I was bored again today. Like everyday, but today I was indifferent. It was another day as useless to me as it is to you. I decided to take photos of women - broken women, ugly women, strange women, beautiful women, women with drugs, flaws and hangups and women who liked to drink. I put an ad on Haig's List: "WANTED. Women to be photographed in bad lighting. Must have sad lives, empty, miserable and meaningless. Must have a few hours to kill. Hours that you'll never miss."
I got dozens of calls. I took them all. How lonely they all were. And then the depression came. How sad. How tragic. All together, their breath smelled like an outhouse in Montana, but another 100mls of MS Contin and I'd be alright. When I called their names one by one over the loud speaker, their sickly lovely eyes filled with tears like blood. Just then I wanted to send them all away with a flurry. It was on the tip of my tongue, but I knew I'd never say it because they shared the soul of a thief. These were starving women wearing short little sexy nurse's aprons. In their hands and arms they carried paperback books and fashion magazines held close to their chests like nursing babies sucking on their tit. I was hoping they'd find out for themselves what it was all about, because I sure as hell didnt know.
They got to my place, my "office" and walked in to my studio. I told them to sit down on the floor in the corner, to cross their legs and wait. They waited for me to kiss them, but that never happened. Instead, I made them kiss a lizard's head and something I pulled out the ocean, something that pounded in their throats, gagging them just a little. So I stroked their foreheads. Yeah, I did, that's right... I did it to each one of them to get them relaxed before the big photo shoot. I knew how nervous they were. They looked at me and I told them to close their eyes. I knew their thoughts. I could read minds. I could read palms. I studied their faces and I knew they loved somebody else, not me. But that was good news. I knew how hard it was to be with several women at the same time and talk about how great other women were.
It was hot in my studio before we went outside, and it was hot out there, too. But they sat some more, a long time really, and waited for the cobwebs to fall from the ceiling, but that didnt happen either. They waited to burn incense and drink something new from the urban jungle of a big city that tasted like a small town. It was a drink that was vague and nameless. It was stronger than lonliness.More bitter than restlessness. Blacker than a disturbance. Harder to kick than thunder, death and self-destruction.
While I was getting my camera phone ready to flip open, the sophisticated women waited to sit at my feet. They begged me to turn on the air conditioner, but I made them get on their knees and adore me like as if they had finally found the one true love with all the passion they read about in those paperback books. They waited for me to cover their faces in rouge and powder but I just laughed at things not amusing. They didnt understand what was happening. I didnt either, but I didnt care. I looked around for more liquid dilaudid and took a hit. I was ready. I knew that when night came I would know what to do with it. And when it was done, I knew they'd all be fatter than when they started. Their faces would look unhealthy. They'd be drunk. They'd look grotesque.
We went outside. I took out my camera phone and started taking pictures. I did it upside down, rightside up, sideways, backwards, inside out, anyway I could. The morphine made me feel like a snake crawling through a parking lot. It was madness. Some of these women were housekeepers. Maids. Some were married. Their husbands had been unfaithful to them. Some of them drank all day and became reckless. I tried to forget the ugliness, but I wasn't that good of a photographer. I tried to imagine the spirit of a woman stumbling around at night in the dark with a wet tongue, wet lips, the taunting kiss of death and sweet body oils with the fragrance of impetuous youth. I wondered if it was as ugly as the flesh.
We did the shooting on location all night and all the next day. I nailed one of the girls to this great white cross pointing to her brain. We all know we're going to die someday and there's nothing we can do about it, but when it's over, they'll be laughng and crying hysterically. So I got them lying on their faces, pulling and scratching at each other's eyes and hair. A real cat fight. I got them to scream at each other about nothing, because it was all so silly. They were persecuting themselves. They didnt listen to reasons. It didnt matter anyway whether they committed mortal sins or not. Psychologically speaking, the photos were images of guilt and forgiveness. They were myths. They belonged to fat days.
They were all starting to irritate me and I had to get the hell out of there fast. The painkillers were wearing off. I needed my daily fix of clonazepam. I could feel temptation knocking on death's door. I could see golden blond hair growing out of the heads of old women in black. I could hear the cries of young girls with no shoes, boys with no clothes, men snoring, sleeping on bus stop benches, getting wooden slivers in their legs from turning over. I saw food spoiling on the shelves of the super market.
