EVERYTHING IS ON SALE reynard seifert cover image “The Plough”(2007) by Anthony Record anthonyrecord.com cover title by Chelsea Martin jerkethics.com
The other day I found out bean curd is not a cheese and I thought this is the way life is. The way mirrors are creepy with nothing in them, the way you examine a box of frozen food, from all sides, before you find the directions, even though you already saw the directions, right there on the back – this is the way a big black lab pulling a white boy on a skateboard is running past me fast like pretty fast but not as fast as their light is going fast and glowing tight. The big black lab looking happy with its tongue hanging out the way its tongue is there hanging out, the way white boy smoking looking bummed at me or
at least I think the most of which is a kind of righteous indifference. Turning to watch them pass holding my groceries in my arms the way my groceries are held in my arms the sun shining down on us all, I think I am happy too so I smile a little smile, it’s the least of the most I can do for the world on which we live.
Hollow eyes of a man wearing a t-shirt reading YR MOM AND MY MOM HAVE THE SAME FACES scrawled in what appears to be feces, smiling smelling vacant-like my way then back to his hands crawling up and down going up and down the side of a brick wall asking the question of questions which is what is up and what is down less obviously than he could as in what does that mean
drawling sideways out of your
mouth everything is on sale! the way you are now and then. Crouching he turns to me and says it again he says it
crouching now. Everything is on sale he says. Everything. Bend your knees. Arms in the air like I don’t give a good goddamn he looks at me and says I don’t care for your life, the light from mine eyes filling his holes in with pink seething little sacks of yogurt melting mush mush leaving him less yogurt than before yogurt which is to say not yogurt, which is to say he is not gogurt because he is deadgurt he is yo.
Before crossing the street the dog sees both ways looking up the boy kick flips the curve in the road the earth the ground the ground where it curves. For a moment I think they are maybe flying a little bit but of course the board and boy go becoming part of the road again up and down the next section of sidewalk they go becoming and being part of it all sliding up and down on what appears to be there but is in fact less obviously than one percent of what is actually there in the air with what is actually where all is every very.
This is when and how and why and then they and them the white boy and black dog pass me by my groceries held in my arms the way my groceries are held in my arms, this way and that groceries held in arms dog boy blowing clouds of smoke as if stomachs are supposed to be on fire, the smoke settling in the air the way smoke settles in the air, dog and boy turn a corner, and I begin to cry. My tears are my brand new brand of liquid smoke.
I walk home sooty tears streaming down my face my cheeks smoking thinking why I might be crying the way I am crying on but I can’t think of anything but smoke and soot and but I think a little or a lot on conjunctions functions as in a tongue click. CLUCK. A sign in front of my favorite bookstore less casually announcing BIG SALE! the sign makes me a little happier for what seems like forever yet I keep on walking on because my face is red and puffed up seeming like displaying emotions is something I don’t want, I may be America but I am me and I
shy a little.
As I pass the sign I turn taking it in looking at it getting a whole lot smaller, the other side less casually saying HUGE SALE! and I think to myself you can’t pass this sale up even though you promised your self self wouldn’t bye buy no more books for no no while, it’s a problem with me buying more books for self the way self buys books for me like books are vegetables and we a couple of vegetarians. We like chickens. There is no more room for no more books yet so I buy more books filling the space the air in my room more actually than before. I put down my groceries
wiping my tears checking those cheeks in a car window less darkly than another thinking maybe I look okay a little I guess so I pick up my groceries before I go into the store where there are more books than I should bye books byebuy before I die books.
I put down my groceries in the corner, I don’t see any sign saying what’s on sale and what’s not on sale but I find a book I want to make $ buy bye for so I says to the lady at the cash register I say what’s on sale and what’s not on sale. She says everything. Everything is on sale. O I see I say. Well what about this book here is this book on sale. And she says why yes as a matter of fact that book is on sale because everything is on sale. Everything in this store is on sale she says. I do not say everything is on sale sounds familiar even though I think it.
