Saturday morning scissor-lift shop-talk.

"Sometimes I do it on purpose..."

"Bend her over..."

"Pull all the way out..."

"So it gets stuffed with air..."

"And she gets embarrassed..."

"Even though we secretely like the sound."

"Funny how that stuff gets us off."

"Yeah."

"You gonna eat the other half of that bagel?"

"Nah, you can have it."

Pornstars have the worst tattoos.

Twenty-four was a decent year for me, despite the time
caught masturbating by a man too drunk to notice
my pants around my ankles. At least I think he didn't know
any better, he kept talking to me like nothing was wrong...
and traccidents? Pshaw!
I've learned to look for the Adam's Apple.
I've managed to refrain from writing about roadkill.
I've still got a thing for Miss Ana Phora.

Yesterday I even put pants on, ventured out
for my daily dose of sunlight
and the unemployment check.
The bank teller counted the Twenties
so smoothly with that rapid shuffle
from right hand to left, the comforting
sound of skilled labor behind a counter
helping skilled labor sitting on a bench.
It was enough to leave the grenadine out
and take it like a real man, one who walks away.

Five weeks ago while showering
I popped a blood vessel between my eyebrows
while thinking about the many uses of Molotov cocktails.
Ironically, his God books are in my old bedroom now.

And I wish I could ease my mother's sorrow
but the older I get the more I understand
that we're past that point in each other's lives
and have problems of our own.
My scraped knees are mine alone now;
her bed is hers to sleep in, with him.
Thank God she's got her weed
and I've got my weekly pack to cope.

I heard somewhere that chemicals in
cigarette smoke relay a message
to the DNA in lungs, telling them
that they should grow another set.
Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Whatever comes my way these days I try to remember
that it can't be worse than the time my meth lab exploded.
It's a shame, really. Guillermo was a good man...

Bonaparte with Beer Muscles.

"Did he tell you about the time he got fucked up by a midget?"

I took a sip of my beer to center myself and make sure I'd heard my coworker correctly.

"No. I've seen him at the hall and know who he is, but I've never spoken to him."

Dave wet his lips with his draft and set the pint glass down on the oak. He turned his stool towards me and assumed the I'm About To Tell You A Really Good Story pose.

"He was partying at a bar in New Paltz, something with a P in it..."

"Yeah, the place where girls dance on tables and the pisser's a bathtub filled with ice that you wait in line for twenty minutes to use. I've been there a few times."

"Right, well he was pretty tanked up and went to the bar for a round of drinks. He was talking to the bartender respectfully, nothing off the wall. Some guy, a fuckin' midget!, comes up and sits down on the stool next to him and says to back off. He rubs his eyes to make sure he's not seeing things."

"You sure he wasn't high, too?"

"Dude, if he says it was a fuckin' midget, then it was a fuckin' midget."

"Fair enough."

"He tells the midget that he's obviously not hitting on his girlfriend behind the bar; the drinks he ordered are all girly drinks for the women he arrived with, Sexes on the Beach and faggot shit like that. Little Man doesn't want to hear any of that, though."

"A bit of the Napoleon Complex perhaps..."

"So the midget grabs his arm and takes a swing at him. He can't believe what's going down. Once he comes back to reality he grabs the midget and slams his head against the bar. The little bastard bounces off the bar and lands flat on the floor. Bouncers descend on our poor union brother from all angles and wrestle him to the ground. By this time the midget is on his feet again and running towards him. He kicks him in the head and he blacks out for a few seconds."

"Wait, so he got kicked in the head by a midget?"

"Yeah, man. His buddies pulled the bouncers off him and revived him. They slapped him in the face at first, but when that didn't work they poured a beer over his head. He had the midget square in his sights. He cocked his arm back to punch the little fucker and send him flying again for kicking him in the head while he was down, but he used his better judgment and ran out of the bar instead."

"Wow. That's about the best bar story I've ever heard."

"Tell me about it. Whenever that guy would try to bust my balls on the job after he told me that story I'd tell him I'd get the midget to beat him up again. He'll never live that down."

"I would imagine not. That's ridiculous. And I thought my life had some unfortunate twists..."

"That's the best part of being in a union, bro. You hear all of these absurd fuckin' stories. You can't make shit like this up."

"You're right. I'll tell it just how it was told to me instead."

"Huh?"

"Nevermind. Finish your beer, we gotta get back to work."

Too long for the Obits.

Alex was a few years younger than me, but infinitely wiser in his own regard; was, is, whatever. I'm not sure how one's supposed to address those in his category, those of his caliber, other than with utter admiration for unabashedly admitting that the world's a lousy place and not worth fighting for, despite Hemingway's famous lie of an introduction to "For Whom the Bell Tolls". 'Cause you know what, fellow lush? It doesn't toll for you and me. Try to put as positive a spin on the globe as you want. It just doesn't.

I remember our last conversation like it was yesterday. He approached me with that same sarcastic grin that was always glued to his face, but the sparkle in his eye was magically more omniscient. He'd discovered some Great Truth that he wasn't about to share with the likes of me or anybody else on the job, and I wasn't about to waste my breath asking him. Al was basically alright, even though some people mistook his aloof nature for arrogance. I knew him better than that, though; or at least I thought I did, based on the brief glimpses into his life that he chose to share with me at what were usually the most inappropriate times. Maybe I shouldn't have down-played it so often. We all knew what he meant when he said those things he did, we just didn't like to acknowledge it. We sure didn't think he'd go that far. Poor kid.

"My uncle's living out of cans somewhere in Florida and his kids won't send him money."

"I'm sorry to here that, Al. Can you pass me that wrench?"

"Social Security doesn't send him checks anymore because he failed to show for probation and he's a felon."

"The five-eighths socket isn't snugging up enough. Toss me the nine-sixteenths."

"My cousins and mother have disowned each other for the fifth time as a result of it. Mom's been sending him money a few times a month without telling my stepfather. If he knew he'd go ballistic, even though she works more than he does."

"Yeah, where's your old man been lately? Haven't seen him at the bar."

"He's not my father. My father and I haven't spoken in over two years."

"You know what I mean, Al. Take it easy."

"My mother. My mother says I drink too much, but she's got a few nasty habits of her own. I don't mention them anymore. I gave up reverse-parenting back in high school. She kicked me out of the house once when I got rid of her stash. My mother's going to die someday and suddenly I'll realize what love really is, but it'll have been too late."

"Jesus, Al. Lay off the soap box talk. Have you been eating leftovers at one in the morning again?"

"Not everything's a joke, Dave."

"Oh no? Then what is it?"

"The world's a sad place."

"Are you going to tighten those nuts up or am I going to have to do it for you?"

"I'll take care of it."

"I'll believe it when I see it, Socrates."

"Plato. Call me Plato. Socrates didn't exist, he was conjured to take the blame."

"The blame for what?"

"For the world being a sad place..."

"I thought I just told you..."

"...and people having a need to write about it like it were someplace else."

I remember our last conversation like it was yesterday, because it was. Alex T. Zonuffstra, you may be missed by some, but at least I won't have to carry your weight at work anymore. Those nuts don't just tighten themselves, you know.

the KGB's greatest weapon

I only know she exists because
I've seen her up close, spoken to her--
well, was rejected--
when I tried to cash a check there once--
well, withdraw money from my unemployment account.
"Sorry, I'm only here to receive deposits.
I can't give anything out," she said
in her thick Russian accent--
well, Ukrainian or Latvian, or maybe Lithuanian--
right out of a Bond film.
At least I think that's what she said;
I wasn't paying attention--
well, was distracted by her dark hair
pulled back tightly in a perfect bun
and her clear blue eyes piercing my very soul.
I picked my haggard self up by my dusty collar
and escorted myself out of there in a flesh--
well, flash, did I say flesh?--
making sure my tongue was still in my mouth.

Now, many moons later
whenever I pass by that bank's pointless substation
I can't help but notice her there
sitting at that desk
not doing a thing
and getting paid for it
in true American fashion--
the gorgeous remnants of a sad man's attempt
at scoring a mail-order bride, or a refugee turned
entrepreneur, or maybe a foreign exchange student
who never went home when her visa expired.
She's laughing through that wall of glass
knowing that she could have any Yankee fool
wrapped around her little Commie finger.
The irony of the limitations of her job description
eats me up inside as only I'd be eaten.
It's enough to drive a man...no, just
to drive him.

Oh, Natasha: rogue agent.
Relic of the Cold War.
Don't tell us you don't know your own strength.

If I were a lesser man--
well, a desperate man--
I'd try, but I'm not--
well, not anymore.

I'm a betting man, and I know when I'd lose--
well, shucks.

Have gun, won't travel.

You've learned that getting dressed
in front of a mirror
can be empowering
if the right song is playing.
I'm sorry
it's taken you
this long.

I heard your voice
in the background
when I called--
it's deeper now, more mature.
We got even drunker than usual that night
though for different reasons.

So look
I don't know how to ask this, but
One last time?

I've lost a few heroes in bar room fights.
You can read that any way you like.
You will anyway.

The sound of a dryer going still puts me to sleep;
my mom used to run the vacuum cleaner.
It means the world is at peace
or at least mine

but I really have to find the door.
My pillowcases can't take much more drool.

The truth is that I can't drive stick.
Like the rest
of this, you already knew that.

Books on Tape

I wish I could watch the Greats eat steak.
Then I'd know if they were the real deal
or not

because writers, as you well know
or should, are the greatest hypocrites--
give them an inch and they want a mile;
give them the mile and they want an inch.

Mine should live for the green or pink
haze before the tornado, should leave
fences to cattle, should understand the
importance of occasionally passing a car
on a quarter-mile straight-away with headlights
coming at you just to stay relevant, should
admit with a hint of sadness that in this
world of positives and negatives
blacks and reds
two crazies don't make a sane
like two wrongs don't make a right

and most importantly
should know the dangers associated
with men who frequent highway rest stops
and that they make for top-notch bar tales.

