Two Perfectly Good Legs

For ten years, I’ve been in love with a prostitute. A sweet young girl named Adelina. She is the reason I get up in the morning, move around my concrete box and do whatever it is I find to keep myself busy, though all the while my girl kicks down the door and streams into my thoughts like my tasks and amusements are hers too. Every day I dream of her, and as long as the sun is out I am suspended in my sorrow and crave the night when I will close my eyes and walk the streets once again to look for her, and her eyes will glow even in the darkest night because merely to reflect would be obscene. But my love is a glass that’s overfull, which sits on rough dry land that can’t use it. These have been the darkest nights of my life. It’s all too much for a lonely man to bear.
I met my Adelina during the second part of my life that began during the War. The War was about to end. For a year of my life I had been fighting, and all I wanted was to stop. I didn’t want to admit it then, but I was scared. Before, I had been like everyone else, brave and ready to be a hero of our time and fight against tyranny and so on. But then I saw the death; I couldn’t believe anymore in the holy good of America, sweeping away the dictators of hell. It wasn’t our business to go to Europe. I saw ten guys like me die in a day. And I saw war, and all I saw of war was dirt and blood. I didn’t want any of it. I had been fighting in France but was sent back to a hospital in Jacksonville, North Carolina after a Nazi private’s bullet went straight through the left side of my head. I’m really not mad at the soldier, I’m sure he was some poor shoemaker or worker like me who was swallowed up by the violent enthusiasm of his country just like I was swallowed by mine; in fact I’m pretty glad. They came to the hospital and gave me an award and said I would never have to fight again. Only I wasn’t the same after that. When I came back I was empty and nauseous. The doctor said my injuries were merely superficial and I was lucky, but that bullet did something to me that I can’t explain, except to say that it left an inescapable anxiety and restlessness. When I got out, FDR put me up in a house just outside Jacksonville with five other soldiers. On account of my injury I couldn’t hold a job for a minute, and six months later I was out on the street living off a dollar a day from good old FDR.
After a short stint on skid row, I hooked up with an old friend from high school named Skip Draws, who worked for a company that gave tours of the city of Jacksonville and the harbor in big angular boat-cars called “amphibious vehicles.” His job was to drive through the crowded streets of downtown for an hour and then plop into the sea and putt putt around the harbor like a confused ferry until all the passengers were bored and sick of it. Most of his customers were the wives and girlfriends of soldiers stationed in the city ready to ship off to that terrible mess across the sea. While the soldiers were on duty during the day, the women spent their courageous female energy ambling around the city, speaking of their husband’s honors and the latest fashion. And like any responsible patriot, Skip made sure to console the ladies as soon as their men had left, which left him with a horrible itch and inexhaustible smile.
“Well brother I can’t get you a job on account of your injury makes you no good for giving tours, but I can give you a place to stay. About six months ago I was out on the water giving a tour, and just as I was explaining the sad significance behind the waterfront statue dedicated to those who died in the battle of the annexation of Guam, a drunk Subchaser hit us starboard. An hour later our ship was at the bottom of the bay. No one was injured, and the AV was dredged up and put in the boneyard. It aint much, but it’s enough to make a decent place to rest your head if you’ve been residing on the streets.”
And it was. Compared to the nights of screaming drunken bums and shifty mad bums, the abandoned AV was a sweet homestead. I even gave it a name – Annette Verde, after a beautiful French spirit that practically saved my platoon from the depths of hell with warm bread and sweet Bordeaux wine. The ship consisted of one big room with a two foot tall spectator’s opening that stretched the length of the vessel on both sides. On my first day alone with my new home I rummaged through abandoned cars and boats in the yard and found enough windows to cover all the openings on the vessel, which saved my life during the numerous short but sharp flurries of the North Carolina winter.
The money from the government was just enough to buy bread every day and sometimes meat and wine a few nights of the week. At night, I would walk the streets and drink from my wine canteen and holler at the moon and God and anyone that would listen. During the day I could handle being a lonesome bum, looking for things to do, watching the city dance its hubbub and busy thwap. But at night when the city slowed and thoughts sunk in my head, all I wanted to do was disappear. All I wanted to do was walk and walk, and hopefully walk straight into the end of the night, where my soul could rest and feel like a child lying in a field of wheat staring up at the clouds. I thought, the end of the night will come soon enough. For now, drink your wine and enjoy the strange chaos of the world.
One warm night in June, three months after I moved into my dredged boat home, Skip and I were walking down Diamond Street amid pool halls and Belgian rotisseries. The heat was oppressive; the air stuck to my lungs and tickled my throat. “Goddamn Skip” I said loudly over the city sounds, “Lets get us some drinks.” So we walked inside a smoky blues bar and drank a few beers. There were about a dozen or so people seated in the bar. In the front of the room an old Negro man sat alone with a scratched brown guitar twanging very forceful and giddy. He was picking some sad melody and it sounded perfect to me right then. Then he started singing with the utmost clarity and style:

I’m a lemon tree baby, won’t you come under my shade,
Oh, I’m a lemon tree baby, won’t you come under my shade,
And squeeze my lemons ‘till the juice run down my leg….

