Part 4: NYDC Blues

After having returned to Washington I found myself watching television all the time. I’d watch Late Night with David Letterman every night, waiting for him to do one of those bits where he turns on the remote camera outside the Ed Sullivan Theater to check the goings-on there at 53d and Broadway. I’d seen him send a guy wearing a bear suit into Flashdancers, the strip joint down the street. I’d seen him call the phone booth on the corner to talk to some tourist who wasn’t able to get in to see the show, then bring him inside to give him ear muffs to help keep the poor soul warm in the cold New York air. I’d seen him bring the entire cast of Miss Saigon, all dressed to the nines in their red satin decadence, out onto the catwalk of the Broadway Theater to blow a collective kiss to the camera. After moving back to Washington I’d been watching the show faithfully in order to get even the tiniest dose of New York. Because after having lived there New York had become, for me, a habit as bad as that of the junkies on the corner of Avenue B and 4th St., which was where I lived during my tenure there. All I could think about was New York. And although in the past I had always been able to write despite whatever obsession or addiction afflicted me, for some reason I found that for me to write with this particular monkey on my back—a monkey with a Big Apple in its mouth—was impossible.

My friend Jim suggested that to solve this problem I should just lay on the sofa all day reading. He figured that reading the work of other writers would inspire me to pick up a pen or start hitting the keys on the typewriter. My friend Leah thought I should consider how old I was—that a person in his mid-thirties like myself should be much further along in his career, and that to have a case of writer’s block at this early phase was totally absurd. She figured that, if I were to concentrate on these pathetic truths, the guilt emanating from my superego would put words in my head and, subsequently, down on the page. Finally, my friend Eddie advised me to do the local poetry slam. “Because you have to go as low as you can possibly imagine,” he said, “and that poetry slam shit is about the lowest thing I can think of. And when you clean house there at the bottom of the dung heap—and you will clean house—you’ll be inspired.”

It seemed that everyone I knew in Washington had suggestions on how I could get myself started again. Everyone except Neal.

“I have no advice for you,” he told me over dinner at Kenny Rogers’ Roasters.

He picked up a spoonful of macaroni and cheese, but instead of putting it in his mouth he gestured with it.

“Your not being able to write is just laziness,” he said, pointing the macaroni and cheese at my nose. Pulling back the spoon he added, “And this whole concept of writer’s block is just bullshit.” He paused, then quickly brought the spoonful of macaroni and cheese into his mouth and swallowed.

I went home that night and sat in front of the typewriter. I sat there for what seemed like hours and still nothing was happening in my mind save for a lengthy series of ruminations on New York, none of which I could translate into even the simplest poem or short story. So I turned on the television. And as I watched I took inventory, in my mind, of the differences between New York and Washington. By noting the differences I thought I might find, if not the solution, then at least a clue as to why my obsession with New York was preventing me from writing here in Washington.

The first and most obvious difference between the two cities was that compared to New York, Washington was slow, very slow. Rush hour in D.C is like 4am in Manhattan. As for 4am in Washington—well, there’s no equivalent of that in New York, nothing quite as scary, nothing that will make the adrenalin rush so quickly through your body that you feel your veins will burst. And although New York may have it over D.C. as far as the speed of life goes, when it comes to the danger one feels being out on the street late at night, Washington is the clear winner. This is a fact New Yorkers are beginning to be aware of, and when I went to rent a truck to move my belongings back to Washington, the guy behind the bullet proof glass at the U-Haul office in East Harlem asked me, “Is it as bad down there in Washington as they say?”

“Worse,” I answered, even though at the time I had changed my mind about the difficulties of living in Washington. “And it won’t be enough to call in the National Guard. Mayor Kelly should bring in the Marines at the very least. And if they call in the Army, Navy, and Air Force too, then so much the better.”

“Man,” he said, his mouth agape, “and I thought things were tough in this neighborhood.”

“No, things up here are fine. In fact I moved up to New York so I could relax and take it easy. I wanted to live in a place where I could walk the streets at dawn and not have to watch my back. But with the situation in Washington being what it is I have no choice but to go back. I’ve got family down there, you know.”

“I hear you, man. Things are really tough down there.”

Which, upon my homecoming, turned out to be the truth; because when you get down to it New York, despite its reputation for being a cold and crazy town—and despite one of the fastest paces of life in the Western world—is perhaps one of the easiest places in which to live. If you don’t mind the pace in New York, which I didn’t, you’ve got it made. And even though Frank Sinatra sings, “If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere,” the ability to make it in New York doesn’t mean a thing once you get past the city limits. Because despite what people may say, success in New York isn’t all that difficult to come by.

