dmseay

I’ve learned my lesson. In my youth, the easy way was always taken. No matter what price. Was it easy living on trains for the first year in Chicago? I say yes. Yes, it was. Day labor as well. But, these are young man games and old man hardships. In my insanity I chose that lifestyle. I wanted freedom to come and go as I pleased. But after a while, the body aches a little, and your soul craves comfort. No more staying up most nights worried about the crazies, the criminals, the bullies, and the bullshit that goes along with being homeless. In short, I was tired. And on thirty bucks a day, I knew my chances of getting out of the mire were slim, to say the least. Could I go to a shelter? That would be admitting defeat, I thought. Food stamps? Too lazy to apply. I had to get off the streets somehow. And that’s when criminal behavior begins.

Panhandling was never my scene. I found it to be too self-deprecating. The thought of asking a stranger for a buck or two was a clean way to make a living, but, again, I wanted something easier. So, I gambled.

After each day of work, I showered up real good at the local gym, where I took out a membership for fifty bucks a month at a nice place in Lincoln Park. That first shower felt like water from the heavens cleansing me from within. I was truly thankful. I even bought new black tee-shirts and a pair of jeans as well. A couple of pairs of underwear and I was set for businesses. And, every night, especially Sunday, when people  felt most charitable, I would go to local bars and sit there trying to make conversation. Have them buy the drinks, I thought. Why should I? These scotch and sodas should be gratis. I worked hard or hardly worked to earn them, sitting there listening to hours of bullshit for a small touch from a new friend, so to speak. A ten spot was usually the going rate. They’d inevitably ask what I did, and I told them I was a writer. A struggling artist. They lapped it up like  pigs at a trough wallowing in the shit eating ears of corn they’d later pick from their ass. Schmooze. That’s what I did. And Cleo was smart enough to catch on. One of the reasons I fell for her.

She recognized the type of man I was. And I knew she would be a few months’ investment of time and patience to steer her to my way of thinking. The mindset that it was good to be charitable and give your soul to people down on their luck, especially young artists who needed a break. Long story short, I guilted her. And as you are familiar with capitalism and Ayn Rand, this was no easy feat.

But, I talked her into it. At first, she wanted me to move in, which I told her was not good for the artist. Said I not only needed artistic freedom but freedom to move about the night without her worrying about me. I needed to focus solely on the writing. I needed a place to barricade myself in for weeks on end, delving deep into my soul. And, with some hesitation, God love her, she decided to create the David fund, loaning me money here and there of up to a couple of grand making Kurtz tower a dream come true. Now, I could work at the writing and become a true bohemian artist. Goodbye streets. Hello salvation.

Whether she knew it her not, she was filled with the Holy Spirit. A true daughter of the Father and a sister to the Son. God and Jesus Christ smiled down upon her and blessed her for blessing me. Let the madness begin, I said to myself one night, walking home from her place, kicking a rock on down the sidewalk. Let words bleed through my veins and onto the paper. The blood of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost fill me with sentences, paragraphs, and full-on novels. Write, write, write. Thank you, God. Thank you, Cleo.

In my youth, art was foreign to me, a different language spoken by beautiful souls, put out there on canvass, the stage or screen, with clay or other materials, books, and songs. It was all hard to comprehend. Would I ever be a writer? an artist? No, I often thought. Too much discipline, too many hours of labor. And when you’re young, what does anyone know of discipline and hard work. Humans are soft and squishy like a run over apples in the road on a fall day; nothing solid. Nothing coherent. Just mush.

It wasn’t until I left home and started examining the world around me and writing it down on paper with pencil that I even began the process of being a writer. And those early notebooks were filled with terrible short stories and poems, writing, if I even dare call it that, which was dark and brooding. This is what I thought good writing was. What the hell did I know?

But these hours spent around Chicago writing down these self-indulgent thoughts and scenes from around town at least got me on the path of what it takes to be an artist. I was beginning to gain discipline in my art. If I saw it, thought it, hummed it, encountered it, believed in it, I wrote it down.