“I don’t care what these boys do with themselves,” went Skip, “they can ship over there with machine guns and tanks and all sorts of things to kill each other if it fits ‘em, but I’m going to stay here and ball every girl I can; just drink my pleasures before I can’t taste ‘em no more.”
“Damn, don’t talk so loud, you’ll get us lynched if any of them boys heard you,” I scolded. “You wouldn’t believe what goes on over there old man,” I whispered, looking around my back. As I drained the last of my third mug my mind felt released, like a western wind, like Abraham rambling back down the mountain in Mariah. “Governments treating people like you and me as if they were nothing, do you understand? They want the war to be nothing fighting nothing, so regardless of who wins they’ll hold one big, slontial funeral in front of millions of mourners speaking of duty and honor and greatness. And then that night they’ll neglect their wives and fall asleep early, dreaming unexceptionally, waking at five o’clock sharp to raise taxes and brood over tea yet too hot to drink. Sometimes…”
“Ha! Who’s getting lynched? And besides, who are they anyway, do you know? I don’t, and I don’t’ care. What do you expect us to do, sit the world leaders together and conference, huh? Poke Hitler in the ass with a furnace stick? Why worry about things you can’t control? Why waste energy? I’ve got money enough for quarter and food and a little left over for drink. I’m surrounded by women who need love, whose men esteem glory and killing over loving; I tell you what: a real girl don’t want no big gun nor square hat.” I wanted to tell Skip that I don’t esteem killing either, but we can’t all have flat feet.
Around eight-thirty Skip and I left the bar and parted ways. I told him I had to go mail a letter, but really the beer had made me hungry so I began in the direction of the Post Office and then, embarrassed and out of sight, I turned down Seagram Dr. toward Saint John’s Cathedral. Most nights you could walk through the alley behind this big beautiful monument and stand in the crowd of quiet bums waiting at the back door of the kitchen for the church Beadle to serve soup out of a yellowed trash can. It used to be better. They used to serve the soup in the Cathedral itself. I used to spend lonesome evening hours there sipping soup lax on my own wooden pew admiring the great paintings of illuminated Mary holding the little savior near her breast and all the fog and stress would recede and I would feel quite whole and blessed for a few moments. I loved those pictures at night, quiet with candles flickering against the peaceful scenes. How the faithful artist, so Christ-like himself, gave Mary Magdalene the same ecstatic glow as the Mother herself!
As I turned down the alleyway and approached the light I noticed for the first time that my back was drenched with sweat. I’ve been transient too long, I thought. My mind felt light and fuzzy; like the others I’d been perpetually wearing my overcoat in the southern heat. Then I noticed, standing somber but brilliant and out of place, a beautiful dark haired girl with big dark eyes staring intently upon my approach. From afar I could just make out her young body which listlessly supported her dress. What a dress! Topped with a loose collar and languid bow around the neck, gently curving around her parts, the bottom lying just above her knees. Her dark legs reminded me of the war and the sacred beauties in the front yards of small French country homes as we marched past. I stared into her eyes as I walked by. I did not continue to the kitchen for soup. I had forgotten about my stomach. Instead, inspired by my heart and the beer, I walked back toward the girl, noting that I literally had nothing to lose.
“Hello sweetheart,” I said.
“Hi.” She said kindly. Upon closer inspection I was quite sure she was a whore. She had all the signs: her posture was formally erotic, extreme; a stance spawned by hours waiting on dark corners, but in the light it looked awkward and silly. Sometimes working girls came to the Cathedral dressed like her, standing like her, on the outs with the bosses and without food. Some hadn’t handled a dollar in years; every slice of bread, every roll of toilet paper was provided to them by the pimps. My girl was no different. She had done something, probably something quite courageous for a girl like her to be locked out by a John. She would inevitably go back wringing her hands and crying, as they all did. But I didn’t care about any of that. A bum hasn’t the luxury of passing judgment. Besides, she was beautiful.
“You’re very beautiful,” I said. She laughed.
“You haven’t talked to a girl in a while, have you? Don’t you know you can’t just say something like that outright?” she told me as she smiled. She was poking fun at me, but her body was open and she wasn’t ignoring me.
“Well,” I said, “I just wanted to tell you. My name is Arthur, what’s yours?”
“Adelina.”
As I shook her hand she looked me over. She knew I had no money by the way I hung my fingers out of the holes in my jacket. I was suddenly very conscious of my smell, damned heat. I wondered what she thought of me, who she thought I was, how she thought I ended up this way.
“Would you like to go for a walk?” I asked. “It’s a nice night and the stars are out.”
“Are you dangerous?”
“No.”
“Then alright that sounds nice.”
We stepped out of the church alley arm in arm and took a right onto Melville Drive toward the ocean at her request. I made sure she was on my right side so she wouldn’t pay any attention to my wound, but she asked anyway, and when I told her what happened she told me I was very brave and kissed me on the cheek. My blood warmed and I could feel it running through me like the first tingling sip of red wine. Her face was beautiful and severe, dark, Tuscan, like an animal. I hardly saw her eyes, they were hidden under her hair, but intermittently she’d look up and I would glimpse their melancholy green and want to tell her that it’s okay to have pain, that when we’re dead we might miss it. Then we turned onto State Street where a short woman with a very large dog was yelling at a man who had dented her Ford with a fallen paint can.
“I’m very sorry miss, but will you please silence your dog so we can resolve this,” said the painter.
“If I am not compensated promptly then I’ll give him a reason to stop barking!” yelled the woman.
“At least the bucket stayed in tact or there would have been a horrible mess,” whispered lovely Adelina.
“At least while the car’s in the shop she can ride to market on that dog”, said I.
We both laughed.
“You really could be quite handsome if you cleaned up a bit,” She said to me, looking at my old jacket, “like a college boy.”
“Ha, if I was ever handsome once, not anymore”
“Ah, you’re a man like that are you,” she said, with a smirk that made her face wrinkle.
“Like what.”
“You’ll fall in love with me,” she said, very matter-of-factly. “I know you will.”
“And how do you know me so well?”
“I can read your soul on your face. You are a good man, but you suffer.”
“I was in a war.”
“Yes, I know. But you suffered before the war. Am I right?”
I tried to think but I couldn’t remember. My life before the war was to me a vague happiness. But I couldn’t be sure of anything. My mind wasn’t right.
“What about you?” I asked, “Do you suffer?”
“Maybe, perhaps, but really there’s no need to be happy. People go around searching for happiness everywhere and can hardly ever find it, and even if they do it never lasts. I don’t expect anything from anybody.” She paused, somewhat apologetically. “But it is beautiful out tonight and I enjoy walking with you.” She smiled.
Her smile mingled with the warm night and sent pleasure through my bones; I was happier in that moment then I had been since the war began. We walked along Anne Street and shuffled down the river toward the harbor. She asked me about my life and I told her all I could. I reciprocated and she told me about her upbringing in Texas, how her father was a rigid Pastor but still a good man, how her mother died when she was young of consumption. We passed under a store front light and the wind blew her cotton dress against her breast, drawing smooth shadows across her abdomen. I wanted to take her right there under the moon. Being still a man, inventive and sly, I directed our course toward my terrestrial boat home. She said she’d come in but would not undress. “Of course,” I replied. As we lay together, her body against mine, I thought, what’s one more celibate night for me - great stoic bum, master of my body, veteran hermit monk!

That night I had a dream. I was a child on my father’s farm drawing pictures in the dirt next to the front doorstep. It must have been summer because the heat was unbearable, wet heat, heat that turned the sky into a yellow foggy oppressive wave. The sun on my neck itched; my face dripped with sweat. I was watching the dirt, and then I heard a whisper. I looked up to meet a large black rattle snake moving on the ground in front of me. He was monstrous and animated, with the hood of a cobra like a violent black cloud. It slithered in a circle around me. I was paralyzed. I could only watch the snake circle my body, hissing daggers, imagining its venom shooting through my veins. When it fulfilled its rotation, it crept away slowly into the oak woods. Relieved, I felt high, like a convicted man appeased at his execution, a light drunkenness. So I resumed my business in the dirt. Then the whispering returned. I raised my head, and a baby rattle snake lunged and bit my foot. A fire crept through my body and I screamed.

