Page 3: Roxanne (1979) vs. Roxanne (2019).

I was wondering how long it would take people to make the connection between Arizona Zervas’ 2019 single “Roxanne” and the 1979 version of the song by The Police. What a difference 40 years in America make, because in seventy-nine The Police were solidly committed to a version of Roxanne that painted her as a quasi-victim in need of saving by…..The Police, or whatever individual cishet dude one wants to disaggregate The Police into.

Fast-forward to 2019 and, yeah, she think [you’re] an asshole and yeah all she wanna do is party all night and yeah, she never gonna love [you] but it’s alright and yeah, most definitely, she keep running back though / only cuz [you] pay up. 2019 Roxanne is done with everybody’s bullshit. 2019 Roxanne is a bitch who loves the ‘Gram, who don’t give any fucks, who just wants her money.

Think about this: if I were a teen boy on The Internet and sang all the words I’m typing instead of actually typing them right now, I’d be selling out stadiums on a world tour and developing my own clothing line. With the right face and the right haircut, obviously. With the right emo party hair and the proper supply of cocaine.

I hereby pronounce myself dead.

I pronounce myself dead not once, twice, but daily. Minute by minute, breath by breath I’m buried.

The first time I died was ever-ever-ago, or more precisely: October 26, 2021. “Roxanne” was playing on the phone that day. 2019 Roxanne, not 1979 Roxanne. It was a day the rain came down in dregs, in droves, soaking piles of fallen leaves and filling up the clogged cast iron gutters until they overflowed and pooled water in the streets — glimmering lakes of chemical residue and refuse.

The dog was refusing to leave the deck, a rarity, and instead remained frozen in an unnatural sitting position, her hips uneven, crouched beneath the soffit. I took her picture. I did. (Bitches love the ‘Gram!). I forced her by leash into the streets and she must have known, already, what was going to happen.

My dog’s bones are good and sturdy. Despite having been broken before I got her, and healed without any vet care, my dog’s bones are 100% solid and she can prognosticate the smell of blood from miles away.

Page 2: Don’t get me wrong…

…. I love my city, born and bred.

A conversation once overheard in St. Louis, Missouri: two Americans asked two Brits on the 4th of July if the British celebrate the 4th of July. And the Brits responded, dryly, as only Brits can: “Um, no, because we don’t celebrate treason…..”

We celebrate treason here in Massachusetts. Tea in the Harbor, etcetera. Fireworks so year-round they’re nonsensical. Celebrating what? Reverberating trauma. Signs posted by the City read: “Hey Boston! Be a good neighbor! Don’t cause trauma. Don’t cause stress. Don’t shoot off fireworks.” So of course everyone shoots off fireworks. In July as in January. Unknowable most of the time what’s gunshots, what’s firecrackers. Bombs. Cop-knocks on the front door that turn out to be the USPS man telling you he’s not leaving your package on the motherfucking porch, so help him God, he will hand it to you, so help him God, he will not leave that motherfucker on the motherfucking porch.

When I rode in the back of the BPD cruiser with my dog 15 months ago the cop had an Irish accent. Not Irish-American. Not like from Southie. Irish-Irish. I found myself wondering if the Boston Police have some kind of cop exchange program. Like was there a Boston cop in Ireland right now? My dog and I were soaking wet from the rain and the Irish cop wanted to take me Downtown to make “a statement,” but I didn’t want to leave my dog. My dog was wearing my red Alpha Industries bomber jacket, buttoned around her chest. “Downtown is no place for a dog,” he told me. In the end I had to leave her.

(She’s still very much alive. She’s still teaching English. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.)

My dog is a good dog. A sturdy dog.

My dog is the Webb telescope of the olfactory, muzzle to the ground, at all times delivering up scent landscapes humans can only tangentially grasp: bouquets at the very edges of perception.

When I returned home after making “a statement,” everybody was looking at me like a clinician.

Everybody was looking at me like a clinician. And the dog, in her housedress, demanded nothing.

Page 1: Ghostwriter

It’s hard to explain why I started picking up trash off the streets, but probably has something to do with the fact that I walk in it every day. You can find all kinds of trash in Mattapan gutters: used condoms, lollipops stuck to sewer grates, flat screen T.V.s, blocks of fishy cat food still in the shape of square tin cans, scooped directly onto the pavement, I suppose as an offering to the rats that have recently infested our block.

My Mom got me some furniture and sent it to herself at my address, where she does not in fact live or even stay, then texted me, basically, what translates into “Pix!!11” regarding the furniture, meaning she wants me to send her photos of the assembled furniture once it’s show-ready. I’m not really sure what to do with this: this sudden awareness that my Mom is acting like one of my former johns. They always wanted pix!!11, as in: “Hey sweetheart. Did you get the gold chain I sent you? I notice all the other girls have at least some kind of jewelry except you. I wanted to get you a little something. When you receive it, send pics of you wearing it so I can see how pretty you look. XOXO, Mike.” There was always something that necessitated pix!!11 — a gifted/unwanted sex toy, a highly specific fetish-themed outfit, a higher rez cam for better pics, requiring, of course, pix!!11 I didn’t text my Mom back. I don’t know what to say about this relationship anymore.

I call myself “ghostwriter” not because I write for other people, but because I am a writer who does not exist. Not in the sense of being A.I. or anything. What I mean is that I died 15 months ago and I’m writing this — all of it — from an interstitial space, somewhere between IRL life and whatever there might be of an “afterlife.” This is the start of my story.

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