Another night of vivid dreams. Found myself in Key West a hundred years ago when the lawless streets were filled with bloodthirsty smugglers and wreck-salvagers. Except for some reason I had a plasma gun, which gave me the edge. Basis for hit TV series? Which started me thinking: How the early pioneers must have lived! By the late 1800s, Key West had run out of fuel sources. So people on the other islands built giant, ten-foot-tall earthen kilns to make charcoal that they shipped down on boats for barter. Which brings us to what I did today: The Great Serge Kiln Project! It was a daunting task, but the payoff would be immense in spiritual terms. Then I got to thinking: Hey, this could also make some real money. Remember natural sponges? Sell bags of the shit all over the place. “Historic Keys Charcoal.” Completely change the way people cook out, make a ransom by mass producing the un-mass-produced simpler life like Ben and Jerry. I have to admit, it was getting pretty exciting! I walked over to No Name Key and found a perfect clearing in the woods. There was much to do. Prepare the site, gather the right wood, assemble a domed superstructure, pack it with mud, then diligently tend the fire for at least a week, narrowing and expanding the chimney so the charcoaling process doesn’t overheat or extinguish. And I’m standing there, staring at the ground, and I think: That’s way too much fucking work. So I drive to the convenience store for some briquettes. And on the way in I pass the Dumpster, and there’s that smell again. You know, the
Dumpster
smell. They all smell the same. Convenience store, Bloomingdale’s, third-world deli, doesn’t matter, exact same odor, like there’s a Dumpster molecule we have yet to isolate, and when we do, we’ll be able to neutralize it. No more smell for the customers. Boom! Business skyrockets! Another big moneymaking idea! But does the guy behind the register at Circle K listen? He just wants me to get out of the way so the line can move. I tell him it’s that kind of parochial thinking that’s keeping him behind that counter, and then the conversation wanders again into nastiness. But it’s no surprise; lost people everywhere and none of them accepting my free maps. Then I realize something else. Fish have eyes on the sides of their heads. How do they focus? Do they get a split screen? Is this what’s holding them back?
