The Art of Darkness
Talking the stupid talk behind the deli counter and listening to ‘Bitches Brew’
My boss talked his way into more women’s pants than anyone I ever met.
I chose beauty over death
A sense of speed and darkness loomed that summer and its wings extended and snapped to full spread and we were all in its shadow careening though we did not know it. That summer I drank more than I ever have and I was doing it with people who were doing the same and whatever it was that was going on with them I was figuring something else out on my own in the only way I have ever been able — by going forward, not knowing where, just going. I was learning how to write not by writing but rather by wandering half-blind down the dark halls of myself, by following some peculiar internal sense of things which in the end is how you should write. I was working with some white kids at the small general store in my small hometown on the reservation where I grew up and we listened to music all day while we worked and when I was alone I was reading or watching films and wondering if I would ever get laid that summer which I did in fact not. Day after day while beautiful women of seemingly every …
