Drink Up

I once had a girl I was dating ask me why I was so curious about her; why I wanted to crawl inside her head and figure her out. She asked me this defensively, aggressively even, and it confused me. Why would anyone be upset because someone wanted to know who they were as a person - what made them, them?

To allow it is an indication of comfort, trust, communion. To disallow it, well, that sends another message.

It’s funny, we will readily physically penetrate, or be penetrated, showing our most private places to another, accepting them, welcoming them, yet we shrink from the idea of exploring each other's minds. We prefer to do so vicariously, and from a safe distance, through books or films. It baffles me. It is the most natural thing in the world to direct curiosity at that which draws you; it is by definition how it works. You see a sparkling stone and wish to touch it, to feel it in your hand, to grasp it. A pleasant aroma draws you nearer and appeals to your appetite; you want to know what the food is made of - whether it contains garlic - you want more of it, you want the recipe, you want to have it so you can recreate it for yourself. Or perhaps you read a fascinating excerpt from a novel and want to know who the author is, what else he’s written, who his influences were, what his life was like. Why then would it be unusual to do the same with the person you love? Attention is one of the kindest generosities one can bestow upon another. It is to give them the only thing that you have in this world: time. In a sense, it is to give them your life; those fleeting moments that slip into the past and cannot be reclaimed. To shower one with attention, then, is the greatest gift that could be given. For proof, just look how happy it makes a child.

I do think we have a right to privacy though, and one shouldn't get to riffle through the closets of your mind without restraint simply because they are your partner, but I do think intimacy is an invitation. Perhaps I rummage too roughly and need to learn how to be more gentle. I prefer to think others don't rummage enough.

Drink up, deeply - you are each the last of a soon to be extinct vintage.

Thoracic Park

frac·ture
ˈfrakCHər/
noun
1.
the cracking or breaking of a hard object or material.
"bone density testing can predict the risk for fracture"
synonyms: breaking, breakage, cracking, fragmentation, splintering, rupture

Goodbye L1 and T12, we hardly knew ye.

Big Bang

Gravity and chance is all anything ever is.

Except Farts

Against my better judgement - which seems to escape me more and more lately - I dragged my aching coccyx into work today. The bus ride was a fantastically painful hour of spinal compression, made worse with every passing bump and groove. I've never felt more attuned to the contours of the highway; my skeletal structure never more alive. If I sense no improvement by the morning I'll have to pay a visit to the doctor, and maybe a psychiatrist, to inquire about my self-destructive tendencies. Oh, my crumbling coccyx.

This afternoon, while hobbling toward my office, a small disabled woman entered from the glass door on my left, perhaps three feet behind me. One of her legs was much shorter then the other and she walked with an awkward swinging limp as she hurled her body's momentum forward through space like a toy-soldier. Within seconds she had so easily outpaced me I was ashamed. When people asked me what was wrong, I told them I had fallen out of a tree over the weekend. Apparently this is the most impossibly outlandish thing you could ever tell anyone. I was greeted with exclamations of disbelief, outrage, consternation and ridicule. Why would anyone ever climb a tree? Well, many reasons, I'd venture, you unimaginative pricks. I was on drugs!!

Next time I'll try a mountain. Honestly though, once you surpass a four foot ascent, where one wrong move can prove fatal or cause permanent  debility, does it really matter? At that point you're just gloating, antagonizing gravity. Nobody beats gravity.

Except farts.

Coccyx

I fell out of a tree yesterday. Landed on my coccyx. I blame the ecstasy. Or maybe the alcohol. The weed?

I have a bad habit of climbing things when I'm of unsound mind. It isn't the first time I've climbed a structure while drunk or drugged, but perhaps I should take this as a warning. Next time, I may not be so lucky - I may land on my cocksdick.

Today I am in agony. The dancing last night probably didn't help either. I can't even put on my pants without sitting down, and then only with much effort and exertion. I met my foster parents - the same ones whose poor supervision allowed me up in the tree in the first place - and we went for brunch this morning. Perhaps I shouldn't call it brunch. I ate two bites of a pancake and a strawberry, and then spent the next ten minutes vomiting on my hands in knees in the bathroom. Strangely, I never saw the strawberry come up. I await to behold it in its new form: a chocolate-covered strawberry; a dangling dingle. I limped back to the table like a disabled windup-toy and sat down slowly, as though I were a 70-year-old man with severe spinal stenosis and several slipped discs.

I still haven't eaten. It's the only thing about me today that's fast.

I can smell the faint fungal aroma of chocolate mushrooms seeping from my skin.

Drink Responsibly

I'm not sure what I did to my shoulder, but something is misaligned, painfully so. A brilliant idea came to me last night, once I'd arrived home, after an afternoon of drinking and pot smoking: stretch it out. Sure, couldn't hurt, right? Unbelievably, I made it worse. Probably by pushing myself past the places where I'd normally stop. But that's what alcohol is for, I've learned. It's a substance used to creep beyond established bounds. Inherently Odyssean in nature, it lures us toward any and every singing siren. A truly insidious chemical. But what fun! To feel temporarily in control as you lose it; to feel clarity as you sip from the teat of ignorance; to feel grace and fluidity in speech and movement as you outwardly slur and stumble and stagger in stupor - it is utter joy, to be so deftly dichotomous. I fell asleep last night with the lights on and woke up early because of it. A subtle form of self-abuse, a premeditated punishment for the morning.

