Feverland

Alex Lemon

Description

“Alex Lemon is a brave, headlong writer, and he captures the life of the body with vivid and memorable intensity.”—Mark Doty

Brain surgery. Assault weapons in the bed of a pickup truck. Sophia Loren at the Oscars. Rilke, Rodin, and the craters of the moon. Recovery and disintegration. Monkeys stealing an egg outside a temple in Kathmandu. Brushing teeth bloody on long car rides under blue skies. Pain, ours and what we bring to others. Wildfires in southern California. Rats in Texas. Childhood abuse. Dreams of tigers and blackout nights. The sweetness of mangoes. A son born into a shadowy hospital room. Love. Joy.

In Feverland, Alex Lemon has created a fragmented exploration of what it means to be a man in the tumult of twenty-first-century America—and a harrowing, associative memoir about how we live with the beauties and horrors of our pasts. How to move forward, Lemon asks, when trapped between the demons of one’s history and the angels of one’s better nature? How to live in kindness—to become a caring partner and parent—when one can muster very little such tenderness for oneself? How to be here, now? How to be here, good?

Immersed in darkness but shot through with light, Feverland is a thrillingly experimental memoir from one of our most heartfelt and inventive writers.

EKG


I heart the rock-and-roll stardust, steroids that let you live, all the spilled love and still being alive. I heart Twizzlers, tangerines, until the stomach can’t take any more. I heart knots, the perfect peel. I heart the heaving. I heart banging my head when I fall in the shower, banging my head on the curb. I heart making out in the ghosting cold. I heart the lips warm. I heart shame on me. Novocain, hydrocodone is what I heart. Ativan, Percocet, I heart you, too. Heart a handful of heart-shaped candies. I heart the moist perfume of Whoppers on the fingers I kiss. I heart the past—drinking through the blackouts and onward, crashing ass over piehole down the apartment stairs. Pills, I heart pills. I heart waking with my head’s dried blood glued to the pillow. I heart asparagus-and-beet salad dusted with manchego. Not remembering speaking to you, that is what I heart. What did I say? I heart. I heart it all wrong, I heart it until it shatters into a thousand sharp hummingbirds. I heart my mother pushing my wheelchair through leaves along the barge-clanging Mississippi. I heart muggings, the quick cut, the knockdown. I heart shame on you. I heart it right. I heart keeping my fingers crossed. I heart going for long, cane-dragging walks, smoking cigarette after cigarette in Minnesota’s winter air—puffing myself light-headed, until I fall into the snow. Too deep, I heart, too long. I heart having nothing while pretending to have it all. I heart every last joint that I’ve smoked, every pop, every line. I heart the pretty. I heart instead, maybe, might. I can’t see, I heart you. I heart walking blindly into traffic. I heart still believing in something better. Still believing, I heart. I believe, I heart. I heart dead animals beneath my bed, in the walls. I heart visitors. I heart I am not home. I heart songs that go on too long. I heart a tight chest. I can’t breathe, I heart. Numb face, too, I heart. I heart amphetamines, amphetamines, amphetamines. The shock of the coldest water, I heart. The ugly, the ugliest, I heart you, too. The belly-up flies on the windowsill, I heart, the orange peels drying in the sun. I heart making love premorning. I heart that assemblage, the way it all falls down. I heart never getting tired. I heart not being able to get out of bed. Codeine my heart, I heart. I heart the bed spins that come each night, the vertigo that makes me claw the air. I heart the butcher beneath my ribs. I heart it all wrong. I heart no speed limit and flicking my headlights off. I heart swerving beneath the moonlight. I heart the kitchen with the oven baking bread. I heart the midnight inside me, nail-holed with starlight. I heart the slowdown, the traffic jam. I heart gutting walleye along the shore, the turtles sunning on rocks. The guts, I heart. I heart your body. Your body, I heart. I heart the darkness my boy tells me he knows. His thundering run through our home, I heart—the way he starfishes in his sleep. I heart the bruise of watching him grow up too fast. The good burn and blister of my daughter’s fat-cheeked grin, I heart. I heart knowing I can do nothing about the pain the world will deliver upon them. I heart trying to soak up as much hurt as I can. I heart there is no time to give up, there is so little time. The art of the impossible, I heart. The heart, I heart, I heart. Each ache inside me, I heart. Open windows in winter and blue skies, I heart. That hard work of the heart, I heart. The heart overripe, I heart, the heart always raw. The heart churning, I heart, the heart aflame. The good heart gone bad, I heart, the good heart always coming back. The chandelier heart, I heart, its wicked sparkle, its champion gleam. I heart this heart, this last, this only, this heart glowing swollen because always, we are all about to die.

