I said to the man: My brother got his pub called ‘Monk’.
Thelonius Monk.
Don’t you want to swop shirts? I also asked.
But it was a rare 1, he said.
A ½ year later he sent it to me via snailmail.
It’s the 1st time I’m gonna wear it. I didn’t need an extra longsleeves yet.
The pub doesn’t exist anymore. I gave my brother another T though: Monk’s Café in Philadelphia.
This 1 I keep for myself.
Since I started taking pictures of my T’s I came to realize that there is more colour than just colour.
As if I didn’t know before.
I’m more aware of it now.
The garden has 100 types of green in it.
& Suddenly a green seems yellowish.
I don’t just look at the birds anymore, flying around, collecting tiny bits of food I can’t see.
I look at colours I can’t figure out how they came into life.
Look at these wooden boxes. Boxes I stand on at my work for reaching out for higher shelves.
I thought they were just wooden.
Now I know better.
But is my life richer then?
Hansje Brinker put his finger in the dyke, Hansje Drinker put his finger in the glass.
The guys who developed this tripel even went to some dentists under training to get holes in their glasses. So you couldn’t do without your finger.
Lots of drills broke down, lots of glasses too.
They probably also got tired themselves of holding their fingers at the same spot all the time.
I’ve been walking there.
I realized that when I put the photograph on the computer.
I left some wet shoeprints on the photograph.
Now you know I live.
I walk. I search. I’m looking for the right place to take the photograph from.
A small step.
The rest you may think up yourself.
It’s a long time ago. It was in the time my hair was still blond.
Although there were some grey ones too.
I kept on saying: I started to turn grey at my 21st.
Then I found my 1st grey hair.
Now I practically turned grey totally.
Except for my beard.
My beard is red.
They keep on asking me: How come? Did you know you had red hair?
I say: Only a few women knew I was red.
Now all the people are probably gonna ask whether I am a daddy.
Or they’re gonna start asking about my love life.
& I’m gonna say I’m feeling happy this way.
Hm, yeah, tss, the T-shirt, yeah, hmpf, I just had to wear it; it’s 1 of my 300 kids you see.
I’m as old as the leaves on this tree, too old for having children.
Too yellow.
Ssssh.
Ssssh.
Don’t tell anybody.
Well, don’t tell it to hím.
You see, I don’t want him to know.
I don’t want him to know I was wearing his T.
I swopped it. I think it was for a T of the brewery I work in. With him.
Him!
Ouch!
I always try to dive under the bar or the counter when I see him entering the building.
So sssssh.
Don’t tell.
You’ll probably recognise him. He looks like a jerk & he is a jerk.
In the future, I thought, people will be able to get a picture of the place I live.
They wil get a bigger picture of the way I lived when all the photographs will be combined.
Computers will transform it to a new reality.
Old reality, that is. Because I won’t be there anymore.
Nor the things that surround me.
For what use?
I don’t know.
But does it matter that I don’t know?
Does it matter that this garbagebag was blue and the dustpan & brush were red?
Presume everything would be clean.
Repaired before you could have noticed it was broken.
No place on the flour with a hole to find.
No spiders, nor their webs.
No stain.
& I would be polite. All the time.
That would be special.
& People would only come to drink beer.
Not to enjoy.
For those who are already too drunk to be able to read what it says:
Yes, I’m drunk. & You’re ugly. But tomorrow I’ll be sober!
I’ll be getting lots of remarks this coming afternoon. People who’ll say they get dizzy looking at my T.
& I’ll keep on saying that it’s a famous quote of Churchill.
No, I won’t be saying that. I’ll keep quite.
Talking about being quite: that snail at the right side won’t be saying something either.
It’s the 1st perceptible living thing in the pictures of my T-shirts.
It didn’t stay that way too long.
It had to be punished.
