(see also: Footnote to File)
with apologies to Allen Ginsberg
Part I
I saw the best
minds of my generation fortified by comforts, content in-control clothed,
driving themselves through nice streets at dawn looking for a faster commute,
drive-thru yuppies thirsting for the fresh Starbucks connection to the
regulated bypass in the machinery of the transit department,
who paychecks
and yoga mats and lip-balmed and tipsy sat up sipping in the mundane white-lit
bright of stainless-steel lofts floating across the mid-scale high rises
contemplating AMC,
who exposed
their opinions to CNN under the El and saw news anchors sitting rigid
professionally lit,
who passed
through universities magnetizing debt reading a poem or two by someone anti-war
and subsequently signing a petition to ban child soldiers,
who were
graduated from the academics for completing certain semi-complex assignments
subsequently hung on office walls,
who stood shaved
in rooms in Calvin Kleins, storing their money in no-fee checking accounts
listening to the neighbors shout through the walls,
who got pulled
over on the beltway for touching the rumble strips fiddling with the radio dial
trying to find NPR on the elusive low-90s broadcast bands,
who consumed
Lean Cuisine or drank Chardonnay at Steve's reception, thought about making a
move on Emily's sister and didn't,
fueled by Gold
Gym workouts at dusk, Brad Pitt films, pornography and advertising and
screen-transmitted sexuality,
highly
comparable blind streets of rain and lighting and in the mind cursing the
inclement weather that illuminates the hydroplane auto-warning device and
prevents cruise control,
Meal solitudes
that creep upon them sometimes at the kitchen island in bachelor and
bachelorette apartments, one glass of wine too many, ready for a drive under
the neon blinking traffic light, under the sun and moon but afraid of blowing
an alcohol test, so instead this Fox News rant,
who browsed
over two thousand photos consecutive on Facebook albums all the way back to two
thousand and seven when they dated that one girl Stacey who wore the berets
eventually brought down red-eyed and sleepy near three in the morning, unseen
night clouds outside the window, after the annoyance of that time Kyle got a
hold of the camera at the Zoo and posted four copies of every photo,
who spent so
many neon unnoticed nights at the bar built into the local shopping center
where domestics are four dollars, sitting in the booth wondering when the city
council was going to pass that no-smoking ordinance for all public spaces,
who listened to
chatter on the television for twenty-five hours over three consecutive days,
from easy chair to sofa and back to easy chair and thus was Labor Day weekend,
a lost
battalion of little-known cable shows some of them having to do with science
and some with travel and the more interesting ones in some way connected with
sex,
absolutely
amazed at the stuff you can learn just by channel surfing like the masons who
apparently started America or what it's like to have multiple wives or be in
the mafia or what actually may have caused the Hindenburg accident,
getting layman
information from experts who are off in Hawaii surfing and figuring out the
universe but luckily telling the folks back home what conclusions they are
nearing that will absolutely change the way we think about the experience of
sitting on the sofa watching this sort of show,
who spent three
hours online reading reviews for products that will never be purchased,
watching videos of cats leap around strangers' apartments, news articles,
workout tips, the ONE secret insurance companies don't want you to know and the
THREE simple diet tips that will deflate you like this animated woman who
fluctuates on the banner ad between obese and anorexic over the course of four
frames,
suffering slow
download times bad customer service delayed airline flights terrifying
McDonald's employees even more terrifying bosses watching home-makeover and
knowing that's never going to happen to this apartment,
who wandered
around the internet at midnight looking at photographs of the moon and ending
up comparing auto insurance rates with no idea how or why they got there,
who threatened
the neighbor woman who smokes the cigarettes on the fire escape reminding her
not only of emphysema but that if her smoke continues to drift through the
cracked window property management is going to hear about her recreational use
of the emergency exit,
who saw a
Travel Channel special on Tibetan Monks and were appreciative of the expansion
of their horizons who once went skiing in Aspen, Colorado and drove through
Kansas and did not look once,
who restrain
themselves every Thanksgiving dinner not to share with mother, after her eighth
mention of guardian angels, the revelation of the fact that guardian angels
fulfill a bio-psychical need now filled by insurance or that was what the
article in last winter's issue of Smithsonian claimed anyway,
who cast their
vote based on three different thirty-second sound clips from each candidate,
who jumped into
Chevy Volts and Nissan Leafs to save the environment and drove them on winter
streets until they discovered how bad acceleration was in inclement conditions
at which point they returned to six cylinder gas-powered engines,
who lounged
hungry at the back of the Subway line wondering how in the world there could be
only one employee behind the glass for the lunch hour rush, trying not to get
involved in conversation with the homeless man two spots ahead, for some reason
reminiscing about semester abroad, when that foreign girl got drunk and nearly
kissed them but didn't,
who disappeared
into a National Geographic special issue on Mexico that confirmed their
