A substantial distillation-renovation of the graphic-photo-novella
[from 15,000 to 469 words, or 3.1% of the original]
Kees had in his past been "pursued by Angela and David Bowie [together and separately], Warhol, Capote, Monie Love, Von Bulow, Jenny Jones, Malcolm McLaren ... He had been pampered by Gore Vidal and had tromped around with Tennessee Williams, had bit parts in a Serge Gainsbourg video and a Butthole Surfers video, odes to him had been written by gay poet-revolutionaries ... He had been seen in the company of female recording artists, entrepreneurs with hidden cameras, hazy men, religious men, money launderers ..."
Tennessee Williams once explained the Kees phenomenon as “ordinary people’s fears of the beauty attached to the male body that fills them with atrocious and ultimately horrific desires.”
Kees began his disappearance strategy in the spring of 2005:
At the office I’m considered lucky: Mercury Sable, mini-disc player ... Stereophonic Quartz Synthesizer Tuner — how’d people know so well that this meant luck? — expense account, no boss hanging over my back... Co-workers took to my perceived undeserved distinctions of wealth like hyenas take to an abattoir.
But the more I developed as a lucky person, the more I seemed to come undone, lose blood to face, become less than expected... A wandering ghost in search of a former hope.... And from all this emerged a 12-Step Program for My Disappearance — survival equals creative disappearing:
1. Only white shirts: simple, not unstylish, no funny collars...
2. Removed all tags, logos, namebrands...
3. Let gray in hair go to echo "the gray monotonous souls..."
4. Lived below my means — slumming some would say...
5. Moved out of "my" West Village — to a small studio outside Williamsburg ...
6. Ate simpler, lower on food chain, no sauces, no cooking...
7. Once I took my eyes off MTV I knew it had outlived its usefulness...
8. Ventured out only at night, grew quieter – a held breath floating over a dark sleeping city....
9. Quit work. Stereo gone... sang songs in my head...
10. Vitamins and water. Evaporation of concern... autobiography written in invisible ink...
11. Unplugged empty fridge — hum disappeared from my space... Remember reading about Buddhist strategies of dispersal for dissolution of ego into perfect indifference...
12. I took someone else’s name... went to the All-Nite Mart in chrome g-string and blackface... approached the doors that 24 hours per day, 365 days per year opened automatically. They did not open...”
13. My nonplace: plastic-siding, shotgun bldg, 385 square feet, Italianate detailing wedged between TireLess Tires and PreferRay Carpet Cleaning, low-maintenance concrete lawn, abandoned cars, no streetlights, border of Brooklyn and Queens, near Linden Blvd. ...
And so this is how Kees, a man of squandered talents, disappeared physically, spiritually, and mnemonically, ever so gradually – a rumor and another and then nothing. No forwarding notice. Nothing – to the point where being and never having been was reached.
-- bart plantenga is the author of novels Beer Mystic, Radio Activity Kills, & Ocean GroOve, short story collection Wiggling Wishbone, novella Spermatagonia: The Isle of Man & wander memoirs: Paris Scratch & NY Sin Phoney in Face Flat Minor & LIST FULL: List Poems of Necessary Orderliness. He’s one of the founding members of the NYC agit-prankster-writer group, The Unbearables. His books YODEL-AY-EE-OOOO: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World & Yodel in HiFi & the CD Rough Guide to Yodel have created the misunderstanding that he’s the world’s foremost yodel expert. He produces 2 monthly podcasts: Dig•Scape & iMMERSE!. He’s also a DJ & has produced Wreck This Mess in NYC, Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam since forever. He lives in Amsterdam.