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Living room on Barry Street is white: white chairs white couches white pillows simulated white marble wall with decorative fireplace thick white rug. It is too pristine to live in. To Odysseus, the room symbolizes his parent’s refinement and accomplishment. Odysseus is thirteen too young to be issued Drivers’ License. He takes Dad’s car drives out to suburbs to pick up cousin Chris and friends. Speed makes driving fun. They race past local Dairy Queen where older kids hang out girl catches Odysseus’s eye recklessly swerves runs into ditch police arrive arrest him. Daddy Lou comes to police station to bail him out. On drive home Odysseus becomes aware of how calm Daddy Lou’s manner is not like Mom and Dad. Later Daddy Lou says he knows he should have stayed at house to diffuse Mom and Dad’s fury. As elevator door closes in front of Daddy Lou, Dad slams apartment door shut then uses closed fist. Mom uses pointed heel of shoe. They violently attack as he curls into ball on floor lip splits nose bleeds blood spills on white carpet. Odysseus bleeds on his parent’s white room stains their ideal, fake utopian symbol of refinement and accomplishment. The Schwartzpilgrims are not horrible family. There is a lot of love. Odysseus thinks his family has more soul than any of his cousin’s families. He reasons, “When someone you love abuses you and you forgive them, then your love becomes stronger through its endurance.” What he does not realize is his parent’s actions are causing permanent scarring that is never going to go away.

From runaway boy who once wrote, I would own cup and blanket sleep on beach run wild with wolves howl in the night to man who now scrawls circles on walls. Nobody can be absolutely sure when they are telling truth. It almost always sounds like another lie white shot of tequila no lime, please who would you like to see brought back from the dead and visa versa? Painting changes but can never die. I remember skinny girl silly sweet. Our partnership was so great. She is gone now sometimes still I weep. My life has been so wild I question my own history. Which is more threatening, nature or culture? A ferocious lion or a serial murderer skilled in nerve torture? I do not have problem with God. I pray many times everyday but suspect it is simply my own madness. My dog knows more about me than anyone. God is revealed through my dog. Everything I make is wounded. It’s not art, it’s wounding. Beauty is a wound deep cutting truth. I dream of lover. I want American girl with hair under her arms. My body aches to hold her. I’m continuously thinking life will get better. I play hard tease myself with hope torment myself with promises crucify myself with failures. Painting is war waged with oneself. Serious fun. I know I’m perverse. I get drunk become angry at world. Why is it taking so long to achieve recognition? I’m tired of feeling excluded worthless comical pathetic. I could splatter all over walls and no one would notice. Does living cheapen life? I still rely heavily on sense of smel a primitive in society’s midst try not to confuse my own fate with that of world. Which do you prefer good story or hard facts? Innocence seeks corruption a rich creamy sauce. All painting is abstract. I remember blinding darkness of chilling damp night in wilderness. I tended a fire huddled near struggling to stay warm poking constructing adjusting adding subtracting to manage flames. Painting is like tending a fire, pushing stuff around, keeping it alive, playing with light. All I ever wanted is to love and be loved. Life is uncertain. Maybe hardest thing of all is to let go.

Previously titled crisis #1 Chicago 1989