The Lab

We were probably too young
to be playing with it
but my mother wasn't about
to confiscate a crazy aunt's
Christmas gift from a ten-year-old.
Besides, limiting the play area
to the back patio of our condo
meant less work for her
when it came time to do laundry--
no more mucky swamps
pricker bushes leaving thorns in clothes
or
socks drenched with murky pond water.
She didn't mind me inviting friends over
to play with the chemistry set out back
as long as I didn't make a mess.

The first thing we did when opening the box
was toss aside any and all enclosed literature.
A guided study of the chemical world
was not what we sought. Come to think of it
none of us knew what we were looking for
other than an alternate way to waste an afternoon.
We'd seen mad scientists mixing unknown substances
on TV shows and in movies before, what further
instruction could we possibly need?

The company did us the favor of dyeing
the six different substances bright and varied colors.
It made our pointless experimental endeavours
seem more dangerous and meaningful
when the crystals and powders
we spooned into tests tubes
were vivid reds and neon yellows.
Once we'd mixed a few together
and added some of the provided distilled water
it all turned brown, of course.
And when that special water ran out
we stole some from my mother's
bottle of spring water in the refrigerator.

I'd venture to say that the manufacturer's biggest
mistake was including the candle.
Matches were still illicit and coveted items
to children of our young age.
We were ardently preventing forest fires
as per one famous Bear's advice
and some of us still said our prayers at night.
All of that stigma could be disregarded
in the name of science, though.
Most of the concoctions we created
were boiled at some point, the metal tongs
provided in the kit being used to hold
the test tubes over the candle's flame.
One time when my buddy held the glass
too close to the fire the test tube quickly
blackened and exploded. We cleaned up
the evidence of our exciting blunder
and thanked our lucky stars that our
potion was not potent enough to blow off a hand.
Later on in life that friend of mine
became much more proficient with chemicals.

But when the powders and flakes and test tubes
ran out, so did our fun playing scientist.
Back to the woods to play Rambo, back to
the swamp to catch frogs.
All we cured with our brief stint in research
was a case of the Sunday Afternoon Blues.
At ten years old
what else could we have asked for?

His Masterpiece.

"Are you interested in pictures?" he asked
after catching me staring at the wall
of his apartment which he'd plastered
with the one person we had in common.
He politely left the implied "...of my daughter"
part out of his question. There's a grace
that must only come with gray, or so I thought.

"Yes. Please."

He led me into his room
where even more photographs
of his children, mostly his youngest
lined the perimeter. It was like
being on holy ground, or the inside
of a submarine.

"Here...this is me as an infant...right
above her baby picture."

Daddy's Little Girl, alright.
I almost chuckled at the symbolism
but couldn't cheapen his shrine
once I saw his silly grin.
We continued to admire
thirty years of beauty
framed throughout his room.

"God...that hair. It breaks my heart."

"You like her with long hair?"

"I like her either way, but yes.
How it was when we met."

"I like it short," he said
and once again I felt out-numbered.

We shared a few brief silent moments
absorbing her smile until he interjected--

"This one was taken at Universal Studios
when she was seeing that guy who..."

"Please don't," I begged, waving my hand
in his stubborn direction. It was no use.

"Oh, no. It's fine. She was with this..."
he continued with his signature lack
of social tact, let alone remorse.
She was right: he really was oblivious.
I pulled a trick from my former life as an amphibian
and sealed my ears to keep out the bad.
The past. The ones who did her wrong.
We stumbling knights in tarnished armor
always hate the men in ten-gallon black hats.

"How about her lovely tan in this one?"
I asked in a desperate attempt
to change the subject
that he was so adamant about clarifying.

"That's when she lived in LA with her brother."

"She's gorgeous," I said in a tone humbled by beauty.

"That's my girl."

I could've chimed in self-inclusively, but opted
to let him have that one to himself.
The photos proved he'd earned it.
Someday I'll ask if he thinks I could, too.

Love Poem, Redux

Most times
I'm not with you
I just wear
a hat.

I'd offer to help, but...

I'm not sure if it's his brother
or an in-law who's doing it
but someone has been taking
my recently deceased neighbor's
slacks and dress shirts
out to his garage
all morning.

Every twenty minutes or so
he takes a smoke break on the steps
looking out across the lawn
at what the buried man had built.
I wonder if he knows
that I know
what he's thinking.

It's a task that'll help the widow cope.

I hope I find a friend like that.
I hope they throw the clothes away.
Donation's overrated.

He's out there now, taking short drags
and talking to himself.
It's forty degrees, but he's wearing short sleeves.
The bald spot's slowly growing.
He's wondering who's next.
He just caught me staring.

The daring young squirrel on the flying trapeze.

The summer before last
was an odd one
if for no other reason
than the squirrel
that broke into our house
several times.
It chewed through the screens
of open kitchen windows
plundering whatever dry food
it could find on the shelf.
One time I came home from work
and froze as soon as I saw it
poised and ready
on the kitchen counter.
It scrambled back through
the hole it had made
after our five-second locked-eye showdown.
Truth be told I was just as startled as it was.

Casey finally managed to shoot one
with his pellet gun after
hours dedicated to the stalk.
Another screen was detroyed a week later
thus telling us an innocent party
had been executed.
Whether the death set an example
or the burglar squirrel found a new
house to terrorize we never found out
but the break-ins ceased shortly thereafter.
It was a good thing, too.
The next plan of action was one
a bit less discerning than the
single-squirrel assassination.

Casey called his dad in Virginia
who told him a story about the time
he wiped out the yard's squirrel population.
He let some oranges ferment in the garage
and threw them on the lawn
once the alcohol content was able to be smelled.
The squirrels ate the intoxicating fruit, returned to
the branches they inhabited, then proceeded
to plummet to the ground once the
booze ran its course through their veins.
Apparently their impaired motor coordination and blurred vision
made it hard to maneuver from limb to limb
and when they leapt and missed and fell thirty feet
it was no wonder that their cute little necks snapped.
Although the rodents went out with a buzz
and probably never felt a thing
it sounds a bit barbaric and I'm glad
it didn't come down to that.

We still can't open half the windows
in the kitchen because of the gaping holes
in the screens left by that one summer's tyrant.
That animal left its mark, alright.
It's more than some of us will ever be able to say.
But it's two in the afternoon and I can smell myself.
Maybe it's time to shower and stop this reminiscing.

Kanji

It snowed through the night
and early that
morning
but by five
in the evening
there was a rare
December thunderstorm
that meant something
to someone
somewhere
or maybe
all of us.

Threadbare lush
in the belly
of the beast--
your fatal flaw
was falling in
love with that
goddess.

The Japanese have a word
for it:
It means "Die well."

Duelling scars, duelling scars.
They can't take those
from you.



Currently reading:
"The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho

7 deadly texts to myself on the tail end of the Express.

The train stops and she gathers her things. I'm surprised-- doesn't look like the Harlem type. The black guy behind her stands, too. He does.

They exchanged numbers earlier. Maybe now they're off to his place to exchange fluids. I turn my head to the dark window as they approach...

Catching one last glimpse of her straight black hair and piercing blue eyes in the reflection. She looks like a Russian model...

Sounds like a raspy-voiced gift from God. I inhale deeply as she passes in an effort to identify her perfume, but...

It doesn't come. My head's turned away to see her; I can't breathe her, too. Though isn't that what Life is? Choosing to see or to breathe?

The chapter ends. I close the book. My choice is made every day: She's waiting at Grand Central for me, smiling like a schoolgirl.

I hope the two of them have fun tonight. Knowing what you decide not to have keeps that grass on the other side brown. It's got nothing to do with Luck.

Proposition 27

Any decent mind would be lying if it didn't admit to pondering how to pull off the perfect crime at least once. That's what keeps most people from acting on the basest of impulses to commit sins against their fellow man: the fear of being caught. Don't let talk of moral fiber fool you; it's strictly the threat of punishment, loss, and shame that keep us in line with society's rules.

You're in a big city, say Manhattan, walking behind someone. Through some strange sixth sense they feel your presence. Out of 7 million people, you're suddenly the only one who matters. You pass them at next corner, let them see your back. Give them that false peace of mind. Men have made millions doing the same. Then, once they feel comfortable again and take the lead, you strike...

But it's not as simple as that, killer. Like any game, like any play, there are roles, characters. Each one plays an integral part, and a poor casting job in any category can strafe the plan like a Spitfire. Let me break it down.

The Donor: If you're going to do this you have to be able to justify those eyes in the mirror. Don't make a victim of the person you're about to rob. View their loss as a donation to a cause, your cause, the most honorable charity around. Sizing up the Donor is crucial. Never let it be a woman. Ordinary citizens, even the meekest of men, turn into Batman if a damsel's in distress. Now that we've narrowed it down to the less-fair sex, Does he look like he's packing heat? Is that middle-aged Hasidic gentleman going to pull a pistol from an ankle holster hidden beneath the cuff of his black slacks? It's illegal to own a firearm in the City, let alone carry it concealed. Does he look like someone who would disregard that law? Does he have too much to lose if he's caught with a piece?, or could he buy his way out of trouble? And how would he handle the Handoff? Would he chase the Runner to try to regain possession of his bag?, or is he smart enough to stick with the Picker and try to have him caught and arrested? Runner? Picker? We'll get to them, don't worry.

The Picker: This is you, pal, if you're smart. First and foremost an analyzer of men, the Picker must select the right target. Part psychologist, part ruffian, part escape artist. He must know who and when to strike, how to overpower the Donor without lethal means, and, most importantly, how to disappear once the Handoff is made. A non-descript black jacket should be worn under a vividly colored coat, maybe a hat in one pocket. Once the Handoff is made and enough distance is placed between the Picker and the Donor to allow for a quick costume change that bright coat can be ditched and the hat can be worn. Anyone looking for a man in a black jacket wearing a hat in a city as busy as Manhattan may as well cut his losses and try to figure out a way to get his charitable donation to count as another tax right-off. Meanwhile, the Picker will be riding the subway peacefully right alongside a uniformed cop on his way home from work, neither of them appearing to notice the other. That look of innocence has to be convincing.

The Runner: He doesn't have the be the brightest, just fast. If the Picker does his job correctly all the Runner will have to do is exactly what his title implies; no thinking, no dealing with a potentially hazardous situation, no split-second judgment calls. A wide receiver whose mother never loved him enough to make sure he stayed in school would be perfect. Young, dumb, and full of...you know the rest. He'll be wearing sneakers, a T-shirt and gym shorts or sweats. This will make it look like he's running home from a work-out, again relieving any suspicions. The Runner will also carry a gym bag to put the Donor's parcel in once out of sight of any immediate witnesses. This, too, disguises the crime. The Runner must be able to be trusted, possibly even a bit naive-- just smart enough to know that trying to cut the Picker out of the score will not end well for him, and loyal enough to meet up at the Rendezvous Point once the smoke has cleared.

The Rendezvous Point will not be the home of the Picker or Runner. That would raise too many questions, draw too much attention, allow for too much interference from uninvolved parties such as friends, family, and significant others. Instead they are to meet at a pre-determined movie theater where they'll each buy one ticket, cash, for the least popular film playing an hour before the reels are to roll and find seats in the back row. There, in the dimness of the theater, the Score will be divided. It's best for the Picker and Runner to meet shortly after the hit is made. Stacks of statistical anecdotes prove that a Runner in sole possession of the Donation for too much time is more likely to do something foolish. A gold-digging girlfriend may make poor suggestions, the little devil on his shoulder may get the best of him, a temporary lack of clear thinking may lead him to believe that the Picker would hesitate to hunt him down in a heartbeat. After all, he selected him as a partner in the venture with the possibility of that happening in mind. What's that they say about keeping friends close?

And then, of course, there is the inevitable. Come on, you've seen enough mob movies to know what happens in the back of that dark theater before the law-abiding patrons show up. I'll leave that part up to your imagination, though. I've laid enough out for you already. Suffice it to say that the Picker wore such a wide-brimmed hat for a reason, as security camera analysts will later find out.

It's been ten weeks since I've worked. The bills are piling up, the upcoming holidays are hard on my wallet, and I've had too much time to think.

So here it is, the obvious question:

Do I know any good sprinters who can be trusted?

No need for a fence.

All day long they came and went;
from the safety of my elevated window
I watched the procession of big dark sedans
park in front of the neighbor's house spewing
sharply dressed septuagenarians with shoes freshly polished
clothing coal black, hair tombstone gray.
The way that they carried themselves proved they were cops
or had been at one time. The way that men congregated
in the driveway told me that something had gone wrong.
People don't stop to chat outside in the cold
unless there's a reason, something to know before going in:
how it happened, how the family's holding up, what not to say.

Even a patrol car or two stopped by, potential speeding tickets
be damned.

All those cops in one place clarified what had happened.
They were paying their respects.
When a police officer goes it's a big deal.
A Fraternal Order indeed.

Richard was a retired cop.
Rumor has it he chased around my buddy's dad years back.
The stroke he'd had ten years ago forced him to leave the force.
The cigarettes he continued to smoke against doctor's orders
took him out of the game in one sense, kept him in it in another;
at least he was still doing it his way.
That's more than most can say.
And he didn't give a damn that his moustache was jet black
while his hair a mottled gray. He walked around his property
thinking and smoking and kicking up leaves
without a worry as to what it all could've meant.
He'd put his time in. He'd served.
What else did they want from him?

This may be the first thing written in your honor
aside from a modest obituary in a paper people only read
for lack of a better one. I apologize for its shortcomings
as would I like to say I'm sorry for that party early on
where your wife came knocking on our door, or my failure
to shut the blinds a few times, and I'm pretty sure
there were several instances where I could've waved
as you drove by in your boxy twenty-five-year-old car
but didn't.

Light one up for me, Rich.
I'll keep my eye on the place for ya'.




Currently reading:
"Lucky Jim" by Kingsley Amis.

The one from Arizona's better off.

Googled myself on the interweb
for sobering shits and ha-has
only to find that I played
in a lot of lousy bands as a kid
and for the Navy's football team.

I'll go with the latter half
and pat myself on the back
for keeping a family tradition alive.

I'll stick to what I know next time.

Don't fall for the peanut butter.

We hear a loud snap
in the next room
followed by the sound
of wood and hardware
bouncing off the floor.

I stop what I'm doing.
She stops what she's doing.

"There goes the mouse trap,"
I say from beneath the sheets.

"Go make sure it's dead,"
she replies, her breath catching up with her.

"No. I don't want to. It'll make me sad."

I go back to what I was doing.
She goes back to what she was doing.

Five minutes later her thighs deafen me.
We've won again.

In the morning I go into the bathroom
to take a leak
and find the mouse belly-up
its head hidden under the trap.
I'm thankful not to see its face.

It was a good night
for some of us.

The rest broke even.

The Home Team

We'd already been playing cards
for three half-drunk hours when it happened--
there was no way to call the tie
without the aid of Rock Paper Scissors.

The two of us threw the same
for six consecutive rounds.
When the seventh came
and my paper covered his rock
he leaned back in my kitchen chair
immediately falling to the floor
when it exploded underneath him.
The rest of us joined him on the ground
rolling around in laughter
till the tears came.

Turns out we still think a lot alike
though in the long run
I'm not so sure
that I'm the one
who won.

You take what you can get sometimes.

Faulty Zookeeping

It's as inevitable
as Death and Taxes
that one day I'll come
home to the cat
dragging the rabbit's corpse
around by the back of its neck
the gate dividing their two realms
having been knocked down
by the persistent predator.

Who's fault will it be?
Mine? God's?
Certainly not the cat's.

I'll have to
chalk it up
to the advice in
the Serenity Prayer.

She must feel it coming--
Her ears just spread apart
and her nose stopped twitching.

Sorry, friend.
It's been real.

Like a bird trapped in the grocery store.

And I could write
of bathroom ties
or what the survey really said:

The twenty pounds scared off of me;
begged and bound we fell from grace.

You should've lied
the first two times--
found another number.

Dragging feet through No-Man's-Land
I find this message in the sand:

You can take your brogue
and shove it.

There's arsenic in apple seeds.

It's a full-mooned Tuesday night
that'd blend in with the rest
if my roommate hadn't asked me
if I'd heard the choppers
overhead.

The President's in town
giving a speech at West Point
trying to justify his decision
to send 36,000 troops overseas
when he initially promised
to Bring 'em Home.

Any voter worth his lead knows
that vows made in No-Man's-Land
don't count.

I turn off my bedroom light
and crouch down low enough
to get a good view through my window.
There's nothing but the whir
of the rotors and a dazzling white face
made of astral cheese.

Another liar in the sky.

I go back to my book
and stroke my semi-automatic.
Just another night stockpiling ammo
waiting for the other shoe
to drop.

A friendly suggestion.

There's a junk sale
passed off as an antique-oriented street market
that goes on one block up
from her window every weekend.
The vendors come from Massachusetts.
The locals there must be onto their ruse.

I strolled through the tents and tables
two weeks ago to kill an hour
while she slept off the previous night's shift.
Bought a table vice for fifteen bucks
that'll hold my pistols just right
while I work on them.
Flipped through some "vintage" clothing racks.
Read spines of books I'll never bother to read.

But it's the guy I overheard
at the last table I stopped in front of
who stands out most in my mind now.
He was chatting up a merchant
about something other than his wares
and said "If I'm going to put something
on my tombstone it's going to be Try."

His words hit me like a laughable ton of bricks
forcing me to rub the tattoo of the boxer
on the back of my left arm. That image
along with the words "Don't Try" are on
the marble above Charles Bukowski's grave
somewhere in Southern California.
Whether the brief advice was a typically
cynical notion of my wine-guzzling anti-hero
or a positive Yoda-esque message of
"Try not. Do." is something that could ruffle the panties
of book snobs worldwide at faculty cocktail parties.
My bet's on the first horse, though.

Hank-- the next time I see you in the streets of Manhattan
will you take the time to say Hello?
These clowns don't have a clue.

palindrome

And so they takes pages from
the book of my father:

I'd rather be hated
than forgotten.

Do the Devil's clothes
smell of smoke, too?



Currently reading:
"'Tis" by Frank McCourt.

It's no Water into Wine, but...

"How'm'I s'posed to shave in here?"
I shout over the hiss of the shower.
"The mirror's all fogged up."

"Rub some soap on it," she replies
in between shampooing and conditioning
with a nonchalance a Buddhist monk would envy.

I pick up the bar next to the sink
and take her advice
mumbling doubts under my breath.
Sure as the sunrise
it works: I can see my ugly mug
more clearly than I'd like to.

"Thanks, Babe," I offer meekly through the plastic curtain.

"No problem," she responds with a splash over the rod.
"Now hurry up and shave so you can get in here."

It's the first of many miracles that I'm sure are yet to come.

Contenders

She's working nights
at the hospital
and I've been laid off
for two months
so what better place to be
than her room in the city?

I've already walked her to work
at seven this evening; now I'm
visiting her wing at two in the morning
since there's not much else to do
alone in her queen-size bed but read
and my man's going through a slump
that I don't feel like dealing with at the moment.

I'm in the elevator on my way up
to her floor. The old Hispanic security guard
standing at the opposite corner of the chrome affair
is staring at me politely with an innocent grin
that has me wondering why.
My reflection warrants no such welcome:
my black wool coat zipped to the throat, thick
brown beard and black wool watchman's cap
make me look like a wayward sailor
or angry cartoon henchman--
not the type to be studied and made light of
in a dangerously secluded public place
like an elevator. Confusion overtakes me
and then he clears his throat.

I have a hard time understanding him at first.
He's obviously spent most of his life
on whatever Caribbean island he hails from
and has not bothered to master the language.
All I can gather from his broken English at first
is that he's quite foolishly happy to see me.
The white hairs highlighting his gentle moustache
and eyebrows twitch with enthusiasm.
It's enough to make The Man in Black
ditch the chipped shoulder and listen a little harder.

"You look exactly like an old friend of mine, Manuel Garcia.
He was my sparring partner when I used to box.
I haven't seen him in forty years. Exactly like him...
It warms my heart."

"Yeah?" I ask inconclusively, still trying to decipher
how to appropriately respond to this stranded stranger
at two in the morning in a city that falsely claims not to sleep.

My sunken chestnut eyes find themselves
in the polished steel wall of the elevator.
They're ashamed for not knowing what else to say to this man
who clearly yearns for words that won't be coming.

"Have a good night," I mutter unaffectedly.
It's a cop-out, but my floor's arrived;
or rather, I've arrived at her floor.

He's too busy smiling at a memory to answer my arbitrary words.
Our chance meeting has made his night, no thanks to me.
Somewhere in a wooden box barely buried by Atlantic sand
Manuel Garcia's skull is smiling back.

Someday every Sunday.

Horseradish cheddar washed down
with mid-priced white wine
mostly naked in her mother's house
with the prematurely fading sun
begging through the windows
and all I can find to sum it up
is that first piss after
the second good lay of the day.

An evening, self-contained.

I saw the blues
through a fogged bar window
and apologized for the hardwood floor.
Whether or not
it flew
was irrelevant.

Drank all the spiced rum
in the joint, switched to Canadian Whiskey.

Tim said Yes so I did:
An old tactic, a cheap trick.
It cost us the monsoon season.

We passed a house
on our sober ride home
where I make the lights stay on
or used to.
(Work's slowing down, you see.)

And all night long
behind a soldered buckle
hollow-points fought
the tension of the spring.

Fun with phonetics.

Why the State of New York
requires these stupid plumbing classes
to deem our apprenticeship program
accredited I shall never know.
It's a sadistic cross between watching paint dry
and witnessing your friends' balls get ripped off
well knowing your turn's next
for three hours a night, two nights a week, five years.
And at the end of it all the eight of us will get our books
have our cards, become journeyman, mechanics
sit on the list waiting to go to work
like the other three hundred bums already there.
My kids will go to (and stay in) college.

"Alright, guys," says my overzealous teacher. "If
an eight-inch pipe is full of unsaturated steam
at three hundred pounds of pressure, what do I have?"

"A hard-on," I say without thinking twice.

The rest of the class laughs in agreement.
My teacher is forced to accept this truth.

"Maybe, but what else?..." and the doldrums trudge on.

Two hours later I've finally managed to fall asleep
with my eyes open when the Soapbox Pipesmith
decides to call on me.

"If a thermal steam trap is stuck in the closed
position, what is it?"

"Fucking hot," I reply after waking from my
fantasy. The peanut gallery remains faithful
saving me from punishment, though that'd
have a hard time competing with what
I'm already being subjected to here
in the name of tradition and state-alotted money.

My teacher gives up on getting a straight answer
out of me and calls on the sorry bastard to my left.

"Jimmy, go ahead and read the second paragraph."

Jimmy blinks his eyes as if it'll help him keep
the smell of beer from wafting from his throat.
It appears he's having flashbacks from
both years he spent in the third grade.

Half-way through the paragraph
Jimmy's questionable reading skills choke
on what is arguably a toughie.
"This reaction is...is...ANAL-OH-GUESS.
ANAL-OH-GUESS? What the fuck kind of
word is that?" he asks in half-drunk frustration.

Two of my classmates look at me.
"Come on, Shakespeare," quips the guy
I've worked with most. He used to catch me
reading my car on lunch break. The nickname stuck.

"ANNAL-UH-JUSS," I mutter, my teacher's eyes
glued to my lips in humbled envy. I follow it up with
"Comparable" to clear any doubts as to the meaning
as eyes widen and grow bright with anger.

"Why the fuck would they use that word in a pipefitting book?"

"What's the sense in that?"

"What are we? Fuckin' scientists?"

"Why not just say 'comparable'?"

"Why they gotta fuck with me?" asks Jimmy
before finishing "his" paragraph.

All valid questions, really
much akin to
"What the fuck am I doing here?"

The answer comes to mind
as I look up just in time
to see the perfect pearly whites
in my teacher's mouth
shine with a devilish grin.

He's won for the night.

Confessions of a ne'er-do-well wordsmith.

I know I lose the meaning
and take the words too far--
the analogy, the image, the adjectives...
I run the theme pool dry
trying desperately to make sense
of what can't be generalized.

And for these sins, my guilty brothers
mea fucking culpa.

Forever doomed to flounder here
with the saddest lot--
fumbling half-talents of the world
never discovered to be forgotten.

But hey, it keeps me from masturbating...

mostly.

Tryptophan

My mother called tonight
just to tell me that
she'd cancelled our Thanksgiving
but had a frozen turkey
for me.

"Grandma's been beating
on the walls at five a.m.
and I've been searching
for a hole big enough
for me."

We still have some things in common.

My grandmother's reverting
to a child, my mother's rebelling
and I am growing older
exponentially
by the minute.

And so I'll join the ranks
of the hapless twenty-somethings
deprived of a tired seat on the couch
for the Dallas and Detroit games.

Alas, the last holiday I held sacred
dies.

The hand that feeds.

Rabbits are silent sufferers.
Their vocal cords aren't developed
enough to make the sounds
that other creatures of similar size
are known to make.
The occasional grunt, a primitive-sounding
attempt at vocalized discontent, escapes
their heads once in awhile; other than that
the only time you'll hear a rabbit
make a peep is when it's mortally wounded.
And in those brief moments before death
it more than makes up for its years of silence.
I've seen a few flail around convulsively
as they squealed their last breaths.
It's something that sticks with you.

I squat down next to her cage
and rub her nose, the valley on top of her head
between her bulging eyes, the notch
at the base of her skull where her ears protrude.
She bows her head and lets me pet her
in a rare display of submission.
The tolerance she's showing is
not to be confused with affection.
After half a minute it becomes too much
for her feral nature to bear
and she grinds her teeth in muted frustration.
I give her soft beige fur one last stroke
and retract my hand from her cage
in order to respect her desire to be left alone.
Still, not a sound from her crouched five pounds.
She remains motionless as I turn and enter my room
a rigid statue of an ironically cold-hearted animal.
Only now do I hear her munching on some hay.
Things are back to normal in her world again.
Sometimes I feel bad for disrupting that continuity.
This strangely unrequited love is something
I've grown used to somehow.
I hope to never have to do that again.

Rabbits are silent sufferers.
I wonder whether or not its a classic case
of opposites attracting.

South Sea Pearls

Something strangely chilling
about the word 'ribcage'
makes me shudder to think:
What's it really holding, anyway?

Optimists and onanists agree:
Somewhere there's a world
where mice die of natural causes;
where no one really knows
who cast the first stone;
where history repeats more slowly--
But don't bother calling your local travel agent.

Although I'm not a Catholic
at times I feel as though
I gave something crucial up for Lent
and never got it back.

I blame it all on a number of things
inflation and the diminished value
of the Chinese Yen included.
Don't you?


Currently reading:
"The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel.

Fool's Gold: Twenty at Twenty-five.

I was rolling around
on tie-dye sheets
in a tiny expensive room
dimmed by drawn shades.
Strings of Christmas lights
my mother had sent with me
for my foray into college life
tried their hardest not to
shake their heads in shame.
It was easy to ignore
as other issues usually took prevalence:
nine-times-out-of-ten I was
hungover or still drunk from
naively sweet whiskey sours
and I had trouble keeping food down.
The smell of bourbon
still turns my stomach
five years later.

