Hi!
Yeah...
It's nice to meet you too... uh I'm Spiderman

I have a secret sorrow. (Slight pause.)

What time is it? We really only have until about four a.m. That’s when Rescue the Android opens up downstairs. The after-hours club. And the music starts. Around four. It’s very loud. I really can’t complain. That’s why this place is so cheap. It’s supposed to be a studio. Commercial. I’m not supposed to live here. Well, I don’t exactly live here. I sleep here. I keep my stuff in a box here. All my stuff. I don’t have any stuff anywhere else so I guess this is home. Home is where your stuff is.

The super told me you’re setting up a darkroom. I guess you’re a photographer then. (He doesn’t seem to expect a response.) I guess he’s the super. Or something. We pay the rent to him. Maybe he’s the landlord. Probably he’s nobody and it’s some kind of a racket and we’re all trespassing and could be thrown out anytime right into the street.

I teach English as a Second Language. Does that sound interesting? It’s not. After a day in there, everywhere I go these horrible sentences are running through my mind. Where are you from?

Are you from Russia? Are you in America now? What is your name?

And over and over again I hear “my name Galina.” or “I from Russia.” They don’t have the “to be” verb in Russian. That’s what I’m told. I don’t actually speak Russian. Do you believe that? I don’t understand it.

I guess they’ve got some kind of a way of thinking about it, but no direct equivalent. It drives them nuts. They say, “English stupid language.” Which oddly enough, infuriates me. I mean, it’s kind of ludicrous. What do I care?

So, the secret. I don’t know. Why should I tell you? I don’t really know you. I don’t know you at all. There’s no reason to think you’d be interested. Why should you be interested? Who the hell are you anyway? Some low-life photographer. Renting a darkroom on Avenue B, You’re probably some pornographer or something. Not that I’d object to that. I like the idea of pornography. It means people care about something; somebody cares about something somewhere, even if it’s just sex or money.

Which is pornography? Sex or money? Who knows, right? I think I used to care about sex and money, stuff like that, but now all I care about is getting a bunch of stupid fucking Russians to say I am. You are. He fucking is.

# posted by Uh I'm Spiderman @ 01:57 1 comments