Soon I go to dine with my newfound foster parents. There will be drinking and eating and sunshine. Tonight, dinner with friends - more drinking, more eating, less sunshine.

I wonder how much piss and shit drinking and eating are responsible for.

I

There was an emptiness in the boy's eyes, a startling cold darkness that peered back at you. He was only four and one more years old, but moved with the slow, calculated pace of a man of sixty enmeshed in a rather important game of chess. Other children would be given to fits and tantrums, terrible outburst of howling-moon screams - but not Omber; he never did. Observing him on the playground, where I'd first met him all those years ago, it was clear there was something unusual about the diminutive blue-eyed demon. There were two ways in which his playground brood approached him; with fear and hesitation - and rightly so - or a remarkably dangerous ignorance, taunting and menacing the boy in the same foolish fashion a less learned child brandishing a stick or stone might menace a hive of bees. The latter of this bunch, the bullies and brutes, the future convicts and fugitives, quickly became aquatinted with Omber's style of accounting: liquidation. Though I had never seen the boy directly enact revenge or resort to fisticuffs or quarrel, it always happened that some terrible misfortune would befall his previous persecutor; an accident on the jungle gym, a severe stomach ailment and several missed days of school, the crash of clashing craniums on the swirling metal slide. Omber was the ringleader of that playground circus of disaster.

His parents, curiously, were always absent and were therefore unknown to me. This concocted my mind all sorts of crazy; perhaps he'd dealt with them, too - a cleverly planted squeeze-toy placed perfectly behind a brake pad, or a few torn open silica packets mixed into mommy's morning coffee. Or maybe he was without parents and had grown up on his own, in the boiler rooms of derelict buildings, feeding on rats and roaches, hordes of stolen candy commandeered during strings of playground heists and robberies. What did I know? All of this was mere speculation, of course, but through it all there glimmered one inescapable truth: Omber was all alone in this world and therefore free to act of his own accord, without fear of consequence or punishment.

Despite his severe and thorough dealings on the playground, he was always very fashionably dressed; wearing powder blue three-piece suits and those immaculate black shoes, ludicrously shined, which he evidently prided himself on - given how often he'd polish them with his white pocket cloth. Obviously, his odd behavior would eventually attract the curiosity of nearby parents and schoolteachers, but as they approached him, ready to interrogate Omber on the whereabouts of his guardians and the absurdity of his ensemble, he would reach into his sky-blue jacket pocket and present a note scribbled in a fine hand. The adult, looking down at him tenderly, would hand him back the piece of paper and pat his head gently before walking away to patrol the perimeter. What audacity, I thought, to forge a hand with such brazen assurance! He was a very cunning devil indeed!

All of this and more one day prompted me to follow the child at the playground's closing. I concealed myself in the thick swath of trees across from the park, peering out subtlety with my binoculars and hat - as to avoid looking conspicuous - and trailed the boy's meandering path. Ducking behind cars and eyeing him around corners, I watched him crouch down here or there to pick up an attractive pebble or a shiny coin, or generously throw a crumb of bread to a hungry bunch of pigeons. By this time the sun had nearly set, throwing its last glimmer of coruscating gold against Omber's pale blue suit. A curly-haired woman with inquisitive eyes, wearing a red polka dotted dress, small child in tow, probably returning home from a late evening walk, came between me and the boy. From behind her I saw him lunge toward the ground in pursuit of a green leapfrog. At first, it seemed her position was accidental, but then I understood that by her prolonged presence she meant to accost me. A feigned smile hung from her face like a used up air freshener hanging from a rear view mirror; a stale and odorless ornamental adornment. She asked me if the child was mine. Why, no, I'm afraid not, I replied, I'm trying to discover who his parents are, actually. She looked at me suspiciously, staring at my thick mustache, my sunglasses and hat, and then back again, as though tracing a constellation; Orion's belt. I see, she said slowly, drawing out those e's a little too long. If you wait right here I can help you; I think I've seen the boy before. I was becoming frustrated. I had almost completely lost sight of Omber and any time I tried to glance behind her she shifted her weight to block my view. I feared the longer she delayed me I might lose him for good. Taking advantage of my quiet deliberation she began to move toward her home without waiting for a reply, suggesting that through silence I had tacitly agreed to recruit her. Realizing I had to act quickly, I promptly said: no no, that won't be necessary at all; I'm perfectly capable on my own. Good day. And I walked briskly away after the boy. It was only when I turned the corner the possibility crossed my mind that she might be a member of his protectorship, one of those adults he was so easily able to buy or bribe. What if he had sensed that he was being followed and had somehow summoned her to distract me? When I couldn't find him I became frantic and worried I had made a wrong turn. Damnit, I growled from under my mustache, I was so close! At a crossroads I spun indecisively in quick hesitant semicircles, like a two-dimensional black metal weathercock, until I spotted ahead of me a shiny coin trailed by a small rock - breadcrumbs, Hansel. His pocket must be leaking, I thought, how fortuitous!

I raced up the block, hunched over, sniffing doggedly at the ground like a hound. I followed along, coin after coin after stone, until I was led to a dirt path that veered off into the woods. It was a hiking trail of some sort, one that I was unfamiliar with. At the entrance there was a sign with a map outlining the various trails and their points of intersection. The whole thing seemed to connect roughly in a circle, but had twisting little paths that splintered off into nowhere. Varicose National Park it was called. A nuisance of mosquitos swarmed around me like little vampire bats shrunken by some arcane sorcery. Their syringe tongues salivating and sharp, stabbed at me even as I shooed them away. A silly vision came to me, of miniature armor-clad knights riding the insects like monstrous, hideously deformed flying horses, repurposing the creature's long-lipped needles for lances, an army of aerial jousters attacking me as though I were a diabolical dragon to be slayed.

