Chapter 7
out walking in San Francisco's SOMA the secret language of the stars and planets Miu-Miu supposes to herself as she walks in cadence with Mason's amble, and the secret language of hope and misery mix into the fine brew and delicious froth I call life, how cold it’s become; this winter has been nothing but cold and rain. alchemy Mason mulls inside his brain trying himself to make synaptic connections searching in the dark world where words and sounds become veiled abstracts of possible realities sifting through words puzzling and unpuzzling pieces of probabilities conjectures and faint glimpses of what feel like truth but don't have the right ring yet have an undeniable resilience of perfectly pitched tone may at the same time reflect mere reasoning with himself to himself wonders what alchemy's really all about not the hocus-pocus that it’s made out to be: more light and air less smoke and mirrors of heavy metal gold production although who knows Mason thinks silently as he walks like a moan with Miu-Miu in the brittle nowhere he likes to think of as today. do you know Miu-Miu half sings intoning aloud do you know what painting I wish I had hanging in my apartment tell me Mason half begs what painting; that big orange and green Visitation, Pontormo’s Visitation with the double portraits hmmm answers Mason. dark unsatisfyingly sinister thoughts concerning Mason wander push shuffle saunter & strut through Miu-Miu’s attentively distracted mind-screen as they cross Eleventh Street at Folsom: Mason kills everything by over-indulging his thinking about everything too smoothely, he always makes me feel like I'm not only only half-right but usually not even a quarter right about what I'm talking about or wondering and pondering he makes me feel like everybody has to die without ever arriving at a realization or insight into anything he can make a plus feel like a minus I can't believe I'll die it's impossible to think about death this isn't how I want to know Mason he’s a symbol of everything beautiful and corrupt or morbid and mysterious and benignly forgivable; a burden a guitar string my ruby slipper, a knight of swords, you’re not anything substantial when you're with him he’s a leathery Lothario in the making he’s the One he’s willowy an ancient rite a heavenly sphere a strength a magical mouthed simplicity. I have no energy it’s a nightmare no it’s not it’s insane whacked-out in a funhouse way a thousand little Masons all decked out in a body that would fit snuggly into a Golden Rectangle perfectly designed to be seen for brief moments my cat-walk model I know I’m dreaming I wink at reality without knowing what I mean by reality I pretend this is a slow motioned walk along a vacant street within a street full of people and I can’t help myself out of this nightmare -- no that can’t be -- all I have is a grave ahead of me? the cold this thin air I’m breathing I’m breathing and walking I’ll look at something that will help I should talk to him say something to show I’m here with him: Mason do you ever have crazy thoughts What? crazy crazy no what do you mean you know like you sense you’re walking along the street but also feel like you’re home & just died in bed that’s crazy you give too much power to thoughts and don’t think enough about having no thoughts that’s what I love about him he always says the right thing I wonder if he means it maybe he is crazy and the cold is making me doubt my own certainties certainly certainties what is certain is something I don’t know about. it’s hopeless I laugh I’ll never get that painting it must be huge it is worth a kazillion dollars and it means something to half a million people who protect it with their fears and dreams and hopes and love it patiently perfectly a metaphor for memory the sublime trickster of traveling effortlessly through time and space effortlessly he has a pair of dice that must have went to Harvard. the god and planet Mercury. the dense body of the Earth. to make out of our lives something akin to a spirit & aware. the appearance of things. the visitation. this visitor. where did he go I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I feel like a visitor here just visiting god I love painting I love sewing I love fabric and texture and color so I love the idea of Mason so I love it when he visits me and I love it when he models and I pay him for it I know he enjoys me teasing him with extravagant attention straight out of pulp-fiction romance. Miu-Miu looks up at the sky hoping to channel far off energy. Mason senses her beside him and says in a faint and distant voice don’t worry we’re almost there. what’s the goal Miu-Miu what’s the goal on the material level that’s all we have a goal on a material level; signs he says signs turn right turn left wet paint stop Sagittarius Virgo men women: out of the blue hears music inside his head as if he were wearing earphones but isn't: It was a lucky April shower; opera it was the most convenient bebop door, I found swing a million dollar baby in a five and ten cent store. The rain electronica continued a cappela for an hour, hung around whistling to himself for three or four, around a million dollar baby in a five Gospel and Industrial ten cent Motown store. She was hard rock selling china and when she reggae made Trance those eyes, I kept Zydeco buying china until the crowd pizzicato got wise. Incident'ly Easy Listening if you should run into a shower, just step rhythm and blues inside my cottage door, And meet the million dollar gangsta baby from the five and ten cent store. Mason keeps a vast array of metals and other alchemical material in his pockets: a penny, seven dimes, a nickel, a ring of keys, a rabbit’s foot, a miniature Porsche, an Acme Thunderer Made in England whistle, a Zippo lighter embossed with a cactus and a coyote howling at the moon, a Rostfrei thin flat serviceable jack-knife, a spherical ball of Carrera marble with all the traits of a miniature Moon, a leather wallet with paper money, pieces of paper with names inscribed, scribbled; a tiny flat package tied with string he was told never to open and a small medallion of the dali lama which would be the elixir of immortality and why will “I” not be here why will I not be here why will I not be here it is only just . Mason realizes his life changed the moment Jupiter was impacted by a stray meteor catastrophe in the late 90s. Catastrophe. there’s the DNA Lounge we’re almost there: the cosmic blue sky somewhere behind the cosmic gray clouds hanging in the ether in the emptiness created purposefully to contain all the magic bric-a-brac of life of living of death of dying of wishing craving desiring birth again.
-- Jeff Wietor
