I LOVE LIFE by SAM ROBINSON
September 9 20241. Life of a Salesman
I was the hottest guy in the office, and I burned it all to the ground.
Now already, if you know me, you’d be calling me a liar. “But Sam,” you’d say, “you’re bald, you’ve been smoking since you were 16 and avoiding sunblock. You’ve got beady eyes, flesh-bony protrusions on the forehead from raising and furrowing your brows so much in quizzical self-satisfaction, a fucking cleft lip and palate, a facial birth defect, for Christ sakes. Not only that, but you’re just impotently complaining and venting your power fantasies”
I can’t deny this, would never deny, in fact I find it best practice to affirm every accusation against me! Let us remain equal to our crimes— by doing so I affirm myself and you alike, generous as I am— surely you trust your judgment enough of what you see, I’m only a picture to everybody but myself. And I’d like to think it’s tragically beautiful. Just look at the stunning beauties I’ve loved— evolutionary psychologists will tell you people sort into their mutual tiers of attractiveness, but I’ve never trusted the aesthetic judgment of women or scientists, with two or three exceptions. Perhaps you think my surroundings must be fucked up, for me to act this way and say these things— I won’t bore you with the gory details just yet, and I don’t believe that anyway. Milieu theories are for neurotics, and I am safe and comfortable everywhere— have no fear— watch the dynamic agent within make the world around it, sui generis. Suffice to say, it’s easy to stand out as the one vital body in a hall of corpses. I’m playing the violin in a mausoleum and my little hat is on the ground printed with realtree camo, bedecked with the logo and brand name of a hardware conglomerate. Throw your coin within.
Have you ever worked in sales? A lot of lying is required of you. Talking every sort of heinous shit about a customer as you watch them walk past the glass, into the vestibule, even as they cross the next threshold to the showroom, and then putting away childish things so you can get down to pleasant business, speaking good words and purchase order numbers. Hell we can skip the PO, if you’ve got an open account with an active credit line, I’m open to being friendly. Even if your account is shut off I’m willing to give you the material and write it up in the future if I remember and feel so inclined or desperate to hit my projections at the time (even if half the time I forget, then play dumb when there’s problems with inventory), and I’m never desperate. Can’t relate to your worries! The money is always coming to me, walking through the front door as soon as I start eating my lunch.
Tom Dupree, my co-worker working you, a-thief at the counter beside me, asks if we’ve got a fucking sign out there, or a telepathic alarm set in the heads of every bum customer to come from far and wide as soon as soup is on. Call out, ring the bell, waste my time and give me what I need. The invoice is coming later, not from me but from a larger and more obscure entity. You can’t trust me but you can trust me. I’m not even sure it’s possible to lie anymore— I can only point at the truth, however obliquely. When you stand on the other side of the counter from me, my face is always genuine— I am happy to make money off of you, and I smile, and it’s not unctuous or cloying. Picture a cross of contempt and admiration. I’m nailed to it and I’m sort of a holy foolish masochist. Or at least I used to be— at some point I pierced the veil and felt satanic dominant energy, but that’s another story. We're not talking about Eros or Eris or any other pagan divinities. We’re talking business.
We’re talking door hardware— hinges, closers, automatic operators, electromechanical operators, hydraulic operators, mortise locks, knobs, levers, passage sets, privacy sets, entrance function or office function, classroom? Maybe storeroom? Electric strikes, 12 or 24 volt, AC? DC? They make them field-selectable now because it’s careless dilettantes like me behind the counter. Access control, integrated security systems, cameras, key fobs, card readers, sequences, programmers, facility codes (how numb can I make your mind?), and my first love, the lock & key. Much like my first human love we don’t speak so much anymore, but I’ll always hold the memories with a sour gratitude for my introduction to a grinding world I hadn’t known before. Louis XVI was known to be obsessed with keys and locks and have a worthless cock— in some ways I feel like him— mostly my aristocratic contempt for all labor. Every day a stooped man encrusted with grease, dirt and metal shavings wanders into my showroom, and tries to lord his life of manual labor over me. Yeah, I send emails and I look gay— you should be dead! And you live that way! Looking at his portrait I find a plump face and kind eyes. We’re certainly living after the flood. Trying to relate to barnacles is driving me to psychosis.
