Davie Bowie's Boyfriend
After I watch Ziggy defeat the Spiders from Mars for what seems like the umpteenth time, I begin having this weird recurring dream in which I am dating David Bowie and everyone in this dream universe seems to only refer to me as David Bowie’s Boyfriend. So much so, that I’m actually unaware of what my real my name is or if it’s simply just that, David Bowie’s Boyfriend. I want to ask someone, but for some reason, I am much too embarrassed to do so.
David Bowie and I drive from Malibu to an empty beach two hundred miles south. The property is private because David Bowie bought the entire shore. On the drive, we talk about space and music. David Bowie tells me about some songs he’s tossing around, stuff nobody’s heard yet. I feel special. David Bowie puts a cassette into a player and an orchestra of symphony guitars plays out to us.
When we arrive at the beach, we don’t really spend any time on it. We mostly just sit on the back deck and look at the waves come in. David Bowie strums lightly on a guitar and a seagull caws out and I want to go swimming. David Bowie doesn’t want to swim because he says that the saltwater will damage his skin. I tell him they make creams for those types of things but he won’t budge. Even David Bowie calls me David Bowie’s Boyfriend and I think that is weird but I don’t really question it. I go swimming in the ocean by myself. I wade further and further into the ocean and David Bowie begins to resemble a palish red dot as I do so.
David Bowie and I go into town for groceries and it is a disaster. I am saddled with all of the bags while David Bowie poses for photographs with fans. When it is time to leave, the sea of screaming fans and their waving pens seems to part effortlessly at the mere waft of David Bowie’s hand. The fans paw at our windows as we pull off. David Bowie asks me what I want for dinner and tells me that he loves me. David Bowie takes the long way home. We hit several blocks of beach traffic and David Bowie refuses to put the roof up. By the time we reach home, all of the ice cream has melted and the milk has gone bad. David Bowie feeds the spoiled milk curds to the birds on the boardwalk, which is against city policy but the authorities turn the other cheek.
Sometime later in the week, David Bowie and I fly to Berlin on business. David Bowie has a press conference where he announces that he will be recording an album aboard the NASA space station. After the conference, a driver escorts us to a rural part of Germany where David Bowie wants to take pictures. I feel as if I am the only black body within a hundred miles so I opt to just stay in the car. David Bowie takes photos of me through the car’s tinted window and mouths the word 'Beautiful.' We are parked near a clearing of trees and I am smoking a cigarette out the half-cracked window. The driver occasionally glares at me through the rearview mirror and, I think in some type of Germanic tongue, calls me a racial slur.
Even though I am aware that this is a dream, as I watch David Bowie photograph wildflowers, I find myself wanting to break up with him but, for some reason, cannot bring myself to do so. I want to break up with David Bowie because he is actually not that nice and not that great of a boyfriend or lover and if I’m being honest, I stopped liking his music after the mid -nineties and his last record, if I’m being honest, wasn’t anything revolutionary. I’m here out of convenience, I guess. I don’t really know who I am without him. I mean, who would I be? Who is David Bowie’s Boyfriend without David Bowie?
Heart of a Hero!
Dick Cheney has a real heart now. It’s the year 2047 and, thanks to advances in medical science and technology, we’ve been able to extend Dick Cheney’s life for what was before an unfathomable amount of time. It is predicted that Dick Cheney will live forever. Scientists have grown an immortal heart using cells from stem cells and a petri dish. They have installed it inside of Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney, who was once before on the brink of death, a metaphorical and sometimes real life vulture circling above his head, is now the strongest and most viral man in America. Dick Cheney can break cement blocks with his fists. When Dick Cheney lets the hammer fall, he rings the bell. He wins the stuffed animal and gives it to your girlfriend. He flexes! Dick Cheney flexes!! He can run the length of the Boston Marathon. Dick Cheney is still not a good shot but he’s working on it.
Dick Cheney is alive. Dick Cheney is removing his blazer and rolling up his sleeves. He is tearing off his cotton button down shirt. He is beating his chest on live TV, in front of the congressional senate. He is grabbing the microphone, he is sweaty, he is All American, All Action and All The Time, Forever.
Dick Cheney has his eye on the prize. He is unapologetic and figuring it all out. He is staging a coup. He is usurping the presidency. He is implementing diplomatic policies and putting his plans into action. He is shipping all of the immigrants back to where they came from. He is disregarding the black experience and playing poker with the national pension fund. He is defending capitalism. He is shaking hands with terrorists. He is pulling strings. He is alive. He is pumping blood. He is not a zombie and he didn’t meant to shoot that man.
Textbooks are phased out of production, as Dick Cheney, being immortal, becomes our main source of keeping history. Dick Cheney will stand the tests of time and keep with him the story of the human race. “Dick Cheney is the oldest man alive.” That is what your great great grandchildren will say, long after you are dead. When extraterrestrials make contact with the earth Dick Cheney will be the first to learn their language. Dick Cheney has a real heart now. It is beating. You can hear it if you put your ear to a drum of oil. You can feel it in the light quaking of the ground in Yemen, produced by bombs that make contact every few hours.
The Washington Post has recently conducted a study that shows that over 63 percent of Americans think that Dick Cheney’s skin is made of leather.
I am dying, or at least one day I will be. Dick Cheney will be here forever. He will watch the sun burn out. Dick Cheney is a real man. He’s alive. He has a heart. A real one. He can feel. Dick Cheney can feel. He is so sorry. He is shooting his gun in the air, at the moon, 'cause he can. He is missing his mark. Goddamn it Dick Cheney is missing his mark but he is here and you are not and he is alive and on top and he has so much to be thankful for.
Miles Preston-Clark is an African-American writer and interdisciplinary artist studying at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Reality Hands Magazine, Spork Press, Hobart Pulp, Guild Literary Complex and various other online and print journals. His first collection of poems, Hot Nigga, is forthcoming via Giant Man Press, 2016. More info @ http://achilleshill.net.