Sable

"I've got some road work for you,"
his deep voice boomed
over the phone.
For a brief second I feared
that meant paving
until I remembered it was February.
"I need you to go pick up some blueprints
for me. I'm bidding a couple jobs."
It was good news for an unemployed plumber.
Besides, anything sounded better
than being confined to the four walls
of my room so I gladly volunteered.

It felt fast doing ninety on the Thruway.
Looking down at the speedometer aged me.
My silver pick-up had some get-up-and-go
but the Blue Bullet easily did a hundred in its time
duct-taped bumper be damned. For a car that was
ten years old and held together by rusted bolts and luck
it held its own. It held a lot. It held what I let go.
Thinking about it then brought a belated smile. It's just not
what the cards held. The exits passed silently until
it was my turn to get off.

I'd never seen a gas pump that worked so inefficiently.
The price rose so slowly that I could count along.
My hand froze in place from holding the nozzle.
I rubbed it with my left one to get the blood flowing again
as I walked in to pay for the fuel. The fifty-spot
he'd given me burned a hole in my pocket. At least
he'd reimburse me for gas and tolls. I was on my own
when it came to that egg sandwich, though.

"Good luck," the tired clerk said as she handed me
the receipt. "Oh wait. You didn't buy a lotto ticket."

"It's OK. I need it just as much," I replied.

She laughed, but didn't mean it.
I took it not to heart.

"Fission"

"Jesus it was cold out there."

"Yeah."

"You sure you don't want me to turn up the heat?"

"No thanks, Joe. I'll be fine once my bones warm up."

"That's all you are anymore: bones."

"I've been eating more."

"Good."

"Yeah."

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"I swore I heard something coming from over there."

"It's in your head. That's all you are anymore."

"Good one. You still want to watch a movie later?"

"Not really."

"What's wrong, Jane?"

"Nothing."

"I know when something's bothering you."

"I'm just worried."

"About what?"

"This is the way I felt last time."

"Last time what?"

"Nevermind."

"Oh. Oh."

"Yeah."

"Well. It's impossible, right?"

"Right."

"I mean you can't be."

"No."

"But if you were..."

"I couldn't."

"I know that. I wouldn't ask you to."

"I couldn't, Joe."

"It's alright. Stop crying. Please? For me?"

"Sorry. You're right. It's probably nothing."

"There! That. Did you hear that?"

"No."

"It came from the closet. Let me go check it out."

"I'm not stopping you."

"No wonder we're still cold. The window's open."

"There's a window in your bedroom closet?"

"Yeah. This part of the house was an addition."

"So?"

"So they built the closet afterwards and left the window."

"Seems pointless."

"But why bother boarding it up?"

"Right."

"Jane?"

"Yes?"

"Did you open the window?"

"I didn't know it was there. I couldn't."

"Right. You couldn't."

THC

My mother had stopped by
after her grocery shopping
to borrow a few books.
The burdens of the tethered housewife
put her in a funk sometimes;
we both agreed that novels
might offer some escape.
They were waiting on my kitchen table
when she came reeling through the door.
A firm hug, my hand through her hair, the
cold still on her scarf stinging my face.
We made small talk as only blood can.

"No! Don't eat those," I warned
as she shoved a chunk of brownie
into her mouth. The fresh batch
my roommate had made the night before
laid on the stove so deceivingly innocent.
"They're doctored. Wait. You might like them."

She sliced a strip off with a butter knife from the counter
and continued to partake of her other form of escape.

"These are good. Can't even taste it.
Tell him to come cook at my house sometime."

I laughed. There was a time I wouldn't have.

A conventional childbirth was out of the question.
My mother still has the C-section scar.
My head was too big when I entered the world
but it's shrunk a bit since then.
Don't let my hat size fool you.


Currently reading:
"The Battle for Spain" by Antony Beevor.

Blame it on poor camera-work.

