piles

I have a pile of postcards on the counter, in the kitchen, near the stove. I should burn them. I’m never going to read them. I don’t read postcards that people send me, I refuse to. When they see me they say “did you get my postcard?” and I say “yeah, it’s great.” They never ask if I read it. I refuse to read the small handwriting on a card that the mailman could have read. If you’re going to write to me then spring for the extra twelve cents and put it in an envelope. If the mailman could have read it than how important is it that I read it? I don’t agree with this postcard shit. Especially when people are on vacation. Vacation is about enjoying yourself, don’t worry about sending me a postcard. I have relatives that don’t even live in the same state as me and they send me postcards when they go on vacation. Why is this? What is this about? I don’t even see them on a regular basis, why they decide to communicate when they’re on vacation I’ll never know.

In the living room, next to the fireplace, there is a pile of dry autumn leaves. I’m going to burn them. It’s not cold enough to make a fire but burning leaves smell good. They smell better than those stupid air-fresheners everyone uses.

On the coffee table in the living room is a pile of unused blank greeting cards. There’s about twenty of them there. These are the cards that I’ve bought over the years that I decided not to use. Whenever anyone comes over I tell them that they can take as many of those cards as they want. They usually don’t take any at all. This is because it’s rude to offer somebody something that you don’t want only because you don’t want it. But I don’t care. I don’t believe in greeting cards anymore. I write people letters. Greeting cards are written by somebody else, and they cost a lot of money. Why spend money to have someone else express what you feel? Because most people buy greeting cards so they don’t have to express what they feel.

On the table in the kitchen there’s a pile of clothes that have to be ironed. It’s a small pile. I have most of my clothes dry cleaned. I like my clothes clean because I like to smell good. There are some people who smell so bad that they should be legally required to soak themselves in scalding hot water and ammonia before they leave the house everyday. This way the rest of us can breathe and we don’t have to be intruded on by their horrible stench that they call body odor. Sometimes it’s not body odor, it’s corpse odor, that’s because they smell dead.

Beautiful leaves in October breeze, so what is nature’s fury?

Speaking of leaves there’s another pile of leaves in my bedroom, on the floor, next to the bed. Mixed in with the leaves are light brown pubic hairs. That’s from her. Whenever she lays on my bed naked I like to throw leaves on her body, they go good with her Native American skin.

Speaking of her she broke the rules yesterday, she’s not allowed to use my bathroom. I have two bathrooms in my house. The one she’s allowed to use is in the basement. “The floor’s cold down there” she says. That’s because it’s concrete and there’s no insulation in the basement. Also the shower in that bathroom isn’t connected to the plumbing system of the house, it’s connected directly to the hot water heater; so the showers that you take down there are uncontrollably scalding. But her hair gets all over the place when she uses the bathroom. And I don’t want to clean it. She’s willing to clean it, but when she does she cleans the whole rest of the bathroom too. She “re-organizes” everything. And adds certain things to the whole arsenal. Things that aren’t of any use to me. She gets giddy about my shaving equipment and then wants to smell the towel that I use. I tell her in complete seriousness : “ You’re not allowed to go into my bathroom anymore okay? For no reason under any circumstances, never again.” . When I tell her this she laughs, with that laugh. She doesn’t let anyone else see this laugh except me. It’s the laugh that turns me on. Usually she uses this laugh to get her way. She won’t get her way when it comes to this. Nothing she can do will change me on this. She could refuse to speak to me and see me and it still won’t change my mind. I tell her “ Hey, you want to re-organize things in my house, re-organize whatever else you want. You can change my closet around, switch the books on the bookshelf; you could reorganize my kitchen; you could even rearrange the furniture in my living room.” then she says “ I like the way you have those things arranged”. In that voice, the voice that has a subtle crackling in it; the kind only the feminine throat can do. She only speaks this way when we’re in bed together. It’s too much when she uses that voice. So I get up out and bed and put my jeans on, over nothing, over naked. And she looks slightly upset then starts that smile as she says “Oh please don’t put that on”. And I say “I’m going to the store”. And she says “Well let me just see one more time before you go”; and I say “no, nope, I’m going to the store, want anything?”. And she says “Yeah, I want you to take your pants off; I have mine off see” and then she spreads her legs.

There’s a pile of money on the night stand next to the bed. There’s also a pile of money on the kitchen table, and on top of the television. When a breeze comes through the house, as October often does, the money goes on to the floor. I don’t pick it up. I leave it there. When I need it I’ll take it. It’s not so ridiculous, people leave a lot of things on the floor. Some people let dust accumulate all over their house. I don’t. I’m constantly dusting. Removing things from shelves and putting them in piles, removing things from piles and putting them into other piles. Then taking the piles apart and dusting each component. When I have all the piles cleaned I leave them where they are. My mother says “ Why do you let things pile up like that?” “ But this isn’t true ma” I say “ I don’t let them pile up like that, rather I make them pile up like this.” Then I take some things, that aren’t yet piled, from their neat whereabouts and I pile them.

When my mother and her are both over they conspire in my kitchen. But it’s not my kitchen when they’re both in it, it’s the kitchen. “Look at this mess you leave” my mother says as she goes over to a pile of clean silverware in the center of the stove top. “I can’t believe you keep it this way.” And she begins to touch the knives and forks and put them in a drawer. “Not that drawer” I say, as I sit and smoke my cigarette.

“Which one.”

“I’m not telling you.”

“Why?”

“Just leave it where it is, it’s fine.”

“You know you really don’t make sense sometimes.”

Then she decides it’s time to help out too. She gets up and begins to take apart certain piles. Her favorite is the pile of postcards. She reads each one. Then my mother, smiling, comes over to her side and says “What are you reading?”

“Postcards that people sent him” she says.

“Oh go right ahead. Read, read, read” I say. “Oh here, read these too” and I hand them a pile of coupons.

“This is funny” she says as she points at the back of the postcard, my mother leans in to read too.

“Oh my god, that’s terrible” my mother says, as she puts her hand over her mouth and laughs.

“Isn’t it?” I say “isn’t it just so terrible.”

My reaction to dust is terrible. It’s not just sniffles. My eyes swell up, my skin gets itchy, my nose doesn’t stop running, and then I get nausea. I have to clean the house every day.

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