Luckily, for me, the park's entrance was relatively flat and, looking out into the open field I easily spotted Omber with his back turned, picking flowers. Quickly, I took cover behind an old tree, removed my sunglasses and waited to see what the boy would do next. A determined mosquito had followed me into hiding and nearly flew into my eye, had I not taken a step back and swatted it away - the infernal buzzing kamikaze - but as I did this a brittle twig crunched loudly under the weight of my foot and I saw Omber stop and turn in my direction. He stood up and dusted his knees before making his way toward one of the steepest trails in the park. I followed, slowly at first, cautious to remain hidden, but soon he picked up his pace to a near sprint. Had he seen me? Surely he must have. It's why he'd chosen to climb the highest peak, trusting his youthful agility over mine. As I clambered up the hill after him I knew I had to make a decision: would I reveal myself or would I try to stay concealed? Perhaps he was simply barreling up the mountain with an intentionless childlike exuberance. It was hard to tell.

Until we got to the summit.

Panting and wheezing, sweating amphibiously, I reached the top only to see him dash around a public restroom, throwing me a panicked backwards glance as he disappeared. I smiled, gleefully, realizing what he hadn't realized - that he was now trapped. Eager to corner and question the child, I swung around the structure and clobbered the first door I saw. My error was made clear almost immediately, when I was greeted by two apoplectic women jeering at me with pantomime torch and pitchfork. Incensed and empowered by my trespass, they screamed obscenities and incredulities, hurling insult and injury, while I, calmly, reasonably, tried to explain that I was looking for a boy that might have traveled this way. With their words and forward momentum, charging, they blasted me from the bathroom and I stumbled backward through the door, my hat rolling off my head and down the mountain. I picked myself up and entered the mens room hoping for better luck. Empty. He must’ve escaped during the commotion in the adjoining room. Curses! The guileful brat!

After that, he didn’t show up at the playground for another two weeks. I had begun to wonder if he had chosen another location for his criminal charades, as a hustler moves from one town to another to avoid detection and to evade the retaliation of those he’s wronged or robbed. But on a fateful Thursday afternoon I’d found him rocking dutifully on a springed pony, laughing mirthfully to and fro as he swayed. He looked up at me wickedly as I approached him. The malice on his face was sharp and bloodstained. We stared at one another not saying a word and, not blinking, I foisted him a cyanimde smile. Yea pal, it’s me, remember? I’ll kill your mother, and then your wife, he said. Stay away from me if you know what’s good for you, Jack.

How did he know my name? How was this happening? Listen I said to him, you better buck up now and tell me what’s going on, or else you’re going to be sorry. Is that right, he asked, smirking stoically, elucidate me. Scoundrel! How bold you are to reveal your true voice! I have never been anything but true this entire time, fool, said Omber. His horse stopped swaying; so did the swings. The mushroom shaped sprinkler stopped, too. He whispered, whispered!

Clatu borada niktu. I stood still, the earth stood still.

Oh, hello Mr. Imago, a voice said from behind me, it's so nice to finally meet you. I turned to face a green-eyed woman, much younger than myself, stout, with small sausagey limbs and a large mole on her cheek near to her lip. She had red-rimmed glasses and bright red lipstick that drew attention to her mole - from which three little hairs protruded - and before I could reply Omber had leapt from his horse and lassoed my leg with his arms. Papa! he yelled. I was stilted by confusion and my mouth became estranged from my brain. My arms hung limply, unsure what to do, and my hands raised limply in a sort of subtle protest. Oh, tell me, how is your wife, Dorothy, Mr. Imago? I understand from her letters that she is very ill, has been for some time now. This whole ordeal has been very challenging for Omber, and you too, I'm sure. She tells me that you have been working long hours at the factory. I'm so glad you could take time out of your busy day to come visit Omber for our parent teacher conference this afternoon. No no, I stuttered, there has been some misunderstanding. From below, Omber stomped savagely onto my foot and, looking up into the red spectacled lady's eyes, he asked tearfully if he could go home and see his mommy today, that I had promised him she would get better. Oh, Omber, she said, I will only keep your father for a moment, to get him caught up on your affairs, and then you may adjourn to visit your mother. I began to say excuse me, to explain that I was not the boy's father, but as soon as I spoke he threw a frightful fit of coughing and crying, making a terrible scene which garnered great sympathy from the woman. Oh dear, I have never seen Omber act this way Mr. Imago, he is usually extraordinarily well-behaved. Perhaps it is best that you take him home if he is feeling ill. Home, home, home he began to plead. I would very gladly take him home I started to say, if he were my child, but I was unable to finish the sentence because Omber had feigned fainting at my feet. Oh no, Mr. Imago, Omber! Come now, the boy hasn't fainted, he's pretending so that he can get what he wants. She bent down and picked the child up. That's no way to talk Mr. Imago, this is serious. Now where is your car, she asked, taking me by the hand and leading me toward the lot, we must get him home at once, at once, and call a doctor. Before I knew what was happening he was being tucked into the passenger seat of my vehicle and strapped in. Ms. Mole waved me off with a concerned smile after handing me a piece of paper with her number scribbled on it - in case I should need anything.