But that steak.
I'd really love to see them eat that steak.

I can't sleep, either.

There he sat
like a defeated Greek god
stuck in the photo forever:
the kid whose heart I broke
stroke and stroke again
weekend after weekend
without even knowing it
shining with sweat and red
in the face
sitting on the standard dorm room futon
that graced my first apartment
with my father's borrowed acoustic
in his lap and the remnants of a bottle
of Southern Comfort at his side
and if that's not enough to remind oneself
that there are stranger fates in this world
than those found in any book on one's shelf
than I'm a red-assed baboon with a keyboard.

The first nail in the coffin.

His name is Chris
and his partner's name is John
but by the looks of them
I always want to call them
by the opposite names.
They're the two masons
doing the concrete on the job.
The story they stick to is that they've known each other
since high school and are the same age
but Chris looks an easy five years older.
John says I'm not to first to say that.
More wrinkles around the eyes, less teeth
in the devilish smile, more red than white in the eyes--
the tell-tale signs of the man who's carried the load
for longer than his years admit.

Chris offered me a smoke in the down-time
during a big concrete pour yesterday
while waiting for the next truck
and I gratefully accepted.
The boss had waited until eight-fifteen that morning
to call me in, even though Chris had requested my presence
the day before and said that they could use my help.
I had been up late wrestling with angels, then demons
and was glad that I hadn't been drinking.
Still, I was tired and the hard labor on an empty stomach
wasn't lightening my lids any.
That cigarette looked damn good sticking out from the pack
as he waved it in my direction.

Something caught my eye as I reached for the hand-out
something white amongst the tan of the rest of the filters--
an upside-down cigarette.
This fifty-five year old man still kept a lucky one in his pack
still believed in junior high superstitions and their merit.
Is that what I have to look forward to when I have to sleep
with pillows between my sore knees at night like he does?

I wasn't sure whether to be thrilled or terrified, but let me tell you--
that smoke would've tasted just as glorious
whether or not it was mentholated, and it was.

No Nazis were harmed in the writing of this blog.

We get all types here at the house, and that's fine. Expected, accepted, appreciated even. But sometimes we stop, shake our heads, and force ourselves to wonder: Are our friends really that open-minded about their social screening process? Then, of course, we pat ourselves on our backs when we realize how marvelously unprejudiced we are through the Law of Syllogism. It's a mostly painless cycle.

A couple weeks ago we went through said scenario. One of our newer friends from across the mighty Hudson showed up at our humble abode with a few of his pals to join us in the evening's alcoholic merriment. I had just gotten out of the shower and was getting dressed up in my bedroom when they arrived. The night's lucky winner was selected from my rows and stacks of mildly ironic thrift store T-shirts. I pulled it over my enormous head, manipulated my mop of hair into the same general direction, and sauntered down the steps to play host to my new acquaintances.

There they stood: my one buddy, and four of his tragically hip friends. We get them around these parts from time to time, but it's an uncommon thing to find an indigenous member of that type. You know, the kids who you'd expect to see at shows featuring punk rock or similar music akin to its derivatives. Tight clothes, facial piercings, interesting hair, chest-piece tattoos. It's not that we don't tolerate that particular fashion statement here in the Dirty 'Burgh, it's that we just don't care enough to try in vain to attempt it. Our fine city provides far better threats than ridicule from the Fashion Police. There's nothing tougher than risking life and limb with the possibility of a drive-by just to get some Kennedy Fried Chicken at three in the morning. Take your scene points, quite frankly, and shove them. Gingerly, mind you. But as usual, I digress.

I shook hands. I made eye contact. I pretended to pay attention to names, though I'm terrible at that and tend to let them go right out the other ear in most group introductions. And then I established, for my own personal knowledge, the odd man out. Ripped clothes, huge plugs in his earlobes that were covered in fake diamonds, a mostly shaved head that revealed tattoos on his scalp, and that smirk that usually comes along with the persona. We'd had his type here before, it ended poorly. Mostly for him, mind you, but poorly none the less. I made a mental note to put myself on the defensive and watch for any signs of potential violence or petty larceny.

Neither of which occurred. Once again I was put in my place regarding the race and coerced into shredding the cynic card for a bit. This guy was alright, despite the fact that he resembled a poor man's version of the drummer of a popular punk band who is rumored to be reforming despite his third-degree burns via plane crash. He made the right comments at the TV screen, he laughed at the jokes and made some good ones at appropriate times, he was respectful of our home, and he even did a full shot of the 160-proof Austrian rum that has come to be a rite of passage amongst our group of friends without taking a trip to the bathroom to vomit. Eventually, however, he managed to make a bit of a fool of himself. We'll blame it on that shot.

See, someone mentioned Nazis. Not sure how it came up in conversation at a party, but it did. And well, his face lit up like a teacher had asked the class a question and he was the only one who knew the answer. I was almost waiting for him to raise his hand. Instead, he raised the leg of his shorts to reveal another one of his numerous tattoos. This one was unfinished, only an outline on his inner right thigh. Maybe the sensitivity of that spot had halted production, or maybe money was short and it didn't seem wise to pursue an expensive mural that only a few select people would see, or maybe it was just a stupid idea that was too late to erase. In my humble opinion it was a clear case of the latter. Let's go to the Not-So-Instant/Not-So-Verbatim Replay for further clarification. Charlie, take it away:

"Nazis, huh? I like Nazis."

"Oh yeah?"

"Here, check out one of my leg tattoos. It's not done yet."

"It's a plane."

"That's the Red Baron."

"Yes, it does indeed resemble a biplane from the turn of the last century."

"Look at the wing."

"There's a swastika."

"It's for my German heritage."

"Maybe you should've thought that one through first."

"What do you mean?"

"The Red Baron was an ace fighter pilot in the First World War."

"So?"

"So, the National Socialist German Workers Party was not even established until 1920."

"The who?"

"The Nazis."

"Oh..."

"Fail."

I took a sip of my cocktail and let the news sink in. Grins spread across the faces in earshot of our conversation, but no one had the heart to pursue the matter. Not even yours truly. Fortunately, the piece hadn't been completed yet so there's still time to cover up the swastika with something more clever. Something tells me that he won't go that route, though. We changed the subject quickly and efficiently and pretended as though nothing had ever happened, but it had--

Hitler, you've been bested yet again, sixty-some-odd years after your cowardly bunker suicide!

The German quarter of the blood coursing through my veins has been redeemed. Now if only the ignorance common to you and your supporters could be eradicated from the earth. But alas, I want ice cream, and can waste no more words on you or your uneducated scenester cohorts.

Goodnight, friends and Allies. And remember: fascist dictators come and go, but bad tattoos are forever.

Columbo, as you've never seen him.

"It wasn't homicide."

"But why the duct-taped eyes, detective?"

"He didn't wanna see."

"See what?"

"The room."

"But he lived in it."

"Not spattered like this."

"If he didn't wanna see, why not the head?"

"Because the heart made more sense."

"How so?"

"They'd already taken it. Read the walls."

"They're blank."

"Exactly."

"Look, statistics show that in cases like this..."

"Statistics don't apply here, sergeant."

"Then what does?"

"The facts, the motives."

"To make Open Casket optional? He wasn't so selfless."

"His mind...he didn't wanna waste his mind."

"I'm afraid he already had, detective."

"I'll agree with that...for the record."

"So what next?"

"Let's get some lunch."

"You can't be serious."

"A cop is never cold, wet, or hungry."

"And the report?"

"It can wait."

"Sometimes I wonder how you out-rank me."

"Ask the man on the floor. He'll tell you."

Honest Abe and Famous Men with Wooden Teeth

There's a big red plastic bowl
next to my bed where I throw
all of my loose pocket change
at the end of the day.
It's one of my less detrimental habits
since a penny saved is
well, a penny saved.

The sources vary: coffee break
orders, both mine and otherwise;
depressing gas station encounters;
bars, restaurants, Italian delicatessens--
but the essence is always the same:
a bunch of shiny discs that make
a sad world hobble 'round.

My coin bowl comes in handy
on those "Oh Shit!" Mornings
as I like to call them--
you know, the ones where you wake up
still drunk, then rummage through your pockets
uncrinkling bills and hoping to find at least
a five, if not a twenty, but always seem
to only muster singles.
Or maybe that's just me.

This has been an "Oh Shit!" Month
since I haven't worked much
due to the feast-or-famine nature of construction.
Fortunately, and with a touch of pride
I can say with an unusually clear conscience
that the coin bowl's remain intact
the entire time, a hymen waiting for the right time.
I like to be the one to tell time.
Did I mention? Is it obvious?

And every week that I avoid taking the shameful ride
to the coin-counting machine at the local supermarket
to cash in the chips in an hour of desperation
is another week that I have beaten the odds, the system.
Bill collectors, gas tanks, and bottomless guts be damned--
I am immortal, and you can't shake that red and round
and plastic source of hope from my hands unless I'm ready.

It won't be for awhile.

It won't.
Before.

When I hit the hay too gone to talk
the last thing I see tends to be
that hopeful gold mine
sitting there comfortably alone.
More often than not
in that unique state
the silver faces frowning back
don't belong to Founding Fathers.
It's You.
It's always You.

Awhile?
I meant 'me to know'...



Currently reading:
"Point Counter Point" by Aldous Huxley.

Showerthirst

Oh
he's a Con, alright
though I can't say for sure
if only in his poetry
since some sorry broad buried
his sorrier ass
decades before
I was a gleam in my
donor's eye.

Sometimes his tips hit the head
for a line at a time
(the one about the root hitting the rock)
but more often than not
he got lost in High Romanticisim
(leave the candles out of it)
or rather: his fruitless search
for it.