This is my task, I said to Cleo. My pencil is my cello. And with it, I shall make music that brings one to tears or great joy. But never to be pitied. I will never pity myself on the page, I told her. That would be inexcusable and just simply bad art. And God knows there’s enough of that around.

David, she said. You are a creature of streets. A vagabond. Don’t ever forget that, she told me. Now, even though there’s a roof over your head and food in your belly, you are still cold and hungry. She laughed. Saying I was an idealist. Nothing more than an idealist who one day might be an artist. But, for now, nothing more than a dreamer.

I wanted to take that cello and stick it right up her ass and pluck those strings as hard as possible with hand and bow. Teach her a lesson her father never taught her. Give her something no lover nor teacher ever had; a lesson in humility.

The problem with Cleo was that life came too easy for her. She was intelligent and beautiful, which are two things needed in America to succeed. God had definitely blessed this child. But, had he really? Remember, the meek shall inherit the earth.

Throughout my life, I’ve always hated the rich and beautiful. Perhaps it was jealousy. Maybe it was the fact that most are assholes, non caring individuals who were out to get theirs and damned be the rest of us. Does that sound of self-pity? Perhaps on the verge of it, but it’s just the way things are in this land. In fact, I think it’s in the Constitution. It sure seems that way. And who am I to argue with that.

All that hate towards rich, beautiful people. And here I was fucking one of them. But, that cello. That music. It drowned me. She drowned me. Submerging me the whole time. Telling me to be myself yet trying to change me into what she wanted. Not only was she a cello player, Cleo was also a sculptor of men. And, there were plenty of busts around her apartment she had shaped and formed to her standards.

Just hang on, David. I told myself. Hold on and enjoy the ride, but don’t lose your soul.

I lived in a studio above a garage; an old brick  carriage house with bamboo on the walls, tacked and taped by its former tenant, a Vietnam vet who lived there briefly. I never heard much about him other than he left in the middle of the night with gun in hand screaming, fuck you, to the world. He sounded like a perfectly rational person, a good human being who had just had enough. Needless to say, I could relate to this man. This symbol of courage and bravery. I assume he had courage and was brave, not necessarily because of his service to his country, but due to the fact he decided to leave it all behind and say, fuck you to all and sundry. Perhaps he was a lesson to us all. A man who realized he could not change anything on this earth for the better. Only heartache, disease, and pestilence throughout this world. And so I decided to call this place Kurtz’s  Tower. The horror. The horror.

I would stand in the window and watch cars pass by on Diversey and stare at the statue of Gothe. Maybe someday I, too, would leave Kurtz’s Tower yelling fuck you to the world as well. Nothing is possible. All is probable.

The futon on the hardwood floor was comforting to me. Often, I would lie there scribbling notes for a book someday, a big fat juicy book of sorrow and pain, along the lines of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, War and Peace came to mind. Was I seeking pity? no. I merely wanted to tell a tale of how this world is constipated for God’s sake. How this globe was in need of  one giant bowel movement. Get rid of all the waste, all the shit that’s been clogging up the pipes for years. And I decided to write each day at a great pace like a speed freak. Saliva ran from my mouth, and sweat poured from my body as I structured each paragraph. But, what did I know about writing back then? Nothing. Nothing. But I did know this; happiness is the death of art. You might as well murder the work if you’re happy. Take it out into an alley and shoot it for Christ’s sake. Or, chop off an ear. And why not? Why not.

So many thoughts race through my head. The brain never stops. The tears are a constant flow with joy and sorrow. Sometimes, I am light as air, a cool autumn  breeze, while at other times, my mood would change to sadness. A sadness of such despair that I’d often think of ending it all right there on the spot. But then streaks of wonderment, happiness would take over. A feeling I could do anything I set my mind to. These were the nights when I would skip through town, from north to south, the lake to Wicker Park, looking for whatever I could find that would appease me; women, drinks, a great meal at Friars Grill or Sophie’s Busy Bee. Mingling among the normal people. The people I despised, who when I was down and out had nothing to do with the likes of me or anybody else who was not hep or cool, or filled with money and ambition. They were enough to make me sick, wretch out behind a bar in a dumpster, smelling of piss. Maybe my whole life reeked of piss and shit and vomit. I wore these like a fancy man wears cologne, slathering it all on me in times of madness only to wake up after a month or two and realize I was only dreaming, the dream of being awake, an outcast in this city yet fitting right in.