Slowing to a stop at an intersection I looked over at Omber who, smiling deviously, began to laugh as he reached into his pocket and extracted a pack of cigarettes. I yanked them from his hand and asked him what he thought he was doing. Don't do that again, he said, and reached into a second pocket, producing a second pack of smokes. In his little hands the cigarette looked more like a thin, chalky cigar, the silver lighter a lantern. Irritated by his audacity, again I reached for the cigarettes but, this time, Omber had recoiled and revealed a revolver. Nah uh uh, he said, pointing the barrel at my belly, I told you not to do that. Now, shut up and drive, he said, snapping closed the lighter and pulling deeply from his cigarette. I didn't say anything at first, I just kept driving. Thoughts crossed my mind, depraved thoughts, of somehow disarming the demon and killing him in self defense. But over and over again the grim eventuality of my incarceration played out in my head. Who would believe a child capable of holding a grown man hostage, of committing the vulgar atrocities Omber surely would and had committed? No one would, I was sure of it. It was ingeniously insidious, brilliant. I was at his mercy. My only chance was to flee, to try and lose the boy before he could discharge that weapon. Turn here, he said, still holding the gun on me. You know, that day you followed me to the park at sunset, I would have killed you if it weren't for those dreadful women in the washroom. I remained silent, not wanting to anger him, using the moment instead to think up possible escape plans. I could jam on the brakes and hope to knock him unconscious. If only Ms. Mole hadn't fastened his seatbelt! Hey, he shouted as he smacked me with his free hand, don't even think about jamming on the brakes. What do I look like to you, a goddamned idiot? Watch this, he said, as he held the gun to his own head, try to explain how this happened when the police arrive - go ahead, hit the brakes.

I was afraid. It shames me to say it but I was terrified.

It had been days now, nearly a week of driving. My car smelled constantly of cigarettes. The quality of sleep afforded to me during this time was mocking and meager. I had pulled over, my eyes heavy from exhaustion, beleaguered by fear and stress, and I began to doze under the aim of his revolver. As far as I could tell, the boy did not need to rest. Repeatedly I would wake, wrestled from sleep by splintered nightmares and the macabre zoetropes projected like lightning against my mind, only to see his stone eyes staring. Suddenly his fist thundered against my leg: get up, it's the cops; don't do anything stupid. Behind us I heard a door shut, followed by the sound of footsteps on gravel. The officer's shadow, lengthened by his headlights, surveyed and stretched itself out over the car as he shined his light through the driver's side window. I rolled the glass down and greeted him with bloodshot eyes. He ran the light over me, then the boy, and then my lap. May I ask what you are doing here on the side of the road. I'm terribly sorry officer, I had been driving for too long and needed to catch a moment's rest. He didn't respond to me but instead continued rummaging through the car with his eyes. May I see your license and registration for this vehicle, he asked. I reached across Omber, who quietly growled at me as I opened the glove box to remove the registration, and presented it to the policeman. Where are you headed. We're going to visit his mother, in Westend, she is very sick. I realized I needed to do something to catch the cop's attention, should I risk losing this fleeting opportunity at escape. I began to wink somewhat spastically with my left eye, the one Omber couldn't see, and I said: I think we'll be out of here pretty soon, officer, no need to worry about us. The patrolman looked at me queerly and asked me to step out of the car. What's going on; what did you do, Omber asked with agitation. It's okay, I'm just going to have a nice chat with the policeman, don't worry. He clenched his teeth and twisted his face into a quiet snarl. I opened the door and was led to the rear of the car. I discerned from his body language that he wanted to give me a sobriety test or frisk me for weapons. If only he had searched the boy first! I looked at the name printed over his heart before I said: Officer, officer O'Maley, if I may address you frankly, you will find that I am not drunk or under the influence of drugs, nor am I in possession of a firearm. The truth is, I am in great danger. It may startle you to know that the child in the passenger seat is not my own, and furthermore, that the diabolical boy has held me here against my will. Is that so, asked O'Maley, eyebrows raising. As expected, he was unconvinced. I wish it weren't true, I said, but if you'll search the child you will find countless packs of cigarettes, lollipops and a loaded handgun; it's all the proof you will need. Can you place your hands behind your back for me, officer O'Maley asked. Why I hardly think that's necessary, officer, I am not the one you need protection from. I can see you judge my story dubious. Don’t you think I’ve already considered how unlikely this all seems? Turn around, he asked. I promise you I’m telling the truth. Moments later I was in the backseat of the cop car in handcuffs - for my protection I was told. I understood too late that I was being placed under arrest. How inequitable! But wait, I thought, a trip to jail would set me free of the boy. Oh, the cold steel irony of my bound hands! I could’ve kissed officer O’Maley’s feet! Now all I needed him to do was to discover Omber and this would all be cleared up. Even if he was to find nothing on the boy - had he had enough time to stash the gun - I would still be deemed mentally unsound and be taken in for questioning, at which point I would have eluded the child for good.

But then - bang.

