Wrote this in 2004, and I don’t think it’s finished. I don’t know. It’s hard to tell.
I Will Quit You
By Zane Griffin Talley Cooper
I will quit you. And this hallowed ground. I will quit both of you. I will make my home in brush. I will eat roots. I will collect shells washed into the desert. Here I will I will I will I will
Real time comes and goes in real time and steps sound in the distance somewhere heads turn eyes shift hair musses cans open.
………………
I took my Mother out to dinner the other night. She looked beautiful in a haggardly sort of way, like a queen on her deathbed exhaling evaporated puffs of her former self but that’s how people remember her through these little instances of stale air. They catch them in their eyes and it may sting but that’s the bane of memory.
A Beautiful Queen.
In any case, we went to Manny’s, a tired sort of joint on the outside of town. It’s her favorite place. She says she goes there because she likes the eggs and the way they’re not too over or under easy.
Buzzing fans What Order up
We ate and she twisted the gelatin yolk in her fork and spoke in familiar tones but unfamiliar at the same time because she was closer to death since the last time we spoke. I’ve come to realize that change in a person is nothing but the impending realization of a creeping end.
She talked of her time out with Margie, and how they drove by the church on Sunday. There they saw children dancing in circles in black and white the color of formality worship or mourning. One child, with a tousled head of black hair, held a stick up into the air, he must have been about 5, and proceeded to charge at another in an attempt to cease his life with stumped wood. The others danced in circles.
At this Margie and Mother stared and thought how queer. The adults commingled about themselves mouthing Jim, Tony, Cath, Greg, Tom, and then relaying information regarding the previous week, the week away from JimTonyCathGregTom. Faces one by one or not but maybe all by all Mother’s hands gripped the steering wheel because she was driving and Margie was the passenger so Mother controlled the sight the contortion of identity as Jim became Tony and Cath became Greg her husband but at the same time they all became Jesus Christ because that’s how they are connected.
The Children Danced In Circles.
Mother thought she saw Billy Gorkin but then she realized that it wasn’t him and went on thinking about the dancing and how the mass of Jesus wasn’t watching the two boys imagining death upon each other’s breasts and how the stumped wood could just as easily have been a knife. But that’s all trivial isn’t it? Do you like your eggs? Yes, Mother, I love them. Manny’s knows how to make some good eggs. But Billy Gorkin wasn’t there. Where was he? His mother and father amongst the congregating adults but Billy absent from the circle she thought that she had seen him at school the other day because Mother was the school secretary filing documents taking calls greeting eager young minds with a smile at Blithdale Elementary 4 miles from her home on Cardinal Blvd. named either after bird or clergy but in any case her house was birchwood with green siding. Perhaps she didn’t see Billy but what did it matter he could be home with a hot chocolate and a comic book his eyes radiating with images of severed spines or maybe not but what did it matter who was she to say where Billy Gorkin was or wasn’t?
His mother and father speaking in rhyme staged rhythmic conducted by God to the Griffins about floral arrangements and motor cars.
Billy Gorkin loved to put palm to window on rainy days and take note of the fact his hand was on the inside and the rain was on the outside. He liked windows and objects with akin clarity and later in life he would say that air is nothing but staggered glass. But now his hand is on the window and such thoughts have not yet entered his head. Where are you mommy he cried when he was three when he couldn’t find her in the supermarket as he heard his name called rusty and metallic through the staggered glass all the microscopic shards resonating with that same tinny speak Billy Gorkin please come to the front registers Billy Gorkin please come to the front registers. But he didn’t respond to such a harsh and uninviting call and instead continued to run in shambles throughout the angular fluorescent landscape sifting fervently through sounds and faces and eyes and hair and shirts and pants and most notably knee caps because that’s where his eyes were and trying to match one to the other all to all eye to kneecap but none resembled his mother. My mother was there that day that Billy Gorkin lost his mother in the supermarket and she told me all this in a nostalgic manner as if Billy had been her son and she was chuckling to herself about his free wandering nature and how it eventually got him stranded in Mongolia with a tribe of savage nomads and that was the last of Billy Gorkin but that hasn’t happened yet. Maybe she didn’t tell me this maybe I remember it from before from another time that she told me but in any case her mentioning the absence of Billy Gorkin reminded me of the time he got lost in the supermarket.