But there is no Romance left, Prof. Aiken.

You'd think that someone
who found the murdered body
of his mother
and suicided body of his father
in a long since loveless bedroom
at age seven
would've known that.

Just another one that's let me down
like a bittersweet song interrupted by the phone.

The list.
The Goddamn
growing
list--

"For that which goes forth comes back changed or dead."

What some men've found out the hard way.

"Wasn't Jenny Morgan on the swim team, too?"

"Yeah. She was one of the girls with the stories."

"Jenny? Get outta here. She was so quiet."

"The quiet ones are the freaks."

"True. Not that I'd know or anything..."

"She told us that she had to use two tampons."

"No way. She's tiny. And innocent. And..."

"And a four-finger whore."

"Jesus. Tell me how you really feel, Babe."

"I feel like eating brownies."

"OK."

"OK."

Cut him some slack, he does all his own stunts.

I'm not Laid Off, I'm a Gentleman of Leisure.
Yes, there's a difference.
Look it up.

Greasy everything and bedhead
and two novellas in as many days.
Yes, it's as glamorous as it sounds.

I'm not sure how much more
of this rolling around in dirty sheets
I can take before I climb a clocktower.

I'm not sure how much longer
I can manage to be my own
best friend.

Sometimes it's so close to home
that the words won't come
without sounding forced.
Any self-respecting slob
would've waited 'til the next day
for the real money-shot.

That's why I'm firing my agent.
"Bunny, I'm sorry, but ya' gotta go..."
She just kept licking herself on the bed.
It's a good thing I can't.

Sometimes I thank God for the talents I don't have
and curse Him for the ones I do.
Can I get on with my night now?
There's a bottle I know I'll be good at emptying.


Currently reading:
"Seymour-- an Introduction" by J.D. Salinger.

A guiltless jilt (in Technicolor).

"Here," he said as he came
down from the altar and dropped the ring carelessly
into the shaking, sweaty palm of his arbitrary successor.
"It's not for anything that you did right
but something that I did wrong."

Confusion swept across all but one set of eyes.
'Lohengrin' played in the background, unparenthetically
as the audience pretended to clean their nails in the pews.

A great weight had been lifted from his shoulders when
he remembered all the things he'd yet to accomplish
and suddenly had the alacrity to pursue.
The pen in his pocket twitched against his thigh
as three collective pounds of mascara in the room
tried it's hardest not to follow suit and run.
All he had left to fear was an unbreakable date
with a really hot barbecue at some undetermined time
and even that didn't seem as bad as the alternative
since there would be no rehearsals.

She fainted as the door closed silently behind him.
The priest tried reviving her with holy water.
The organist told her father that he'd still receive a bill.

"Taxi!" he yelled as he raised his right hand sincerely
and for the first time ever it worked.

His suit, of course, was blue.



Currently reading:
"Raise High the Roof Beam" by J.D. Salinger.

Further proof that there's no God.

There was this kid Matt Davis
who lived a few houses down from me
when I was eight and nine.
He was four years older than I was
and his armpits stunk up his bedroom.
Matt was what they used to call
'a disturbed child', though I'm sure
there's a pretty new term for it now.
I saw my first pornographic magazines
in his filthy little house, and was morbidly confused.
Everyone blamed his ways on the parents
but that wasn't fair either.
Matt was simply Matt, and probably still is.

My mom and I felt bad for him
so we'd invite him over for dinner once in awhile.
I made sure to play with him at least twice a week
even though my other friends wouldn't join us.
I still thought I could save people back then.

When I got a rabbit, he got a rabbit.
Mine lived thirteen years: double
its life expectancy;
his only lasted a month or two
probably due to lack of proper care.
Neither of us were surprised.

Sometimes I think about him late at night.

And then I think about the bastard who let him die
alone in that dirty little cage.

...with 'just' as a limiter, as always, too often.

that kid who chased his dog in the snowy darkness
between his front yard and the street
holding up his schoolbus and a line of traffic
for ten minutes monday morning:
the bravest man ever to traverse route 94
and he's too young for a driver's license...

a swift kick to the shin.
a night-stick behind the knee.
bam.
you're done
for the nth time now.

gepetto was bounding across the road
as she approached through cigarette smoke
until a redneck snapped me out of it.
later on i almost bought a bumper
with a white neck-craner
realizing we're ours forever.
i've been scared to say that, but it's true.

stop it
we were kids
we were only kids
so stop it.
it only makes sense
if you imagine saying it
to someone or something
bigger than yourself.
no.
it only makes sense
to me
and
that's just dandy
just fine
alright?

all those poor souls
who used to watch me shave at night...

see, that kid chasing the dog--
i envy him.

I hope he blows the tranny.

One of three unfortunate things are more likely
to happen in the last couple miles of your drive home:
you get into an accident, as statistics show;
nature calls harder, as if your body knows it's close;
or some sword-swallower in front of you rides the brake.

Tonight, as I'm sure you've guessed, the third one occurred.

I was on my way home from welding class at eight o'clock.
Only one more traffic light separated me from my driveway.
The home-stretch was about to be victorious.
Then said expletive pulled out in front of me.

What's with people? Why cut someone off
if you plan on going slower than them?
And I'm talking a good ten miles-an-hour slower.
This particular roadblock with wheels
happened to be the same make as my vehicle.
That's another peculiar phenomenon--
I tend to get even more perturbed with a bad driver
who's behind the wheel of a car made by the same
company as mine, as if they're breaking some
silent fraternal code by killing the mojo
of a fellow rice-burner-owning motorist.

Anyway, it was painful to be stuck behind
this brake-riding so-and-so all of a sudden.
The gap between our vehicles closed gradually
until I was finally only one car-length away
from his puny little bumper.
I swore I noticed him slow down even more
to a mere twenty-three miles-per-hour.
I decided to find out if my assessment was correct
by turning on my high-beams, which must've
been designed for hunting kangaroo at night
in the vast plains of the Australian outback
because the damn things are so bright
that I can practically see through
the backs of people's skulls
when using them as a weapon
in a case such as the one encountered tonight.
Sure enough, when I turned them puppies on
Captain Party-Pooper in front of me
stepped on his brake pedal and brought
things to a damn-near screeching hault.
Hook, line, and sadly unoriginal sinker!
We had a game on our hands.

I turned the brights off.
He sped back up to only ten miles under the limit.
I turned them back on.
He slowed back down again.
I flashed them a few times.
He turned his rear-view mirror down so it didn't bother him.
I turned them off.
He sped back up a little.
This went on for a mile or two, much to the chagrin
of the line of traffic growing behind me.
I didn't care, though.
Neither did he.
I was having a good time.
Maybe he was, too.
Not once did I lean on the horn.
Believe it or not I was laughing.
Hey, the guy in front of me
was responding in exactly the same way
that I would if I were him.
It was hard to hate the man for that.
Hell, I had a borderline genius on my hands!

When we finally crawled through that last traffic light
and I knew that he couldn't brake-check me anymore
I let him have it one last time, just to get the last word.
He tried to impede my acceleration again, but it was too late
since I'd already turned onto my nice, empty road.

It was good to be home.
It still is, an hour-and-a-half later as I sit rehashing this
mildly amusing story that really had no consequence
or point, though I hope that somewhere further
up Route 52 there's a man smiling as he tells
someone a story about this jerk he had behind him tonight...

A little subconscious B-and-E.

"You almost blew my cover, man.
Just like Donnie Brasco said
if you ever call me Joe again
I'll slice you ear to ear."

"What do you mean?" asked Satan.
"We've got all the time in the world left
to get to know each other."

I'd say he laughed when he finished speaking
but that would be too predictable.

And did I say Satan?
It may have been Dostoevsky.

Do I get a 1099 for this?

The list, as prophesied, went on:
table salt to melt the ice
sidelong glances at Marilyn
and other acts of desperation.
The bigger they were
the faster they poured the shots
and joined the shiny footprints.

"I thought I told her..."
"It's nothing I haven't seen before,"
and he knocked him on his ass
with the rum, where he belonged.

The farce of introducing people;
it's easier to forget your manners at home
but when you're already...
"Come on, babe. I barely know myself
let alone the two of you...but now you know
each other's first names."
Trail off, drift away.
Enter Frank, stage left.
It's always seemed such a charade.
Spare us, Common Courtesy.

"Fine, then you'll learn on your own like I did,"
before stomping out of the spinning room.

"If my ass goes numb then I know
it's time to quit for the night.
If I feel any physical pain then it's forced."
Scary rules to live by, so similar to a strumpet's
and doesn't that sound like a cake eaten with tea?
"My ass only hurts 'cause I've outgrown this chair
that I've had for fifteen years. The cushion was made
for little kids."
Sure, pal.
Whatever you have to tell yourself.

"It's gotten really good," they'll lie.
"No, no, No, NO,"
vehement "no!
The microphone's just moved closer
for a more accurate recording."

They still won't get it, the unsung song--
a waste, like taking a shit while still wet from a shower.

"I thought she was a strong swimmer."
"Me too."

Typical Sunday afternoon, sans Super- anything.

...so I marked my page with the ancient green wristband
tossed Mr. Thurber onto my nightstand with a thud
and pulled the blanket over my head
to enjoy the sweet stench of Failure in the form of liquor
and the morning's baked beans.

Anyone who claims not to secretly savor the aroma
of his own intestines' noxious fumes is a damn liar.

My mom had called on the previous night
ten-thirty on a rip-roarin' Saturday with me good-n-drunk
to suggest that I invest in a new mattress soon--
something about dust mites and a potentially bad back.

I distinctly remember her mentioning the option
of paying on The Installment Plan, but don't recall
how I blew it off. I'm sure it was far less witty
than it could have been without the Canadian Club
running its familiar comforting course through my veins.