From the open door I watched the policeman fall over backward and then saw two little shoes, shiny and glinting in the headlights, jump down onto the pavement. His small hands quickly riffled through the compartments of the now deceased officer O’Maley, pausing briefly to examine the contents and then confiscate them. He stood up and began marching toward the cop car. Now, in honesty, I am a man of some small pride - I am not ashamed to say - but as the child came toward me I screamed out and cried and kicked in abject terror. He'd just killed a man, a highway patrolman, without hesitation or concern for the sanctity of human life, and now he was heading for me. He flung open the car door and glared at me as though I were a dog that had misbehaved. For a moment I was uncertain if he would shoot me, too. Regrettably, I cowered and thrashed around the backseat trying to avoid the bullet, like a caricature of a coward in front of a firing squad. He didn't shoot, though. Get out, let's go, he said, unless you want to explain to the ensuing detectives the dead cop lying on the roadside. I didn't kill him, I yelled. Didn't you, he asked. He walked back to my car and slammed the door. I waited for a moment in the back of the car considering my options. He was right, of course, about the other cops that would come. They are like pigeons aren't they? Always arriving in aggregates around some lowly piece of stale bread. And even if I could convince them that I hadn't killed O'Maley while handcuffed and locked inside the car and, he, dead beside mine, they would not believe it was the boy - they would assume an accomplice. I had no choice but to get back into my brown car and drive. I found the keys to the handcuffs on my seat. Meticulous blue-eyed devil.

After that horrible encounter we drove only at night and slept in motels during the day. He instructed me to pay in cash and to always leave fake names, to avoid leaving a trace. While we slept he would handcuff me to the bed so that I couldn't elude him, but every time I woke I would find him always staring at me. I quickly grew tired of this death march he had me going through the motions of and when we woke one evening to begin our nighttime egress, I refused to leave the room. I won't carry on like this any longer, I said. If you're going to kill me, get it over with already. We haven't gotten where we're going yet, he said dismissively. And we won't get there, I added, because I'm not going to play the part of your owl-eyed chauffeur driving my own hearse to some undisclosed location where you can kill and dispose of me. I'd be a fool! Omber laughed heartily at this, holding his stomach and bearing an enormous half-moon grin. You dolt, he said, wiping a tear from his eye, if I wanted to kill you don't you think I'd have done it already? You are payment, a hostage, ransom. Even as he spoke I knew it was possible that he was merely misleading me, trying to trick me into cooperation. A ransom, I repeated, to whom? In exchange for what? Who would pay any sum of money for my return? It's unlike you to employ such an obvious lie. Omber laughed even more uproariously than he had the first time. You really haven't figured it out, he asked incredulously, laughing like a child. Have you not, truly? Are you the only one who doesn't know? Were I not chained to the bed, and were he not holding a gun, I would have walloped him across the face. I'll not entertain you at all. I don't need to suffer your impudent tongue or its indignities - I'm not going anywhere. Oh come now, he said condescendingly, have I hurt the little man's feelings? Would you like some ice cream? Neapolitan perhaps? Shut up, I screamed, yanking at my chains. You wretched imp, release me or kill me! He smiled and said nothing for a long while. I'll do neither, he said finally, reaching into his jacket pocket. With a thud he tossed a fist-sized metallic object onto the dresser just outside my grasp. It was O'Maley's badge. If you must know, the reward for any information leading to the arrest of a cop-killer is $15,000.

Why, that's absurd. All that money, for what? You're a child! Precisely, said Omber. Do you have any idea how much candy I could buy, how many toys, cigarettes? You won't even know what to do with that kind of money, I told him. I know; that's the best kind, isn't it. I couldn't tell whether he was sincere or simply sewing strands of wool across my eyes. There is a great power in uncertainty, I learned, through his misuse and abuse of me; it is the precursor to hope. And hope that is at least ostensibly attainable is a thing most hazardous to those condemned. It is a magic that prolongs misery. I looked at him sitting there in that crimson colored chair, contented with himself for having duped me, at having framed me, and saw how he'd strung me along through his trail of patchworked wreckage. I could feel the heat of hatred rise from my ears and hot rage kick from within my cleft, cracked heart, petaling it; an outpouring of abhorrence; blood full of thorns. Fantasy gripped me and I envisioned wringing his neck, running over his head with the tire of my car, choking him with a mouthful of malted chocolates. None of these wishes were granted me, of course, but then, an idea: what if I could use his incredible greed to my advantage? You're a fool, I said, to only use me for the death of a single cop. Why settle for a measly $15,000 when you could have me kill ten cops? His face grew slack at this remark, revealing his thoughtlessness. His relaxed, self-congratulatory comportment grew tense and he rocked forward aggressively, thrusting his face toward me like a giant admonishing finger. Who said we were done? I realized that to question one's ambition is as powerful and dark a magic as that other four-letter word.

We drove that night, stopping off periodically along the highway, patrolling for patrolmen, but there were none to be found. Because I had no intention of being an accomplice, and because I needed to devise an exit strategy, I tried my luck at planting seeds in the rapacious soil of Omber's mind. He sat with the pistol pointed at my midsection, as always, his feet dangling, kicking absentmindedly while he smoked a menthol cigarette. When we drove like this I was suspended always in a state of constant exasperation and relentless duress for fear of an accidental misfire that might imbed a piece of lead into my abdomen. I had read that the stomach was the least desirable place to be shot, more than even the head. There are those who welcome a quick and irreversible cranial perforation, to let out the demons, but there is a reason no one suicides with a self-inflicted shot to the belly: it allows for too much time to reconsider. I would prefer if you didn't point that at me, I said, now that we are partners. The light from the passing cars made his big eyes grow and glow malevolently, like a hollowed out orange gourd. I work alone, said Omber. Do not forget: you are expendable, a temporary necessity. To me, you are nothing more than a marionette. What I hated most about his words was...everything. And oh how he stunk! The smell of his putrid diaper perfumed the car. He always grew more irksome when he'd soiled himself. But he was right of course - I had long since lost my autonomy, and every second of my life was spent under his cruel imposition. In that instance I grew mutinous and bold and considered cutting the wheel and crashing the car, hoping that he might perish and I might live. Compared to my current fate, what did I have to lose, really? I was to either be jailed or killed, so did it matter if I died now and took him with me? The mere chance that I might survive the crash was an absolutely magnetic possibility, and I think I would've done it if he hadn't at that moment yelled the words: look out!

