A Wink and a Smile

We drank all night.

Me and he, the brothers three, the poet, the doctor and the runner of guns. Add to the clan the moppet, the rake, the cad and the flake, the gambler, the trucker and the weaver of thread. We were poor and still fighting, the war still inviting, the enlistees are enlisting again.

The shots we lined up on newspaper bins outside the silent auction kickstarted our devolution from checkbook patrons into that of weepy weepies, our eyes red from sobbing, our posture poor and sadly authentic for thus far into the ritual. We are a far different breed than the consortium of seal trainers and society hounds gathered inside the aquarium cum gallery behind us.

I began alternating servings of whiskey with cups of coffee, and discovered, if by chance, that no friend pays your tab without wincing. Even if he is a seal trainer with the most vile of crimes to his name.

Papercut

My son is a genius, a sage and a fighting little lion. H's done more than anyone his age -- he's only twenty-nine, still a baby, yes, but old enough to make fools listen -- and his looks, although he's kind of homey and common, get him in good with folks. Not a threat, you know?

He comes home twice a week from two towns over to work on his sculptures, in the garage, by himself, where I let him do his sort of thing. Well, out there, you know, he can concentrate. He won't let his friends or I see them because they're part of a big collection, and he's gonna reveal them all in one big opening, maybe at the civic center, but who knows. I keep telling him the Guggenheim, but he, hehehe, he always, you know. I think they got a theme, too, those statues he's making. Anyways, I park outside in front of the garage door, because all his art is in these crates and boxes in there, and it won't be for much longer.

It's been five years. I went in there one night, and looking into the room, saw the crates under a big green tarp. Sure, you want to take a peek, but it's gonna be a great day, when they roll out. I think he takes his tools with him, cause mine won't be any good for what he's doing--he got this art bug from his mother anyways. I think he takes naps out there sometimes. I found a sleeping bag, some beer. Helps him relax. Some blood. Cut his hand chiseling, what do I know?

Did I ever notice anything weird about him? I know what you're poking at, officer, but no, not really. He's a rare one, my son, kooky, but a really great kid. He wears glasses, you know, to see things right. Blind without them, but aren't we all.

He's building a bike, too, officer, a motorcycle that he built from scratch. That's under the tarp, out there, too, and from the looks of it, it'll be pretty like the sculptures...strong boy, he is.

I resent that tone, sir. My son is a sage and a prophet and a traveling miracle, and this bike he's building is going to be great, and his mother, God bless her winsome soul, will pull the clouds aside and look down upon he and I and know that we are doing okay, ain't nothing different or weird here. You cannot take him from me, no matter what you think he did.
Photo Courtesy of Getty Images

Say it With Emoticons

No thanks, Tubby. I'll keep my seat, you can stand. she said with gritted teeth, one hand clutching the pole next to her, the other gripping my arm, digging her nails through my cotton sleeve, crescents etched into my skin.

Twas angry once again, this vitriolic bitch, my old lady, my ball and pain. I arrived into Des Moines on a business trip and fell in love with her during a hangover, half-drunk pillow talk that escalated into a day at the races. I called in and quit (I'm a travel agent, not a hedge fund manager) and was soon hopskotching around the country with her, this so-called DJ, this so-called artist. This so-called spinner of head trips and promise.

Her nails never drew blood, so they never chased me away. They gave me something to trace with my fingertips when I was lost in daydreams of a Seattle costume shop.

I began to realize my dreams were not about achievement but about cities.
Photo by Thomas Wheatley/Amtrak from D.C. to Philadelphia/June 2005

The Best You Can Remember

Beacon remained the small mythical town in which many dreams play themselves out, populated with familiar faces in unfamiliar houses, three-room shanties with hardwood floors underfoot painted odd colors like those you find in eclectic communities.

In one room were three children which were to be watched and doted upon. In the room adjacent were three bound prowlers I had wrestled and subdued, one of whom had transcended into an intruder. He sat clutching a nasty gash from where he punched his arm through a pane of stained glass.

I had been running late for work (what exactly it was I did escapes me--I just felt a sense of duty) and forgot alltogether to close stormshutters to block out the sun. I chose to watch these manacled prowlers grumble and conspire, their desperate ideas of bravado interrupted by the high-and-lonesome whistles of rural saunterers down the road outside my door.

Painting by William Wright/"Claustrophobia" oil on canvas

An Honest Living

The truck stop in Seneca, S.C. offered back-room massages for weary truckers--like those plugging down quarters in the unlit game room--and curious motorists like myself. It was at the end of a long hallway past the common bathrooms and 25 cent showers. Like I said, I was curious.

