Bottle Cap Story

For some context: I wrote this story for Alix, who’s beautiful show Eden is on view at Market Gallery until November 2nd.

In this show Alix hijacked a conservation technique typically used to remove frescos in order to remove large chunks of the rooftop where the show is taking place - and turning them into these sort of sculptural paintings. It’s a roof where a lot of graffiti and parties and general human activity takes place so Alix unearthed a decades worth of city dirt and what feels like this primordial-mush-evidence of the last 10 years in making these works. Alix is one of my oldest friends and I was thinking a lot about our youth together and troublemaking and nostalgia and getting older while writing this.

Anyway, this is a short story from the POV of a beer bottle cap that was trapped in the tar of this roof.

*oh and he’s also sortof German because I imagined him being an imported beer like a Becks or a Bitbürger or something.

Ok this story is, well

I been on my back for 10 years so take that into consideration. I’ve seen some stuff and I’ve also seen fucking nothing. A lot of sky.

Meine ecke von blaue himmel.

My metal life to the rhythm of the F line.

My forever concussion.

My rooftop stories.

My tar bed. My bed of tar.

Alles gehört mir.

I was dropped here a decade ago by hands I can’t really remember, hey maybe they were yours! That’s something you wouldn’t remember either, one beer in a lifetime of beers. Drunk in the summer, drunk in the winter, in the rain. In the snow. In the snow it’s better to drink thicker browner liquor. Anyway, I’m sure you forgot. I like to think it was a pretty girl who dropped me here anyway. And yeah, a lot of time has passed but she’s still pretty. She’ll always be pretty. When someone makes her laugh she covers her face but she’s got a perfect smile and these little lines around her mouth. Charming as hell.

My New York Doll.

I have a lot of time to think up here so I’ve imagined her a lot. Fantasied.

She’s my creator after all.

My little God.

Maybe she opened me with her teeth, maybe.

And maybe I cracked her molar a bit so that every time she runs her tongue over that spot - which I like to think is everyday (a mouth isn’t very big) she thinks of me, inevitably. So I’m in her mouth, forever. I’m in God’s mouth.

So she opened me up and I was born. My nervous angel, she kept me in her palm while she talked to a boy on the roof. Freshly 18, barely legal, body count relatively low and precious. My God is pink and fresh. And a perfect whore. And naive. And smarter than everyone is this room.

My God is screaming a lot this year.

Mein Schatz, mein Engel…

I bit into her palm with my jagged edges.

I left a perfect circle hickey

like

Remember me! remember me!

So anyway she walked away that night but I was stuck in the ground. Left behind.

Ich war so allein. Ich hatte so angst.

I got stuck in that floor in a forever way. Roof tar cradling me for eternity. But I got used to it, the monotony of my stuckness. I made it my heaven. And hey, thanks for keeping my company.

Thanks for coming over all the time.

Thanks for all the stories.

Thanks for having fun on top of me.

Thanks for everything.

Next time you’re here, say hi.

Hey I’m kinda like YOUR God, cause I’m always here and I’m always listening. You’re at the rooftop confessional, and I’m the secret priest. Hiding in the dirt. I was forced into meditation up here. I’m a monk. I watched the time move slow and steady. I’m your mom. Your favorite ice-cream-for-breakfast babysitter. I watched you grow up.

My lifespan is 50 years, to total disintegration. Although I’ll rust much sooner. So we kinda have the same expiration date. We’ll be buried in this dirt together. I hope someone digs us up one day a long time from now, digs us up side by side. I hope we look good together. I hope they put us up in a museum together. And they do a rendering of what we looked like in 2015 - you: 18. Pretty. Beer in hand. Me in hand. Laughing with your mouth wide open. This is what kids did for fun a million years ago.

At the end of the world I’ll be there with you. All these sunbleached memories. I hope the train hum doesn’t annoy you, I hope it’s like a lullaby to you the way it is to me. I hope you get everything you ever wanted.

I could’ve ended up somewhere else, somewhere less exciting. But I’m glad I got stuck here, with all of you. It’s been so fun, really.

I love you I love you I love you.