vr
a novel
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
September 1999
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
From: Hillary
Date: 15 September 1999
Subject: rain
I was paralyzed this summer. I guess most of you were, too.
I was living with Michael on 22nd Street. He said after a few weeks, "We're
not LIVING together, you're just STAYING with me." I think he said that
because he knew he'd miss me when I returned to school at the end of August.
He did, after all, say, "Why don't you live with me this summer?" back when
I was still in flux about my warmweather plans. He gave me half the closet,
half the medicine cabinet, sufficient bookshelves. He let me do all the
cooking. I think he knew we were living together. Even writing this much
makes me realise how stupid it'd be to rehash those 15 weeks.
I'm back at school now. I have a little room with four white walls, a window
in the east one. We don't speak. We had a conversation last week, an uncontentious
one that ended with a good bye rather than a good night. I'm not unhappy.
I can't help being a little mournful that someone, a someone who has been
a best friend and confidante for more than a year, can disappear after only
ten minutes of dialogue. It doesn't seem fair or right, though I acknowledge
its necessity.
There are two little girls in his extended family, one nine and the other
four, who are very fond of me and I of them. I dreamt about them last night.
We were sitting on the edge of a lake and I told them that I wouldn't be
seeing them any more. They wept, but were quickly diverted by a small brown
and white dog with a whip-thin tail. It jumped from my shoulder into the
water, and then back out again, exuberantly barking and licking our hands.
It did this again and again until we couldn't stop laughing. The last time
the little dog bounded out of the water, a larger dog surfaced as well. It
was black and heavy, coat full of water, but I didn't mind that it sat in
my lap. Its teeth were coated with green algae; I knew it had been underwater
for a long time. I didn't recognise the dog until it howled low and mournful;
some of the black fell off to reveal tan markings underneath; it was Henry,
come back to me, the dog who died when I was six.
He didn't die exactly. He disappeared one Wednesday, which he did occasionally,
presumably to chase some bitch in heat. When he wasn't back by Sunday my
mother send my dad out to find him. He found Henry in a nearby field, shot
dead through the side. He said there were a couple of barrel lids set up
for target practice nearby. My sister went with him to bury the dog. She
was only three, but she sang the nursery rhyme "It's raining, it's pouring"
because it was the saddest song she knew. I didn't go. The next day at school
I told the teacher that someone shot my dog. "I'm so sorry," she said, and
hugged me, and I was sorry that I'd told her. I didn't expect her to be so
concerned. "It's alright," I said. She stopped hugging. I didn't cry then;
I don't know if I ever cried for Henry until my father sent me two reels
of 8 mm film about a month ago. The first reel was my first year: me at ten
months bouncing in the jolly jumper, my first birthday party. The other reel
was full of the dog, full of Henry dragging big logs into the river; panting
under the lilac bush, only his nose and tongue emerging from the shadows;
bounding joyful across the grass. I cried fifteen years late.
So all this too-late-too-late crying. I wonder if I should write to those
little girls and say goodbye, so that I don't have to cry about my disappearance
from their lives in a few years. It's pointless; maybe just my urgent need
to be remembered. I would like to erase Michael from my brain. I found today,
fortuitously, the small piece of paper on which I wrote his telephone number
when we met. Tore it into tiny pieces, but of course I can't forget the
number itself: it was mine for a while.
For my poetry workshop I'm supposed to write a chant, but I can't think
of anything I want to say over and over. Any ideas? What sentence would you
choose to say for the rest of your life? I'm at a loss. I heard a poem based
on Kafka's "Night," which repeated "Someone must watch, someone must watch."
And there is Vachel Lindsay's "Congo." I don't read many poets who write
chant poems.
Ran into a beautiful idiom while translating a short story by a latin american
author: "Su memoria solia meterlo en esporadicas lagunas." Literally translated:
"His memory was constructed in sporadic lagoons." The word "lagunas" can
mean lagoon or lake, but is also used colloquially to mean "voids" or "blank
spaces," i.e. if you want to borrow someone's notes, you might tell them
that your own notes had "lagunas." Rather pretty way of putting it, I thought.
Oh, and instead of saying "just turned <an age>," they say "acababa
de cumplir <# years>" = "had filled up <#years>." I like that
the fullness of life is built into an everyday expression. I like the idea,
also, of playing with that idiom, saying "He had emptied ___ years" rather
than filled them. Blah blah blah. This is what my journal is for.