Out from the darkness, in front of the car, leapt a doe; a deer, a female deer.

I crushed the brakes with my foot, but my wish was hellbent on being granted. We crashed.

...

Soon

I feel bad that I haven't written here in days. Work has been long and hard; those Ron Jeremy hours: shaft shifts. I have been writing though, just not anything I've posted here.

Soon.

Soon Friday will be here, too. And beer.

Bearing beer, on Friday, I'll be.

Distracting Chopin

The day began with Chopin. I should have known better. Then there were the clouds, and a mild hangover coloring me all moody and maudlin. Alcohol is a depressant, they say. My synapses are tired and fried, ghostly chickens clucking in my mind.

Q tells me not to use writing to dwell; he is an advocate of writing to escape, to distract. I don't disagree with this. After all, it is all anything is - a distraction.

I need to distract my inner Chopin.

A friend, after I had shown him some photographs I'd taken, asked me if I was a lonely person. It is a difficult self-assessment to make, but I think I can admit to it. Who isn't lonely? There is an inherent loneliness in existence, if you are thoughtful - and perhaps even if you are not. Everything we do is designed to assuage this feeling, this ennui, the eventual end to everything and everyone we know and hold dear. Who would argue there isn't a sadness and loneliness about it? But, in the face of all of that, in the face of utter obliteration, extinction, despair, ceasing to be, there is beauty and happiness and acceptance and contentment; that they exist in spite of that looming dark cloud is something special.

I tried an experiment - I just had a drink. It was a 9.5% IPA, perhaps 20oz of effervescent golden goodness, and all of the maudlin, somber, depressing thoughts have been banished from my mind.

Alcohol is a depressant, they say.

God, I can't imagine what I'll feel like tomorrow.

Zombie

Here's something I deleted earlier, from a longer piece:


I woke up, in the back of an ambulance, the pace of the car and my space on the stretcher stretching out my sense of space, and of place, and of time altogether. Zeno’s paradoxical arrow, I, wooden and lumber, almost made out of rubber, limber timber on the back of a turtle, on a turtle…all the way down. My head is still ringing, trying to shake off the rattle and wave, trying to say goodbye and rid my mind of his name.

I woke up, in a white hospital bed.

It felt like surfacing out from under a huge dark tide. I had a head full of formaldehyde; or was it turpentine? There was a nurse in the room with me. She had curly hair and familiar features.

She wore purple nail polish.

Had toenails like plum candy.

One Pleasure

Tonight I talked with my brother all night instead of writing.

A usually wise man once told me not to let one pleasure keep you from another.

Starfall

I went to photograph the sunset last night. I'd been planning on finding a suitable spot for it for what feels like weeks now, maybe months, and I'm happy I stumbled upon a place I'd never been to before. I'd forgotten about the calming, centering, contemplative nature of a sunset. I stood in the same spot for two and a half hours, in the company of my camera lens, watching the sky change colors. Clouds stretched out like cats and then vanished, a series of loose dogs sniffed curiously at my feet and, by the time twilight had fallen, magically transformed themselves into a nuisance of mosquitos; that's what a group of them are called, right? Nope, they're called a swarm. I like my name better.

It is only during a sunset one can stand in the same place for an hour, not moving, not doing anything, just staring off into the distance, without being perceived as disturbed or unwell. It is understood, the gazing, the glimpsing of the end, a death and a birth, something gained and lost. Watching it we bear witness to an existence larger than ourselves; a chance to read the last few pages of a favorite bedtime story, the passages of a celestial pastime, tracing time's painted brushstrokes across the sky.

A jogger had crept up beside me, her feet displacing the gravel behind me as she slowly approached to sit down, "you've been here a long time; I saw you an hour ago."

Yea, I said, I've been waiting - we all are.

The Susurrus From my Vasthole

Last night, near 2:00, as I walked home through the Panhandle, I became aware of a certain fullness that I can't quite name. The wind picked up, gently, and around me there was the loud sound of whispering leaves fluttering in the trees; fallen ones slid by, papery and skittering, like empty candy wrappers, and scampered off in the grass; into those secret shadowy places where my eyes couldn't go. The glow of the street lights in the park joined the passing clouds to follow the rustling sound, and it felt as though I had become the S of some faintly whispered word. Then, everything seemed to cease stirring, as if the soothing hand of silence had suddenly stopped all the world's shaking and spinning, and there was only a serene sense of clarity; a stilling mesmerism. I stood in the quiet beneath the sky and felt myself at the same time a discrete micron, some infinitely small particulate piece of a puzzle, a little cosmic atom, but part of an immense, swelling, interconnected, incomprehensibly vast whole.

Wow, I thought to myself, we're all vastholes; the cosmic breeze passes through us, out of us. This is why farts are funny and trombones are sad. This is how jazz birthed cool, or cool birthed jazz. Forget about jazz, the universe, the Big Bang, that 13.798-billion-year-old explosion had clearly occurred when the unmoved mover held a lighter to his black hole and let one rip; a truly noble gas. It all makes sense now.

