"I could write it all in the second person: you, Reader...I could also introduce a young lady, the Other Reader,¹ and a counterfeiter-translator, and an old writer who keeps a diary like this diary...."

- Italo Calvino, If on a summer night a traveler

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by Edward Lacie

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Episode Twelve

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That reminds me of something but I don't remember exactly what: Sheryl Lee becoming a star by accident. Eddie Murphy on SNL (Saturday Night Live), a background player that couldn't be kept down.

A SNL regular, Molly Shannon, will later make their television debut in a small part of an upcoming episode.

Which thread of my ongoing story do I pick up here? Which BB topic do I return to, adding a layer of paint or a shadow or flipping it on its head? I haven't talked much of Son of Sam because I don't know much about it. I only thought I knew. I contacted the FBI. The FBI listens. I was worried about being killed.

Some BB threads have been around since it began. I especially think of "Simple Pleasures," "Our Pets, Our Selves" and "Cute Kid Stories." Some threads are topical and some timely, related to current events, major or minor. A few have even been revived after a period of brumation.

"The Vision Thing" is usually meant in a sarcastic or tongue-in-cheek way by the editor, Dan Kelly, who attaches them in his own inimitable way. He sometimes, too, adds parenthetical comments which never take over the community feel of the column and daily web posting.

Audrey is being held for ransom. I think of my own hostage. I should too ask a ransom but first must contact someone who'd care.

Jim's pack has three cigarettes left. The pack of his that I smoked most of two days ago has three left also (as I type this I have a pack and a half left and no funds to get more in two days when I'll need them).

Audrey's tormentor is shot but the shootist unties only her torso (not her arms?) to hug her.

Billy Bibbit is a patient in in go in the ward with Mc-Mc-Murphy in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

Laura may have a second, a "secret" diary.² It may be stashed at Harold's, the Orchid Boy invalid. I disliked but identified with his character, his pale complexion  and wish to stay inside.

It's 4:09, too late to take a Trazedone now (I always waited too long to take them; I'm no longer working so my doctor now says why take them? good advice). I have another session this afternoon, my group. I've been there twice now and haven't mentioned that I'm keeping a prison at home in the basement whom I feed only once a day. 

Basements. Across the street. The duality of "Bouleversement" was the map I used to discover tunnels under the streets, like in the building I once rented in and lived in there in Spokane. The police station is across the street from the library where I researched my book (and would later read back issues of The JWR), made photocopies of my manuscripts. The cops had read them!

My current drama is so small compared to that. And it's now that I'm attending group sessions, even after relocation to an out-of-the-way office.

Do I dare stay up all night again? That, too, is making Jim mad. I have to decide soon if I mean to obtain ransom for my "guest" or if I should return to my original plot to kill him?

Before that I attended two sessions ("seasons" k.d. lang sings and I like that better and think of Rimbaud) at the clinic's former branch office closer to where Jim and I live. This getting jerked around is its own game and takes time, becomes the focus rather than (italics:) what am I doing there? What can I do to not be going there? That would not be good for their paychecks, curing people and having them gone, their insurance company's payments too. Plus the insurance people have to keep their jobs. Who is running this game, anyway?

First draft notes here compromise confidentiality and mention the members of the group, none of whom has the attendance regularity of me. I'm no better. I know it.

I do like this new therapist, Pam, but two visits does not a confidence cement. Cement, Washington. Twin Peaks, twin peaks in Africa. This is becoming a prose poem. 

I want to write poetry. Shame on me. I know better. I have the examples of Rimbaud and Baysans to show me, don't do it! There is no reward, it is a talent valuable only to history, never to the person himself, herself. Think Sylvia Plath. I shouldn't bring her into all this.

Yet the example Rimbaud provides also shows that a an meant to be a poet should not try to make his way in the world of commerce. How many times was he taken advantage of, repaying debts of his dead business partner largely to keep from being scalped? 

Greg Baysans left a typesetting job in Portland, Oregon, at a firm named DJC (Daily Journal of Commerce). The production manager, also supervisor of typesetting, Ali Hassannia, had no training in typography, the English language, or human relations. His position there was guarded by a gentleman's agreement³ only.

At this part of the "Twin Peaks" tapes I did a great job of pausing while commercials aired, so I'm not seeing many nor having to fast forward through them, my usual habit. That is a factor in there being only five and not more tapes. I'm nearing the half-way mark (but have only filled a quarter of this journal's pages).

Will I have to add notes? Explications? Attempt, after all these years, to write that poem, any poem?

Laura kept a secret diary and Maddy and Donna conspire. They're going to find it and read it and figure out who killed her.

That music. Reminding me of Eliot.

The end of the episode.