It was during these times that I would call Cleo more and more often. Sometimes for sex and compassion or just a bed to sleep in. For a Republican she had a heart of gold. For someone who spoke so fondly of Ayn Rand, she was very giving. She was ripe for the picking. I could convert her, I thought. I could teach her new tricks in life. Make her believe, dear old dad was a horrible person, which he was, and lead her astray. She needed this. I needed this. She would become something I could not live without. Joy and pain all wrapped in one. A bipolar paradise.

My mind was no longer filled with thoughts of saving this world for the poor and destitute. Sure, I gave a dollar here and there to bums at Lake and Halsted, but no longer did I wish to save their souls. What man wants to save this world anyway? A fool, I said. Only a fool.

No, from now on, I would become a true American. A true patriot if you will. I would follow the lead of the mighty dollar. Watching it wherever it would go. Actively going out and pursuing the riches that God and man have placed before me. This was the American way. Do not help your fellow man. Take from him all that he has to give, they say. And, why not?

So I work at saving money. I worked at getting off the streets and into a cozy bed with stuffed pillows, warm blankets, clean sheets. While some are born with this notion, it took me a while to catch on. What a naive fool. An uneducated fool, I thought. Although I’d read many books, I knew nothing. From now on, I would be Ahab. A man in search of his nemesis. Some pursue whales while others chase the dollar. There are no whales in Lake Michigan. But there are sail boats and jet skis, and women frolicking on the beach with newfound lovers while the riches of the city act as a backdrop to decadence.

Think of all you’ve missed, Davey boy,  I told myself. Start this mission of money now. Earn it, marry it, steal it, whatever you have to do; just do it. Commit these sins of the earth. These laws against God. The meek? I will be meek no longer, I said. No longer.

I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it was Cleo. She came from new money. Her father, the old bastard made a fortune selling toilet paper, plastic cups, paper plates, and all that was required for decency. If you needed your ass wiped, he was the man to see.

She went to the finest schools. Private institutions where the rich and powerful sent their kids to learn culture, art, history,  linguistics, the Greeks, and how to screw over your fellow man. Cleo had that in her. Yet, at the same time, while admiring William F. Buckley, she had a tender side as well. What artist doesn’t?

The problem with Cleo was that she had never suffered. I’ll show her suffering by God. I’ll give her enough grief to fit into two or three lifetimes, I yelled silently. And why not? See what it gets you, I told myself. Give it a shot.

But, when I think of her playing that cello. I hear suffering. I hear beautiful pain. I want to be a part of it. A part of her.

Your time will come, David Michael. Your time will come.

I lay in bed as she makes a humming noise from the kitchen where she is preparing a meal fit for a king; a sexual king who’s been up all night riveting and turning the screw within. What a joyful task.

There is music playing from her living room. A beautiful sound of classical music. It could have been Bach or Mozart or that crazy German Beethoven who, in later years, could not hear a single note, the poor bastard. All that music in his head to drown out the silliness of others only to hear marvelous symphonies connecting purely to the heart, no discussions by pseudo intellectuals pretending to be well read, well educated, well hung. All of society tossed out on deaf ears. Ludwig, you lucky sonofabitch. Cursed in one way and blessed in another. May I be that fortunate some day.

Of course, I say this fully, knowing that I, too, have become somewhat deaf. Deaf to the struggles of men in mines trying to survive. Deaf to famine and the diseased. No longer do I hear the crying out in the streets of Calcutta or Bogota, or Lima, or definitely not Chicago, where the poor are poor and the rich along the Gold Coast are truly rich with old money and old ways.

Her body is wrapped in a white towel. She carries to me a tray of oranges and ripe melon and granola with vanilla yogurt. I am famished, and I eat like an animal as she stretches her hand under the sheets and begins stroking my cock. She smiles and says, where were we?

