Phase Four

"That was last year. This year I need to make a living."-- William Holden

I am not good enough with code to copy the photo the Rosenbach sent me of author Wesley Stace. I'd get into trouble trying to use it anyway even if I was good enough to lift it, but he is slouched in a Lazy Boy, eyebrow cocked, frigid expression. I am tired of being the writer who hovers around franchise novelists, in the first place, and secondly, his conscious distribution of airs would collide with my solid, planted, braying bulk. I have no idea who he is, and I am not typing into search for a frame of reference. Not to recognize a writer feels curiously liberating.

I cleaved to the Speakeasy site seventeen years ago, sitting in the same stained shirts, creating a psychiatric ward with my posts, as one homemaker flung the accusation in my direction. I grieved for a very long time about my banishment, and those more sympathetic to me than the pedestrian sentiments which closed ranks against me, consoled me with the suggestion, "We do not have time for the Speakeasy." Meaning keep busy, live your life. Seventeen years, same spot, same place, additional abuse heaped on me like spaghetti sauce, being followed by my jackass Jewish neighbor because HE is now the West Philadelphia mental health advocate. No one in P&W's Spring Street offices realizes the emotional nature of my tie to their brand, nor am I implying they should. My academic adviser is dead, and I'm rotting in an old age facility, more or less, learning to be vile with fluid ease, switching back and forth, derogatory analyst slaving for pennies with Clarity Media's laughable, snarky sibling. Oh yes, they be teaching me. Content, video, aggregating. AP style. Google News algorithms run the fucking universe. Now I am always busy, when I am not fondling my bedsore, skin rotting beneath my fingers. Joey has joined the dead in my nightmares, my poor sweet little boy, resurrected right out of Stephen King's playbook. Examiner is run by real people, but I've never seen such a cock-a-mammy enterprise: "Joanne you're eligible for Google News promotion..." This from a Colin somebody; when I get names I save them, only Google News is now weeding Examiner out of its feeds. Changes in the equation. In my psyche, I said to my dead brother's shadow "Nicky put the knife down, you're not going to kill me." Classic Hitch.