Friend of mine confessed today that in 7th grade he was reading at a 2nd
grade level. Got put into a "special" school. Turns out he's dyslexic and
within three years went from The Stupid Kid to college-bound. Now he's majoring
in Chinese and does a lot of stuff with ASL, both pictorial languages (I
know, ASL is ENglish, but it's English without words), and excelling in both.
We were talking about the lack of refusal words in Asian languages. Both
Thai and Korean don't have a word for "no." In thai, the word that is used
in place of no is actually a compound word composed of the "yes" word and
the negative. Not yes. It's a different thing than "no." In Korean, if someone
tells you to run, you can't just refuse. You have to include the request.
Not run. There also isn't a commonly used possessive word in Korean (i.e.
mine, yours). Seems like a language without unqualified refusal would add
an interesting dynamic to a culture. No means no? No rape means no rape?
There's my textvomit for the day.
H.
From: Nichelle
Date: 24 September 1999
Subject: um... hi, sweetheart.
Nancy just called me to let me know that she is filing a suit against you
and me because of money owed to the Hawaiian Apartments. Apparently I wasn't
properly removed from all of the paperwork... I'm taking care of this now
because I still live in this country and I want to be able to rent an apartment
someday soon, but you need to send me $152.20 as soon as you can. I can't
afford this and it is a strain on my finances. It simply can't wait for
your check to arrive.. it must be done by Tuesday.
Thanks.
From: SAGReiss
Date: 25 September 1999
Subject: 600 Virgins
I'll send you a check for six hundred shekels by snail mail. It may take
a week or two to get there. Sorry for the inconvenience.
From: Hillary
Date: 28 September 1999
Subject: brevity should not be confused with bravery
"If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing
of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur
of this life."
-- Albert Camus
Dialogue: a love story in two acts (By Hillary)
Act I, Scene I
A building with windows.
Y: It can't decide whether it wants to be summer or fall.
X: No, it really can't. This morning it was cool, but now I'm too warm.
Y: Yes.
Act I, Scene II
Outside. The weather has shifted.
Y: (catching up) It looks like it made up its mind.
X: Yes, it's rather ominous, isn't it? I like it, though. At least it's
not humid.
Y: I was here this summer. It was humid.
X: I spent the summer in the city. It was humid there, too. Miserable;
too much concrete.
(They part ways.)
Act II, Scene I
A daydream.
X: I wish, next time we speak, that we could try something other than weather.
I've had a crush on you for months and it's very difficult to say anything
clever when one is discussing weather.
Y: (silence)
...........................
So I am obsessing again, and obsessing about a man again, though the man
is not Michael or even consequential, just THERE. It keeps my mind off Michael
but is unhealthy in the sense that it is unrealistic. He is nice and smart
and has some sense of humor, though he also has freckles, is from the Midwest
(I think), and talks too loudly on occasion, when he is nervous, in groups,
etc. He is interesting to watch, often very deliberate, very controlled,
but occasionally he is impetuous or spontaneous or thoughtless and those
are the most interesting times, when I can hear his potential for cruelty
in offhand laughter. I feel a little like I'm spying. I try not to stare.
I never follow him. I don't even know where he lives, except that it is not
in my building. When he sees me we exchange sick little smiles, much like
the sick little banalities we exchanged when discussing the weather. The
smiles and weather are both enjoyable.
All my thinking is counterproductive because I've engaged in a nonexistent
relationship with him. When I see him my stomach leaps and my heart races
and I look away because somehow he KNOWS what I've been thinking, knows
that I arrange imaginary scenarios and conversations, knows that I think
seriously about calling him but always stop myself at the last moment. It
is difficult to remember that he is not in on the joke. Will I let him in?
My disease is one of over-thinking. I plot and dream and construct something
unreal which eventually leads me to act impetuously. Despite what most people
claim, honesty is not always the best policy in the sense that unloading
an obsession to the obsessee generally leads to rejection.
To be truthful, much of this infatuation is contrived. I am attracted to
the idea of an intelligent, articulate, proximal male companion. Someone
who appears stable, someone who compensates for Michael's previous insufficiencies.
