#action yes

COLLAGES (2006)

images by Tom Benson

poems by Aase Berg

IN MANHATTAN ON 29TH STREET ACROSS THE AVENUES THEN OVER A RAILING THERE IS A LITTLE BEACH

you quit school and gave up on life you had cancer or something so they excised your flesh there were other problems with your lymph nodes you came to my reading in chinatown and vomited we had creative writing you wrote about a dog that was a sad robot i wrote about sad children and a giant squid now you are an electrician because of student loans you are fucked there is an online game that you play you have gained a lot of weight you said you don’t check your email anymore i lent you money for cigarettes ‘you’ve given up on life,’ i said you said you hadn’t i said we’d play the lottery you said you just threw out about seventeen non-winning tickets i said i went to atlantic city over thanksgiving and won i said we’d go to atlantic city you said you can’t; not until you win the lottery

you took me to the beach the beach was gray you lay on a rock and you said it was beautiful it was 3 a.m. and i stood there the water was black ‘let’s go,’ i said ‘wait,’ you said i said okay and a few minutes passed

Once when I was undercover my contact in the NSA was this cocky black guy with scars all over his face

and one day I was feeling insolent so I called him Scarface to his face after he had given me orders over the videophone like, Yeah I got this mission under control, Scarface.

He eyed me for a second and then hung up. He didn’t seem impressed. Anyway looking back I wish I would’ve said Scarsface, with a plural on scars because he had multiple scars on his face not just one. Also

I wish he would’ve had multiple faces, to match his multiple scars so that what I should’ve called him could’ve been Scarsfaces—hypothetically rocking the double plural for once in my life.

Later on during the mission I was shooting druglords in a cavern which was really just this vast subterranean complex of corridors and laboratories full of scientific-looking things (though it did still have stalactites hanging from the ceiling)

and accidentally some of my fire  struck a cast iron pipe running behind and above the heads of the druglords, which ruptured, generating steam in gushing undulations billowing down and around everything and filling the cavern.

The druglords were dead but the steam kept coming from the bullet hole in the pipe and as I watched patterns forming in the steam, I forgot who I was, and what I was doing until suddenly it struck me What if that NSA contact guy had only had a single scar but many faces?

Like, he only had one scar but it was in the exact same place on each of his faces? and if he had all these faces each with the exact same scar in the exact same place what should I have called him then? Scarfaces, where the scar is singular? or Scarsfaces where the scar is plural?

It lasted a really long time staring into that effusion of steam and thinking that. Also I remember thinking whatever drugs these druglords are selling their manufacture sure requires a lot of steam.

Later I was trading quips with a beautiful woman who used to be the mistress of the main druglord (but who was now good) during a car chase.

She was in the passenger seat and I was telling her to use the rocket launcher in her lap to shoot the rear half of the car off so that it would spin away, blocking the car of druglords chasing us  like a spinning, fiery roadblock

while she and I would glide to safety in the front half of the car into the massive bank of snow we were quickly approaching, and she goes, What? Are you crazy?! And I said, without even taking my eyes off the road, Yes. But while all that was going on still I couldn’t stop thinking about what I should’ve called Scarface if in a different world he would’ve had multiple faces.

Later after the mission was a success Gabrielle and I were lying around in our hotel room in the Caymans revealing our secret identities and telling each other our names when the videophone on the table began to ring and rattle. It was Scarface.

He was trying to tell me about this other, second mission that I had to go on now now that I was done with this one and while he’s going on and on Gabrielle is behind my back trying to pull me back into bed calling me a workaholic saying hadn’t I earned a holiday? but I was tuning her out

because I was watching Scarface who was watching her behind me and sort of slyly winking at me and nodding

but while he was doing that I had crossed my eyes about halfway so that I saw a host of Scarfaces spread across the videophone

and in that moment I decided that what I should’ve called him would’ve been Indeterminate Blur of Scars and Faces like an Native American name. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I waved him off. I’ll get to that other mission later. First I have to make love to my former enemy here, gesturing to Gabrielle then back to him, Indeterminate Blur of Scars and Faces.

I let my eyes refocus as I closed the videophone and unplugged it from its charger since it was fully charged already and I had heard that with certain high-end electronics if the device is fully charged and you leave it plugged into its charger that could damage the battery and lower the overall lifespan of the device.

Then I turned around where Gabrielle lay naked smiling, and spread-eagled and I climbed back into bed hesitantly (though only as a joke because she was so beautiful) but she didn’t laugh.

I doubt she could have, even if she’d wanted to not for lack of a sense of humor (she had a good one) it was just that our romance had been brewing for so long she was too ready for love to laugh.

So then I made love to her— and did so with a clear unmuddled mind.