And what makes New York an easy place to succeed is that, unlike Washington, it grants a certain amount of space for failure, and leaves room for even the most ill conceived decisions. In Washington, if you fail, you’re through; and if you make a bad decision, they hold it over your head for the rest of your life: there are no second chances here. In New York, however, they give you time to heal—and time to forget. So if, after some catastrophic event, you find yourself being little more than a shadow, New York gives you the opportunity to develop that shadow, to give it color and depth. There’s no reason there, when looking down at your shadow on the day after losing your job or your girlfriend, to feel distraught and powerless. New York is a city where dreams and the chance to realize them never cease. It’s a city that allows you to dream the most fantastic dreams imaginable—dreams that cross the line from the whimsical to the absurd. But most importantly it’s a city where it’s safe to do so. And among the many reckless things one can do in one’s lifetime, one of the most reckless is to take a New York dream out of New York and attempt to keep it alive. Which is exactly what I had attempted to do.


Exile from Mayberry

In addition to watching David Letterman, I’d also watch Conan O’Brien, NYPD Blue, Law And Order—anything that came out of or dealt with New York. But what was most significant for me were reruns of the old Andy Griffith Show; because, as ludicrous as it may seem, Andy Griffith’s Mayberry had become—for me and only for me—the fictional equivalent of New York. In Sheriff Andy Taylor I saw a bearing similar to that of my landlord in New York. Barney Fife seemed like a rural translation of the man who ran the Bodega around the corner from me. And of course there was the lovely Helen Crump, whose real life counterpart was constantly in my thoughts.

But I had made the move, and to go back to my Mayberry so soon would be admitting that I’d made a mistake and, worst of all, that Washington—my Mt. Pilot—had defeated me. So whenever I got a call from my publisher in New York asking how the novel was coming, I’d lie.

“It’s going like clockwork,” I’d tell him, turning the sound off on the television. “It’s just that Washington is one horny fucking town to write in, which means that more and more horny scenes keep coming to mind... Yeah, it’s taking a little longer than I thought it would, but when it’s done it’ll make you shit.”

But I wasn’t getting any work done on it at all, and in the meantime the money I had made from my job on Wall Street had run out. I was living off my credit cards but now my creditors were after me. I was getting phone calls from various banks asking for their money. “I mailed it a month ago,” I’d say, “maybe it got lost.” But they weren’t buying my lies the way the publisher in New York was. My creditors weren’t from there—they were from other places around the country and weren’t as easily charmed. What was happening was a failure to communicate, because I was speaking a language no one but a New Yorker could understand. And furthermore I was trying to lead a life no one but a New Yorker—a New Yorker in New York—could lead.

But I went on this way, stubbornly clinging to strategies that worked in New York and accomplishing nothing... Until one night when, after having been unable to do so in weeks, I got drunk.

I was at Chief Ike’s Mambo Room, a bar in my Washington neighborhood. Because I was broke, Eddie and Jim had been buying me drinks—a lot of drinks. Knowing that I was desperate for money, and needed to get some sort of momentum going as far as making money, Eddie suggested that I do a reading in Washington. “It wouldn’t be much money,” he said, “but at least it’s a start.”

“What reading can I do here?” I asked.

He paused a moment then mumbled, “The poetry slam.”

“What?”

“The poetry slam!”

“No fucking way,” I said, shaking my head. “I quit reading poetry over a year ago.”

“Shit, man,” he said. “You need to get back on track making money with your writing. All you need is that start. And the place to start is at the bottom.”

“The slam is the bottom, all right. But, still, this is D.C. My stuff will never go over here.”

“It did at Neal’s party,” Jim said. “You had everyone in the palm of your hand.”

“But that was a fluke, something that was totally Neal’s creation. I’ve seen readings here, and what people go for are poets who know the names of a hundred different kinds of flowers, poets who reminisce about growing up in the country, shit like that. They want poetry that will take them away from this hellhole they live in.”

“No,” Eddie interrupted, “there are people here who know what’s going on—well, up to a point. But that’s enough. You’ll win, and it’ll get you going.”

By this time I was already very drunk and in no condition to argue. They took me to my place to pick up some of my poems, then down to the 15 Minutes Club, which was where the poetry slam was held in Washington.

Part 5: The Rules of the Game

We got there right before the guy who ran the slam started coming around with the sign up sheet, and as he walked by I said to him, “I’ll try it.”

