No Poem Is the Only Poem. No Story Is the Only Story. No Kings.
...My godmother lived an isolated, sterile existence. She rarely left the house and had no interests or hobbies, nothing she felt passionate about. She had no friends. Apart from her doctor and her priest, her only contact with the outside world was my mother, with whom she spoke on the phone religiously, bridging the five hundred miles between San Francisco and Los Angeles each Sunday.
Coasting: Pretend you're an airplane. Turn off your motor. Stop buying things. And see how long you can remain in the air.
My friend Tal and I used to crash piano stores for fun. Here in Los Angeles, millionaires cruise around in cutoff jean shorts and Priuses. It was never difficult to convince salespeople that a couple schlubs like us needed a showpiece baby grand for the solarium in our imaginary cliffside haunt in Malibu. Once the ruse was set, we’d head straight for the Bösendorfers and Blüthners, feigning indifference to their half-million-dollar price tags, ogling their European curves, and using our fingertips to coax fluidity out of their nascent, delicate actions.
My parents were always looking for adventures for us. Growing up in Boron, a small Mojave desert town, about an hour from the nearest incorporated city could easily lead to boredom. There were no movie theatres, no malls, not even a chain grocery store to entertain us. The population of about two thousand only accounted for one small food mart and three family-owned restaurants. So, when John suggested taking us up Saddleback Mountain my mother and father jumped at the opportunity of something new.
I moved the dolls about the dollhouse, pushing them here and there. Tried to make them talk to each other. They remained mute objects. The passage from reality to playing pretend was shut. Forever.
Being a legal drug runner made you realize you wanted to start your own delivery service, so you bought a cargo van we couldn’t afford even though we already had two cars and I didn’t say anything about that purchase, like how a few months later when I took you to the mental health crisis center at 2 a.m. because you ripped the glass top off your metal desk—eyes all textbook crazy-like, top lip twitching, me praying you would just get on medication already because your moods and paranoia were always my fault, of course, because even though I was asleep that night I had somehow pissed you off, somehow incited your rage while I slept—and I didn’t say anything when you told the social worker at the mental health crisis center that you had a plan.