On Overgrown Paths

 

"The Stone Breakers" by Gustave Courbet (destroyed in World War II)

 

I had a hair cut appointment at 5pm and took the Metra into Union Station. I watched the men and women thumbing at their devices and listening to the cords that ran into their ears. The subdivisions passed through the green window, then parking lots, then shopping centers and the Chicago River and the sky scrapers and I got off the train.

It was cold and blowing and I walked quickly to the Art Institute of Chicago and went to look at the Gauguin’s from Tahiti. I had recently become interested in this man. How had he come to give up a career as a Parisian banker to live in Tahiti? I looked at these colorful paintings, the tawny skinned women, their wonderful dark breasts and darker nipples and the oranges and deep reds and the blues and greens. How had a banker come to paint this?

"Why Are You Angry? No Te Aha Oe Riri" by Paul Gauguin

 

Then I went to look at the Millets. There was a husband and wife shearing a sheep. In another a man was chopping wood. Men worked in a field to gather hay. None of it had been made to be romantic. There were simply men working and it was wonderful. Nearby were some Courbets and they knocked me out. Courbet could really paint stone and earth, though Courbet could paint any damned thing, and when he painted a portrait it was something else. The one Courbet I have always wanted to see was destroyed by Allied bombs in the war.

"A Philosopher (Beggar with Oysters)" by Manet

 

After the Courbets was Manet and he did not impress me this time around. I liked two simple portraits he had done of street people. He called them both beggars and philosophers in his titles. Since I had been meditating recently on the nomadic and homeless man as enemies of the State, I took a careful look at these paintings. Perhaps the proper philosopher must be without a home? It was something to consider.

"The Return from Parnassus, Part 1" by Cy Twombly

 

I finally ended in the contemporary wing where I had the good fortune of coming across two magnificent Cy Twomblys. “The Return from Parnassus” in two parts was a helluva knockout. It put the whole of the contemporary wing to shame and it was clear to me why they didn’t often bring these paintings out for display.

"Gray" by Jasper Johns

 

On the way out I took a quick look at a Jasper Johns and realized that here was a guy who could have been a shit philosopher probably on the order of Derrida. Instead he had decided to paint. What he paints is interesting and you can look at it. I stood in front of the big gray painting with the string necklace that I always see whenever I come and I realized that if only more of these bad philosophers had just tried to make paintings a lot of confusion might have been avoided.

Later I was sitting in a bar near the hair salon in a neighborhood called the Ukrainian Village. There was little evidence from what I saw of any Ukrainians. The bar had been labeled a hipster bar but there was a long list of very expensive exotic beers on a chalkboard. They call such beers “craft beers” these days. There was no happy hour the tattooed barman told me. I took a pint of the one label I knew, Sierra Nevada. When I was coming up in the world in New York a place labeled ‘hipster’ meant ‘cheap’ and to be a hipster was to be impoverished and to wear $1 t-shirts purchased in thrift stores. Verily, much had changed.

At the end of the bar a gringa with those thin glasses they wear now was speaking so loudly I heard everything she said to the young man beside her. I could not ignore it. She did not let him speak. Her voice was shrill and penetrating and it was clear that she liked to be listened to and agreed with and I began to feel I would weep for her and for him. How had it come to this? The whole scene began to unsettle me and I felt I would weep too for the tattooed barman who worked in a bar without a happy hour and for the passersby on the streets, the men pushing the strollers, the pierced young men and women, and I wanted to weep for them, for the whole city, this place they had come to with such expectation.

I wanted to tell them the truth of it all. That the city was a mistake. The city might be a sort of happiness to a few but to the many it could never be. But this I could not do. To tell that truth would be to be ignored. To show a path to that truth is to make some effect. And I did not know yet how to show them this path. There was nothing I had to show them. I did not know yet how to show the long path that I had taken to this truth. Perhaps I was still on the path and had not yet arrived at the truth. There was much I could not articulate and perhaps much I did not yet know.

So I began to weep for myself. I began to weep for joy. I was teary eyed in the hipster bar in the Ukrainian Village and weeping for joy that I had found an other path and rejected all of this. That I could sit in this place and be so joyful that this was not my life. Because it very might have been my life. It was very possible that I might have been that young man at the end of the bar during the happy hour that was not a happy hour, drinking expensive exotic beers and listening to a shrill gringa tell me the stories of her dating life and career and agreeing with her and playing the game and hoping and praying that I might get that thing I came to the city for.