For the life of me, I can not remember her name. I look around the room as she slides me into her mouth. Frantically, I look at pictures of her, and others, hoping a name appears, a soft wondrous name that is full, and I can truly wrap my lips around. A name that I can’t wait to say, like an infant trying desperately to utter his first words. She grabs my face and kisses me. She then leaves the bedroom, and I hear a cello playing a lovely piece. She is stroking the instrument with her bow. It stands between those beautiful legs of hers. She is now naked.

You like? She asked. I tell her very much. She continues to play. Softly at first then in dramatic fashion, she caps off the piece with a loud crescendo. I feel as though I will burst. I have burst. Only a feeling of ecstasy fills me.

Every morning, I practice in the nude, she says. Naked to the world. The only way a true artist can become one with their art, she said. I have become one with my art.

I sit and listen to this cellist with long red hair and freckles on her breasts. I am captivated. She tells me she plays in the Chicago Philharmonic. She says each night she is paid to climax on stage in front of a large audience who truly appreciate her. Imagine that, I say to myself. Imagine that.

Upon leaving, she hands me a matchbook with her name and number along with a large pair of red lips.

Cleo, I say to myself. Her name is Cleo. I kiss her goodbye and whisper till next time Cleo into her ear. Till next time, she says. Till  next time.

I am alone in this world. You are alone. Even at birth being clutched in our mothers’ arms, we are alone. Sure, there is warmth and comfort by her bosom, but deep down inside, we do not want to become part of the process. Stay where you’re at, we all say. Why leave when everything is gratis. Her love is gratis. Milk from her breasts gratis. Toys given at Christmas time and birthdays gratis as well. Yet, we do reach a point, that is to say, I did, where we all want to leave the warm cocoon that is dear old mom. I said, let it go. Let it be. Move on away from this castle that dad has created complete with a torcher chamber in the basement. Run while you can, David. I told myself. This is your big chance to either succeed or fail. I chose to fail.

Soft skin and green eyes. Long red hair. She sat next to me at a bar called The Matchbox over on Milwaukee. The whole place was always packed with Wicker Park’s patrons of the arts. All of them talked about politics, film, books, music, their worthless jobs in skyscrapers overlooking Lake Michigan or the desk in the non for profit they sat at daily trying to save the world. Why save the world? I thought. It’s already gone. How much worse could it get? We all learn our lessons.

I overheard her talking to her friend. A Greek woman with a flirtatious nature about her. They both had drinks lined up in front of them from wish to be suitors in sport coats, ties, jeans, leather jackets, and me in my black tee-shirt and work pants.

They were talking nonsense. Speaking Republican bullshit of how the unions had destroyed America. How the minimum wage should not be increased for flipping burgers at McDonald’s. Typical conservative crap handed out to all that would listen. And here’s the amazing part. No one in the joint seemed to care. This is Chicago, I thought. The home of Upton Sinclair and Studs Terkel and Nelson Algren don’t you know. This is a Democrat stronghold in a country gone crazy. A country that read Ayn Rand, if they could read, and decided that it was up to you to make it in this world; alone, by yourself.

What a load of shit. No one gets anywhere without connections. You have to rely on your fellow man for God’s sake. Otherwise, you’re in the hamster cage running on the big wheel. Surrounded by wood chips. Very little culture. People just like you; selfish, arrogant, stupid people filled with nothing but self pride and at times self-pity. No, thank you.

The redhead continued talking of this Dale Carnegie horse shit til I could stand no more. I tapped her on the shoulder and said, you’re a Nazi.

She was instantly intrigued.

But, like I said in the beginning, I did not long for that world, for that America. I wanted freedom in the artistic sense. Where one is free to view his surroundings and write them down, don’t you know. 

This is what truly takes courage. It’s easy to be somebody in this city, take a ticket and wait your turn, or ambitiously go out and cause a ruckus, begging everyone to take notice, and eventually they would. That is, if you played your cards right and tickled the right ass.

I chose none of that. I thought I wanted to save the workers at Donahue’s, be a real pain in the ass to the Irish on all levels, but boy, was I wrong. What a fool to have thought that way; real manic state. A state of grandeur. The feeling of being the most important man alive. Another Jimmy Hoffa. Yet, there was no fight in me. There was no sense to expose the take, the corruption that was going on everywhere. Leave it to someone else to get the glory. Let him be on the cover of newspapers. I just wanted to be alone. Alone with my thoughts and writing.