The familiar "cha-ching" sound of
a cash register that meant she'd signed on--
I was waiting for that noise
as much as I was dreading it.
Regardless, I'd perk up.
Maybe she'd reconsidered.
Maybe she'd say hello, ask how I was.
Maybe I could put up a new pathetic away message
to punish her with the guilt that only I deserved.

A good thirty pounds packed
themselves on between
the desperate months of
October and January of that year.
Various victims between then and now
would see me in different weight classes.
Gone was the sleek seventeen-year-old.
The stretch marks they'd find
later on under the hair
came from that period;
the scars under the tattoos--
yeah, those too.
I'm thankful there aren't many pictures.
Part of the reason
I have yet to own a camera.
Hoping that might change.
I'm ready.

When that Stones song came on at a bar
I'd down my drink and buy another
even though Mick got her name slightly wrong.
We never tried. I never tried.
I am this time.
Swear.

And truth be told
I forget what she smells like.
Guess that means it's finally over.

There's a new standard in town
and I know she's here to stay.

Hallelujah.
Praise the lord.
Pass the ammunition.

No cork in the wine.

"My, what a pretty lake of death you have..."
he squandered as the emeralds grew deep and dark.

Later on that week they laughed the ghosts away
from half-way point hotel beds

and the beach at Acadia was fine, just fine.
(There was no cork in the wine this time.)

Surely his uncle is missing out.



Currently reading:
"The Continual Condition" by Charles Bukowski.

fer da chilluns.

snow leopard, snow lion.
why's that crocodile cryin'?

is it 'cause he's missing out
on what he knows he cannot have?
or is he just now finally seeing
that it wasn't in the bag?
are there many captions calling
his senses all apalling?
or does he know too much
for a lizard in the sand?

snow leopard, snow lion.
you ain't the only one who's dyin'.

Now that's what I call quality customer service.

"So, Mr. Vahsen...now that we've cleared up your phone's service difficulties and established your hundred-dollar contract renewal rebate...is there anything else I can help you with?"

"No, Gary. Not unless you can straighten out my girlfriend." I was standing in her kitchen gazing towards her bedroom door as I said it. She was on the other side of it sobbing under the comforter. Both of us were guilty for our own reasons, though neither of us cared to admit it. We'd get over it; we always did.

"Ha! I've got a hard enough time with my wife."

Gary and I were still laughing when we hung up our respective phones. A little anonymous guy-to-guy therapy. And somehow, when we opened those doors again, it wasn't so bad since we knew we weren't alone.

Can you hear me now?

Yeah, Gary. Loud and clear.





Currently reading:
"Bless Me, Ultima" by Rudolfo A. Anaya.

Botched Recipes

"A lot of short skirts out tonight," I say as I notice the cabby's eyes wandering the sidewalk.

"Yes, a lot of freaks."

His response is succinct. I can't tell if he appreciates my effort to break the silence or not. This one's not talking on a hands-free cell phone in his native tongue, maybe he could use some conversation. Maybe we all could use a good talking to.

It's Halloween in the City and the gals are dressed to the nines. He calls them freaks, and in his culture they probably would be considered so. I think about how strange a custom the holiday is and try to imagine how ridiculous it must be to the man driving me home. It starts to matter less and less as the street numbers climb, as the avenues rise. I'm almost where I want to be: back with my own little freak.

The car ahead of us has a bumper sticker on its dented trunk that seems redundant and pointless at first. "I <3 My Wife." I think about it for a second and realize its implications, the novelty of such a statement in this day and age. The light turns green and my driver gives hubby a good lean on the horn to wake him up. The back of his head isn't visible from behind. He must be an old man, probably married fifty-five years to his high school sweetheart. It's easy to forgive him for not letting up off the brake so quickly; it's just as easy to understand the cabdriver's frustration. Time is precious to both men, though for different reasons. Twenty-five years have taught me enough to grasp the importance of considering the source, trying on the shoes. Forgive. Forgive. It's all we can do.

I'm fumbling through my wallet for small bills as the cabby and I pass a yawn back and forth. There's no language barrier when it comes to sleep. I decide to tip him well. He thanks me in a genuine tone that only a foreignor can pull off successfully. The hallway in the apartment building smells like ethnic foods from around the globe, all of which are loaded with garlic. My stomach growls as I let myself in with a turn of the key.

She's still asleep. Last night's shift was a rough one-- only three other nurses on her floor as opposed to the usual six. I rummage through the refrigerator and cabinets in search of ingredients for the meal I'm about to make. The smell of food might rouse her from her slumber. If not it's no big deal. I understand. Forgive.

I've been laid off for almost two months, the occasional side-job here and there: a bathroom addition, a gas manifold in a new restaurant, some blown heat lines, a boiler, a curiously named hot water heater. Just enough to supplement my income. I can pay the bills and have some cash left over to play, but I'm not exactly rolling in it. She's the breadwinner right now, and that's fine by me. It feels good to breathe easier knowing I ain't no Atlas. Not all the time, at least.

I crack two eggs into a metal bowl, scramble them, assess the amount, then add another. There's a red bell pepper in the fridge. I slice half of it into the bowl, toss in some green olives, grate some jalapeno jack. A half can of refried beans hisses in the frying pan as I spoon in some leftover rice.

(Pay attention now; here's where I mess up. Again.)

I pour the contents of the omelet bowl into the same pan as the rice and beans.

The eggs disappear into the brown mass of refried bean goodness. The cheese melts nicely, the vegetables warm up. But the eggs. The eggs are gone. All the hot chili sauce in the world won't make up for that blunder. Eggs rancheros this is not, regardless of the tortilla. I stir the brown concoction around as it stiffens up and finishes cooking. Too many ingredients used to start over. It'd be such a waste. Should've cooked the omelet separately, added the rice and beans afterwards. Chalk it up to experience.

The bedroom door opens and she comes out in her robe, eyes still swollen with sleep.

"Whatever you're making smells amazing," she groans as she scratches her cheek, still adjusting
to the light.

"I messed up. The eggs blended in with the beans. They're in there somewhere. I..." but she cuts me off.

"Oh good. I won't have to see them. I don't particularly like them anyway."

She pulls out a plate and sits next to me to eat while my heart reaffirms to my head that I'm still the luckiest man alive.

Behold the broken god of redemption.

Forgive.

Life in the Big Leagues.

You stumble passed
your cracked mirror
at two in the afternoon
realizing two things:
you look like hell
and you get what you deserve.

So you made the six an eight: big deal.

The wind blew all the leaves off last night.
You're a week too late. Maybe more.

Of course there is a God, you fool.
Can't you hear him laughing?

The Hangmen of George Hillock

I'd been away with her for days; came home to
a sink full of dishes, a bar littered with empties
overflowing trash cans and general disarray.
Needless to say
I instantly wanted to leave again, head back
to her big city.
Twenty-five and still shackled to a roommate
is no pleasant state of being
but I can't have what I want yet.

After heading upstairs and unpacking my things--
a book I hadn't touched, some dirty underwear--
I went to pull the blinds and noticed something
floating in the bucket that I use to catch the condensation
under the air conditioner.
There he was, alright: the elusive mouse
that had been scampering about the second floor
darting under doors after stealing the rabbit's food.

The gray fur was thin and matted, his feet dangling below him
like tentacles of a jellyfish that'd never live to sting another.
It was quite a pathetic sight, conjured very little pity.

At some point he just gave up.
I wondered how long he treaded water for before succumbing.
What was his last thought?

The toilet flushed itself as the bowl filled violently with the contents
of the bucket, the mouse swirling
down to the septic tank buried beneath the front yard.
"Delivered by plumbing once again," I laughed to myself.

There's something to be said for the gracious loser, the one
who bows out humbly when he knows he's lost.
There's a story there, but not mine.

A maze in grays.

Right now
in Sweden
they're burning dead rabbits
to heat
their snow-capped homes.

Watch me swell
and fade
in the shoulder--
I'll be the madman walking
through the haze
of carbon monoxide.

We all want
someone
to laugh with
in the dark.

Bury him in Gabriels, far away from me.

On a beeline trip for safety razors
(of the pink variety, mind you)
I witnessed a young father
in the produce aisle as he tried
to reason with his three-year-old son.
I could hear the frustration in his voice.
"Here, get in this cart (the kind with
the fake plastic kid-holder car attached)
since the one you're in now is broken and..."

The rest of his verbose explanation was equally arbitrary.
He should've just told junior to hop to
if he knew what was good for him.
A child who drools in his sleep
doesn't understand logical reasoning.
Then again, a man who still does
(and can't buy dark sheets for that reason)
doesn't understand much more
but I'll disregard this instance as anecdotal.

En route to my razors (well...hers)
I overheard a blonde mom in her late twenties
behind me as she answered her adorably redundant daughter
(who was also being pushed in one of those
car-shaped toddler toters, oddly enough):
"I love you, Mommy."
"I love you, Eliza."
"I love you, Mommy."
"Mommy loves you too, Eliza."
"I love you, Mommy."
"I love you, too..."
at which point I turned around and smiled uncontrollably
trying not to scare the two of them with my work grime.

My humble conclusion:
One out of two local parents has it right, knows what counts.

You can never tell them enough.
Some parents forget that; some kids do, too.

-------------------

There's a crumpled picture of us behind the trash can
in my room. I'm sitting on his lap, my arms outstretched
for my mom behind the camera. (I must've learned
which parent was the better of the two at a young age.)
My father and I had the same eyes, even then.
In a fit of rage I went to throw that photo out a few months back
but retrieved it from the wastebasket. Somehow I felt it'd be
an irreversible sin so it sits on my floor out of site instead.
He doesn't deserve my love anymore
but despite his three-year absence I can't deny it's still there.
That's what hurts the most.

I won't become him.
And a eulogy is one thing I'd have trouble writing
if I even decide to go.

Blue chalk boxes, white chalk lines.

Those two non-cougars
put up a hell of a fight
but as the boys said
I was doin' work that round.
Three in a row, four in a row--
even called the pockets.
I set my partner up
to sink the final ball.
It was an across-the-table shot
that I advised him not to take.
Would've begged had their been no shame.
Sure as shit he sunk the cue
and surrendered the game of my life.
I swore the jukebox jinxed us, went back
to drinking my spiced rum cocktails.
The bathroom mirror proved her right again:
my new thrift store button-down was pink
not salmon. I may or may not have defiled the wall.

The next joint was no better in its luck index.
There was a five-dollar cover, a rare occurrence
for that painfully predictable hole-in-the-wall.
The band played mostly songs from
the same defunct grunge act.
A brother member caught my ear
and forced me into talking shop
for two cocktails and three shots
until the lights flickered
signaling Last Call.

My friends and I were filing out
into the downtown city street
when five gunshots echoed
from what sounded like a few blocks away.
Driving up the main drag towards home
revealed the crime scene.
Five squad cars formed a semi-circle around
a strip of sidewalk littered with
derelict denizens with questionable intentions--
roaches running from the rollers, a cynical street fair
at four a.m., more tax dollars thrown down
the tubes along with the life of a dark-skinned Duane Doe.

It happened too late to make today's paper
but I'm sure I'll see it in tomorrow's.
It's a small town, but not too small.
Someone besides my pool partner scratched on the eight.
Let's hear it for impeccable timing.

Daysleeper

In the artificial darkness of your room
I battle backaches. Street noise. Hunger.
The temptation to get up.
Light oozes through
the cracks in the walls while you
let out little cat-like sobs of comfort
that I pray I've had a hand in bringing
with my stubborn presence.

Those green-gray eyes cracked open
or maybe it was a dream.
You swore you wouldn't sleep again.
I'm glad you tried one last time--
Your knees in my chest, your toes in
my shins, my calloused hands
between your warming calves.
I shove my head beneath the sheets
and smell our musty sex
hanging densely in the air-- once, twice
three rounds to take us down for good.
For good?
The best. The only.
Forever.

The guys at work wouldn't get it.
Well, maybe a few.

I know now that to love is to
fight off insanity in shifts.

Your turn.

The Monte and a Skeleton.

We were seventeen
and almost virgins.
Couldn't hold our beer worth a damn
let alone our liquor.
Our cars had been around
the block, but we hadn't.
His was a knockoff of a common
car of the time, a terrible teal sedan
that reeked of suburban complacence;
mine an awful beige boat
with two massive doors as heavy as I was
and a front end that made
potential cutter-offers think twice.
Our portable CD players
plugged into our tapedecks
and we parked in the same
two spots on South Street
Monday through Friday
rain or shine or teenage angst.

We swore we were it, man.
Even had a band.

A few times at red lights
he made the mistake
of letting me get behind him
with that fifteen-year-old beast o' mine.
I'd let off the brake just enough
to snug my bumper against his, then
tap the gas in a mock attempt
at pushing him into traffic.
His eyes would flash wide
in the rear-view mirror
as his foot slammed on the brake
to try to stop the slow forward roll.
Whatever sophomore girl
was in his passenger seat at the time
would laugh. I'd blow smoke out the window
and smile as my torn speakers blasted
what then seemed to matter.
But music, like jokes, get old.

I wish I had it in me to rear-end
a friend while driving these days.
Whether the surveys admit it or not
we're gods at seventeen.

A few weeks' worth of mild heart attacks.

It'd happened several times since I'd seen him last--
My hand had gone for the horn prematurely
in a sad-sack false alarm
when I thought I saw his truck approaching
in the lines of on-coming traffic.
The roof-racks always proved to be different
upon closer inspection, the drivers had no beards.
My hand went back to the shifter.
The lump in my throat sank southwest.

Then today he finally called: made the same jokes
we've had for years, did his impersonation
of that journeyman we couldn't stand
but suffered through together.
It was good to hear his awkward optimism
not knowing how to respond, where to
next take the conversation.

When I got off the phone and went back to work
the pipes seemed to slam themselves right together.

I wasn't so alone anymore.
I had my make-shift dad back.

He's got more closet space than God.

"Keep my name out of your mouth,"
from a riled, silent bird
still ringing seven later.
It's no wonder some hearts
keep strict bankers' hours.

Peeling pipe cement
from my hairy, mangled arm
doesn't take the mouth
of the boy who's found a gun
under the pillow of his love--

I wipe, see blood;
Again, with hopes crushed
by the crimson in the hazel:

Some things are as
they should be.

It's like trying to describe
colors to the blind.

Riding on baloney skins.

Last winter I was driving home in my then-new truck during a brutal snow storm and had a near-death experience. I was on a hilly stretch of Route 94 in Blooming Grove, a road I've traversed hundreds of times in the last five years. A red Jeep, very similar to the one my father drives, ironically, lost control and came spinning at me at about forty-five miles an hour. There was no room to veer off to one side or the other since both shoulders were narrow and sloped down to deep ditches. My body froze as I braced myself for the worst, the friend on the other end of the phone still rambling. Somehow I managed to avoid being hit by the rotating death truck. It's spin was timed perfectly so that our vehicles were parallel at just the right time and I skated by unscathed. I looked back over my shoulder and watched the vehicle slam into a tree backwards. There was no way I could stop with how slippery the roads were so I informed a police officer at the bottom of the hill who was directing traffic caused by a fender bender.

Every time I'm on that section of highway now I think of that day. That red truck's still coming at me, I'm still waiting for the impact that isn't coming. Once burned, twice shy-- only this time I made it out intact. Sometimes the underdog breaks even.

fine print

I'd decided to take
the back way home
from work
since it was three-thirty
and school was getting out.
The winding road
passed through a valley
where vinyl-sided
split-level houses
cluttered the fields
that were once grazing pastures.
It seemed some sort of crime
against whatever god you choose.

The image presented to me
by the route was surreal:
All of the driveways
were the same shade of midnight.
All of the mailboxes matched.
Most strikingly of all, however
was that where each driveway
met the road stood an anxious
disillusioned mother waiting for
the bus that'd bring her husband's children
back home to pick at another
unappreciated meal, to dream another night
in a bed that was taken for granted.
They stood like rigid sentries
their eyes unflinching as they stared
through my windshield, through my entire
truck. I could see where their beauty once
was before the soccer practice schedules
and "late nights at the office" took their tolls.
The men whom they married may or may not
still have loved them, regardless of
whether or not their secretaries went
that extra mile. Maybe those women
were waiting for their husbands
at the ends of those driveways as well?
Was part of them praying that he
finally would confront the truth
and not bother to come home?
A bold assessment of the situation, you may say
but if you'd been there with me
to see the fire fading in their eyes
the notion wouldn't seem so far-fetched.

I sped through that gauntlet
and told myself none of that would ever become
the fate of my beloved.
Some promises, though no less important, are easier
to keep.

...and let this be the worst of my sins.

He conveniently misses my calls all the time.
I'd like us to be more than what we are, to get
him up to speed on me, to learn his ropes and landings.
The ball's rolling around on his side of the court.
I have a feeling it always will.
There's no one there to blow the whistle.
That's alright by me.

We're two old fish with numerous hooks
streaming from our proud, wide mouths
like tattered badges of valour and injury--
they ain't reeled us in just yet, would have to wake up earlier.

At least once, maybe twice
we sat in the high school library
on our common free period
passing sheets of loose-leaf
back and forth across the table
since the angry Asian librarian, all of four-foot-nothing
ruled her precious silence with an iron fist.
Our shared sick sense of humor
made it hard to contain our laughter.
Even nerds like us could get in trouble.
Saying 'us', meaning 'him'.

When the others poked and prodded
in those loud marble hallways
I wanted to stand up.
I didn't.
They say you regret the things that you didn't do
more than the things that you did.
It's true.

Part of me sees now that it didn't matter to him
anyway. He was on a different plane.
They couldn't touch him.
A forcefield of tragic humility.
The wisdom of an old soul.
Good God, if that's a lesson...

But I put those notes in a folder, made sure to keep them.
They're in a box somewhere in my attic.
I'll dig them up one day when he finally breaks out
and changes the world in some small way
as all of us who've known him
know that he will.

He forgets that about himself sometimes.
We all do.
I'm here to remind him.

He conveniently misses my calls all the time
but it's hard for a dunce like me
to be offended
by a brilliance such as his.

It's threadbare advice, but I mean it.

Two in the bush.

They were both in their early forties
but dressed and wore make-up
like they were trying to live vicariously
through their teenage daughters.
It was sad and painful to watch
from between the bottles on the other end
of the liquor store, their dirty blonde heads
yapping away like the ankle-biter dogs
that were probably waiting at home for them.

"Isn't this a good brand of vodka?" one asked the other.

"It must be. It's expensive. But my husband
swears by this one. Besides, no need to go all out
for the party."

Something told me her husband drank
whatever rotgut booze he could get his hands on
and with good reason. It's often easy
to pity a man you've never met at
a time like that. If the brief time I'd spent
in the presence of those two broads was any indicator
then there were probably a lot of nights spent
hiding in those vodka bottles after dinner.

"Excuse me, sir," the apparent alpha female hacked
in her mentholated cigarette rasp.

I glanced up from the bottle of red I was considering
and prayed she wasn't talking to me.
Even us heathens have a god in certain instances.
I lucked out.

"Yes?" replied the disinterested clerk from
behind the cluttered counter. I could see right through
his act. He was just as annoyed with these two as I was.

"Is there a discount on wine if it's bought by the case?
See, we're having this party, and..."

I could bore you with the facts and figures, but I won't.
Suffice it to say they got their damn discount
and then got the hell out of the store.

I had been waiting for them to stop taking up precious
real estate at the register so I could deposit my handles
of rum and vodka, my three bottles of cleverly named wine.
I set my alcohol down on the counter and waited for
the thirty-five-year-old clerk to ring me up.
Both of us were relieved with the store's restored silence.
The air had calmed as soon as the bells on the door quit ringing.

"You couldn't pay me enough to go to their party,"
I said as he started punching numbers into the register.
"Not without earplugs at least."

"I know exactly what you mean," he said.
The tone of his voice was appreciative; he was glad
that someone else had said what he'd been dying to say.

"Here, try a bottle of this," he said as he reached for some
vodka that was in a box to his left. "We're phasing it out."

This man I'd never met in my life took it upon himself
to repay my small gesture.

"Are you sure?" I asked as I handed him my bills.
I didn't want to take advantage of the guy, but who was I
to look a gift drunk in the mouth?

"Yeah. It's on me." His smile sealed the deal.

My ride home from the liquor store was vastly more
victorious than usual. Sure, I'd spent almost a day's pay
but that one bottle of free vodka made all the difference.
I knew I'd only gotten it because of my smartass remark
and that was fine by me. My demeanor has its benefits
when applied in the right situation, when I meet the right people.
Unfortunately, however, those people are being phased out
just like that free vodka.

It's not as bad as our mothers said it'd be.
It's worse.


Currently reading:
"The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz.

Don't get in a cab if the driver is caucasian.

"I think it's that one lid has
more skin," she tried to lie at first
until our better judgments kicked in
and forced the truth upon us
as is usually the case.
It's only recent news
that I've got a lazy eye
though I've always known
about the no ass issue.
My mother calls me "Plancha",
the Spanish word for "Board".
I've never forgotten to wear a belt anywhere--
I wouldn't make it out of the house
without noticing that my pants are falling down
since there's nothing there to hold them up.
Even physical abnormalities have their advantages
if you look hard enough. Just ask...
No, that'd be mean.
I'm cynical and self-deprecating
but not a heartless misanthrope.
Let the masses find their own specks;
I can see the plank in mine.

Last week I got a letter from myself
and though that I was tripping, that my mind
had finally unhinged.
Took me a few moments
to realize it was a
Self-Addressed-Stamped-Envelope
I'd submitted with my pistol permit application.
Now take a second to decide what's scarier:
the thought that there are two of me
or the possibility of me having a concealed handgun
should the fine County of Orange decide that
that's a good idea.

Work should be fun today.
It's four in the morning and I can't sleep.
The ceiling fan spins off-kilter with an unsettling rattle
and it's too cold for the window fan
so I'm shit out of luck when it comes
to my insomnia cure-alls.
White noise or whiskey
and it's too late for the latter.

It's funny, but no surprise--
any of it, really.
I remember the relief I felt
in third grade when I learned
about the water cycle.
Up until then I'd thought
that we turned off the faucet while brushing our teeth
to prolong the day when we'd eventually run out.
For those of you who find me neurotic:
you should've seen me pre-third-grade.

Freud would have a field day.

I had this one two days ago, but it's as fresh in my mind as when I first woke up. My father and I were in his old car, the one he had when we still spoke. He'd just gotten out of some Holy Roller conference and was wearing one of those "Hi, my name is..." name-tags on the left breast of his maroon T-shirt. There was already a thin layer of slush on the roads and the flakes were coming down harder by the minute. For whatever reason he was driving erractically; strange, since my old man's always driven dangerously slow. We skidded around on the slick pavement crossing into the opposite lane quite a few times as the frozen roads wound up and down the hills of Rockland County. At one point he wasn't paying attention and almost sent us off a cliff. Subconsciously wanting to be the hero in my dreams, I grabbed the wheel and steered us back on track. Once he'd re-commandeered the vehicle he managed to throw us right back into danger. The tires were slipping on the wet snow as we were desperately trying to ascend a steep hill. We wound up in the wrong lane. I screamed at him to stop fllooring the gas pedal, that it was getting us nowhere. I saw headlights coming around the bend and thought we were done for. I'd died in my dreams before, it wasn't a surprise. Somehow, though, we managed to get back into our lane. The stubborn old bastard still wouldn't slow down, however. We were flying down a hill marked thirty miles-an-hour at a brisk fifty-five; I was close to shitting myself. Not knowing how else to slow us down I pulled the emergency brake. When that didn't work I shifted the car into a lower gear. It was all futile, my father was hauling ass. My pleas to be more careful must've finally gotten through to him. He pulled over and switched seats with me. It was comforting to get behind the wheel, but not for long. The car wanted to accelerate on its own and the brake wasn't doing much of anything. My dad stared straight ahead, didn't bother giving me the "I told you so" look that a normal human being would've relished. We zoomed past a cop car at a speed that'd undoubtedly raise any patrolman's eyebrow. I was not about to get into an accidental high-speed pursuit, especially with that old coot riding shotgun, so I opted to stop the car the hard way. I could see a thick patch of snow in the center of the road ahead of us, a five-foot snow bank in the shoulder to the right. My foot slammed the brake as hard as it could as I aimed for the dangerous spot in the road and jerked the wheel, sending us spinning. Luckily, we landed in the bank, facing the wrong way so we could see the rollers on top of the approaching cruiser. My father and I both jumped out of the car thankful to still have our lives. When the officer arrived on the scene he immediately blamed by father for the accident. Good ol' Charlie didn't put up much of a fight, even though I'd been the one driving. He managed to irritate the cop with his antics and stupid questions, the socially awkward dolt that he is, as I cringed and called my mother for a ride home. There was a lot of noise in the background when she picked up her phone. She said that she was at a restaurant and was too drunk to drive. I told her not to worry, I'd be OK without her help. After hanging up I turned back and saw that my dad was in handcuffs. I guess he finally pushed that cop over the edge with his nonsense. And yes, the police officer in my nightmare was played by no other than Reginald VelJohnson, friendly neighborhood cop in both 'Family Matters' (Carl Winslow) and 'Die Hard' (not Carl Winslow). Who else could it have been?

I woke shortly afterwards as is usually the case. My beard and the pillow were soaked in drool, another unfortunately common occurrence. My girlfriend's green-gray eyes peered over at me from under heavy lids. She asked what was wrong, what had happened in my sleep. She can tell when they're about him now. Sometimes I think she knows more about me than I do. I recited the story I just told here. She suggested I talk to someone, go see somebody, a shrink-- since my father's absence has clearly become a major theme in my life. Maybe that's not such a bad idea. Regardless, it doesn't take a Sigmund Freud to decipher what this one in particular meant: I couldn't slow that damn car down any better than he could. I'm making the same mistakes, heading down the same path, suffering the same consequences; and that's my biggest fear, really: the self-fulfilling prophecy, the unbroken cycle. Maybe I should've aimed for the telephone pole across from that snow bank instead.

And Sigmund--
I'm well aware of what they didn't tell us in college: you were just a perverted cocaine addict who lost his jawbone to cigar-induced cancer.

Milk, Bread, Eggs...

An old friend called me up
said that 'Having feelings sucks'.
(Well, she didn't really call me
but it sounded better.)

And she disappeared before
I could settle any score.
(See, it's not the case 'cause if we didn't
what then would they trample?)

We can hear more rhyme than reason.
I've been dreamin' more than sleepin'.
It's no wonder that she cropped him
(the fuck) out of the picture.

The Lameness Czars

But can't she see
it's no coin-
cidence

that my fav-
orite novel's called
'The Bro-

thers Kar-
amazoV'
? (Please?)

Don't threaten me with a good time.