Later I had my hair cut by Monica, the tattooed girl from Minneapolis who cut my hair more than a year before. They serve you cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon in the salon while your hair is cut and she did a good job again on my hair, cutting away much of it, straightening it with the chemical relaxer, and I had three cans of cold PBR in total and then I took the subway to the Metra. On the way home I watched the commuters thumbing their devices and I looked out the green window at the darkness and the lights and the passing subdivisions did not look so depressing in the darkness. I hoped that maybe there was some happiness somewhere in some of them, a happiness that resembled the happiness I knew everyday and carried with me and could draw upon when I needed it. I did not think there was that sort of happiness there, but I didn’t know. A city is a big place and you cannot know everyone.

завръщане у дома

[Homecoming]

After his college graduation and against the advice of his mother, Simms went to Europe. Simms planned to ride by bicycle from Brussels to Bulgaria, and to live in Sofia until the money ran out. Simms was not on the road three months before the accident.

They told Simms that he crashed out descending a pass in the mountains north of Milano. The subdural hematoma had required a craniotomy and two burr holes were drilled into his skull to relieve the pressure on his swollen brain. Simms was hospitalized two months at Milano before being returned home to Chicago. The doctors told him his memory of the ride would not fully return. His bike and all his gear was lost.

All that remained was a single photograph included with a greeting card sent by a Belgian couple to his parent’s home that Christmas. In the south of France Simms met the couple after a long, hot climb in the Midi-Alps above Nice. They waived Simms down and offered him a lunch of cheese and sausage, bread, and fresh cherries. In the picture he is wearing a green wool turtleneck sweater and standing over his fully loaded bicycle in a pine forest. Nice and the Mediterranean do not show. The pine trees might have been the pines of the Wisconsin north woods. Simms is smiling broadly.

Soon after being returned to Chicago, Simms recommenced his training. He went riding on the bike paths around the city, he swung his kettle bell, he shadowboxed, he hit the heavy bag and jumped rope, he did pushups and situps and pullups, and he ran the hill at the park. He was slowly getting his body back into shape. He told his mother to tell no one that he had returned. He did not want to see any of the people he knew. He did not consider his being returned to America to be important. He wanted to maintain his European frame of mind and he did not want to be disturbed from it.

The way they lived was better in Europe. The buildings were old and beautiful and the people had history. In France he had enjoyed eating food for the first time. Just remembering the cassoulet made him hungry. And all those wines. You didn’t understand it if you haven’t been there. The Americans didn’t have anything on them. America was strip malls and parking lots. Americans were obese and badly dressed. After seeing and talking to French girls, he couldn’t tolerate American girls. He didn’t know how he tolerated American girls before. He didn’t want anything to do with American girls now.

When Simms walked through the neighborhood he watched the American girls going to work. They were large and serious and their skin was pasty and they did not wear makeup and many wore their hair short. After work the American girls went into the bars and intoxicated themselves and looked for men to have sex with. He knew what talking to them was like. She would ask what he did for a living and where he lived and if he owned his own place and then, if she wasn’t too drunk, she proceeded to test him in more subtle ways. It was a game. If he played the game correctly he would have sex with her. But sometimes her girlfriend came and dragged her off. That was how it worked in America.

Even if an American girl offered herself he didn’t want her. He was done with that. He didn’t feel any attraction for American girls. American girls were only interested in their careers and reality tv shows and shoe shopping. He didn’t need a girl anyway. He had training and study ahead of him. There wasn’t time for American girls. Besides, they wouldn’t like it that he lived at home. They wouldn’t like it that he didn’t have a job. That was how they judged you. He knew how it would go. He could tell lies but there was no getting around it when he needed a place to take her. He wondered what Bulgarian girls were like. He’d heard they had moustaches. They couldn’t all have moustaches though. If they were anything like French girls he would be happy. He’d get to Bulgaria finally and see for himself. Simms went out on a long ride and tried to forget about girls.

Each day when he finished his training, Simms practiced his Bulgarian and studied the country’s history. Afterwards he liked to listen to his little brother practice the cello. His little brother admired him very much and wanted to hear his European stories. His father was only mildly interested. His mother did not want to hear about it. Through the winter Simms trained and studied and he began to feel quite good again. He ordered new panniers, a sleeping bag and a tent. He began to think that in the summer he would return to Italy and resume his ride for Bulgaria.

One evening Simms was studying in his room when his brother knocked at the door and asked he come down to the dinner table. His mother and father were waiting for him. The table had not been cleared from dinner and his parents were finishing a bottle of wine. Simms took his seat across from his mother.

“Thanks for coming down, Billy,” his father said.

“Now, William,” began his mother, “Its time we had a talk about what you’re going to do.”

“Sure,” said Simms.

“Your father and I think that you should begin paying rent if you are going to stay here. We agreed that $250 per month is appropriate. It will help to motivate you to find a job.”