When I awoke at dawn, Adelina had left. I listened to the seagulls outside. The windows were open, and cool pleasant air streamed through with dawn’s sun gleaming on my pillow. “Ah! Another day to add to this great comedy,” I spoke as I rose. I put on my jacket and walked to the Post Office to pick up my veteran’s check, then to the store where I bought bread and a jug of wine. That day I sat on the dock between two large fishing boats, drinking my wine, watching the unending barrage of ripples and the sun’s rays dancing across the water; thinking of Adelina: how she was the warmest creature I’d met, and how even after one night I knew I loved her, like she said I would. I had a strong feeling at that time that we were meant to be each other’s guardian angels and save each other from our miseries and most of all help each other through these confused lives we’d found. I relived the night over and over again, sometimes cringing at my untrained mouth and actions, but those were merely grains of sand in my bed of joy. But I may have dwelled too much, being alone so often leads my mind to idle wanderings and strange philosophies. Most of all, I had acquired an infinite capacity for doubt. But the more I drank, the less I felt the anxious itch that told me she would never be mine, and that I could never have her all for myself. The more I drank the less I felt the big, obstinate anxiety that my life had somehow become a losing game, and that I was really buried under an immensity of sand and would never be able to claw my way out. By noon I was drunk and fell asleep.
Every night for five days Adelina came and stayed in my AV, which meant she wasn’t working. Maybe she’s done forever and will start a new life now, I thought. I couldn’t ask her about it for fear of ruining everything. Anyhow, her visits took away all my sadness and gave me hope. Some nights we took long walks around the town whispering to each other, smiling, enjoying the sights. Other nights we stayed home and played cards or just laid in bed, not talking just enjoying each other’s being. I could have laid silently with her for the rest of my life, doing eternal meditations on the sound of her soft breath and watching the universe open up to me on the infinite backs of my eyelids. Every night I fell more in love with her. One night she interrupted our silence.
“Arthur, it’s just that, you’re such a gentle, sweet man.”
“Thanks mama.”
“I just can’t quite understand why you live like this. I mean, you could be something, you are something.”
“Well,” I paused, “I guess we all gotta play the cards we’re dealt. There aint no use complaining about it.”
“But…this isn’t the place for you, here on the streets. You could go somewhere and have a life,” she said.
“Someday I will be somewhere great. I mean, God doesn’t want me to be like this for all eternity. When I die, I’ll meet him and I suppose he’ll say ‘Sorry Arthur, you’ll never understand why I had to make your life like that, but I’ve saved a place for you where there’s no war or sadness. Thanks for not disparaging too much.’ And then I’ll be free from all the things that happened to my body. And so will you.”
She looked into my eyes smiling, her fingers running through my hair. Then she kissed my forehead and turned over to go to sleep. I stayed awake thinking about us meeting up in heaven. The circumstances will be better up there, I thought.
Then, on the sixth night, I sat up waiting for her all night and she never came. And she didn’t come the night after. Like a fool I sat in my room every night for two weeks, waiting, not imagining going anywhere, face down on my pillow damp with tears. At first I sulked and pitied myself like a woman, with a million sad questions and intuitions. I couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t come even for a visit. I knew she loved me, I knew. People don’t just smile like that, people don’t just look into your eyes and smile like that! Something must be wrong. Well she’s just a whore, I thought, I’m a goddamn war hero, what business do I have with scum and sinners anyhow? What would my mother think? I arrested that thought, though, as to dam a flood of emotions that would have compounded my misery. But I was great once anyhow, and I wouldn’t lose my mind and manly spirit to some woman, much less a poor street-corner bitch.
Thus, to relinquish her figure from my imagination I left the AV on the twelfth night of waiting and walked toward Skip’s place to drink and talk. The night was warm and fine and walking down Hyacinth St. by the cafes with the sweet smell of fresh baked bread and pizza and espresso I had a small flash of blessedness and knowledge that the world was just one big ball of paint that mixed around constantly, that distinctions were just different colors and really the paint was all the same sort. The stars were one by one falling into place in the soft way they do in the city. Throngs of people walked about, women in summer dresses with hats and ribbons, men in shorts with their cotton shirts unbuttoned. Their shadows played under the café lights, growing, shifting, disappearing into darkness and then reappearing under another canopy. All this movement and busyness quieted my mind as I continued beyond the threshold and up the stairs to Skip’s apartment.
I knocked on the door. It flung open.
“Arty old buddy! I haven’t seen you in ages! Come in, Come in.”
“Heya Skip.”
As I walked in I saw an older blond woman seated on his strangely ornate couch, at least five years Skip's senior, reclining with a content look, obviously not much affected by my presence. I sat down on a chair across from her. Skip was about to sit, but jumped up and said:
“Oh these drinks have soiled my manners, Marlene this is Arthur, an old high school buddy and great war hero. Man, back in high school me and him used to chase girls up and down the halls and smoke cigarettes in the bathroom, causing all kinds of trouble; we practically owned the place. But we were young then, and now I’ve finally met you darlin’.”
She nodded in my direction and he plopped down next to her and kissed her like a drunk.
“Oh Arty you’re just in time, I’ve got a pot of jimsonweed that’s been brewing in the kitchen for about a half hour now and we can all drink it together, that is, if you’re savvy to that sort of thing.”
I said that’d be fine. I watched him go run and turn the stove off, pick up the pot and carefully strain the green water into three small cups. He walked back over and handed Marlene and me ours with a funny smile.
“Now you’ve gotta drink it all while it’s still hot ‘cause it’ll taste like the devil’s piss if you don’t.”
We finished the cups quickly, for there wasn’t more than a flask of liquid in each. Then we sat back and began a jumpy, petty conversation whose superficiality rested on the fact that each one of us was pretty nervous and didn’t know what was going to happen. But after a half hour we forgot about the tea and were all very relaxed and giddy and felt at ease with each other.
“The blues is the great American art form,” I said very triumphantly, “It’s a vision of man’s soul, every chord and holler; it’s a great transference of emotion and it infects you, man, it gives you power! And you know what, God gave the blues to the Negro, there aint no doubt about it. God gave it to them right under the white man’s nose, the most powerful force in the universe so they could live and dance its crazy energy and be enlightened by its grace. He gave them the key to eternity and we all just have to listen and try to piece it together but like time you can’t find eternity by adding up all the time because eternity is beyond time, eternity is beyond time! And the Negro gives us a little of his grace, lets us taste it, shows us it’s fruit; but we will never be the blues. We’ll never Know the blues, you know, Know with a capital K.”
Skip and Marlene nodded. Suddenly, I felt very dizzy and my eyes started to lose focus. I walked toward the kitchen and filled a glass full of water from the tap. I stood next to the sink, gulping, finishing the glass and filling another. I did this three times. When I walked back into the living room I found Skip and Marlene necking vigorously on the golden couch, his hand moving in and out of her blouse and their legs rubbing uncontrollably; it looked like the mating battle of two giant plump worms intertwined in horrible peristalsis -- seething mutants -- mistakes of God! I had a sudden panic that I was in some house of sin, some unclean place that would swallow me up if I didn’t escape. Without another thought I ran out the door, down the stairs, and into the street where I fell to my knees and vomited next to a car.
From there my vision blurred further. I looked up and the streets and buildings were shrouded in dense smoke. The street lights gave the scene a depleted yellow aspect that I found unpleasant; I would have preferred a dark night in the forest singing to the trees but I hadn’t the ambition nor the ability to leave the city in that moment. So I decided to walk back toward the lights and the cafes, the sentimental cafes, where just an hour earlier I had been a happy peace voyeur. As I got up, I stood for a moment watching my thoughts which seemed to have no relation, continuity or end, they just bubbled up and popped, displaying their contents for a moment and then dissipating into the grey night. If I could just go to sleep, I thought, but when I closed my eyes my mind raced faster and I began to spin, and besides I couldn’t keep them closed for long. Thus aware of the situation I’d been afforded, I began to ramble.
Walking toward Hyacinth Street I noticed a small bulge in my front coat pocket. I reached in and found half a pack of cigarettes. What a luxury, I thought! I took one out and put it in my mouth. Fumbling through the rest of my coat I found a pack of matches. I struck one, lit my cigarette and inhaled deeply. To my surprise half the cigarette burned in an instant and turned to ash. Cheap French tobacco, I thought. I took another drag and the rest of the cigarette burned down to the filter, which melted into shiny orange quicksilver and burned my hand. Cursing, I wiped my hand on my pant leg and took out another cigarette. Again, the cigarette burned down to the filter and melted onto my hand. I did this several more times, all with the same result, before I threw the pack into the gutter.
I could see the lights of the bars and cafes ahead of me. As I got nearer, I encountered more people, strange people. Two lovers walked past me. Their faces were wild and animated, like masks, with big mouths and long severe noses. They were laughing like mad, stoned children. I felt a hand on my back and turned around to see an unfamiliar old bum with vast crevasses in his face. He moved in close, peered into my eyes and whispered “Siamo contenti? Son Dio, ho fatto questa caricatura.” Vile beast! I was sure he was the devil speaking in tongues. Frightened, I pushed him away and walked faster. I mustn’t dolly and indulge among these fools, I thought, I must get to the lights where I’ll be safe.
When I finally made it to the café and sat down at a table outside, it seemed like days since I was at Skip’s. My mind was buzzing at the sights and sounds of the great drama in front of me. Most of the men were soldiers in tan uniforms with white hats and black brims. Some had metals on their lapel. Some were already drunk and had their shirts half unbuttoned. I saw three of them walking down the street speaking excitedly to one another, no doubt about the woman they’d made and the ones they’d make tonight, not giving a weighted thought to the horrors that would befall them in a week, or two weeks or a month. Three chums out to live, doing the best they could, gracious and unphilosophical. Hadn’t I been one of them? Was it that long ago that I was drinking beer every night, trying to convince a girl with a cigarette, because they were usually the easiest to make, to take a soldier back to her house and find out what’s underneath a hero’s uniform? What happened to me? A nauseating fear hit me at that moment and my body froze. What was really wrong with me? What was the difference between these people and me? Scars? Was my soul scarred enough to make my spirit die? Was my intelligence really any worse then it had been? I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember what I had been before. Then, like I had been standing on a running hose and the water had become too powerful for my weight, a burst of memories cascaded all around me. My whole life before the war became corporeal and arrested my vision and the lights and the people and the night transformed into a running wheel of memories popping in and popping out, painful ones, happy ones, memories I had forgotten about since childhood, an early morning sunrise, my mother bringing me cake in bed for my birthday, my father beating me in the field for using harsh words against him, my first kiss on the school bus. These visions were as bright and vivid as the day of their birth. The memories came faster and faster, and soon I couldn’t think about them but could only feel them pulling me from fear to pleasure to disappointment to love and I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood up and shook my head and the great spectacle disappeared. All that remained were the cafés, the lights, the people sounds, the night, and the knowledge that my mind had been wrong for a long time, and now there was work to do. I am a man, I thought, over and over. I’m a man. I was born into this world naked like everybody else, and I can survive in it. In fact, I could take the whole thing if I wanted, I could hold them all under my finger and breathe fire against their walls until they see what they’ve made me. I began to make promises to myself, but before I could finish a thought, my heart sunk.
Adelina was walking down the street toward me with a tall man in a hat. I knew who he was. I seized up. But before I could react, they turned into a bar on the other side of the street. I sighed. This is it, I thought. This is my chance to tell Adelina that I can take care of her and we’ll make it together. That she is really mistaken about me and we were meant to be together to erase each other’s sorrow. I got up and walked to the bar door, spoke a little prayer, and went in.
A blast of warm air hit me, and the stench of raw meat. The bar was musky and hot and I began to sweat immediately. On the walls were heads of bear and elk, and skins of what looked like ferrets stretched out like ancient vivisections. One of the moose was smirking. When it was shot, was it laughing at death? Or perhaps the hunter’s attire? Maybe. Impalpable veils of smoke rose from each table, diffusing through the crowded room, making more ominous my mood and the buzzing in my temples. I felt my pulse in the back of my head, and when the beats came I could locate my thoughts as they ran through my mind. The sonar pulse kept beeping and throbbing, straining my nerves. Creaking, voices, dark smells and demonic laughter jogged my senses, further distorting the already blurred faces. There was no use surveying from afar. Everything was brown opaque dust. I began to walk between the tables slowly and cautiously, feeling conspicuous. Then I saw her seated at a table with two men: one was the tall man in the hat, the other a short, fat businessman with a swollen face. The fat one was giggling obsequiously at something the tall one said. I walked up to the table and stood there for a moment. I couldn’t look her in the eyes. The men didn’t notice my presence until I spoke.
“Adelina...”
“Who is this?” the tall man said to her, looking me over, “A brother? Or have you been turning tricks for nickels without me?”
She said nothing. I still couldn’t look at her face. No one spoke.
“I think your drunk friend had better leave,” he said. Then it came.
“Adelina, I love you. And I am someone if you’ll just trust me. And I swear there aint no one sorrier than me for not realizing when you tried to help me, and you’re the sweetest woman that ever lived and I can see that and we can love each other. For now you’ll just have to trust me but I’ll show it to you soon. And I know you love me and hate all this but you couldn’t be with a bum but I know now that I aint supposed to be like this and I can change and I will be a real man and take care of you…”
The tall man stood up. I realized what I was doing. He pushed me.
“I can’t hardly believe it. You understand – this is my girl, and you gone and tried to steal my girl, right out in front of me.” He pushed me again. “Don’t you know that this girl don’t love no one for free anyhow? Especially some ugly bum.”
I stood in shock for a moment. Then my mind went blank. I could only feel my blood take control of me. All the years of thoughts and sadness disappeared and left just Raymond the animal, Raymond the left behind, Raymond the violent will of the world. There was no more self-pity or guilt, just vengeance. The tall man raised his arm. I saw a shiny revolver appear on his belt from beneath his jacket. A great energy overcame me and everything turned white. Five shots rang out through the bar. There was a smooth ringing. Then the room came back, and the ringing turned to silence. Two people lay on the floor. One was the tall man, writhing and moaning, breathing heavily, holding his stomach with both hands. I looked to the other and choked. It was Adelina, lying completely still. A pool of blood was forming all around her. Waves of woe tore through me at that moment; I tried to scream. I moved to Adelina, but what I saw stopped me. I rose slowly from the floor, put the gun on the table, and sat down with my head resting on my arms. On Adelina’s face was the look of hate.