When William Redford Gorkin was 35, he was taken captive by a tribe of Mongolian nomads. An English speaking chicken salesman in Tov Aymag the last person to see William alive told an invesigator that he had sold the man one whole chicken and a tray of gizzards and that Bill had stuffed them rather haphazardly into his tattered knapsack and hurried out into the empty hot sand on foot with nothing but a chicken and that chicken’s insides-but the chicken’s insides were separated not part of each other and possibly the liver and the empty carcass could be two different chickens but what did it matter to Bill because later his knapsack would be half-buried under brush.
Pack slung over his shoulder, sun deafening his figure, the desert swallowed him.
But that was later – long after this conversation and the eggs and the third world war.
……………
Sadie slept.
Such sad eyes the eyes of a forlorn puppy behind those lids
Descending hair like a river on sheets
Like a Gaudian wave
These sheets Sadie’s sheets her cheeks one mashed to the bed by gravity
Light from the window on the left her left above her left arm blinds dividing not blinds shutters or possibly neither however light angular as if the sill were the horizon itself
What’s that on the table a used tissue caked with dried blood the table by her head
Alarm clock many trinkets 7 years old the clock the word SNOOZE eroded away through years of mechanical violence
Goddamn
Tears or maybe not who knows
Sadie has since become addicted to cocaine
But not yet the dried blood from her nose is because of the climate change
This is merely an instance of foreshadowing
The cocaine comes after or before or during
Rustling Shadows Disruption of space and time
[What?]
[Go back to bed.]
[What time is it?]
[It’s not yet five.]
[What’re you doing up?]
-He pauses and acts like he didn’t hear her.
[What?]
[It’s Saturday.]
[I know.
-Pause.
I just thought I should get up. I need to get up. It’s fine. Everything’s Ok. Go back to bed.]
Leaving Eyes following Doors shutting (Creaking)
Sadie turned back over on her side and faced the wall creating a cocoon of darkness between her and the wall the blankets held tightly to her chin by clenched fists.
Too much all too much
Bill had lived with Sadie for 3 years and had not once tried to touch her in any way anyone would consider suggestive. However, Sadie harbored for Bill a secret longing unbeknownst to him or anyone else for that matter and made quite a pathetic habit of sneaking over to watch him sleep at night and thereupon rubbing herself until she climaxed. She had trained herself not to make any noise as she did this. Silent orgasms are yours and never shared. That’s what makes them so treasured especially to Sadie who keeps them in glass cases.
………………
Sun
[Where did you go last night?]
-She didn’t really want the answer but she yearned for it as one does for terrible physical pain inspired by endurance or dark thoughts she was never sure which
[I needed to go for a drive and clear my head.]
-He eyed the newspaper not her that would reveal far too much far too soon
[Do you need to talk about something?]
[No.]
-He read of chique restaurants but he could feel her presumptive inquisitions like spikes driven through stone.
-She advanced her head drifting lazily into the light her eyes filled with glare from either sun or questions
-Gesturing to article
[We should go there sometime. They have good eggs.]
-A shrug and an indiscernible sound followed by a head cock by Sadie and an even further advancement into the light
[Is something the matter? You’re not talking to me.]
[Look, Sadie, you’re not my fucking wife!]
-Pause
-Paper rustling through the silence as paper often does when two souls fall into obscurity
-Coffee and windows and floors and chairs on them
Suddenly trembling fear
[I’m sorry.]
-Her head dipped below her ego and he said nothing
Sometimes epochs pass through a moment as a mosquito through mesh and entire civilizations rise and fall in the reluctant stillness.
……………
Sadie’s mom would sometimes call
[No.][Yes.]