suspicion that they did not in the least desire to live in Mexico,
who are
extremely efficient at filing, can file briefs and petitions and answers and
decisions according to color-coded file-folders, pale eyes gleaming from the
file room, filing like no previous generation on earth has filed before,
who in one
month accrued separate triple digits expenses for the cable/dish bill, the
internet bill, and the phone bill with data text talk options,
who upgraded to
Spotify Premium for a single digit monthly bill and now don't have to listen to
those voices on the bus since their cell-phone carries all their cached radio
songs,
who broke down
on the bypass trembling and overheating and afterward made sure not to leave
the house again without AAA accident insurance card in hand,
who apologized
profusely to officers of the law having run a yellow light on the verge of red
unable to stop, visiting afterward a brake specialist to have whatever needed
to be done to prevent a second occurrence of that nightmare,
who filed on
their knees one afternoon to access some lower shelves and purchased that
weekend knee pads to prevent the pain as they staggered upright waving files
sporting the navy-blue COPY insignia born by every non-original document,
who let
themselves be fondled by saintly insurance companies, and trembled with joy,
who invited a
strange and beautiful woman home from the local bar, and when she accepted hid
sweating in the bathroom and left by the back entrance,
who strolled in
parks on days with temperatures located between sixty-five and seventy-five
degrees, but have decided spending the night outdoors is thoroughly out of the
question,
who grew
feverish twice in a single month and now subscribe to a mail-delivery natural
vitamin supplement that fortifies over twenty daily vitamins infused with
omega-3 iron and calcium supplements,
who sit with
Liz and Tyrone down at the local bar in the shopping center and agree
vigorously that no way are they going to get tied down with family with
children any time soon let-me-tell you and afterward part company drive home
and sit alone in the dark staring at the blinking light of the sound-system
transmitter,
who have had an
average of eight sexual encounters per year over the last five years while
single and a lot more while dating, judging from these statistics that dating
is the preferable state of existence,
who in freshman
year of college skinny-dipped with two girls with unremembered names still
fantasizing about this night two to three times per month ten years later,
who went out
drinking for Rich's bachelor party in a rented limo, Rich the secret hero of
these poems who rumor has it hooked up with two different girls on the night of
his bachelor party and tried to make it with a third, a gaunt waitress at the
lonely pizza shop only to vomit on her apron instead,
who have never
spent a day of their lives not knowing where they are going to sleep that
night,
who informed
the local coffee shop and bakery that unless they could transition to an
earlier opening they would be losing one man's business to the Starbucks across
the street,
who tried to
take out a life-insurance policy on their suicidal friend, who insured the car,
the apartment, the dog, the airline tickets home, their own bodies, the
possibility of a fire, of a flood, of an earthquake, their teeth, their eyes,
their sex organ,
who sat tight
with the knowledge that relatively few negative things could happen without
monetary compensation,
who stood in
elevators in disbelief at the poor quality of the muzak, in greater disbelief
at the street vendor who tried to sell hot dogs he handled with his own hands,
who sat
breathing in the darkness when the electricity went out, brought through the
ordeal by Spotify Premium and a fully-charged cell-phone's data plan,
who started to
cough and ingested eight vitamin C pills, urine subsequently smelling weird and
orange,
who got lost in
a shopping spree haze at Wal-Mart and purchased over three hundred dollars in
merchandise only to discover the following morning all of it was useless,
who ate mostly
frozen dinners and deli sandwiches, nearly everything pre-made, purchasing
according to variegated advertisements adorning the packaging promising health,
who returned to
the grocery when one of the dozen eggs turned out to be cracked,
who own an
alarm clock, a watch, a cell-phone, a computer, a microwave, an oven, a DVD
player, two analog wall clocks, an electric toothbrush, an i-pad, all of which
relay the time, all within six minutes of each other,
who for no
discernible reason took half a bottle of pills and had to undergo six months of
psychotherapy and afterward knew to exercise, eat healthy, pursue affirming
friendships, and keep the credit card debt under control,
who listened to
endless songs about youth, about the upcoming night and its possibilities,
endless sexual prospects, about the dance-floor as the manifestation of the
Now, of the Present moment played out in the movement of the hips, the
half-realization always dwelling in the head that this image is nothing they
created but a structure created by a hazy figure and imitated on endless
weekend nights in the bar district and isn't there some kind of insurance
specifically for livers,
who one day
walked into work an hour late with no explanation this actually happened and
only apologized when the supervisor confronted them directly on the lunch hour,
who scanned and
copied and proofread and edited briefs, who carried transcripts between the
hands of people who made far more money, restocked office supplies, ran out of
envelopes, once ate pizza for breakfast, made friends with a black person