One foot in front of the other

Spending the majority of my free time amidst chaos I often find myself wondering, “what am I doing with my life.”? At first thought this may come across negatively, but it is possible that I may be doing exactly what I want to be doing “with my life”. I just cant decide.

Every day we make millions of choices/decisions. Some conscious and others are influenced by the subconscious mind.

I feel that I am very aware of what I want to do with my life and I plan on achieving any and all that I want. Having these goals and realization of what I want to do theoretically (according to psycho cybernetics and the power of the subconscious mind) should guide me towards doing exactly what I should be doing in order to eventually live my life the way I want, and ultimately accomplishing my goals.

What confuses me is that I often find myself doing everything that I don’t want to be doing… The things that I don’t want to be doing (drugs of any kind, smoking cigs and sitting around “chilling” being idle) are only slowing my progression. I try to be as pro-active as possible yet do what I feel necessary to maintain sanity at the same time.

Because I want to “enjoy life to the fullest” I take no satisfaction in spending 100% of my time and effort physically working towards my “goals”. I reason this because not every step towards “success” is enjoyable (obviously). I am playing with the idea that perhaps although I often find myself physically not working towards my goals. I am putting myself into unproductive environments with people that have a positive energy which, may have a positive impact on my life. This would only be possible if they’re subconsciously working towards their goals, and if their aspirations are worth respecting.

Here is my dilemma. Most of us are young, lost and have no idea what we want to do tomorrow, next weekend, next year and certainly not 10 years from now. If we do or at least claim to have a plan for our futures are we taking the right steps? The best, most efficient steps towards those goals? Whether or not we are working towards improving our futures and achieving our goals, how does one figure out the best way to put one foot in front of the other on a path to these goals?

Enlightenment is appreciated.

Treatise installment 1 (sarcastic? i'm not quite sure.)

Thanks addy.

For a long time now I have struggled mightily in even scribbling anything that resembled a worthwhile thought. School has begun again and with it the habitual gripes and usual distractions. School-work which is basically development of that special mental capital to be used later in life for self-indulgent and ambitious pursuits is devoid of all interest to me; save a few tidbits. What then is supposed to be the focus of my energies? Determining that question in the immediate future seems to be the answer, leading to an immense surplus of potential energy that is surely grinding out ulcers in my intestinal tract. I’ve been mulling over the possibility of a quarter-life crisis, if this is indeed that checkpoint. However that prerogative seems to be lacking, since my portfolio isn’t accordingly diversified. Meaning more specifically, I am not qualified. Perhaps an identity crisis more aptly describes my quandary. Yet funks seem to be a forte of mine and that perhaps is my identity. Old timers would tell me to sack up. Luckily my mind forges onward in this dialectical manner. I am free to synthesize and allocate blame as I please, thus allowing me to fault society. I am at liberty to blame “them” for institutionalizing mediocrity and forcing it upon us, but mainly me. I am the product of that unique middle class life cycle producing a generation (person) of premature has-beens and not-quite-there-yets. Absolutely justified in criticizing maniacal coverage of anything marginally scintillating. The general imbecility of society, pundits and proselytizers has developed the most amusing of complexes. One characterized by concentric layers of cynical superiority and debasing inferiority. So to them I say, “fuck you for making me feel better than you but depraved for doing so, all the while empowering me but stifling my capacity.”

Sleep Writing

I scribbled this jargon upon waking in the middle of the night awhile back. I was more or less half-awake and zonked back out nearly immediately afterward. I've done this a few times as a sort of an experiment, hoping to stumble on something worthwhile. As of yet there really hasn't been a drop of value but this is the first one that hasn't been totally nonsensical.

have you ever been to a place that had a monopoly paper feel?
kids write essays about it in schoool,
and teachers preach about on wednesdays.


every 2 bit crook in thailand tried to set up shop there,
only it's hard to take money from fake trees,
especially with all 40 plus thieves doing as they damn well please.

Storm Break

His thumb, a spire in the Washington wind, Alex sauntered up the 101. Cars passed him unapologetically as the sky turned grey and the cold grew, but the scattered showers that had passed over him only sustained the slight grin he’d had on his face for the past 1,150 miles.

His self reflections over the past two months were quiet and serene, sometimes lacking structure, but always purposeful and unflinchingly truthful. The conversations he had with himself in his head would inflict shame upon the righteous and cause hemorrhaging in the souls of the brave. He fought his battles alone and suffered through his pitfalls unaccompanied.

But that was what he asked for. Isolated from fiction and materialism, the time Alex spent on the highways of the West Coast forced him to inhale truth and exhale fire. Breathing words and answers he had previously only conjured when it was too late for relevancy, his mind was crystalline with the clarity of undiscovered lakes when the occasional hitch hiker sympathizer would veer their car in front of him and shower him with dirt and grass and validity.

His seekers would ask him for directions, advice, philosophies, gas money. He would ask if forward, mental strength, existentialism, and dinars were what they were looking for. He would tell them about super tramps, musicians, girlfriends, and apartments; unabashed by consequences and tears, chokes and e-brakes that would follow.

Tourists were most intrigued about his thoughts about the rain though. It all starts from something: precipitation and pools, cumulonimbus and strato-cirrus, Glendale and Palmaire. Although many of his anecdotes were filled with pain and heartache, he never regretted anything they encompassed or the catharses he could only trust to strangers.

“I sat on the couch and stared at rubber worn trainers that lacked the necessity of asphalt while I inhaled breaths that welled tears under my eyelids that couldn’t fall to quench a starving Fichus. Although I remember it as the hardest night of my life, I also know that it was the most liberating.

Her leopard print slippers perched like the predators they were, waiting for me on the leather couch.

‘Your parents didn’t just throw away $65,000 you know. They spent it for a reason and it’s up to you to put it to good use.’

‘The prices we put on things are overrated anyways,’ I reminded her as the rain picked up its pang against the plexi-glass window. ‘I could’ve stolen all of those books and understood them better anyways, except for a few. It’s not even like everything starting working out until recently anyways.’

‘That’s the point, everything is working out,’ she pleaded. ‘And do you have to keep that window open? I’m freezing, keep me warm.’

She pounced as I remained still at the other end of the room, but the cacophony of the breaking storm responded for me. I stared at her hair, pulled back tight as the drops fell from my welled eyes. The door, swollen from previous rain and uneven with the frame opened for me as the wind picked up.”

The more often he told it the less it seemed like a millstone and the more it felt like common sense. People liked hearing it and asking questions, both of which increased the banality of what Alex had once considered his epiphany. But no matter how disinterested he was each time he started recalling that night, Alex always finished and spoke with conviction and magnitude, not by choice but because there was no other tone that his heart allowed him to.