So I told them all to wait, that I had to go down to my car (which I didn't have a car) and I'd be back in a minute or two. I told them to get dressed and comb their hair in front of the mirror. I lied. I was tired. I walked out the door and said "goodbye, take care of yourselves." But there was no escape from the odor that was on my pillow when I tried to go to sleep later. There was only the smell of sadness.
I got dozens of calls. I took them all. How lonely they all were. And then the depression came. How sad. How tragic. All together, their breath smelled like an outhouse in Montana, but another 100mls of MS Contin and I'd be alright. When I called their names one by one over the loud speaker, their sickly lovely eyes filled with tears like blood. Just then I wanted to send them all away with a flurry. It was on the tip of my tongue, but I knew I'd never say it because they shared the soul of a thief. These were starving women wearing short little sexy nurse's aprons. In their hands and arms they carried paperback books and fashion magazines held close to their chests like nursing babies sucking on their tit. I was hoping they'd find out for themselves what it was all about, because I sure as hell didnt know.
They got to my place, my "office" and walked in to my studio. I told them to sit down on the floor in the corner, to cross their legs and wait. They waited for me to kiss them, but that never happened. Instead, I made them kiss a lizard's head and something I pulled out the ocean, something that pounded in their throats, gagging them just a little. So I stroked their foreheads. Yeah, I did, that's right... I did it to each one of them to get them relaxed before the big photo shoot. I knew how nervous they were. They looked at me and I told them to close their eyes. I knew their thoughts. I could read minds. I could read palms. I studied their faces and I knew they loved somebody else, not me. But that was good news. I knew how hard it was to be with several women at the same time and talk about how great other women were.
It was hot in my studio before we went outside, and it was hot out there, too. But they sat some more, a long time really, and waited for the cobwebs to fall from the ceiling, but that didnt happen either. They waited to burn incense and drink something new from the urban jungle of a big city that tasted like a small town. It was a drink that was vague and nameless. It was stronger than lonliness.More bitter than restlessness. Blacker than a disturbance. Harder to kick than thunder, death and self-destruction.
While I was getting my camera phone ready to flip open, the sophisticated women waited to sit at my feet. They begged me to turn on the air conditioner, but I made them get on their knees and adore me like as if they had finally found the one true love with all the passion they read about in those paperback books. They waited for me to cover their faces in rouge and powder but I just laughed at things not amusing. They didnt understand what was happening. I didnt either, but I didnt care. I looked around for more liquid dilaudid and took a hit. I was ready. I knew that when night came I would know what to do with it. And when it was done, I knew they'd all be fatter than when they started. Their faces would look unhealthy. They'd be drunk. They'd look grotesque.
We went outside. I took out my camera phone and started taking pictures. I did it upside down, rightside up, sideways, backwards, inside out, anyway I could. The morphine made me feel like a snake crawling through a parking lot. It was madness. Some of these women were housekeepers. Maids. Some were married. Their husbands had been unfaithful to them. Some of them drank all day and became reckless. I tried to forget the ugliness, but I wasn't that good of a photographer. I tried to imagine the spirit of a woman stumbling around at night in the dark with a wet tongue, wet lips, the taunting kiss of death and sweet body oils with the fragrance of impetuous youth. I wondered if it was as ugly as the flesh.
We did the shooting on location all night and all the next day. I nailed one of the girls to this great white cross pointing to her brain. We all know we're going to die someday and there's nothing we can do about it, but when it's over, they'll be laughng and crying hysterically. So I got them lying on their faces, pulling and scratching at each other's eyes and hair. A real cat fight. I got them to scream at each other about nothing, because it was all so silly. They were persecuting themselves. They didnt listen to reasons. It didnt matter anyway whether they committed mortal sins or not. Psychologically speaking, the photos were images of guilt and forgiveness. They were myths. They belonged to fat days.
They were all starting to irritate me and I had to get the hell out of there fast. The painkillers were wearing off. I needed my daily fix of clonazepam. I could feel temptation knocking on death's door. I could see golden blond hair growing out of the heads of old women in black. I could hear the cries of young girls with no shoes, boys with no clothes, men snoring, sleeping on bus stop benches, getting wooden slivers in their legs from turning over. I saw food spoiling on the shelves of the super market.
So I told them all to wait, that I had to go down to my car (which I didn't have a car) and I'd be back in a minute or two. I told them to get dressed and comb their hair in front of the mirror. I lied. I was tired. I walked out the door and said "goodbye, take care of yourselves." But there was no escape from the odor that was on my pillow when I tried to go to sleep later. There was only the smell of sadness.
