Walking on Thin Ice

LET’S KISS LIKE I’M THE OPPRESSOR AND YOU’RE THE OPPRESSED

“I’m cold,” I whine. “I want to be hot.”

“You can take a bath, or run up and down the stairs twenty times, or get under the covers.”

“Or,” I suggest, “you could press your hot body against mine.”

Smith lays down next to me. I lie on top of him. “I’m pressed and you’re the presser,” he says.

I say, “Let’s kiss like I’m the oppressor and you’re the oppressed. I’m the oppressor and you’re the oppressed, baby.”

I get up to write this down.

“Wait. You didn’t deliver,” Smith says. “You promised me a kiss, and then you got up and left. In fact early in our relationship, while I was making love to you, you got up and left to write something down.”

Smith gathers and clinks our spent cocoa mugs like bowling pins.

“Well, that’s how it is,” I tell him.

“To keep you around I’ll just have to keep my mouth closed.”

* * *

“I feel alienated. And we are alien here. I feel discombobulated. Maybe I’m just confused, you know?”

Yeah? You’ve been smoking a lot.

“After all this place has taught me smoking isn’t the answer. And smoking’s been one of the major I-beams of my existence. Since January of ‘68. Drugs and independence. A whole pivotal I-beam of my existence is being taken out. And since I hooked up with you, I’m no longer independent either. So I’m losing drug I-beam and independence I-beam. What’s now holding the structure up? That’s what I gotta figure out.”

Hm. Don’t you think you’re about your creativity?

“There’s always been creativity. Through good and bad, through drink. At least with the art. Poetry comes and goes but words have always been easy. You know, words have power. I was getting a C minus as a midshipman plebe, in English. I showed my professor the poetry I’d written, most of which wasn’t very good. But my grade shot up to a B. So words have power! And he liked me after that. Actually, people have always responded enthusiastically when finding out I was a poet.”

It’s funny because you were talking about scaffolding the other day.

“I think I’m rebuilding. I think that’s what this process is, here. I got this far, and it worked. But now I gotta rebuild.”

The problem with creating so much is that it’s hard to promote.

“Oh, I know.”

It’s even harder to go back and edit. We’re too busy.

“Masumi said, ‘Don’t confuse the audience.’ Just think of Prince, putting out forty albums a year.”

Well, we’re just doing what we have to do. To the hilt. Everything’s been pretty logical, in an illogical way.

* * *

“Did you read Melissa’s article?”

No, I read the one by her, the review. But not the one about her. Not yet.

“You should take a look at the art in there.”

Oh, I will, I’m looking forward to it. It’s nice to run across someone who is geniunely talented.

“Yes, it is. I’ve always found that. A lot of people dream, a few *do*. Of those, a very few, like Melissa, do it with magic and grace.”

That’s nice.

“Yeah, I almost sound like a phony greeting card at times. I’m a greeting card / text producer. Reynolds says I should be a song lyricist.”

Hm. You always tell me what Reynolds says. But I still know very little about you guys.

“We’ve just known each other for a long time. I was of the hippies. We met in 1971. So he was the last ripple of that.”

Before I was born. But I remember being at hippie parties when I was little.

“Well, that’s the part of the hippies who were still growing up and doing what they’re doing. So you were *birthed* by hippies, and now you’re fucking one. Or married to one, if you want to make it polite.”

Well I can’t imagine being comfortable with any other type of person.

“Well Reynolds always had a positive mindset. He is gentle and giving, and incredibly bright and talented.”

Hm.

“Tho lately I think the world’s getting him down. It’s hard to be optimistic in the face of what’s going on sometimes.”

Yeah, it’s like what we always thought could come true is true and has been true.

“And even worse than we thought.”

“We may not be able to get drugs in Bezier. People might be gone, moved on, arrested, got rich and driving Rolls.”

Don’t worry. I have no doubt we can find people.

“Well I might be *above* drugs by then. Drugs might be yesterday’s news. 40 years of yesterdays as of January. You know what? April 21 was my seventeenth year anniversary of being sober.”

Oh, good.

“Forty years of yesterdays. That has a certain flow to it.”

That’s more than my life.

* * *

Wow. My head’s heavy.

“After I’m done pollinating all the almond trees, we can tie helium balloons to your head to make it feel lighter.”

Thank you. Yr one of those men who doesn’t turn ugly. Your nose and ears haven’t gotten abnormally large or weird.

“Well I ain’t *that* old yet. Give me a chance. Plus, I’ve been drinking Pinnochio juice lately.”

I’m serious, though. Your head would look good on a coin.

“What?”

On money.

“No money, honey. Money’s where it went wrong. One of the three places where it went wrong.”

What are the other two?

“Power or control over another, envy.”

You deliver this wisdom up as tho yr a saint.

“Actually, I have learned things along the way. I’m not totally dense. As for the rest, I just fake it. Hell, they made Yoda sound wise, didn’t they? Just by talking bad.”