I opened the door to find what equates to a peep show in the Times-Square-of-the-past sans safety glass, the encounter of lonely man and working girl. I dark-eyed from night driving, she bored and heavy-lidded from rag-mag reading. She placed down her glossy, handed me a towel and pointed me in the direction of a toiletless stall so I could change.

In the gaps above and below the orange door, I noticed the lights dim to a hot cinnamon red--all that remained was the twang music playing from the gas station speakers. Upon exiting the stall, I found a large black man seated in the chair by the door, his arms crossed and eyes fixed on me. The woman stood shirtless, her hair wrapped in a shower cap, her hands in rubber gloves. And on the massage table, my shoes in a heavy-duty Ziploc bag.

And this was the vice I had chosen.

Painting by Patricia Chidlaw/"Truck Stop"/2003/from www.trogart.com

You Wear Me Well

We opted for a lifestyle different from that of our peers; we had no money so therefore we would make no mistakes. On the margins, you and I drove through town at night listening to no music at all, just the chortling of a diesel engine, just the thrill of a long stare at square dancers at gas stations. Each red light, eyes forward. Each yellow light, go faster and through.

To control you was to keep you and to keep you was to love you and to leave you was to give you all the freedom you could have wanted. Look here, my lovely maid, my keeper of things intact. I find you coming back to me, I'll tie you to the tracks. Look here, my lovely nymph, made of silver some copper, no shine. We both have different day jobs now, we both tell clever lies. We both are still in mourning, for a friend left back behind. We both feed off questions, regurgitated in our mind.

And solemn is the pilot who flies the daily route. And awkward is the drunkard who makes it out of the house. And lonely is the copperheard whose venom is never tasted. A weapon, a missile, a predator--potential depleted then wasted.

Photo by TPW/"Copyright"/Paris, France 8/04

Better Living Through Dentistry

It sits there like a coy boy in a group of eighth graders, half hiding behind the leaders of the pack. Once in his life, he was proud yet modest, honest with good posture. He saw one of his neighbors to the north get cracked, split in half, only to be replaced by a cosmetic cement.

After the braces he was in front and side-by-side with the others. Then came the tranistion into ninth grade, the kisses from girlfriends and exchanging of saliva through lust and soft drinks. He became drunk with alcohol and once in college felt the ravages of cocaine along his soft roots in weary bouts of fingerbrushing with narcotics at 4 am. He became darkened by black coffee, enlightened by green tea.

And the only way to make him proud is to bind him once again.

The European Invasion

Due to a stagnant economy, staggering debt and a loss of alliance with the world, the United States found itself adrift and alone after gaffes and missteps in the Middle East. Large chunks of North American property were sold to newly allied Eastern European Bloc Allies for the purpose of oversea bases. One of them was several blocks from my house on a now razed National Park and historic mountain.

Construction began immediately, taking the form of a modern building of the Great Pyramids. Through high-powered binoculars one could see people dragging giant stones to create huge towers overlooking the land. And with these immigrating foreign soldiers came their families, their culture and their newfound imperialism. And their boxy vehicles and their grey skies.

It took four years for me to have my friend arrested in the lead up to the war, to save my parents' lives from rebel bullets, to fall in love with the enemy's daughter and to escape from my own country under attack with her.

Photograph by James Nachtwey/Magnum/TIME.com from the book "Inferno"

The Thin Black Duke

John Wayne wisely never performed in blackface, although he did portray Genghis Khan in The Conqueror--a performance many call his “yellowface” role (as well as his worst and his most unfortunate-the film's Utah set, 225 miles from a nuclear test site, is accused of giving 90 cast and crew members, including The Duke, cancer). Little do our minds know, but Wayne was a shapeshifter.

My dream last night--influenced heavily by weary eyes, emotional stress and honky tonk alcohol--took place in a newspaper montage of a 1950s black-and-white film, where spinning tabloids rocketed at the viewer, exclaiming what only 48 pt text could back in 24 hour news days. John Wayne, once again it seems, had passed, and only the print media could memorialize him. Unlike Frank Sinatra, whose death was informed to me by Matt Lauer, the written word would break the news.

The media of my dreams decided to pay scant attention to the slow drawing, slow drawl cowboy who was John Wayne. They were all blackface Wayne. Merely seconds after his death, casting calls went out for the actor who would best portray The Duke in his least talked about role: the blackface clown.