Dave and I had already been there
working on the boiler for two hours
when he found the poor thing.
He was kneeling in the corner of
the basement and let out a yell that sounded
like it came from a frightened schoolgirl.
It was so feminine that he probably would've
paid a substantial sum of money
to hide all evidence of it having happened
from our brother members.
Even plumbers have fears.

"You're afraid of a little snake, Dave?"
I asked after my laughter had died down.

"Didn't used to be. Not taking any chances."
He was riffling through my tool bucket in search
of something with which to hit the coiled up garter.
It didn't seem right.

"Don't kill it. I'll catch it."

"And do what with it?"

"Let it go outside."

"Fine, but if you try to catch it
and it escapes in here
you can work in this corner all day."
The sincerity in his voice was matched by
his raised eyebrow. For a grown man
he sure was acting like a little girl.
They're not even poisonous.
Snakes, I mean.

My tape measure served as a good
instrument to use to prod the terrified snake.
It snapped at its metal hook a few times
and refused to be goaded into the pail
I was holding in front of it. Getting sick of the charade
I found a rag and used that to grab it.
Dave peered down into the bucket with disgust
after I caught the snake. The hammer in his hand
twitched with the remnants of the dose of adrenaline
his initial scare had afforded him.

I've never understood people who kill things
for getting in their way, much less out of unjustified fear.
I've never really understood people at all, truth be told.
I suppose I'd be worried if I did.

Dave followed me outside to watch me free the captive.
He hadn't put the hammer down yet, it was starting
to worry me a bit.

"Not here. Keep walking," he said
when I went to tip the bucket in the back yard.
"It might slither up my hose if you set it free
too close to the house."

The green garden hose we'd run out from
the basement to drain the old boiler
prior to removing it was a good ten feet to my left.
My friend's fear was legitimate. I felt bad.

We watched it disappear into some tall grass.
"Thanks," Dave said. "I'm glad I didn't have to kill it."
He flipped the hammer around and caught it
in mid-air by the head, then turned and walked
back towards the house with long, even strides.

A few hours later we were done piping the boiler.
Dave's specialty was wiring and he was about
to show me just how great he was at it-- that is until
he opened up the electrical box on the wall and jumped back
with that same shrill shriek.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Look at those black wires with the yellow stripes."

He was right, they did resemble smaller versions
of our reptilian friend.

"No hammer this time, OK?"

When the customer returned home three hours later
Dave made reference to the day's capture.
"No extra charge for snake removal, Mrs. Cho."

"What you mean?" she asked with a gasp.

"My partner here got rid of one he found in the corner."

Mrs. Cho nodded in silent appreciation. Then she
asked whom to make the cheque out to.
"Dave Bush Maintenance," my partner said.

"Spell that, prease," replied Mrs. Cho.

Dave looked mortified for the third time that day.
"D-A-V-E, B-U-S-H," he recited as he fumbled through
his pocket. "M-A-I-N-T-E-N-A-N-C-E," he read
from the business card his wife had printed up for him.
Arlene was clearly the brains of the operation.

"That word always messes me up," he explained
after Mrs. Cho had walked out of the room.

"She's from a foreign country. What's your excuse?"

"I'm a plumber, Shakespeare," Dave responded.
"More of a plumber than you'll ever be."

I couldn't have agreed more.

The Job of 38th Street

Their asses swayed back and forth
in front of me on the dimly lit sidewalk.
Both girls were a few inches shorter than me
and quite a bit paler, though I never did
see their faces. They walked arm-in-arm
possibly lesbians; probably so, in fact--
sometimes I feel like us red-blooded
heterosexuals are the minority in this city.
One of them had a black hooded sweatshirt
and bleached streaks in her dark hair.
The other, the taller of the two, wore
a pink sweater that didn't quite cover
her orange undershirt. I like when that happens.
We all do, us red-blooded heterosexuals.

My shins were killing me from all of the
flat-footed pavement-pounding I'd been doing.
I'd just dropped her lunch off at the hospital
and was heading back to her apartment
in the hope that the key she'd made me would work
this time. I needed something to focus
my blurred vision on, something to follow
in order to make it those twenty blocks back to the apartment.
It wasn't personal, wasn't sexual; just something to follow
to latch onto, like a set of red tail lights on a tired drive home.

I could smell the rich sauces in the Chinese food cartons
that Bleached Hair was carrying in a white plastic bag.
The familiar aroma made me feel comfortable in
an otherwise unfamiliar place. Then I caught a whiff
of the perfume that one of them was wearing.
Something in my motivation changed.

I banged a left at the next intersection, crossed
before the red hand disappeared, almost got clipped
by a delivery boy on a bicycle who cursed at me in Spanish.
I'd have to find a new guide home. The asses weren't so harmless
anymore and my lazy eye couldn't carry the guilt.

Everyone loses in a city made of sidewalks.
Don't mind my noticing;
blame it on the low blood sugar.

Marco!

The book got boring so I marked my page and put it down. She was still too into hers to be distracted by my fingertips as I stroked her back in a feeble attempt to initiate something. This is her place, this cubby hole in Midtown West, and I should know better than to try to run the show. The narrow mind that I am, I try sometimes.

Someone outside her window (she'd rather hear me say 'our', but I can't just yet) is taking the building's trash out of the two wooden bins near the front door. I can hear the bottles clinking together, can almost hear the man cursing us gringos under his breath. How did he get such a job? Why is he automatically Latino? Have I seen him before?, maybe on my glorious zombie stroll back from the bar at five in the morning the other night? You know, the time I stumbled into some Pakistani restaurant since it was the only place open at that hour, took a look at the bearded men around me, mumbled 'Goddamn terrorists', and somehow managed to walk out without becoming the next day's lunch special. It's no wonder she worries about me wandering this town alone at night when she's off taking care of strangers for a living. No no no! She's a nurse, not a prostitute, though one of those approached me in the bar on the infamous Pakistani night and asked if I wanted to hang out. I told her I already was hanging out. She didn't seem to agree, stormed out with a clickety-clack of her heels and a swish of her dangerously short skirt. Later on was a little different. The rats ran away from me as I chased them down alleys. It's a wonder I made it home. I just wasn't made for Manhattan, but I'm trying for her sake. No, in this case I'll say 'our'.

That poor spic bastard's still out there. The bottles are still crashing into one another, he's still muttering curse words that'd make that hooker blush. He's downstream from my existence in this place, praying I'm not pissing in the river. If I didn't empty the bottles then he's going to get a sticky surprise. If he drops one by accident then the homeless woman who sleeps on the sidewalk is going to get cut. Do you know they weld steel rods on top of fire hydrants here so that bums can't sit on them? Have you seen the benches with dividers in them to prevent them from being used as beds? This place is one big sad food chain and that's one of my main problems with it. The social stratification is just too broad and heartbreaking. Give me Suburbia where everyone's relatively equal, at least to the naked eye. I'm looking out the window now at a spire atop a church three blocks away. I'm not sure who's at the top of this chain, but it sure isn't God. He abandoned this experiment a long time ago. I just heard the Devil in the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel-- the Devil, or the collective death rattle of a few hundred motorists filtering into this bustling metropolis to start another day of the race.

And me? I'm embedded like a tick engorged with blood, a jostled Romeo under house arrest trying to keep his head above water while keeping his ear to the ground. I currently have $230 in parking tickets and the unemployment check won't be in the mail for another week. It's a hell of a predicament for a simple man like me. It takes a hell of a woman to make that all worthwhile. Her book must've gotten boring, she's pressed into the pillow. Let me go join that dream of hers. Ours. Amen.

Keep that dirty Pig Latin under your hat.

If held at hipster knifepoint
I'd humbly confess

today
tonight
tomorrow

that in a case
likes this
where you can almost smell
her bleeding

it's best to use
that rusty cider press.

Bookends

My feet dangled down off the edge of the dock just shy of touching the water. Despite the minor separation I could feel the lake's coolness chilling my toes. It was a little after five in the afternoon and I'd had my share of nautical recreation. The novel next to my left elbow made way for the book of crossword puzzles under my chin. If a gin and ginger was dripping condensation onto the pressure-treated planks under me I just might have died happy right then and there.

Thankfully, no moment is perfect.

Two shirtless, golden-brown elementary school boys rowed into view as if to prove the above statement by breaking the precious silence I'd worked so hard to obtain. They were obviously brothers, my conclusion being drawn on their matching bowl cuts that were clearly the work of their mother. Shiny, chestnut-colored hair with streaks of sun-bleached blonde fell gracefully around their tender skulls. They were too young to appreciate their full heads of perfect hair and too naive to tell mom that the style they donned was far outdated. It'd be at least another eight years before they'd start to see their mother, their father, their grandparents as mere mortals perfectly capable of fucking up royally. I was precocious, started at seven. Wouldn't wish that on anyone.

"I don't want my butt to touch the weeds, Andy," said the younger of the two. "It tickles." His inflatable tube was being towed along the surface of the late-August water by Andy's canoe. "You don't take me through the grass now, I won't take you through the grass when it's your turn to get pulled." It seemed like a fair deal.

"OK, Tate," called Andy over his life-preservered shoulder. "Watch out, here comes Pat."

Enter Canoe Number Two, Stage Right. It's occupant, Pat, was at least two years older than Andy, and being that he was sans bowl cut, did not appear to be a third sibling. His puffy, white cheeks had the beginnings of what would later develop into sunburn. A faded green T-shirt underneath his too-tight life jacket suggested that Pat was old enough to realize he was on the verge of a life of ridiculed obesity; old enough to know it, and old enough to try to cover it up with that silly T-shirt. Prior experience told me that Pat's personality would probably try ever-so-hard to compensate for his physical short-comings.

"Slow down, Andy!" he yelled between paddle strokes. "I want to run Tate over!"

Sometimes I hated being right. Still do. Turns out there are a lot of Pats in the world.

The Bowl Brothers responded to the approaching threat accordingly. Andy paddled harder, Tate propelled himself as best he could with his arms. Pat was certainly en route, but his larger size could be exploited if they made it under the low-hanging branches before he could ram the tube. They knew damn well he wouldn't be able to fit under the canopy formed by the drooping maples near the water's edge. They knew that Pat knew that they knew they'd be safe if they made it there in time. Being that this is a somewhat true story, they did.

"23 Across. Early Germans. Seven letters, third letter U."
I sucked on the back of my pen and thought for a moment.
"Teutons," I whispered, filling in the corresponding blocks. I decided to pay attention to my crossword puzzle instead of the splash-fest that was going on twenty yards away on my once-peaceful lake. The maple leaves deflected most of the water sent airborne by both sides, though that didn't deter the combatants one bit. Armistice was a long way away. If only I'd had that lovely gin and ginger I might've leapt in and joined the battle. But for which side? I suppose it wouldn't have mattered.

"Try and hit me now, Pat!" Tate yelled as he smacked water towards his portly friend.

"Yeah! Leave him alone!" Andy was laughing more than he was splashing.

"You guys are so dead once you come out of there," replied a frustrated Pat, his cheeks no longer white at all. "I'm telling your mom you got my good shirt wet."

It was a desperate move, the mother card. Pat's choice to play it, even if he was bluffing, was a self-declared defeat. The Bowl Brothers stopped splashing, I believe more out of pity than fear.

"Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" went a whistle from way across the lake. The three boys' heads turned simultaneously in the direction of the noise that was apparently so familiar to them. They'd probably associate the sound of a whistle with childhood summers as long as they'd live. It'd be a good memory.

"Come on, they want us back at the camp."

"Truce?"

"Sure."

"We'd better get back there soon," said a suddenly responsible Andy. "It's almost dark and we're all the way over here."

"We'll make it before night-time, right Andy?" inquired an audibly concerned Tate.

"Yeah, of course."

"I don't know about me, guys. I'm pretty tired from all this messing around," sighed a nervous Pat. He was probably afraid that abandonment would be the punishment for his attempted sins.

"I can throw you the other rope and tow both of you back," said Andy. "As long as you row a little at least."

"Thanks."

"Great," huffed Tate. He had yet to learn the value of forgiveness. Turns out there are even more Tates than Pats in the world.

I glanced back down at my crossword puzzle, the drama finally over.
"34 Down. To Quit. Five letters. Second letter B, last letter T."

"Pat, are you even paddling?" Andy asked over his shoulder as the three boys sailed off out of sight.

"No, of course he's not," Tate answered agitatedly.

"Hey, give me a minute to catch my breath," Pat defended. That was the last decipherable statement.

A small fish jumped as if to signify the official departure of my temporary company. Their non-descript voices trailed off into the quiet dusk of the Adirondack evening. The delay in their voices carrying over the water was comforting, the pixelated reflections of the dripping maple branches a work of art that no painter could reproduce. A duck dove in search of prey, came back up swallowing something. I hoped the fish I'd just met had made its escape.

I sucked the back of my pen in search of the answer to the last crossword clue I'd read. It came to me like an invisible bullet.

The word slipped off my lips curtly, my thumb clicking the ballpoint out to its ready position.

"Babe, you alright?" Cecilia called from the porch behind me.

"Yeah. Be right in." There was not as much conviction in my voice as I'd intended.

I heard the screen door slam shut as I filled in the letters with a shaky hand. A well-deserved splinter pierced my knee as I rose from the dock to join my beloved inside.

The summer was over for all of us all over again.

Popcorn sold separately. Batteries not included.

It felt so liberating to finally remove my boots
after that grueling fourteen-hour day.
My bad ankle had been acting up since I first hit the gas pedal.
She wouldn't be laying in my bed anymore, she was already
back on her way to her city.
All I wanted was to smell her in the sheets.

It wasn't on my desk next to the keyboard
when I entered my room and started to disrobe.
Maybe she wrote it on the second or third sheet of
the pad so I'd find it a few days later
after tearing off previous pieces, shopping lists and such
(she did that sometimes, too)
but it wasn't there, either.

I frowned and emptied my pockets onto the dresser:
a marker, some chalk to mark pipe, a box-cutter, a few quarters.
After tossing the dirty clothes into the hamper
I turned and faced the bed: she'd changed the sheets before leaving.
So much for inhaling that sweet and spicy scent.
It'd be detergent in my nostrils while I drifted off to sleep.
Detergent and the smell of copper.

The shower went as usual. The steps were just as creaky.
The rabbit still ran under the arm chair when I reached the landing.
Fortunately, though, I didn't turn off the light before climbing
into bed. Something in my gut told me to lift my pillow.
There it was, her tired cursive waiting to be discovered.

But I won't tell you what it said.
Some things are private, even for me.
Suffice it to say I slept well, and it wasn't just because
of the overtime I worked.
Newland Archer-- you old fool, you...

Illegally in the HOV Lane

There's a bump near the southbound
95th Street exit on the Joe DiMaggio
West Side Highway, Henry Hudson
whatever you want to call it.
If you hit it at fifty
your balls float a little.
I try to hit it at sixty.

Once, on my way down to see her
I contemplated picking up
an outdoorsman who was sleeping
on the sidewalk under some sheets of cardboard.
We could grab a slice, maybe some coffee.
The thought of what his piss-soaked clothes
might smell like in the seat next to me, the
windows rolled up tight to keep the noise
and stench of the city out, deterred me.
What if I threw up? He wouldn't like that.
They say most of them are mentally ill
whether that caused or resulted from
their living conditions. I didn't want to risk
being shanked in the neck, being found
dead on the side of the road, soaked in
my own blood and vomit, my head leaning
on the horn. They'd try to bill my family
if it happened in a No Honking Zone.
Insult to injury, further shame to death.

I decided to keep driving.
Can't save them all.
If you don't have enough for the whole class
you can't have any.
Save your money
for the eight-dollar bridge toll.

Street cleaning rules are in effect.
Everything else has gone out the window.

There's a line drawn in the sand.

"V as in Victor
A-H, S-E-N,"
she annunciates
into the phone
with the same cadence
indoctrinated into me
as a kid
by my mother
who no longer uses
the name.

"No, not B, V.
And it's H-S, not S-H."
I can hear her getting
agitated, glad it's not at me.

She waits for the recital.
I feel her pain
after years of trying
to explain the same name.

"Yeah, that's it."

She's too good at the speech
not to want it.

-------------

I'm working with my buddy
Dave the next day. Well, not with-- for.
He knows I could use the cash
and throws me some side work
when I call and ask him if he needs a hand
putting a boiler in or running some pipe.
He's thirty-five, married his high school sweetheart
and has three rambunctious boys
that love him dearly. I can hear it
in their voices when they answer his phone.
"Daddy, it's your friend Mike..."

I'm up on the ladder getting ready
to solder a joint. He reaches up to hand me
the torch when I notice some black electrical tape
wrapped around his middle finger.
"What happened, Mr. Accident Prone?"

"Cut myself on some copper."

"That stuff's supposed to make you money
not make you bleed."

"Yeah, yeah. Sweat that joint, Shakespeare."

Before getting back to the task at hand
my eyes are drawn to the adjacent finger.
He's one of the few men in the trade
I've seen wear his band.
It's supposed to be a safety issue--
tools or machinery could get caught in it, so they say--
but most guys just use that as an excuse
to leave it at home on their dressers.
The fact that Dave doesn't
is another reason to respect him.
What's a finger compared to a life?
I know which camp is mine.

So narrow you can see right through.

The big-
gest sin
is not
suicide;
it's fail-
ing to
learn
from your
mis-
takes.

(You did
that
stolen re-
volver
justice,
Babe;

these hills
are nothing
like
white
elephants.)

But my
idea
of Heaven
is

to sleep
beside you
every night

and on
our ride
home
from the
lake
last
weekend
I kept my
sunburn
a secret
for fear
that you'd
stop rub-
bing my
back.

Your idea of a Grand Finale is a waste of my tax dollars.

Call me an un-American grouch
but fireworks make me sad.
And no, it's not because
my dolt of a father brought
the dog my parents had bought for me
as a present for my fifth birthday
to the Bear Mountain fireworks
where the second shot had terrified
him so much that he bolted hard enough
to break his leash and run away
never to be seen again.
It really has very little to do with that.
Promise. Swear. Cross my heart and hope to...

It's more of the fact that those quiet, reflective
moments shared by some of us present during
the celebratory spectacle of light and sound
are generally a farce. We sit and think
of all the promises made and broken
to and by ourselves, respectively.
We imagine a beauty that isn't really there.
We wait until it's over to look down at our watches
and complain that the show was six minutes
shorter than last year's. And then we walk home
pretending not to be disillusioned.

But the real kicker is how eager we are
to pull the people under our arms closer to ourselves
as if that'll keep them from repeating the process
that we've come to know so well.
Sure, they'll be there for that first year's
fireworks display. The two of you will hold each other
tightly and think of how fortunate you are to be together
and how many more fireworks shows you hope
to enjoy in the holy presence of one another.

Then a year goes by: lo and behold, you're
watching the damn fireworks yet again. This time, however
reality's set in; those little flaws you used to love so dearly
during the honeymoon phase are now the hideous idiosyncrasies
that drive you to the point of insanity. You both know
you probably won't stay together much longer, let alone
forever, but you may make it a few months longer. Then
one of you will wisen up and do what's right for both parties.
It's just a matter of when.

And then comes the third fireworks display in the vicious cycle--
the one where you're either alone and questioning
how many of those statements were lies, or if you're lucky
you've got someone else under that needy arm of yours
as you're wondering if you can somehow manage
to not blow it for once. Either way it's depressing.
Either way you should probably just stay home next time.
They won't hold it against you forever.
Can't you fake a cold or something?

Benji, if you're out there, you had the right idea.

Havin' it whose way?

"Are you ready to order yet, sir?"

"I'd like a Number Six, please. Medium-sized with a Diet."

"Anything else today?"

"Can you hold the mayo and put that spicy sauce on it instead?"

"What spicy sauce?"

"The one on those new sandwiches being advertised."

"I don't have a button for that on my register."

"Can you tell the guy in the back to put the sauce on it?"

"I guess so."

"Thanks."

"That'll be six seventy-two, please pull around."

If I was really feeling sadistic that night
I would've handed her eleven seventy two
at the window and watched her head explode.

Under the covered bridge.

Globs of wax on the floor from the previous night's candle-lit encounter held their dull pastel purple perfectly. We were sprawled out in the dim half-light of my room on that lazy Thursday morning, the beast with two backs having been killed twice already. She was reading a book I'd lent her as I slowly fed her her favorite ice cream, a smooth mixture of coconut and pineapple that would've gone great in a rum concoction.

"Let me turn the light on, Babe. It's too dark to read in here. Bad for your eyes."

"Says who?"

"Mothers throughout the centuries."

She shot me a look that sought to dispelled the old wive's tale. I reached down for another silver spoonful of the rich dessert and noticed a small, wet circle on the sheet where my left armpit had been dripping. It wasn't particularly hot in my room, but my body's accustomed to draining itself. Our bodies were practically empty as it was, the eager lovers that we were and had always been. She caught me staring down at the sweat mark on the sheet and snorted quietly through her nostrils to express her slightly disapproving and hesitant amusement. I loved when she did that.

Was it time for another bite yet? We were sharing the remnants of the carton, but I was only partaking so she would indulge. Two for her, one for me-- the ratio I preferred.

"Last bite. Open."

She complied, despite my awkward movement. It was clear I hadn't dealt much with children.

"You're terrible at feeding people."

"You're great at ruining things," I said, rising to rinse the bowl out in the sink.

The bathroom was closer, and therefore my destination. Besides, I didn't feel like going downstairs to the kitchen considering I wasn't wearing much of anything. I swished some water around in the bowl as the early afternoon sun shone through the venetian blinds in the second-floor bathroom. She must've opened them before. She always did that for some reason, ever since she'd first started coming here. Sometimes, when I wasn't her intended host, I'd find the bathroom shades in their open position and stage a silent protest of longing. Why couldn't I have seen her? Why was I such a coward? The worst part was that I knew the answers to both of those questions and chose to do nothing about it. It didn't matter anymore, though; things were as they should have been from the start. But there was still that sour memory of what the opened venetian blinds used to symbolize.

"Would you shoot me?" I asked her once I'd returned to my bedroom.

"I think so," she said, a puzzled look on her face. I could tell that she'd really thought about it. It disturbed me a bit that she'd responded so sincerely without the further clarification that I planned on delivering next.

"I mean with non-lethal shells. Rubber buckshot. I want to get some to keep in the shotgun as the first two rounds. Doesn't seem right to be OK with using them on someone else if I don't know what they feel like. You know, kind of like how cops have to be pepper-sprayed before they can carry the stuff."

"You're ridiculous, but I get it. You sure you trust me enough for that?"

"More than anyone else right now, myself included."

She put the book down on my bed, wiped some coconut pineapple ice cream from my beard with her thumb, and ran her fingers down my left cheek. There wasn't much light in the room, but I could tell that her eyes were more gray than green at the moment.

My mother would approve someday. My father would miss out. It didn't seem such a bad deal, all things considered. I'd done in twenty-five years what some people hadn't in a lifetime, even if I wasn't sure what exactly that was. The days of taking hostages were over, and I was done eating ice cream.

Newman

When I hear a drum fill like the one
in that last song I listened to
before pulling into my driveway
I'm forced to miss watching
a drummer keep time
on his head or chest while not playing
as me and the boys hold it down
with the strings. It's one of those things
you can't explain to someone who hasn't been there.
It's not the music I regret not having around anymore;
it's the moments like that in a circle of half-drunk friends.

But I was once accused of having
and I quote:
"a warped perception of reality."
That became a title
and another reason to leave, though
I forget who left whom that fifteenth and final time.

It's a lot like comfort food from my mother
going bad on the kitchen counter
while I'm out gallivanting in the sunlight
I claim to hate.

We'll all get over it eventually.
We haven't much choice.
That's the beauty of the thing.

-----------

"Too late," I said half inquisitively
as the mailman shut the back of his truck
after emptying the blue drop box in front
of the post office. He was pudgy and short
and looked like he wouldn't be doling out random kindness.
Wrong again, oh cynical one.
"No you're not," he said with an extended hand and
what was either a wink or a squint
in the orange glow of the setting September sun.
As I pulled away he gave me a salute
his postman's key dangling from the long chain
attached to his blue shorts.
Those words echoed in my thick skull
bouncing around all the bad ideas.
A prophet who loved his job
despite the stereotypes.
Stupendous.

Wrecked him.

The four of us arrived at the union hall
in the same order that we would
if we were going there for our weekly
plumbing classes, though that wasn't
the occasion this time.
We were going to carpool down
to Westchester Medical Center to see Ray
another guy in the apprenticeship program
who had recently been hit head-on
by a dump-truck while coming home from work.
Collapsed lung, lacerated liver, shattered ankle
appendix and ten feet of large intestine removed
but they said he'd be alright.

"Anybody hear from Tim?" I asked
as I approached the designated smoking spot
outside the front of the stone building
where we met for meetings.

"He'll be here in ten. Need a smoke?"

"I'm good. Quit." I went for my pack of gum.

We shot the shit for a few minutes catching up
on work stories, tales of general hilarity and misfortune.

"Here he comes now," I announced to the other two plumbers.

Tim offered to drive down to the hospital.
I thought I'd end up doing it, but he jumped
at the chance as if it was his silent penance
for holding us up. We saw the empty paper bag
and knew why he was running late.

"Does Ray need us to bring him anything?"

"Bacon double cheeseburger from a fast food place
and two strippers," I said from my spot in the back seat.
"Maybe a few feet of guts if we can scrounge some up."

"I brought him this," the kid next to me said, pulling
a folded magazine from his back pocket.
"It's a Collector's Edition."

"Playboy? Think that's what he really wants right now?"

"You're right. Can he even use his pecker?" Jay was turning
red with embarrassment. We all knew his heart was in the
right place and wanted to console him. Construction workers
are only allowed to do that by busting balls, though.

"Jesus, Jay," I said from the half of my mouth
that wasn't smiling as widely. "If the nurses catch him
rubbing one out they'll kick him to the curb."

We passed the skin mag around and flipped through
the pages. Lots of actresses from throughout the forty years
it had been in publication. A few washed-up singers.
One dead sex symbol. All in all it was a quality issue.

"I don't think he should have this anyway," Tim said
as he shoved it under the visor above his head
with the hand that wasn't driving.
We all laughed, he pulled it back down
and tossed it into Jay's lap.
The rest of the ride went quickly.
We found that bacon double.

Tim was the first one to enter Ray's room.
The forty pounds our pal had lost
in the seven weeks since the accident
had changed his appearance so much
that he was unrecognizeable; so much so, in fact
that Tim did an about-face and started to
walk out of the room as if he'd made a mistake.

"Tim! It's me, man," came Ray's weakened voice
from behind the light blue curtain.

Ray wasn't a big guy to begin with. This
tragedy had diminished his size even further.
His chest was small and frail, his arms thin
and the tendons in his neck stuck out like
cords tightened behind a thin beige sheet.
He could've been in a film about the Holocaust.

The four of us looked at each other.
I was glad we'd made it a point to get
exactly what he wanted to eat for him.
He needed all the help he could get, especially
since he was a divorced man of forty-something
whose family lived in Florida.