I make $ bye buy for the book and feel a little happier. As I am leaving I hear someone say are you okay Theodore? I turn to look and it is my neighbor Mrs. Parkinson, I think she has Parkinson’s which is ironic I guess but not in a funny haha way of course. Don’t laugh please, sad face, turn it upside down, punch it in the book. Good. Now, indicating the thing in my hand the text, I say why yes Mrs. Parkinson everything is good now I have this book now and I am happier a little more I think. But before that she says was everything not okay before?
To which I reply before what Mrs. Parkinson, before I bought the book or before I came into the store more before than before asking what did I do just now. She says before you bought the book Theodore. What was wrong before you bought the book. And I say o well I just came into this bookstore because it’s my favorite kind of bookstore this bookstore because it smells like books and I saw they were having a sale, everything is on sale you know, everything in this store, even this book! Mrs. Parkinson stares at me for what seems like never her lips staying always neutral not a frown or a smile and finally she says to me she says you’re a pretty weird kid Theodore. And I say O I know Mrs. Parkinson I know
that I mean I know I am but I yam what I yam if you know what I mean, I’ll catch up with you later Mrs. Parkinson, don’t get ahead of your light now! Your light glows tight tight at just the right speed Mrs. Parkinson! Mrs. Parkinson shaking her head a lot and twittering goes away.
Leaving the bookstore I see a taxi with a boot on it. That is strange I think for a taxi to be parked that long long enough to get a boot on it the way this one has a boot on it, it is a taxi after all but this is Oakland I think and things are done like that in Oakland. I walk over to inspect the taxi when I see it thinking my gaw that is strange to see what I see I say in the back seat I see a large dead body rotting away the way a large dead body rots away tiny white things crawling the skin like I don’t want to know what they are, I think they are maggots maybe they must be maggots I
think they are maggots maybe but to tell the truth that is the sort of swarming something I don’t want to know until I have no choice but to know because I will become them the way I will when I do when meth meth with my landlord from time to time to keep it tight, time.
Birds sing and I think this is the way life is. This taxi driver must have taken a nap in the back seat and died back there and now the city wants to fine him for parking too long, this is the way life is I think. The man with yogurt eyes and the shit shirt concerning our moms was right. Everything is on sale.
I walk over to my favorite fast food restaurant. The lady says spicy chicken sandwich and I say why yes please thank you. I eat here all the time. I look around the place and think to myself as I usually think to myself when I eat here all the time which is to say I think a lot this place could use some decoration or a little ornamentation or something I don’t know you know a certain something something art maybe. When the lady gives me my spicy chicken sandwich I tell her they should get some up and down on these walls you know I could
curate a show here I say leaning in on the counter a little closer whispering almost into her chest because that’s where her nametag is ZELDA in fact we could just have the opening after you close what do you think? I think I winked just now then and then the last time I was telling you about her about you and here we are pushing against the light.
The lady stares at me for a while and then she begins speaking some tongue with the manager, I think it is Spanish maybe it must be Spanish the tongue it smells of enchiladas that’s all I can taste is enchiladas it is Spanish the tongue it is yum yum. The manager looks at me while exchanging tongue with her and I smile now happy with my spicy chicken sandwich in my hands the way my spicy chicken sandwich is held in my hands growing larger as I grow smaller stomach
thinking
on
art
shows
the
concepts of curation makes me happy
because I like art shows and I like cures, so far I’ve hosted one show under a bridge and two in my head, all of which were way well attended despite my total lack of promotion of any kind everyone going tres chic faying hands about the wrist which I think means three of a kind and they say grunge is dead haha I laugh I think I will tell the manager all of this all about my previous art show how well it went I think when the manager presses the buzzer to open the side door he walks up to grab my arm says to me in his tongue my tongue tongues exchanging hey buddy you gotta get the hell out of here right now you hear me. I say what is wrong because I can tell something is wrong. I say I didn’t do
nothing wrong if that is what is wrong. The
manager
calmly
opens
the
door
behind me and pushes me through dragging my heel on the threshold’s blunt edge I fall back-ass-wards into the parking lot. This is so wrong I think. My spicy chicken sandwich goes flying into the street, not far from me but farther from me than my light is far away by now atwitter. The manager calmly says don’t come back here again you hear me buddy because I will kick your ass if I have to kick your ass, gently allowing the door to click closed behind him he goes away and I am glad for that. I don’t like to think badly of other people but that guy was starting to get on my nerves.
