Farmers, Leaches, Investors, and Trash
by Joel Van Noord
It felt like I’d been slapped across the face, hard. I was disorientated. There was a deafening sound. Everything was churning from a brutal knock. I had grown a mustache; it must be some sort of joke.
I hit the breaks and skidded savagely to a painful and lethargic drift… after a year-long high I came down and was almost 30, it might have been more than a year… who knows?
Time had turned to nails on chalkboard and people were jacks lifting the fingernails from the skin. Or they were the fingernails and I was the reluctant jack. No one seemed to be enjoying anything.
There was a marine and he talked about golfing. I pressed him and he had one-liners. There was doggie style with a female (marine?) and rocking back and forth, then a finger punched to the asshole and she bounced forward and hit her head; on the rebound it was the same thing and she knocked herself out. He pulled out and left. I asked more and there was spraying this chemical in the face to check this equipment. The Iraqis never struck.
I told him how the Khmer Rouge would stuff Thai babies in plastic bags and hang them from trees. In Africa they wear Chicago Bulls t shirts.
The hours are unreal. Before, there was a continuous sexual apex. I would climb and surf and edit her articles and take a picture. I would follow and she, Jen, would hand me a ticket and we’d sweat into each other and I’d taste her salt and we’d drop from the sky and the surge would pull my toes and remove the sand from underneath. Mongrel dogs would stray with necklaces. They’d puff loudly with huge tongues and desperate smiles obstinately turned.
The boats were upturned and I’d never seen them used. We went north and the jungle crept from the hills and leaned over the ocean. Bits of coral sprinkled against the dark like a sugary muffin and the stout palms provided shade. The air was thick and being in a shirt there was like being in a suit here.
Certainly there were animals that crawled over us and sniffed and maybe nibbled but the beach is a relatively dead zone. Things pass over in pursuit or search. We are the only ones wise or conditioned enough to be able to spend such majestic hours lounging on the long snaking flanks. I tell Jennifer I will never stray. From her.
It faces northwest and they come in with power. It’s overhead and afterward I sit with the image and the feeling, reeling. There is beer and Jennifer is something perfectly aligned. She does her thing, writes her article and it’s a different stance than I’d take and a different niche. Mine? A shrug. Her’s? Unsheathed nails. These senoritas?
She’ll ask them and talk and she’ll make the world better. I’ll be on standby and through proximity I’ll make the world not worse. Which is enough.
There is another plane and what is Mexico City? She looks to me and I smile and the passport is a colorful oddity. “It’s a city with 20 million human beings surrounded by lush hills and mountains.” “Is that all?” “No.” One day we’ll know more but it’s never enough. It is what it is and it is adequate.
On the plane our hands communicate as our heads drift. There’s a movie and it’s odd. The reward is to feel odd with these things.
There is India for no other reason than to investigate the most squalid and revolting conditions. Honestly? Yes. There is a pipe leading form the city and my friend in San Francisco curses these people for doing what he would do. His rent is obnoxious. AOL cuts through the grease and it’s only the way it is. Jennifer changes things and has medicine. I frame trash and children and dead cows and wet sewage and the stench un-capturable. There are movies and we are in hell. It is fine. The children are smiling and this is life. I wear a Cuban shirt and reefers.
Does everyone have AIDS? I am content with monogamy. There is a hut and the sewer is huge and in San Diego, Tony Hawk would spiral around the massive concrete with his skateboard. We have pictures and we leave as much money as we can because we are using their conditions to earn a wage. We are taking their wage but we are capable. We pay 900 dollars in rent when not in transit. They earn 2 dollars a day. It is only the way it is?
The plane stops and starts and there are sleeping pills. The Devil Wears Prada and Adam Sandler is getting calmer and more romantic. He’s defining the awkward glances and half smiles.