We sat around our emaciated friend
and made him laugh as much as possible.
No patronizing, no sugar-coating the facts.
Told a few recent work stories that had
been circulating at coffee break.
Nothing major, nothing too deep.
Company, fraternity. No stroking of anything.

"Crossword puzzles, huh?" I commented
letting my fingertips graze the cover
of the book of puzzles on his table.
Reminded me of laying with my girlfriend
and feeling intellectually spanked.
A proud defeat.
I tried to hide my happy memory out of
respect for my friend's situation.

"Yeah. I only get a few answers, then give up."

Then Tim chimed in with what we'd all been wondering:
"You need anything else, bro? A book? Some magazines?"
That was supposed to be the cue. He was baiting him.

Jay locked eyes with Tim before glancing at the rest of us
as if to say "No way in hell am I pulling that
magazine out of my pocket." There were things
far more important than some famous naked broads of yore.
A man's got to walk before he can run, let alone fuck.

"Nah, man. I'm good."

Jay sighed in relief.
Ray pushed the button that allowed more morphine
to drip into his system.
The rest of us counted our respective blessings.
We found more things to laugh about.

My watched stopped for some reason
while we were there
and the ride home felt like it took much longer.

"Next week?" I asked as we pulled into the
parking lot at the hall.

"I'm in."

"Yeah."

"No doubt."

Some of us are only born
without brothers.

Mild spoonerisms in this desert rain love.

"She's still sleeping in her bed, though not as soundly
as his right foot feeds the engine gas-- his laugh
over hitting the straight stretch of Eisenhower mile
muffled by the radio and whistle of the wind
in the windows he's cracked
to stay awake in lieu of coffee.
He sniffs his hand on the early ride north, a reluctant
return to a place no longer quite his home--
the smell of pennies and blood
beat into the leather of his steering wheel
not yet corrupting the trace of her delicate scent..."

See, I was talking about copper there
without actually mentioning it...
It was vain, it was vague, it was trying
too hard as usual.
I can't do this. Neither can you.
We'll pound our fingers and eyes out trying.

There's a difference 'tween art
and artwork:

the latter you hang on the fridge;
the former hangs you, and wherever
it damn well pleases.

Normally I'd plead the Fifth
but sometimes I take a stab.

Behind me on that beckoning bed
there's a gun to clean
and laundry to fold
so there's no time tonight
to fall shamefully in the middle.

There he goes again
wearing his heart
on the home row.

"My bedroom window's open
and though I hear no commotion
outside in the street or neighboring yards
I'm inhaling the pungent scent of
a man's pipe. It reminds me of
my childhood neighbor Pete
who once pulled me from a pool
I mistakenly jumped in while wearing only one water-wing.
That carcinogenic smell comforts me to this day, this night
even in my longing for your skin on mine.

May I show you to your seats?
May I sew you to your sheets?
I have the sound of the bugs where I sleep.
You have the wail of the sirens..."

Yup, there he goes again.
Somebody stop him.
That rifle won't clean itself.


Currently reading:
"Straight Man" by Richard Russo.

fare

My controversial crash-course
in the big bad City
has been quite the sociology lesson.
The determined flow of traffic
in the subway that still boggles my mind;
the heavily-tattooed homeless
who once had enough money
to make the poor decisions
that got them where they are;
the awkward Upstate plumber
stumbling through a mass of people
who have a better understanding
of the way Manhattan works, as well
as its appeal.

But there are its moments.

Like when I see someone
try to hail a cab on a busy corner.
It's always easy for me on those quiet
Monday mornings, long before the commuters
have made it across the bridges and
through the tunnels. Most times
I'm the only one on the sidewalk
at 5 a.m., my duffle bag under my arm.
Taxis see me from a quarter-mile away, swerve
effortlessly through three lanes to get to
their next passenger, their next gratefully generous tip.
That's not the case at busy hours of the day, though.

And I believe I can tell a lot about a person
by the desperate wave of their hand.
Is it urgent or relaxed? Are they standing
on the sidewalk or on the pavement?
Where do they look like they're going?
To meet someone, to leave someone?
Are they arrogant, confident, secure, vulnerable?
Do they need that ride much more
than that cabby needs the seven bucks?
I like to try to determine these things
in the brief seconds I share with these people
from my safe and nameless distance.

Of course I may be wrong, but it helps make up
for time lost in my quiet apple region.
My naivety, my simpler way of life could only go on
for so long. I tried to keep it that way once:

like Rip Van Winkle sleeping
the world went on around me, she went on
without me.

Rise, and shine, and give God the glory.

Why you're better off not procreating.

Sansmith came out of the iso-pod rubbing his forearm right below the inside of the elbow.

"How much love did you give her today?" asked Crowner as he swiped his card down the Credit-Meter outside of the Nutri-Booth Console. His clanktons were running short, but all the overtime he'd accumulated at Reactor Plant 17 lately would assure him some serious plastic in the next direct deposit cycle.

"As much as I could afford this week. Plasma's running low again. I blame it on those new hydro-tubes the Vend-Bots are selling down at the Reactor. Not enough potable content."

Crowner swiped his card again. The magnetic strip had been rubbed raw by the particles in his pocket. He knew that the Workman's Regulation Handbook strictly forbade pockets on the job, but it was a rule he chose to ignore. He had to keep some semblance of a normal life, even in the Post-Melt Days. It was getting harder to remember what it felt like to sleep next to another human being. Amendment 42 was the worst thing to happen to Americorp in decades. Most unizens agreed to that.

"Jezzie's a lucky woman, Sansy," Crowner said, trying to remain respectfully in tune with the Platonic Conduct Codes. It was crucial to avoid detection by the Censor-Cams oscillating overhead. "Don't you let her forget that when you see her next cycle."

"If I get to, you mean. That all depends on whether or not our work schedules correspond. I miss good old-fashioned Manual Transaction. My veins are shot from all these Sangui-Love Supplement sessions," Sansmith replied as he rolled down his sleeve to cover the bruises. A combination of his olive skin and derma-art hid the yellow phase well, but the purples and browns stuck out like sore thumbs. It was obvious that he'd missed Jezzie terribly-- no one else on his unit had spent as many credits in the Extractor Iso-Pod as he had. There were times when he chose that activity over nutritional replenishment. He knew his sacrifice meant a lot to her; or prayed she did, wherever she was. Love would be the end of him, just as the oracle had predicted when he was first deployed twenty-eight Revo-Cycles ago.

"Don't look so glum, Crowner. The State will pair you up someday."

"One can only hope."

"Hope? Not for long, if Amendment 43 is passed next Luna-Cycle," corrected Sansmith. "Doesn't look good, either. The Mono-Party is consistently unanimous."

Crowner stopped trying to swipe his card in the glowing slot of the agitated Credit-Meter. He wasn't hungry anymore.

Un Padre renuente y la Enfermera obstinada.

Eddie

As happy as I am for you
I wish you weren't in the mountains
camping for the weekend
and would be there to talk tomorrow
while we're waiting for our checks.

Eddie

Sometimes I wish you weren't such
a stand-up guy
the kind I'd like to call my own
'cause we'll both have to settle
for this surrogate status.

Eddie

Sometimes I try to picture
what your life was like at my age
to see if I can stick it out
for just a few more decades.

Eddie

If I knew she'd be home
and could keep a secret
I'd take a ride out to your place tomorrow
to talk to the one good woman
you've found in this world
but no good woman can keep a secret
from the man she loves.

Eddie

Sometimes I wish
you weren't so afraid
to show your feelings
for more than five minutes at a clip
and if you'd let me I'd give you
a teary-eyed, snot-congested hug.

But Eddie

We're construction workers
and that sort of thing
just ain't allowed.

I'd kill for a cigarette
but I seem to have quit
though a Sam Adams over a burger
at that hole in the wall
where we used to have our liquid lunch
every Saturday
sounds like therapy to me.

Eddie

Strength is an illusion
but the tape measure doesn't lie.

Have a good weekend with the boys.
Hope to see you Monday.

Yardbirds

I froze as soon as I saw
the sprinkler guy's apprentice
coming down the corridor.
The grin on his face was
that of a man who knows
that he'll soon be granted the chance
to exact his revenge.
I froze as soon as I saw him
approaching me, the roll of duct tape
still in my hands. The cat was out of the bag.

"So you're the one who's been
taping our toolbox shut for the last two weeks?
We thought it was the carpenters."

I was slightly offended that they hadn't assumed
my guilt. The prank was fairly flawless, especially
when I did it before they had a chance to open
their box in the morning and would have to rely
on whatever sharp object they could muster up
to slice the tape off. If one of them had brought it up
at coffee break my face would've given me away.
Turns out I'm a terrible liar.

"We got him, Bill!"

Bill came around the corner. I could practically
hear his Western New York accent tearing into me
before he even opened his mouth.

"Oh. It's on, motherfucker."

It took all I had not to laugh in his face.
That only would've made things worse.
The sprinkler fitters are my pipe trade brothers
but that doesn't mean they won't get theirs.

"Hey, nothing permanent. And no personal vehicles,"
I said through my shit-eating.

"Just don't fall asleep in the shade anymore..."

Every time they saw me for the rest of the day they smiled.

--------------------------------------

"Well, I was busted. Caught red-handed," I told my partner.

"What do you mean?" he asked, still focused on the last beer
he had on his lunch break.

"The sprinkler guys caught me taping their box shut."

"That was you? Brilliant!"

"Yeah. I'm done. They have it out for me now."

"Bill's a good guy, and his apprentice is a pussy.
I wouldn't worry. They'll play fair, won't go overboard."

"I got too greedy. Should've waited 'til they'd left the job."

"Happens to the best of us. I wish I knew who it was
that put the picture of Obama's face under my windshield wiper."

I somehow managed to maintain my composure.
He had said he thought it was the mailman who frequents
his favorite ginmill the day before and I'd kept my mouth shut.
It was his last day on the job, though, and I'd already been
nabbed once. Might as well come clean.

"It was me. I was going to put a sign next to it
that said 'Barack is my co-pilot', but figured
my blue marker would've given me away."
Perhaps I was giving him too much credit
though he did use 'exonerated' in a sentence once.
"At least I didn't tape it over the W sticker
on the back of your van."

"That's a collector's item at this point."

"I know."

This man had told me a story about how he once
attacked an ATM machine that ate his card
with a metal garbage can and was arrested
for doing a thousand dollars in damage.
The internal camera had gotten some good shots
of him approaching with said instrument of destruction
in hand and made for some good belly laughs
down at the police station.
I'd heard other rumors about his temper
from fellow fitters, but never saw him lose his cool
during our three-week stint together.
Needless to say I was a bit apprehensive
over what this vehement Republican's response would be.

"Well it's good to see someone's still got
a sense of humor around here," he said, the red
stubble on his chin shining in the fluorescent light.

My ass unclenched itself as I exhaled.

We smirked, looked down at our dirty knees
and returned to the pipe at hand.

In other news, I'm selling my guitars...

Blowing through
a children's book
about a prince in peril.
The little twit adorns the body
of two vessels I've known:
one a white-capped breaker, one a fellow
ship in passing.
He needs to stop questioning
as much as I do.

The mac-n-cheese wasn't
the same sober; too much
grated parmesan, not enough
American and a whole pot left
to suffer through tomorrow
coagulating in the fridge--
It was better when a drinking buddy
made it at three in the morning.
It was better when twelve twenty-year-olds
fought over the last of it.
It was better when we swore we wouldn't
turn out like our parents.

Swallowed the last of my juice
and took the pill dry.
Took a few tries, couldn't get it down.
It dissolved on my tongue before
slipping passed my massive tonsils.
Antibiotics as stale as this filler.
Chocolate chips erased the bitter taste.
(My nurse could smell the infection on me.
Thank God there's no perfume this time.
At least she knows to follow her nose.
It's gotten her this far.)

That blue-and-gold box lied to me tonight:
'al dente' is a euphemism for foolishly unprepared.
That's exactly what this all was.

I'd apologize, but there's no point--
Like me, friend, you've fallen in love
with a lot of people who didn't exist.
Pinch yourself next time.

Bronchitis, otra vez.

I wouldn't have been there
ten minutes early
if I'd known they'd keep me
waiting for half an hour
after the scheduled time.
I wouldn't've been there
at all if she hadn't
pulled rank, her profession and all.
Us stubborn fitters
sweat, bleed, or drink
the ailment right out of us.
It's no wonder we're sick
for weeks at a time.

But there I was, and I'd
already finished my book.
Even some forms to fill out
in the interim would've been welcomed.
It wasn't in the cards, though;
I shuffled my feet
and tried not to cough too frequently
as the waiting room continued to fill up
with the same people who always
end up in front of me
cashing in two-dollar lottery tickets
at the gas station
and playing their unlucky numbers.

"Mr. Schuler?" a tired nurse asked
through a suddenly gaping door.
The wrinkled mass across from my
still shuffling sneakers rose
with his wife to answer the call.
The two of them looked like
they'd forgotten why'd they'd shown up
in the first place as they awkwardly made
their way towards the door, the cracking of
calcified joints practically audible
in the air-conditioned silence. The doctors there
specialized in pulmonary care
which made many of their patients
very old; I wasn't sure what I was doing there
but the Schulers seemed even more confused.

"Mr. Schuler, would you like your wife
to join you?" the receptionist asked from behind
the obviously non-bulletproof glass.
Some law made that question mandatory, but
the Schulers hadn't voted on it
so they didn't bother answering.

The nurse looked at the secretary in silent defeat.
Their frowns seemed to say
what the soles of my wasted running shoes were mumbling:
At least Mr. Schuler won't die alone.

That's more than some of us can say.

Buster

There're Band-Aids on her nipples
as she's sweating
through her dress:
the subway is hotter
than the restaurant was.

(All I can do is imagine for now.
I'd give my left one to teleport there.)

"So what'd the thrasher say?"

It doesn't matter. He passed
the test, distance be damned.

"Playing by the rules
for a change."

The West Side, the home stretch.

Back in the saddle--
Reverse Cowgirl for awhile
and faces for the finish
(just how we like it, reminded of our love)--
avoiding chronic rugburn
as the aunts castrate the herd.

But it's not so bad, this apron.

Something borrowed, something blue, something old, something new."

In a laundry-scheduling blunder
worthy of a swift
slap to the forehead
I let my four towels
enter the hamper
before leaving for
the weekend.

My error hadn't been
discovered until I went
to shower off
a nauseous day of work
this morbid Monday evening.

My hand was forced.
I pulled the brown one
from my shelf
and slung it over the curtain rod
in a bathroom that needs a cleaning
as desperately as my memory does.

The recent addition to the roster
hung there laughing to itself
as lukewarm water ran down my back
this time unaccompanied
by a pair of willing elbows
to soothe away the ache.

A band of honeycomb pattern
four inches from the draped edge
winked and prodded at my cheeks.

"I did the right thing," I told
a frayed thread dangling from the
corner of the towel.

"Didn't I?"

The kind leave nothing behind.

A shitty short story that got me through a hell of a Sunday (with the help of some Bacardi, mind you).

"Any last requests?" he asked him sneeringly as he knelt in the dusty road. He'd traversed its winding expanse so many times throughout his twenty-six years without ever imagining it'd take him to the next life.

"In the heart," he stated with a dignity only conceivable in the voice of a man who knows he'll soon be no more.

A series of images ran through his head, some more pleasant than others. He'd want that face saved for those who would care enough to give a proper burial; wanted the mind that had served him so well for so many years preserved.

Cecilia. If only he could see her one last time. She'd been sent away to a convent after the incident that roused her family's suspicions. In her absence he started buying guns. When the revolution came a few months later it only made sense for him to partake. What was death in the face of heartache?

He thought back to the time he took the busload of nuns hostage. "Friends of the Republic," the guerrilla leaders had said from their hidden soapboxes "are enemies of our cause." That had justified the plan he'd suggested to commandeer the bus. What better way to show ones enemy the extent of your conviction than to strike out against God himself in the form of the establishment? When he and four other masked men boarded that bus all he could think of was finding his Cecilia sitting amongst the sisters. His bloodshot eyes scanned the faces of the terrified nuns until they found their mark. It took all he had inside himself to refrain from dropping his shotgun, tearing off his mask, and telling her not to worry. He longed to lick away the tears that were rolling down her face, but had to settle for a brief glimpse of her beauty now strangled by black-and-white robes. "The money's not here!" one of the marauders yelled after rifling through the mother superior's briefcase.
"Let's get out of here before the Federals show up." Not a second went by. "Yes, let's go." There was no disapproval in his reply. He'd gotten what he'd wanted out of the ambush.

But was that all so trivial now, or was it all that mattered? He knew that he wouldn't live long enough to find out.

"As a captured member of the radical party in opposition to..."

He knew the recital by heart. Officers were required by law to give that deceptively righteous speech to those about to be executed. From the safety of bushes, rocks, and riverbanks present after numerous raids gone wrong he and his cohorts had heard these words given to brothers in arms about to be shot. "We can't let them die like dogs," he'd argued the first time it happened. Without the slightest hesitation the three men laying low beside him cocked and aimed their weapons at his chest. No words needed to be exchanged at that point. Joining up meant understanding the importance of living to fight another day. No mourner would know the true circumstances of your death from the newspapers, but they might taste the glory of a future victory if you could live long enough to accomplish it. It was a selfish way to live, but the only way.

This was the second time he'd heard the false justification for murder that day, though. The first time had been a mere ten minutes prior as his best friend, now dead by his hand in the road beside him, was in the same position where he currently found himself. The Federals had had his friend at gunpoint and were about to send him to his Maker when a shot rang out from the reeds near the river. The man fell face forward into the dirt as three of the guards turned their baffled faces towards the source of the gunshot. He reloaded his rifle and fired two more rounds, killing one soldier instantly and maiming another well enough to bring him to the ground. In the heat of the moment he had not heard the patrol boat approaching upstream behind him. By the time the bullhorn sounded commanding him to throw down his weapon it was already too late. A bullet from the man prevented from executing his friend had torn through his left shoulder, causing him to drop his rifle into the current behind him as the exit wound exploded in a gush of crimson jelly. The shot was a lucky one, a blind act of desperation into a mass of vegetation. Great men are not supposed to die by such flukes, though they often do.

They dragged his half-conscious body from the bank of the river and into the road where the initial execution was to take place. Knuckles made a firm connection with his cheekbone, bringing him back to the world that would soon be going black. For the first time since being shot he felt the pain in his body. His right hand reached up and fingered the bloody hollow of shattered bone and loose skin where the socket of his left arm had been. Cecilia. Cecilia. How she once loved the broad shoulders that were now half of what they used to be. He hoped she'd never see the corpse.

"On your knees, traitor," the officer commanded. A closer look at his captor's face revealed his identity. He had been the local tailor, a humble man of meager means, before the revolution had started. High mortality rates on both sides had forced men up the chain of command faster than what was customary. Power went to some heads more than others, the simplest men often becoming the most ruthless butchers. "Any last requests?" he asked, spittle at both downturned corners of his mouth.

"In the heart," his answer came.

An adrenaline induced sweat poured off his face and made tiny craters in the dry dirt below him. He could hear their impact like meteors between the pounding of his temples. The scorching sun caused his perspiration to evaporate as soon as it made contact with the ground. The day was so hot that many had ignorantly wished for death.

"Dogs have no hearts, only stomachs," the tailor in battle dress said as he kicked his prisoner in the ribs. "Ready! Aim!"

But that was the last thing his victim ever heard.

He was on that tranquil coast where he'd made love to Cecilia, the two of them trying to evade the curious sight of passing boaters. An innocent giggle came from between her perfectly square teeth as she gathered her skirt around their hips to try to conceal their love from the world. Great men should have such memories to reflect upon.

A government issue .30 caliber bullet tore through the back of his skull just as her laugh ended, thus destroying what Cecilia had truly fallen in love with well before their rendezvous on that beach.

The family lost the option of an open-casket service. Cecilia lost her will to pray with conviction. The world lost one more reason to keep spinning at such an urgent rate. And great men? What are great men, really?

Southpaw love in the Big Apple.

A guy like me doesn't wander
Manhattan alone by himself often;
if he does, it's probably got something
to do with a woman or what she's driven
him to, in this case Puerto Rican Rum--
the same kind slugged by one of the two
grandfathers I never met, ironically not
the Hispanic one.

It was well before midnight, for the record.
Thankfully the liquor stores were still open--
one advantage of staying in such a dump of a city.

"You want anything while I'm out?" I slurred.
She shook her head from the bathroom floor.

That one step in her building tripped me up a bit.
It wouldn't've been so bad if I'd stumbled down
the stairs, the outcome being the same
for all intents and purposes.
My strategic boxer choice for the evening
no longer mattered.

The street didn't smell as strongly of
spoiled ethnic food and urine
in that sangria state. My non-descript black T
preserved my anonymity. I was glad
I'd foregone my typical thift store shirt.
The ones who could read might've figured out
that I was a tourist if I'd made that mistake.
I'd wanted to look presentable in case we went out.
That wasn't happening anymore, not at the rate
things were going. All I wanted was another cocktail
and some peace and quiet. Maybe another
beautifully out-of-key song to lull me to sleep.

Hell's Kitchen. What a perfect waste of a name.

A well-kept homeless man was haggling with
the Muslim shop owner as I staggered in to the narrow
closet of a liquor store.

"Come on, buddy. I'm a regular here. All I have is
three bucks. Give it to me, I'll bring you the last dollar tomorrow."

The flask of rotgut was already in the paper bag that'd
eventually become its curbside coffin. We all knew
it was only a matter of time.

"Alright, but you better pay me tomorrow," said the
slightly less brown man behind the counter
in his cliche sing-song Middle Eastern accent.
It was no stretch to say that in some point in time
soldiers wearing our nation's flag on their shoulders
had fired something at this man's countrymen;
now he was playing God with an alcoholic, the
American Dream gone awry. Tables turn quickly
when the battlefield comes home.
Still, it was good to see he had a heart.

"Thanks, brother. I swear I'll be back." He left
the store clutching the paper bag like a long-lost friend
that'd probably kill him in the end.

"Bottle of Bacardi, please," I said when the clerk
had closed the register.

He reached for the bigger one
but I knew the night wouldn't last quite that long.

"No, the smaller one."

I handed him a twenty. He slipped the bottle
into a black plastic bag and slid my change
across the counter towards me.
I scooped up the coins and pushed the dollar bill
back in his direction.

"Take his dollar. He's good now, alright?"

A smirk fought its way to the surface of his skin.
Three beads of sweat rolled down his neck
to his soaked collar. If the clock on the wall
wasn't digital I probably would've heard it tick.

"OK, my friend," he laughed, both of us knowing
he'd still hit that sorry bastard up for his loan
the next day. "You have a good night."

The pavement felt softer on the walk back to her place.
Part of me was shocked when she buzzed me in
to let me back upstairs.

"You alright, Babe?"

"Yeah. Almost. Yeah."

The ice had already melted in the glass
by the time I downed her cocktail an hour later.
Only one of us was good at nursing.
I didn't mind, it saved me a trip to the kitchen.

We fell asleep once the skeletons stopped rattling.

Somehow the city
became big enough
for the two of us again.

The irony propels itself.

Because the murderer fears the sting of the knife
the thief knows who lurks on the fire escape
and the cheater sees what's up the actor's sleeve:

That's why he won't sleep tonight.

Lease, with option to buy:

a nice place in the West 80s--
the kind where you wouldn't mind
parking overnight, even with
a truckload of borrowed tools

though I still miss my alternate spelling
of your name

rising to rinse the undercarriage afterwards
and honing the dealbreaker hex.

Miss Mary Mack all dressed in black
with silver ink all down her back:

we do our best work in the dark
in lieu of a truth that scares us.

You can choose your friends, too.

A barrage of phone calls
from hired gun uncles--
"Call her back," they'd say
in more than those words
if I'd answer the rings
of the artillery;
but I know better
than to pick up
and tell the patriarch
I have no need for blood
right now
unless it's on my sheets.


Currently reading:
"The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers".

Cosmoline

And that's you
still smoking in the outfield
coughing up a lung

as back home on the ranch
a fly rests upon its swatter
rubbing thin elbows together
in quiet rebellion.

Somewhere in the periphery
there's a man making neighbors'
pets disappear. That's time spent
far more wisely, friend.

Let's bathe in our discontent's winter
before the blackshirts come
to take the remainder
of our intangibles away.

It's a movie that no one left here
has the heart to see, vignettes or none.


Currently reading:
"The English Patient" by Michael Ondaatje.

Sham-wowed.

It's a cruel slap to his perfectly trimmed beard
the way they still play
his Infomercials
despite his sudden death
the narcotics found in his system
well hushed.

He's not yelling through the TV screen anymore
and neither am I.

Let us let the dogs sleep
ignoring the useless products
lonely housewives don't need.

I can clean my own mess, thank you.

Unfahrenheit

Maria Dolores is her name
that second one meaning 'pain'
and it's fitting, all considered.

She was burned out of several
low-rent apartments
back in the Fifties and Sixties
I've heard
but somehow the family
still has that suitcase
of bent-corner, sepia photos intact.

Who was the one to bang on the doors?
Who was the one to choke on the smoke?
Was it her brothers or mother
yanking those snapshots
and portraits from soon-to-burn closets?

The way that she's framed the best of the bunch
answers that question complete.

At one time in your life, Ma
you had your priorities straight.

Sonny vs. Mario vs. MV

Then there was the time
we were half-drunk in my room
sharing not-so-secret secrets
while trying to be coy.

She was sitting Indian style
in front of my tallest bookshelf.
I loved the inanimate object far more.

"I keep money stashed in one
of those books right in front of you,"
I blurted with a sad sense of pride
in my oh-so-tortured savings method.

The truth was that I used to
keep a hundred-and-a-half in there
but would always forget whether or not
I'd used it or not when I'd flip through
the pages and find them empty.
In an attempt to organize my system
I left a piece of paper in there
to write the date and amount of money
hidden within the binding to help me
keep track; that didn't seem to work
for some unknown reason, either.
In reality I'd given up on the emergency money
philosophy since I couldn't keep track of it
and it usually wound up being spent
halfway through a drunken night
on something that was very temporary--
almost as temporary as that romantic endeavour
would turn out to be.

"Can you guess which one?" I asked.
I wanted to know if she could figure it out based on the title
which I naturally found very appropriate.
Well, it was more than that--
I wanted to see if she understood my way of thinking
or not. That's all I've ever really sought in another:
understanding, even when I don't understand myself.
A tall order for a short temper.
I guess that's why I vent here instead.

Her hand moved from left to right across the backs
of the books, stopping in front of the wrong one.
I forget which book it was now, even after glancing to my right
but that doesn't matter anyway.
It was wrong. Dead wrong.
Unforgiven.

"No, no. That's not it!" I pleaded with fate.
It seemed that none of them would ever
pull that sword from that stone.
" 'The Terrible Hours' is where I keep it. As in
I'd need money in times of despair. It makes
perfect sense. Don't you get it?"

