[transcript:] Quickly at first, because he is eager, grey stubble and sheets, only grey looking in the mix of light coming downward from the ceiling from the lightbulb and head on from a screen.
He stands in front of the bedsheets, but he stands before the bluish light of a screen. In front of the bedsheets, before a camera, beside the computer is beside him. Quickly at first because he’s eager to start, fingers flexing and moving separately, pushing up into the glove, his hands flexing to get them on, get them on. Gloves fixed at the wrist, strapped. The strap makes them fit his hands then slowly rub together. Smell of a glove after smoking. Watching in the screen how his hands rub together slowly. Now the gloves are on. Watch him smell one. Cups the hand. Smells inside deep mix of fists and flex the leather. But patches of leather stitched onto woven synthetic smelling of hands, covered in glove as they are. His hands appended. Looks separate to this figure forming. Gloved hands from elsewhere as objects smelled and watched this figure smell the hands objects from elsewhere smell elsewhere–he’s watching in the screen beside him, smells them into the camera, they rub together, the objects slowly flex. Hands inside material making something from elsewhere. Restriction perhaps from the straps, cannot fully feel, is not, is no longer himself, seeing a figure, desensitized, he does not feel the lighter now, he no longer feels the cigarette, it doesn’t–it’s not really feeling now while watching. Not really his hands lighting a cigarette. Glove, smoke and knuckles, covered in leather. His hand is not his hand. A gloved hand is an object. Restricted movements keep the hand, the glove keeps the sight of a hand at bay. Curved, restricted object now the holding gesture of a prosthetic hand.
Audio excerpt from CHAVSCUMBOSS, released on the album Scally Nike Leather Glove Smoke by Roy Claire Potter, courtesy the artist and Chocolate Monk MC.
Full text for CHAVSCUMBOSS is featured in Round the Way by Roy Claire Potter, published by Ma Bibiliotheque, 2017.
Image: Original typescript for CHAVSCUMBOSS, courtesy the artist.