Cirque

*DRAFT*

I just walked out of another universe, another world, another life, and
it's odd that I was privy to it, and I wonder why. Dropping the name of
a publication - "Oh, I work for X" - gets you lots of places. People
who normally don't talk will, and they'll introduce you to others who
also do. Then there's being a girl. The boy who brings down fliers
might not care that you're with a magazine - he asks please for you not
to record your conversation for quotes - but he invites you to his
loft, at first for a browse, to see the setting of the event you needed
fliers for, but then just to chill, hang out, get to know.

The lofts are a beautiful place. James's loft is high ceilinged with a
little pop-out window with views of the river to the left and the
multicolored Pioneer plaza to the left. Two sofas sit on a stage in
front of this window, with candles, and a houseplant (aloe vera), and
in a little pot the burnt-down leftovers of incense interspersed with a
rather large collection of surgical scissors. "Water? Tea? Coffee?" he
stumbles. No thank you, I say; I have a fear that, like Persephone, if
I eat or drink anything in this other world I'll never be able to
return to my own. "I don't want to offend you or anything - but do you
smoke pot?" I smiled. No water, no coffee, but maybe I'd take pot. "No,
but thank you," I say, sincerely, as my distance from substances
doesn't necessarily make his utilization of them wrong.

We chat, and the normal conversation comes out. A conversation I
haven't had for a while, actually. James doesn't know I have a
boyfriend. So my interest in his work, the mega-plus of my love for
video games, my immersion in the study of Japanese culture, pop and
not, my willingness to be there, probably all makes him think I'm
"interested." His neighbor leaves. Maybe he's going to "get
laid."

I'm probably not giving James enough credit. The ten-year graduate,
with a master's in sociology, with two self-printed volumes of poetry,
as it sums up on his business card. "James Gonzales: M.S. Sociology,
Poet." Vertical, not horizontal. A card like a loft.

Then William came up, a man who wasn't interested in me for the curious
girl aspects - he already has a boyfriend.

But I digress from James's loft. High ceilings, and a stage in front of
windows. He's so happy there that he doesn't like leaving. His friends
have to drag him, coerce him out of the building, the little community
of like-minded, off-minded neighbors. On the right wall as you enter is
a huge cloth painted with elephants in shades of brown - surely from
the shopkeeper below, Sandra, whose family in Nairobe makes them all.
The left is a kitchenette, with three or four colorblocked paintings
(by Colin Sick - yes, that is his real name) leaned on top of the
cupboards and against the wall. "The Jungle Room!" James had said to
me, sweeping his hand in a gesture as if unveiling the room beyond the
little kitchenette, which mostly consisted of an L-shaped bend filled
with the aforementioned poetry slam stage, a couch, a work area,
presumably with a computer, hidden by books, a closet, and a sprawled,
quiet calico named Meow-Meow.

James looked Asian to me, but sometimes it's hard to really tell. His
last name is Gonzales. His eyes are shaped like almonds perching on his
cheekbones as if they're ready to fly. From just under the left side of
his nose to the first mound of his upper lip is a tiny scar, and
underneath the scar is a huge, self-conscious smile.

He does slam poetry. "Does" is such an inarticulate word: he chants
slam poetry, sings slam poetry, breathes it and utters it. "To get
attention," he said. "Like Shakespeare. I first read Shakespeare when I
was eleven. I didn't know what the hell it was; all I knew is that
girls were supposed to like the stuff." He smiles. And Shakespeare is
awesome once you really read into it and understand it! What other
influences does he have? e. e. cummings, a few romantic poets. And the
hip-hop crowd before it reached MTV. Which of those were for me? (I am
a girl, after all.) And which were honest-to-god truth? He wore a
Hawaiian shirt and denim shorts. When I left, he was getting ready to
smoke "cherry tobacco" with William, who said he couldn't smoke cherry
tobacco in front of the reporter.

Reporter. Ugh. What a word! I don't want to be a "reporter." But isn't
that what all writers do? They report - on anything from what's
happening at Capital Hill to their own personal views of life, the
universe, and everything. So I do suppose that I report. But, I would
say, I'm not "a reporter."

William was tall, with wide shoulders hidden in a loose shirt that
seemed to pull his collar inwards, as if he was protecting himself from
something. His shaky hand gestures only accentuated this. His toenails
were painted red, red nails on big black toes. He became more and more
comfortable as he spoke, but speaking seemed to be a process of
discovering more than telling. "What do you do?" I asked, hearing that
he was "some kind of actor in New York" from James. He fumbled for
words like scattered, loose change. He puts things together here and
there. He has people to his loft - well, actually he doesn't, because
he's not a very good housekeeper. Totally lacks the "queer eye." Has a
60s motif - a garage sale kind of motif. So no, he doesn't really have
people to his loft. But he organizes events? used to direct plays?
produces shows, like the one that's going to be on SNCT? Aha! He has
it! "That's it," he says with a grin of recognition, "I'm a
producer."

But he can't drive. Would like to get together with the people at the
Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, but he can't drive up there. (It's a phone
call away, I think to myself. Why do you need me to contact them for
you?) Talks about South Beach, Manhattan, about the "freaks," people
coming to see the "freaks." The artistic exchange, in his mind,
consists of rich people paying the freaks and getting "art" out of it,
and the "freaks" getting rent out of it, until the rich people move in
and the rent goes up and the "freaks" suddenly have to move
again.

"I'm the host and MC of the show," he says of the SNCT production. "I
think I'm good for it, because people see me and have to keep watching
to figure out what the hell I am." His coarse black hair is long, has
been straightened, consists of a sweep of bangs and then a long poof of
hair that doesn't move with the breeze. While we speak, his temples
sweat. Drip. From above his ear to his neck, around which is a gold
chain and a pendant: a dove holding a diamond in its beak.

On the way out of the lofts I walk down the Riverwalk. Where am I, with
this sleek, clean river shore with kayakers in their helmets and skirts
trekking back to their cars? With the little red pavilions and planters
full of trees and flowers? With, just behind me, a building full of
people whose concerns I could imagine once, but now find difficult to
touch?

It must be wonderful, as an artist, to live in a building where the
walls are screaming for crayonmarks. Murals here, there, chickenwire
people covered in cellophane hanging from the exposed piping. Huge,
white walls, walls beckoning to be covered with the excrement from an
artist's mind. Even the floors aren't safe: James has footprints on
his, and sketches made with multicolored Sharpie markers. And everybody
can quote the date the building ("a historical landmark!") was built,
what it was, where Sinatra used to sing.

Freaks? I don't know which freak is which. Who's more the freak,
somebody who believes in a community, both with neighbors and in the
central city in general, who smokes pot and compiles poetry, the voice
he believes is used internationally to speak out? Or somebody who lives
day to day planning their tentative future around where they'll be
living and what they're going to have to do to live there? Shouldn't it
be the other way around, plan what you're going to do, and then move
wherever you can afford to be to do it?

I compromise.

And sitting in my dark car, listening to the good-natured yells of
teenagers in black fishnets, straps, buckles, and piercings, I can look
back on a past when I was at a crossroads. Which way would it be? All
my friends were scary artists punks and freaks. But the rest of my
community was not. I work well within the system - my grades attest to
that - but then, so does James - his masters attests to that. In order
to be what I want to be, doing what I want to be, to avoid becoming a
mere "reporter," what balance will have to be made?

I quake, the smell of old pot and William's spittled breath refusing to
dislodge from my nostrils.