anti:freeze

warehouse windows on NW Park Blocks

What are buildings saying to us? What do they think? What does it feel like, to have messages traced into the dust on their faces? Do they prefer the signs with which they were born - names chiseled into stone, glossy graphics hanging in the window, neon tube lettering? Or is there something in their appearance that invites guerilla art, graffiti, the media underground? (Or that repels?)

The Union Bank of California looks so different from far away. Shorter, less imposing, less fascist even. Whenever I see it up close, I have the feeling it's watching, that decisions are being made from above, anonymous fingers typing deletions and additions to my permanent record, keys clicking, phones ringing, voices conspiring inside closed office doors.

And then I see it from far away, and it just looks like a tower turned inside out, its elevator shaft on the outside.

These are the things that fill me with longing: cowboy stores in downtown Portland, window displays of authentic western boots, rusty bulletholes in the stop signs on desolate desert roads, the scent of sliced sage.

Just on the other side of Mt. Hood, there is a desert I cannot see. Dry ground I can't scrape my palm across. Open horizons. Possibility.

I have this sense the desert has gone missing, that I might find its mugshot tacked to the wall in the post office, or blotchy in black-and-white on a milk carton, crumpled and sour in the park grass.

The desert is the west I always wanted.

The geographer marks time by watching trees. In fall, he drives to the dry side of the Cascades, where he scans the horizon for larix occidentalis, or western larch.

"From a high vantage point," he says, "You can spot every larch in a ten mile radius. The needles actually shimmer this time of year." He explains how they turn golden yellow and drop from the branches, like maple and oak leaves in Iowa.

Deciduous evergreens. Even though I know they're not really evergreens, I like the contradiction. Deciduous conifers just isn't the same. I close my eyes and imagine the yellow needles, how they might feel if I could rake them and lie down in a soft pile, their tips tickling the small of my back through my sweater knit, little needle-leaves sticking to my hair, sliding into the waist of my pants, or falling into my collar and collecting in small piles along my clavicle. Or how they might smell as they loosen from the bark. Sweet, like the soft core of ripe apples? Or clean and cold, like pine? These trees are like me - an exile out of place, unable to accept a green winter. No wonder they grow on the dry side of the mountains. No wonder the geographer goes back for them.

Later, I find out the larch contains a substance, deep within its bark, that can treat cancer and viruses. Arabinogalactin. A polysaccharide that enhances immunity, stops the metastasis of tumor cells to the liver, and increases healthy bacteria. Six months after my surgery, my health not much better than before, I am going to have to reconsider the evergreen.

to the dead boy:

When I think about the larch, I think about its needles. I imagine them filling with resin, viscous gold syrup drawn up like honey into a syringe, where it crystallizes, as delicate and hard as Christmas brittle. And when each needle-leaf snaps loose from its branch, I remember how you pushed your needles in, testing to make sure you hit a vein by drawing a little blood into the syringe.

What is it about lost toys that always makes them function as evidence?

Sometimes I'm tempted to send my notebooks to a psychiatrist, just in case.

freewrite from October 14, 2003, at Peet's coffee (approximately 9:30 AM)

This year, I am staying away from the desert. I am folding the maps, crushing the sunglasses, unraveling the copper wire from my teeth, cutting off the dreads, erasing my footprints from the carpet , charting my progress on a GPS, calling dead friends on the cell phone, wearing red glasses in the rain, biting my tongue, taking my vitamins, getting my checkups, waiting for the cancer to return, waiting for the cancer to heal, learning to climb the cold mountain, picking away at the ice, setting my watch to the wrong time, learning what topophilia really means, tuning a direct frequency to Aristotle, asking what I can get out of it, locking the liquor cabinet, chewing the seal on the boric acid capsules, diving into the pathological river, wearing my socks to my knees, and scraping the blade down my molars. I am getting on the wrong bus and following you around town. Can you hear me? Did you know that antifreeze is being used to cure severed spines?

My dad came home with an upright piano. It was covered in clear plastic sheets and strapped tight to the sides of the truck bed, like the dead deer he brought home from hunting trips. He jumped out of the truck, unfastened the ropes, and peeled away the sheets. "Can you believe this was going to the dump?" he said. "Look at all that scrap." He was referring to the wood. My dad was an electrician and maintenance worker - I.B.E.W. Local 405 - but on the weekends, he liked to get drunk and play with his bandsaw.