Alas, one can't win them all
or one would have little
to write about afterwards

and you, voyeur, would have to find a real hobby...

Associamated Press

The newspaper was sitting on the table in the break room so I flipped it open to the section with the country's latest ridiculous occurrences. You know, the short little blurbs about truths far stranger than fiction that serve as good work-time conversation starters to pass the time weather-discussion-free. My eyes skimmed down to the headline with 'feces' in bold print, naturally. Something about a man on trial for murder or rape or maybe both who flung human feces at his attorney and the ladies and gentlemen of the jury. It didn't say if it was his own feces, which to me makes a big difference in terms of his statement and the depth of his psychosis and/or desperation. None of the jury members were hit, but his lawyer took a full load to the face. The irony there, of course, is that his lawyer's the one who snuck the excrement into the courtroom in a plastic bag concealed in his briefcase. That tactic must be a new one being taught at law schools around the globe, or maybe just the mail-order ones. Stool-tossing, the onside kick of legal defensive strategy. I'm assuming they were going for an insanity plea, but they got a mistrial instead. A jury can't remain unbiased if the man in question has flung feces in their general direction, that's just common knowledge. The defense attorney was peeved because the prosecutor was not banned from the next trial, though Mr. Poop-smuggler was prohibited from defending his client again. Right, as if that comes as a surprise. Give an inch and they want a mile. They pass the bar and think they're allowed to resort to circus acts recorded by a court stenographer. "If the glove don't fit, acquit," may have worked, but you'll never see anyone whole-heartedly preaching a mantra of "If the crime's legit, fling sh..." I'll keep this one PG-13 for the sake of the nation's already tarnished reputation. Let's just hope there are no copycats this time.

"The Dude abides."

I'm not sure if I told you this already, but I'm going to go ahead and say it anyway so such an important event in my life won't fall through the cracks: I once met Stephen Baldwin.

Yes, it's true. Stephen. The goofiest of the Brothers Bald(win), not to be confused with Newburgh's beloved Mahoneys. Not quite as presitgious as Alec, not quite as obscure as William, and wasn't there another one in there somewhere? I won't lie, though-- Steve (Stephe?) and I really didn't say too much to each other. It happened in passing, as most celebrity encounters do. I was working on the addition for the Nyack Library last summer and Mr. B. happened to have an office in the building nextdoor. Not quite sure what the office was for, though the secretary that he sent out for coffee and such was rather attractive in an alternative lifestyle kind of way: red streaks in her hair, piercings, an arm tattoo. Pretty sure that was all another cover-up not quite tabloid-worthy, but whatever. Can't deny a man the finer things in life, especially if he has the financial means to afford having them at his beck and call. But, as usual, I digress.

So I'm sitting on a stone wall next to the sidewalk eating my lunch one day. Roast beef and yellow American on a roll, lettuce tomato mayonnaise, salt and pepper. The guy at the deli had slathered way too much mayo on there so everything was sliding all around and trying to escape from the bread's clutches. It was tough to eat and my foreman was making fun of me as I tackled the sandwich laboriously. I was half-way done with it when the big moment came. The front door of Stephen's building opened, but this time it wasn't his secretary-- it was the 'Bio-Dome' legend himself! His dirty blonde hair was long but neatly kept, the tan appeared to be real which just meant he paid more for it, the tattoos on his arms and neck stated once and for all that he was not afraid to mar his body despite his acting career. And those baby blues. His eyes met mine in a foibled moment of fate as I was trying to force down a bite of the sandwich. I don't remember ever trying to swallow so hard, not even on those nights where that last shot didn't agree with my stomach and the saliva kept coming in preparation for the puke. His epic strides were leading him in our direction. He'd be passing us on the sidewalk in a few brief seconds. It could not be avoided. We'd have to converse, or forever hold our respective peaces. Or is it pieces? I guess they're interchangeable if you really think about it.

I gave him the head-nod to stall as I made sure my mouth was empty.
"How's it goin'?" he asked, and seemed to mean it.
"Pretty good."
Christ, was I really star-struck? I don't even watch TV and stick to miserable movies far out of his agent's realm. This man should've meant nothing to me, but for some reason I was nervous.
"Enjoying some lunch in the shade, huh?"
If it were anyone else I would've chimed in with "No shit, Captain Obvious," but this was STEPHEN BALDWIN, famed Hollywood acteur, and he had stopped mid-step to talk with the lowly likes of me, a mere union pipe-fitter.
So, I responded with the predictable "Yeah."
"Well, have a good one," and then he smiled, maybe even winked.
"You too," I replied with a quiver. How bad could his day really be?
And then he walked out of my life forever, at least in the physical sense.

"Dude, you're an asshole," said my foreman in his oh-so-sympathetic tone.
"Why's that?"
"You had mayo on your face the whole time."
I wiped my cheek. I checked my hand. I realized what the smile and wink were for.
"Fuck."

And that was it, the end of my celebrity encounter. I hope that yours have gone and/or will go better for you. Always tell them to go easy on the mayo just in case.

Got my drink and my goose-step.

It's always when you're running late
or in a rush in general
that something further foils your progress.
Today it came in the form of a schoolbus
pulling out in front of me
on my way home from work
during my Friday Commute 500
to a much needed shower and nap.

The bus slowed and turned on its yellow
blinkers to alert me to the fact
that small children could soon become
potential speedbumps if I did not pay attention.
I turned the stereo up a notch and tried
to sing along again, but my throat was too dry.
It took forever for the two kids to step down
from the bus. They must've been sitting in
the coveted back seat, where brats made faces
at cars through the rear emergency door
and cool kids flashed cigarette packs and shared
the facts of life with shocked peers.

These two boys were too young for that brand of corruption--
probably seven and eight, or six and seven.
I could tell that they were brothers by their faces
and the camouflage jackets that they both wore.
It brought me back to the days when I used to
dress up and play army in the woods.
For a second I smiled as I watched the older brother
raise his knees and lead the way
in an overly dramatic march towards his house.
He must not have heard his little brother's footsteps
as loudly as he would've liked to, though;
as if suddenly possessed by the soul of a drill instructor
he spun around on his heels and commanded
his assumed inferior to march harder, louder, with more feeling.
I saw crow's feet appear above his mouth and a vein
pop out in his neck. He'd instantly aged twenty years
shedding his naive innocence to become something ugly.
My stomach rolled inside itself, and it wasn't last night's rum.
The younger boy frowned and lifted his little feet higher.
Their mother opened the front door and told them
to hurry up and get inside already so the two of them
gave up their drills for the day and ran to their house
like children are supposed to.

World War III hasn't happened yet, but when it does
we'll be ready whether we want to or not.
I hope I'm dead and gone before I have to bury
any toy soldiers like the ones I saw today.

And in case you're wondering
I wasn't late for my shower and nap.
I was early.
I always am.

Dear Port Jefferson Station

There are some bands, songs, and albums that still need to be reclaimed. It seems no one left remembers the words, or ever knew them to begin with. Please give me my friend back for at least one whiskey-fueled night. He's the only one who fully understands that process, and won't be ashamed of huggy drunken singalongs. My right hand had to be restrained by my left hand in order to stop it from ejecting Alkaline Trio's "Goddamnit" from my truck's stereo and chucking it out the window at fifty-five miles-per-hour, which was pretty dangerous since no hands remained to hold the steering wheel. As you can see the matter is urgent. Name your price.

Sincerely,
MV

The Chupacabra's coming, and he's not a happy camper.

I'd go downstairs for a snack
but I know I'd see the faces
in the windows and doorways.
I'm almost quite sure
that I know whose they are.

It's enough to make me swallow my gum.
It's more terrifying than the music
they play in a dentist's office.

Low rumbling explosions
from the television across the hall
and a plaintive fire siren outside;
I pull the blanket over my head
and pray for a rare dreamless night.
It's no wonder why I sleep
with the lights on sometimes.

But the trick to anything
is the trick to anything else
is this:
If the spider had ran faster
it wouldn't have been smashed
against the tile on the shower wall.

The Mexicans have revised their theory
and the Goat-Sucker is no longer an alien
but a fallen angel punished by God
with its hideous afflictions
and ravenous thirst for blood.
It must be true.
I saw it all on Telemundo.

No. 2 Led Pencil

I was reading a short story by James Thurber in bed when some plot details started to sound familiar. Walter Mitty and his secret life. Waterbury, Connecticut. A Webley-Vickers pistol. The words 'puppy biscuit' and a nagging wife. It all congealed into a very real moment in my tenth-grade English class with Mr. Coughlin-- Mr. Coughlin, the respectable veteran teacher who served as a journalist for the Navy during Vietnam, who either had very coarse and very green hair or a terrible toupee, who wore beige corduroy blazers with suede patches on the elbows like it was going even further out of style. Despite his idiosyncrasies he always had a silent cool about him, even in his predictably cartoonish ways reminiscent of Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace. Coughlin, whose first name was probably George or Harry, was a true-blue player in the game of Words. He'd lived the life to prove it, though it's probably over now. I envy him...for the first part, I mean.

But this isn't a characterization piece; I'll cut to the chase: moments like the ones I had in bed today act as road signs telling me that I'm still going the right way, even with my altered route. If I can accidentally re-discover the Stories, Novels, Poems, and Authors that teachers from my past once laid out for me, then I'm destined to make the Big Discovery someday, whatever that may be. It's why anyone reads, really, whether they admit it or not; some giant Truth to latch on to like a lifesaver in the frigid seas of life. Some Form or Purpose in the Great Nothingness of Being, presumably one that those who've come before us have found on their deathbeds with pen in hand. But again, I digress...I learned a lot from the back corner of that classroom when I wasn't throwing pencil fragments at my sophomore-year arch nemesis who sat four rows away.