“You’ll TRY it?” he replied snobbishly.

Already I was getting an attitude from him, as if I’d just asked him if I could fuck his girlfriend.

“Yeah, I’ll TRY it,” I answered.

“Do you have anything WITH you?” he asked.

I looked around at the other people who had signed up. They were all carrying thick notebooks or folders full of their poems, while I had just folded up my poems and stuck them in my pocket.

“Yes, I have poems WITH me.”

He began to explain the rules, saying the poets were judged by the amount of applause they receive.

“Oh,” I said, “it’s not like New York, where they give you a number rating.”

“Well, if you want numbers,” he said nastily, “then go back to New York.”

“All right,” I said, “applause, applause.”

He took my name down and walked away. I was a long way from Mayberry, which meant that in order to survive I couldn’t act the way I would in that country town.

“That prickly motherfucker’s asking for it,” I said turning to Eddie. “I’m going to blow this fucking place away.”

“Shit, man,” he said. “That’s the spirit.”

The first round consisted of four pairs of poets going against each other. In this round I went up against an older man who, in my drunken haze, seemed to take on what can only be described as aspects of the supernatural.

He read first, and as he read I thought I was witnessing the resurrection of Ezra Pound. It was as if it was Easter Sunday, and they’d rolled away that huge stone to reveal Ezra, set aglow by some otherworldly light and coming forth with the aid of a walking stick. “Christ,” I thought, “I have to beat out a cripple.”

Whether he actually was a cripple or not I don’t remember, and neither Jim nor Eddie would give me a straight answer in this regard when the reading was over. What they did tell me was that the applause during this round was resoundingly in my favor, thus moving me on to the second round. But first I had to wait through the other pairings of the first round and then a brief open reading. In the meantime Leah and Neal had shown up. Apparently Eddie or Jim had made some phone calls to tell everyone I still knew in Washington that I was here, ready to make a terrible spectacle of myself—which made me drink even more.

All I remember about the second round, and this I remember rather vaguely, was asking the woman I was going against to marry me. For some reason I got the notion that doing this would be the proper thing to do: marry her or else pay for the abortion. As to whether or not she agreed to take me up on either of these offers, I have no recollection. Again, my friends later confirmed that I won in this round as well.

Which must have been the case, because for some reason I do remember being in the final round. That might have been because the poet I was going up against, a nineteen year old kid named Adam, was quite good. It shocked me that someone that young could write well. But what impressed me more was when between poems he turned to me to says words to the effect that “Shit, man, you know this is all bullshit—just hang loose and accept the spare change they give you at the end.” This sobered me up a bit and I read my poems more clearly, more forcefully, and I actually began to have fun standing up there on stage making out like some slick crooner with a lounge act in Vegas. After all, it wasn’t like I intended to make a career of this business.

When the round was over Adam and I stood at the front of the stage, ready to the receive the applause which would indicate who had won. The emcee first presented Adam, to whom the audience gave a load roar—a roar of approval. Then he presented me.

What I heard was a sound which, to my bourbon enhanced sense of hearing, was almost deafening. And looking out into the audience it was clear, even to me, that I had won.

“And the winner is José,” the emcee announced confidently. I was, admittedly, happy with the outcome; but what was more important to me was that possible element of romance. I looked around for the woman I’d asked to marry me, but not only had I forgotten what she looked like, I’d also forgotten her name. I was about to yell out “Adrienne! Adrienne!” thinking she might happen to have the same name as Sylvester Stallone’s wife in the Rocky movies. But I didn’t, as my thoughts suddenly turned to Helen Crump and that time up in Mayberry when, after leaving that unruly gallery reading, we kissed on the street and shared the only chocolate éclair we hadn’t thrown at anyone. Though losing myself in such a sentimental moment should have brought a sense of clarity to me, I found myself confused.

It was in the middle of this confusion when I saw the emcee reach into his pocket for the prize money. To Adam, the runner up, he gave what looked like two twenty dollar bills, while when I looked at what he gave me I saw a ten and a twenty—ten dollars less than what he’d given Adam. I was about to say something to the emcee when one of that evening’s ongoing series of disconcerting revelations came upon me. And that revelation was that in Washington the price of winning was ten dollars. Whereas in most places winning means that you come out ahead, in Washington winning means that you come out just a little bit behind. Which isn’t to say that they didn’t end up loving my song and dance act at the 15 Minutes Club that night. It’s just that what they and perhaps the entire city of Washington were inadvertently giving me was, to use an expression that would occur to me only in my more vulnerable moments, “tough love”: namely, a twelve step program for someone who, through his addiction to New York (among other things), finds himself without a sense of place.


