Tway Ta Work Ta’s City                                              (1292 words)

cooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom   c!

So got to = after turning left on the daily morning’s walk across town to the great big mysterious quasi-archaeological dig-site, onto which we volunteered a year, there’s a mile or three left to go /pins & needles/ over here where everyone coming and going so often remark of the slight smell over here. So slight, that some when first smelling it, stop—to see, then to say, What is that smell? But now, no. Now there’s nothing. Then, when they start walking again, there it is; again; ‘e again; a nag of a smell, so faint it can’t be, and so odd that to smell it, one needs to stop trying to, but that’s not enough, no no no NO. Can’t even be thinking of it. Got to ignore it, but that’s hard to do, because once its been smelled, it’s remembered as the worse smell ever and gets connected in tight with this—eh, how’s it best characterized, yes—this metallicly tasting looking and smelling rot of a place we go past daily, here. And, so. There it is. Just a smell but that’s ‘lso more than a smell. It’s a taste. And a feeling. All up down and up. ‘nd each day got to rush past there several blocks. Trying not to look over ‘cross ‘ll the slime-baked formerly Main street flowing at the black squares and rectangles which used to be storefronts before time piled up, broke down, and rolled in and over smothering this whole town’s Main street neighborhood down. Can’t run stores in this smell—what smell, we smell nothing—oh just wait for it wait, and they wait—no no no, we smell nothing—can’t place it can’t touch it just walk faster past it—sorry, we don’t get it ,why’d all these stores shut down—never mind! Turn around, move away, shift gears toward what’s next, that’s the dig-site no not the smell hitting out from behind no, the dig-site, yes. Reaching there’s what’s important b’ slow down hey now, no—there it is ….. turn around =+= no—yes—oh, at last arriving at the site where the dig’s ongoing, forget everything now that = There’s Crockett, u’re partner. Get your scraper. Get your tools, and, go down next to Crockett and start in on the scraping of long-buried but not no more so boards, rock, steel plating, and big tables down what they say they’ve learned of by all the scrapings done already before {or after? What? Before is after? And after is before? Pity the language the way we torture it down so unjustly, class. Pity it pity. God {sign o’ the cross please} pity it it’s been murdered down so what torture what torment = do experience those + + who never experience to die :plaster: } So thus once back in place thus thus scraping down th’ ‘eelactical dig, say mildly the usual t’s, what’s always to say, o’er to; Crockett.

Crockett.

{eh, scrape. Eh scrape eh scrape and—eh}

Eh, Crockett! Another day another fifty cents, eh? Good morning.

Hey.

The walk down I rushed it over. Rain looked up there like it’ll be-being to come down hard today. Do not like to be drenched. You?

Nope. Do not like to be drenched.

Yah (in time with the soft scraping o’ both o’ theirs raspertools) It was one of those—no, but more properly said say it is one of those days where looking out says back, umbrella today—no, yes, uh? You know?

Yes.

And its like—hey yes bring an umbrella the sky’s really up saying that but what if its not needed and then after arrival it just this “cumbersome nuisance”’s got to be stored up for the day someplace. Know what I mean?

{scraped dust pellets drop steadily to the catch-tarpaulin, below}

Sure. But it didn’t look like it might be raining today out o’er my sky. But I start in from that different direction from you. Guess that’s why. Eh?

Yah. Guess so. Any findings yet today?

Who knows.                             gasp /cracker/ who knows /yes/ who can ever know and /switching fast to say something else that’s not leading to the same old why are we bothering with all this when we know damned well that that that th/{cut}       gasp /crackers/ thank God for the holding back of the back on which it’d be written/like it always/gasp     gasp    awkward suddenly yes next to the Crockett scraping out of unison with their scraping     gasp because as it does     gasp as it always must + being a law of nature as it is + gasp       gasp it becomes silly in the extreme to be scraping in unison when we the big boths of all of the uses here volunteering at this site know it’s just based on some myth of the jungle upon which no sane person would generate so much sweat so much strain of the jungle after about a half hour gasp some’s saying telephone pole lot up there where  :those flats where they tore down what the say was a factory you know /gasp/ how much money’s locked up in those poles /damn/ : I was reading up on that you know it really gets to me somehow look at all /that waste/ all those        fallen        scrape scrape scrape trees its a field of corpses don’t think so well think about it a field of the corpses what dies for no reason    /strain/  in the belly of the break tent a little after ten   /sitting/ with that my same partner all the morning {spouting hall off ‘bout a’ noosed up all nooooosed up noooooosed up ‘n nooooooooosed up some big sweet Willy gotcha! /f’ter all mem-mebra zats woosh it got ‘lready approximated woosh / sat down finally at the bench by the door to the tent, and immediately felt a mild breeze waft o so cooly over their clammy arm-sweat so they pushed over a bit to get out of the flow of it and having successfully milded all this down they chatted brightly over some crackers in bags, and two full-up waters.

plank  

So. Got any plans for the weekend? Or just taking it easy.

I don’t know. I usually don’t plan out ahead that way. Y’know?

Ah. Guess so. /bag chips-crisp back, swallow bag chips-crisp back back back, swallow back unless they come get me say we got somebody in need of a good scare—come and see me—you know /what the hell what/ I’d go get that done if the pay’s right {don’t ya know} or if /what the hell wait/ they came ‘round saying come quick, right now—we got somebody held down needs a big hot flat spanking /huh/ I’d go and do it and probably a bit faster than when I went just to scare the crap out of someone /what the hell wait wait what the hell hell wait wait wait/ cause this time they pointed out they got somebody held down and you know as well as I do that when they say they got somebody held down the one held down’s most likely fighting to get up and the pressure from th’ under-one trying to get up ‘gainst the up top trying to hold down can’t go on forever nothing like that can it’s a knife-edge of balance, its like a new element so exotic, it’s like seventeen baseballs stacked with no props at its like falling alive hey, there’s not much time left so so, no. I don’t have any plans for the weekend. I usually don’t plan out ahead that way. Y’know?

Uh. Sure.

But you. What about you? You got plans?

/whip!/ 

Don’t know. Not yet.

Anyway.

/whip!/