Several days later, the piano was jammed against the living room wall, half its keys hidden behind the armrest of the couch. My sister wanted lessons. I was too busy practicing tricks on my bike, playing basketball, and walking the railroad tracks to the trestle, where I wrote poems and stories in my notebooks, listening for the trains. There was no way I would sit for long hours and practice chords. I wanted to see the old upright bashed to pieces, its keys scattered like knocked-out teeth on the garage floor; strings as curled and knotted as the twisted metal in an accident scene. I could pretend I was detonating the dynamite inside a condemned building, or blowing up an enemy hideout. There was a strange allure to destroying a revered musical instrument, and I wanted to know what it felt like.

My sister never got her lessons. My dad hated the sound of piano music, and we were both warned never to touch it. Once, when I lifted the cover from the keys, Dad grabbed my wrist and twisted it so hard it almost sprained. He was capable of a lot worse.

Last month, my mother gave the piano away. It was the last thing to go before selling the house and moving out on her own. I'm probably supposed to hope someone is playing it, but I don't. I want to rip the pedals from the base and beat the keys - the loudest music they ever made - before ripping the strings from the frame. I want to slice it in half with a saw. I want to show Dad what he was missing, for him to see what it means to love silence. What it means that I love it, too.

That he has passed this on.

three of my brothers

S. is missing a finger, but I can't tell you which one. I never noticed until five years ago, when he uncrossed his arms to stretch. I asked him what happened, and he seemed surprised, lifting his hand close to his face and squinting. "It happened so long ago I forget that it's gone," he said, rubbing the scarred knuckle. "It happened before you were born. It got caught in a machine." That was the first and only time we talked one-on-one. Possibly, the only time we spent more than five minutes in the same room. He didn't grow up with me.

There is nothing I can say about the oldest without a libel suit.

And Jimmy is dead. He committed suicide within hours of meeting me for the first time. I was eight, hanging out in the bowling alley while my mom played with her league. That's when I saw Dad buying soda from a vending machine. He carried the plastic cup to a corner table, where a teenage boy sat waiting, his chin resting on his hands. I was jealous. Dad would never buy me sweets, especially soda (which he referred to as cocaine-water in a can, from the early formulas of Coca-Cola). Who was this boy?

I walked up to introduce myself, but my father spoke first. "This is Jimmy," he said.

Jimmy reached out his hand, and I shook it. I didn't know he was my brother, not until I saw his mugshot in the newspaper obituaries.

Looking back, I search my memory for a sign. He must have had it all planned out - the gun loaded, hidden beneath his mattress or pillow, maybe folded inside a sweater, pushed to the back of a drawer. When I think about him pulling the trigger, a cold metal barrel against his tongue, I think: I held the same hand that killed him, just not long enough.

on a hillside in Iowa, 1996 (too bad there was no lomo in my life then - this hill would have looked amazing)

Think about the hair you've left behind. The texture, the color, the tapered, razor-cut tips, the highlighted strands you were trying to grow out ... Have you ever shed the same hair twice? Where did you leave your best evidence?

When police collect hair from a suspect or victim, they must test the strands right away. Otherwise the samples lose their value, no longer useful as evidence. Hair changes. Sunlight. Chemical colors dripped into the shaft. Curls twisted around a hot iron, cuticles torn. Over time, strands lose color. Change texture.

Hair grows in three phases - anagen, telogen, and catagen. Anagen is growth, when the cells around the dermal papilla are still metabolizing, dividing, pushing upward. Cells lie dormant during the telogen phase, stop dividing. Strands stop growing. Catagen is the transition between the two. At any given time, ten percent of your hair is in telogen. This is the hair you leave behind.

I have lived in Oregon approximately 1095 days. The average anagen cycle lasts 1000. With ninety percent of my strands in the anagen phase at any given moment, this means I am only just now wearing a full head of Oregon hair.

And I have noticed. In the picture above, my hair was several shades lighter, streaked from the sunshine in Iowa. My hair is darker now, more brown than gold. My skin lighter, less rosy.

It's too late to perform any forensics. My sample no longer matches what I left behind.

Today, I tasted honey that never crystallizes. I imagined it slicker, wetter, less sticky on tooth fillings and tongue, as I licked the thick glob on my spoon. This rare honey is made from the tupelo gum tree, which grows along the rivers of northwest Florida, and it is gold with a greenish cast, like a tornado sky or a tarnished ring. It is resin that never hardens into amber. Lava that never dries into hard crust and rocks. Timeless.