There were givens: Tom Hanks, Gene Hackman (one last great time, old buddy). Some oddities: Jamie Foxx, John C. O’Reilly. The role ultimately went to an unknown, whose sepia headshot he submitted of the blackface Wayne captured the idea: even then much like now, he really should just be very tan.

Who got it right, however? The New Yorker, whose black-and-white cover told the story. A nondescript clown in whiteface, standing before a brick wall of black, a big oval surrounding his booger lips. Us and the world we act like we know, symbolism regardless of race.

All Doors Lead to Doors

My locker held a locket, and the locket held nothing at all, and upon tossing it to the side I discovered the girl who would ultimately be the martyr of our grade, a soft-spoken pixie of advanced classes and a mainstay on a yearbook masthead. We would go on one date and talk about cannonballs and the importance of grafitti before being split by the choices of PE teams. She reminded me of an obvious fact--this all felt very after-school special, and I informed her that my train of thought was dependent on prior experiences. And then everything ended; I had to gather all my toys, blocks, anger and socks together and try to craft something that would make the exhibit something new. My rent was due and outside there was tear gas and sunshine. All these random thoughts made me a millionaire a million times over and a martyr just like a girl in a hallway who becomes a hero after vaporizing in a car crash.

Photograph by Thomas Wheatley/"Louvre Tiles" Paris, France 8/04

Hiram and His Visions

It's hard to find braille in prison. Hiram, a lifer without sight, is forced to run his fingers over the cinderblock walls every night to feel some sort of stimulation, allowing the cracks and divets, bumps and grooves to become misspelled words, jumbled poetry, drunken rants. It wasn't that hard to do anymore; he no longer had to close his eyes and concentrate--he could just stand there and absorb it. Each jumbled word was stoically written in capital letters on the black canvas of his mind's sight, except for the once in a while discovery of a risque patch of wall. Then it was cursive. Then it was stimulation. Then it was romance in the abyss.

Photograph by Thomas Wheatley/"Venetian Hostel Tiles" Venice, Italy 7/04

Such a Thing as an Enemy

I awoke on a black-and-white tiled bathroom floor, my left cheek numb, my right eye shut, my left arm missing. In the brief moment I was seesawing between conciousness and void, I saw the dress of my enemy; shirtless in jeans, brown prison boots and a ski mask with a blue bob. He stood in the doorway and breathed deep, white eyes as light as bone, a hairless cousin of a werewolf. The last time we met, he attacked me through the back door of my parents' house. He has stalked me through urban alleyways on a motorcycle and choked me in a four-star Venetian hotel. The demon in a dream is a recurring character, lying in wait for the changing of the seasons, plotting, training, scanning the blueprints of my mind.

Photograph by Thomas Wheatley/"Rong Rong's Glossies" Athens, Ga. 12/04

Two Channels on the телевизионный and Nothing's On

The only joy of Communism is never having to decide what the hell you are gonna do. You will wake, you will work, you will queue, you will eat, you will drink (intermittently, throughout the day), you will rinse, repeat and then die in your sleep. You will find this comforting and monotonous, and in the end you will forget about the parallels while breathing breath in cold air, avoiding the visiting COPS camera crew and plotting how your mail-order bride business will ever get past the recruitment stage. Like the Sun and the Moon, the circle will come all the way around again and the 80-way intersection called "choice" will always be a state away.

But fear not, young pilgrim, for your boat has been built. Make your own sail from contracts and quilts and never believe that choice is a curse.

Photograph by Thomas Wheatley/"Communist Statue Park" Budapest, Hungary 7/04

Phillywonk's Forgotten Entry

According to Thaddeus P. Phillywonk's "Maelstrom of the Animal Mindstorm," the only animals who are at ease with the size that God has bestowed upon them are whales and the long-extinct terradactyl. The rest -- giraffes, horses, elephants and panda bears -- are confused and in a perpetual frenzy of Lennie Syndrome, a debilitating disease named after the mouse-crushing numbskull from "Of Mice and Men." These animals know not what to do with their size or strength; they step on orphanages and antique stores by accident and are hostages to their own carnage.

Add Great Danes to the list. Bollagher, the beast in my care here off Prince Ave., is an off-yellow horsedog who is timid and lovable and clumsy and old. He has the gas of a deathbed Cubs fan and the odor of a bus driver's seat. Yet he is alive and wiry, curious and gentle, and romp dances upstairs every night in a bizarre ritual to remind himself he is indeed alive.

