Friday Tyrant - The Beast, Watered

I’ve grown oh so weary with humans and their human stories. Give me the pawing animal, the beast, chest out. Give me the instinct. Sam Michel sets his meat hook into you right at the nose. Then he tugs. This is what you should do when you first set a pen down: a switch and el suervo that makes tearing yourself away from the page a genuinely difficult task. The draw’s enough to make you shove your fist in your mouth. In this piece, Michel gives John O’Hara a run for his chips in the dialogue department. The bar scene is up there with the bar scene from "How Can I Tell You?" This piece here, "The Beast, Watered" from the collection Under the Light is worth having. His books broke into many of our lives; those of us who refuse to get by in our lives without them. Many things aren’t meant for the beasts the farmers haven’t yet fiddled with. Not yet.

You tell me one thing wrong with this piece, one thing not in its right place. A flee from a fuck--knowing just how the drive of the body, the self-expulsion feels when you have little choice but to leave; how you begin walking and huffing and walking faster, getting away from the place where you got away from yourself. Or where you got close to it. Isn’t it amazing how sometimes your body makes the decisions and leads you before you’re even aware? Doesn’t matter. Might matter. This story, from what transpires in a few mystical lines, might fall into the Cigarette-Romance section of modern literature. There’s a feeling of church in the cigarette scene. He is covering the odor of what he fled from, or he is doing the sign-o-the-unshapely-cross. I cannot tell. Everything can be anything in here. This is a certain beast.

Sam Michel’s "The Beast, Watered"

Dan?” she said.

“Yes?” said Harry.
“What’re you doing?” said the girl.
“Putting on my shoes,” Harry said.
“God,” said the girl.” What time is it?”
“Don’t know,” said Harry. “Two. Maybe three.”
The girl raised herself up on her elbow. He saw her
Watching him as he buttoned his shirt. He saw her hair
hanging down all on one side.
“God,” she said, and blinked.
He got his shirt tucked in. He stood with his arms hang-
ing at his sides, considering, then bent down to the girl
and put his face next to hers. He lifted her hair up into his
face. He rubbed her hair against his face. He breathed the
girl’s hair up into his face. The girl made a sound. He felt
the bed heat of the girl from underneath the covers.
“Got to go,” he said.
“Okay,” said the girl. “Dan?” she said.
“Yes?” said Harry.
“You’ll call me?” she said.
“Sure, you bet,” said Harry. “First chance I get.”

He walked fast, crossing the tracks, crossing the bridge,
trying to get things going. His breath came out in big
clouds. His teeth chattered. He hunched his shoulders and
kept walking. Along one full block of shop windows he
watched himself walk. At the end of the block he turned.
went past three doors, and then went into Ryan’s.
“Hey, Harry!” said the bartender. “What’s shakin?”
“Plenty,” said Harry.
He winked and rubbed his hands together. The bartender
Grinned and shook his head.
“Coors?” said the bartender.
“Nope,” said Harry. “Not tonight. Think I better have
some of that whiskey you got.”
“Comin up,” said the bartender.
“And a pack of something,” said Harry. “I don’t know—
something menthol. And matches.”
The bartender screwed up his eyes as he poured the
Seagram’s.
“You don’t smoke, do you?”
“Not much,” said Harry.
The bartender came over with the cigarettes and Harry
took a ten-dollar hill and a keno ticket from his wallet.
On the back of the keno ticket there was a telephone num-
ber written. Harry studied the curves of the writing. He lit
a cigarette. He saw himself in the bar mirror lighting the
cigarette. He held the cigarette near his chest and the smoke
curled around his shoulder and past the side of his head.
He tried to smile in the mirror. But did not like what he
saw there. He crumpled the keno ticket in his palm. Then
he held the cigarette down near his knees, watching the
smoke split itself around his leg. He kept moving the cig-
arette to different parts of his body, first with this hand,
then with that hand, to his lap, to his neck, his face. He
did not let go of the keno ticket. He watched himself.
“Hey, Harry,” said the bartender, “gonna smoke that
thing or not?”
Harry looked at the bartender. He crushed out the cig-
arette in the ashtray.
“Guess not,” he said.
“I don’t know about you,” said the bartender.
Harry filled his mouth with the whiskey and puffed out
his cheeks, rinsing. He moved his tongue over his teeth.
Then he put his nose to his shoulders and to his arms. He
pulled his shirtfront up to his nose. He raised his knee to
his nose. He checked once more in the mirror, then col-
lected his change, left a tip, and kept the keno ticket.

He took his shoes off in the hall and turned the key to
the door. The latch clicked. He held his breath, pushed
through the door, then closed it quietly behind him. He
had nearly made it to the bathroom. “Harry, honey? That you?”
He stood where he was.
“Yeah,” he said. His voice sounded funny to him. “It’s
me,” he said.
“God,” said the woman. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know. One, two.” He hated his voice. “Not
sure.”
He emptied his pockets, keeping the keno ticket in his
hand, and started taking off his clothes outside the bath-
room.
“What’ve you been doing?” said the woman.
“Oh, you know. Ryan’s”
He moved just outside the bedroom door. He could see
her in there, propped up on her elbow.
“Coming to bed?” she said.
“No,” he said. “Not unless you want to sleep with a
saloon. Think I’ll get a shower. Pretty smoky in that place.
Check these.”
He tossed his trousers and his shirt onto the bed and
turned to go to the bathroom.

In the bathroom, he took one more look at himself,
then squeezed the keno ticket into a tiny ball. He got on
his knees and dug through the bag under the sink. He dug
through tampons, through disposable razors, through hair,
and through wads of Kleenex before sticking the keno
ticket down at the bottom.
He shaved twice.
He urinated—and he noticed the smell!
It smelled to him as if he had been eating something
Funny. He stood there at the toilet awhile before flush-
ing it.
He turned on the shower and got the water very hot,
and waited in front of the mirror until the glass fogged.
He stepped into the shower, bent his neck, and let the water
wash down over his head. He tried not to think—not about
the funny smell or about the keno ticket or the cigarettes
or the girl’s hair. He let the water wash down over his
head until he no longer needed to try not to think. Then
he raised his head and let the water hit him in the chest.
He got out of the shower. But he did not get a towel.
Instead, he dropped to his knees, pulled the bag from under
the sink again, and began going through the tampons, the
hair, the Kleenex, the shit. He felt his heart beating. He dumped
the bag on the floor and spread the stuff out, his eyes
moving over everything, his fingers testing everything. He
tried to remember the girl’s face. He tried to remember her
voice. He tried to remember anything she had said or what
she had felt like when he had felt her. But there was only
the funny smell.
He kept pawing on his knees.