Mr. Coughlin, here's one in your honor. I hope your jowls have only grown, your glasses have only thickened, and you'd still call me 'Mish-ter Vah-shen' like you did ten years ago if I ran into you at the supermarket. Oh, and thanks for making us write in those marble notebooks every day. I still toss one on the passenger seat of my truck every morning in case the urge comes over me on lunch-break at work. Turns out a little guidance goes a long way, and some homework assignments never end...

Bob Barker didn't write that theme song, he just perfected it.

What happens to Presidential hopefuls
when they return to their former state
governments with their tails
between their legs?
Do they shamefully reestablish
their roles as governors, senators
philandering philanthropists
and act as if nothing happened?

"Sorry, Voting Public. I guess we'll
have to settle for each other again...
that is, if you'll have me."
It's the subpar speech of a spouse caught cheating
and more often than not it works.

As Howard Dean sips bourbon and water
while watching the infamous "Byah!" clip
over and over in a dark room, while Bob Dole
takes the battery out of his back and tears up a contract
made with the fruit company, while Sarah Palin
tries her hardest to convince friends and family
that all of those horrible pornographic pictures
floating around on cell phones have been Photoshopped
Michael Dukakis blames it on a bad last name
and Al Gore blames it on the killer pit-stains due to Global Warming
and/or an election rigged by dead Florida residents
in cahoots with the Illuminati, Ross Perot
reclines in a twelve-bathroom mansion somewhere
counting his money naked on a couch
lined with polar bear fur between two
scantily clad former Miss Somewheres
and that's the only thing
that keeps my belief in our system alive.



Currently reading:
"Selected Poems" by Conrad Aiken.

Jethro Tull Flute Solo

Woke up from an accidental
evening nap, the kind that makes you
roll in bed sleepless later on, with my eyes
fixed on theirs in that ancient
photograph wedged in the trim of
the mirror on my dresser.
The edges rolled by the years
helped their faces meet mine.
The thumb blocking the lower-left
corner of the shot proved
that my father hadn't been
the only one drinking that night.
I wondered if they both wore white
to the party intentionally
and wondered even more
how much longer that look of
sincerity had lasted in their eyes.
I hadn't been born yet
though maybe there's not a drink
in her hand because she knew
she was pregnant.
Maybe she should've drank
and done hard drugs regardless.

I hate that picture
because of what it evokes
almost as much as I love it
and the churning it can still deliver.
The main thing keeping me
from taking it down is simple:
they were happy once;
that, and the fact
that I see myself
in my old man's face.
It's a reminder of what to not let happen.

Someone once told me...
Someone told me something...
...but that was a long time ago.

Poor bastard.
I hope he has his mother's eyes.

Sharks and swimming pals.

It's nothing that either
of my grandmother's brothers told me
before they died or lost their minds
but I'm sure that the best piece of advice
they learned from the War was this:

When it's time to hold the trenches down
don't pick the surest shot
as your foxhole partner--
go for the slowest runner.
He's the least likely to leave
your sorry sack of flesh
to die alone in that mud
when the whistles blow
and the barbed wire's breached--
and trust me: both will happen.


Currently reading:
"The Thurber Carnival" by James Thurber.

On shirts you can only wear standing up.

An actor made rich by an award-winning series
was hospitalized briefly for mercury poisoning
due to eating sushi three times a day

and we are told to pity him.

A prostitute from the local corner
died of a nasty venereal disease
due to a lack of education

and "She got what she deserved."

There is no level playing field
when it comes to occupational hazards.
There is no crying in baseball.
There's not much left to salvage from the wreckage
of a place where three inches can be added
to your manhood for a cool six grand.

I tell you now, friend:
many a hooker, many a whore
have gone undeclared
the difference being
we paid way too much for them.

But don't worry;
anything's good slathered in ketchup--
even the demise of a culture's
better judgment.

Please refrain from comparing me
to Humanity
in future correspondence.

This has been a test
of the Emergency Broadcast System.
Had this not been a test
you'd already be dead.

It's a case of that End of the World Syndrome;
there aren't enough who have that -itis bad enough.

I'll tell you what happened to Marv, Jim:
they ran him 'til there was nothing left.

And all the rest you scoff at
as wishful thinking?
You're wrong.
It's a reenactment

so while you're at it
stay away from the guy in the trench coat
drinking scotch at the end of the bar--
it's probably the Devil
again.

Moonlighting Sonata

I got the call about his leaking tub around three in the afternoon. Typical friend-of-a-plumber scenario. "Just figured I'd give you a call before I hired someone else." Translation: "Just thought I'd save a buck by having you fix this for me." I always fall for it, the plumber with a heart o' gold-- at least when it comes to not ripping off laymen. "Sure, I'll come by in an hour or two." Besides, it was just the excuse I needed to talk myself out of going to the union hall for class like I was supposed to. Eight hours of welding on my knees was all the instruction I needed for the day, the lesson being the same as the one I'm always learning: I should've stayed in school.

The house was on one of the oldest streets in the city, right down the road from the bar that the usual suspects and myself succumb to patronizing from time to time. My friend's car was not outside and the lights did not appear to be on in the house. I began to wonder if I should've gone to plumbing class instead like a good little apprentice. Two knocks on the Munster-esque front door produced a muffled response in the form of a woman's voice: "Who is it?" I paused to think. "Mike, your son's friend." She unlocked and opened the door without the response I was dreading: "Oh, the plumber." It was a small personal victory and I cherished it.

"The bathroom's at the top of the stairs."
"Alright. Let me take a look."

She followed me up. I wished that she hadn't. The only thing worse than working in someone else's home is having to do it while the home-owner looks over your shoulder. The house was built in the 1800s. I didn't know what obstacles to expect, and I sure didn't want anyone witnessing my head-scratching routine as I tried to put my brain away and figure out what one of my coworkers would do. Having to switch mental gears and think like a construction worker is a difficult task for me. I'm a clumsy bookworm with too much time on his hands who happens to put pipes together for a living. Trouble-shooting a plumbing problem doesn't always come as naturally to me as discussing an author's strengths and weaknesses. That's an affliciton I'm proud to have. "You're an intelligent person," my esteemed colleagues always tell me when I ask questions about moonlighting debacles. "You'll figure it out." Please. I still haven't figured myself out and I've had almost twenty-five years to work at it.

"The handyman cut a hole in the wall to take a look at the pipes. He couldn't find the leak, though."
"How do you know it's even leaking?"
"There's a dark spot on the ceiling below it."
"It's leaking."
Good. That sounded professional.

I got down on my aching knees in the hallway and removed the three pieces of drywall that he screwed to the wall to keep the cats from getting lost forever. The floorboards creaked as I rolled over onto my back and got in position to have a look-see at the culprit. My flashlight didn't work so well upside down because the battery connection was compromised in that position. I rattled it around and mumbled "Figures" to myself. She heard me and laughed. A sense of humor is a good thing for a customer to have, especially when the bill is presented.

"Can you turn the shower on for me?"
"Sure."
"I don't see any water dripping down any of the pipes."
"It only happens when the water hits the wall."
"Can you make the water hit the wall?"
Sometimes people make me ask stupid questions.

As soon as she turned the showerhead I was splashed in the face. Never had I been so thankful for that; it meant I might be leaving soon.

"I found your problem."
"Excellent!"
"Yeah."
Why couldn't I manage to pinpoint my own?

I rose to my feet and walked into the bathroom to unscrew the faucet handle on the cold side and showed her the dilemma. Whoever had cut the vinyl wall to install the shower valve had done a typical scab chop-job. The hole was about twice the size needed for the copper to poke through, and that's why the water was leaking into the wall.

"It's not a plumbing problem."
"Good! Then we can fix it ourselves with some caulk!"
Ah, the happy home-owner response. Just as expected. Another dud. I knew her next question before she asked it. At least she was sticking to the script.
"How much do I owe you?"
"Nothing."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Tell your 'handyman' to use a flashlight next time, though."

She didn't argue with either statement. Getting a quick ribshot mildly alleviated the pain of having wasted my time. It felt good to help a friend, but was he really? Seeing a kid I went to high school with at a bar once every six months barely qualifies as friendship, but I couldn't bring myself to charge something just for making a pitstop on my way home from work. And at least I didn't have to do any actual plumbing work.

He came home as I was gathering the few tools I'd strewn on the floor in a vain attempt to appear to know what I was doing had I encountered an actual problem. I told him it was an easy fix and his mother told him to go get the caulking gun from the basement. He offered me a beer in lieu of the payment I'd declined, but I wanted to get home to rid myself of the sweet stench of failure for the day and lay in bed to finish Artaud and maybe Miller. Then he showed me his switchblade, told me he only used to open letters. People don't change much after high school. I said I had to go and he walked me back down the stairs.

"You can go out the door right in front of you, no need to go through the living room again."
"Man, you're trying to get me out of your house as quickly as possible."
"No, but I figured it'd be easier since you're parked right there..."
People don't sense sarcasm after you've done them a favor. Call it guilt.
"What are you doing Wednesday night?"
"I'm not sure yet," I lied. "Why?"
"It's my girlfriend's birthday, we're going to the bar," meaning the one down the street where I ran into him every six months. "You should come."
"Yeah, maybe I will," I lied again. Would he have invited me out of the blue if I hadn't seen him on such terms? Only a spineless coward with no self-respect would accept that offer. I'm only a spineless coward.
"Take it easy, man."
"Thanks, Mike."
"No problem."
"Thanks Mike!" his mom screamed from the top of the stairs in nosy mother eavesdrop fashion.
I shook his hand and walked to my truck.

"How'd' you make out?" my coworker asked when he called as I rode home.
"It was just a hole in the wall. I told them to patch it."
"Did you charge them the hundred bucks like I told you?"
"No."
"Then what'd you make?"
"Nothing."
"But you drove there. Your time is worth money, kid."
"I didn't fix anything."
"They didn't need to know that."
"Are all plumbers so dishonest?"
"Only the ones who want to make a living out of it."
"I'd rather sleep at night."
"Then you'll never be one of us, Shakespeare."