This morning, while charting out a story, he sauntered up next to me, his lips dripping with a mix of drool and water. He begged to have his neck stroked, to feel friction on an itch unreachable. Before I could make contact and ease his pain, his mouth opened and unleashed a burp consisting of half-digested dog food and canine innards.

I can't say this is his worst--my first night here he became a walking, barking whoopie cushion influencing me to leave a book of matches in every single room to which he can find access. He sleeps in the downstairs hallway lined with bookshelves, and when his ass starts rumbling, the pathway takes on a morbid smell of old yellow paper and fart. But he's worth keeping around. Not just for the cliche questions I get when I walk him ("How much he weigh?" "How old is he?" "You ride that thing?"), but for the fact that in his most frantic moments, you see the spectrum of animal emotion, and in the most calm, you see a giant with a heart. The see saw of the animal kingdom.

Photograph by Thomas Wheatley/"Bolly & Mabby" 11/04

The Daddy-Bought Tattoo on a Range Rover's Ass (long and on purpose)

On the way back from Savannah, stomach reeling from oysters and an early morning screening of "Air Force One," I drove the endless two-lane artery between Soperton and Athens, State Route 15. The road is an anthropological study, showcasing the highs and lows of small-town Georgia, from the quaint window-shopping hominess of Greensboro to the fried chicken shacks of Sparta. The main road connects the students of one of the most enlightened institutions of higher learning in Georgia to their southernly roots and homes. Yet it is a bleak landscape; the stores in between are all empty and the windows are all gone, the homes are lean-to's, and the city square of fair Sparta is downtrodden and alone.

15 was a caravan of Athenians en transit, a one-way snake of SUVs sliding up and down the hills, and on many, nestled in the corner of the rear window, was a smarky little square: a black sticker, with a large white "W," and below this an identifier, like the title of a superhero sequel, "THE PRESIDENT." You've seen this--the bumper label has been decorating Bush supporter vehicles for a little over a year. (The stickers and other Bush merchandise are designed and sold by the Spalding Group, a marketing and promotions company in business exclusively for Republican campaigns). The stickers become so commonplace you doubletake when a passing car does not have one.

The sticker -- which looks like a cousin of (see ripoff) of The W Hotel logo -- is more than just a pseudosophisticated (oh-so-sleek, oh-so-modern) sign of affection for a dunce. It adds to the Bush cult and is a step short of erecting a mighty statue of a serving president--something more acceptable in dictatorships and unheard of in modern-day democracies. Man has seen the tragic results of the overly self-inflated rulers of our day; it is for this we wait for our leaders to pass before we turn them into physical icons. Kennedy was loved when alive, celebrated once dead. Hitler and Stalin became sedentary action figures in their lands, their wayward ideals amplified in stone and steel. For a moment, it seemed like the world understood the danger of this practice, of minting coins with your own profile or giant statues of your hands grasping swords. We seat our rulers at desks to combine a figure of authority with a symbol of productivity. Without a desk, their chair would be a throne.

The cult of George W. Bush is something dangerous, however. Half of the nation has proclaimed him a hero in spite of no courageous act, a success when he is a failure, a visionary when he is blind. A president who hoodwinks the United States of America should be treated as a CEO who lied to the board and the stockholders, not as a first-night waiter who dropped an urn of ice water. He answers to no one and his supporters don't question it. He lets us relax at the subdivision shindig; while we are engaged in badminton, we trust him to watch the kids in the pool and the burgers on the grill. But the kids are drowning, and the meat's burned black, and no one seems to care. The grand plan for democracy in the Middle East has become the play-it-by-ear, "if-we-catch-'em-we-beat-'em" version of chase the tail.

Yet the stickers stick and the signs stand. One by one, these cars passed me, rushing past the havenothings and cotton fields and onto Athens. Deep down, how many of those motorists really support him, really stand for what he says, really feel that he deserves to not just finish what he started, but enact new changes at home and abroad. How many are spoonfed, Republican by lineage and not choice?

Today, there will be another election, and from what I feel, another mighty foul up. I've cast my virgin presidential vote and it is oddly unsettling. It is not so much a heartfelt vouch for a candidate I support, but a weapon against a fool, the sole offensive against the second rush of bumblery, croneyism and the barroom rhetoric that has driven an ideological gash in the nation's heart.

A ramble? Yes. A gathering of thoughts muttered and shouted elsewhere? Yes. A blind stab at hoping I'll eat my words? Of course.