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earmarked for slaughter
Friday, September 9 2005
I continued work on the panel throughout the day, first soldering together the last of the pipe needing to be articulated and then drilling holes and inserting bits of wire so I could twist-tighten the pipe against the steel. Soldering is proving to be a time consuming process and it's unlikely I will ever have the entire length of the pipe fully soldered to the steel.
While I was up there I was listening to KCRW's worldnews stream, relishing each fresh new absurdity from the clowns who brought us faith-based disaster management. And then the mail delivery car pulled into the driveway, so I climbed down to spare him an altercation with the dogs. Normally he only comes into our driveway to deliver big packages, but today he'd brought me a certified letter. When I saw it was from the Hurley building inspector, I experienced an immediate wave of sickness. Oh shit, I thought, the jig is up! But what did I expect, there's a massive new deck perched atop the most visible part of the house!
After I signed the proper parts of the certified mail, the mailman chit chatted about how he liked the "oh fuck" magnetic collage on the back of my truck. But I was in no mood for smalltalk. I went into the house, tore open the letter, and took it in. I was being ordered to tear down my deck by October 7th! I know this sounds like an overreaction, but it was like telling me I had to kill my own child. I immediately called the Hurley building people and left a message and then called Gretchen, and we tried to devise a course of action. By now I was so ill I needed to lie down.
My first reaction, after the sickness in my viscera, was a feeling of deep injustice. When it comes to creating things, I'm a spontaneous person. I begin things without knowing how they will end up and I let the materials guide me. I'm an artist! And art is not something one can predict well enough to go get a building permit for. My style was being cramped by a stuffy bureaucracy!
It was hard to do anything at all after that, but Gretchen seemed convinced we'd figure a way out of this pickle and she urged me to continue with my work. So I climbed back up the deck and got back to work. I could hardly look at my surroundings. It was like the way I used to treat goats or chickens back on the farm when I knew they'd been earmarked for slaughter.
Still, I managed to secure the copper pipes to the panel using mostly pieces of twisted wire threaded through holes in the steel.
This evening Gretchen and I went to a rehearsal dinner for the wedding of Adam and Linda. Linda is the sister of Nancy, as in Ray and Nancy. All of these people live in Brooklyn, but Adam and Linda had decided to get married at Emerson Place, only twenty minutes to the west on Route 28. Tonight's rehearsal dinner was just an informal gathering on the edge of the Emerson's pool. Dinner was provided in the form of a mountain of pizza boxes. Since the Emerson has dog-friendly policies, we brought Sally and Eleanor, and they got to run around with Suzy (Ray and Nancy's dog) and Libby (Adam and Linda's dog). All the dogs there were black, though none of the people were. The evening was brisk and no one did any swimming while I was there, though the water was fairly warm.
I started out depressed and antisocial because of the news about the deck, but after drinking for an hour or so (first wine and then beer) I started enjoying myself. I remember there being a point where I could feel the effect of the alcohol on me and I marveled at how good I felt despite the circumstances. Alcohol functions as a powerful temporary antidepressant. (Would-be cliché-utterers take note: an antidepressant is not the same thing as a stimulant.)
Later at the bar when everyone was drunk Ray was snapping random pictures with random cameras. He took one snapshot up this woman's dress with my camera and she made me erase it because, she claimed, it revealed her cellulite. She said she was worried I was going to post it on the internet, though she knew nothing about me that would have led her to believe that I might actually have a place in mind to put it.
Ray while one of the ladies takes a picture of herself. Ray isn't really quite that orange, though Bob Dole is.
Ray's brother Kim with Nancy.
Ray with that woman who made me erase a photo that he took. Gretchen claims to have had a roll in the hay with that blond guy.
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