To produce honey without time, you must first build the bee colony's strength, making honey from other blossoms, such as Ti-Ti and Black Gum. You must strip every honeycomb clean, to prevent contamination, as even one drop of the wrong sugar will upset the delicate balance. And you must build high platforms for the bees, so they can fly above the swamps in search of the tupelos. All of this labor, just to keep honey from changing. To keep it as viscous and sweet as the first taste, the first lick from your finger, dipped deep into the jar, warped by rounded glass, suspended.

waiting in the jury assembly room, approximately 3:00 PM, Tuesday, October 28, after not being selected for a case:

My fingers are numb again, toes cold inside thick socks and boots. Ever given plasma? You know, when they drip the bag of saline into your blood, to rehydrate your body after a whole bottle of plasma has been pumped? Saline so cold your forearm burns. Right where the needle sticks in, it aches like arthritis or the dull blue of a winter day, a sinus headache, except in your arm. Your muscles tense hard, shivering. Room temperature blood. That's how my whole body feels, right now. The judge says there's a mic in this room, connected to a hard drive, that records every whisper, every tap, every cough and sniffle and sworn statement. I wonder what the room tone sounds like? The room tone of a court without people. Without a jury. Without a case. That might be interesting. I wish I could hear it. It might calm me down. Instead, I have to answer the list of questions. A laminated list of questions, passed around the room from juror to juror - or, I should say, potential juror to potential juror. None of us have been selected yet.

These are the questions we must answer. No choice not to answer. We're under oath to tell the truth. What is your name? Where do you live? Your occupation? Who do you live with? What do they do? Have you ever been the victim of a crime? If so, what kind of crime? Have you ever been involved in court proceedings? Have you ever served on a jury? If so, for what kind of case? Twenty people until it's my turn. I am going to have to tell them about assault. Identity theft. Rape. I am going to have to say this in front of thirty strangers, counting the attorneys and judge. I don't know if they'll ask for more information. The case is a felony. It involves a gun. Can I be fair and balanced about a gun?

The state's only witness is a police officer. Later, the prosecutor will ask if we have any reservations about law enforcement. She will also tell us about circumstantial evidence. "If you open your door in the morning, and the ground is covered in snow," she will say, "that is circumstantial evidence that it snowed. If you actually watch the snow fall, that is direct." She makes a point about Law & Order, the television show, and how defense teams complain about circumstantial evidence, and how that isn't a fair complaint. I know what she means. I can be fair about that. If you wake up the day after a rape, and you feel a dull ache and burn between your legs, and every inch of your skin is scratched red from being scrubbed the night before, and you feel a vast gulf between mind and body, like maybe you never lived inside your own skin at all, and you just want to die, that's circumstantial evidence you were raped. If you remember back to last night, when you witnessed the theft of your own body, and realized he was also taking your mind, and you fought and fought so he couldn't take your mind, too, then that is direct evidence. You were there. You know. Can you be fair and balanced about that?

It turns out I only have to say assault. No one asks for more information, and I am relieved.

The lawyers make their peremptory challenges, and the process is both mysterious and simple. The defense asks us, Have you ever held an opinion that was a minority opinion, and that others made you feel uncomfortable for holding? Did you stick to it, anyway? Answer no to that question, and you're removed from your jury seat, replaced by someone else. I also notice most of the women are replaced. Felony gun case.

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waiting in the jury room, approximately 7:45 AM, Monday, October 27, just before orientation, on the first day of jury duty:

When you were a teenager, you had a friend who picked clovers and tore one leaf in half, so he could claim it was good luck. But you knew better. You knew that four-leafed clovers are good luck because they break a pattern in nature. They do not follow the fibonacci sequence. Back then, you thought that was the only example. What does that mean about luck? Are we afraid of the pattern and look for the exception? Or do we like it when nature breaks free from itself? Why do we despise the same deviations in people? The crooked jaw, the too-large nose?

Later, you learned that only ninety-two percent of plants follow the pattern (ninety-two percent of plants with spiral phyllotaxis, that is). And this, it turns out, is the key. The rule is not a rule. You have to change your definiton of luck. Either that, or stop looking for patterns.