
his mask and it was Kenneth Starr and I was in his basement......And there
were these...homoerotic posters everywhere showing naked men typing... And
Kenneth Starr was horrified that I had seen all this and was stammering
that he was going to charge me with obstructing justice......And he took
me into a room...a gallery I guess... it was filled with art by some New
York artist...and the pieces seemed really bad but I knew if I said that
the pieces were bad then the sprinkler system would go off... All this stuff...
a birdcage made of rubber with a dead...rotting bird in it... and a briefcase
on the floor filled with sand......And...what else...oh...there was a series
of paper airplanes...like...ordinary...but mounted in really fancy glittery
frames... And they were the same kinds of paper airplanes I made as a kid
but they had really pretentious titles...so the title cards were about four
inches wide and about seven feet high... And there was a titlecard beside
the window......The window was supposed to be...a ready-made or something...
Its title was very long and all one word...and the whole title was in quotes...
And outside the windows were tons of New Yorkers strolling by with shopping
bags....And they were all different heights, from about one to fifteen feet
tall... So I went into this...combination mens room and bar I think... Like
a small bar inside a restroom with the urinals running along the bar right
in front of the stools......I guess it was also a kind of office... And
each stool was partitioned off with like corkboard partitions that had things
thumbtacked to them......And on the bar in front of each stool and urinal
was a telephone and pictures of kids that were...I think...mine... I remember
putting out my cigarette on an ashtray sort of built into the side of a
computer keyboard......So I was sitting on the stool trying to pee into
the urinal mounted in the bar but I knew I couldn't...for some reason...until
the bartender took my order... But he was at another cubicle serving a horse
a gigantic bucket full of plastic beer... So I was typing on the keyboard
and I discovered the computer was showing me someone else's writing. instead
of my own. ..like...as it was being typed...letter by letter......It was
like every time I tried to type a letter another letter appeared on the
screen but it wasn't the one I typed and I got really nervous because I
didn't know who was reading my writing...and I thought it might be Shakespeare...
Then there was some wolfman trying to contact me through the intercom...
The next thing...I think...was a lecture at Harvard being given by Timothy
Leary...about how doing laundry can damage your mind....He had slides of
people doing laundry and then slides of dismembered corpses......And it
turned out that Noam Chomsky was sitting right next to me on his cell phone
talking to...and I don't know how I knew this...someone who was suing him
because the end of the world had happened...like in 1979...but the government
had hushed it up... But Sam Markewich was writing a book about it...an expose
of the end of the world...and Sam felt the topic was so important that he
had had to invent a new language... And he had... But nobody knew how to
read it... Also...in the box I had the United Nations General Assembly...and
the Security Council...but I think I had lost the Security Council and I
knew that if word got out that I had lost the Security Council...I was afraid
Clinton would get mad at me because I had ruined his war...and that he would
kill himself and Al Gore would assume the presidency and outlaw parking
so nobody would ever be allowed to park and so then...when I eloped with
Al Gore later that night so that he and I could make sure that we got married
before he swore in as president so that I could be in the picture...as...like...the
first gentleman...we would have to keep driving and we wouldn't be able
to stop at the chapel... And then I think Al Gore and I were doing...green
cocaine...I'm not sure for how long...and he told me that Danielle and Harry
Mathews were going to have been getting married...but Harry Mathews...it
turned out when the two of them had gone to get the marriage certificate...was
actually Jorge Luis Borges....So he and Danielle had a lot of paperwork
to get straightened out before they could get married...especially because
they were trying to get a combination marriage and gun license... So that,
that way, if they had kids their kids would be able to take rifles to school...
And I realized I had forgotten to call Danielle...and I needed to stop the
wedding so I stepped out of the building...which was the chemistry lab where
air had been invented...and outside there was this gigantic statue of the
molecular structure of air... which nobody could see so people kept bumping
into it and getting bad cuts.....ambulances... But the street had been...extracted
and moved to another part of the city...and...where the street used to be.....there
was this trench that went to the center of the earth and it was illegal
to go near it... The wedding was in Montana and I took a cab there... And
then when I went up the aisle so I could introduce the driver to this cat
I had found I realized that I had lost the wallet...which had the cat in
it...and the cat had swallowed the box...which had the Eiffel Tower in it......Then
I fell asleep and when I woke up I was piloting a blimp across Antarctica
and had woken up because the co-pilot beside me was yelling through a bullhorn
"watch which way you're going..."...to a flock of birds... I realized I
had fallen asleep and I had been dreaming... So I had a cup of coffee...fixed
the coordinates...and walked down the aisle to go to the lavatory... But
when I opened the door...like...I found Lenin's body... I think... I was
so shocked that...in order to prove to myself I wasn't dreaming...I sprouted
wings and flew away with the yellow box...which had peace and love in it... |
