John Wilmes

As I’m going through this awful break-up, I feel that the animals should only be in the zoos so to watch the humans. My crying, in public—as the pain invades the numb shock—is present only in short, cacophonous bursts; my decades of socialization have cause it to cut off before it becomes the blubbery mess it could be, in front of Chicago. The sensation is entirely involuntary. And it’s wordless like the break-up conversation might as well have been; words are said, plenty of them, but they’re ultimately just the texture of mine and her’s confused, angsty horse-wails.

John Wilmes

My friend Bradshaw’s been out of a home for some weeks now. A year or so ago, the owner of the building Bradshaw rented in, in Chicago, was foreclosed upon—and not just in Bradshaw’s building. The owner was held up to a debt in the range of thirty million dollars, spread across many foreclosed-upon properties, and he thus fled to his native Ukraine.

John Wilmes

My friend Bradshaw’s been out of a home for some weeks now. A year or so ago, the owner of the building Bradshaw rented in, in Chicago, was foreclosed upon—and not just in Bradshaw’s building. The owner was held up to a debt in the range of thirty million dollars, spread across many foreclosed-upon properties, and he thus fled to his native Ukraine.Success, that indomitable wall of my imagination. It’s a wall I so want to climb, however hard it may be, however long it may take, however much blood it spills from me to scale it. I so want to publish plentifully, to perform my thinking and craft for a living; I so want to be something like my own master—I want this more than anything. But I’d have to know where this wall even is, first. Because as things stand, I can’t be quite sure that I’m even running in its direction; I’m shrouded by the fog of not knowing, handed down to me by my working-class family, and extenuated by the lack of ambition that’s defined most of my young life.

John Wilmes

Success, that indomitable wall of my imagination. It’s a wall I so want to climb, however hard it may be, however long it may take, however much blood it spills from me to scale it. I so want to publish plentifully, to perform my thinking and craft for a living; I so want to be something like my own master—I want this more than anything. But I’d have to know where this wall even is, first. Because as things stand, I can’t be quite sure that I’m even running in its direction; I’m shrouded by the fog of not knowing, handed down to me by my working-class family, and extenuated by the lack of ambition that’s defined most of my young life.

John Wilmes

on above me, at all times, humming and gaudy through all of my hours on this MacBook. I’m searching desperately for the magical link, to get the least fuzzy, least choppy, and least commercial-addled illegal stream of a pro basketball game. My team the Bulls is in even worse sorts than I am. I’d tell you about it, if it didn’t completely debilitate my soul.

I smoke as much weed as I can find, but I can’t find much.

John Wilmes

I’m playing piano at a bar. It’s just 7 PM on a summer Tuesday in Chicago, and I’m sort of drunk in my sky-blue tie.

I don’t really know how to play piano, in any sort of academic sense, but I know that if you’re hitting, exclusively, the white keys, and that if you’ve got a sense of rhythm, and that if you’ve got anything like a ‘feel’ that then—then you can’t really go too wrong. This much has gotten me dates with girls I didn’t really like, at this bar in the near-northwest side of Chicago; this much is keeping me company with myself in this bar, with two old men and a blaring TV screen.

John Wilmes

Millenium Park, Chicago, in the bandshell seats. Jonathan Richman on stage.

Nearby a small boy is flailing his arms and legs almost imperceptibly, with his Hummingbird energy; I believe he is attempting flotation, and my roommate, next to me on my right, is talking about how important it is to observe these young kids dancing this way, while they’re still willing to do it. The little boy’s smile is the biggest thing in sight but his father isn’t amused. ‘When he’s thirteen, he’s not going to want to dance that way anymore. When he’s twenty-three, he’ll have to get *really drunk* to do it.’