The Complete Failure of Everything

The next day, when my painful hangover was winding down, I went to the typewriter. To my amazement the words were coming and they kept on coming with no end in sight. After doing the poetry slam my case of writer’s block was gone: Eddie had known the cure all along.

By the end of the week I had the first draft of Three Men And A Lady finished. I called up my publisher in New York to tell him I was done and that the resurgence of his “Victorian Library” was under way. But after dialing his direct line I heard that “click” that tells you your call is being rerouted. A woman answered and when I asked for him she said, “I’m sorry, he’s left the company.”

“Oh, okay,” I said meekly and hung up.

Dialing his home number I got the message that the line had been disconnected. I paced the room for a while, then called up someone else I knew in the publishing business, thinking that he would have the scoop and give it to me. When he told me what had happened I could hardly believe it. It sounded like some story from the Weekly World News, only it was true.

“Well,” he told me, “John kind of freaked out. He went down to Venezuela for a vacation. He wanted to take a break from New York and go to some out of the way place. But when he got back to town he was completely different. He’d...you know, completely changed his life style.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “So he’s got a new life style now. You mean he isn’t living it up the way he used to?”

“No, he’s not...”

“And? Come on, tell me.”

“Well, what happened was that he found God.”

“Christ, what do you mean?”

“That he found GOD. He’s a born again Christian now. And the idea of starting up the line of erotica just didn’t sit well with his religious beliefs.”

“You’re kidding me,” I said frantically. “This is a joke. You’re remembering way back when I was putting out a magazine and that guy who’d submitted some poems wrote me back after seeing the magazine saying that he didn’t want me to publish his poems anymore because of his religious beliefs.”

“I remember that,” he said seriously. “But this is no joke. He really freaked.”

“Shit, and I just finished the first book,” I gasped.

“And then he decided that the other stuff his company was putting out didn’t sit well with his beliefs either.”

“So he’s out of the business completely?”

“Well, considering his experience, he could end up at some Christian publisher.”

“Shit. So the whole erotica line is dead?”

“Yeah, at least for a good while. No one else there has the time to take over the project.”

So the deal was dead and all my work was for nothing. I had no choice but to start opening up the want ads and looking for steady office work. There was no way for me here, in Washington, to make connections for the sort of writing jobs I had in New York. Which meant that again, and like a blockhead, I would be writing for something other than money.

So I started making phone calls in response to ads in the paper. I’d walk down to the subway to make my way to interviews. I’d slip my raggedy dollar bills into the fare card machines, banging on them until they finally, after dozens of attempts, went into the slot. Sometimes I’d skip the subway and walk all the way. Twice during these trips I saw the then Mayor of Washington, Sharon Pratt Kelly, walking with her entourage—and with her school principle from hell expression planted immovably on her face—as she slid into some fancy downtown restaurant. These horrible visions reminded me that I would have to find a way to make it here in Washington, this “Dodge City,” this “Barter Town” where even Mel Gibson, as Mad Max, would throw up his hands in despair and hop on the next gyrocopter out of town. But at least, after my brief but perhaps necessary return to the poetry scene, I was able to write again. And maybe with a little bit of luck and not a little bit of perseverance, I’d be able to make it.

And I now knew that if I could make it here, I could make it anywhere—and that this was where I would have to do it. Because it would be a long time before I had the money to go back to New York, my Mayberry; where Andy Taylor would have a cramped but comfortable apartment for me to rent; where Barney Fife would sell me a fifty cent bag of potato chips and a 16 ounce can of Budweiser at two in the morning; where Helen Crump might be at my side whispering kind words to soothe the unbearable beast within me; where even though the pace isn’t slow the living is easy; where if one opportunity dies, another will fall into your lap just as easily as sunlight falls to the sidewalk; and where, during your leisurely afternoon stroll, you cast a cool and tranquil shadow.


A Short History of Everyone in the World


Needless to say, I didn’t make it. And no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t give up poetry, because poetry had become a way to make—if not a living—at least some spare change. Because having failed in all my attempts at finding regular work, I found myself doing poetry readings to make money.

The last time I was when I did what was called a “Cyberslam” for a hundred dollars. It was some kind of computer hook up in which a team of three people here in Washington went against a team in New York. There on the computer screen I could see the New York poets, all of whom I knew from my years up there. They were waving at me, their movements appearing jagged, like in an old film reel from the early days of motion pictures. Although they were just some two hundred miles distant, it seemed like they were light years away, their images being sent here from some other planet, some other universe.