Give Me a Reason

Whenever I wake up, I never open my eyes right away. I let the hint of last nights embers tickle my nose, the crisp desert breeze tug my hair, and the warmth of the depths my sleeping bag rouse me. As my other senses begin to start function accordingly, I wait for my vision to pick up. I have to scrub sleep out of my eyes with my raw, cracked knuckles if I’ve slept over several hours, usually. Light is blurry and always has a halo around it when my eyelids first part. Pools of green become shrubbery along the feet of the Red Rocks. An orange and purple haze is replaced by the majesty of the sunrise bursting over an endless horizon.

As I use the remnants of last night’s fire to ignite some dried ocotillo, definition begins illuminate the openness that has engulfed me. Snow covers frozen grass, inactive during the winter months. The creek that runs about 200 yards off the freeway has been crystal clear from the mountain snow runoff for the past two weeks and overflowing with Apache and Gila trout. Each morning when I walk down the foothills to it I can see the fish darting in and out of shadows as I approach, I need not look for more than a few seconds to find the closest bunch of them. After three or four sub freezing swipes in the water I’m usually able to knock one of the individuals from the dense population and clean it, then reuse the pan I dug around in the river with to cook it.

This, however, was not inherent in me and took more practice and skill than most would care to spend so early in the morning. I know that it is much easier to put on a pot of coffee and watch the morning news. I know it is definitely easier to buy a pastry and a latte at Starbuck’s then sit down to read the day’s paper. In fact, it is not only more comfortable, but actually quite commonly accepted as the way to start your morning in Yavapai County.

“The fuck you say boy?” the fat, greasy man in the cowboy hat asked me.

“I had to leave them, it was time for me to explore,” I stated matter-of-factly as I spun my head to read his face.

One eyebrow rose while the other sunk with the simultaneous frown. “So you got one more year left and you’re tellin’ daddy to fuck off.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” He couldn’t comprehend. The owner of the red, 1989 Dodge Ram scratched his blue button up at the apex of his belly. Faded stains ran down either side of it from chili burgers, or freedom fries, or God knows what. “He knows what autonomy and capricious mean. He understands the complexities behind it.”

The truck slid diagonally as “Jerry” swung and connected with my left brow while veering towards the shoulder stopping the wheels with the e-brake. I burst the door open and grabbed my bag in one swoop as I rolled out of the cab to avoid the onslaught of punches being fired. A sleeping bag roll, frying pan, matches, and two pairs of grey socks rolled and scattered as my backpack hit the dust topside.

“Don’t you never talk down to me you little shit!” Jerry barked as the spit flying out of his mouth connected with his finger that was intended for me. The passenger side door slammed shut as he popped into gear and sped off.

“Give me a reason not to! Give me a reason to not be alone!” I stepped off the shoulder and into the thicket trees that lined the road, leaving the smell of Jerry’s eight miles per gallon. As I approached the stream I dipped a water bottle in and poured it over my left eye. The water
stung as it passed through the split in my brow but numbed with the wind.

As the sun set the fire both warmed and gave me enough light to see and fill the pages of a TV manual with pen. I had picked it up off Jerry’s seat. By the time the fire was nothing but a few red embers the print was illegible. I kept the fire going for a little while longer as I tossed the manual in and listened to it crackle.

It's Never Been This Bad

The rain stained the plexi-glass window as Alex stole embarrassed glances from the girl’s couch. Every time she looked over he couldn’t help but refocus his attention on the running shoes next to his backpack, barely worn from the treadmill. Tears sat in his eyes, unable to escape as Alex choked out the past year they had spent together.

“You don’t know what you’re doing. The entire time you’ve been here you haven’t been able to stay focused on one thing for more than five seconds,” she stated bluntly, apparently unmoved by his latest epiphany.

“What? I can barely hear you,” Alex asked as the monsoon broke with cacophonous gravity. “This storm’s getting heavy, like when I was in Phoenix.”

“I’ve been here when it’s rained before but it’s never this been this bad, not that I can remember at least. Not here.”

He shifted his eyes away from her deep brown irises, remembering how she had noticed that his, when they met were brown, had slowly turned more hazel.

“But I said you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. I know a guy who can get you a job at that restaurant we always go to, the one on Fourth Street. What’s it called again?”

“I don’t know,” Alex squeaked, as if he had been sleeping all night and just woken up.

“Oh you know, the one with the big pillars inside and the cheesecake and the Tira Misu that I love.”

He stared at her, unmoved by what she had spit at him. The storm shook the ever so intricately painted picture of the women from Sex and the City that hung on the South wall. The cable flashed in and out with the lights giving them an ever so instant moment of blackness and a respite from the din of the electrical generator. Peering out the window Alex couldn’t help but close his eyes and inhale the slight breeze that leaked in from between the window and its track, an airing out he had decided to continue when the two didn’t fit flush the last time he tried to close it.

“…And what about your parents? They didn’t spend $65,000 dollars for nothing.”

“Nothing?” he scoffed, bemused. “The prices we put on things are overrated anyways. I could have stolen all of those books probably understood them better, except for a few. It’s not even like everything started working out until recently.”

“That’s exactly my point, it is working out. And do you have to keep that window open? I’m freezing, come keep me warm,” she answered him.

Alex could hear her heartbeat in her voice. When he didn’t move towards her, his eyes, which were staring at the shoes again, caught a glimpse of the leopard print slippers she was wearing prowl towards him. Before she could reach him, Alex lifted his head and let his tears fall as the monsoon shook the door ajar.

pinscratch portraits

my pinscratch portraits of vonnegut

salmon

Black salmon souls cover trouble and hide woes, while secretly they pray to open the log and scratch an hour more, only the other day a thought stray barking up the inner ear wished for more years, another cumbersome salty tear to cleanse that acidic exterior; for more misty miles down in the valley where children giggle and maidens file. To allow renewed fresh whites to gander upon tomorrow’s most cathartic night. Ready some freshly stretched sinew and a Da Vinci coded smile, if it comes dusk tomorrow is for salmon fishing on the Nile.

welcome myself

this shit is incredibly sophisticated... get ready for easiness.

intense hurricane somewhere at sometime.

if i had to give Death a great big hug

And the grounds catching up to you now robbie. The pack’s pull not working but that’s old news now. I was a good person right? I tried to be decent and honest and gladhearted but I’ll find out soon enough if certain judgments really will meet me in the long grass below. I was at an all-night diner once when I was a younger man A guy comes up, looking pretty 8-ball with snaggletooth smile, sits down at my table puts his arm around me, starts to share his information he said, this is what he said, get this-- I have sex, Im always thinking about the pavement so I can avoid premature ejaculation. Good god. Who am I to hear this! I got up, remembering to thank him. Im freezing falling like this, like teeth chattering and my pockets are stuffed full of road maps like I might need them to find my way when I landed safely but now there is only down with the absence of up again. I could slant to left and rights but shut up why am I complaining im going to die! Ive made up my mind I am going to swan dive when I get closer. What style/ I miss second grade. And twizzlers and tearing up over schools girls trips bad things and good. From fixtures and forces and friends my sorrow cant no more stand its falling with me and im glad, gleefully hand in hand. Everything past and everything changed I was so tired of doing what I think I should do. And the whistling doom is opening its mouth and I can hear my neighbors dog baying on the hillside from my youth clear and cold. and I am as young and easy again under the apple boughs about my old tilting house as the grass then was so green and Time let me play and be golden in the mercy of his means while I fell fast and I thanked it. And with my swan dive the Sabbath rang out slowly both sideways and up to kiss me (openmouthed!) as I hurdled under the mile off moon trembling listening waiting smiling widely into the ground.

no title.

a snap of the fingers in the face of time brought the clocks to a halt brought the hour to its end brought the village bells toll an the flags at half mast they're a waving off his personal life I proclaim to know nothing. an unconscious comparison will sleep in my mind between the following ones an their daughters and sons with politics having nothing to do with it, an unconscious comparison now sleeps in my mind please if your not sure pray not for death on what you hear-- skills are cheap an men are mortal an the hills are steep for men who’re mortal an skills are cheap you curse fast when the odds are good an run your tongue as a dagger blade into the soul that needs no wound, rap RAP rap upon my door I skipped a rock across a pond an watched the water ripple once an the stone sank fast ... much too fast for such an arm as strong as mine heehaw haw aww man.

Chapter 1 - Box

“How do sovereign nations become socially, politically and economically relevant? That is, what is the common facet of society that makes them internationally relevant?”