She didn't. She just looked at me with those
big doe eyes as if to let me down easy, her head
cocked to one side like a confused puppy.
I was crazy and expected someone else to be, too.
One would have to be to go down with this ship.
That's what that book was about, actually; a submarine
that sank to the bottom of the Atlantic
with its crewmen trapped inside.
They got them out, otherwise it wouldn't have made
for very good sales at the bookstores.
Most people still need happy endings
and though I hate to admit it
I'm hoping for one myself.

So I'm asking you now:
Are you crazy enough?

Eating the windfall apples again.

She's on a couch and she's losin' it
her voice trying to sound profound
but only making a bigger fool of itself
than the worthless writer did with the words
she's stumbling through tonight.
The middle syllable of a five-dollar adjective
is accented improperly, over-stressed
for an emphasis that isn't there.
In a fit of self-conscious floundering
she repeats the offending phrase
just barely aloud at first, then for
her sole intended listener to hear.
He's sprawled out on an adjacent
piece of secondhand furniture, his mind less
attentive to the orator than mine
though I'm fifteen feet away.
I cringe in mild horror, glad that
they're not the muddled cords
that'll someday lull my kids to sleep.
More the cruel critic than erudite ear
I march up the creaking steps
to talk trash about another one
who will never taste the wrath.
"I can love them," I reassure myself
in the inner tone I've selfishly come to love,
"as long as their books don't clutter my shelves..."
and the rabbit hides under the baseboard
while the butcher wipes sweat from his brow
well-knowing that most people, himself included
were born to sound fake in the air.

Sin mi voz.

On a borrowed plaid blanket
and planted grass
betwixt a river
and it's long-dead discoverer
lay two olive lovers
gazing into rough-hewn sculptures
whose sole remaining tests
be those of time, pressure being
pre-determined and defeated
unanimously.

He doesn't notice his hand entwined
in that lazy lock as the aperture opens;
it hereby makes his case

as he now prepares to sleep
unmentionably and alone, wiling away
a countdown just as sacred
as his vow to make
warding off dog tones
a special goal of his.

And it's love.
And was love, even in that big city.
And he thanks God she didn't choose
to learn
until now.

The first thing I did after reloading the shotgun.

Lost a bet with myself and shaved my head
but I'm growing it out again
like Conor used to sing about
back when we were single.
I was standing in a highway rest stop
and instantly knew which man in the crowd
that long-haired broad would walk to
after leaving the ladies' room.
It wasn't me.

Let's get something else straight--
He didn't die for you or me;
He did it so some lonely misanthropes
could write a book, a fairytale
to help them sleep at night.
Me?
I've found a better method.
"Mine is a jealous god," the children shall
recite as they dance around the architect
to the tune of a baker's dozen.
"Take it easy, or any way you can get it,"

and we heard the Grand Finale
from the safety of my room
for a reason.

"Let the loser have the last word, Son,"
a welder once told me.
Fast windshield wipers used to
turn his hungover stomach, too.
Those days are done for him now, but
I can still smell the whiskey and women
on his beard if there's no breeze.

Some can't handle the mixture of hot and cold.
This is not for them.



Currently reading:
"Animal Farm" by George Orwell.

Rocco, if you only knew...

"Jesus, kid. It's pouring off your face."

"Some of us work for a living."

"Yeah, but that's excessive."

"I sweat in January."

"You part...?"

"No, but my mom's Puerto Rican."

"My granddaughter's half."

"It's not so bad."

"Didn't say it was."

"I'm Italian and German, too."

"You're a mutt."

"Better than being an old dog trying to learn new tricks."

"Who said I wanted to learn anything?"

"I forgot, you're a stubborn old laborer."

"So can your dad cook as well as your mother?"

"No. He tried, though."

"Tried?"

"I haven't seen him in three years."

"Why not?"

"He's crazy."

"Oh."

"That's why I'm glad I've got guys like..."

"So your mom makes rice and beans. You're lucky."

"Yeah."

"Raining like hell out there."

"Tornado warning, too."

"You know anyone who's been hit by a tornado?"

"Well...no."

"Then don't worry about it, Dorothy."

"But if I don't, who will?"

"Guys like me."

"Exactly."

"Huh?"

"Nevermind. Go push your broom."

"I'm not too old to knock you off that ladder."

"That's fine. If I get hurt I can go home early."

"This is your home, for the next thirty years."

"Not if I prove my father wrong."

"Something tells me you already have."

"Maybe."

"What's wrong with your arm?"

"My tattoos itch."

"All of a sudden?"

"Yeah."




Currently reading:
"Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller.

cause and Effect

When the honeybees die off
the plants will find a way
to pollenate themselves.

This summer's bat shortage
hasn't left me with any more
mosquito bites than usual.

But believe me when I tell you
that if the acid rain and bug repellant
hadn't hushed the bullfrog chorus
not even my best friend
could've dragged me from that lake.

Ode to the East Side

My reference to the misspelling
of her name in the local paper's recent article
went right over her bleached-blonde hair.
Something else was on what was left of her mind.
She told me that the bar was closing
at the end of the summer, that I
might not see her again.
"Keep your hair short
and save the beard
for when you're old like
the rest of the guys who
come in here. You're a hot tamale
right now."
Little did she know that neither the look
she preferred for me or the bar she worked at
would last to the end of July. I was only responsible
for one of those fates-- that's all I can ever claim.

I remember her crying on the porch
bumming a smoke, her lipstick
on the filter and her expensive chest
pressed against mine as she told me
she'd miss tending bar at that dump.
It was hard to watch such a simple
existence come apart so entirely.
It was hard not to get somewhat hard
though I'm not proud of that.
"Do you know anyone who would hire me?"
"For what?"
"As a waitress or bartender."
"I'll ask around."
Two weeks later she tried to lure a slightly more
desperate regular in with what she'd really meant.
I don't believe he declined, despite his eye contact
and vehement insistence that he'd controlled himself.
A good businessman can lie to your face.

The last time I was there someone returned
two cocktails, claiming the vodka was in the cola
and the rum was in the tonic. She replaced them
for free. Then she made the same mistake
and almost ran out crying. I could see
why the place was going under.
"Nice ring," she told some haggard sea wench
who was sucking on a granny cocktail
in the hopes that I'd been drugged.
"Some asshole gave it to me," came the shrew.
"He's only an asshole for giving it to you," I mumbled
into my pint glass, the words drowning in carbonation.
I thumbed through my wallet and bought the clearly lost
young couple at the end of the bar a round before rising
to my feet in an attempt to find the legs that'd
somehow manage to bring me home safely again.
It was how I wanted to remember that dive.
Guess it was a success.

White T-shirts as flags.

You're not around, you're out of town.
Who is it inside you now?

You never host, you'll never host
or you'll walk around a graveyard, ghost.

Is it decent of me to pace naked like this
if the blinds are drawn, the windows locked?

Sugar to wash the salt down for dinner.
The brownie mix will stay on the shelf.
There's no one around to grab me
a towel when I forget that there isn't one
in the bathroom mid-shower.

And this is what it was like to fold laundry.

I don't put any of them away
since I deserve to hear them laughing:
"Virginia, Virginia! Can't we go back there?"

But Baby, Baby, Baby
buy me time to load the mags.
Run around the yard if you've got to.
It'll all pay off in spades
if you
take it like a champ.

Did you have to spray my pillow with perfume
before you left?

You did, you did;
and I'm OK now, thanks.

trophy wives, trophy scars

Slowly, how the knife enters:
Acute pain where tip meets
skin latter giving way to
former with a
tearing heard
only at the
cellular level.
An oddly wel-
comed release
as surface pres-
sure and tension give
way forming a vac-
uum around the
blade. The en-
velope widens
to accept a
sharp truth,
deeper
deep-
ening
to the
hilt.
No
rushing red. No hurries here except to the end
of the book. I swore I wouldn't mention paper
this time. This was supposed to be about a
girl but I muttered about a woman instead.

BEC, SPK

Rocco, the fifty-eight-year-old laborer
on the job, had beat me to the deli again.
He was the coffee break boy for his company
despite his age; I was the same
because of mine. His order had already been placed
and he was sitting at a table reading the paper
when I walked through the door.

"Mornin, kid," he mumbled. "Take a number."

"Who are you kidding, Roc? Laborers can't read."

"I just look at the pictures," he said with a grin wise enough
to know to steal a man's thunder by beating him to the punch.

I read the breakfast list to the guy behind the counter
knowing he'd mess up at least one of the items.
Us coffee boys knew the place's reputation for errors
but the food was good and the devil we knew
was better than that other one.

"Have a seat, Mike," Rocco said, pulling out
a chair with his dirty steel-toed boot.

"Gave up trying to sound out the words?"
I wasn't giving up that easily.

He shot me a look that said "If you were my son
I would've just slapped you." Part of me wished he had.

"Lemme see that paper, pops," I said
in my best Brooklynese.

He slid the newspaper across the table towards me.
It was open to the horoscope page.

Rocco folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.
Even though it had rained for most of the last month
his face was the color of a ripening tomato, a hint of olive
still present in the tentative red. His curly, gray hair was
matted down from where his hardhat had been; it looked
like something that should've been keeping a dog warm instead.
But those sparkling eyes were probably just as bright
as they were in his high school yearbook photo.
That was where I tried to focus my attention when talking to the man.

"Hey, look at this. It says it's a four-star day for Pisces.
My luck's finally changed." I went on to read my favorable prediction
not caring whether he wanted me to or not.
" 'Something that happened in your past will motivate you to move
forward with one of your old plans. Touch base with the people
who inspired you the first time around. The timing is much better now.'
Not bad, huh?"

"You're just an apprentice, your life is still meaningless," he replied.
I gave him credit for his witty sincerity. It was obvious he'd been meaning
to remind me of that fact for awhile.

"Maybe so, but at least it looks good on paper. What's your sign?"

"It depends on which newspaper it is. Some say I'm a Cancer, others
bump me ahead to a Leo. I pick whichever one sounds better that day."

I found them on the page. Neither of them had as many stars as mine, but
there was no mention of death, doom, or gloom. They didn't sound
as appropriate as mine had when I read them aloud, though maybe
that's because we all make them relative to our own secret lives somehow.

"Sounds like I'm going for Cancer this time, kid."

"That's the first time I've seen someone say that with a smile," I said
pointing to his pack of Reds sitting on the table between us.
"Don't you think that's a bit of a jaded way to assess your future?"

"The future can't hurt anyone as much as the past. I'm not scared."

For a guy who pushed a broom for a living he sure was making sense.

I glanced down at his hands, gnarled and scarred
like the roots of a tree clinging to the edge
of a too-fast river, the current having its way with the flesh.
We both knew which horoscope was truly his.
Our eyes drifted to the five-day forecast
on the television that hung in the corner of the deli
in an admirable attempt at acting aloof.
I decided to let him have his lie;
God knows there are a good twenty people
who let me live mine every day.
Maybe twenty-one, though I'm still not certain.

"Rocco, you're up," the sandwich man shouted.

"I win again, kid," Roc said as he rose to his feet
to pay for his coffee order. "Ya gotta get up pretty early
in the morning to get the best o' this old man."

I decided to let him have that one, too.

Skipping Browning, for now.

It seemed a fitting time to finish
the anthology of poems that had been haunting
my night stand and lunch breaks for months.
Towards the end it finally became
what it should've been all along
but then again I'm biased
and no fan of romanticism.
People made fun of me for never
taking the clear dust jacket off;
not "people", but a person.
I've shrugged off bigger criticisms
mostly from reflections.
As if in search of one last gem
I flipped back through its contents tonight
making sure to check the first few pages
for some possible dedication in a script too perfect
to be recent. No such luck, though I found its source.
The library rental card secured
inside the front cover revealed
that it had only been borrowed nine times
in its fifteen-year term at
the Julia L. Butterfield Memorial Library in Cold Spring.
It seemed a waste, though for a reason different
from the one that led some liberal librarian
to donate it to the thrift store where I bought it
for a quarter: this was another kind of shame.
Nothing worse than waste, be it of space
or an idea. There was one particularly poignant ditty
at the end about a woman who kept the pocket-dulled
ring from her failed marriage on her keychain as a reminder
of what love is not--
it should have been the last poem
of that 524-page abortion.

Mounting Saint Mary.

A marble would've rolled across the room
faster than one of the pinewood derby cars
my father and I made during my cub scout days
had I dropped one on the floor of
that Midtown apartment.
The paint was too thick, made the doors stick
and filled in the grooves in the trim.
My father could've used some
for the outside of his peeling house
though the yard looks great as always.

All I wanted to come home to was my air conditioning
and some comfort food, but my roommate made goat
for dinner.
Fucking goat.
Canned soup isn't going to cut it
and the truck's too tired to go back out

so I'm going to bed hungry:
hungry, but well-loved.
It's more than I deserve.

I know I'm no knight, girls
but I seem to remember a few good ones
we spent together.
Carry them in your back pocket
right next to your knife.

The Sins of Your Gods

The bar was supposed to be
closing in ten minutes; the black-shirted kid
behind the tap had flashed the lights
three times to designate Last Call
but none of the seasoned old men
sitting in the smoke-filled room seemed
to notice. It'd take more than some
amateur mixologist to drag them out
of a ginmill before they were ready to go.

I approached Ernie first.
He was standing, just as he wrote
with a short, melting tumbler next to
his right hand. A sweater choked his neck
and bull chest as he sweat into his moustache.
He looked more like a Rizzo than a Hemingway somehow.

"You got such a bad rap unfairly," my subconscious
told him. "They called you sexist, but your females
were always stronger if you really read the lines.
The sun only rose when they told it to, and arms were
dropped when they declared armistice. It doesn't get
much closer to the truth than that."

"They still didn't get it," he sighed to someone else.

"It was enough to drive a man to his shotgun."

"A man should never keep it far away," he replied
as his eyes drifted off to his happy hunting grounds.
I was thankful that his eyes and the rest of his head
were still intact for my dream. It would've been
traumatic otherwise.

"But what about the ones that got away?"
It was a feeble attempt, but I had to make it;
I knew he was already gone.

Bukowski must've overheard me from his corner
of the bar. He shot a thumb in my direction
and whispered something to the spineless bartender
who had given up on kicking anyone out.
I picked up my cocktail with the intention
of heading over to see Hank and clarify
what I meant so I wouldn't be crushed
by the thought of a hero laughing at my naivety.
The bartender must've responded with something
that the old man didn't much appreciate. Hank
knocked his wine glass to the floor and swore
at the terrified young man behind the oak.
"Try saying that after you've been weened
from your mother's tit, you ignorant little shit.
Now hand me that bottle of scotch."
I decided not to go see Hank. Some images are best
preserved by never being seen up close.

"I'll tell you about the ones who got away,"
came a soft voice from behind me. Sherwood Anderson
tapped me on the shoulder and handed me his card.
I slipped it into my back pocket and had a seat next
to him. His business suit and oil-slicked hair
seemed far too classy for such a dive. It made sense
that he'd rather be associated with these men
than the ones he had been forced to interact with
in the real world, though. He made the sign
of a throat being slashed to the bartender
to suggest cutting Bukowski off. We both
tried not to laugh at the attempted manslaughter joke.

"Do you know what the real shame is, boy?"
he asked in his usually hidden Ohio accent.
"Not the skirts that escaped, but the stories."

I thought back to how he died. Splinters from
a toothpick that garnished a martini consumed
during a going away party had been caught
in his throat and caused an infection
during his cruise to South America.
He died in some humid hospital in a country
that didn't understand the langauge he loved.

Hank succumbed to cancer; Hem offed himself--
they both saw it coming, had time
to fire those last shots from the hip.
Sherwood still had some aces up his sleeve
when he was called home. His notebooks were
probably found by relatives and auctioned off
to the highest bidder, the roots of the random
words and phrases tragically misunderstood.
He was heartbroken by his inability
to get it all down in time-- a writer's greatest fear.
I could see that the handkerchief in
the breast pocket of his blazer had been used
recently, probably in a toilet stall
where no one would see a gentleman weeping.

I didn't know how to console the poor man
so I didn't bother trying. A good writer
knows what not to say and when not to say it.
I patted him on the shoulder and pointed
towards our belligerent friend who was now
passed out on his placemat, his forearms his pillow
the bottle of scotch in the crotch of his elbow.
The bartender looked relieved
as he scrubbed a pint glass.

"And to think that man outlived all of us,"
Sherwood said with a grin as the color
returned to his face.

"He couldn't have done it without you two,"
I replied, counting my singles and leaving
a generous tip under my coaster.

It was time for me to leave.
I had a new story to wake to.

Great Expectations

I'm digging through a stack of CDs now, but most of the ones up here in my room are useless: the classics are scratched to the point of ruin, and the unlabeled ones are demos from defunct teenage bands I used to play with onstage. It'll be a silent romp with the buttons tonight, I'm not in the mood to play YouTube DJ. Besides, nothing I could find up here in my deceivingly safe hermitage would top the chorus of that last song I heard on my ride home. Those lines about first wives and everybody leaving are just too damn catchy. They made me run that last red light between my room and me tonight. And if I'd had someone in the passenger seat or a pack of smokes to console me I would've sped right past my driveway and went for the ride that I would've taken had I been seven years younger.

I used to do this with a beer can statue and an overflowing ashtray next to my mouse pad. Now I'm lucky if there's a squirrel on the tree outside my window or my ancient neighbor's out back sucking on a cigarette that should've killed him years ago. As long as this cursor's still blinking there's still hope. It was no overstatement when I said I need these people like holes in my head, though maybe that'd relieve some of the pressure. The phone keeps ringing, but it's not who I want it to be. Not tonight.

Sometimes my mother doesn't understand the power of words. She's a classic example of why one should respond instead of reacting, should take a few moments to let that filter between brain and mouth kick in. I know she usually doesn't mean to be harmful with her statements; at the same time, however, she should know her son well enough by now to realize that he's an over-sensitive emotional packrat who takes words, both written and spoken, very seriously. Tonight, Ma, you failed.

We were watching TV over a meal she'd made to lure me to the house. The fried flounder with onions always went so well with white rice, peas, and carrots. It was a combination I'd enjoyed since childhood, a tried and true time machine that takes me to a better place when there was still the semblance of any kind of family life. A segment about infant memory came on as we chewed our food at the table. She reached for the remote control and turned up the volume. The reporter said that newborn babies start memorizing events in the womb, simple things like the theme song of the mother's favorite soap opera. My mom smiled and looked over at me; "Stevie's Tricycle" she said. That's the title of a book she used to read to me through her stomach and after I was born. It's been packed away in a cardboard box somewhere for years, but if you opened it to any page and gave me the first few words I bet I could finish the sentence. And the colors, the lush greens of the bushes in the background and the red and yellow fruit, presumably peaches, hanging from the trees in little Stevie's yard. I remember those, too. The tricycle was fire engine red and had long streamers dangling from the ends of the white handebars. I wish I remembered more things like those streamers.

"Maybe you subconsciously remember what he did," she said after swallowing her bite of rice. I knew which "he" she meant, the only one it could possible be. I pretended not to hear her and hoped she'd change the subject. She didn't.

"I was seven months pregnant with you when he..." but I cut her off before she could finish.

"Please, Mom. Not to be rude, but I don't want to know."

I have enough reasons to hate the man, to fear him, to love him senselessly despite his abandonment, to pray I don't complete the cycle. Some pieces of the puzzle should remain brown-side-up for the sake of what's left of my own well-being. My mother didn't seem to agree. She wanted to fill me in on some abusive act that he perpetrated while I was still defenseless, not that I'm much less vulnerable now. Shit, I haven't seen the guy in almost three years and I'm still haunted by his Roman nose and blank shark's eyes.

The rest of the meal was silent. Mom acted as if I'd insulted her by not wanting to hear the tale that I knew would only break my heart further. Part of her was hoping I'd complete her sentences like I would've if she started reading "Stevie's Tricycle" so she wouldn't feel so alone in that memory. Thankfully, it's not one we share. I cleared my plate and put it in the sink making sure to express my gratitude for dinner. She nodded her head flippantly and took a sip of the white wine she was drinking from a dixie cup. The kitchen didn't feel as warm as the womb.

My stepfather was well into the vodka by the time I went back to the living room to talk to him about work. He repeated himself within the same sentences and sucked at the tumbler of ice like it contained some unknown cure. It seemed like a good time to make my escape since the conversation was going nowhere. I went upstairs to bid my grandmother farewell. She told me in her native tongue that she prays for me every day and that God is with me wherever I go. I rubbed her back and thanked her even though I wasn't so convinced as to God's intentions for keeping tabs on me. I feel more like the guinea pig or the jester than the beloved son most times. And that's just what my name's supposed to mean, Michael David: "He who is like the Lord; Beloved." It's laughable, really.

That laundry must've been crucial to the next day's outfit. My mother was folding it with the fervor of a desperate stockholder as the line graph plummets. "Goodnight, Mom," I said as I gave her a hug. She barely wrapped her arms around me, didn't look me in the eyes. "What's wrong?"

"I'm tired, Mike," she lied. She'd been tired all her life, partially from dealing with people like my estranged father and the drunk downstairs. It had never been an excuse to half-ass her only child.

I left her to her folding, grabbed the bag of leftovers she'd packed, and headed for my truck, fumbling for my keys in the pocket of my jeans. When the stereo came on I was glad to hear that blue-collar voice belting the woes of a lost generation. And when that song I mentioned earlier came on I hit twenty over the speed limit like that dreaded "he" was following me. Sometimes I wish that was the case. I'll never let my hostage get away.

The right man for the job.

The pit of my stomach spat on my lungs in disgust
as I hit a pothole the size of a small child.
I felt like the hubcap I'd seen leaning against a speed limit sign
a few miles back, praying to be reclaimed--
the worst part being that it was my own fault as usual.

It had almost been a year since
someone had plowed into the sign
in front of the local volunteer ambulance corps.
The culprit must've been well over the legal limit
since the sign was a good thirty feet
from the road. Even I don't drive after that many.
It took them three months
just to remove the broken cinder blocks and wood debris.
Volunteers must be a dying breed.
There was yellow CAUTION tape
wrapped tightly around the scene like dismal garland.
It was an eyesore that reminded me
to be grateful that it hadn't been me
behind the wheel or in front of the hood.

I was on my way home from a memory today
when I saw the latest development
in the sign's slow restoration: a man in a trench
around the perimeter of the four-by-six foundation
preparing a solid bed of dirt on which to lay his block.
I say "his block" because it was just that; there were
no scrawny teenagers looking to make a summertime buck
or underpaid Latinos looking to feed a family.
It was simply the man, his trade, and a labor of love.
I could tell he wasn't getting paid for the job
by the look on his face, the sway in his step, the arch in his back.
It takes a man who works with his hands to notice these things.

The sun was at its golden peak and my lap was very empty.
The mason was in his late fifties, a yellow sleeveless shirt
showing decades worth of sun-spots on his shoulders.
He wore a large-brimmed straw hat as if he were in his garden
and didn't seem to care how long it took
to tamp the dirt down with his feet in that trench
so long as it got done
and got done right.

He wanted it to be better than the last.
His name would be on it.
His dinner would be on the table when he got home
and his wife of thirty years would rub the skin cancer
right out of those weary shoulders after his nightly shower.
They'd make new love and fall asleep mid-chapter afterwards.

It wasn't the first time I was jealous of a man closer to death.

Changed men, alright.

It's so hard not to laugh when
the broads have the nerve to hit you
with something like
"My Gerald would never do such a thing,"
or "James has changed so much
since I've met him," or my personal favorite
for obvious reasons:
"You're a bad influence on my Richard!"

Let me lend you ladies a clue about that nut Jerry, that
consistently grinning gin-drinking Jimmy--
They're the same as they were before you met them
when you're not around, and when you finally
bail and leave me to buy the rounds in the aftermath
they'll still be the same men with just one more
excuse to get sloshed.

And for Christ's sake, leave my Dick out of this.

A Sunday Afternoon

We found our own eight feet of beach
along the Hudson, delineated by twisted trees
and vines reaching out towards the salt air.

I stood on the tips of my toes
picking mulberries from the ancient tree
and dropping them in the cup of my hand
to eat from the comfort of the folding chairs
she'd brought. Her flip-flopped feet
were being accosted by brackish water
as the waves tripped over themselves
and crashed onto shore.

My fingers were stained purple
from over-zealous berry handling.
I smashed one on her forehead
but the juice wiped right off.
My sinister side was disappointed.

We stared out at the shining crests
and diving gulls. Twenty-somethings
flew by on jet skis. There were some boaters.
I was glad no one waved. It was far too nice a day
to lie again.

Part of me was legitimately frightened
that my old man would come walking
along the trail and find us.
He's the one who showed me that place.
He's the one who's shown me a lot of things
not all of which were quite as beautiful.
Back when we still spoke
he told me that he saw me sitting on a bench
at the pier in Cold Spring with a pretty young blonde
under my arm and didn't want to bother us.
That story's stayed with me moreso than I'd like to admit.
Like I said, it's a legitimate fear.

"My dad would like this place," she said.
"He could take pictures."

Was it possible to get the red-eye out of the Devil?
No, of course not.
I kicked a piece of driftwood into the river
letting the receding tide decide its fate.
It was more fair than the norm.

A group of kids came running down the trail
and right into our cove.
They wouldn't have been able to gather
any mulberries, even if they knew how good they were;
I'd picked all the ones low to the ground.
My purple-stained hands hid each other
in my lap, the blank stares of innocent children
enough to condemn a guilty conscience.

The youngest one, a slender little white-haired girl
climbed into a crotch in the J-shaped tree that extended out
over the water. Her father came along to take a picture.
The smile was just as fake as mine used to be.
We don't want to fake those moments, Dad.
We want to live them.

"Do you need help getting down?" a concerned older
brother asked as she maneuvered her way
back to the ground without answering.
I remained poised and ready to pluck her from
the shallow water if she slipped.
I knew she wouldn't fall, though.
Not after that bitter Kodak moment
that didn't capture anything worth keeping.

"Look at the truck on the railroad tracks
on the other side of the river," I said.
"It must be one of those ones that has
steel wheels instead of tires to ride the rails.
You couldn't pay me enough to do that."

"But they must know the train schedule,"
she said, the kid in her showing
through the potential front-page tragedy.

"Sure, but people make those schedules.
They're susceptible to human error.
It's no science."

She didn't disagree.
She must've been learning when to let me go.
We changed the subject.
And after we got home I learned that mulberries
are an aphrodesiac.

conscience treading water

Have you ever noticed
how places that sell things
which you may want to keep secret
all have the same black plastic bags
with the diagonal gold stripes?

The liquor store has them;
the gun store;
the porn store--
carnal, violent vices all hidden
by the same thin layer
of opaque petroleum product.

No? Didn't think so...

As the Fifth Horseman sits with furrowed brow
talking shop to a blank wall
in a crowded house sans chocolate
too lazy, tired, and dry to go out
with morals forced oblong.

Less talk, more bull.

I crept up to the red
light and craned my neck
southward to check out the livestock
in the trailer one lane over.

The mid-afternoon sun shone
fiercely through the translucent roof
casting a yellow glow upon
the motionless cattle.
All of them had horns, some the size
of my forearm.
Their eyes were big and dull
but not in a dumb way;
more like a shark's dead eyes--
the kind that know their power.