Hawaii is America and I yelp like a happy puppy to a fat Samoan. He glances over from his vantage on that sick wave. He puts his toes over the edge as a barrel creeps and crashes. It was the wrong beach and the Mainland is rich. Back in the lineup he paddles close and tips the board and punches the fin. His hand bleeds and I limp toward the east. I hope a shark bites him. In many Polynesian nations, the fattest one is the chief.
Bob Marley is calming and we drive to another beach and the waves are overhead. There is Tom from Laguna and Skip from West Oz. Jennifer meets us in a bar and we’re calm. “Did you ever see, ‘Blood Diamond?’” I ask and half the group has. I just want to know if they have the same types of images in their heads. I don’t have any comment and the surf falls and girls dance in palm skirts. They shake their hips. I enjoy Hemmingway for his images. They all die but I don’t mind. It always seems worth it.
I read a book and the next day is a competition and I have a camera and Jennifer talks with looks and I’m out and they’ll carve at me and the wave will drop and I’m more about the ancillary. It’s best when there are combinations of things. The NY Times wants the Thing, focus. Perhaps the bright Bonita casually searching under the shadow of Raj from Indo? A context, they want a context, Jennifer does, and she’ll look at the shots and smile and we’ll make love in a shack on the dry side of the island and look at the lava roll like a pillow into the sea and I’ll play with her feet cause she’s my princess and I’ll kiss the ankles and one day I’ll marry her and what next?
Antarctica? She says and there is some professor she knows studying zooplankton as the ice melts, they are the pillar of food and their assemblage will change, plus, as the ice retreats new communities are showing themselves, or, we are able to access them –freshwater lakes inside massive ice cubes and what not. We will join him and she will write an article on the verge of tragedy about rising sea levels. The Maldives are 6 feet above and they will drown. I will highlight the new discoveries and professor Hersean has a thick beard from months at the bottom and the penguins are his neighbors, the seals are his clock, and the myriad of equipment and boats are his fingers.
I shake his wooden hand and we’re back. Jennifer has to work and I have a sister who makes pills for the heart. She has connections and I hit the wall. My face hurts from metaphor.
I want to learn something but I can feel it better from the media. Long assumptions are false and it’s a dry riverbed. The media is a wet sludge moving from rain to rain. He can tell me nothing.
“B was the only one to give me a raise the entire time.”
“Walter Reed’s making news?” I respond and everything is contradiction. It’s enough. I have to at least wait a paycheck. Jennifer is fine; she works on a computer in our flat 8 floors up. There is a window and she looks to the ocean all day. I drive down then up on a mesa and now a kid with dreadlocks tied back comes in to join the soldier and I.
They want me to spray this green solution on lab benches and wipe it up with paper towels, for eight hours. I have agreed and the marine has nothing unique and that’s fine. The most horrific has long been heavily highlighted. I know Abu Ghraib as well as him.
The Dread finds special chemicals and stops working for the day. It’s only been a few hours and time is moving at this obstinate speed. I look to my watch every five minute.
Everything has to go here. In this lab. It has run out of money and the amount of trash could fill India. But we can take care of it. We have faith in each other. We have infrastructure and say what you will about what you will…
Everything will get incinerated at an insane temperature and there is nothing that will enter a landfill. This biotech will pay out the ass for it. But they’ll sell their pills at a premium and perhaps the government will give them assistance and where does it ultimately come from? Jennifer, she supports me and she’s the one essentially creating something where there was nothing. But she herself creates nothing essential. They buy her product after it’s said and done. They support her after they’ve eaten, while they’re sitting at the coffee shop and wondering what to do with themselves. After they’ve spent the day working where they do.
It’s all the earth and this is nothing profound. There is one farmer for every 100 or so people. 200 years ago there was one farmer and his wife, who had troops of children who helped in the field. As this ratio changes so does society. Clearly, there have always been soldiers. So that’s nothing to consider. It is only me, with time like toothpicks under the eyelids.
One paycheck. At least. Everything gets better. Acclimation is a good thing? It is the way it is. Spray and wipe with paper towel. The pay is good. I’ll shave the mustache when I have time. Or, at least when time is more rational.