"a brownish jellyfish with very orange eyes"
|
march 25th Working in tandem with MORTY there is known to be a team called les "encephalons". These are cartoonish characters drawn on, and cut out from, cardboard casket shipping boxes. Los zany dudes in Whittier CA first introduced me to them. The cut outs even had little "baloons" in which to write zany bon mots. You would see them travel inexplicably from prep room, to casket storeroom, to employee break room, always a gap toothed slack jawed mocking expression on their faces. XXX The Boulderites, one can see from the yard, are popping out with their expensive toy tow planes. The pull planes direct the zillionaire playboys right over the jail and release them for the hour it expensively takes to glide back to earth. My third summer here begins. XXX Wanna know of a MORE mockish site than a cardboard cartoon character standing guard over a casketed Corpsey Lorpsey? How about a 50 year old FAT inmate who has such a twisted sense of group identity that he allowed les pod trendies to do him like they've done them yourselves. That is to say, they shaved chevrons into his eyebrows. (This same clown asked to borrow "a Mother Gone Bad" urgently, when it was two SECONDS out of it's wrapper). Really hon! This is an AWFUL idea...in so many ways...this living with one foot IN, and one foot OUT of les institution. I go from phone to phone when the lines die down only to try to send a 6 word sound telegram. And if no one catches it I become like les RAT in les experimental cage who is compelled to swallow one cocaine tablet after another. There used to be no more NEED to communicate OUT THERE. My experiment is SKEWED. Coffee is spilled on my notes and statistics. If I could only dial up directly to a PUBLIC PAYPHONE. (Maybe one standing in a Texas rainstorm). I'd tell whoever might answer (with a big 'HOW DEE')...I'd say to them, "hi, since I am STRICKEN for relationships (as the Lord saw fit) I thereby dial EMPTILY and ZANILY in ALL sorts of ways...I am free to do so,hon". The loud wretch who caused so much ill will towards me got out, at last, today. When he comes back in a month or so (as many do) he'll act like we were best friends. Sweeping around...looking. I've taken to running in place in my room the past two days. This causes the mountains to bounce UP and DOWN off in the distance. But just across Airport Road I see a giant rusted piece of public art. It appears to me as a sort of jellyfish. A brownish jellyfish with VERY orange eyes. God, the many thousands of people who have stared at this ominous but happy thing. It will be there to greet me back into the world. It has stood guard as I've gone to court. I'm almost certain it's a relation of Morty's. But I could say,...just as they who "cop new charges" (while in jail) all say...I could say, "I don't give a fuck". Should I also hunch my shoulders and swagger? Is it wrong for me to REVEAL my FEARS and MISTAKES, or is the greater wrong in mocking it all? "Don't bellow," Morty would say, "have a little grace in hopelessness". My strengths don't MATCH my weaknesses. I'm a mess of contradictions, confusing to ALL AROUND, and because they CAN, they DO, kick me right in the middle. My letter to Justin les Junkie came back, and that's all I got in les mail tonight. He had told me, and I'd forgotten, that Kansas DOC won't allow inmate to inmate mail. And so I've dulled down a good letter into a NOT and asked Lisa to relay it without a jail envelope. Such a struggle to communicate. And that's ALL that's ever interested me. From toy telephones to anonymous letters to the editor.And onwards. current | 1999 | 1998 | colfax diaries |