“Sure,” said Simms. He looked at his little brother and winked.

“William,” said his mother sternly, “We paid for a very expensive education for you and you graduated at the top of your class in the business school. The dean told us you could work at any of the top investment banks.”

“That was before,” said Simms.

“I am sure Goldman Sachs would still want you, William.”

“They wouldn’t. They only want you right when you graduate.”

His mother turned to his father.

“What do you plan to do then, Bill?” his father said.

“I don’t know.”

“You must have some idea.”

“I’m going to Bulgaria,” Simms said cheerfully.

“That’s enough, William,” said his mother, raising her voice. “We’ve heard just about enough of that. That little adventure is over and you’re going to get a job like everyone else.”

“Let’s not be too hard on the boy,” his father cautioned.

“No! I am going to be hard on him. He goes off not wearing a helmet and falls off his bicycle and we have to take care of his mess. Who do you think paid to fly you back here, William?”

Simms was quiet.

“I worked all those years with head injury patients and I always told you to wear a helmet and what do you go off and do? Where was your helmet, William?”

Simms thought to describe the feeling of the wind in his hair, barreling down a mountain, all that freedom and how Dennis Coello didn’t wear a helmet either. Neither did the Dutch. But he didn’t say anything. He knew from experience not to say anything.

“Well?” His mother glared at him.

“I’m going to Bulgaria,” Simms told her.

“No you’re not!” she shouted. She turned to his father, “Tell him! Tell him he’s not!”

His brother stood up from the table and left the kitchen.

“What’s in Bulgaria, Bill?” asked his father.

“It’s the cheapest country in Europe,” Simms said.

“Bill, I think you should consider working here awhile.”

“Its not what I want to do.”

“He’ll be eating out of garbage cans! Who does he think he is! In life you can’t do whatever you want to do!”

Simms looked calmly at the woman. She was red-faced and furious. He suddenly felt distant from the whole scene, like he was observing it all from far away. He watched the woman as she stood up from the table and drawing back her arm, swept it across the tabletop, sending the plates and glassware and utensils crashing onto the floor. It all seemed to happen in slow motion.

“You’ll see!” the woman shrieked, “You’ll see!”

“I want you out of this house tomorrow!” she screamed at him.

Simms watched her leave the kitchen. The man who was his father did not move. His head was down. Without looking at Simms, he stood up from the table and followed his wife upstairs. A door slammed. Moments later Simms heard her muffled yelling from their bedroom. Then it was quiet.

So that was it. He would have to leave. He was not in great shape but the roads were flat from Illinois in whichever direction he rode. He had gotten into shape on the road before and he would do it again. He would pack his panniers tonight and leave in the morning. There were good maps and America would be wonderful to see on a bicycle. There were forests to camp in and, though they were far off, there were mountains. Mountains, thought Simms, he was looking forward to seeing the mountains very much.

The Revolution

I got off the Blue Line at Division and Ashland. I walked by the Strange Beauty Hair Salon. My appointment was for 4:30, but I did not have a watch. I figured I was early and thought maybe to sit down in a bar or café. I could ask the time and receive refreshment.

I continued down Ashland. It was cold and overcast. A winter wind was blowing up the wide avenue. There were only taco shops and vintage clothing stores. No bars or cafes. I felt I had gone too far and crossed the street and turned back towards the salon. On this side of Ashland I had noticed a bookstore called Revolution Books. I thought I might warm up inside, look at some books, and ask the time.

I stepped through the door into a one room bookstore. Two older ladies stood up from a table and welcomed me. They asked if I had been there before. I have not, I told them.

The younger of the two ladies stepped forward. She wore gold earings with a fashionable pink scarf around her neck.

“Do you know about the revolution?”

“I do not," I said. "But before I hear of this revolution, might you give me the time? You see, I have an appointment of great importance at 4:30.”

“Of course,” said the woman, pulling back her sleeve. “It is 10 minutes to 4.”

“Many thanks. You may now tell me of the revolution.” Certainly there would be time to hear of the revolution.

The woman entered into a long, jargon heavy monologue about what was the scientific nature of communism, how communism was coming to replace the oppression and exploitation and enslavements of the capitalists, and how it was simply a matter of educating people about it. The prior communist revolutions had been mistakes. Now there was science involved. The capitalists were doomed, she said. The scientific nature of communism meant their doom.

“And how will the revolution be conducted?” I asked. “How will the communists take power?”

“Science,” she explained. “By science it will happen. Our chairman, Bob Avakian, the chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, has laid it out in this pamphlet.”

She brought down a thin book from the bookshelf and opened it. This section of the bookshelves consisted only of books by the Chairman Bob Avakian. I began to read through the table of contents as she spoke. There were many, many of the words I had just heard her use. I wanted to make sense of all this jargon.