briefly before he returned to his native France, sometimes crank the music when
the windows are up driving on the anonymous beltway and sing with Michael Buble
at the top of the lungs not caring who's watching,
who stroll down
memory lane and declare proudly that no better financial decisions could have
been made,
who waited
three hours in the pre-dawn cold to get into Best Buy what with the LCD screens
on forty percent Black Friday discount, still remembering the cold, mitigated
by the hand warmers being sold by the homeless but savvy Chinese gentlemen in
the parking lot,
who journeyed
to Kinko's, who died outside Kinko's, who came back to Kinko's and waited in
vain, who watched over Kinko's & brooded & loned outside Kinko's and
finally went away to find out the Time, because what the hell kind of national
chain is closed on a Sunday, & now Kinko's is lonesome for her customers,
who re-entered
the life of prayer on Friday when the driver who apparently didn't see the
octagonal red stop sign swerved and missed by inches, abandoning the life of
prayer when it was clear neither car had been scratched,
who learned to
look rigidly straight when passing panhandlers, who mumble incoherently when
some old woman in a snowstorm says she ran out of gas and needs to get to her
kids house an hour away, because Jesus how many people per year run out of gas
an hour away from their kids' houses,
who dreams of
retiring to Colorado where the view from the dining room always seems so great
in those interior décor magazines,
who departed on
entirely justified rants against the Man, the institution, against the
secretary at work, against right-wing politics, against left- wing nuts in Australia who
want to reintroduce infanticide, against topsoil erosion in Iowa and
corporations who are burning trash into the earth,
who attended a
city action meeting due to rising toll rates and nearly vomited because of some
apparently bad strawberries provided by an out-of-town caterer,
and who were
given a personal escort to the Emergency Room and made to sign a waiver
denoting that if anyone was to be sued it was the catering company and not the
city action group,
who weren't
allowed as a child to jump on the neighbor's trampoline due to the neighbor's
father having gone to law school and knowing all about personal liability
lawsuits,
returning years
later to the same neighbor's household who now owned a swimming pool only to
find that pools fall under the same heavy personal liability lawsuit shadow and
swimming is for nuclear family only,
Sallie Mae
Federal Student Loan bills causing an aching worry at the back of the mind
until such a thing as liability insurance is discovered, after which debt
becomes a potential for profit, hazard turned into safety,
with mother
finally buying some homeowner's insurance, and the income channeled mostly into
the 501C-3 limited liability corporation set up to buy and sell video game
equipment online but really as a fence so that the PS3 and the XBOX 360 and the
Nintendo Wii can all get tax write-offs,
ah, Steve Jobs,
while you are cancerous I am cancerous, and now you've really bit the dust that
is the end of cancer,
and who
therefore purchased stock in the Apple corporation right when Jobs bit the dust
on the bet that the company would prove even more vital than before, a
prediction that paid off in multiple stock dividends,
who went online
and enacted some research concerning the insurance business and are now
considering pushing the career in a different direction, getting out of the
file room and the cubicle, out of the nine-to-five and into the eight-to-four,
out of the Prius and into the Lexus, out of the pre-fab and into the Victorian,
staying awake on certain nights dreaming of 401ks,
to recreate a
stable financial model that will deliver peace of mind, the property insured, a
space made for children even though they aren't filling it just yet, standing
naked in front of the bathroom mirror thinking that those Gold Gym workouts are
finally starting to pay off in terms of aesthetics,
the file clerk
and the dockets beat in Time, the pulse of the stream of the flow of the
information age delivering plenty enough to keep away the question of what
actually happens when the organism expires and supposedly there's something out
there uninsured,
and actually
entirely impossible to insure, despite the variety of available life insurance
policies out there and this final cry delivered that goes shivering down the
empty streets, the pale terror of the uneventful Wednesday night, that There Is
Nothing Good on TV
with the
absolute schedule of the portfolio of life bolstered by certain blue-chip
additions and now probably good for about a thousand years.
Part II
What firm agent
of home and auto but also asset and liability opened their minds and filled
them with wonder and wisdom!
Insurance! Comfort!
Peace! Security! Low Premiums and Deductibles! Children sleeping content at
night with policies poised at their bedside! Boys playing sports without fear
of consequence! Men growing old without fear of consequence!
Insurance!
Insurance! Sweet dream of Insurance! Insurance the lovely! Mental peace of
mind! Insurance the savior of men and women!
Insurance the
freedom to act without fear! Insurance the laminated card in the glove box!
Insurance whose pathways are effective if sometimes inefficient! Insurance the
vast net! Insurance who renders the prophetic voice of future time superfluous!
Insurance whose
profit margins are pure calculation! Insurance whose blood is running with
stability! Insurance whose fingers are newly graduated college students selling
graveyard plots to their fraternity brothers! Insurance who bolsters the timid!