Someone in my trade, someone I see at my awful job and work next to, someone who could be subpoenaed to testify regarding my profession had told me that I was not and never would be a plumber. My identity was intact. It was that same small victory all over again.

You can keep your hundred bucks and your bottle of beer. I'm going to go shower and finish those two books now.

Eggs for dinner, again.

At times
in retrospect
I wish
that the bear whose sense of smell we piqued
with our shameful streamside act
had done us in
right then and there

but more often than not
I'm just sorry for making you
take your tongue ring out
and various razor changes.

And like the rest
you hated how I ripped my fingernails off.
I find it a thing of convenience
but what do women know of that word?,
other than the danger of complacency
that hides in its wake.

The nailclipper you bought me
sat in my desk drawer
until it broke somehow.
It didn't go both ways, you see.

You followed me through three houses
until you finally lost the trail
for another
somewhere in the Catskills.
No one trusts an odd number
so we'll stay even, like
'52 and '68-- yeah I still know
but won't have the nerve
to crush more toenails
so don't lose any sleep
any heart
any thing.
Anything?

Whenever I'm truly gone
and alone with him
I have to fight the urge to ask
by convincing myself that I already know:
you're better than you were before
though that's not saying much.

So what have we learned, class?
That love is like anything else:
it comes with old tomatoes
ultimatums, rather
and prices far too high to pay up front
so we throw trivial bits and pieces
of ourselves at it in an attempt to comply with
this warped installment plan
that our Maker has laid out for us.

"Play nice or I'll take it back," He says.
What an Indian giver.

But I hear He grants eternal life
to anyone who can lick their elbow
though who in their right mind
would want that?

What becomes of the broken-hearted.

I checked.
It wasn't in today's paper.
Suicides usually aren't.
People don't like to read about other people wanting to die.
Attempted suicides are even worse.
A botched desperate act.
That's even harder to read about.
Everyone involved ends up grateful for the ignorance.
Everyone accept me.
Wait-- except.
Accept, too.
We're OK now.
Right?

I wouldn't have known it happened if I hadn't received a phone call yesterday. A buddy of mine rang me up to tell me about what he'd seen on the side of the highway while coming home from work. He started to describe it, but it didn't register. That could've been anybody. Commuting sounded a whole lot more dangerous than it already was.

"Wait, so his face was crushed in?"
"Yeah. He was all banged up. Soaked in blood."
"Was he moving?"
"Not really. All his limbs were visibly broken."
"How'd you know he was alive?"
"His chest was rising."
"Jesus..."

My friend and his coworker were driving home together when they saw a car pulled over in the shoulder of the interstate. Then they saw the man sprawled out next to it. One of them was a fireman so they stopped. Both of them were human so I'm surprised they didn't keep going. I bet they wish they had.

"A woman was parked a hundred feet ahead of us."
"She's the one that hit him?"
"No. That was the box truck parked ahead of her."
"Jesus..."

His voice was surprisingly solid. If I'd been the one to witness the aftermath of a man being mowed down by a truck I'd probably be stuttering and grasping for words that wouldn't come. But maybe not. Maybe in seeing something as tragically real as that you're instantly forced to accept it as fact and present it as such. There's no way to avoid it affecting you in the long run, but regurgitating the events might be easier than assumed. Or maybe television really does desensitize us.

"What'd you do?"
"Put our jackets on him to keep him warm."
"Then what?"
"That lady walked over and told us what happened."
"Wasn't it obvious?"
"Not entirely. The guy ran in front of the truck."
"You're kidding."
"I'm serious."
"And the truck driver?"
"Some young black kid. Barely twenty-one, probably."
"He must've been a wreck."
"He kept repeating that the man jumped out."
"He'll be scarred for life."
"I don't think I'd be able to drive again."

There. Proof that my first theory was correct, cynicism be damned.

"But how did you know it was intentional?"
"There was a note on the seat of his car."
"What'd it say?"
" 'Call Ellen', with a phone number."
"Jesus..."
"Jesus didn't help any."
"He hasn't in awhile."

Neither of us knew what else to say about it, so we didn't.
That's a rare quality.
Find it.
Embrace it.

I don't know if the man died, but he doesn't deserve to.
He deserves far worse than that for his sins.
Blowing your head off is one thing, your Right in my book.
There's no cowardice in calling it quits after an honest try.
Risking the lives of others, however, is unpardonable.
He's lucky that no one else was hurt in the process.
I hope he's a vegetable for the rest of his life.
Even my pity goes only so far.

But he's not the real victim.
Neither is the truck driver, nor his wallet after the therapy.
Ellen's got it the worst.
She's the one who got that phone call.
She's the one who didn't believe her ears.
She's the one who may've never even heard from him in years.

Guilt is a hell of a thing to live with, whether it's warranted or not.
We regret the things we didn't do more than the things we did.
Maybe Ellen will regret not trying harder.
She'll age less than gracefully.
She'll die, too, though only on the inside at first.

And therein lies the problem.
"We're all dead and we don't even know it yet."
Sometimes I hate being right.

Only drink with Irishmen, have predictable friends.

My stomach always settles
as I do the dishes the next day
since through the haze
of that familiar ache
I know

that the square tumbler was his because
like a true connoisseur
he drinks it straight on the rocks

but the beer mug belonged to his brother
who goes for maximum comfort
and needs a firm grip for when he falls asleep
on my couch mid-conversation

while
whatever's the largest drinking vessel in the sink
fell victim to an old crony who always over-compensates
for showing up late to the party by drinking himself
right out of the game prematurely
leaving just in time for work the next morning

and the tall skinny one was mine
because...

I'm not sure why
that's just how it works out

or does it?

I'm better at eating linguini alone.

I met a man once
who told me about a friend
he had who clipped a truck
spun his sports car, and died
on New Year's Eve
three years beforehand
though he left out the part
about the booze and coke, of course.
(No one ever mentions
those little details in stories
of misfortune, but they are to be
expected eight times out of ten.)

He asked if I'd ever seen
the metal cross on the side
of that stretch of highway.
I lied and said I did, and after
speaking to him that day
I did indeed spot it
at sixty miles-an-hour.

"I drove it down into the ground
with a hammer in the spot where he died
and every six months
I go back to spray paint it gold again."

"That's nice of you."

What else is one supposed to say in that scenario?
Judging from the stories this man had told me
he hadn't learned much from his friend's death
so my sympathy only went so far.

Besides, that thing has since
peeled, rusted, and disappeared.
Well, with the economy and all...

I hope no one makes the mistake
of a pointless post-mortem promise
when my time comes.

That slap must cross
the bounds of Life and Death
to reach its intended face
and I'll have enough problems in Hell.

We've got that benched plumber blues...

Things weren't going so hot
in the welding booth tonight;
well, only when my jacket
and gloves caught fire from the sparks.
I couldn't steady my hand enough
to run a straight bead across the steel
with all the stress on my mind due to:
being laid off for an as yet indefinite
amount of time, the lack of competency
at the New York State Department of Labor
and their precious Unemployment Insurance
which may or may not come soon, side work
as sporadic as weeknight sex, truck payments
and insurance agents and credit card bills
that don't care to hear the sob stories.
My nerves were shot, and quite frankly
I didn't want to be there in that smoky
welding booth in the basement of my union hall
for three hours pretending to learn a skill
that I have no illusions about ever mastering.
When I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket
I stopped what I was doing, took my shield
and gloves off, and hoped for the best.
It was a buddy of mine that I work with
returning my call. He'd just bought my old car
out of pity, and two days later one of his
vehicles bit the dust so he decided to throw
new brakes on mine and put it on the road.
Sometimes things work out that way
but don't count on it.
I asked if he had any jobs that he needed
help with, at first he was hesitant.
Maybe it was because he reevaluated
the urgency in my voice or maybe he remembered
what it was like to be a broke apprentice
or maybe he realized that he was driving a car
that he'd just bought for a hundred fifty bucks
but for whatever reason he changed his tune.
"Ya know what? I have a washer machine line
to put in for these two gay guys who called me."
He paused to wait for the joke. It didn't come.
"Yeah? You need a hand with that?" I asked with
the conviction of a death row inmate's mother.
"Yeah. Yeah, I do..."
Both of us honored an undeclared moment of silence
for the obvious homophobic jokes
that would've ensued in true construction fashion
had times not been so tough in the financial department.
It seemed a terrible waste to pass it up, but we did.
"OK, I'll see ya Thursday morning then."
That's where one of us would've mentioned
leaving the plumber's crack at home to play it safe
or reminded the other to bring his knee pads to earn a tip
but like I said, it was no time for a cheap shot.
"Alright, man. Thanks."
The welding went better after that boost in morale
but I still wanted to ask my instructor if I could go
outside to shovel the snow and then mow the grass instead.
Five more months of welding class, then one more year
of apprenticeship school, followed by forty-some-odd
years of hit-or-miss work in a trade that I fell into
when the Jack Daniel's took its toll.
Damn, it sounded so bleak when I put it that way...
but somehow, so fitting.

on parallel parking and other things you can't handle.

the bone and cartilage
have been replaced
by titanium
and rubber bands
or something
of those natures.

she'll carry a card now
to pass through airport
metal detectors
without raising eyebrows
stripping down
or missing flights.
that's the conversation piece.

and tomorrow she gets
fifty-four staples removed
from her legs
with only local anesthesia.
i'm not jealous
but she'll make it.
she's made it this far.
that's not my story
to tell, though.
even i
draw the line
somewhere.

but tonight when
i stopped by the house
where i used to take naps
between high school classes
and three-hour shifts at a fast food job
i saw her in bed propped up
against three pillows
and noticed that her arms had thinned
her chest had sucked itself in
since going under those new knives
a week-and-a-half ago.

it was hard to see
harder to watch
with opened eyes
and the hug
was categorically weak
as a result.

it's just part of getting
used to the cold
hard fact that
all flowers wither
and eventually

they wilt.



