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Song 6 | Aug 08 2003

I sit at a school desk, the kind where the desk is permanently attached to the chair, so that to sit in it you have to slide in from the side. Actually they’re all like that, aren’t they. This one has a Formica top and a thick plastic chair. The desk is outside a bar, and across the street, perched above another bar, is a giant neon sign in the shape of a cigarette, the red tip of which flashes on and off as though someone, a giant, were smoking.

Your own cigarette finished, you’ve gone into the bar to pee. I sit at the desk, thinking about my prayer. A man walks by I immediately recognize. He sells belts and other assorted junk at the corner of South 5th and Marcy. Maybe you’ve seen him. He’s skinny and Asian and lays out his merchandise on a white canvas laundry bag, the kind with a drawstring at the top. I can’t imagine he’s ever made a sale: his belts are ugly and he is insane.

I never did tell you about my prayer. Basically I talked to myself out loud and explained what was happening, which was that there was something I wanted so much I was willing to pray for it, despite having no one and nothing to pray to and despite feeling like an idiot for doing so. This was all part of my prayer. The idea was to be as honest and vulnerable as possible. I said it felt wrong to be praying for what amounted to a personal favor and that I therefore saw no reason it should granted. I said that the thing I wanted had to come of its own and not through some magical manipulation of reality. I was on my knees as I said these things, kneeling near the end of my bed with my hands joined in a vague approximation of a person praying. I said that instead of having my desire granted, a better thing to ask for, a better thing to be given, was what I called joy but what I really meant as wisdom in the face of loss.

The sixth song is beautiful. He never quite says what he means, yet you know what he’s saying.