-And so on.
…………….
He went to Church sometimes but not all the time sometimes instead of going to Church he would go down by the pier and sit for a spell he liked the way the seagulls sounded in harmony with the harsh clap of small waves against metal to him the sea didn’t soothe an agitating force that never ceased he once thought that the world would never be silent that there is no such thing as silence because the sea would always be moving and rubbing up against itself but in fact there is silence a deep heavy silence that Bill would never know held like a burden in the lobe of his heart a cerebral palace in the core muscle of his love a silence that even creeping spiders could not quell insects in the capillaries gnawing and grinding away at passion.
However trains
He went on later in life to acquire a vast fortune but then squander it all in a bad market this was after Sadie the sad end the makeshift liberty he endured after the fact as if the rest of his life was plywood siding supporting a skyscraper of ambition.
A man came once to his door propositioning him asking him if he had found Jesus Bill had no answer and stared hard at the man studying his features and noted that his eyebrows created two thatched roofs that housed windows to the divine because that’s what missionaries are
But Sadie had been such a small portion
Had taken him by surprise
Booths and wholly grates dividing
Ministers and magistrates collecting
Mister Gorkin the time has come
God?
Had there been
Had there been
Had there been
Blank no text here
Or here Yet transcendence
Or here Yet transcendence
Or here Yet transcendence
This is what Bill learned after Sadie’s death that God is in stillness and in her stone face he had touched the lord he leaned over her coffin that windy September day when the leaves flew like birds and possibly were he leaned over the coffin and ran his fingers across her forehead and he remembered that he could feel the grooves of his fingertips meet the bodiless skin of her face and wondered if he touched Sadie or if he touched God because God is stillness and that’s why he had never noticed before because the sea is always moving and only in Sadie’s cold soulless effigy had he truly been able to understand and even though the leaves dipped and dove like wartime dogfights the coffin was still and so was her face and he thought that if he just pulled up a chair and attended there by the casket for days that she would not stir and that gave him a small bit of comfort and he nearly forgot the fact that Sadie had been hopelessly in love with him and that she had stood over him at night with her trembling hand down her pants tears in her eyes and that night he had seen her but had lain in wait for her to fall well enough asleep before he left and this time left for good because it was not the first time that he had spied Sadie’s entombed silhouette standing over him already entombed and now entombed in mind and in casket he left for good and went to New York to try to make his way as an author but that led to foolish pipe dreams about a bohemian life in Paris and soon enough he sailed from Long Island the day that he ate stale bread he hadn’t tried to contact her since his departure and thought to leave it well enough alone for they after all were only roommates and in his mind had never been much more if not friends at times and he can recall certain instances when they attended the movies together and he thought as he sailed that those outings must have meant the world to Sadie and he imagined her pasting those moments that they laughed in darkness in her scrapbook of passion and romanticism but to him they were jaunts.
………………
[We’ll be docking soon.]
[What?]
[I said we’ll be docking soon. You’ve been asleep for almost 12 hours.]
[Shit...I feel terrible. I need a glass of water.
-Coughs and as he does, clenches his eyes.
Ugh, my mouth is so dry.
-Pause
Are we landing in Normandy?]
[Yes.]
[Good.]
………………
When he was 12 he had sailed once in the Caribbean with his parents and he stood out on the deck with his arms outstretched on the metal bar below the wooden banister because he had not yet reached the proper height to be able to rest his arms comfortably on the railing as his parents did but likewise he stared out toward the horizon with thoughts in his head various thoughts thoughts about one thing or another possibly about the immensity of the sea or about the motion of the waves or even the amplitude of the waves and how they changed with respect to their motion that was the kind of child Bill was the kind that would analyze the physical properties of every earthly event and then record those properties in a little blue notebook he kept in his desk.