Before that it was another slam at the Fifteen Minutes Club. Art, the guy who ran the slam there turned out to be an all right guy. (In fact, of all the people I’ve met since moving back to Washington, those in the poetry scene were usually the nicest, and a few even turned out to be good writers.) And after I won that slam some of us went out for more drinks at another bar, where I drank two dollar cans of Pabst in what was ultimately a futile attempt to make my money last.

And before that were readings at Lollapalooza, The Black Cat Club, Flying Saucer Discs... It went on and on. And back in November I went to Washington’s 9:30 Club to see Maggie Estep perform. She’d taken her poems, transformed them into a spoken word/music hybrid, and in the process became a bit of a celebrity. After her set I went down to the dressing room to see her. She was surprised to see me, not having known that I’d left New York. We chatted a while and then at some point in our conversation she commented that I had a “clarity” about me. It was an odd comment for her to make.

“Are you not drinking as much?” she asked.”

I was, at that moment, completely drunk.

“No, I’ve cut down a lot,” I answered.

In a little while I left, saying I’d stay in touch.

Although I was tired, I walked all the way home. It was a nice autumn evening, and I thought that taking a walk would do me some good.

When I got home I turned on the television. Late Night with David Letterman was on—I was just in time to see him do his Top Ten list. I stood there in front of the television as he went down the list from number ten to number one. I stood there without laughing, without thinking. Then I went into the kitchen.

And sitting down at the table, I opened up a pint bottle of Jack Daniel’s, poured some into a glass filled with ice, and drank it. Then poured another one.

I didn’t stay in touch.

-Jose Padua

-------------------------------------------------
First published as a chapbook, by Pan Semantics Press, in 1995.

For The Saints And Angels, Miles Davis, And You

Miles Davis was a skinny motherfucker, a bitter and often mean man.
I have always been a little on the stocky side and while often bitter,
I am rarely ever mean.

Miles Davis was a master trumpet player while the only thing I’ve mastered
is the art of keeping my better qualities concealed like money
people hide in their shoes.

Miles Davis was a performer who most of the time would have preferred to just
rip your eyes out rather than accept your applause.
I am a performer who most of the time would prefer to just rip your eyes out
rather than accept your applause.

Whenever Miles Davis wanted to make money he’d just pick up his horn,
play it, and come home with several thousand dollars.
Whenever I want to make money I write a story and two months later I get
a check in the mail for a hundred and fifty bucks or less. (Usually less.)

During the course of his life Miles Davis went to Paris, Tokyo, London.
The longest trip I ever made was the time I had the stomach flu and took
a Greyhound bus from New Orleans to Las Vegas.

Miles Davis -- people always seem to obsess on him.
Like the Irish Catholic girl I knew in college who said,
“All I know about jazz is Miles Davis.”
Like the kid watching a man play trumpet
on the corner of St. Mark’s Place and Avenue A
and saying to him,
“Hey, man, play some Miles Davis.”

As far as I know no one has ever obsessed on me,
and though I have heard stories of people other than me
reciting my poems in public
I believe these reports to be greatly exaggerated.

I remember when Miles Davis died.
I was at a girlfriend’s apartment in New York
and they’d been playing Miles Davis on WKCR all weekend.

We’d gone out for Chinese food and when we got back
to her place she suddenly turned catatonic,
giving me an evil look as Sketches of Spain
came out of the radio.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, “Was it something I said?”
She just sat there on her living room chair saying nothing,
and after a while I walked out the door,
went home and turned on the TV.

Miles Davis would have screamed
“What the fuck’s wrong with you, bitch?”
before picking up the phone to call one of his other girls.

“Mary,” he’d say, or “Martha” or “Johanna” or any of a hundred other names,
“This is Miles. Meet me at the corner of Second Avenue and Eleventh St.
in ten minutes, and make sure you’re wearing that red silk dress I gave you.
No, not the blue one the red one. Did you hear me, I said RED, woman!”
Click.

Miles Davis is dead,
though I, at the moment, am alive
and remembering the night two years after he died,
when contemplating the wind’s direction, I stood
on the corner of Broadway and West 57th street
in a crucifixion pose.

Elsewhere the Eiffel Tower was standing tall and Big Ben still
ringing as the lights of Tokyo pushed out the darkness.
And with the November cold sliding through my winter coat
I put my arms back down and walked
like on a Sunday morning in the spring
when the blood rushes through your veins,
only it wasn’t spring and it wasn’t Sunday,
and I wasn’t anywhere near Heaven
with no money in my pocket, no tune to play
and no made-up angel in a silk dress
to take me home.