I do not KNOW David, but my intellectual interest in him last semester has
metamorphosed into pseudo-romantic interest this semester, presumably in
light of my recent breakup. He is very nice, and it's likely that I have
(somewhat consciously) misconstrued his open smiles and obligatory conversation
as interest when it is in fact the friendly disinterest one demonstrates
toward one's acquaintances. Though I know these things, I choose to ignore
them. I choose to be infatuated, to thrill and sicken at his presence, to
deny that I am in mourning for my last relationship.
What do I have though, really? A desire to write poems, a desire for companionship,
a desire to do something worthwhile, a desire to complete a senior project,
a desire to forget Michael, a desire to travel. It is an important step.
This past year has been filled mostly with desire for Michael's affection.
I realised on a drive upstate that I spent a great deal of my time experiencing
FOR him, that is, filing away experience to report to him later, rather than
existing in every moment. I am an escapist and always have been, from the
times my mother would make me put away books and go out to play, to the countless
hours spent in front of computer screens, to my current obsession with David.
All of them are/were somewhat unhealthy pursuits, though I cannot say I'm
SORRY for any of them. I am not sorry that I met and knew Michael, but at
the same time I wish it all away.
This is an interesting time, and perhaps the reason I am feeling so urgently
is that although I currently exist in a state of desire, before the school
year is out, many of these desires will be actualised. It is exciting and
frightening all at once. Though there is a great potential for movement
and change, I feel impotent and weighted most of the time. Even when my
cheeks flush at David's presence, it is a leaden heat. Riding low beneath
the giddiness is an irreconcilable grief for the loss of someone I thought
would never be lost. When I was eighteen I wrote an awful poem that ended,
"This is the gap of all the misplaced things // you thought you'd die without.
// You never found them, and yet you're still alive." And that is what I
am, I guess. Still alive. Or maybe I'm the misplaced thing. I do feel slightly
misplaced.
Is thing thing on?
Hillary
From: Murder
Date: 29 September 1999
Subject: Limbo
Marie invited me to tonight's Philharmonic concert consisting of Stravinsky's
"Pulcinella" and "Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra", and Tchaik 5. Her
husband Peter, a violist in the orchestra, managed to get us comp tickets
in the management box. Just down the row from us sat Masur's wife and what
looked like other members of his family. The permanent principal flute position
is still up for grabs. This week they brought in a German named something
like Kaarsten (or Kirsten, but that seems odd for a male's name) Macal. Maybe
even McCall, for his father is from California. This guy has an orchestra
job in Saarbrucken, which the other flutists told me is in the Alsace-Lorraine
region. Gabe probably knows where it is. McColl's sound could have projected
more in the solo passages, but it did blend nicely with the other winds.
Nichelle would have laughed, or cringed, at some of Stanley Drucker's phrasing
antics. Not even Benny Goodman used that much vibrato. It was not an evening
wasted, however. I met Lincoln Center's Director of Operations, to whom I
will submit a resume next week for an administrative position at the Philharmonic.
I am currently looking for a job and an apartment in the City. Since I am
not in school this year, my plan is to find a way to pay the rent while I
establish myself in New York and practice for orchestral jobs and doctoral
programs. Bart, my flute prof, has been very helpful. Today he gave me a
couple of apartment leads and assured me that if I keep up my current level
of playing, I will be accepted into any doctoral program I want. I have been
practicing much more consistently now that I no longer have a girlfriend.
Erin and I broke up in mid-August, and that has been cause for temporary
paralysis of sorts. I kept my commitment to play the Villa Lobos Bachianas
Brasileras #6 on her recital last Sunday, and I must say we played the shit
out of it. It was worth all the yelling during rehearsals. Sophia went to
Greece for two weeks with her family, and left me the keys to her apartment
to use as a home base while I looked for an apartment of my own. She lives
on Claremont Ave (near 125th St), a block away from the Manhattan School
of Music, where she is working on her professional studies degree in flute
performance. Tonight we hooked up after the concert to belatedly celebrate
her 25th birthday. After dinner at Miko's on 76th and Broadway we walked
to the 72nd street subway station and talked for another twenty minutes.
Perhaps in five years we will be compatible enough to date. I'm not holding
my breath. I need all I can to practice for Juilliard auditions in the spring.
Murder
From: SAGReiss
Date: 30 September 1999
Subject: Sporadic Lagoons
Su memoria sol[i]a meterlo en esporadicas lagunas.