CONTENTS

EKG

I Was Already Ready When I Was Dead

Migrants in a Feverland (CL)

Kissing God

King of the Rats

Migrants in a Feverland (MN)

My Misogyny

Heartdusting

I Can Hold My Breath Forever

Things That Are: On Pleasure

Migrants in a Feverland (LV)

Like So Many Nightmares

Migrants in a Feverland (NYC)

Rabbit Hole Music

Way Up High Way Down Low

Migrants in a Feverland (NM)

Becoming Animal: A History

How Long Before You Go Dry

All Night the Cockroaches

Migrants in a Feverland (TX)

Fuck the Alamo or Never Forget

Notes

Acknowledgments

Sujets

• People with Disabilities
• Personal Memoirs
• men
• contemporary
• health
• Biography
• Memoir
• General officer
• General
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: Milkweed Editions
• Date de parution: 11 septembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781571318428
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

2017, Text by Alex Lemon
2017, Cover art by Anders Nilsen
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Milkweed Editions, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Suite 300, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415.
[phone]
milkweed.org
Published 2017 by Milkweed Editions
Cover design by Anders Nilsen and Mary Austin Speaker
Cover illustration by Anders Nilsen
Author photo by Ariane Balizet
First Edition
17 18 19 20 21 5 4 3 2 1
Milkweed Editions, an independent nonprofit publisher, gratefully acknowledges sustaining support from the Jerome Foundation; the Lindquist Vennum Foundation; the McKnight Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Target Foundation; and other generous contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. Also, this activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund, and a grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation. For a full listing of Milkweed Editions supporters, please visit milkweed.org .

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lemon, Alex, author.
Title: Feverland: a memoir in shards / Alex Lemon.
Description: First edition. | Minneapolis, Minnesota: Milkweed Editions, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017011038 (print) | LCCN 2017029387 (ebook) | ISBN 9781571318428 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Lemon, Alex. | Poets, American-21st century-Biography.
Classification: LCC PS3612.E468 (ebook) | LCC PS3612.E468 Z46 2017 (print) | DDC 811/.6 [B]-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017011038
Milkweed Editions is committed to ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book production practices with this principle, and to reduce the impact of our operations in the environment. We are a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the world s endangered forests and conserve natural resources. Feverland was printed on acid-free 100% postconsumer-waste paper by Thomson-Shore.
For Ariane, Felix, and Alma-my everythings
Contents

EKG
I Was Already Ready When I Was Dead
Migrants in a Feverland
Kissing God
King of the Rats
Migrants in a Feverland
My Misogyny
Heartdusting
I Can Hold My Breath Forever
Things That Are: On Pleasure
Migrants in a Feverland
Like So Many Nightmares
Migrants in a Feverland
Rabbit Hole Music
Way Up High Way Down Low
Migrants in a Feverland
Becoming Animal: A History
How Long Before You Go Dry
All Night the Cockroaches
Migrants in a Feverland
Fuck the Alamo; or, Never Forget: A Mixtape

Notes
Acknowledgments
How is it that you live, and what is it you do?

-WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin.

-MARY SHELLEY, FRANKENSTEIN

My ambitions are very old and simple and almost always unvoiced. I want to be whole. I do not know what this condition would feel like and there is no advice on the matter that convinces me. I am not exactly sure what whole means, and to be honest, it sounds too much like being finished.

-CHARLES BOWDEN, SOME OF THE DEAD ARE STILL BREATHING: LIVING IN THE FUTURE

If at home, sir,
He s all my exercise, my mirth, my matter,
Now my sworn friend and then mine enemy,
My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all:
He makes a July s day short as December,
And with his varying childness cures in me
Thoughts that would thick my blood.

-WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, THE WINTER S TALE
EKG
I heart the rock-and-roll stardust, steroids that let you live, all the spilled love and still being alive. I heart Twizzlers, tangerines, until the stomach can t take any more. I heart knots, the perfect peel. I heart the heaving. I heart banging my head when I fall in the shower, banging my head on the curb. I heart making out in the ghosting cold. I heart the lips warm. I heart shame on me. Novocain, hydrocodone is what I heart. Ativan, Percocet, I heart you, too. Heart a handful of heart-shaped candies. I heart the moist perfume of Whoppers on the fingers I kiss. I heart the past-drinking through the blackouts and onward, crashing ass over piehole down the apartment stairs. Pills, I heart pills. I heart waking with my head s dried blood glued to the pillow. I heart asparagus-and-beet salad dusted with manchego. Not remembering speaking to you, that is what I heart. What did I say? I heart. I heart it all wrong, I heart it until it shatters into a thousand sharp hummingbirds. I heart my mother pushing my wheelchair through leaves along the barge-clanging Mississippi. I heart muggings, the quick cut, the knockdown. I heart shame on you. I heart it right. I heart keeping my fingers crossed. I heart going for long, cane-dragging walks, smoking cigarette after cigarette in Minnesota s winter air-puffing myself light-headed, until I fall into the snow. Too deep, I heart, too long. I heart having nothing while pretending to have it all. I heart every last joint that I ve smoked, every pop, every line. I heart the pretty. I heart instead, maybe, might. I can t see, I heart you. I heart walking blindly into traffic. I heart still believing in something better. Still believing, I heart. I believe, I heart. I heart dead animals beneath my bed, in the walls. I heart visitors. I heart I am not home. I heart songs that go on too long. I heart a tight chest. I can t breathe, I heart. Numb face, too, I heart. I heart amphetamines, amphetamines, amphetamines. The shock of the coldest water, I heart. The ugly, the ugliest, I heart you, too. The belly-up flies on the windowsill, I heart, the orange peels drying in the sun. I heart making love premorning. I heart that assemblage, the way it all falls down. I heart never getting tired. I heart not being able to get out of bed. Codeine my heart, I heart. I heart the bed spins that come each night, the vertigo that makes me claw the air. I heart the butcher beneath my ribs. I heart it all wrong. I heart no speed limit and flicking my headlights off. I heart swerving beneath the moonlight. I heart the kitchen with the oven baking bread. I heart the midnight inside me, nailholed with starlight. I heart the slowdown, the traffic jam. I heart gutting walleye along the shore, the turtles sunning on rocks. The guts, I heart. I heart your body. Your body, I heart. I heart the darkness my boy tells me he knows. His thundering run through our home, I heart-the way he starfishes in his sleep. I heart the bruise of watching him grow up too fast. The good burn and blister of my daughter s fat-cheeked grin, I heart. I heart knowing I can do nothing about the pain the world will deliver upon them. I heart trying to soak up as much hurt as I can. I heart there is no time to give up, there is so little time. The art of the impossible, I heart. The heart, I heart, I heart. Each ache inside me, I heart. Open windows in winter and blue skies, I heart. That hard work of the heart, I heart. The heart overripe, I heart, the heart always raw. The heart churning, I heart, the heart aflame. The good heart gone bad, I heart, the good heart always coming back. The chandelier heart, I heart, its wicked sparkle, its champion gleam. I heart this heart, this last, this only, this heart glowing swollen because always, we are all about to die.

I WAS ALREADY READY WHEN I WAS DEAD

I have seen such things as they occur in some remote and improbable time.

-C. D. WRIGHT
I m trying to read poems, to find solace in language, but really I m just sitting in my living room with the TV on. BURN IN THE USA is stamped across the ticker of the ten o clock news. A slideshow of images-charcoal drawings from the day s Zacarias Moussaoui trial-run alongside it. I flick the TV volume up. Listen as the blindingly white teeth of the anchor snap and click over courtroom drawings, as audio of 911 calls crackles over the video everyone has seen a hundred times more than they d like to: the jet vanishing into the thousand-eyed building, smoke billowing into the New York morning as leapers drop to the earth, dust-faced gawkers pointing at the shuddering tower as it begins to fold downward.
Cut back to the news desk. The newscasters stare wordlessly, motionlessly, into the camera for a second, then another-so long the moment seems frozen-until something signals the two to churn back to life. The woman turns to her coanchor. The camera zooms in on his mannequin face. Another death statistic drops woodenly from his mouth. I hit mute.
Above the TV, one of my stepfather s paintings hangs half-cocked, a beautiful landscape of bruised woods shrouded by night. The trees are Giacometti-like, black-and-blue apparitions. Slatherings of moonlight crawl between the trunks and branches. Often I imagine clambering into it. The moonlight hot, rushing the blood. Boughs snapping above and around me, as if the cage of my life had been welded together from millions of breaking ribs.
Though my brain surgery-in which a vascular malformation was removed from my brain stem-was seven years ago, still my entire body hurts. My health is detonating. Each day my disabilities seem to worsen.
The cat head-butts my blistered hand, prodding and ramming until I cup her tiny skull. She purrs and pivots in my palm, and kneads her claws against my belly. It is hours past her feeding time. On the coffee table in front of us, atop a pile of tattered magazines, my cell phone jumps. My entire body jolts in surprise. Catface leaps off me and sprints out of the room. I listen to her scamper down the basement steps, scrabble up a mound of unpacked boxes, and then claw and slink into the paneled ceiling, and I am reminded of my aloneness. Lonely in t