Suddenly I smelled eggs, perhaps sulphur, and it twisted my lip with quick repellence. Out from behind a tree I saw a half-clothed man, squat and bent over, defecating, his flatus perfuming the night air with the sweet smell of creation.

I smiled, breathed in, and watched a universe being born.

Mmmmmm Pot, Ba Duba Dop

Hi boys and girls! Sorry I didn't write last night - I'd been drinking. Not a lot, but I fell victim to alcohol's classic poor judgement encouragement and decided to smoke a joint. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say it wasn't pleasant, because it was - very much so - but it precluded me from writing anything coherent. There was something I'd written, an excerpt from my travels home, but I don't know what I was getting at; I'll include it at the end of this post and let you figure it out.

Alcohol turns us into slobbering, slurring, ravenous beasts bearing fangs, mouths agape with long limp tongues, hellbent on the pursuit of undiscovered treasure. Blindly we pace and race around in the night, metal detectors chirping madly, like ticking bombs, pulled this way and that by our crazed craving. So it goes.

The sun looks like it's trying to come out but the clouds/fog won't let it. I meant to get up early and go on a photo hike but, when I woke at 7:00 I thought sleep sounded more preferable; tomorrow, tomorrow. Today, though, I don't know what I want from the day. I do know that my preference is to abstain from drinking, but it is hard when you've drank the night before; the memory, too damp to forget, wishes to be whet.

----------

Overhead, planes move like flies in water. Around me whirring highway lines materialize and re-materialize, bounding. The alcohol zips past between the dashed lines of my crimson-colored veins. Thornless stems of liquid roses rushing, racing.

I want drugs. Some good ecstasy maybe. Bitter and harsh on the tongue, but sweet and soft on mind and body, as good ecstasy always is. It is a wonder drug, full of warmth and awe and magic and mystery, ushering in that beautifully sublime, benevolent susceptibility to contentment.

I realize what little good complaining does us; missed opportunities at happiness and satisfaction, all of them. Though, sometimes, this is the very cause of the complaint.

Maybe pot, instead. It's easier. A few puffs and I'll be transported to a foreign and familiar land. Music will be more tactile, super lush, and those sensuous sonic landscapes will nourish my soul. It'll be more contemplative, too. I'll dissect my motives and ask myself why I'm home alone in my apartment, smoking weed, listening to music, a tried and true recluse, introverted, painfully analytical. Mmmmmmm, pot.

...All the way Home

She looked like Henry Winkler; Arthur Fonzarelli; and I loved her. I loved the way she would slide into a room, any room, with her thumbs upturned and collar popped, stretching out those long, soft vowels: eeeyyy. Some people say Henry Winkler looks like Alf, the puppet, but I think all beauty has some strangeness of proportion. There was something about her, my little Alfalfa, that would rouse the strangest curiosity in small children. I suspect it was her long-nosed bushy-eyebrowed beauty that excited the youngsters so. They would run and cover their cute little faces and peek at her between their fingers, or creep behind the leg of a parent and peer out at her, stealing glances, until we'd leave the room. Sometimes, the little rug rats would be so delighted to see her that they'd scream and kick and punch her in the knees out of sheer exhilaration.

It only took a week of us being together before I started learning things about people, about the world, that I had never even noticed before. For instance, I never noticed how many people enjoy sour gum and bitter foods until me and my Alfalfonzarella started going out on the town; wherever we'd go, be it the cinema or a nice dinner, I'd see a few faces with scrunched lips and slitted eyes looking our way. Speaking of eating, she really enjoyed it, more than most people, and with such fervor. My darling had been endowed with a marvelously voluptuous Victorian figure, the likes of which were seldom seen; her arms were luxurious and full; her skin rested against her body gently, in delicate bilious folds, like plump peach-colored pleated sheets; her thighs were buttery and smooth, soft and white like cream. She was the foie gras of my heart.

One bright July afternoon when I noticed she had been nuzzled by the sun, her cheeks rosy and glinting with a lovely roasted luster, I found myself burdened with an insatiable desire for her flesh. All of my being, everything I'd learned in biology and through the dissections of S. domesticus yearned for her pillowy body; to be the puffed pastry, the veritable blanket to her pig. To behold her there, that day in the park, was but a paltry hors d'oeuvre, and I grew mad with a voracious and lustful hunger. She was my hallowed and hollowed donut, waiting to be filled with my Bavarian cream, my gonadal glaze, battered by my baby-batter. We fled the park, my piglet and I, and in a fit of rotund romance, after dashing madly toward my father's ramshackle station wagon, I drove to the parking lot of an abandoned malt bar. I'll never forget the look on her sunflower face when our lecherous inertia dealt a punishing blow to the beleaguered shocks, leaving the rear of the car collapsed and prostrate.

Oh how she squealed!

Coin Operated Aqueous Tumult

I wonder, are there worse fates than sitting in a laundromat with a hangover? The deafening cacophony of machine monotony; churning, whirring, whinnying, shaking, spinning. The glass-bellied washers wobble and bounce and jump in anchored fits and I can't help but look through those naval cyclone portholes.

Tiny tsunamis
Feeding on dirt and grime and
Fistfuls of quarters

The floors here are filthy, like they've been mopped with a bag of old mechanic's greasy rags. The smell is noxious; the heavy scent of detergents and bleach fumigate my aching mind. The walls rumble as the machines go berserk, like trapped animals banging against cage doors.

I can feel the plates of my skull shifting, making mountains.