I know a few Spanish words, "comecabra", "carajo", "merda", "chucha", "culo"
and "putana", the most important concepts. Nevertheless I think I'll examine
this sentence at the risk of looking foolish, especially since it is quoted
out of context. The subject, "memoria", is feminine singular, but we could
interpret it as either collective, refering to the cognitive faculty, or
as a specific exercise of that faculty, largely depending on our reading
of the adjective, which Miel may have misspelled and didn't translate at
all. The word "only" creates semantic problems even in languages where the
adjective is formally distinguished from the adverbe, as in "solo" and "so'lo"
or "solamente". If we understand an adjective, there are still two possibilities.
Either we understand: "His only memory", meaning his one memory among other
possible memories, which he has apparently forgotten entirely, or we understand:
"His memory alone", meaning his memnonic faculty among other possible faculties.
If we understand a more adverbial meaning, then we could again translate:
"His memory alone", or perhaps more idiomatically: "Only his memory", but
we could also modify the verb: "His memory was only". The last choice seems
best to me. I don't see why we should distinguish one memory which is forgotten
from other memories which are even more forgotten. On the other hand, I
don't think we're comparing the faculty of memory to some other unnamed
faculty. So assuming Miel is right that the verb is in the passive voice,
or some variation thereof, for which I'll have to take her word, the translation
should begin: "His memory was only." The transitive verb "meter" is variously
translated as "to put, place", "to make, cause" etc., but the particle "en"
probably changes all that, unless it's just a silly, meaningless preposition,
but then why the confusion? Either way, I think we can understand: "His memory
was only made of". The adjective "sporadic" comes from the Greek "speirein"
meaning "to sow". I seem to recall a French expression "semer au vent" or
perhaps it has something to do with what one harvests: "la recolte": "Qui
seme le vent". I don't know. My French is horrible. If I can't figure out
a way to pay rent in this land, where salaries are in sheqels and rent in
dollars, I'm applying for visas to France and Canada. Since I think I'm
persona non grata in Alsace, I'm thinking about Bordeaux. Perhaps, Laurent,
you could advise me. I'd like to go somewhere where there's some high-tech
industry and tourism, which would favor people who speak or want to learn
English. Or we could just throw the whole thing into the plural, which might
be better: "His memories were only built of". The Latin word "lacuna" means
lake or lagoon or hollow or hole or, even in English, lacuna or lacune, meaning
a gap, usually in knowledge. Thus I think we can now translate the entire
sentence as something like: "His memory was only made of sporadic holes,"
or: "His memory was full of only sporadic holes," which shifts the adverb
all the way to the right. And so I type on. I must be the worst secretary
who ever lived. They don't really seem to notice my complete incompetence
in two languages. What I do is make-work anyway. The bosses write in longhand
because they think it unseemly to use Word. They would save time, energy
and my salary if they did. I have no idea where to go or what to do, but
I'm saving a little money to do it, if I can ever decide. I miss the excitement
of a hotel restaurant. I'm still a virgin in 1999.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: Hillary
Date: 30 September 1999
Subject: Re: Sporadic Lagoons
On Thu, 30 Sep 1999, Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss wrote:
> Su memoria sol[i]a meterlo en esporadicas lagunas.
It is indeed solia, though the "i" is accented. "Memoria" is a feminine
noun and refers to memory itself, not the possessor of said memory. Solia
(accented) is NOT an adjective, it modifies "meterlo," which is the infinitive
of "to construct." I'm not sure what the grammatical designation of
"solia" is, because I went to a shitty American public school, but in this
case, it indicates the preterite. I did not neglect it in my translation,
I assure you. I translated it as "was." In this case, I believe sporadic is
used to mean intermittant. The idiomatic use of "laguna," which is usually
used to mean "lake" or "lagoon," IS certainly related to the Latin "lacuna,"
but it is in much more common usage in Spanish than in English.
> sentence as something like: "His memory was only made of sporadic
holes,"
> or: "His memory was full of only sporadic holes," which shifts the
adverb
> all the way to the right.
Forget the only! My translation is valid.
In other news, I completely fucked up and confessed my irrational crush
to the man himself. He responded, "I don't really know how to respond to that,"
and I said, "I'm sorry, I didn't really leave you an avenue of response.
We'll probably never speak again." He said, "We'll see." I'm mortified.
Why was I so impatient/impetuous? I feel so silly and adolescent. I've been
involved with a lot of men, a lot of adult men, and here I am having a crush
on a virgin and behaving like a teenager. Good lord.
Hillary
August 1999
October 1999
vr: 1999