And that’s when it kicked in. A depression never felt before. Sure, I often thought of ending it all, ever since I was a kid. Never did I feel truly happy or content; not in my father’s blessings nor in my mother’s arms. There was always a voice saying to me, this is it. 

So I take the train deep into night and ponder what it would be like to no longer exist. To no longer have any form, no being whatsoever. I write it down in my notebook as the conductor says, 95th Street. This is 95th Street. End of the line.

I smile and get on another train, going north all the way to Howard, thinking there’s got to be an easier way. Maybe I always took the easiest way. Perhaps the easiest way was the hardest.

Just keep writing. I said. Just keep writing.

This river runs through the city. Still green from the Irish having their say every Saint Patrick’s Day don’t you know. Coloring the natural waters for what is an American drunken fest. They say everyone is Irish on Saint Patrick’s, but in America, the Irish aren’t even Irish. But, they own this city. They own it from city hall down to Donahue Day Labor. As a matter of fact, the two are as one. Old man Donahue scratches McNally’s back, and the mayor returns the favor with big fat contracts with the labor union and day labor. One cleans up after the other. Sweetheart deals, money floating like cream on top of a Guinness with a shamrock carved into the brown suds; too pretty to drink, yet too good to walk away from.

Even in my early twenties, I knew all were on the take; letting sins slide right past them if the dough was right. The mayor’s right-hand man, another Irish prick, oversaw everything. The money, who got city jobs, keeping the ward committeemen in check, and the alderman at bay. Those he liked and gave penance to, he rewarded. Those who were not liked paid for their sins in public; a political flogging in McNally Plaza, named after his father, who built this city on strength and racism.

It didn’t take long to realize the city was constipated for the Blacks and  Latinos. Neither group could take a shit. They were blocked up by the Irish. Even the Italians complained about not getting their fair share. But, then again, the Italians always complained.

There were those who fell in line, and they were rewarded. Some Black neighborhoods on the Southside as well as Latino neighborhoods on the Westside, stayed mostly in check, while others ran ruptured, on the verge of breaking at any given moment with gangs and crack and prostitution, gun deals, etc….It was enough to make the old man McNally proud as he looked on from his permanent grave, waiting to be forgiven, while junior went about his ways complete with harp and shillelagh in hand.

I could join this merry group of gangsters if I chose to. That would require having no freedom of my own. Conforming to the American dream. That dream, which includes giving up morals and standards to get what we want; money, a wife, children, block parties, handing out candy to trick-or -treaters on Halloween, mass on Sunday at the neighborhood church, all the gravy you could eat, and beers with the boys at backyard barbecues. It was all mine for the taking. That’s what White privilege gets you.

I have crossed over to North Clark via Wacker Drive. My mind was still twitching from thoughts on Halstead about Mary and the second coming of me. In this second coming, am I here to spread love, punishment,  judgment upon these people of whom were created from good yet now have fallen into the depths of sin? What is my purpose?

And then it dawns on me, don’t you know. I am not Christ at all. I am merely a man of this world who falls short of the mark every time. And Mary the secretary is adding to that fall. The thoughts of saving her and my fellow slaves are foremost in my mind. Yet it dawns on me. She does not want to be saved. Nor do those who line up with me each morning for their crumbs. No. We are all happy with mediocrity. Perhaps below mediocrity. Is this what I really am? A mediocre man? A peasant who is manic one month and sad for months to come?

Truth is, there is no Mary. There are no peasants. There is no me. We are all just figures in God’s great dream. Or is it his nightmare. An experiment gone awry.

This will entangle my thoughts for weeks to come. I am no savior of the people. I am only a derelict who has given up. Albeit a crazy derelict, a derelict none the less.

Goodbye, sweet Mary. Goodbye, you Irish pricks.  So long to Charlie and his constant clap. Fairwell to all. 

It’s back to the bridge over the Chicago River. Looking down at the green water. Wanting to become part of the water, leaving my soul behind. But I don’t have the guts to follow through. I must keep on.