Miles Davis
is long gone and so is
Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad or whosoever
has inspired or moved you
but at least you
are still alive.

So let your idols expire. Let there be joy
on Broad St. and bedlam uptown.
Let young hearts and your own be crushed.

Commerce will work against you once again,
but the law of the land
is a wasp with mud on its wings
and honey in its left eye.
Its belly is full
but its heart is a sponge:
kill it before it kills you because
the gods will never punish you,
and the saints and angels will never squeal on you,
only men whose names have
already been forgotten

-Jose Padua
---------------------
From around 1996.

MacArthur Park

When I was a kid I thought
that the greatest record ever made
was the 1968 mod orchestral rendering of
of Jimmy Webb’s lost love opus, MacArthur Park.
For me, MacArthur Park was a flash of wisdom, an epiphany as great
as an apostle’s brief glimpse of Heaven,
and an experience so innately sensual as to make Fanny Hill
seem like a Lyndon Johnson state of the union address by
comparison.
As sung by that great drunken actor, Richard Harris
(who, if they’d had videos in those days, would have crooned the
words
while decked out in love beads, mirrored sunglasses, and a paisley
Nehru jacket),
MacArthur Park was Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, Beethoven’s Fifth
Symphony,
and Dr. Suess’s Green Eggs and Ham
all boiled down to five bittersweet minutes
in the American summer of love.
I’d always stop what I was doing to reflect,
to meditate like a pilgrim at the end of that long, tortuous journey
through the slough of despond whenever it came on the radio.
I could almost feel Casey Kasem fighting back the tears
every time he sent it out as a long distance dedication.
I could almost see the women in their yellow satin dresses
swoon as the song, after traveling through the airwaves,
came out of the radio like a succubus wearing Old Spice cologne.

For me MacArthur Park was no one-hit wonder or one-night stand,
no temporary truce or let the sun shine in fly-by-night Broadway
craze.
For me MacArthur Park was the fall of Hanoi, an ether binge,
an up-against-the-wall motherfucker are you part of the solution
or are you part of the problem
Evel Knevel motorcycle leap into the great beyond.
And, like all great works of art, MacArthur Park raised some serious
questions.
For example, who was the miscreant who left that cake out in the
rain?
And what exactly was that recipe that he’d never have again?
Yea, these metaphors were deep, giving me forlorn visions
of that “sweet green icing falling down” in the dark,
of drinking “the wine while it is warm” with no one
ever catching me “looking at the sun.”
These words and images moved me
and I was sure they would move others as well.
I often quoted them in love letters
I wrote to my first teenage crush,
believing they would reveal me to be a profoundly sensitive
young man whose passions she would be foolish to deny.
It was no wonder she sent the letters
back to me:
I was young, in love, and as powerless
as a corpse at a funeral.

This, of course, was some years before The Silver Convention’s
seminal Fly Robin Fly rid me of my more sentimental proclivities.
Before I sat back in cataleptic paralysis like one of Marcus Welby’s
patients
as a friend of mine from high school began singing
“They’re coming to America” along with Neil Diamond
when that hideous song came on the radio.
Before I cringed in late night horror film terror while another friend
began chanting, “We got a great big convoy, running through the
night,
we got a great big convoy, ain’t she a beautiful sight?”
as we headed east on Route 50 toward the beach in the dead of
winter.

It was about this time when I began having
my doubts about the afterlife.
When I stopped believing in ESP, astral projection, pyramid power,
speed reading, streaking, and the amazing Kreskin.
When I stopped believing that the police were on my side.
When I stopped believing that the concept of America included me
whether I was rich or poor,
white or something else.
When I stopped having faith in God and the entire world.

It was all so long ago.

I was dressed in the blue wool suit I’d grown into since high school,
a stiff white shirt that reeked of too much starch, a red silk tie
I’d borrowed from my father, and the black
leather shoes my brother had bought me for the occasion.
It was 1994. It was cloudy and cold with gray sunlight flowing through
the stained glass windows as a priest gave me instructions
on how to read a passage from the Bible.
It was the same priest who had mumbled his way through
the rosary the night before like a drunken Elvis impersonator
going through the motions of putting on a show.
The priest who would later put words into my dead mother’s mouth–
a priest who had never met her, who had never known
of her existence until she was gone–
saying from the top of the pulpit with his head held high
in self righteousness how if she were here with us today
she’d be asking us to take the time to consider
and reflect upon our lives as Christians.

