PRAYER TO THE HAND HOLDING THE STEEL-BRISTLE BRUSH
Paul Maliszewski
Yesterday I was preparing to take a shower when I saw the steel-bristle brush resting on the side of the tub. Well, perhaps it may be entirely possible that I saw it beforehand. Either that or it was the day before the day before. I think I’m now quite sure it’s possible that I saw it beforehand. I had left it there the night before today, meaning last night. As I recall I had left it right where I saw it again later. I’ve found that things usually stay where they’re left. I picked up the brush and drew it once across the underside of my arm. On the other hand, I may only be remembering that I saw the steelbristle brush resting on the side of the tub as I prepared to shower. Or else I may only be thinking that I remember.
On a lark, I suppose, is why I drew the brush across my skin.
Is it more accurate to say the edge of the tub than the side?
In conclusion, I had been cleaning some things the day before. Just some odd things. Found things. Well, they were things before I found them, to be sure. I find odd things on the street all the time, practically, things like metal parts, rock-sized chunks of glass, pieces of a toy, bolts. I find a lot of bolts these days. By which I mean I’m finding a lot of bolts lately. It strikes me that distinction was already clear or else clear enough. In any case, I typically will bring all these things home and add them to my collection. To be sure, I probably didn’t need to specify that the things were things before I found them either, but one hardly ever knows anymore what needs to be specified and what can be left the opposite of specified. However, I don’t quite know why I’m finding a lot of bolts these days, as opposed to what I found on all the other days not included in what I consider these days.
These days is roughly the last month or so, roughly.
One cannot help but wonder and worry how the things all these bolts fell out of are doing these days. If they’re running still. And getting along okay.
Can bolts be said to fall out of things? Or are bolts more likely to fall off of things?
Sometimes my friends give me things they find, as when Steve once presented me with an expired CO2 cartridge he found in the parking lot of his old high school. This was at least three years ago. When I say old high school what I really mean to say is only that it is the high school he attended. I don’t pretend to know how old it is or how old a high school must grow to be until it can be considered old.
It seems the height of ridiculousness to have to explain that I don’t actually find things on the street all the time, practically. Where, one wonders, would I have room for so many things, assuming I never stopped finding them? Only the world as it exists would offer sufficient room to store all the things one could find. And even then. I find found things on the street often is what I in fact meant to say, though they are things when I find them and things before I find them.
Cleaning the CO2 cartridge of rust and dirt was my immediate purpose for the steel-bristle brush being on the side of the tub when I saw it there. I may have received the cartridge well over three years ago. Now that I think of it. Or try to think of it. I now believe that edge of the tub makes more sense than side of the tub. It’s hard to recall when the cartridge came into my life, though I know for sure it’s here now because Steve gave it to me one day three years and four months ago today to the day. What I mean to say is, I left the steel-bristle brush on the edge of the tub because that’s where I’d been cleaning the CO2 cartridge. One wonders why I waited so long to clean it, but I have no answer.
Or no good answer.
Furthermore, it may be better to say I have no acceptable answer and leave it at that for now.
I’ve used the steel-bristle brush other times, to clean dirt or caked mud or dogshit and grass from the bottom of my boot.
How is my blood different from the blood of the saints? I will tell you how. They were of the world and I wear indoor skin.
I do have two boots, incidentally. By which I mean I do own two boots, a left and a right, a matching pair. One wonders if I’d written that I cleaned dirt and caked mud and such from the bottom of my boots if that would imply that both boots were always dirty and in need of cleaning at the same time. It would be the height of incorrectness to imply such a thing. Well, anybody who owns two boots knows that both boots rarely become dirty and in need of cleaning at the same time. One boot can be dirty and the other one can be clean.
That comparison about the blood of saints seems preposterous and maybe not what I meant to say, exactly. Though I think I thought I meant to say something entirely different while still using those exact same words. Comparisons do tend to get away from me. I think they get me into some trouble. Or can anyway.
What I’m trying to explain is that on certain days of heavy cloud cover and little daylight I pity myself. My behavior is all quite routine and predictable, the way it can be so precisely anticipated by the weather, the way it can be so clichéd. I spend long, unproductive, ultimately selfish hours engaged in various contests with myself. How long can I lie on this couch of my aunt’s staring at the bookshelves my father made? Without my glasses, I look at the colors of the books, gauge the sizes of the spines, and attempt to summon the titles from my memory. Then I make lemonade. Then I drink it. One wonders if it is in fact a cliché to say that something is cliché. It is, I’m sure. It always has been. One wonders if clichés are clichés in every language. That would be a hard one to find out, but perhaps worth the trouble to investigate. I stand behind the door to my apartment, depressing and releasing the intercom button to listen to the sounds in the lobby. Routine sounds, I suppose, people going about the business of their lives, comings and goings. I have seen a few of the people who live in my building. And so, that’s precisely what I’m trying to explain, more or less, I think.
I’m not sure it’s worth investigating whether clichés are clichés the world over. By which I mean they are, after all, still clichés. It strikes one that the subject may not be worth the trouble after all.
When I say comparisons get me into trouble, what I mean to say is that I’d very much like to try to avoid them.
Surprisingly, time does tend to get away from me and so, before I know it, it’s time for dinner and time to do something necessary, useful even.
When I say I’d like to try to avoid comparisons, what I mean to say is that I’d very much like to try to avoid relying on them. I mean, one can hardly find a way to avoid them completely. It seems the height of ridiculousness to stop and try to make this clear.
It is as I am drawing the steel-bristle brush across my arm that I wonder what exactly do I think I’m doing anyway. Or else I think now that that’s what I was thinking then, when it happened. In fact it’s so difficult to separate one from the other, my memory of the event from the event itself. One is tempted to say that there is no difference, but that hardly seems responsible, or even called for. Does it? If ridiculousness isn’t a word it should be. I’d like to keep this account from getting that sloppy, if possible. Impose some order on the account perhaps? Keep things all in a line at the very least? That is why I can say for certain that I was asking myself some questions as the brush went across the top of my arm. Is it the indoor skin I’m trying to remove? The pity? The sense of gloom? And if so then is the evidence found written on the underside of my arm, right where the brush went across, in the hundred small scratches now filling up with the hundred lines of blood?
One of those questions strikes me as the exact one I asked myself at that very moment.
I of course don’t mean that the question struck me. The question caused no injury or at least left no mark. But one can and does say that the oddest things strike one or sometimes hit one when what one really means in fact is that they simply occur, things happen, things occur to one, right then and sometimes suddenly, almost out of nowhere, or seemingly anyway. After all, nothing really comes out of absolutely nowhere, that much is clear. Or should be. Nothing comes out of nowhere.