South Boston only retains its inhabitance through inertia. People were there, and new people are there for no discernible reason. They could be anywhere. Seagulls and dead fish hang in the air, in the summer heat floating and impressing the reality of an ocean nearby that for all intents and purposes is invisible. I shit you not that the parking lot is bedecked by the Trees of Heaven, the ghetto palm, invasive illusion of life in heat— if you saw a picture you might think it’s Arizona. Old men drift in on the breeze to call me a faggot under their breath and fork over money by the hundreds and thousands for premium security products. Fish come from the ocean and dead fish come from the processing facility next door, clad in corrugated steel hastily painted blue. There’s a listing smokestack, out of use for decades, and across the back street is a squat, ugly development of “luxury” condos. I think the first floors were initially intended to house retail but it never came, and so they have public viewing gyms for the tenants. I’ve never really seen anybody beautiful in one of these places, and trust me, I’ve been looking. Instead I see the whole neighborhood full of dog shit and abandoned industrial sites just waiting to be turned into more apartment buildings. No laboratories yet, this area is dumber and kinder on the whole than the rest of the city— there are many more dogs than people, and I don’t just mean on some crude biological basis, I mean I work in a kennel. There are chickens here too, and insects and rare stallions and lizards— I can see the soul of every man. I can see where they were in their last incarnation, and that they never had the guile to do something really evil— petty, yes; wicked, of course; but evil and grand, destroying a giant work for a dazzling fire that surpasses it if only for a moment because that moment is worth it more than anybody else’s life is to you, I really don’t think so.
Sometimes the lovely homeowners come in off the street to get their house keys cut. Vulgar nouveau riches, It’s more a pain in the ass to write up an order for two keys than it is worth it to get paid, so I’ll take cash or just let them leave. They look at me quizzically, not trusting my gift, but what could the trick be? The keys don’t work and they come back and I deny they were ever here because the receipt is lacking? Sounds like fun. I must confess that I become temporarily struck by kafkaesque motivations out of my contempt for wealthy homeowners who seek to do specialized tradework on their own, to save on the labor cost and get their hands dirty for a boost of self-esteem— Sure I send emails all day but I’m still a man, dammit— well I send emails all day and I’m not a man, I’m greater than.
2. Down-going
An alarm rings out to hail my awakening— I chose the “Sci-Fi” sound after subjecting myself to the default tone for most of my life— reminds me of Space— outer and open I so long to see— rising sweaty from a bed too small— tropically I seek proliferation, expansion, intensification— little flies approaching a pastry left on the countertop— ants crawling up to my bottle of glycine in the heavy humid June [I have no inherent trouble sleeping— I knock on wood— on earth— on concrete floor— only seeking to maximize]— let me see all its diversity and judge accordingly— what emerges from the tropical bestiary of human beings? Something exotic. I’ve always wanted to die doing something— not the suicidal contrivance of a scenario to kill me, but rather do something to the fullest such that I expend myself completely. When I surf the big wave I want it to throw me aloft and dash me against the cliffs, so consumed I expire— I dub this jagged fatal love Maenad’s Rock! Of thee I sing, land where my fathers died.
Their holy foolish son risen, climbing how deep from my mother do I love my father the open sky. All knowing spiritual love is what I would call it— boring is what makes you rich but I’m a spender— expender— deeper into the mountainside that splits the world in twain part the hair of tides at earthsea— it goes in and out in and out in and out in and I choose drowning in an inch of water like a child or fucking moron enraptured by the glittering image over undifferentiated life mature in its composure replete with shrinking dying water down blood body and soul— what’s best is what I lust for— rare fatal immortal fame— I was made to be a bard or a tyrant, in either case ruling by violence and intrigue, and never a successful shepherd.
I’m prodigal with my time and my life. Nothing goes to waste when I spend everything. How do you feel in a casino? Oh, isn’t it sad to see people, your dear and fellow human beings, sitting hunched and backlit, shrunken as evil dwarves, rubbing away fingerprints on the screen of a slot machine? When I see that I think, they’re free to commit any crime of passion, if only they could feel its peculiar burn. When I see that I think of a trapped and lovely dog digging through a carpet to the hardwood floor underneath. It wants to be free! & it wants so purely that its claws break— the gambler is acting on a noble impulse— the desire to free oneself from work at any cost. I don’t mean the expenditure of effort— I don’t mean the exercise of strength— I don’t mean POWER, I mean WORK, the necessary and sufficient condition of which is DRUDGERY.
Overcoming struggle isn’t work, it’s play: AGON— You wouldn’t get it— how to die and continue onward—Mantras of the left hand path— Buddhism for the white man— accruing bad karma [by any means, I live as destructively as possible— and I include by accident— intention is unnecessary— only a smokescreen to us— what matters is the things we do, not what we imagine to be their origin]— the secret to eternal life so sought after in the West. I am conquering and colonizing every link on the great chain of being. I am rust and my hand is outside me, gritted and stroking my universal removal— climbing to the summit just to fall back down and start again. I am exercising my arms and legs through vigorous practice of attachment and cannot-let-go, becoming a snake— a cat— a horse— a lion— the chariot driver again trampling all. I am spending a thousand years in hell [on earth— in heat— in love] for every drop of blood. I am trapped in samsara and I will enjoy and affirm it forever. I am never tired of the turning wheel that sweeps me up and crushes me down. I am a sadist destined for the greatest gift— knowing all through the infliction of pain. I am a masochist destined for the greatest gift— my exquisite individual torture for eternity. I am a wanderer who will be here now and be there later and be everywhere at some point. I am in love with life on earth and will never let Nature go from my embrace.