Delta Smegma Master Beta Phi

Ok, I've lounged around and slept and eaten as many bowls of cereal as I can take. It's time to venture out into the world to celebrate independence. I'm headed to Pacifica to drink beer and eat meat, maybe even blow my balls off with a Roman candle.

It's gonna be an alcohol-fueled frenzy of meat mouth mayhem; just like a typical Friday night sorority party.

Lightness

What is the difference between hope and faith? You can have one without the other, it would seem. I mused on these and other pond rings as I stared up at the summer blue sky. It would be night in a few hours, and colorful twinkling flares of light would ignite the air.

What is it about those brief Promethean ejaculations that enamor us so; the striking of a match, the meeting of a fuse, the rushing spark, a screaming ascension, a trail of fire; higher...higher; and pop; a momentary lightness; colors stream, then disappear.

I'll tell you:

They are mirrors.

Elbow Grease

*Squeamish alert*

I could do this, if it weren't for the pain. Not mine - his. The screaming, the hollering when I clamp the pins down into the sensitive skin between his fingers; it's intolerable, truly. I'd like to think that if I were the torturee I wouldn't cry out as easily, as pitifully as this; I'd like to think that I wouldn't wail and shriek and sob and beg and plead as he does. His blue, bloodshot eyes, glazed from the unrelenting torment, roll limply in his head, like a Magic 8-ball answer in search of a question. I'm waiting for the Stockholm Syndrome to kick in so I can break his heart; I've already claimed his body; that's when his mind will really go.

When I'd first met him it didn't take long for me to realize there was something about him I didn't like. There was a kind of smugness about him, an assumed superiority which he conveyed subtly, timidly, with every word he spoke. His vaguely condescending humor and his quick and vocal irritation with others, always phrased sardonically to assuage his meanness, grated on me something fierce. It was truly revolting. I was sure of it: I didn't like him. I could tell, too, that he didn't like me. I knew it by the way he looked at me, trying to sum me up, searching for faults to exploit; ways to take advantage of my disadvantage. I wondered what about me had threatened him so, but thought perhaps he was the kind of person meant to menace, to instigate and antagonize all of those around him, regardless of their character. It brings me all the more pleasure then, to see him reduced so.

As I look at him now, his face all mottled with pain, a sickly sweat dribbling from his pale skin - which I seem to have exhausted to the point that it is losing some of its elasticity - I can see him for the wretched, pathetic, insectile creature that he is. Yesterday, I had taken an old bicycle chain that I'd found bent and rusted in a neighboring backyard, and I wrapped it tightly around his neck as though it were a collar. I fastened the chain around a cylindrical pipe attached to a metal radiator so that I could grab the chain from behind him and pull it and turn it, spinning it slowly, so that the links caught the loose skin of his neck - which now looked less like a neck and more like a gizzard -producing painful friction burns and tears. Now though, when I turn the chain it rips his skin raw, and little flakes of rust have imbedded themselves inside the creases of his neck; I fear he may have contracted tetanus. He is all puffy and swollen around the throat, and twitching. With his pallor, black chain grease, and his neck all bloodied and crusted and exposed, I can't help look at him and see a maimed zebra.

It repulses me when he opens his mouth. Partly because of the sounds he makes - the hideous exasperated sighs and coughing, all wet and full of tissue - but also because of how unrecognizably swollen his face has become, like an aborted Gerber Baby. I wonder if he's coughing up pieces of his throat right now. No, it's probably coming from his mouth, I think...I'm not sure. Earlier today, I'd kindly asked him to stop speaking to me, I even said please, but his ill-mannered degenerate disposition caused him to continue interrupting my thoughts with pleas and incessant inquiries, asking what I wanted, what he could do to make it stop. I warned him once, telling him that if he made another sound I'd do something he would find most undesirable. Which is why I was shocked when he stammered and slurred the word "don't." A contraction. Do not? He looked up at me, breathing heavily, and his sweat-stained shirt, all yellowed and bloodied, reminded me of an old rag one might use to wipe a condiment bar at a roadside gas station. His eyes constantly lost focus, his neck was terribly, terribly irritated, barely able to support the weight of his head, and he repeated the word: don't. He was weak, spasming, and his breathing was strained. He didn't like the cat food I'd been feeding him. I even chewed it up for him before putting it in his mouth. He is so ungrateful, it maddens me!

It was at this moment I'd realized that I could fix all of these things, quite simply, with a philips head screwdriver; my father always said all you needed was a screwdriver and some elbow-grease. With my left hand I took the chain and pulled it firmly against the pipe, to prevent his head from moving. He didn't like this, I could tell. I'd left the radiator on and it was scorching - I nearly burned my hand. He yelped piteously when the back of his neck touched it. I took the screwdriver in my right hand and began jabbing it against his mouth to quiet him. At first he tried defiantly to keep his mouth shut tight, using his lips to shield his teeth. This frustrated me. So, I used more force and managed to rip past his upper lip, straight through to his teeth. I felt that satisfying crack as I chiseled away at his central incisors. I felt so artsy, like a sculptor. That's when I realized a hammer could be useful; how could I have forgotten? As I grabbed a small rubber mallet, he began to cry out, his warm tears making their way to my hand as I forced his jaw down toward his chest. I didn't want to keep puncturing his lips because he was beginning to lose a considerable amount of blood. He'd lost consciousness a few minutes after I'd started working, thank god, so I didn't have to hear his infernal ruckus. When I finished, it looked like he had a mouth full of baby teeth, some of them barely poking up through his gums.

Maybe now he'll appreciate that I chew his food for him, damned animal.