Currently reading:
"Under the Roofs of Paris" by Henry Miller.

They aren't all about this living in sin.

A coworker of mine gave in
and decided to buy my old car
that had been sitting in the back yard
for almost five months
covered in leaves, then in snow.
I was outside cleaning it off
and shoving its contents
into garbage bags
to be assessed at a later date.
She bundled herself up
in at least four layers
and came out back to help me.
It went much faster that way.
A lot of things did.

"Ohhh," she sighed softly while
tentatively stretching her hand
towards the trunk as
we stood there looking
at the old beater
that was almost as vacant as our stares.
I knew what she was feeling.
She didn't need to elaborate.
I won't either.

We walked to the porch
shook the snow off
and entered the warmth of the house.
I went upstairs, undressed
and prepared to take a shower.

Ten minutes later
with the bathroom window fogged
and shampoo lathered thickly in my hair
a knock came at the door.
"Come in," I said while trying not to get
any soap in my eyes.
"How do you make a Midori Sour?"
she asked from the dry side
of the shower curtain.
I spat between my feet and watched it
float towards the drain.
"Melon Liqueur and Sour Mix,"
I said, "shaken with some ice."

"Ohhh," she responded innocently
and for the second time that day
the same syllable made me melt
as I fell, well, you know
all over again.

Non-dairy Creamer

"He'll straighten up
when he finds a good woman."

She puts her coffee down on the counter.

"You've got it backwards."

He rinses out his mug in the sink.

The Kaiser's horses wore gas masks
'cause no one had the heart to tell him.



Currently reading:
"Anthology" by Antonin Artaud.

Bitter Fitter Beer Muscles

His talk about Going Big
never happened.
We just sat there after work
drinking beer for the second time that day
and he only paid for the first round.

So I made sure to leave
the bar while he still had half a pint
still had some other sap
to sop up his war stories.
I was tired of nodding my head
and acting like I hadn't heard them already.
He hesitated to shake my hand
like it was funny.
I stormed out
muttering to myself
something about the money
not being worth the hoax.
It was starting to become
a weekly soul-selling session
and I'm not one for playing the fool
for a wad of bills.

Part of me wanted
to write something witty
in the layer of salt
on his truck--
"Thanks" or something
more direct than sarcastic.
He'd made a fool of me
and a liar of himself
and the others would never
let either of us live it down.
My better judgment kicked in
and I didn't bother.
My better judgment kicked in
and I fixed my doubled eyes
on the tail-lights in front of me.
My better judgment called in sick again.

The one I left him there with
gave me a ring on my way home.
"I'm disgusted" were my first words
but he didn't get it
didn't get that we'd been duped again
for a lousy buck-twenty-a-day.
I let him ramble on for fifteen minutes
as I tried to ignore my bladder.
"My wife called and I excused myself
from the conversation," he said.
"When I came back he was gone."
Typical. A coward's way out.
"Listen, man, I have to go.
My back teeth are floating."
I pulled into the parking lot
of the first fast food joint I saw
and walked straight in
to the men's room to relieve myself.
It felt damn good, it was hard to stop.
I was in my glory for the better part of
one straight minute
and it didn't cost me a dime.

After washing my hands
I got in line and ordered a cheeseburger.
It took longer than it should have
and the kid gave me the wrong change
but I didn't mention it for fear that he'd smell
it on my breath.
Failure, that is.
I walked out to my truck
and noticed that someone
had parked next to me
while I was inside.
The logo of my former employer
of two-and-a-half years
jumped out at me from the passenger door.
I looked through the large window
of the restaurant, but didn't see anyone
worth threatening; he must've ran
to the bathroom to take a Happy Hour leak
as well.

No one in a position to pay me
could be trusted: not past, not future
not ever.

Caveat emptor. Et tu, Brute?

"Screws in the treads," I said to myself
as I pulled into my driveway ten minutes later.
"I should've put screws in the treads."

Brethren?

I worked with this Winner on the last job
who introduced himself
with his first name, followed by "the Plumber"
and I instantly knew.
I just fuckin' knew.

Premature salt-and-pepper hair, crooked teeth.
He had a nervous twitch
and looked like the long-lost
Stallone brother, retard strength
and diminutive size included.

I'd be smoking a cigarette in the parking lot
before walking into the building in the morning
and the inside of his car would light up
with the flick of his Bic.
He didn't smoke cigarettes.
That explained the stupid smile glued to his face
and that annoying beady-eyed giggle in the morning.

His workmanship and attitude were equally
appalling, but the worst part
was that the guy didn't stop talking
for the eight hours straight
that I saw him each day.
And he was a broken record.
He liked the sound of his own voice, too.
At least I don't repeat myself.
Or do I...

One time he told me that plumbing
wasn't about pipes, it was about bullshit.
Suddenly it all made sense.
He was trying to be the best plumber ever
by spewing the most bullshit.
Brilliant.

But the real bomb was dropped
when one of my buddies
who lived in the same town
revealed that the guy had married
his own stepsister.
I imagined that it must be confusing
to fill out Christmas cards
when the family tree is shaped like a ladder.
From then on I just tried not to laugh too hard
especially since he used to brag about
what a freak his old lady was in bed.
The detailed account of the two hundred dollars
he'd recently spent on sex toys, and how
she didn't like the nipple clamps
only made matters worse.
At least the gene pool wouldn't be tainted.

He told me once that he'd done some plumbing
at one of the local prisons
and that the guards there
gave tours of the place and its inmates
like it was a museum.
He said he'd seen Son of Sam
that he was a tiny guy, Danny DeVito in stature
and that he wasn't impressed.
For some reason that statement stuck with me
more than the other three million
maybe because somehow it made sense.
I hear the dog talking too
from time to time
but I choose to ignore it.

When the job ended
and the axe fell on all of our necks
I was secretly relieved.
I wouldn't have to see him again
at least for awhile
until the hall decided
to punish me.

And so now, sir
I say with a clear conscience
that I too
was quite unimpressed

though if at the end
of my lifetime
I don't have enough filler
for my memoirs
I'll venture to write yours
instead.

"We're from the Government, and we're here to help."

There's this steakhouse/cigar shop/tavern near my mother's house that I pass on my way home from work sometimes. The building itself's been around for over two centuries, though I'm not sure how long the business has been there. Driving by every once in awhile gives me hope. Just on the other side of those rustic walls there are people sitting at an oak bar with a mirror behind it, and they're smoking. Cigarettes, cigars, pipes, etc. The State can't intervene because the establishment has superceded the law through the grandfather clause. Besides, there's a powerful exhaust system in the ceiling of the joint that sucks all the smoke up into the ductwork. It's not as blue and gray and beautiful as the bars of yore were, where Hollywood icons over-acted to the point of painful perfection. But every time I take that route part of me wants to stop in to order a stiff drink and light something up. It's harder to resist the urge after work, but I do. I guess it's enough to know that somewhere is still zoned as a safe place to kill yourself. There's a haven for us stubborn health despots. The years of Public Service Announcements did nothing so the Man stepped in and encroached upon our right to self-destructive pleasure, claiming that it was done to protect the waitstaff and barkeeps, but we know better; eighty percent of people in that industry also smoke. There's no point in prolonging the inevitable in pursuit of intangible immortality. Don't save me from myself in the name of my well-being, thank you. Like I said: We know better. Our livers and lungs will never outlive our hearts. Only our regrets will accomplish that feat. Our regrets, and slightly fudged tax records. Drink on, brothers. Smoke on, sisters. There's solace in knowing the end of the story, even though we all lose.


Currently reading:
"The Selected Poems of Kenneth Patchen"

La Piedra Del Relámpago

My mother's brother was visiting from Florida. The two of us were sitting on a plush green couch in the living room of my mom's condo on either side of my grandmother. Catching up never took too long; neither one of us changed much: Uncle Tony was still a suave car salesman with bright narrow eyes under puffy lids, I was still a closet nerd trapped in a construction worker's rapidly aging body. We tended to move the conversation to funny family stories to avoid the tension brought about by rigid social stratification. This time was no different. We were still just as stuck on the same topic as we were stuck in the same respective walks of life. We hated both equally, but wouldn't admit it to the other.

"Has she ever told you the story about that rock on the coffee table?" Uncle Tony asked as he pointed to, well, that rock on the coffee table.

"No, I can't say I've heard that one yet."

My grandmother sat there innocently with her hands folded in her lap. It was not uncommon for people to talk about her like she wasn't in the room due to her hearing loss, senile dementia, and inability to speak anything other than Spanish. The smile on her face put there by the fact that she was in the company of her two favorite men was sincere so I can't say she was staring blankly ahead, but she was definitely staring. Those eighty-eight-year-old eyes were shining marbles, though one was dead and the other didn't work, and as long as they continued to sparkle as they always had we all knew she was still in there somewhere, trapped in her own body. It was a frightening fate, one that we'd all rather avoid with death, but we played it off masterfully like the myth of one's Golden Years was true.

"Mom, remember how you acquired that stone?" he asked her in her native tongue.

"No. I found that?" she asked, as shocked as if someone had accused her of inciting the Holocaust. Small things surprised her anymore, like someone telling her what she'd had for lunch that day. This new bit of information was certain to be a stunner.

Tony commenced the tale and Grandma zoned back out since she couldn't understand a word of it.

