Sucking Stones and the Economy of Crap

I shut out the light over the bed. Then the light next to the television. I scratched Guy, who was asleep in the basket next to the window, then went out to the kitchen. I put on a jacket, pulled an unopened pack of smokes from the carton on the table and slipped it into an inside pocket, to make sure I had a backup for when I finished the pack I was working on (which would happen on or near 11:30). I checked the bag to make sure the cane hadn't slipped out during the night, then I put on the trenchcoat. I pulled a token out of my left pants pocket and put it into the left pocket of the trenchcoat, then I pulled out the plastic change purse, also in my left pants pocket, counted out 75 cents for coffee, and dropped that into the right pocket of the trenchcoat. Then I sat down on the creaky park bench, scratched the little cat who was sleeping on the swatch of fake wool to my right, and put on my shoes.

I stood, slipped the bag over my shoulder, pulled the keys from my right front pants pocket, found the apartment key, buttoned and belted the trenchcoat, shut off the light over the kitchen table, felt my way to the apartment door, stepped into the hallway, then closed and locked the door behind me.

On the way to the train, I lit the morning's second cigarette. It was a few minutes after 7. I fiddled with the coins in my right coat pocket (two quarters, three nickels and a dime), arranging and rearranging them in order of size, until I made it to the train platform, where I waited at the same spot I wait every morning. Then I continued to fiddle with the coins until the train came.

Like goddamn sucking stones, I thought, recalling everything I'd just done, realizing that I do exactly the same thing, in exactly the same order, every morning.

The sucking stones analogy first occurred to me a few months ago. Not sure why, but one day, there it was.

By "sucking stones," if you don't know already, I'm referring to a famous section from Samuel Beckett's novel, Molloy, which begins: "I took advantage of being at the seaside to lay in a store of sucking-stones. They were pebbles but I call them stones... I distributed them equally among my four pockets, and sucked them turn and turn about. This raised a problem which I first solved in the following way. I had say sixteen stones, four in each of my four pockets these being the two pockets of my trousers and the two pockets of my greatcoat. Taking a stone from the right pocket of my greatcoat, and putting it in my mouth, I replaced it in the right pocket of my greatcoat by a stone from the right pocket of my trousers, which I replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my trousers, which I replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my greatcoat, which I replaced by the stone which was in my mouth, as soon as I had finished sucking it. Thus there were still four stones in each of my four pockets, but not quite the same stones... But this solution did not satisfy me fully. For it did not escape me that, by an extraordinary hazard, the four stones circulating thus might always be the same four..."

It goes on and on, after the narrator employs more pockets, with a smaller number of stones in each pocket, the transfer of stones from pocket to mouth to pocket becoming an increasingly more complex and maddening procedure, as he tries to figure out a way to ensure that he sucks each of the 16 stones only once before beginning the entire cycle again.

I saw a fellow perform "Sucking Stones" as a monologue in Philadelphia once. He was a fine actor who mostly performed Beckett?and he did such a beautifully obsessive job with the routine that I nearly ran from the theater screaming and pulling my hair.

I stayed in my seat, though, and instead of fleeing, I chose to internalize the whole thing. And only now is it crawling its way back out.

Now, the more I thought about it?a dangerous thing?the more everything I did seemed to becoming a variation on the sucking stones routine.

For instance.

It's something I had referred to for a while simply as "The Economy of Crap." I have a couple friends with whom I exchange, well, crap. Every time we get together, we trade off movies, books, records?things that pile up around the apartment, things we've already made full use of ourselves and so decide to pass along. No need to return anything most of the time (though there are occasional exceptions). They pass things along to me, I watch or listen to them, then pass them along to someone else. It's the way crap circulates around the world on a daily basis.

On the day the sucking stones analogy made itself painfully clear to me on the subway platform, in fact, I was going to meet my friend John for lunch. He was bringing a stack of videotapes for me, and I was bringing a bagful of 20 or so tapes for him. Things I didn't need anymore, things I had replaced in one way or another already, things that were doing nothing more than cluttering up the floor, waiting to be kicked over. So in that way, I was very happy?I was cleaning up that space in my apartment?not even thinking about the fact that that night, I'd be returning home with another stack of as-yet-unseen things, with which I would refill that now-clean spot on the floor.

Just like sucking stones. Get it, use it, move it, replace it. Round and round.

It's a dangerous thing to recognize, given what a trap it can be, given the Nairobi Trio theory of mental health (which, in the end, is just another, more musical interpretation of the sucking stones routine, if you think about it), given how all-pervasive it can seem if you spend too much time thinking about it. Not just with the economy of crap or with making sure that the proper change is in the proper pocket of your coat?but with nearly every aspect of daily life for some of us?the struggle to keep things in some sort of order. On a small scale, groceries, the job, bills, housecleaning. On a larger scale, politics, religion, the economy. And if you think about those, which scale really matters?

It's a problem I run into every several years. First few times I ran into it, I figured the only way out was to murder myself. After that proved itself as hopeless and tiresome as any-and-everything, I decided the only way out was through a random, vicious act of externally directed violence. And that was fun, for a while?but then I grew old, and tired and sore. Nowadays, even though I recognize it in different incarnations at an increasing?almost alarming?frequency, I choose simply to ignore it. Which is what I'm going to try to do this time, once again.

Then I'll get on with things, like maybe taking a nap, which I so sorely need.