“But how shall the communist state come about?” I asked. “Do you have guns?”

“Guns?”

“Guns for the revolution.”

“No, no,” she said, “We do not have guns.”

“Then you will use the electoral process. Chairman Bob Avakian is running in the 2012 election.”

“Of course not.”

“What is the name of the Revolutionary Communist Party candidate?”

“We have no candidate.”

“You have no guns and you have no candidate?”

“Yes.”

“Then how will the communists topple the State?”

“It will happen scientifically,” she said, just as simply and assuredly as she had said it the first time.

“But when a State is in its death throes it is often at its most violent and oppressive. It will kill or imprison anyone it feels threatened by. Will the communists not fight back then?”

“Here, I need to show you this,” she went behind the counter and produced a single sheet of paper. It was a proclaimation from Chairman Bob Avakian about the scientific nature of the coming revolution as well as a call to discourage violent action by lone individuals. It seemed to leave open the idea of mass violent action.

“Then you will take up guns. I urge you to get them and stockpile them now. They will be much harder to come by later.”

“No, no,“ she said. The woman started to read the paper to me. Clearly I had not understood it.

“Then you are pacifists. Ghandi was very effective. It is a most effective strategy to allow yourself to be beaten and killed as a group.”

“No,” she said, and continued to read from this paper. I had read the paper and wanted to change the subject.

“What will you do with the capitalist pigs after the revolution?”

“What do you mean?” she looked up from the paper.

“Will they be executed or will they be imprisoned?”

“What?”

“Certainly the capitalists must not be allowed to walk the streets. Certainly an example must be made of those that stand against the revolution. Che Guevara personally carried out numerous executions.”

“Chairman Bob Avakian in this book talks about this,” and she pulled another volume from the shelf.

“Here look at this too. You should really read this.” As I began looking through the book she handed me a thin propaganda newspaper. It was three pages in length with large block text and cost $1.00.

“I can see that you can’t afford this so I am giving it to you.”

Clearly my long hair, uncut now for more than a year, bleached and damaged by South American sun, by wind and rain and sweat and filth, had given her the impression of dire poverty. I took the propaganda newspaper and did not contest my poverty.

Just then a black woman came into the bookshop.

“Can you spare some money please?”

“No, no,” said the communist woman. "We have no money. Please, please go,” she said, blocking the black woman from coming further into the bookstore.

“Just a little money so I can eat?”

“No, no, no,” she said more sternly.

The black woman left the bookshop.

The woman picked up another three page $1.00 propaganda newspaper.

“I know you do not have the money but you may have this one too. Inside you can read about the wrongful imprisonment of Fred Furster.”

“I have not heard of him. Is he a political prisoner?”

“He is oppressed. Oppressed by the capitalist state. Look at these pictures.” She directed me towards a bulletin board of photographs between the shelves. There was a photo of a man wearing a cardboard sign demanding the release of Fred Furster. I studied the pictures. There were pictures from other small rallies and demonstrations.

“Is the Revolutionary Communist Party legal team working to free these people?”

“We do not have a legal team.”

“Will you attack the prisons in which these people are held?”

“What?”

“How will you free these people?”

“We are working to free them. That is why we are demonstrating.”

“Just look at that there,” said the woman.

I turned and through the window of the bookstore saw a Mexican man and woman pushing a shopping cart filled with what appeared to be the contents of their apartment. There were clothes, plates and glasses, a blender, two wooden chairs, sacks of unknown contents tied to the sides of the cart, and a queen sized mattress balanced upon the top. We watched the couple slowly push their possessions past the window.

And it was then, after they had passed, that I saw in the window display the latest book of poems by Kevin Coval called L-vis Lives. The book was displayed prominently in the window.

“Do you know this poet?” I asked her.

“Yes, of course. He comes here often. We hope to soon have him for a reading.”

“I once knew this poet.”

The woman brightened.

“But this poet was not so revolutionary then.”

The woman frowned. "He is quite revolutionary. Perhaps it is a different poet you once knew?"

“Perhaps."

"And what is the time, madam?”

“Oh yes,” she said and rolled back her sleeve. “It is 4:20.”

“I must be going. My appointment.”

She smiled and we shook hands.

“It was a pleasure to speak to you about the revolution.”

“No, madam, the pleasure was mine to hear of it.”

I left Revolution Books and I crossed the street to the Strange Beauty Hair Salon where Monica, a buxom dark-haired girl, originally from Duluth Minnesota, gave me the finest haircut I have had in years. I know so, because when I arrived home my mother told me I looked like a movie star.

Chicago II

Chicago