I wondered if they were being brought
to the slaughter or to greener pastures
maybe even put out to stud.
The blank looks on the faces of the Mexicans
in the back seat of the pick-up towing
the trailer didn't clarify the matter.
The driver adjusted his sunglasses
and braced himself for the sharp left turn
of the entrance ramp leading onto the highway.
There was a lot of money hitched to his vehicle.
There were too many tools in the back of mine.

When the green arrow permitted us to proceed
I let my foot up off the brake slowly and started
to commit myself to the turn
taking one more look at the naively stoic bulls.
There was something to be learned from them
but the line of cars behind me wasn't about to wait.

It's been one of those weeks
when the animals have more to say.
The world may never know, right Mr. Owl?

Blood Money

We were driving back from
the gun store I'd discovered
out in Hopewell. I conned him
into joining me after work
by offering to drive. Some men
are even cheap with forty
dollars-an-hour in their paychecks
plus benefits, but if that made me like him
any less I wouldn't have invited him.

"I used to do a lotta 'coon huntin'
when I was your age," he said
with a drawl not uncommon
in his neck of the county.
"My dog would chase it up
a tree, then I'd shoot it
in the head so I didn't ruin
the fur and make it worthless.
One time this big ol' bastard
wouldn't stay still for long enough
to get a good shot so I blew the
branches out from under his feet
until he finally climbed down the tree.
My dog wrestled the 'coon for awhile.
When the 'coon bit him I kicked it
and the thing reached out and grabbed
my leg. My dog grabbed him from behind
and snapped his neck without puncturing
its skin. He was a hell of a huntin' dog.
Made me a lot of money, too."

"So why'd you give it up, Ed?"

"My dog died."

"Why not get another one? Too much training?"

"I didn't want to waste my time with the impossible.
They say you only get 'coon dog in your life."

"And three good women."

"Nope. Only one."

We sat in silence for half a minute
pondering which one of us was right.

Thankfully a toll booth broke the silence.
Ed reached into his pocket and whipped out
the crisp dollar bill that'd bring us back to
where we belonged, whether or not
either of us were fully convinced anymore.


Currently reading:
"Poor White" by Sherwood Anderson.

Best served cold.

My partner, who's more of an opponent
had left work an hour early
to get his car inspected, so he said.
No one argued with his request.
I was thankful for the silence, didn't mind
working alone. My foreman wanted
some holes punched in the backs
of the classroom heaters we'd be
installing the following week.
I was focusing on not wailing my left thumb
with the hammer as I held the screwdriver
in place when I heard someone
enter the classroom behind me.

"Just came back to get a few things,"
came a timid male voice.

"Hey, it's your classroom," I replied
putting my tools down and swinging
around on my knee. Sure enough
it was him. There was no mistaking
that tall lanky man in his late thirties.
His dark brown hair was in the earliest
stages of a comb-over, his thin-framed
glasses dangled loosely from his head
and his top front teeth looked as though
he used them to open bottles.
My friends and I used to make fun of him
in junior high, but now he was a legitimate teacher
who didn't even realize he had the last laugh.

"No more subbing for you, huh?" I said
with a congratulatory smirk.

"No....no...." He seemed afraid, like I'd
just mentioned his own personal Vietnam.
"Did I have you?"

Have me? Please. He'd never had anyone
his whole life. But with a name like
Mr. Kaiser it was hard to forget him
and all of the World War I jokes we made
about him thanks to our social studies lessons.

"Yeah, I remember you from junior high.
It's good to see you got a job!"
I instantly regretted saying it after
hearing how the words could be misconstrued
as a back-handed compliment.
It wasn't meant to be malicious.
He didn't take it that way, though.
I could tell by the way his chest heaved
in agreement with my statement
about his long-awaited achievement, the one
that I'd give all the copper in the world to claim.

"It's tough being a substitute teacher. No one
takes you seriously."

I didn't want to break the news that there
was little chance that that had changed.
You either have it or you don't, despite
what that framed piece of paper says.
"Well not anymore, Mr. Kaiser."
The high road seemed more reasonable.
I even threw in his name to make him
feel important. He deserved it for the hell
we used to put him through without his knowledge.
He was the kind of man who undoubtedly spent
some serious time staring at the ceiling at night.

"It must be strange being back in a Newburgh school,"
he said. Suddenly I felt as though he were onto me.
That sheepish grin of his wasn't so harmless anymore.

"Yeah. I've recognized a few faces."
There was a conscious effort made
to avoid grinding my teeth.

"Man, I swore I left my computer speakers
in this closet. Guess not. Don't get old."

He obviously didn't know me as well as I knew him.
Still, I figured I'd brighten his day a bit.

"At least you'll be one of the lucky ones come September."

"How so?" he asked, visibly intrigued.

"Your classroom is on the east side of the hallway.
The ones on the west side aren't getting new
ventilators installed; therefore, no AC."

Those bashed-in teeth poked through his lips
in what I took to be a shy smile.

"The other teachers will be jealous. There'll be
arguments made about seniority, tenure, and old age
regarding who should get the cooler rooms."

"We'll work it out," he said in a humble yet confident tenor.

I believed him. People like him always do work it out
despite the years of subbing and other trials.
Me? Can't say the same quite as enthusiastically.

"Time to go home and check my house again,"
he mumbled unaffectedly.

"Have a good one, and good luck
finding those speakers," I said as I knelt down
to get back to the task at hand.

"Have fun with your heater," I heard over my shoulder
as the door closed behind me.

The hammer practically swung itself
for the rest of the afternoon.
My thumb didn't stand a chance.

force-fed umbilical cake.

Her hair was smiling, alright
and I guess I could've stayed there longer
had her tarnish not been my draw
had Brock Davenport been my name
--

but
We're all entitled to a little
revisionist history
to stay on the saner side of things
if nothing else
as
goiters and iodine deficiency
point crooked fingers at each other
and miner poets fire their red rockets
impotently into the ceiling fan
in search of that big nut.

Good girl: you've lost your gag reflex.
It's the only way to survive 'round these parts.

Good god:

214, 28, 28A, 213, 32, 52, Home.

If you were man enough to be here
you'd probably be proud:

This time I didn't make
that wrong sharp left
wasting sunlight.
This time I didn't turn down
Old Kingston or let a second
do the same, sinking in my seat.
This time there were no turtles
to save in the shoulder
and no guilt brought on
by tell-tale rear-view mirrors.

My right hand on the knee and the shifter.
My eyes on the road and the river.

I was just like you again.

I've known a lot of beautiful women
and some of them almost
knew me.

We left the fireworks early
to avoid getting stuck in traffic
after I spilled your beans.
Yes, the consensus remains the same.

Wish me luck on this one, Pop.
Your God and mine may differ
but our passion's still the same.

And to think I'd rather pretend that you're dead.

"iMe joda con cajones!"

"Do you know what
that woman just said?"
I asked as we walked out
of the department store.

"I'm not sure, she was speaking
too quickly."

"Most Hispanic women do when they're mad..."

"So what'd she say?"

" 'Fuck me with balls,' " I smiled wide.
"Let me make that a little more clear
by adding some punctuation:
'Fuck me, with balls.'
The pause created by the comma
differentiates the two parts of the sentence.
She doesn't literally want to get fucked, but
she feels as though she is for some unspecified
negative reason. The 'with balls'
in this case is also not to be taken literally;
rather, think of the connotation implied when
someone says 'That engine's got balls,'
or something else that exudes brute strength.
The most colorful phrases in the Spanish language
don't make sense when translated word-for-word to English."

"Thanks for the lesson, professor."

The irony of the accusation made me cringe.
'Fuck me, with balls' indeed...

That Richie Cunningham could be a real cocksucker when he wanted to be...

No one likes an awkwardly close
two-seater men's room
especially at a bar
but someone's got to
break the silence.

We were both done
draining the vein.
I made it to the sink first.
The motion-activated sensor
wasn't working
despite my drunken hand gestures
in its general direction.

"Jesus Christ. Just my luck," I said
while doing the rain dance.

"The fuckin' thing only works sporadically."
We were both a bit impressed
with his alcohol-unimpaired vocabulary.

I squatted down, reached up to where
the steel met the porcelain, and
tightened a loose fitting with my left hand.
It worked when I tried summoning
the water gods again.

"Good job, man," he rejoiced.

"I'm a plumber by trade. Don't tell anyone. It's embarrassing
but practical, and it pays the bills."

"Hey, I've seen your work. I know some people..."

"I hate even working on my own house, but thanks."

Last Call came an hour later.
The bartender only bought me one drink
despite all the rounds I'd shelled out
my hard-earned cash for.
My left hand twitched with the lack of appreciation
and that sink managed to break itself again.
What would the Fonz have done?

Man's only friend.

Long-deceased pets of yore seemed a safe topic
for the awkward post-dessert conversation.
A woman more than twice my age
reminisced across the table about her childhood mutt
as I wished my glass of milk wasn't empty.

"Princey lived to a ripe old age. He snuck out
one night when a female dog
in the neighborhood was in heat."

I laughed on the inside at the euphemism
and scratched my plate with my
chocolate-smeared fork.

"We found him dead the next morning.
Well, he wasn't totally dead yet.
We brought him to the vet
but it was too late. Apparently
he'd had a heart attack."

She'd politely failed to mention the God-decreed
act that brought on the coronary, of course.

"Poor guy," I said
half under my breath
while trying to hide the smirk.

I didn't pity his luck.
That's how this old dog
wants to go out someday, too.


Currently reading:
"An Apology for Crudity and Other Stories" by Sherwood Anderson.

Days? No. Good minutes, at best.

When we still spoke
my dad used to tell me
that growing up
he dreamed of being
six-foot-two
like the State Troopers
back then.
Needless to say
he made it
while I, of course
fell two inches short.

Was that reason enough, Chaz?

Every six months I ride by
his house, but the car
is never there
and the paint is always peeling
though I'm sure he doesn't care
what the neighbors think
as long as God is still smiling down
upon the little lie of a life he's created.

I was a bill you paid for eleven years
you fucking coward.
At least I had the decency to run...



In my recurring nightmares I beg
for second chances.
Was it Lyn or Lynn?
That's the one thing I've forgotten.

I turn my swag off.

What's worse, Willis?:
the walking pneumonia
or dishpan hands?

I'll tell you right now
that he spits when he talks.
Do you still want to meet the Stranger?
You'll barely be half-pleased
with the Revelation.

There's Fool's Gold in the gravel lot--
enough to convince them
to change all their locks
foolishly, mind you.
The fools stagger on.

We've pulled a few teeth from these knuckles before
and before the lights dim we'll yank a few more.

Never trust a girl who smokes Newports
and run if you see Reds in her purse
'cause she could probably pin your wrist
and would break more than your bloodpump.

And am I too amorous, darling?
Well just circle C
and keep your naked fingers crossed.
Will I tell you there's no Santa Claus?
No, honey; I'm a professional.

But what if the birds ganged up on the cats?

It's too obscure, it's too obscure...

It's so surreal like this month's sun-showers
and scarcely as filling as astronaut food.

"We hate it when you write like this..."

But I never called it writing, Consumers
and I've yet to receive a payroll check
though supper's always served.

Yeahyeahyeah.
Kick me through the phone.

Audobon

You could call Ed an outdoorsman, but it'd be something akin to calling Bill Gates a programmer; the label wouldn't do the man justice when he summed the word up so thoroughly. At age seven he set his first trap and caught a skunk. "Skin it, if you still want to trap," his father told him when the disappointing news was discovered. He did just that, though the stench clung to him for days, and nailed the tanned pelt up in the garage once it had lost its putrid quality. Episodes like that one gave him character, you can see it in the man today.

His obvious amount of time spent in the wilderness was part of what made a statement like "It was the only time I'd seen it happen" that much more potent. I was surprised to have heard of the phenomenon at all; witnessing it would've been interepreted as some sort of fateful sign to me, but to Ed it was just more proof that Nature's got it right where people have it wrong. He said he was out clearing a path on his dense forest property when a low-flying hawk zoomed over his head, coming so close that it caused him to duck and throw his arms up. Not two seconds went by when an army of various birds flew above him in pursuit of the hawk. Ed ran after them and spotted the reason once the procession reached a clearing: gripped in the hawk's deadly clutches was a small songbird, flapping its wings and pecking at the hawk's talons. Several different species had taken up in the fight to free the captive. The battle was about to escalate in that meadow since the multi-toned shrieks of the different pursuers had summoned more reinforcements to the theater.

The hawk swooped around in large circles in a desperate attempt to out-run the liberating faction which it couldn't out-maneuver. It must've been odd for a creature with no natural enemy except man to be the prey for once. Ed watched in amazement as more and more robins, doves, chickadees, wrens, crows and warblers dive-bombed the terrified predator relentlessly until it finally loosened its grip and let its quarry go. The weakened clump of feathers fell towards the ground, but regained strength and pulled out of its downward spin just before impact. It quickly found a branch on which to perch and chirped an appreciative tune in honor of its allies. The hawk, plenty embarrassed, gained altitude to soar high up with its majestic brethren in the clear afternoon sky, probably hoping that none of them had noticed its defeat. The winged allegiance was no longer needed. Nearly fifty birds could be seen flying their separete ways as Ed scratched his beard and wondered if anyone else had ever seen such a spectacle.

"People aren't as motivated, let alone brave. They just don't care that much," he said as the close of his tale. I figured I wouldn't deviate.

The Silent Dirge

Tax collectors, repo men, lawyers, used car swindlers, door-to-door insurance salesmen: the most hated professions in the history of the world. I pity the men in those fields who can't sleep at night, though most of them justify the means with the ends quite efficiently. I'm pretty sure I had a job like that once, until I gave it up for good in a small rural town in Upstate New York shortly after purchasing a standard marble composition book for three dollars and twenty-nine cents.

Traveling was part of my livelihood then, the business I was in required it. City to city, county to county, state to state; sometimes for an hour or two, other times for the better and worse parts of years. It was an exhilirating quality for a young man's world, but it also aged him fast. Some places appealed to me more than the rest and it broke my heart to leave them, to not be allowed to plant my roots there forever. But money made the world spin then as it does now and I didn't have the luxury of getting out of such a potentially lucrative industry for the sake of my own well-being. I'd tell you exactly what it was I did for a living during that period of my life, but I'm honestly not entirely sure what it was my employer had in mind for my role in his enterprise. There was some sort of commission involved, which is probably why I rarely received a substantial check and wound up having to give the nomadic lifestyle up when it came time to hang up my holsters.

I'd been working in that no-horse town for three months before I had the nerve to ask anyone his deal. Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm no storyteller, even less of an accountant. Let me start with the diner.

The diner was the central hub of the Catskill Mountain valley town with a population of less than three hundred that for our purposes here will be known as Lucretia. I don't recall if the church on Main Street, which should have been dubbed 'Only Street', was Presbyterian or Methodist, or whether the hotdog stand sold ice cream in the winter too, or if turning on red was permitted within the bounds of that locale's jurisdiction. One forgets those details quite quickly, moreso than one realizes until called upon to regurgitate the facts some twenty years later. But that diner-- no one who's ever spent more than three days in Lucretia could deny having a crystallized memory of that diner.

Its outer shell was not decked out in chrome and mirrors, flags and banners, like those I was accustomed to encountering. From the outside it looked like any other building on the strip, red bricks and a pitched roof with its peak in the middle. If the front was not primarily glass then you probably wouldn't even know that it was an eatery. Even that term's a bit generous. An oversized sign hung ominously over the sidewalk like a relic of the post-War age. "Steaks, Chops, Cutlets" it falsely advertised.

The inside was not much more impressive. One entered on the left side of the storefront and was immediately presented with a long countertop that spanned the entire length of the left wall right back to the kitchen. Booths lined the front and right side of the perimeter. A mass of tables and chairs that was constantly liable to slight alterations filled the center of the room. Patrons wiped their feet well on the tattered mat near the entrance, but it was too late; the tiles were already crumbling in their places. It didn't seem such a shame, though, since whoever had installed the black-and-white checkered pattern decades beforehand didn't bother to stick to the prescribed plan too faithfully. Some patches of the floor had clearly been laid after lunch on a Friday. Things on the high side of the room were no less inconsistent; the ceiling fans all spun at different speeds no matter how many times the chains were tugged. The kitchen, as I said earlier, was in the back left corner of the room. One restroom was located adjacent to the kitchen, and there was a glass door at the righthand corner in the back of the building that served as a rear entrance, though more often than not it was an escape route. Two booths were located in that remote corner of the diner, but no one voluntarily sat there. Well, almost no one.

School didn't seem to be an emphasis in Catskill life, at least not in Lucretia, but for the benefit of the metaphor let's pretend that everyone living there had gone to high school together. If that were indeed the case, then the Lucretia Diner picked up where the high school cafeteria's lunch table had left off. Everyone who was anyone ate at least one meal a day at that establishment religiously whether or not the daily specials had been changed once that week. The vegetables were overcooked mush, the soup tasted vaguely of potato dirt and rancid bacon grease, and the morning chef had somehow managed to burn every piece of toast that came out of the kitchen. Eggs. Eggs were the only safe bet on the menu, probably because they were guaranteed fresh by the hens that lived out back. An overhead view of the restaurant would prove that most natives agreed with my assessment; any plate belonging to a true-blue Lucretian would have yellow or white eggs on it, while the plates of vagabonds and passers-through would show faded greens and browns and various degrees of unappetizingly dull hues between the two. I must confess, it took me a full week of experimentation to join the first group, but I suppose that's not the worst track record in town.

The clientele may as well have had assigned seats with their names on them, or at least designated sections. Loggers sat with loggers at the end of the counter. Merchants and clerks huddled at the booths near the front windows, possibly in a subconscious effort to spot potential customers. The postman, the pastor, and the chief of police dined and lounged together at the central table section whenever their conflicting schedules would allow for it. Children congregated at the counter, though their mothers usually made them sit at as far away from the loggers as possible as if the temporary distance between them would save them from such a cruel and common fate. Felling trees was an honorable trade in the community, one that had sustained the local economy since its existence, but it was still hard for a mother to watch her son accept that yoke, or watch a daughter fall into the clutches of the burly, whiskey-ruined remnants of a lumberman who was once young and promising enough to escape Lucretia. The rest of the folks sat scattered here and there throughout the confines of the diner's walls, making sure not to trespass on another group's claim. When it did happen by accident there was never an exchange of words, only a few quick remarks and falsely smiling eyes to show that a foul had been committed. There was, however, the one time when Merle Windham had come back to society from a three-week bender after his wife had died of cancer, only to find some unfortunate soul sitting in his seat at the far end of the counter, but no one ever spoke of that incident or its victim ever again after it happened and I intend to follow suit here.

By this time you're probably wondering where I sat at the Lucretian Diner. I'll be honest: I was content to dine wherever the waitress suggested for that particular time, probably because my first experience there had been on that fateful night when good ol' Merle had stumbled through the front doors wanting some eggs to wash down his whiskey. I didn't mind the passive role I played on that particular stage, it led to some good angles and different perspectives that could've otherwise been missed. One day I was in a corner booth, the next at a table next to the who's who of town, sometimes I sat between the kids and the loggers like some distorted timeline in the form of a rare Rockwell painting. Dorothy, the head waitress, never steered me wrong. "Follow me?" she'd always ask when I walked in, as if I'd have the nerve to disobey after that first spectacle. "Scrambled or fried today, Mr. Thorpe?" was the next query in her service routine after that first week of dabbling in the menu's limited selections. Dorothy didn't bother handing them out to the regulars. I didn't notice that until after I'd been a patron for two months.

Exploring the territory had lost its novelty quickly. Most of the roads were named after founding families of the town where their decendants still resided. I learned the hard way that these funny-sounding streets with names like "Joneswright Way" and "Cockle Lane" were not public streets at all; they were long, winding, and imperatively private driveways which would be defended to the death until the last shotgun shell was fired. Perhaps if my strolls had taken place before the questionable motives implied by the setting of dusk, twilight, and beyond then I would have encountered friendly families sitting on porches instead of warning shots and guard dogs. Despite my less-than-amiable encounters it saddens me to think that those oddly named road names will probably be bought up and changed to things like "Birch Ridge Drive" and "Meadowbrook Road" by the urban sprawl of city slickers, if they haven't already. Lucretia was the kind of town where a communal gas-powered log splitter was left in a lot on the main drag year-round and no one had the audacity to steal it. I'm not so sure it's like that anymore, but I hope that it is.

As I'd bet you can imagine things tended to get a little boring in that lonesome mountain town once late-night walks were ruled out. Many a cup of coffee was consumed there just to kill time by both myself and most of the town's inhabitants. It was a place to be outside of the home or rented dwelling, aside from the daily grind. Again, to this day I'm not sure what my line of work even was back in those crazy years, but I knew it required me to live in Lucretia for a period of five-and-a-half months. Whenever I wasn't off doing whatever it was I was assigned to do, or jotting things down in a marble notebook in my rented room above the Rusty Axe Taproom, or getting lost both figuratively and otherwise in a book near some stream or precipice, I was sitting at the Creesh, as it was called, sipping burnt coffee and wondering when and where my next gig would take me.

Dorothy kept me company as best she could without seeming overly friendly and disturbing the delicate balance imposed by her fellow Lucretians. Standard waitress small-talk was permitted, the occasional laugh was tolerated, but nothing more. No one knew my identity or my purpose in their fine little town, and I wasn't in a position to change that. One day, about two months into my stay there, I left my notebook on the table by accident. Dorothy had always seen me scribbling in it in between coffee mug refills and must've assumed it was important, more important than it really was. She went over to where I'd been sitting to wipe the table and claim her tip when she noticed my blunder. "Mr. Thorpe!" she yelled in my direction as my hand reached for the front door of the diner just before closing time. "You forgot your book." The words sounded unusual coming out of her mouth. I suppose it was my book, though, in the same way that this will be part of it someday. "Thanks, Dorth," I said with a tired smile as I met her halfway to claim it. My hand brushed against hers as she handed me the notebook and one edge of her mouth curved upwards in a genuine show of friendship. From then on we were pals.

Dorothy continued to warm up to me after that episode. The townspeople didn't seem to mind. I don't think she realized it, but Dorothy had more say in who was to be accepted by the population and who wasn't. She was the head waitress, the only waitress to be truthful, in Lucretia's main attraction. Her word was law, but she didn't abuse the power. If Daniel Thorpe was OK in Dorothy Sparker's book, then Dan and his silly book were to be welcomed with at least tentatively opened arms. I'm not sure how or when it happened, but it felt like a secret meeting had been held to address the issue of how I was to be treated. Almost overnight my status had improved. People greeted me more graciously and slowed their strides to make sure they'd be able to hold the door for me if I was approaching behind them. Whatever word Dorothy was spreading about my alleged sanctity was working wonders. I began to write more in that book of mine, and Dorothy fed me plenty of useful information to help my endeavor. When the Creesh wasn't busy, sometimes even when it was, she'd sit across from me for a quick piece of burnt toast and eggs washed down with coffee and tell me the latest gossip or an interesting piece of the town's history. It turned out there was more to Lucretia than one passing through on a weekend trek could ever imagine. My hand would cramp viciously at night from transcribing all of the tales I'd heard that day. Sometimes the specifics were jumbled a bit, but most great fiction is composed of two-thirds of the truth. The checks kept coming from my employer for some reason despite my lack of ambition in the vague work department, possibly due to some mistake in the payroll office. I felt like one of the famous American expatriate writers living in Paris in the 1920s: money for nothing, the cafe lifestyle, and a constant flow of priceless ink on the paper.

By the third month I was no longer limited to listening to what Dorothy chose to share with me. My questions were well received and answered to the best of her knowledge. My marble notebook had overflowed and I had purchased two more at Lucky's General Store. I had dossiers on a majority of the most interesting people in town, all except one fellow who always sat near the rear entrance of the diner by himself and never made eye contact with anyone. Something inside me knew that his was probably the most poignant tale. Maybe that's why I'd waited so long to ask Dorothy about him; I was saving the best for last.

"Who's that gentleman sitting back there all alone?" I asked during a lull in the action at the Creesh.

"That's no one, don't worry about him," came quickly from her mouth in a tone I'd never heard her use before. She avoided meeting my eyes as she said it just as the man in question always did. At first I thought that maybe she was being evasive because he was a past love of hers, but I took another look at his crumpled shirt, unkempt hair, and filthy face and came to the conclusion that no one had ever loved him in his life.

"Come on, Dorth. Don't hold out on me. I'm going to make this town famous someday, I need all the facts."

"This town don't want no fame, Mr. Thorpe. Finish your eggs before they get cold." A strange sense that she was trying to protect me from something swept over me so I let the issue go for the moment.

"Fine, but don't expect as generous a tip today." Her mouth formed that sincere half-smile and that was the end of it.

At least I thought it was the end of it. I found myself unable to sleep as a result of her instant change in attitude regarding the mysterious character who silently entered the diner and never had a soul to keep him company. Even Dorothy, one of the town's most friendly individuals, showed her distate for the man by bringing him a plate of eggs without bothering to ask how he wanted them prepared. Something wasn't right about the situation. All writing ceased for a few days while I wrestled with the enigma in the privacy of my mind until I gave in and decided to find out just who the man was by asking the most innocently honest source. Luckily, Dorothy sat me at the counter that day right between the loggers and the children getting milkshakes with their allowances.

"Hey there, Jimmy."

" D'aftanoon, Mista Thorpe." Jimmy was a fine boy of nine who was about to earn himself a second milkshake.

"Say, I seem to have ordered a milkshake by accident and don't think I can handle it. Would you be interested in helping me out?"

"O'course, sir. What's the catch?" Even country kids knew that everything had a price.

"Well, Jimmy, I was wondering if you happened to know who that man sitting back there is. I'm writing a book about your town, you see, and..."

"No problem, Dan." We were on an equal plane by that point in the conversation apparently. "That there's Mr. Franklin Stevens."

"Now we're getting somewhere, Jim. Mr. Stevens is always by himself. What's his major malfunction?"

"You'd be shunned too if you'd gone and killed your brother."

So that was it. Lucretia had a dark underbelly that it didn't want an outsider to see. The Creesh's new resident loner was a renegade salesman-turned-writer, and the old one was a fratricide.

"Thanks."

"What about my ice cream?"

"Dorothy, see that li'l Jim here gets a milkshake on my tab."

I left the diner with an uncomfortable feeling that had never come over me before. A hundred sets of eyes were watching me from the safety of their homes and shadows formed by trees. I knew their secret now, their charade was up. It didn't help my insomnia any.

Sunrise could not come fast enough so I gave up trying to wait for its arrival. Dorothy, as embassador, had some explaining to do. It was so early in the morning that even the loggers wouldn't be there for breakfast yet, but I knew that she'd let me in. She did.

"What brings you here so early, Dan?"

"I know about Frank Stevens. I want answers. How could you leave out such an important character?"