"It was five or six years ago, when she still lived on her own in her apartment. There was a bad storm, torrential rain and high winds. She was in her bedroom reading the Bible when all of a sudden a bolt of lightning came crashing down right outside her window. It scared her so much that she instantly leapt backwards in her bed and dropped her Bible to the floor, which she repented for vehemently later." This was where Uncle Tony inserted his first trademark smirk. Like me, he was not the most religious person, and therefore found it funny that someone would beg God's forgiveness for accidentally dropping a book written by mere men.

"I thought this story was about a rock." I was confused, but he wanted it that way. It made for a better telling.

"Oh, it is," he answered in that sly salesman voice of his. Enter trademark smirk number two, right before taking a sip from the glass of scotch that he'd been hiding from the Old Lady behind his leg despite his age. Old habits die hard, and no one wants to let his mother down.

"So then what happened?" I had to know, the mild suspense was killing me as I glanced at the perfectly round stone sitting on my mother's coffee table and wondered about its mysterious origin.

"Well, she put on her raincoat and walked around her building to the woods behind her apartment. She'd seen exactly where the lightning had hit, she wanted to find the rock." Sip number two, grin number three. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to drool in anticipation or ask if it came with power windows. He was good at his craft.

"The rock?"

"Yeah, you know...The rock inside a lightning bolt. That's what causes the damage to trees and whatever else the Lightning Rock happens to hit; at least that's what they told her when she was growing up Puerto Rico."

Grandma's eyes lit up momentarily at the mention of her precious island, but soon dulled back into oblivion when she realized she'd never see it again in this lifetime.

"Man, that's pretty funny." I didn't know what else to say. Back at the age of eighty-two she still believed in childhood myths; by eighty-eight she probably had some even more outrageous theories, though no one would pay enough mind to listen to a crazy old woman who repeated herself incessantly. No wonder she'd threatened to throw herself down the stairs during stubborn fits of helpless rage before. Losing ones mind seemed a cruel way to end a hard-won life, but at least she was being taken care of by my mother and not thrown into some nursing home. The whole experience had led my mom to ask me to kindly Old Yeller her out back if she ever got that bad when her turn came to grow gray. I promised her a spot in my shed, no euthanasia.

"Sure, it's funny, except for the part about an old woman crawling around on her hands and knees in the rain. She didn't give up until she found it, or what she designated to be the Lightning Rock. Back when she first told me the story she said it took her ten minutes."

"At least she found it." I reached for a cocktail that wasn't there.

"Yes. Yes she did."

Uncle Tony let that infectious chuckle slip out from under his thick moustache. I joined in a-fraction-of-a-second later when it had been established that it was safe to laugh at the ordeal. Hell, even the Old Lady giggled a bit, though that might have been due to whatever was or wasn't racing through her head.

Tony wet his lips with the slowly diminishing contents of the tumbler and proceeded to tell her the story, her story, so she could know what she was laughing at with us.

For some reason it didn't take as long to tell in Spanish.
It never does.

She spread her lips and showed me those spotless dentures as she nodded her head in affirmation.

The three of us turned our heads towards the table simultaneously and looked at that smooth gray stone as if responding to some silent cue. At least one of us swore that the Lightning Rock was looking right back. That's how I'll choose to remember her.

"The Time Traveler's Wife"

"It's not fair, I'm always sleeping or drunk."

"It's easier that way."

"Why?"

"Because it'd be hard to write you in completely."

"You manage to write in some other girls just fine..."

"They're not girls, they're the collective Antichrist."

"Stop, I'm being serious."

"So am I."

"Look, why can't you just write a nice one about me?"

"I have. I do."

"I mean where I talk, and say things that I really said."

"That'd be boring, no one likes reality."

"Then why do you write about it?"

"I don't, only two-thirds of it."

"And the rest?"

"How I perceive it to be, or how it could be worse."

"How dismal."

"I disagree."

"What else is new..."

"Look, you knew getting into this that I wouldn't give it up."

"I'm not asking you to, I never would."

"And that's why I love you."

"I hope there are better reasons."

"There are."

"I'm in your bed reading and you're at your damn computer."

"That's correct."

"It's cold over here by myself."

"I'll go turn the heat up."

"No. Stop conjuring this fake conversation. Come here."

"OK."

And the rest actually happened, but I'm no kiss-and-tell.
Well, not entirely.

Darwin must've done this.

Snow hadn't starting falling yet
and I was beginning to wonder
if the weather men were lying again.
When I'd raised the blinds ten minutes before
she'd groaned as she covered her head
with the blanket before rolling over.

"Close that."
"It's eleven. We've slept enough."
"I'm not done."
"Fine, I'll read for awhile."

My back was sore from work
and propping myself up against
two pillows to read in bed
wasn't helping matters.
I put the book back on my night stand
and peered through the window.
Still no snow, the frauds.
And they made more than I did somehow.

But there was some movement
on a limb of a tall pine tree standing
next to my house.
A big old crow was raising and lowering
its shoulders as it gave its undivided attention
to some unknown object in its grasp.
I lazily watched the bird in a daze
as she started snoring next to me.

Two minutes passed in this manner
until the crow's folly was revealed.
A small beige dinner roll slipped from its grip
and tumbled to the ground through the branches
hitting several on the way down.
My gaze fixed itself to the spectacle
more intently as I anticipated
the crow's distressed swoop to recover
the meal that had been occupying its time.

That never happened.
The crow didn't even seem agitated about its loss.
It never even looked down.
It was as though the bread had never existed.
I was jealous of the wise bird's selective indifference.

"Shut the blinds, Honey. Let's go back to sleep."
The covers had learned to speak in the interim.

In equal parts honor and shame
I complied that time.
Who was I to make decisions for both of us?
A feathered scavenger had stronger will-power.

We slept until two in the afternoon.
By then the flakes had started to fall.



I know, I know.
I don't get it either.





Currently reading:
"Shakespeare Never Did This" by Charles Bukowski.

Matthew, Mark, and John

The ride upstate took longer
than I'd anticipated.
College dorms were more cramped
than I'd remembered them being.
But she was more beautiful
than the pictures had told me.
It wasn't always bad to be wrong.

"My friend's boyfriend is coming
to visit tonight, too," she said.
"You'll like him. He's cool
and the same age as you."
I noticed how she seemed to think
we only had the second thing in common.
I didn't blame her.

She was right, I did like him.
We had a lot in common:
he played in a band
and had a long beard
though I'd just shaved mine off
to appear somewhat normal again.
We both had tattoos all over our arms
that neither of us could remove
even if we wanted to.
He even smoked the same cigarettes
that I did at the time.
We hit it off, and that helped relieve the tension
of being surrounded by a bunch of college girls.

It was convenient to have someone
to help carry the beer out of the store.
Hell, it was nice just to have someone else
old enough to buy it.
We were old men, alright--
old men who'd struck gold
with younger women
yet again.

It's one of life's minor victories
that makes up for the pebbles in shoes
and spiders in sleeping mouths.
(Was it seven a year
or seven a lifetime?)

The night was winding down
and I knew the end was nigh
since neither of our ladies
had yet learned to handle their drinks
quite as expertly as we had
through various trials by fire
balancing on the edge of the porcelain god.

"You want to come shower
at my hotel room before they pass out?"
I asked him.
It seemed like the right thing to do, I couldn't
let him get ready for bed in that disgusting
college boys' room with vomit in the urinals
and strange clumps of hair in the sink.
"I'm going to head over there to wash up
before the girls give up the ghost, you're
welcome to come do the same if you like."

"Sure, that sounds good. Have you seen the
shower stalls on campus?"

"No, and I don't plan on it."

We drove back to the hotel.
I let him go first.
The shower started and I heard the toilet flush
three minutes afterwards.
Amateur.
Bukowski kept me company
on top of the cheap comforter
until he came out of the steamed-up bathroom
clothed to the waist.
"I'm all set," he said as he dried his hair.
"Hopefully you left me some towels."
He did.
"And you're supposed to flush the toilet
after you come out of the shower
so people don't notice you had the water running
to cover up the sound of your business."
He laughed.
I didn't.
Universal Man Code was not to be trifled with.

I took my shower, got dressed, and drove us
back to the college campus to round up
our women. Something had changed
but I wasn't sure what.
Maybe we were just tired--
tired, until we said goodnight
only to lay awake restless and yearning
as our drunken significant others snored away
next to us in our respective beds.
The apologies for falling asleep came the next day.
They never matter, though.
Highway miles should earn that honor.

And now eight months later
I hope to see my one-night friend sometime.
He's come, and gone, and probably come again.
I'm lucky to have stuck around the whole time.
The luckiest. Damn that song.

Maybe the two of us could buy beer for the party again
and I'll sneak a bummed cigarette in the parking lot.
I'd like that a lot.
If nothing else he owes me a decent shower
and a few clean towels.
I guess it could be worse.

They only practice medicine.

All I wanted was a shower
a nice, hot shower
but that wasn't in the cards, and meanwhile
my mom was laid up in a hospital bed
with a lovely morphine drip
to ease the titanium pain
where her knees once were.

Did I mention that ice-lined trees remind me
of Vermont postcards and maple syrup?
There.
I mentioned it.
On to more of these strange adventures in basketweaving.

Somewhere on a greasy urinal
Hanoi Jane is screaming out
as a biker lets fly on her face.
That North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun nest
can't help her now.

The current state of affairs leads me to believe
that The Man Upstairs is also into golden showers.
Stay POSI, Ponyboy.

The movie about that brave little toaster
was probably the most depressing thing
I'd encountered until I found out what certain anatomy
was really for, other than urination.

A coworker told me his wife didn't like
the nipple clamps he brought home
but the ostrich tickler
went over huge. Me, I stick to
Modified Mish after dining at the Y
until there's a key change in the porno music.

A refrigerator cluttered with rotten food on the inside
and covered with last year's magnetic calendars on the outside
is exactly why I need to go back to work, but hey--

You, my friend, have been misdiagnosed, and
I wouldn't belong to any club that would have me as a member.