Holy Christ, I thought, she’d never ask us to do that:
Because if she were alive and at a funeral she would have
shown some genuine respect for the dead.
And though I’d always shouted out from among the crowd at the fools
on stage, demanding from them some measure of truth,
I sat there in silence loosening my tie as he delivered a sermon,
which,
like a stupid song from the summer of love that no longer moved me,
had nothing to do with either life or death.

-Jose Padua

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From around 1998.

Power Lunch

Feeling heavy pressure
from all sides
I bit into
a steak sandwich
and grabbed a handful
of greasy French fries.
As women walked by
in their short skirts
followed by men in
rolled up shirtsleeves,
I realized that
the control I have
over my sandwich
is, for me,
a beautiful and
awesome power.

-Jose Padua

A Short History of Everyone In The World

On the train going
back to my home town
people are laughing at the
drunk who’s making fun
of the bald spot on a guy
a few rows up.
Across the aisle from me
a deaf man is making garbled passes
at all the women walking by
on the way to the club car.
Next to me a girl
with a silly haircut
is drinking a beer and
talking to everyone in sight
between drags of her cigarette.
It’s one of those
holiday weekend party trains
where everyone’s celebrating
and ready to tell their life story.

The drunk guy is going
to Richmond where he’ll find a bar
and drink some more.
The haircut girl is going
to Philadelphia -- she plans
on becoming a hairdresser.
The guy with the bald spot
has just gotten out of prison
and he’s trying to stay
calm and out of trouble.
The deaf guy is just horny
and doesn’t bother to read
the lips of the women
who tell him to fuck off.

When the haircut girl
asks me for my story
I tell her,
“I saved up my money
to buy this train ticket
so I could visit home
and get there comfortably.
I cut my spending in half
by eating my own shit.
Why I’ve been living off
the same macaroni and cheese
dinner for two months now.”

“Oh,” she says, startled, grimacing.

“Excuse me,” I say. “I have
to go to the bathroom now.”

When I stand up
everyone’s quiet,
and I know that when
I get back to my seat
I’ll be able to just relax
and sleep.
No stories, no loud laughter,
no more rude comments,
snide remarks or subtle innuendoes.
I’d put an end to that
because I’d just said all
there was in the world
to be said.

-Jose Padua
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This first appeared in Michael Carter's Redtape in 1992, and was then included in Up Is Up, But So Is Down: New York's Downtown Literary Scene, 1974-1992, an anthology edited by Brandon Stosuy, in 2006.

Pulp Fiction

This afternoon a bum on the street mistook me for a drug addict.
“It’s that CRACK that’s making you sweat,” he advised me.
I nodded and said, “Yeah, I really ought to quit,”
as people walking near me picked up their pace to get away from me.

Later, I’m crossing the street when a carload of scraggly haired kids pulls up beside me.
“Hey, man, you got any rolling papers?” one of them asks.
“No,” I say, “I just drink, that’s it.”
“Come on,” he says, “just give them to me, all you Filipino motherfuckers smoke reefer.”
I keep quiet and walk ahead as they start to jeer and yell at me.

It’s been said that the meek shall inherit the earth.
But I’ve got bruises on my arms from running into people
on the street who expect me to scurry out of their way like a rat.
I’ve got dark patches on my soul from people who move out of my way
because they think I’m going to kill them.

People always either see me as the lamb who’s ready to sacrifice himself
to the gods of their ambition
or as the wolf who’s going to set his fangs upon them,
tearing them limb from limb, eyeball from eyeball,
when the truth is somewhere in between.

“Do you speak English?” people in bars often ask me.
“No,” I tell them, “I’m from France, I speak French.”
“You’re not from around here, are you?” other people say to me.
“No I’m not,” I answer. “I’m from Saturn and I’m here to mate with Earth women.
Is that your sister who’s sitting next to you? Nice tits.”

It’s been said that he who makes a beast of himself gets rid
of the pain of being a man.
So I drink straight from the bottle till the hair grows on my cheeks.
I steal the drinks from in front of other people
until the fur forms on the back of my neck.

“I was born here,” I used to say to people,
“I ate my first McDonald’s cheeseburger when I was 4,
recited the Pledge of Allegiance for teacher when I was 6,
and by the age of seven I could speak the language better than you do now.”

It’s been said that the truth is what sets you free,
but whenever I speak the truth no one believes it,
and whenever I hear the truth it makes me feel like a prisoner
on death row.