Nobody answered. This was the first lecture and nobody, not even the stereotypical brownnosers with their hands normally waving about like Dutch windmills in gale force wind were about to offer up their opinions to have them rejected by this well renowned professor. Most of them still have months of incessant badgering to tackle, it would be imprudent to have their egos deflated this early in the semester. The lecture space sat approximately 300 and not one individual in the room had feigned, even vaguely, thought. It was quiet and a seemingly reverent atmosphere, so he continued the monologue, enjoying his deep sea-glass voice.

“Can anyone tell me? All relevant nations have constitutions. What is a constitution you ask?”

Looking around, one could tell that the students were shrewd enough to realize that the new faculty member wasn’t looking for a textbook glossary regurgitation but possibly a metaphorical account. The large lecture hall was again quiet. The only sound wafted lightly from the front of the room in the form of a squeaking stage, where Professor Maginot anxiously shifted his weight from left to right. Maginot was an average sized man, measuring a satisfactory 5’10” and a sufficient 175 pounds. His physician warranted that all that averageness made him above average physically, so he gave him an exceedingly clean bill of health. Maginot had a fairly normal hat size, in the 7 and ¾ range, with a length from chin to crown that would be considered by all but the most deluded, as conventional. Nearly 40 years old, Maginot was in his academic prime. He had the not-quite deep set wrinkles in his face to prove it along with shadowy brown hair that covered his ears to boot. The only thing other than his bill of health that was at all irregular were his green lighthouse eyes that seemed even in dark rooms to gleam and reflect light. His father would’ve said he felt like a million bucks in his checked tweed suit, and Maginot could’ve let the pervasive silence continue to prompt a response from an audacious brownnoser, but the excitement of divulging his recently published theory, to naïve students, at his new university, proved too much.

“Constitutions are instruments established to ensure domestic tranquility through the well ordered pursuit of box!”

Most academics would’ve considered this giddy response juvenile, the watermark of a junior faculty member, especially considering the subject matter. But John Maginot’s study was groundbreaking, he had even been awarded numerous doctorates by prestigious online universities. This meant he had credence and could exude as much childish enthusiasm in his lectures as the brownnosing students had in their responses.

I want to sing you one song here, recognizing that there are goliaths now a-days, and uh, people dont realize just who the Goliaths are, but in olden days goliath was slayed and everybody nowadays looks back and sees how cruel Goliath was, nowadays there are crueler goliaths who do crueler things, but one day their gonna be slain too and people twothousand years from now can look back and say " remember when Goliath the second was slain?" -my main man bob.

What a day to be alive. There is something generally to be said when waking up, and usually this is all I can muster under the circumstance. Peeling my green plaid comforter from my body, I am blessed to see my scrawny hair infested legs are still appendages I can call my own. I give them a whirl, they are heavy and only vaguely responsive. My motor systems lack transcendence at this hour. Should I let them settle? A few minutes of will can unify the system.

I arise minutes later after integration. There is unfamiliar din echoing beneath my feet. Not strange enough to investigate at this hour. I approach the tiled sink, a selling point in the model, and peer across the basin. There I am, a hazy semblance. I paste the brush and open wide, my calcium is a fine bunch. Yadatahw.

"Madness is like gravity! All you need is a little bitty push.."

Turn your light down low, Im speaking to ya quiet to keep my words from sounding cold only to find my temptations on the verge of being lured out the door, so turn your light down low. Go out the front, its time we part for the night but our love is still soft enough to sink your teeth into and BITE but please be assured my love this night will not hurt you while you find some park bench built for the absentminded old and think about tying your hair in pigtail bows when you were still young enough to bundle and tumble in between your mothers bedsheet folds Whispering with cupped and folded little fingers touching your sisters ear and feeling the sense of kin so close and dear in the heavy summer night.. dry grass'll itch you into feeling so whole and awake now that you can talk and likewise hear whats said with a head ready to fill and a fellow heart to hold dear while leaning on the cold white windowsill waiting for the fear to realize you’ve escaped to have another dance with these bygone years.

I bet youve switched legs up there in the sky, over my head while i walk almost grown with my childhood still sitting in my mouth like a dead rat. And somewhere between here and my promised land looms the wilderness now and the seasons are changing and Im not ready. Can't I work for a handful of garbanzo beans, you can keep the electricity. Ill have a wooden table, grow my fruit and smoke my own meat! ill play fiddle on my porch with tired feet to lilt over the rail and drink whiskey free it will be too harsh but it will be mine. strong as boiling metal. wood fire will leak into the wood and smoke will ink my nights. I will come callused and lean with limbs of iron to country rambles and walk home whistling inside the winking dawn. With my skin dark, my eye furious, I shall be idle and brutal. The best thing of all is a very drunken sleep, in the grass outback. In the summer winds Ill bring my bed out on the porch and sleep deeply into Sunday to meet leaves in my sheets and boots strewn down the steps. ill be old and ride my bicycle everyday, get real redfaced drunk and fly down dirt hills and walk everywhere, trampling grasses and tapping sticks to fenceposts and slathered in the redleafed dusk, cobwebs will cling onto pines and old mules will clop plop in soft roads below my window and i'll feel better and at home i'll slowly gray and blindly amble down my own longroad of death and lie down slow and gladly between the hissing of silver lawns and ragged sycamores against the lambence of dreaming moonlight.

storioz

The whole of the next week was spent stumbling in my mind’s eye. Finally that following Friday I was overcome by an eclectic stew of supreme irrationality and reality. Friday night bore witness to what I call the last fresh dream I ever had.

As the curtain closed on my vision… I was borne suddenly and swiftly to a place unfamiliar to me, save in myths and novels. The sun was a wavering electric desiccant, emaciating the surrounding earth and depriving the living. I was standing upon the cusp; a sheer outcropping of resistant red rock, gazing over my dangling outstretched toes to the canyon floor seemingly jagged miles below. The wind was at my face and undecided, traversing the spectrum from tender lapping to treasonous gust. Much as angels have from above, I felt my equilibrium slipping and I feared plunging through unforgiving ledges to the ant people and their craggy rust.

She placed her giving palm on my shoulder and confidently removed me from the ledge’s suffocating embrace; guiding me to the place we were to begin our descent.

“Is this your first time to the valley of the lepers?”

“Yes.” I respond.

I put one unsure foot in front of the other and we slowly come to the trailhead marked by a tall wooden post and the falling away of the earth. Following the path with my eyes it cuts ominously down the canyon wall, it is well worn from the plodding of afflicted travelers whom retreat into the hostile canyon never to return. The passage leans profanely away from the jagged wall at an obtuse angle and is littered with course sand that slows and complicates navigation.

With a simple caress she assuages my doubt and starts me upon the trek… One hand upon the rising rugged canyon wall, the other outstretched pointing across the vast emptiness towards the singing carrion birds.

A Nice Coat of Blubber Would Be Nice When Winter Comes.

a strange man simply wakes up to find "what" scribbled in his garden. he washes himself with scrambled egg, puts his glasses in his pants & pulls up his trousers. there's a census taker knocking on his door & his orders for the day are nailed up on his mailbox reading that the route on junky monday is therefore as follows: two pints of jumpstart. a book of zulu sayings. citizen kane translated into dirty french. an orange television studio. three bibles each autographed by the hillbilly singer who can sing salty dog the fastest. the back page of a 1941 daily worker [for posterity]. a salty dog. any daughter of any district judge. a tablespoon of coke & sugar heated to 300 degrees. left ears. lots of left ears. seven pieces of some deadly passport. a corn on the cob. five wooden pillows. one boy scout resembling ted haggard & a stolen tightrope walker. "What" is in my garden, he says over the phone to his friend, wally the fireman. Wally replies "i dont know. i really couldn't say. i'm not there." The man says "what do you mean, you dont know! what is written in my garden" wally says "what?" the man says "that's right" . . . wally replies that he is on his way down a pole & asks the man if he sees any relationship between Katie couric & Tarzan? the man says "no, but i have some james baldwin & hemingway books" "not good enough" says wally, who again asks "what about a shrimp & an american flag? do you see any relationship between those two things?" the man says, "no, but I see Tarentino movies & i like Stravinsky quite a lot" wally tries again & says "could you tell me in a million words what the bill of rights has to do with a feather? " the man thinks for a minute & says "no i cant do that but i'm a great fan of henry miller" wally slams the phone & the man he gets back into bed & begins reading "The Meaning of an Orange" in german ... but by nightfall, he is bored. puts the book down & goes to shave while looking into a picture of thomas Edison. He decided over a bowl of milk to go out & have a good time & he opens the door & who's standing there but the census taker "i'm just a friend of the person who lives here" he says & goes back in the house & out the back door & down the street & into a bar with a moose head . . . the bartender gives him a double brandy, punches him in the groin & pushes him into a phone booth - obviously the man's crime is that he sees nothing resembling anything - he wipes the blood away from his groin with a hanky & decides to wait for a call. "What" is still written in his garden. the sun is still yellow. some people would say it's chicken ... wally's going down a pole, the census taker arrives to make a phone call & phone booths dont have back doors! junky monday driving, going down a one way street & turning into a friday the 13th ... Ah Wilderness! darkness! & he went five hours without a drink of water. “figure i'm ready for the desert. wanna come? I'll take along my dog.” he's always good for a laugh.

pick yuh up at seven
faithfully, piglet

It wasn’t long after the vegetable dream that things got odd. You might call it a morbid fascination or a macabre preoccupation I guess, but for me it’s much simpler. I like to think of it as an ebbing in the tide of purgatorial monotony, my long cooped whirling-dervish imagination carbureted. They were funny experiences and maybe Freud would’ve had some valuable insight, but it might not have even been his jurisdiction.