"Look here, Mr. Thorpe," she said with an index finger itching to be raised as if scolding a schoolboy of Jimmy's age. "I don't want to have to ask you to leave."

Her threat was shallow and I knew it. I decided to take the other approach.

"Dorothy, all I want is to know the man's story. I promise I won't spread word of a murder here in Lucretia."

"Murder? There wasn't no murder."

"Did a jury decide that?"

"Wasn't no cover-up, either, Dan." I was Dan again, no longer Mr. Thorpe. I was making progress.

"Then what happened?"

"He was five years old and burnt his house down playing with matches. His kid brother was asleep inside and they couldn't get him out in time. The smoke choked him to death."

"So it was an accident, Frank wouldn't have been penalized. It was never reported?"

"The Stevens family was dirt poor, too poor to afford a lawyer. They could barely support themselves."

"That's no reason to let a death go undocumented, Dorth..."

"It wasn't undocumented. You can read all about it on Frank's face any day of the week. He crawled into some sort of shell after the accident, and no one ever treated him the same afterwards."

"Even so, his brother's accidental manslaughter should've been acknowledged by the law."

"It wasn't no manslaughter, Mr. Thorpe. Like I told you, the Stevens family didn't have a dime. It was a thinning of the herd."

I let it go at that. Dealing with my mother as a child had taught me when a woman was to have the final say in a matter. The case of Franklin Stevens was one of those scenarios. I left the diner, walked briskly back to my rented room above the Rusty Axe, and slept soundly for the first time in days.

A little over two months went by in an uneventful manner. My interaction with Dorothy and the other residents of Lucretia continued as usual, but the checks had been cut off. My employer must have found the error in the payroll department. My stay in town was about to be terminated since I'd have to go back to the real world in search of a real job. I didn't have the hands to be a lumberman, and there sure wasn't an opening in the local clergy for me. I wrote too much to be a holy man, the Good Book had already been written. Packing my things didn't take long. A brand new briefcase that had been issued arbitrarily by my former boss some years back revealed itself once again upon a final inspection of my closet. I tossed it into my car along with my suitcase and other belongings, thanked the barkeep downstairs for letting me occupy his room for so long, and headed for the Lucretia Diner for what would be my last serving of eggs for a long time.

In a lighthearted effort to appear prestigious during my last meal at the Creesh I brought that ridiculous pristine briefcase in with me as my stage prop instead of the customary notebook. The smallest inclinations tend to lead to the biggest discoveries. Just ask Eve.

The mood in the Creesh was uncharacteristically somber. There weren't many customers, but something was off about the general atmosphere. Dorothy barely noticed my arrival at first so I helped myself to a stool at the counter. She snapped out of her daze and pretended to be cheerful.

"You look nice today, Daniel." She must've been referring to my briefcase because my clothes and grooming habits had remained unaltered.

"Don't lie to me, I look like hell. What's with this place? It looks like someone died."

"Someone did, Mr. Thorpe." I really hated how she, Jimmy, and the rest of those Lucretians changed ones title to account for their current attitude towards him so effectively. "The funeral's being held right now."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Who was it?"

"Barry, the barber over there on First Street." First Street was one of the few streets that was not named after a local family, and was therefore safe to travel at any hour of the day or night. I knew it well. Barry had even cut my hair once or twice during my five-month sabbatical in Lucretia.

"Maybe I should head over to the cemetery." It was the kind of place where you went to your barber's funeral, even if he'd only touched your head a few times.

"No, no...It's too late, it should be getting out soon. Eggs?"

"Of course. And a fresh pot of coffee if you don't mind. I'm leaving town today, you know."

"I know." Of course she did. News travels fast in small places.

The coffee was served too soon to be fresh. Dorothy gave no special treatment to a man just because he was leaving town, even though they were practically friends for a time. I respected her immensely for that. I sipped my stale coffee and felt the smooth auburn leather of the briefcase sitting on the floor brush up against the leg of my pants.

"Hey, Dorth. Why's Frank Stevens dressed up if he's the only one here? He can't care too much about Barry if he didn't bother going to the service."

Her cheeks paled as I'd seen them do twice before.

"He probably thought it best not to show his face there." She was dodging me and I knew it.

"Then why the suit? Why the tie?" Part of me already knew the answer.

"Barry was Franklin's father."

My foot jolted to the side when I heard that final piece of the puzzle, knocking over the briefcase.

"I thought you said their family had no money. Barry seemed to have a decent business."

"He did, once he opened his barber shop thirty years ago."

A gust of wind conjured itself within those walls and sent a draft up the leg of my pants. I glanced down at the briefcase my late employer had given me. The impact had caused it to open. Business cards and brochures were sprawled out on the dingy tile. I picked up one of the cards. "Booker's Insurance Agency," I read to myself. It rang a vague bell. Maybe I had worked for that firm at one time. That's when it hit me. I slammed the insurance company's card down on the counter and made my way for the rear of the building.

"Mr. Thorpe, what are you doing? Daniel!"

It was too late to stop me. Someone had to do it. I sat down across from Mr. Franklin Stevens, extended my hand, and attempted to introduce myself as best I could. He barely stirred from his initial position and continued to ruminate over his cold cup of coffee. My faked cordiality subsided once I saw that it wouldn't have an affect.

"It wasn't your fault. I know that you didn't start that fire. It was your father. He did it for the insurance money."

Franklin turned his head and stared at me blankly as if I'd just read the permanent Daily Specials from the menu and he wanted eggs again.

"And your brother, they couldn't afford to take care of both you and your brother so..."

Then, for the second time in two minutes, something struck me. This time, however, it was in quite the literal sense. Dorothy's hand had swooped down and slapped me firmly across my left cheek before I even had a chance to see her coming. My briefcase was shoved into my chest just as instantaneously as the palm had been delivered.

"Mr. Thorpe," she commanded as she stretched that motherly index finer in the direction of the front door, "I do believe you've finally outworn your welcome here in Lucretia."

I glanced at Frank for a word of support that I knew wasn't coming. Everyone, including him, knew what had really happened thirty years prior. He'd carried that cardboard cross for decades. It was a feat that people came to expect of him to maintain the stability of the town. That burden was too crucial to the balance of their world to give up now for the mere sake of the truth.

"Scrambled today, please, Miss Sparker," Franklin said with what were probably the first words uttered publically in years.

"Coming right up, Mr. Stevens," she said as she glared at me until I rose to my feet to leave.

The sun was shining too brightly through the front of the diner as I headed for the door. It was deceptive. Lucretia. It probably meant "Lie" in some foreign tongue.

"Mr. Thorpe," Dorothy Sparker yelled in the same sympathetic voice as she had once before regarding my notebook, "You forgot your briefcase."

"No, I didn't forget. Take care of them, Miss Sparker." I meant all of them, but I doubt she understood.

The funeral procession was walking its way down Main Street in the direction of the diner as I hopped into my car. Merle Windham staggered forward with a few stragglers in the rear, all of them visibly drunk. They broke off from the formation and made their way through the front door of the Rusty Axe to wet their palates in honor of Barry Stevens, a coward the whole town would pretend to miss.

My ride back to the city didn't take as long as it should've. It felt good to be back in civilization again. When the couch got uncomfortable I went out and found a more suitable job; the Lucretia notebooks were shoved into a dark corner for what would turn out to be years; and I vowed to never eat eggs again.

Too soon?

My friend told me that he'd heard
that Michael Jackson started his infamous
surgical procedures after seeing his father's face
in the mirror one day.
That makes the Moonwalker's final stunt
slightly less funny, but I'll run with it anyway.

Seeing the quintessential pop icon
of my childhood die so prematurely
was a bit disheartening, despite the fact that
we all pretended not to feel a little upset.
It's alright, though; he's probably been
cryogenically frozen like Walt Disney
and Wesley Snipes, just chillin'
with the Elephant Mans' bones
in his extra creepy basement.

Part of me believes he's not really dead
and will come back
twice as big and blinking red.

Or perhaps he's just resting up
for the prophesied time in the near future
when he will ironically lead the Zombie Apocalypse.

It's one of those things we won't find out 'til we're dead
like how many morticians are also necrophiliacs.

Ah, the end-time revelations will be numerous indeed...

Milkflesh, philosophically.

If my alarm had gone off a mere
five minutes sooner
I would've been spared
but no.

This time it was a hat trick of misfortune
striking three distinct nerves
in my vulnerable semi-conscious state.

One of the girls whose honor
I borrowed back in my
er, oat-feeling days
was suddenly my English teacher
at the junior high I attended
ten years ago.

Her form-fitting black dress
with gray pinstripes
cut at the thigh, of course
did her justice
though I still wanted to rip
that stupid stud out of her face.

She was passing back papers
and donned a sinister grin
as she casually dropped
mine on my desk, a big "C-"
scrawled across the top
in red lipstick.

It looked almost as horrid
as it did on her face.

"This can't be right, I worked
so hard to put it out there,"
I pissed, shoving the crumpled mess
of my former pride into my bookbag.

Her reply was something
characteristically sarcastic
which I won't attempt to reproduce
fifteen hours later
for fear of misquoting
one of the most spiteful women
known to man.

Suffice it to say that
it didn't go over so well with its recipient.

How dare she insult someone
who took such pride in his craft
such time to get it right?

I stormed out of the class
dodging numerous security guards
and vowing to leave that school forever.

I guess I overshot with that one.

The steady beep
of my alarm snapped me out of it.

All there was left to do was rub one out;
I didn't care that five against one
were unfair odds.

I washed up and went to work.

I wish I could say more than that.

No, maybe I don't.

These things have a shelf-life, too.

Paging Miss Holstein.

I was working near the door
of the courtyard to get some fresh air.
The school was stifling in late June. I couldn't imagine
how uncomfortably hot it'd be if the students
were cramming the halls and classrooms.
Still, I wished they were there.
Maybe that kid who was reading
Dostoyevsky would walk by again
and I could ask him how he liked it.
We've all got a little Raskolnikov in us
whether we know it or not.

Teachers had been passing under my ladder
en route to various yearly de-briefings
in their casual clothes
hoodies and jeans and college T-shirts
as I laid my pipe in sweat-soaked denim
and a dusty pocket Tee.
A few of them were sitting outside
on a bench in that courtyard
talking about what they'd be doing
with their summer vacations.
None of them listed any books they wanted to read
let alone write.
A tenured man mentioned something about a time-share.
One young brunette not more than three years out of college
said how she wished she'd never have
to grade another paper or explain another poem again.

I squeezed the trigger on the electric impact wrench
the kind that auto mechanics use to remove nuts
so the loud buzz would drown them all out.
On lunch break I'd been reading about Hemingway's
World War I experience in "A Farewell to Arms";
The rat-tat-tat sound transformed my impact wrench into a machinegun.
Unfortunately, the battery died thirty seconds in to my venting session.
All of the teachers in the opposite trench
were gone when the imaginary smoke cleared.
Noise always did the trick.
I'd learned early on in my apprenticeship
how to get rid of unwanted guests:
noise, dust, or a whiskey-soaked tongue.
Some people don't know how good they have it.

Behold the green-eyed monster toting his powertools.
He knows he could do it better.

Ropeburn

I imagine the shades being half-drawn
forty-something years ago
in that haggard apartment in Haverstraw--
high enough to illuminate the shabby
hardwood floor in need of a good sanding
and a new coat of varnish, low enough to
hide what he was doing from the neighbors.
It's a second-story rental in a low-income
part of town, right above a bodega.
The room he's in is vacant
except for the wooden chair he used
to tie his knot up high
and the dusty baseboard covers.
Maybe I see it that empty because it really was
or maybe I'm just not creative enough to fill it right now
or maybe I'm afraid to look around my own room, room's I've had.
Regardless, it has one of those half-hexagonal
shapes to the street-side, the middle window cracked
where a rock had mysteriously hit it the previous summer.
And then there's that exposed rafter running along
the length of it that enabled his final endeavor.

I can't picture his face, but I have a strong feeling
that he was wearing a blue sweater for some reason.
The rope was one he'd stolen from his after-school job
at the fish market; the detectives figured that out
from the smell when they cut him down.
No, that's incorrect; they wouldn't have been able
to smell much aside from the pile of excrement
that had slid down his leg and out of his cuffed jeans
after he stopped thrashing around.
They don't show you that part in the movies
but I know it's there.
If his mother had found him maybe she would've
cleaned up his mess before the cops arrived to the scene
to spare him that last embarrassment, but it was
his old man who kicked in the door that evening.
He knew that any dignity his son once had
was gone no matter what.

The local paper bid a vague farewell.
There was no moment of silence at school.
It's never as dramatic as one that desperate hopes.
They never get to see that, sadly.
And the ones who fail only learn how little people care.

My mother merely mentioned it once in passing.
The part of me that tries to remember the sequence
of events in a less shameful way wants to say
that she told me after my own little episode
but I'm not entirely sure.
One of the first things she said when she saw me
afterwards was "I forgive you."
Her eyes were off somewhere else, though
as if she were looking right through me
and speaking to another person-- perhaps
the boy whose heart she accidentally broke as a teenager
by saying she wouldn't date him
despite his best speech.
She was the only one who really knew why
there was one less student in the Graduating Class of '72
at North Rockland High School.

I doubt she went to her prom, either.

I'm raising rabbits instead of having children.

Alvin, Simon, Theodore.

My mother called to tell me
that I couldn't come to dinner
as planned this evening.
She said she had to go visit
my stepfather at their summer house
in the Catskills where he'd been
getting some odds-and-ends done
for the past few days.

"What's with the change of plans?"
I asked in a convincingly concerned voice.

"Craig's a little bummed about his friend," she replied.

It seemed odd that a fifty-five-year-old woman
was heading an hour and twenty minutes north
to surprise her fifty-eight-year-old husband
because he was "a little bummed about his friend."
I didn't ask any further questions about it for fear
I'd find out more than I wanted to know.

"How's the landscaping coming along up there?"

"Good," she replied with a sigh. "The mulch is down
and he bought some new goldfish for the pond."

"What about the weasel that kept eating the fish?"

My mother cleared her throat as if to say
she didn't want to field that question, but would.

"That's what he's bummed out about."

It still wasn't coming together.

"He put some poison out around the pond
in the hopes that the weasel would eat it
but he wound up killing his friend instead."

I'm very supportive of my family and would
stick by them to the bitter end
but manslaughter is another beast entirely.
Not something to be taken lightly, that whole
killing another person thing.

"Mom, is everything OK?"

"Yeah, he'll get over it. It sounded like he
had been crying a little when he told me
what had happened over the phone, that's all."

"Right, but isn't the real issue his dead friend?"

That's when the laughter came. At first I wasn't sure
if it was the maniacal laugh of a sociopath
or a sign that there had been an amusing misunderstanding.

"I'm getting senile, Mike. Sorry. I forgot to tell you
that Craig's been feeding a chipmunk up there
by hand for the past few weeks. The poor thing
must've eaten some of the poison and then Craig
found him. 'I killed my little friend,' he told me
over the phone this morning. If his friends knew
how upset he was over it they'd never stop goofing on him."

"Don't worry. His secret's safe with me," I said
as my hands tapped few choice words and phrases
into the keyboard for later reference.

Don't tell a writer anything you wouldn't want shared.
Don't call yourself a writer if you have the nerve
to start a story with 'My mother called to tell me...'
And for God's sake, don't poison your pets.

My completely unbiased thoughts on Country Music.

There are three categories of what many drooling Americans know and love as Country Music: those that are intentionally sad, those that are intentionally funny, and those that are supposed to be sad but are so pathetic that they're funny. I prefer the latter, especially if it involves a grown man's grief over losing someone as near and dear as his faithful pick-up truck. Or the ones about the dangers of drinking with guns in the house, those are always hysterical, too. Whether it leads to a tragically violent domestic dispute or a tear-in-your-beer hari kari session, everyone wins. Well, at least everyone listening. Sayonara, sucker!

Then there's this one intentionally funny little number about fishing. The chorus says something to the effect of "My wife gave me an ultimatum (I guarantee you that this is not verbatim) to choose between her or fishing, and I'm sure going to miss my wife." Sure, it's tongue-in-cheek humor that applies mostly to people with family trees that more accurately resemble ladders, but it's light-hearted and sends a positive message: We'd all be OK alone as long as we have a hobby we love. For me, obviously, that hobby is...plumbing.

Now get ready to bow your head in shame at this statistic: Country is the most popular genre of music in the United States. What Bubba and Cletus won't tell you on their painfully commercial-free morning show, however, is that cities with more Country radio stations also have higher suicide rates. No, I'm not making this up. Do your own research if you don't believe me. You'll also learn that most losers off themselves in July, not December like most people think. Come on, Christmas isn't that depressing, not even when Grandma sends you a five-spot in a lousy card and tries to play it off like her Alzheimer's has caused her to forget that any inflation whatsoever has occurred since the second World War. Not being able to afford air-conditioning in a sweltering heatwave is a far more valid reason to cock your lever-action 30-30 and blow your brains through the patched tin roof of your double-wide. And to think that all these years you've been riding around with that rifle hanging in the rear window of your truck for nothing.

Finally, can we talk about the use of the fiddle a little? I'd like to put an end to this mockery of an artform entirely. It's the only instrument more annoying than the bagpipes; at least those skirt-wearing Scotsmen set some kind of worthy and somber tone with their plaid dust bags. "But Mike, the violin is a lovely instrument that's been used to expressed some of the deepest human emotions by some of the world's greatest composers." Yeah, that's all fine and dandy when that curvaceous hunk of wood is in the hands of some Eurotrash clown or a small-wanged Oriental, but as soon as a redneck picks one up it becomes a darn-tootin' fiddle! That's because our illustrious rural demographic had to go and "improve upon" a style that's been established and working just fine for centuries. Sounds like someone's had a little too much sweet tea again. "But Mike, adding some fiddle to an already obnoxious pop hit in an attempt to make it a palatable crossover cover song is a marvelous idea..."

BANG!

That was my Mossberg pump-action 12-gauge doing what you're 30-30 should've done a long time ago, partner.

Misnomer

I sat outside my deli again
waiting for that daily sandwich
and smoking that hard-to-shed habit.

There was a clay flower pot
next to my right leg
about two feet tall
suggesting that it was very deliberate
at least at one time.

It appeared to be forgotten by its Italian owners, though.
The only living things residing within the boundaries of
its chipped finish that'd been dulled by acid rain
were a few determined ants
and a poison ivy plant.

At one side of its circumference
was a black and withered flower.
A tag was stabbed into the soil next to it
like a tombstone-- "Draga" was the breed apparently.
I guess it wasn't as strong as its namesake implied.

It didn't seem like such a sin to shove my butt
into the wasted soil; I liked to think myself quite the Samaritan
for helping that dragon breathe fire one last time.

You'd be right in assuming that when I'm not berating my failures
I'm giving myself too much credit.
A fluent German-speaker once told me that my surname
has something to do with water, but I'm convinced
that it translates as "No happy medium."



Currently reading:
"A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway.

post-academic required reading.

So I've finally read "The Old Man and the Sea"
twelve years too late, but in a mere two sittings
and I now have a better understanding
of several different reactions to the book.

To the millions of students forced to read it:
I comprehend why it makes you want to kill
Mr. Hemingway, though he already beat you to it:
it's over a hundred pages of a man hunting a fish
for three days, and he doesn't even get to
reap the benefits at the end; I'm sure
you've learned by now that there are no happy endings
and that even graduation is more of a painful beginning
than a triumphant conclusion.
Read it again after you've lived a little--
no, after you feel like you've lived too much for your years.
You'll thank me.

My literary idol, Charles Bukowski--
you had a love-hate relationship with Hem
for most of your life, and this final work was the one
you used most in your arguments against the man
or at least the writer.
Well now, ten years after your death, a kid
who will never aspire to be half the writer
half the lush, half the tail-chasing tale-chaser that you were
is sitting here telling you that you only hated Ernie's
final masterpiece because you were envious;
your life-long hero taught you that it didn't take
a story laden with liquor bottles, or dead-end jobs
or bad parenting, or a woman (other than the Sea)
to pin down what every writer has always been trying to say:
life's a hell of a fight-- glorious even, if you can pull that off--
and in the end we can only hope to pick up what's left
and start over.

And you, Ernest: you're the real Christ in coward's clothing.
Was it you searching for that majestic marlin too far out?
Was it you holding fast to that rope for three days?
You who landed the harpoon, fought off the sharks
and ultimately lost to them
and your own human nature
by taking on more than you could handle?
You were right to refrain from calling it sin.
I'd like to think that it wasn't a gambling debt
an old flame that you couldn't blow out
or a drunken night of lonesome introspection
that made you decide that your glass of orange juice
was a better place to keep your brains.
I'd like to think that you knew
that in order to live you had to write
and that you'd never be able to top that last little number
your typer and the gods slid your way.
Your shotgun didn't admit defeat, it announced victory.
Don't worry;
I get it, if no one else does.

Been seeing poems, been reading signs.

I wondered if the Mexican kid
or the new girl was making
my sandwich as I sat outside
the deli smoking a cigarette.
I hoped it was the Mexican.

A minivan pulled up to the curb in front of me.
A rushed mother slid out from behind the wheel
to open the side door and release
her four-year-old daughter upon the world.
The part of me that still feels shame
from time to time
tried to hide my bogey
between my bent knees.
My knuckles grazed the bench
as I tried to appear nonchalant.
I'm not much of an actor.

Mom grabbed little Sally by the hand
and pulled her towards the neon signs
that framed the doorway of the deli.
"Best to stay away
from big, sweaty construction workers
with dirty boots and dirtier habits."
I could read minds in that lucid state.
I agreed with mom's assessment of the situation.

Little Sally stared at me sideways
as the tips of her sneakers scraped the concrete
under mom's forceful tug.
In her left hand was an ice cream bar
with the sides bitten neatly off
all the way around.
"Pretty creative for a four-year-old," I thought to myself
as the cherry of my smoke began to burn my fingers.

She'll grow up to be an innovator
after she breaks her fair share of hearts
and vice versa.



Currently reading:
"The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway.

A Gelding, Post-Op

"Did she give your shit back?"

"No, she took her shit back."

"Then she's not really done with you, whether or not that's a good thing."

"How do you know?"

"Think about it-- if she really wanted you out of her life for good she wouldn't want a bunch of things that remind her of you around."

"But but all girls have those boxes they keep under their beds..."

"Fuck those boxes."

"...and the ticket stubs, receipts, and dried flowers they contain."

"Did you keep it together at least?"

"Didn't shed a tear until I changed the subject by telling her about the '87 Monte Carlo I had in high school."

"That awful beige thing that reeked of cigarettes and french fries? Your abandonment issues include former vehicles?"

"I'd give all of them up to have that car again."

"It wasn't even the eight-cylinder version."

"But it was really mine."

Thermopylae

A few of his better friends
were standing vigil in the hallway
near the bathroom where he'd been holed up
while acquaintances and bar trash
cluttered his back porch

a few of them throwing beer bottles
at each other, the glass shattering on the patio.

"He only drinks twice a year," someone said in an
apologetic tone as I walked towards the bathroom door.

I knocked twice, entered, closed the door behind me.

"Here's the Birthday Boy..."

He was standing over the toilet
wearing only a bathing suit.
His back was as hairy as mine;
it was one of the few things we had in common.

The familiar scene made me feel his vulnerability
in a way that only someone who's sworn off drinking
at least fifty times can understand.

"Thanks for coming," he said. "I ruined myself."

"At least it smells like coffee in here, not vomit."

"I was puking up coffee," he replied
refusing to accept my consolation prize.

I figured his parents had given it to him
in an effort to help sober him up, but didn't ask.
Mentioning the substance floating in the toilet
is against the rules.

"Are there girls here?" he asked
in search of validation for the success of his party.

"Tons."
I would've lied if there weren't.
Another one of the rules.

That real friend who had tried to explain things
had gone upstairs to deal with
the bottle-flingers after I'd told him about it;
he knew them better than I did
and could probably handle it more
diplomatically than I would've
despite the fact that I was sober.
I hoped that the man hunched over the toilet
in front of me would never learn
about the crime-- it might negate
the female presence factor for him.

"I'm going to take off. Just wanted to wish you
a happy birthday first."

I didn't tell him why I was leaving, didn't quite know why myself
other than the fact that I felt like a washed-up actor
who had forgotten his lines and was stumbling
through a scene he used to play so well.

"I love you, man," he said over his shoulder.
He looked so different without his glasses.
It broke my heart slowly and beautifully.

"Me too," I said as I closed the door behind me
and snuck out to my truck
before I could be guilted into staying
by people I know I'll have plenty of time
to talk to in Hell.

In the Pinch

Every man has a bar, even the ones who don't drink. They have a place out there where they'd feel at home, even if they don't know it yet, or how to stare straight ahead over a double-whiskey among a tired row of men doing the same as if using the urinals at Grand Central Station. Harry Morgan was no saint in denial, though; he knew his place, or thought he did. Knew his friends just the same, same stipulation attached. After a double-shift at the tennis ball factory where he worked that double-whiskey sounded quite appealing. It wasn't hard to force the wheel in the direction of the Rusty Rail's parking lot. Those friends of his were already there; he knew their cars. As the front door of the bar squeaked open the four faces he expected to see turned ninety degrees to greet him. "Hey, Har," they half-heartedly grumbled in unison. It was a routine they'd stuck to since reaching the legal drinking age twenty-something years ago. Traditions don't change much in small towns like Buxton. Traditions don't change much, and word travels fast.

"Let me buy this round," Harry said as he bellied up to the bar. It used to be a longer trip, but his wife's cooking had improved exponentially and he was a firm believer in positive reinforcement. The drinks were doled out dutifully by Doris, the chain-smoking bartender, and various forms of forced gratitude were expressed. Harry had the smallest income, but always bought the most rounds for his friends. That's how that goes sometimes.

The conversation picked up where it had left off when the door opened. "That kid barely knew which way to run around the bases..." Dick Bagg started back up in his trademark superior tone. He was the most successful of the bunch and wouldn't let anyone forget it. "...but by the end of the season I had him knocking them out of the park." Dick was the long-time coach of the Buxton Bucks, the local junior high baseball team. His ability to lead young men to athletic victory had saved him from the typical factory and construction jobs that most men in the neighborhood struggled to maintain. All he had to do was take attendance for eight hours, pass out basketballs, blow a whistle once in awhile, and then drill some fifteen-year-olds in the finer art of America's favorite pastime until dark. The thought of him having summers off made most of his peers sick. His attitude convinced the rest to follow suit. Still, in a place like Buxton with that invisible glass dome, one tends to stay friends with the people one grew up with, regardless of their actual personality.

"Yeah, but don't count on getting that lucky again this year," said Sam Stickler, the local realist. Sam was to Dick what gravity was to their rapidly aging wives-- a constant reminder of the painfully sober truth. A man like Dick needed to be grounded and Sam was just the man to do it. "I saw that bunch of sissies you had running around the track. Ain't no all-stars in that line-up, man." Sam sipped his drink as if to seal some secret deal.

