I got something with your name on it. Stick with me.
Remember before they turned on the carnival? All the folded rides, dead lights. That white kid from the funnel-cake trailer, one used to suck his toe at the pool. One always singing, ‘I’m so full of ideas, and here is the good one.’
Yeah him. You know Troy. He gave it to me. Said you might need it. Had it in his trunk in a Hefty bag, under a roll of orange electric cord and some lumps of bloody butcher paper. He had funnel cakes–stacked in paper plates and packing tape–told me forget those, said they wouldn’t travel well. He was on his way to a bus, a barbecue. Told me if anyone asks, say something like, ‘Ain’t seen him long as I can remember. Wouldn’t know where he is.’ Say something like that he said.
So here it is. If no package accompanies this letter, call me. If it’s been opened, interrogate mailman. If none of this means anything to you, I don’t know what to say.
Troy said meet him in The Rusty Scupper parking lot at such-and-such a whenever. I pulled up and he’s already there, sitting on his fender with the trunk open. Had these rubber gloves on to hold the garbage bag. Huge ones, blue, kind for industrial dishes, radioactive food. And he was real anxious, all jumpy on strings. Handed me this stiff thing wrapped in brown paper. It creaked. He wouldn’t let me put it in my car. ‘Not right after I just handed it to you,’ he said. ‘Take it inside, they’ll think it’s a birthday present.’
I said, ‘Who?’
‘Whoever’s watching,’ he said.”
From I Got Something with Your Name on It, part of Gigantic by Marc Nesbitt, the inspiration for an installation I did in 2004 that none of you will get to see again even if you pay me. Well, maybe if you paid me enough I would re-work the installation into something I would be satisfied with now.