I get up and walk into the street where my spicy chicken sandwich is laying there like a spicy chicken sandwich in the street. Life feels like a video game. I haven’t slept in 36 hours, all I’ve eaten in the last six is half a powerbar I found on the bus. But a sports car is coming fast and it is red of course so it is fast so I jump on the sidewalk to avoid being struck by the red sports car trying to murder me real fast. When I get up from the sidewalk my spicy chicken sandwich is smashed flat on the street like a spicy chicken sandwich smashed flat on the street by a red sports car
on the fast street. What luck I have I think I left my groceries at the bookstore.
My hands are maybe on fire.
99 percent of everything is invisible says some writing on a wall and I think haha fucking stupid fuck what are colors burgers are 99 cents sometimes does that mean all burgers are invisible no I don’t think so that is untrue in fact that is false that statement is false I want to eat whoever wrote this like a piece of pizza pie. I am floating and my arms are crossed, I don’t know what’s going on with my feet but they feel warm.
A yellow man comes up to me and says you remind me of someone. Someone I used to know he says. Really I say well that intrigues me because I always thought I didn’t look like anyone. Or everyone. I forget which. I am intrigued though, do you have a brochure. The yellow man rubbing his groin noticeably says there is a warmth in my groin the likes of which words cannot cool down, do you feel it too? I rub mine and fay no boss I’m sorry I don’t feel a goddamn thing but my groin here. He walks away with his hands in the air screaming something something vaguely on
and on about American pie, I can hear him for fifteen minutes as I stare at the sun in the sky shining down on me the way it does on a thing that is warm like my face in the sun in the light which is light which is pieces of sun from some place in the past going into the future through now and now and now and then a shadow.
A woman stares at her phone, I take it away from her, I get in her car and try to start the car culture jamming a screwdriver in the ignition like a long screwdriver jammed in the ignition of a car that isn’t mine. She opens the passenger door and pulls me to the curb where she toes me lovingly in the ribs and I make blood blood a little from my mouth my lips my teeth all red and rawr like a baby bear in my hands covered in goop that is also red. She drives away and another car drives up, the car is red, inside the car a dog grips my spicy chicken sandwich in its mouth with its
wolf teeth looking delicious like yum yum fuck is that what I think it is that is me.
I resolve to climb a tree and watch people crawl the street. I think maggots are people too thinking on how the word street contains the word tree and how maybe that means something-something vaguely like streets are trees laid sideways and we are the leaves in the trees or the houses are the leaves and streets are branches of one big tree which is to say the earth is a tree and we are little nothings drawling crawling scrawling in vain to sting the tree. This thought makes me sad because the street I gaze on is very dirty and so is the tree I sit in so very very
no one seems to care though too busy being to be caring where they need to be coming and going so that’s how and when I decide to clean up the street with my bare hands like with my baby bear claws going RAWR.
I fall out of the tree, very very. Vaguely.
I walk about, sweeping up the street. After a while I realize my leg might be broken because
the
bottom
part
is
dragging
behind the rest the way it is dragging and I think there is a little white something poking out. Maggots I think I hear someone say maggots are you okay Theodore? Over and over maggots maggots are you okay okay are you are you okay Theodore maggots. Without turning I say yes Mrs. Parkinson I am fine. She says you don’t look fine Theodore. Your leg looks like it is broken maybe she says. She twists it and I
say that feels nice do it some more. She says maggots it’s broken Theodore. She is a canyon and I am the sky. I say no I am fine Mrs. Parkinson and also I have work to do, the street is so dirty, just look at it Mrs. Parkinson.
Dirty
dirty.