Insurance who quiets the rhythms of fear!
Insurance whose
claims investigators probe a thousand accidents! Insurance whose filing needs
never end! Insurance who discovers the past and by its discovery determines the
future!
Insurance whose
skin is made of advertising! Insurance whose presentation is that of inciting
the fear of chaos! Insurance who renders consequence obsolete! Insurance who
anthropomorphizes disaster itself! Insurance who never speaks of joy but only
monetary compensation! Insurance whose name is Peace of Mind!
Insurance in
whom I sit fearless! Insurance in whom I drive safely motivated by money! Crazy
about Insurance! Desiring to insure the sex act! Insurance in whom I sit
without courage!
Insurance who
entered my planning and foresight faculties early! Insurance in whom I am
action without consequence! Insurance who frightened me out of my natural
ecstasy! Insurance whom I cling to! Wake up with Insurance! Insurance available
online!
Insurance!
Insurance! State Farm! Prudential! Geico! Aflac! MetLife! Blue Cross Blue
Shield! Highmark!
They break
their wallet lifting Insurance to a level just above their heads! Liability,
asset, disaster, portfolio! eliminating the dire consequence of every particle
around us that touches us in which we move!
Danger! Risk!
Foolishness! Poor decisions! Disasters! All gone out of sight down the American
river!
Adventure!
Audacity! Victory! Sensation of battle! Sensation of risk! all unneeded
feelings of the past!
Setbacks! Steep
falls! No problem! home vehicle life agricultural inland marine builder's risk
income protection terminal illness terrorism longevity dual trigger earthquake FLEXA
wage war risk pet all with a net!
Death bonds
credit locked funds guaranteed asset protection plans! They've got it all! The
holy safety! Sleep tight! Don't jump! Or what the hell go ahead and jump! Right
into a net! Live, for life can do nothing to you! Down into the river! into the
street!
Part III
Emily Smith! I
am with you in the File Room
where your
filing is disturbed by the concavity of silence
I'm with you in
the File Room
where you have
so little appreciation for the automatic light switches
I'm with you in
the File Room
where you find
yourself talking to yourself like you never do outside these walls
I'm with you in
the File Room
where you keep
a secret folder of Judge's opinions whose proper files you can't find
I'm with you in
the File Room
where you laugh
at jokes you heard on television the night before
I'm with you in
the File Room
where we are
looking up the same client matter numbers on the same shelves
I'm with you in
the File Room
where it's
reported you had to have the executive secretary help you find certain
alphabetized smaller clients
I'm with you in
the File Room
where the outer
office life seems to fade away and leaves you alone with the deep well folders
and the endless whisper of paper
I'm with you in
the File Room
where you
sometimes sneak bottles of purified Deer Park drinking water
I'm with you in
the File Room
where you don't
experience a single sexual urge and are not sure why
I'm with you in
the File Room
where if you're
not careful you start to sing aloud on instinct to help cover the whisper of
paper speaking that which cannot be spoken
I'm with you in
the File Room
where you
imagine what it will be like to work in this room in the summer time with the
view of the river and your sleeves rolled up because here at least is the
possibility of poetry
I'm with you in
the File Room
where
forty-three more Answers and Opinions from the opposing counsel need to find
their red-file homes never to be extracted again
I'm with you in
the File Room
where you work
out certain psychological issues in the silence having to do with your family
and the particular pathways in which you were raised, these giants that only
emerge in the Absence
I'm with you in
the File Room
where religion
becomes more than your mother's frustrating psychological games and more than
the glass of the windows that keeps you from leaping into the street fifteen
floors below
I'm with you in
the File Room
where the
shelves have lost all free space and you tug and shove and jam to put paper in
its proper place
I'm with you in
the File Room
where the dream
of 401ks and full-coverage health plans including dental and vision and the
possibility as well of certain cosmetic operations suddenly pale in the
presence of the fact of consciousness pure and simple the fact that you are
even here alive thinking this and you plan to go home and lie awake still
thinking of these things but of course you don't
I'm with you in
the File Room
where you
suddenly realize it's five o'clock and though there is no factory whistle
there's a change in the air because now no one can tell you what to do but what
do you do with your new five o'clock freedom here in a silent room by yourself
overlooking the river entirely free to go yet stuck in place because of some
unexplainable meditative calm that's come over you and then the sudden grip of
it and out you come to return unfinished filing to the cart at a speed that
would be running if it weren't for your two inch heels that click so loud on
the hallway's tile floor
I'm with you in
the File Room
where in my
dreams at last you discover the hidden location of client/matter #16522/322 and
slip in the final court transcripts and turn with a light in your eyes to
inform me that the filing is finished that there is no more filing to be done.
by Abraham Schneider
be sure to see Footnote to File
in Volume 2 Issue 2
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