The brevity of those moments made ascertaining their occurrences all the more difficult; thank god for their lucidity. It’s the lucidity that really gave them away. A snap of the fingers that portraits.

On the verge of a stairwell was a common place for things to get treacherous. I could only conjure slapstick disaster, images of calamity projected insubstantially by a roguish optic nerve and conspiring sub-conscious. A ghost rendering of myself sent tumbling over the brink by misguided gait, a pebble down a well. Down I went and continually go, head following hands following ass, unraveling the red carpet with my person. Maybe a pop here; a crack there. Eventually friction wins and a quiet halt prevails, normally it’s a muffled affair. I find myself staring at myself from the vantage at the stair summit to base camp down below. The version at low altitude rocked back onto his calves, knees on the floor; if he was discontented I’d never know it, a toothless red sauce smile pasted on his giddy face acknowledges mine.

Bring what you got on to the man down there with his hand out the bars with a tin cup, he’s real scared. kept in the hole for many months for something like refusing to speak up, and while I cant sit still to save his soul, my pensions ringing jumps to remind me its not in my hand to play corrupt—by the way I don’t believe in bad luck. So I show you to him and don’t ask me to help, Ive made peace with it all now that I can play with my baby boys in the beach kelp, But inside I’ll always skitter some when I hear the pitter patter come down the hall from that poor boy leaning against the stone wall, but when it does, Ill hear my boys laugh and giggle some and sadly throw the man from my mind and let him slide out my ear terribly quietlike. There comes a time when calluses harden your insides, and when the day breaks you can turn your head and decide whether your insides will forgive your wretched kind. Either way Ill grow old and blind and without given the choice, except to open my eyes during this cold-shouldered piece of time, Ill find my self sulking through all the world’s unforgettable/ topfloor forgivable slime.

Journey North

After much anxiety and a whole lot of hassle I eventually gathered my necessities and began my journey north. My first stop was to be Newport Beach where I met Ryan and the usual crew hanging out. Ryan’s place is like a Mecca for stoners and anybody who has no home, me being one of those homeless people as of the beginning of this journey.

The typical plans were discussed for Thursday night; take it easy in order to endure the long weekend ahead of us. Naturally these plans were drowned away by the end of the night. Ryan, Lee, Bobby and myself headed out for the bars in what is considered downtown Newport. We started the night at Sharkeez, a chain bar and restaurant located at most California college type towns. It was packed, so naturally we were drawn to join the consciousness of the crowd. A few drinks in Lee began a militant attack on the women trying to drag us into his barrage. None of us were having it, as the attack style was overwhelming and just out of hand. After awhile of loading around through the crowd we decide to leave and go to the bar across the street. The place was called “The District“ and it was a little bit more sophisticated than Sharkeez and had just the right amount of people strewn about the place. We stayed here only long enough to down one drink, as our “military man” wasn’t having the female situation there. After our “downfall” according to military standards, we went home.

The next day began slowly with a bit of a hangover and eventually with our delayed collision into the traffic on the 405 freeway. We left a bit after 3pm and it wasn’t looking good for our desired arrival in San Francisco by 10pm or earlier. The whole point in our drive up to SF on Friday was to party in the city since Saturday night was going to be spent partying at Stanford University. After several hours and good conversations that usually manifest themselves on road trips of decent size we had barely made it to Los Angeles. We were fighting the realization of our unsuccessful mission to SF but eventually succumbed to the bumper-to-bumper traffic. After a few phone calls and some navigation maneuvers we were making our way to the 101 freeway via the 126.

We stopped at a gas station in order for Ryan to relieve his urgent bladder situation, picked up some snacks and continued on our way. As we made our way into Santa Barbara I reminisced of all the good times I had there over my three years living there. It almost made me sad, as I could barely remember why I had abruptly left this beautiful outcrop of California. Through some more phone calls we coordinated with Julius my old roommate and longtime friend to meet at his place. Once there I showed Ryan around the place that I once lived and chatted it up with Jay for a while. Jay was having a traditional barbeque at our old home with all the employees/riders from Hazards Cyclery. Ryan’s girlfriend Leslie and some of her friends also happened to be in Santa Barbara for the weekend and they were going to a local place called Chad’s to have some drinks. I decided that the best thing to do would be to experience a little bit of everything that this situation had to offer us. So we hopped on our skateboards and skated into the heart of downtown SB just a few blocks from my old house.

I showed Ryan one of the Brooks Campuses that I used to go to, located right off state street. From there we skated nearly ten blocks up State Street to where I used to work at Stateside (restaurant bar and lounge). We were welcomed like royalty as I was one of the favorite employees of the place back in my day. Once again I took Ryan for another trip down “Cliffs Memory Lane” showing him the many lavish divisions of the place. We stayed for a while to catch up with old friends, then jumped back on our skateboards and cruised back down the ten or so blocks we had come up earlier. We arrived at Chad’s. A quaint little place with live music and the architecture from the 1920’s. We squeezed our way through the crowd and made our way to the bar inside where we met the girls we knew as well as one of their brothers who, to our benefit was the bartender. We stayed for about an hour chatting with friends we hadn’t seen in a long while, taking shots of all kinds on the house. Soon it was 8pm, time for us to head back to my old house and catch the end of the barbeque that now was in full swing back at the house. We said our goodbyes and with some squirreliness skated our way back to the house.

Loading up with the biker bros was the main course on the menu once we got back, but it was short and sweet. We had to get on our way in order to make it to San Luis Obispo in order to have ample time to party it up. Making sure to not miss In-N-Out Burger on the way up we made our way full and feeling fine. It was a fairly short and to the point drive, lasting less than an hour and a half.

First things first, Rounding up the bros. Triple-A was already in the full swing of the night at an Arabian nights frat party of some sorts, which we picked him up from. Once to the boys house in SLO we loaded up and debated for way to long on whether to go to the Cave Rave party or go to the bars downtown. One way or another we eventually made the decision to walk to the bars downtown. Not to be persuaded otherwise Triple led the charge to Bulls a local dive bar with a fairly young crowd. It was packed and quite uncomfortable. An interesting place, with somewhat of a local feel, as much as you can get in a town purely populated by college students. After waiting for what must have been 20 minutes we finally got our drinks. Ryan bought the first round; and he did so setting a heavy precedent of Jack and Cokes w/ shots of jager for everyone. Sitting up on the make shift table/bar on the back wall we had a good view of the scene. We quickly got over the it throughout the course of our drinks and decided to head elsewhere. Once outside we decided to go to the clubbiest place in SLO called “Native”.

Modern looking inside with a Spanish twist to it, people seemed to be enjoying themselves quite thoroughly. This spot was to be our demise as far as sobriety goes. I continued the charge by getting a round of jack and cokes and jager shots for everyone. Shortly after we got our drinks we were lighting up “beezies” and dancing in our own feeble ways. Ryan and myself got sucked into dancing with some lunkers, which was more comical than painful, and they sure enjoyed the hell out of it. All of a sudden Andrew Crane was up in our faces amped as can be to see a “brother from another mother.” We went back to the bar and continued the onslaught on the Jack Daniels; celebrating with much enthusiasm to our ridiculous toasts. By now we had made it to the point where another type of poison was desired by all, cigly wigs. Out we went to the courtyard area, which was nearly as crowded as the inside and a bit larger of an area. We split off on our grit-bumming missions meeting together once our mission was successful.