Beside a dead pine tree my brain is frying. I ate six eggs this morning and the Sun rose for me— for me! Not you— did you eat the yolk? It earns no interest just sitting there it earns dust a percent of a percent so empty out the brine and put it to use— there is one way we can get fresh air into a church— by burning it down. I live off fat and caffeine, anything else I can get my hands and mouth on really. I’m metabolically blessed— not for my appearance mind you, I have to starve for that, but knocking on wood as I write this, I’ve never had digestive issues. Just built different, right? I drink dairy and eat red meat and candy and that dread Hemorrhoid has never assailed me. My knuckles are bloody from the knocking.
Commute my sentence, a shitty journey— I know I did something bad in past life— I’m guilty and unashamed— I should have done something worse— I descend into a hole to get where I need to go, exiting another hole across the city. Somewhere in the red intestines I find a familiar polyp once such as myself— Johnny Wad lived to rock— you should have seen this guy, the most ghoulishly sexy gals and boys hanging off his every screamed and grunted word— until he fell in love that is, in love with a men’s regular haircut bread & butter gay, sold his strat and bought a lawn mower and a case of brews. He told me I scratched that itch— that ache— something was missing and it was a bowl of boiled starch— goes all the way down.
He’s gone straight, and replaced the nail polish with dirt— shit, maybe. That domestic pastoral fantasy makes my skin crawl, but different stroke, folk, whatever— what’s best is to be yourself at any cost, including my disgust. Only thing is, this guy is a soft-paw dog, bred for show such as myself, and there is no ex-, you are what you are and for most people it isn’t much.
So a wandering singer sees a sexy guy and burns his lute to cook him dinner— it tastes like shit because he’s used to eating shit, he only eats when he’s drunk and the coke wears off and it makes everything taste so good— but love changes us, now he’s doughy and his throat was always sore from drunken song and still it’s sore but chastely so, praising the value of hard honest work. I’m saving up to buy a house but I can’t stop snacking— and think of how I used to be, just leeching through life on the labor of others— now I have dignity.
He ran into a blonde beast and lost everything. Ended up working for the guy, basically enslaved himself— we ran into each other on the subway one wan Friday morning— O John! How come your pastoral fantasy runs through Central Square Cambridge? The sixth hour of the morning is the hour of the demon so I set alarm for 5:40 often snoozing and springing from a bed to meet a world empty at that time, streets bearing only red-light runners and a giant forehead under pink hair. I’m standing on it as housefly, free of oikoumene and just fly— I’m not going to work today, I’m going straight to copulate and perish as is my due but there is nobody around to fuck or kill me— it must be time to jack off, self-immolate and see from behind the veil whether I will live on forever or be forgotten— the die cast, I’m gambling with an evil dwarf that lives on the back of my neck who I call “dear friend.”
When am I ever alone? The world clings to me in attachment. Happy couples like an algae bloom— homeostatic misery is disrupted, the environment is going to regulate us out of existence. So much combustible material has amassed and it walks down the street hand in hand— all weight carried by the lesser half— what polarity! So the thing sinks, is heavier than air, displaces fluid on its descent and reaches the earth a tear drop of strong glass, as long as the tail doesn’t twitch, in which case the whole thing obliterates. A thousand atmospheres of pressure, compress you now into a foil and the heat of transformation will distill you to a tincture, then drink. This book is on fire and it says the same thing over and over again— this book is on fire.
When I step off the train I’ve entered Hell— there’s a man with a water bottle and trash bag sticking out of his pants, and everybody’s chin wags following their neck. Man is a shameful animal. Beware to the wolves! You will return to the place you found easy food and end up as a wheezing blob— and we have been feeding ourselves for thousands of years. Walking through Boston is like walking through a graveyard— how do you think I feel? I love life.
Sam Robinson is a writer from Massachusetts whose work has appeared in Blue Arrangements, Spectra, No More Prostitutes, Hobart Pulp and elsewhere. He is also the author of a chapbook, New Age Self Help (Bottlecap Press, 2024) and the singer and lyricist of the band Be Released.
Substack: sunworship.substack.com