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| untitled (12 step program) graphite on paper, 1995 |
When I moved to Jardin, all I had was this small pile of cassette tapes and a shoe box full of charcoal and some gummy tubes of oil paint. I was a painter sometimes, even though I came to the city for its weather. I wanted to live by the park and have better access to public transportation but I moved into an apartment on Augusta and nearly drowned during a local heatwave. I usually had a book for drawing or writing in, often on my lap if I was commuting somewhere. When I moved to Garden Point from Stadium Park, all my books came with. Sitting in the backseat of the cab, just me and my books, my paints and a pile of plastic tapes pressed in togather and sweating it out. Rolling by the Round Up, a brown burger stand with flat pop and sour meat, going up Western to turn right onto Parkway.
The apartment that AN and I were splitting is between Knebsly and Crepe. It's a clean 3 story building. My room sits in the back of the second floor, it's right over a recording studio. Sleeping on the floor, next to my books and a chair that I stole from a liquor store in Michigan. I have a small pile of wool horse blankets that I got for cheap at the thrift store after moving in. They're arranged on the floor where I sleep. At night there's bass and drums from the studio below, a steady pulse that's really only interrupted for cigarettes in the alley.
At night, after work I'll sit in my chair, listening to Bitches Brew and drawing pictures or diagrams in one of my books. One night I drew a picture of the people at work in their 12 step program. Or that's what I told people when they saw it. But that was a lie, the people in the drawing were really mirror people. They're sitting on the Binion St bus, it's late at night and they're drinking beers on the sly during the heatwave.
I was in the middle of the bus and this is their reflection. None of them died that week, but two of them did win large cash settlements from ambulance companies after a bus accident.
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