Come
inside
Theodore she says I will call the hospital maggots ambulance no no not fun faggots hospital inside gowns maggots Theodore. She waves her enormous hand. I think on it and say no thank you Mrs. Parkinson I am fine really and also I have a lot of work to do, look how dirty the street is, it is a very dirty street Mrs. Parkinson. Very very.
Mrs. Parkinson picks me up and takes me to her home her house her cave. In her home an old woman is dying, the old woman pulls out her teeth and smiles the way an old woman with no teeth smiles which is to say crazy as hell she smiles with death in her eyes and unrequited fun in her heart. In her house I like the old woman of course but she reminds me of death because she is dying so I sad face a lot when she’s around which is to say when I’m around her it is ironic in a ha-ha way because there is no where to be around since she makes me laugh most
of the time especially those times she pokes my belly with the rubber tip of her cane that gets me all the time every time she does it calling me doughboy I don’t think she means to insult anyone of course, she’s just crazy. In her cave her name is Crazy Mona, she is nuts.
I sit on a couch with Crazy Mona my broken leg resting on the coffee table which is in fact a piece of coffee, Crazy Mona smiling at me the way she is wont to do with her teeth in her hand talking to me not moving her mouth at all twisting it up and down a ventriloquist very very of sorts of course because she opens and closes the false teeth as if they are her mouth or the mouth of an otherwise invisible puppet, something to that effect the invisible puppet effect. Essentially acting as a puppeteer she tells all sorts of crazy vaguely vaguely things and I
finding myself going out the side of my mouth haha a lot holding myself in thinking
Crazy Mona is very very.
Crazy Mona tells me there is an island the size of a Cadillac off the coast of British
Columbia
and
a
hungry
man
cohabits the island with a crab called Bartholomew. The hungry man is usually always a hungry man of course but he doesn’t want to eat his only friend so he eats his fingers when it becomes necessary to eat his fingers and to give pieces of his fingers too to Bartholomew the crab his only friend the crab Bartholomew. The man surfs the wind to pass the time from time to sometime gazing on the waves thinking only of themselves of course
the man seeing often clumps of detached hair floating up in the air above the water wondering at times whether waves are the earth’s hair or hair the human version of waves.
After a while I find myself laughing so hard that Mrs. Parkinson yells at me to shut the hell up and I find myself wondering how I will ever get up. I tell Crazy Mona I’ll sniff her later and crawl into the kitchen where Mrs. Parkinson hangs from the ceiling with her feet strapped into one of those things allowing you to hang from the ceiling trying not to laugh I am there and she is speaking calmly into a cordless telephone saying hold on a minute and then to me what do you want Theodore? I tell her sorry about all the commotion Crazy Mona was telling me a funny story about shampoo
I think, or conditioner, truth be told I don’t know that I know the difference known, but potentially conditioner was involved. How is that leg feeling she says and I look down to see that I really don’t even have any skin below the knee and so I says I say it seems okay to me Mrs. Parkinson. I think I’m good to go thumbs up. Good she says I’m glad. I shy to ask a question of Mrs. Parkinson do you have some Ovaltine Mrs. Parkinson? I’m very thirsty for some fucking Ovaltine. She frowns but it looks like a smile from where I’m standing and says it’s in the pantry help yourself big boy.
I drag myself up into the cabinet mix myself some Ovaltine gazing out the window a pack of wild dogs gang raping a bitch she is loving it she is Love that is her name she has a collar holding big bold letters beaming the letters L-O-V-E into space like lights that matter. Mrs. Parkinson resumes speaking calmly on the cordless telephone. Crazy Mona hobbles into the kitchen saying I’m going to make myself a sandwich now. I give her a thumb’s up and turn it upside down to translate for Mrs. Parkinson who frowns. I say have fun being a sandwich
you crazy bitch and slap Crazy Mona’s hard ass hard. She going haha a lot Crazy Mona spreads some hummus on a toasted bagel and spreads some sprouts on the hummus topping the whole thing off with fresh basil from the herb garden hanging out just outside the window, I think I’ve never seen someone
so
close
to
death
so
self-sufficient. As she’s biting into her sandwich
with
her
skinny
shaking
nearly translucent hands I think to myself nothing is solid since someone that can see can see through unbroken glass so nothing is solid everything is on fire that is light that is how you see for the dark for days and then I think to myself Crazy Mona could die at any
moment and here she is not dying with me I feel so special. But then she does, and I feel alone.