So I tell stories to keep the truth alive without telling it.
I create history to keep me from becoming history:

“I was raised by flying cockroaches until the age of seventeen. Could you lend me a buck?”
“I’m a crack-head pimp from the planet Liechtenstein. Would you like a job?”
“I’m a millionaire from Muffberg, Ohio. I came here two years ago with a dollar
in my pocket and a smile I could pry open doors with. Would you like a tip on
the stock market?”
“I’m vice president of a mid-sized consulting firm making
two hundred grand a year tax free. Can I pay for your groceries?”
“I’m Johnny Depp’s garbage man, wanna go out?”
“I’m Conan O’Brien, wanna fuck?”

This is the way I spend my days.
This is the way I earn my nights,
walking the earth telling lies, spreading rumors:

“And blessed is he who in the name of charity and good will
shepherds the weak and ignorant through the valley of darkness
for he is truly his brother’s keeper.
But I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance
and furious rebukes those who attempt to poison and destroy
my brothers
and you will know my name is The Lord
when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”

It’s been said that that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
I think that that which doesn’t kill you simply lets you live longer.
There’s a difference.

- Jose Padua
---------------------------
From circa 1996

The Complete Failure Of Everything

At the carnival sideshow
the veteran sword swallower has bloodied his throat.
The snake charmer has been attacked,
his cobras, rattlers, boas
have stung, bitten, and squeezed him to death.
In the tunnel of love the teenage couple
keep their hands at their sides and
look straight ahead,
waiting anxiously for the ride to end.
Out on the rollercoaster people are yawning
while on the merry-go-round children
are screaming in terror.
In the suburbs a man has decided
not to build a deck on the back
of his new house.
His neighbors are at the mall
attending the grand opening
of a multiplex porno theater.
Back in town the crack dealers
and junkie hookers
are giving it away.
The Jehovah’s witnesses are wandering around
drunk, cigarettes dangling from their mouths
as they mumble, “Jesus, I just don’t know.”
In the universities the professors
have taken over the libraries.
They’re tearing up the pages
of every book on every shelf
on every subject.
In the nightclub the stripper
with the 72-inch bust is keeping her top on
while the flat-chested women
rip open their blouses
and shout, “Va Va Voom,”
to the delight
of the already frenzied crowd.
The billionaire is sitting on a park bench
perusing the want ads
while the panhandler orders dinner
at a fancy French restaurant
for fifty of his closest friends.
Over in the third world
the mercenary is helping to build a hospital
while the Christian missionaries
have just raped and pillaged
in a small town of peasants.

There is snow in the desert
and flowers in the arctic,
wild music in the asylums
and silence in the dance halls,
charity in the casinos
and greed at the Salvation Army,
orgies in the convents
and prayer in the whorehouses.

And what we are witnessing
is the complete failure of everything.
The failure of the rich and the poor,
the failure of the ecstatic and the tortured,
the failure of the loud and the peaceful,
the failure of love and hate,
the beautiful and the ugly,
the good and the bad,
the daring and the timid.

It’s the failure of the holy to stay holy
and the sinners to keep sinning,
the failure of the rich to stay rich
and the poor to stay poor,
the failure of those who love
and those who hate,
everything failing,
inevitably falling into its opposite,
into its enemy, into its nightmare,
into the end
where the big bang,
having reached its limit,
reverses itself,
with everything you know
falling apart,
here, in the carnival
where the last great act
is to take something,
and through a swift sleight of hand
turn it into nothing
as the bright lights dim
and the merry-go-round
grinds slowly
to a complete
and silent
stop.

- Jose Padua
-------------------------
First published, in the St. Mark's Poetry Project Newsletter, in 1992.

Notes for an Interview with Sarah Palin

What are you thinking about when you stick
your tongue between your teeth and smile?
When the sun rises on a cold Alaskan morning,
does it warm you or do you feel a disturbing chill?
Sarah, when you take off your glasses to rest your eyes,
does it make you feel like a different person?
Sarah, when you look out the window of an airplane,
do you sense a distance that can never be overcome?
Is it hard, Sarah, to tell the difference between
the stories you tell and the things that are real?
Sarah, did you know that whenever I see you
on TV I give you the finger?

-Jose Padua

To John McCain

Your odd almost twitch
as you wait for Sarah Palin
to finish introducing
you reminds me that
while she is the religious
right's latest asshole,
you are still the Republican
Party's scariest bitch.

-Jose Padua