His arms lay on the wooden banister this time oak not maple or pine or chestnut but oak a darker wood than when he was 12 that was the last time he had been on a ship he couldn’t remember another time he had ridden in a pedal boat once in a lake in the mountains but that can hardly count as sailing it can hardly count at all but still for some reason he recalled the color of the woods and noted their differences how the color affected the direction of the grain and the grain itself like 100 minute train tracks and he imagined the trains traveling swiftly on each grain each heading towards a different destination even though some grains would coalesce inside of a large knot and some would wind their way back to his outstretched hand but then some would even cross not once but many times in a helix pattern such that the vehicles would be forced to endure numerous crashes before finally reaching once more their commencement back at Bill’s trembling fingers trembling not from fear but from the bracing cold because it is dusk and the ship is heading northeast and the Atlantic is always rather cold in this circumstance but in any case once the granular journey reaches its end in Bill’s eyes or in the other’s eyes standing next to him also pondering something but something far removed from Bill’s thoughts for she comes from a different world a different past and it would be highly improbable for them both to be imagining objects of transportation upon the railing highly improbable indeed all will be understood circumnavigate the ship and then it will be clear.
But perhaps this was before or after or during
………………
[What’s the matter?
-Pause. Rustling of sheets or a collection of singular fabrics.
Bill…
-The rustling continues. The soft blue reflection of the moon in the sea permeates the small round portal of the cabin and makes the room appear a waterless oceanic paradise. She moves her hand over the small of his back and compassionately caresses his hip.
You said you wanted to leave all this behind. That it was through. You’ve been so sad, Bill. What will make you happy? Don’t I make you happy?
-A timid whimpering can be heard from under the sheets, which have been pulled over his head and clenched tightly in place with his fists. She imagines tears streaming from his eyes but not for her, not for her.
Bill…]
………………
And he remembered then how his mother rubbed his shoulders when he felt miserable and his tears stained the neck of his shirt and he wished that she would do that but her hand remained on his hip and he didn’t like that because it didn’t remind him of his mother and it scared him to think of losing his mother she was already lost to him in body but it frightened him even more to lose her in thought as well that’s why he tried to keep his sensory memory of her living because he believed that if he remembered how she touched him how he felt when she breathed next to him that maybe he could keep an impression of her alive like a mold in his brain that could be filled only by her but at this moment he wanted her to cease caressing his hip and massage his shoulders not too rough but softly enough to yield a mother’s touch and that he felt would keep the impression of his mother alive perhaps when he mourned the death of Sadie he mourned that of his mother as well.
………………
-He pulls the sheets down from his head and allows them to rest on his shoulders. His hair stands on end due to the static. He does not turn to face her that would reveal far too much far too soon.
-Distant, stone.
[Can I get some water?]
-Such dilapidated stillness. Sour air, stale and corroded.
-The ocean breathes life into the ceiling.
-A chair in the corner with shirts and pants. A slight reflection from the window, a quarter circle.
-No movement.
-The floor creaks with the slight rocking of the ship.
-Dripping water from the faucet in the adjacent sink.
-Bill shifts his weight so to remove the pressure from his left leg.
[What’s going to happen when we land?]
-She is lying on her back, eyes fixated on a section of the drywall ceiling that looks like the face of a lion.
-Her hair spread out delicately on the pillow like a Gaudian wave.
-But he doesn’t see it he can’t see it he won’t see it.
[I don’t know. Can I get some water?]
[I came three thousand miles for you. The least you can do is give me a straight answer.]
[I need to think about a few things right now. I want a glass of water, and I want to be left alone.]
[You’re in love with her.]
[I don’t know.]
-She turns away toward the window and the luminescent ripples saturate her face with an impression of liquid crystal.
[You’re a bastard.]
-He finally turns to face her but slowly, reluctantly.
-A finger
-Retract
………………
Blue coat Black shoes Mussed hair Doorknob Wooden planks 123456
A chance encounter with two heads
[I’m sorry.]
[Watch where you’re going.]
7891011121314151617181920plankplankplankplankplankplank the mast but only 2 feet
Circumnavigate the ship and it will all be clear