"Hey, now," spat Johnny Stevens, the Buxton's biggest drunk. "My kid's on that roster, Sam. You best watch what you say." Johnny's kid deserved to be on that team more than anyone if only to get him away from his alcoholic father for awhile.

"Mine, too!" exclaimed Frank Muller, slamming his palm down on the oak next to his crumpled pile of singles. It suddenly became obvious to Harry that his friends had been there awhile. He hated working the double-shift for that very reason.

A strange silence hung in the air, one that only Harry's two cents could break. No one looked in his direction, but he could feel their souls' eyes bearing down on him. He knew what they wanted to hear. He wasn't ready to give it to them yet. "Another drink please, Doris. Just for me this time, these boys seem to have had enough." The chorus of drunken laughter that came as request's response reminded him of how right his father had been about just one thing: kill them with kindness.

A few frustrated glances were shot back-and-forth amongst his friends as they settled back down. This was an important juncture in the dance, the next step would be important. Someone had to pick the bat back up and take a swing. Leave it to the coach to go for the rebound.

"Well your kid didn't even try out this year, Sammy-boy," sneered Dick. It wasn't Sam he was talking to. Even Doris knew that from her spot next to the register.

"No kidding. That's 'cause he's playin' for a traveling team this year. Didn't want him to be embarrassed off the field next to a bunch of snot-nosed brats led by the biggest fraud in Buxton." Sam sure knew how to get under a man's skin, four men at once even.

It was Harry's turn again. It was always Harry's turn, he just didn't want to take it. Instead of giving in he ordered another whiskey.

"Jesus, Harry. There a hole in your boot tonight?" asked Johnny. It seemed a bit hypocritical, considering its source. Johnny was known to be found sleeping on the lawns of various neighbors from time to time.

"I used to think you were dropped, Johnny. Now I think you were thrown."

"Maybe your daddy should've thrown you, Har. How is the old geezer anyway?"

"He died two years ago, Johnny. You would've gotten the invitation to the funeral if you were sober enough to walk to your mailbox." The sly smile on Harry's face told his friends that it was OK to laugh, but Doris knew better as she wiped a dirty pint glass with an even dirtier rag.

That was how the game was to be played for the sake of dodging another bullet. He wouldn't let them get the best of him so easily. He owed that to his son, Dave, who was fast asleep at home after a discouraging week. There were three things not to be toyed with: a man's vehicle, a man's livelihood, a man's family. Harry was known to care most about the third.

Dick, Sam, Johnny, and Frank carried on about several topics that were constantly discussed in bars across the globe. Somehow, though, it always went back to that stupid junior high baseball team coached by Mr. Dick Bagg. It was no coincidence, and it was cruel. Harry shot the whiskey back and pretended to have an itch on his earlobe; he was really trying to rip it off.

"Say, Mr. Morgan..." Dick taunted in his increasingly obnoxious voice. It was evident that he was about to go for the jugular out of full-count desperation. "You ever bring home any of those tennis balls you make so well?"

"I see plenty of them at the plant, Dick. No need to bring my work home with me."

"Well maybe you should. I mean then your kid could learn to throw a ball correctly."

There was that silence again, though this time everyone feared what Harry would say next. They feared it as much as they yearned to hear it. An image of Dave's face when he walked through the door and said that he didn't make the team was burned in the front of Harry's mind.

Again, good old Charlie Morgan's advice came into play, God rest his soul. Harry's eyes smiled brightly, half a glow on his sweaty brow.

"Friends are cheaper in bulk, Coach Bagg," Harry said, killing the last of his whiskey in a single gulp. "Just like those tennis balls I make all day."

This time only Doris laughed. Harry tipped her heavily and headed home.

"You're a real piece of work, Dick," Sam said under his breath.

"Last call!" proclaimed Doris as if the four men in front of her didn't know the routine.

Harry did. He always left before being asked to. That was rare for a Buxton boy.

Nothing that'd grab you by your insignificant throat.

"My iPod keeps playing sad Death Cab songs,"
she said loud and clear from the other side of town.
It was almost shaping up to be one of those nights for both of us
since Jesus isn't much of a conversationalist these days
and slapping him around a little doesn't liven him up
just further guarantees my seat in Hades.

The whiskey swirled around in my mug
reminding me that God created our need for sleep
to promise us that tomorrow is another day.
Most nights I'm the rain on hookers' hairspray.

But tonight was different.
Looking through the hundreds of digital pictures
from last weekend's testosterone-fueled Catskill retreat
revealed that I need to stop being such a hermit
since I have some noteworthy men in my life
who aren't dead authors.
I didn't stop to debate whether or not it counted
as drinking alone if I was surrounded by photographs of friends...
Or maybe I did since I've mentioned it now.

Still, it's lonely on top, or bottom
or wherever you and I think I am, not that it matters.

I'm sitting on a pillow; I've been at this desk for too long again.

I don't want someone to tell me that I haven't done wrong--
I want them to tell me that they understand why.

The ice cube bell curve rages on.

CTRL + ALT + DEL

Stacey, as he hated to be called, taught computers to thirteen-year-olds as an excuse to run the ski team. One time he brought my friend to the principal's office and accused him of eating his ice cream bar like a penis. We suspected that was just his own little fantasy.

"Mr. Lazarus," I said with a sly smile, a pipe wrench in my greasy hand.

"Yes? Do I know you?" He appeared to be a bit alarmed. I'd grown a bit since then, physically and otherwise.

"You were my seventh-grade computer teacher at South Junior High."

"What's your name?"

"Mike Vahsen," I mumbled. "Andrew Maroney was in my class, and...."

"Don't remember you. I've had so many students over the years."

His beard and hair had grayed since then. He seemed to have shrunk as well, which didn't seem possible since he was already five-foot-nothing. And he still had that snobby air about him, right down to the strict rules he had posted on the door of the classrom he'd just walked out of.

"Were you a good student or a bad one?"

The question didn't seem appropriate so I fielded it diplomatically.

"I was really good at Oregon Trail..."

He laughed and walked away.

"...the rare times when you let us play it."

Not all of us have changed in these twelve years, Stace.

.333

I didn't want to ask that Guinea bastard to move his van, but my twenty-foot lengths of steel pipe weren't going to make it into the building with the entrance blocked. I'd worked on jobs with these clowns before and knew that the whole "Asbestos Abatement" scam was just another mob cover up. Come on, the men in charge of this outfit brought pans of sausage and peppers for the guys once a week and played Sinatra all day long in their break room while using their cell phones to creatively berate the less fortunate in their thick Brooklynese. And that one kid, the son of one of the owners who was younger than me and always had a toothpick in the corner of that shit-eating grin that I'd give a week's pay to slap off his face-- he was on this job too, and still walked right by me like I was nobody just because I actually get my hands dirty for a living. I didn't want to have to ask whoever it was hunched over in the side of the van to move it, but again with those Goddamn pipes...

"No problem, man," said a friendly, middle-aged I-talian who was sneaking a smoke in the back of the company vehicle since it was prohibited on school property. "Where's good for you?"

I instantly felt like an asshole. Well, a bigger one.

"Anywhere you want. Just not in front of this door."

"Hey, weren't you on that job down the road? The courthouse renovation?"

"Yeah, that was me. Working for a better outfit now."

"My old man was a plumber. He tried to teach me, but I wasn't ready to learn a trade then."

"At least you still keep it in the family."

The mafia joke didn't go over so well. He flicked his butt into the lawn, suddenly unafraid of the repercussions.

"Whattaya mean by that?"

"Isn't that kid with the toothpick your son?"

Good save, Mike.

"Ha! That brat? That's the boss' kid. I can't stand that little prick. Thinks his shit don't stink."

"Yeah, at least you wear your gold horn necklace on the inside of your shirt."

I had to. I just had to.

"It reminds me where to stop shaving," he replied. He must've heard the joke before. "Let me move this hunk'a shit outta the way before both our foremen bust our balls for bullshittin' like normal human beings."

As he stepped away from the side door of the white service van I saw two aluminum baseball bats tucked into the frame of the door, poised and ready for action.

"You guys have a company softball team?"

He looked at me and smiled.

"Ya' never know what you're going to run into..."

"You must work in some nice neighborhoods."

"This Newburgh shithole's worse than most parts of the City."

"It's not so bad. Just be sure to look 'em in the eyes."

I knew he wouldn't need any clarification.

"As long as I take a few down with me," he said with a smile boasting of its sincerity via several missing teeth.

"And Jesus, you've got two bats there..."

"One for me, one for my partner."

We both heard the door open behind us, but didn't realize who it was until after he took the toothpick out of his mouth to speak.

"You keep runnin' your mouth instead of workin' and the only partner you'll have will be your old lady sittin' next to you on the couch."

"Sorry, boss," said my newfound friend. "Just gotta move the van for the fitters real quick."

"So do it already," said our mutual arch-nemesis.

We shot each other a look that said "You take one bat, I'll take the other. We'll do this little shithead in"; but we didn't. He walked around to the driver's seat, I went to fetch my Goddamn pipes. It was a moment we'd save for another time, another life, where we'd be the ones blasting Sinatra non-stop to the chagrin of frustrated mere mortals. Nah, that's not our style.

Confucius say: He who walks through airport door sideways is going to Bangkok.

It was a strange turn of events, one that seemed so fitting for this life that feels like a bad screenplay at times. Two days prior I had told the pipe insulator on the job that he looked like that soft-spoken, wispy-haired actor from "Kung Fu" and "Kill Bill". He informed me that I was not the first person to say that so I didn't feel too off-base. One fortunate enough to not be in the building trades cannot fully appreciate how tiresome it is to constantly be referred to as "buddy", "guy", "pal", "brother", or "kid" while working with those who don't know, or care to know, your name. That's probably why this David Carradine look-alike didn't mind me calling him "Grasshopper" when I wanted to get his attention; anything was better than one of those other cliches, even the name of a character played in a lame 70s TV show.

After two short days of using that light-hearted nickname I almost spat out my chocolate milk while reading the newspaper at the deli as my coworkers' breakfast sandwiches finished cooking. A picture of David Carradine appeared next to a headline announcing his death. The circumstances were just as odd as the roles the man played: he was found hanging bound and naked in the closet of a Bangkok hotel. Foul play was not mentioned and no one seemed to want to suggest whether it was intentional suicide, though the man's previous autoerotic asphyxiation hobby had some shameful light shed upon it. I took a picture of the article with my camera-phone to show the insulator.

He already knew what I was about to tell him when I approached his ladder. "Let me guess: it's about my death." The words sounded strange coming from his lips, must've felt even more bizarre to be the one saying them. "I saw it on the news last night and thought of you." That statement left an equally unsettling feeling in my stomach. After all, only I am allowed to bring the characters at work home with me...

"So I guess this means I can't call you Grasshopper anymore," I said, shoving my phone back into my pocket since the proof would not be needed.

"The name's Craig," he said with the same grateful smile that Lazarus must've had two thousand years ago.

"That's easy enough. Same as my stepdad. Hey, Craig, if ya' need to talk at any point, feel free..."

"Don't worry, Mike. I won't go hanging my naked ass in any closets."

The joke went over well and I shot him a half-grin to show it, but on the inside I felt guilty. He'd taken the time to learn my name long before I'd bothered to ask his. There are worse things in life than shampoo in your eyes or buttoning your shirt wrong.

If I had another nose I'd turn it.

While driving up Broadway last week to cash my check
I saw the guy who broke my nose
with a beer bottle four years ago.
He was going to the bank as well, or at least
he was parked in front of one.
My window was already down and I was only
doing twenty-five, but I decided to keep
my mouth shut and let him enjoy
his shiny new Mercedes. The last time I saw him
at the liquor store awhile back
he was pushing a rusty old tank of a Benz--
the boxy Eighties type that wanna-be Yuppies buy used
in order to tell attractive young ladies that they own
German luxury sedans. "Good for you, Anthony,"
I thought to myself as the six-disc stereo in my truck
cycled to the next musical selection.
We're both moving up in the world.

There was something in the water of Ketchum, Idaho.

I've been sending some of the cleaner ramblings to my mother. She usually responds within a day or two with some feedback, tells me she prints them out and keeps them in a folder. It's the least I can do to let her know her son's not totally given up on himself.

Something tells me that it's inspired her to read. Last week she e-mailed me with "an interesting tidbit on Papa [Hemingway]" that she'd recently read, as if she's always had her nose in a book like her progeny. The article said that he was once challenged to tell a story in only six words. He came back swingin' with "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." Quite the statement indeed, Ernie, like a more concise version of those damn "Hills Like White Elephants" that another important woman in my life once made me read.

"How good was that?" my mother asked at the end of her informative e-mail.

So good that we both cringed a little on either side of our monitors, though for different reasons.

For a man crazy enough to write standing up at eight in the morning with a cocktail next to his typewriter, he sure knew how to lay down a line. Do they bottle that stuff?

...and the mayor will ride shotgun as we descend.

The eight of us had only been in that quiet mountain village for an hour and a half, but on that glorious Friday night no one would've denied the fact that we owned it. That's not to say that we raped and pillaged, painted it red, disrespected the locals, or failed to tip properly; our solidarity and comradery spoke louder than our obvious out-of-towner status. Who was really going to stop a bunch of happy-go-lucky drunks in baseball caps, bandanas, and sleeveless shirts who had clearly spent a lot of time drinking next to a campfire due to the thick smell of smoke emanating from their bodies from having a good time? Apparently no one, not even the bartender who was chastised by a bitter female coworker of his who felt that we should be cut off. "They're fine, just having a good time! I'll drive them home if I have to!" he shouted as she stormed out of the bar. It's safe to say we had the chips in our favor, if only for that night.

Time wore on exponentially fast as it tends to do as the alcohol filters through the brain. One friend danced for us in a charades-style game at our table imitating whatever ridiculous act we requested, another danced with a forty-five-year-old townie in search of some fresh young meat to make her feel wanted again, and I continued to dance with my demons behind a rum-inspired pirate's smile. Things were going better than I'd thought they would. Everyone was getting along, no one was a maudlin drunk, and the pay phone in the corner of the joint still worked which could come in handy in a pinch since cell service was thankfully non-existent. Buy-backs came every third drink and the bartender was doing shots with us. No one in our group could force a frown if they wanted to. The same went for a quiet, well-dressed old gentleman who had been staring at us from his seat at the bar, a wide mysterious smile glued to his deeply-creased cheeks. I'd notice his blatant observation of our little center-stage party early on, but had thought nothing of it. If anything I figured he was enjoying himself by watching us make drunken fools of ourselves with our raucous merriment. True to character I was wrong.

I found out the real source of his smile shortly before leaving. A few of us were smoking on the patio when he came out and approached me. Apparently I was the leader of the haggard bunch.

"I overheard you say you fellas were from Newburgh."

"That's right. You familiar with the place?"

"I did some business down that way a long time ago. You're not driving all the way back there tonight, right?"

"No, we're staying at my parents' house down the road. Thanks for the concern, though."

I inhaled deeply on my mentholated cigarette as his gin blossom nose glowed almost as brightly as the tip of my smoke.

"Good, good," he said with a sincerity that can only be found in a small town like the one we were in. "I used to be the mayor here," he added, though I'm still not sure why. He handed me a business card with his wife's name on it.

"It seems we have friends in high places," I replied. His gray eyes stayed fixed on me as if I hadn't said anything at all. His mind was somewhere else, there was something he'd been waiting to say. The eight of us would not be able to stop him from saying what we has thinking, even if we wanted to. I know that look.

"You boys are having fun. You remind me of friends I had in high school. I can name every one of you," he said as he pointed to each of us standing in the June air. "Thank you."

I don't recall if we shook hands or if he just turned and left. The conversation hadn't fizzled out like so many taproom discussions-- it had come to a head that meant we'd done something right, made an old-timer feel young again while writing some stories for our unborn grandkids. I reached into my pocket for that business card the old man had handed me, turned it over, and started jotting down what had happened and what he'd said. Normally my friends would've made fun of me, but they got it this time. Some things are undeniable, even for the most allegedly detached.

"That was pretty neat," said my biggest critic as another guy offered me some more paper to write on if need be.

A disinterested "Yeah" came from my mouth as my pen scratched words onto the back of the card. My mind was traveling forty years into the future with the hopes of being as blessed. I walked back inside to pay my tab and say goodnight to the bartender.

"That was the mayor, you know. He took a liking to you guys," said the man in the black button-down. He slid the bill across the oak quite deliberately while maintaining eye contact. I tallied the drinks and noticed several missing.

"Thank him for me the next time you see him," I said, though I knew it wasn't necessary. We'd both earned it that night.

12-bar Blues

If you're ever afflicted with a Southern sojourn
and need your daily dose of heartache
in a falsely friendly Dixie Hell
walk into any given pawn shop.
Take a look around at the failed passion
lining the walls like cheap wallpaper.
There's something very symbolic
about a man selling his guitars;
it's more than just needing money--
it's sacrificing your soul
to a world full of people who can't kiss
let alone dance.

You won't see any typers on the shelves.
This breed knows that
it doesn't get better before it gets worse

and someone's got to remember
what the rest want to forget.

Rum, nicotine, and other perks of working the night shift.

Foreman: Everything locked up?

Apprentice: Of course. See ya' in the AM.

Foreman: Enjoy your reading.

Apprentice: It'll be limited tonight.

Foreman: To what?

Apprentice: The label on my bottle of Sailor Jerry.

Foreman: You won't be worth a shit tomorrow.

Apprentice: Relax, I do my best work drunk.

Foreman: Don't you mean you do your best work in the dark?

Apprentice: No, drunk.

Foreman: Goddamn kids...

Apprentice: It's all fiction from here on out.

Foreman: So?

Apprentice: I'll give you the luxury of having the last word.

Foreman: Don't do me any favors.

Apprentice: Only for the ones I love.

Foreman: Now you've abused your license.

Apprentice: Confiscate my union card.

Foreman: I'll do ya' one better.

Apprentice: Couldn't be any worse.

Foreman: I thought you said you'd let me have the...

Apprentice: Then take it.

Foreman: Goddamn kids...

St. Elmo's Fire

Last night
Well, no
Early this morning
I dreamt
Or dreampt, phonetically
But probably just dreamed
That I was dragged
To a religious seminar
Hosted by those silly Scientologists.

It was impossible for me
To hold back the laughter
As one Mr. John Travolta himself
Gave an almost moving speech
On his cult
Complete with life-sized puppets
To demonstrate whatever the Hell
It is that those clowns
Believe in.

Tim was there, maybe my Dad
And an Eric or two.

For the little life of me I couldn't
Stop laughing at the coining and repetition
Of the term "alien Jesus" throughout the sermon
And commentary of my friends.

At some point I escaped to the basement
Of the compound to reload
Multiple magazines of the .22 caliber variety
Though I never got to empty them
On any deserving parties.

And just when I thought it was safe
Tim hit me with it again:
"Alien Jesus! Alien Jesus!"
It was hilarious to the point of tears;
I almost woke in those.
I woke in those.

I'M TYPING IN CAPS BECAUSE I'M YELLING NOW.
I WOKE IN THOSE.

I've had a few
And I apologize--

Like I told her last night:
If you're lonely
Talk to Jesus.
They say He's still listening

Rubbed raw and useless
And ready for another round...

On sleeping in the wet spot.

When I came down from the mountains
more like Cain than like Moses
the rabbit's water bottle rattled empty
though I'd filled it two days prior.

I knew then.
I just knew

like when the scrape on my wrist
was still only a scrape
from a fall on a hike
that we all couldn't take.

Funny-- I didn't tremble
talking about the two of them
to the Devil's advocate on the way home.
The cigarettes were purely recreational
that time.

We laid in bed like the LI Double-R
with half as much baggage.
Bit my lip to taste copper
since I hadn't worked in a few days
and that Indian I'd hunted for
continued to laugh from his
spot on the shelf
red and white and making me blue.

I'm begging him to give my god back now.

Note found in a hallway of North Junior High (verbatim, folded sixteen times).

To: Karisma
From: Jessica

I'm so sorry 4 calling u an emo bitch. I'm really sorry. Your [sic] one of my best friends, and I hat[e] 2 c u mad at me. It's your choise [sic] to stop being mad at me. I'll stop calling u an emo bitch. But if you were mad you should of [should've] told me that calling you a[n] emo bitch bothers you and I would have stopped. So it[']s all up to you if you don't want to talk to me anymore. But I am really, really, really sorry. I hope you forgive me.

SORRY!! [two tears streaming down from eyes formed by the dots of the exclamation points to a large frown underneath said punctuation]


[Ed. Note: I too weep, though more for the Future than for Jessica and Karisma.]

Tool sheds of various sorts.

There's a fine line between "burning" and "arson". I forget how it came up in conversation, but one doesn't pay much attention to that sort of thing at work. People think that rambling makes the day go by faster so they flood the air with words. Sometimes its entertaining, other times its obnoxious. Sneaky Pete the electrician was usually on point with his yarns. His barn-burner tale was no different.

But let me back up a bit and tell you about Sneaky Pete: he looks like Charlie Sheen gave up. I'd say "a shorter Charlie Sheen", but all actors are shorter in "real life" than they appear to be in films anyway; Pete was probably the right height. The lazily trimmed beard and slightly sagging jowls betray the sunglasses he wears. Besides, Charlie would rather be caught coked up with a hooker than caught dead in those ridiculous blue reflective wrap-around shades. It doesn't make him a bad guy, though. He's one of the breed that's always smiling, telling a joke, laughing at ones that are neither new nor funny. Sneaky Pete's been even happier ever since handing his wife those divorce papers he'd been talking about at work.

That grin can be deceiving sometimes, like when the topic of arson came up and he said it wasn't a laughing matter while smiling from ear to ear. "I did four months for that six years ago," Pete remarked casually in an ambiguous tone. It was hard to tell if he was kidding or not, but my loud-mouth partner chimed in before I could seek clarification.

"I did six months for the same," said my illustrious partner.

Pete and I looked at each other as if to show our lack of surprise, then he reclaimed his rightful place in the story-teller's position with a mildly excited "I burnt my own shed to the ground." It seemed unfair for a man to do time in county lock-up for burning something on his property down. Pete took the time to inform us where the Law stands on the issue: 1. One must remove any shingles from the roof of the structure. 2. One must dig a trench at least four inches wide around the structure. 3. One must notify and gain permission from the local fire department before incinerating the structure. We weren't about to question the man, it sounded like he had a long time to get it straightened out in his head for future reference.

My mind wandered to the typically nightmarish Hollywood prison scenes, and I hoped that Pete had his own cell and shower stall since he was so small. "Why'd you do it, aside from the alcohol?" I asked. He hadn't fessed up to being drunk at the time yet, but even plumbers aren't that stupid.

"I came home from the bar and my father-in-law was at my house. He stormed inside from my shed all full of piss and vinegar. Said something about me needing to clean up in there so he could work. I walked out back to see what he was complaining about and found all of my tools on the ground. It looked like he'd cleared them right off of the workbench with one swift swipe of his arm. I went to the garage, got a can of gasoline, doused the shed, and torched it. My wife videotaped me pouring the gas all over and lighting the match. Used it against me in court. Had to plead guilty to Arson in the Fourth Degree to avoid a possible conviction in the Third."

Suddenly I knew why he was so thrilled about those divorce papers finally being delivered. His kids were off to college, there was no sense in staying tethered to such an unfair family. I had been sad for the man's divorce and suspected a hidden pain before hearing the story, but not any more. He was free, or would be as soon as the lawyers hashed it out and took their cut. Something tells me that Pete would've paid any price.

"I robbed a house and burned it down when I was sixteen," my illustrious partner said with what sounded like pride. Sneaky Pete gave me a look resembling pity. You can choose your friends, you can choose your wife, but you can't choose your family or partner at work. People like Pete and I just make the best of it.

...as long as the weight that we gain is together.

There's a silverfish next to my keyboard
whose presence is turning my stomach
almost as much as those god-forsaken pre-fab
meatballs I washed down with too much milk tonight
and this other latest dilemma.
The nail of my right middle finger collides with the bug
making it airborne for all of two feet until
its exoskeleton meets with the thick layer of eggshell off-white
to make a metallic sound reminiscent of
my non-existent pill-popping days.

Then the rabbit's snout pokes out from underneath
the wooden baseboard cover, her whiskers covered in dust.
She twitches her nose in general disapproval
and all is well in the world again
for now
or as long as I can continue this tired two-step
convincingly enough...

Sometimes I am grateful for the several states between us.


Currently reading:
The life/limb/eyesight insurance policy that came with my NRA membership.

On AC with the windows open and other shameful wastes.

My stomach was digesting itself again
until beer put that one fire out.
My ego caught a mean pistol-whipping
that wasn't half of what it deserved.
My heart and my mind stopped talking
a long time ago, and both have paid the price.

I told myself that Second Best ain't so bad
with a beer in hand as the sun sets, at least not for a guy
who can admit that he wouldn't mind dying
if the right song was playing.

Though this isn't my only recent drunken fumbling.
Last week a jukebox and I managed to rip
a dollar bill in half at that bar where I stole
a bottle of vodka on a birthday dare.
George still winked at me despite my
defiling of his face. I taped him back together
and pawned him off like one of those
good habits I used to have.

So you, you:
you refuse to bleed out in the sand
so we join the Canadian Club instead
swearing to a life of high-proof spiced piracy.
They're right in what they say
about all being fair in both;
you're better at one, I at the other.

This is just another of the many times
when nothing gold could stay, babe.
It's Sunny, and we can't Share.

But what to do with the kids?
You take poetry, I'll stick to prose
and we'll both stay away from dialogue
since it only shows the weakness we have
aside from each other.

Writhing alongside you.

With baited breath
we've all confessed
to reddening our wings.
What desperate men
we've all become
while waiting for the bus.
The bears won't let you blame it
on supply-side economics.
"It's not my thing," she swore...
Play the role that's been assigned you.

Why have them, if not loaded--
and if you mean it, chambered?
"Oh, Lord..." I said and he sang out
the rest with that sad twang.
My horoscope was lying
about that four-star day.

Pubis Vulgaris

The stubble wasn't the worst part.
That I could deal with, especially since she probably wasn't
expecting anyone at the party to find it that night--
hadn't given old Deadeye here enough credit.
Hell, finding stubble down there's a bit of a compliment
to a man's prowess if you stop and think about it.

No, what killed me was the way she kept panting my name
at every other awkward bump of our newly acquainted hips.
At least twice during the shameful act I stopped to
ask her if everything was OK, if she had a question.
She covered my mouth with her hand and coaxed me
into picking up where I'd left off. It was bizarre.
I'd had my share of dead fish floating lazily in the sheets
before, but never an accusatory broken record.
The first option seemed like the better deal.
Hell, no one even called me by name anymore.
I'd been reduced to initials against my will.
What made her any different?

And if anyone else had been on top of her that night
she would've been saying his name instead.
Neither of us were special.
The sad part is we knew it and didn't care.

We were just a convenient combination
of alcohol and a vacant couch.
I hadn't seen the sex for the pointless search yet.
You can't fill your own void by filling someone else's...
or can you?

That's a rhetorical question.