Auditioners
for the
Potato Eaters wear frowns grown in the night. This is the Salon de
Refusé--a place of little option. The glass in the welcome mat is
the front door. Kicked now, the kicker draws splinters instead of blood.
Few guests are depressed enough to slit their wrists with plywood. It
troubles me to let you read these things. When you lose your mind, a new
one takes its place; but once you've started writing, you're stuck. History creates history. Every version creates
another. If you have a different perspective on these events, enter at
will.An incinerator feeds the exhausted sky. The air is trapped
and stale. It glitters with silt disguised as snow. The entire
neighborhood is
grey, with one exception: the Blue Motel is the 
color Greeks wash over doors to
ward off
the evil eye. Three shoe boxes bogged in black asphalt could have been
the architect's inspiration. The figure of what
must be a man paces along the Cyclone fence circling a parking lot as
soft as pancake batter under rigid tires. When I drive in, a muscleman
lifts the rear end of my VW and shakes it. He demands drugs to make his
cock bigger. I hope I am not given that authority. It wasn't in the job
description. A nervous charcoal bomb shelter. Wads of rolling papers.
Fidgeting fingers. Shrill voices draw echoing shadows into the hall.
Where's the office, I ask the one with teeth like toenails. He gums a
wooden match and tugs baggy tuxedo trousers with his elbows like Jimmy
Cagney. His fingers are foreskins. His scalp is blue. Everyone's gone to
Joker's Wild with Jesus.