When Mrs. Parkinson calls the funeral home they ask did Crazy Mona have insurance, they explain there is nothing they can do without insurance, Mrs. Parkinson gets very very, she is no longer speaking calmly but in machine gun bursts threatening the very foundation of the home itself it was a house that could fall in on itself like a cave. I tell Mrs. Parkinson I will dig a hole in the backyard like the time my bowwow died, I tell Mrs. Parkinson that even though I had been very very about my bowwow passing I had managed to dig far enough
down that the coyotes did not claim my bowwow’s hard body, I can do it again I say to Mrs.Parkinson with liquid smoke in my eye. I don’t want the coyotes to have their way with Crazy Mona, I cry sparks that flicker all the way to the ground.
Mrs. Parkinson gets a shovel from the garage and I dig a hole for about five hours crying like a fucking baby with the hands of a man. Mrs. Parkinson brings me round after round of Ovaltine, the yard is covered in dirt, it seems that there is far more dirt in the yard than had ever been in the hole. After five hours digging most of the skin on my legs is gone and so is a lot of what made up my hands and face so much so I wonder if I can be said to have hands or face at all, probably not I think. I don’t have hands or
a face. The pack of dogs comes over from time to time pulling the rest of my skin off and I’m too tired to fight so they take it away and now I’m nothing but bones very very so I lay Crazy Mona in the grave with her teeth in her hand the way she liked them held in her hand and lay down in the grave with her myself imagining myself becoming a yam the way I yam spooning Crazy Mona the way she liked to be spooned the way where she was that small spoon rimming a large spoon in the spoon collection on Mrs. Parkinson’s wall.
I decide to keep digging with bony hands so bloody I kneel down and dig and dig and dig and dig and dig and dig, down and down and down and down and so on and so forth and so on so and so somehow I find a secret river, I find an inner tube, I float the river underground drinking my last glass of Ovaltine, my goodbye $ haha drink dark dark here very very in this cave this house this home except my bones appear lit from inside the curve arching over and back seeing a lot of things crawling the ceiling like my groceries scattered everywhere,
the big black lab and the white boy on the skateboard ride around and the man in the taxi sleeps in the back seat his taxi driving him around I see them all from below and I see spicy chicken sandwiches cloudy clouds of cloudy smoke pumping the big black lab’s warm mouth and nose a distorted train carrying art cars decorated the way art cars are decorated with lots of random crap super-glued
haphazard
like
a
mobile
junkyard, and I of course am crying again.
But not now I know why I am crying right now I am crying right now because it is not right because it is a sad thing to see death although it is sad but it is in fact as well a fact of life because a beautiful thing to see is to see Crazy Mona curled up in a hole asleep with her teeth in her hand the way a baby would sleep holding its teeth in its hands if it had any teeth to hold in hands that small the smallest hands there are are a babies hands loosen myself like a glove falling through the hole in the tube sink to the bottom of the river finding a glass ball the size and shape of a
basketball, finding within the basketball a tiny city within tiny people doing tiny people things thinking o my gawd the streets look like the branches of a tree I am so fresh so clean so! It is a fact, I put my hands around the ball and stretch it out the glass breaking glass of glass shards people swimming away from the wall the way people swim away from a bunch of broken glass balls in the water streets of streets stretching out becoming a tree of trees a branch a limb a twig a wall of which I ride through the ground past the clouds the stars the light passing the light past the light and past the light and past the.
Reynard Seifert is the author of the chapbook How To Skin The Moon and the ebook zzzombiezzz. He is a DJ on Viva Radio, publishes hahaclever dot com, co-edits Titular, and gives away music for books on his writer’s blog.
reynard.seifert@gmail.com
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