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Authors: Paul Lisicky
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the middle of the night, and hang up the phone before that same woman on the other end answered, just so he’d feel stirred up enough to write another page, the page of the book that doesn’t yet exist, even though he’s been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for it. I cannot blame Denise for wanting to replace him with a healthier ideal. At least with B, she’ll have a life of steadiness, calm, domestic routine. She’ll be able to write. Teach, but she won’t have to teach too much. Spend relaxed time with Austen, who deserves health care, a good room, good clothes, the best education.
Or maybe we just need to knock down those old ideals before they knock us down first.
2010 | I’m lying on the living room sofa, watching a video of Atlantic City’s Sands Hotel on YouTube. The view is from the boardwalk. It’s going to be blown up in minutes. The demolition firm has made a party of it, with fireworks, a crowd of thousands, and the soundtrack of Frank Sinatra crooning “Bye, Bye Baby.” Some clever PR person was smart to pick Sinatra, given the fact that he was regular here. Word had it that management actually knocked through the walls of several side-by-side rooms to save him the trouble of walking down the hall. The twenty-year-old hotel hosted his final concerts, in which he reportedly wasn’t in top form. Still, he sang with enough conviction to make up for the exhaustion in his voice, those occasional moments when his pitch faltered or he mumbled through a phrase.
My rash hasn’t gone away after a week. In fact, it’s gotten worse. There’s a hot-pins-and-needles feeling around my ribs and a general malaise that’s preventing me from doing anything of meaning or purpose. I know my body might be telling me that it’s had enough of death, of trying to float on its chilly surface, and maybe there’s a relief in saying, no, I’m not going to resist you any longer. I’m giving in to you, Force that wants to take down my body. Maybe there’s a lesson to be learned from obedience, submission. All the stamina I’d poured into meeting my classes, meeting my appointments, meeting my deadlines—who did I think I was? Did I think I was better at holding back sorrow than anyone else who had lost anybody? Mourning as some kind of graduate school assignment where some got better grades than others? Have I been thinking of myself as Superman, walking into the world with my cape, without even knowing I was wearing a cape? If I were looking at myself, wouldn’t I find that person a little pitiable, ridiculous?
Still, it is hard to give in, to relax , as they say, when your tolerance for boredom is low. Wet snow clumps on the lilac outside the window. I don’t have to be anywhere for days, having already canceled my classes for the next week and five college readings in Florida—what a time to be sick. I let my mind drift in the heat put out by the furnace, the crackling wood stove, the hazy malaise of shingles. How am I going to get anything done when I’m frittering away the hours, speeding from one YouTube video to the next?
The crowd presses toward the boardwalk railing. They watch the emptied tower shoot plumes from the roof, before the whole structure shimmers in a bilious green light. It’s the definition of spectacle: the crowd hoots and hollers; adults and children hold cell phones and cameras up to the rockets. Maybe they know the building better than I do. Maybe at least some of them have wandered its hallways and found it wanting. Truth be told it was the hardest casino to like. Always a little doomed, dark, never flashy or distinctive enough. The building could have been anywhere: Cincinnati, Bakersfield, Tampa, Anaheim, Phoenix. It would be foolish to think it was anything to mourn. I remind myself of that when someone in the crowd cries, with a lusty growl, “Take it down, baby. Take the whole ugly thing down.”
But the light changes after the fourth minute of the video. Its
Or maybe we just need to knock down those old ideals before they knock us down first.
2010 | I’m lying on the living room sofa, watching a video of Atlantic City’s Sands Hotel on YouTube. The view is from the boardwalk. It’s going to be blown up in minutes. The demolition firm has made a party of it, with fireworks, a crowd of thousands, and the soundtrack of Frank Sinatra crooning “Bye, Bye Baby.” Some clever PR person was smart to pick Sinatra, given the fact that he was regular here. Word had it that management actually knocked through the walls of several side-by-side rooms to save him the trouble of walking down the hall. The twenty-year-old hotel hosted his final concerts, in which he reportedly wasn’t in top form. Still, he sang with enough conviction to make up for the exhaustion in his voice, those occasional moments when his pitch faltered or he mumbled through a phrase.
My rash hasn’t gone away after a week. In fact, it’s gotten worse. There’s a hot-pins-and-needles feeling around my ribs and a general malaise that’s preventing me from doing anything of meaning or purpose. I know my body might be telling me that it’s had enough of death, of trying to float on its chilly surface, and maybe there’s a relief in saying, no, I’m not going to resist you any longer. I’m giving in to you, Force that wants to take down my body. Maybe there’s a lesson to be learned from obedience, submission. All the stamina I’d poured into meeting my classes, meeting my appointments, meeting my deadlines—who did I think I was? Did I think I was better at holding back sorrow than anyone else who had lost anybody? Mourning as some kind of graduate school assignment where some got better grades than others? Have I been thinking of myself as Superman, walking into the world with my cape, without even knowing I was wearing a cape? If I were looking at myself, wouldn’t I find that person a little pitiable, ridiculous?
Still, it is hard to give in, to relax , as they say, when your tolerance for boredom is low. Wet snow clumps on the lilac outside the window. I don’t have to be anywhere for days, having already canceled my classes for the next week and five college readings in Florida—what a time to be sick. I let my mind drift in the heat put out by the furnace, the crackling wood stove, the hazy malaise of shingles. How am I going to get anything done when I’m frittering away the hours, speeding from one YouTube video to the next?
The crowd presses toward the boardwalk railing. They watch the emptied tower shoot plumes from the roof, before the whole structure shimmers in a bilious green light. It’s the definition of spectacle: the crowd hoots and hollers; adults and children hold cell phones and cameras up to the rockets. Maybe they know the building better than I do. Maybe at least some of them have wandered its hallways and found it wanting. Truth be told it was the hardest casino to like. Always a little doomed, dark, never flashy or distinctive enough. The building could have been anywhere: Cincinnati, Bakersfield, Tampa, Anaheim, Phoenix. It would be foolish to think it was anything to mourn. I remind myself of that when someone in the crowd cries, with a lusty growl, “Take it down, baby. Take the whole ugly thing down.”
But the light changes after the fourth minute of the video. Its
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