When we resumed our stance inside it was somebody else’s turn to continue the alcoholic lubrication on our minds. After a few more rounds and ridiculous antics of all sorts last call was announced. We rushed to the bar to get any of our usual liquids only to find that we had drank them dry. We ended up with some neon pink bullshit, designed to unlock the chastity belt of an unexpecting prude. Whatever it taste decent and we sure didn’t need anymore to drink anyways. In the process of leaving Andrew somehow managed to separate himself from us, later to be arrested and thrown in jail for being drunk in public. We made our way home stumbling about, pushing each other into cars and bushes, and other things of this nature. The night was not to be ended without a battle though, not with the amount of alcohol in our systems and testosterone that had been invigorated throughout the course of the night. Somehow Triple and I found ourselves in a battle, fork on knife. Though it was purely for amusement it was quite intense and it eventually ended with Triples’ hand bleeding, a small souvenir of our stop-by in SLO.


The next day began with the predictable aches and pains from last night’s glorious moments. To self medicate we went to the nearest sandwich shop, High Street Deli. We feasted on some much needed and very delicious sandwiches and were on our way.

We had decided the day before that because we couldn’t make the first night in SF we would make the most of our way up by taking the 1 freeway. I was really looking forward to finally making the journey north on the 1 Freeway all the way to San Francisco, as this stretch of freeway is some of the most famous in the whole country. This is primarily due to its positioning on the Cliffside of the Pacific Ocean, its rugged appearance and its many twists and turns. There is an entire History Channel documentary on the history of the 1 freeway, so feel free to educate yourself further if you’re interested. Needless to say, we intended on enjoying the experience as much as possible. As we came out of each turn with tires squealing we laid our eyes on a new potential surfing spot. We would get really excited with hope that we might go out and explore some ridiculously wooly surf spot, but at the same time knew that we had to push on.

Despite having drove a portion of this road before the beauty of the surroundings were almost overwhelming and overpowered all my other thoughts. We stopped occasionally to take it all in and capture the moment. After about an hour or two of driving we got to the farthest north point I had previously been on the 1. There is a large turnout that usually has a few vacant cars parked in it. Beside the turnout lies a trail through a open field that leads into a forest. I guided us down the path while reminiscing about my first experience here about a year and a half ago. The trail is fairly long, maybe a mile in length and leads all the way to the ocean, which is hardly visible from the turnout. We trekked through the poison oak jungle and waded through a small river which winds its way to the ocean. We made it to the beach to discover a fairly strong offshore breeze with waves just a couple feet high. We sat in the sand for a while hoping to see some waves big enough to make it worth going out, but it was happening. It was a great little break in our drive, and we were finally getting closer to our destination.

relationship for, the end and a new beginning. OurBack on the road, I gazed upon a part of the world I had never seen before. Alike much that came before, but different especially because it was a crucial linking point between where I have been along the coast, and where I was born (San Francisco). Like a kid in a candy store, my eyes were wide open soaking it all in. Eventually we got to the point of travel that I have both a love and hate travel along the California coast was over and our entrance into SF had begun.

We arrived at Paul’s place in Stanford where we met Drew, Richie, and their friend and band mate, Sam. We explored the scene where the party was to be that night. A lavish three-story frat house decked out according to the annual theme party “Cowabunga”. It was nearly the same as it was last year I attended this magnificent gathering of alcohol enthusiasts with enough initiative to make it into Stanford University. Ryan had never been here before so I took him on a skate mission exploring all the most popular sights on campus. We got pizza and beer at a on campus restaurant and skated back to the frat house.

Before we knew it the party was going off. Richie, Drew and Sam started the night off with a performance from the their band The Brothers Cooley which was epic to say the least. They were followed by a reggae band, which sparked a cloud of ganja smoke to erupt from the crowd in the front yard. Inside there was a DJ entertaining a huge room full of people dancing. In the backyard filled with sand there was a small bar where we were able to relive our jager shots from the night before. We dabbled in all areas of the party including the upstairs “private” bar where I bar tended for a short while until I was removed from my “position” by a power hungry frat member. Eager to make the most of the night and catch up with the crowd I drank a concoction of jager and monster to the strength of 80/20 favoring the jager. This drink eventually lead to my demise and the end of the night.

Shortly after I awoke, eyes still closed, wondering where I would be when I opened them. Slowly I opened them and I saw two guys spooning each other in the bed across from me. Simultaneously I realized that I had slept in a sitting position. I was in Paul’s room, how I made it there is probably an interesting story, however the details are lost in the bottom of a monster can rolling around campus somewhere. Rubbing my eyes and stretching I began to piece together the end of the night. Remembering eating a piece of pizza I had saved at the end of the night before falling asleep sitting up. I was surprisingly not to hung-over, which was a good thing because Ryan and I were going to bay to breakers as soon as we ate breakfast and said our goodbyes to the boys.


After an immense battle for parking we eventually met up with our crew at bay to breakers, consisting of: Sean, Aeneas, Corey, Andy B and his girlfriend, and two of your average SF crack head children. We made our way through a couple miles of the course seeing the usual sights that a free, 7 mile long party in San Francisco and no law enforcement might provide you with. After awhile everyone was pretty over the scene. Mainly because we all got their late, some time around 11 and it starts at 7am so everything was winding down. The whole experience was quite intense because everyone we were with was on a different drug of some sort and in his own world. Ryan and myself were still recovering from the night before and managed to snag a beer or two from passers by, nothing compared to the average state of mind of the crowd. We strolled back to Aeneas’s house where Ryan and I decided we should get going since it seemed the party was over.

We continued on our way home discussing our weekend journey. I slept through a large portion of the drive in a recovery state. Once back to Ryan’s house in Newport we told our story briefly to Ryan’s roommates and the usual crowd that hangs out there. I eventually succumbed to sleeping on the spare mattress amongst the chaos in the house. I had to go to bed early enough to wake myself for my first day of work at Fox Racing the next morning at 7:30am.

Afterword:

The following two weeks were among the most stressful I have ever experienced. Being homeless with a brand new job reminded me of my first month of college. (I had decided to go to school in Santa Barbara with a friend at midnight the day before he had planned to leave. I woke my dad and told him I was leaving in 4 hours to go to school in Santa Barbara. The next day I found myself in Santa Barbara, homeless, with no car and supposedly starting school the next day.) Throughout these two weeks I had the most intense, vivid, and disturbing dreams I can ever remember. Despite the setback of my living situation I have been able to perform considerably well at work and still have some spunk in me for life after work.

Dr. Zanzibar's Emergenze

Quietly he wickedly awaited, cruel in his intensely intricate intentions upon which he most certainly and without one slim salamander of a doubt would act upon. Given the correct circumstances, that was.

As (Head)master of his Domain, he was more a commander of the cowering souls rather an administrator of the highest realms of knowledge. A distinguished professor in his own right, as opposed to his left, the good Doctor of Phallusophy did nigh but to provoke his class full of pandering, pretentious, pinheaded, phlegm-inducing, pilfering, pillaged, putrid… students… and their wrath he quickly earn’t. Pure evil through and through, even through well down to the edges of the big and small toes which accumulate strange marks from God knows What… this much contained enough animosity and Eevuhl to crush all that is civilized claptrap.

Zanzibar was not a tall man, but he held a lumberjack’s presence – mostly due to his spectacular odor glands, which he prided himself on. His lumpy gait, slowly smearing the grime across the less-than-sterile linoleum flooring,  made his worn lab rubbers squawk like rodents being forced down the in-sink-erator. Relatedly, the sound was due to the audio chip he had installed in the faded black shoes, which replayed that very scenario – grinding bones, torn fur and skin, an evil cackle, and Fox News’ War on Terror coverage faintly in the background.

Dr. Zanzibar taught phallusophy at the university level, but college studentz were unpalatable to th1s man. His pupilz were of the more radikal type, but they were intelligent nonetheless, despite their fanciful intricaciez. You see, they were writerz of the highest order – creative sons-of-bitchez, cutting and harpooning the tapestry of literature past with their scalpel of new-age linguistikz and tonguez of beyond. These budding authorz insisted on using their own language to express their thoughtz, and it simply drove Zanzibar mad, mad beyond all comprehension or reason. So mad, in fact, that he had threatened to fail all of the students – but what would that do, anyhow? They held the upper hand, so to sp3ak. They had control of the collective opinion, which is supposed to count for something, but perhaps there are those who are out there to alter the power dynamic such that language is no longer an anodyne for those needing outlet or a place to place their past present and future polemikz. You see what I’m saying?

Dr. Z was a crook. A rotten thief because he intended to strip his studentz of the salaciousness of their sacred sputterancez. They grouped together to reZist the onslaught of Zanzibar’s oppressive lightsaber pen of death. They would make a stand for the l33tz.