The first train back upstate
was a bust; the alarm clock
decided to die the one time
I needed it and Grand Central
was too far to make it in ten
minutes, even by cab.
I took my time getting ready
and made the 9:47 instead
which had changed to the 9:52
since I'd checked the schedule
on the previous day. Metro North
has that luxury. The cars
were still mostly empty half an hour
before the departure so I had options
in the seat-picking process.
In lieu of taking one on the east side
of the track I went for the spacious
three-seater on the right. Let the fools
have their river view, I've fallen for
that trick enough times already.
The books are better anyway.
I'd be switching between the stories
of John Updike and a book on
the Spanish Civil War.
I've learned to go the whole trip
without looking up from the pages once.

But on this trek something changed.
A sudden jerk by the conductor
jostled me enough to warrant an upward
glance from the trusty words of Mr. Updike.
We were under a bridge in Westchester somewhere.
A makeshift bed was sprawled out next to a pillar
blankets and shopping bags covering
a tattered mattress that became another man's treasure.
Its owner wasn't present, probably off foraging somewhere.
It's appalling how many people live under the bridge
in the most literal sense in a nation that's so quick
to send foreign aid and fight others' battles.
Mao suggested that we "Civilize the mind
but make savage the body." It seems
somewhere along the way the two got confused.
The angel Azrael comes for all of us eventually.
Those bridgemen don't fear Death, though; it's St. Peter
who'll be fumbling for words.

I went back to my short stories for the rest
of the way north. My stepfather was waiting for me
at the Beacon station. The Spanish Civil War
was an effective topic to curtail the awkward silence
in the car ride to my house where a day of cleaning laid in wait.
He's a history buff. I tried to explain the
Abraham Lincoln Brigade and how Hemingway
was one of the American volunteers who fought
against Franco and fascism, but it he didn't get it.
Maybe I'll lend him the book when I'm done. Maybe not.

If I'd made the 8:47 the bridgeman still would've been in bed.
It's a good thing I was late.

Pelvis

"I'd leave you if you were paralyzed,"
she said after telling me about a distant
cousin who'd grown bitter due to her
decision to stay with her husband
who'd been crippled in a car accident a few
weeks before his thirtieth birthday.
"She has to do everything for him.
They can't even make love anymore."

Funny. She was always so naively innocent
except for in that moment. Marriage never
came up between us, let alone divorce.
My response didn't seem to matter much.

"Yeah. I guess I'd want you to."
The words felt easier to say then
than they are to think about now.
Should I have seen the maelstrom forming?
The bourbon. The razors. The dropping out of school.
But that's another story that I'm tired of telling...

Back to that paraplegic matter.
It was one of those conversations
you have in passing
that sticks out in your mind
years later
because the person fell
out of character
and the topic seems more severe with age.
What is love? Staying or leaving?
Preserving the love you've had
by knowing when to go
or sticking in the ring until the last bell tolls?

Ben got it right: it's watching someone die.
Watching.
Any fraud could turn their eyes.

Drumstick

After chasing her around the room
a few times I finally managed to
trap her in the bed. Whoever assumes
that all rabbits are cuddly little critters
who love human attention is terribly mistaken.
My two-year-old dwarf wants nothing to
do with me and very little to do with anyone else.
The hand that feeds is her favorite to bite;
but at least she does her nails while she's at it.

Let me clarify. Most pet rabbits need to
have their claws clipped from time to time.
If they grow too long they can snap off
during the whole hippity-hop routine
(one of the few stereotypes which is true).
I've had five over the course of my life
and all of them have let me trim their nails.
My current furry friend, however, will
have no part in that endeavour. She won't let me
pick her up, let alone try to cut something off of her.
I didn't want to see her suffer should on of them
break off so I took her to the pet store a year ago
to have the people there have a go at it. One girl
held the bunny down while the other tried (and failed)
to cut her nails. All in all it was a failure and I
still paid the lousy ten bucks.

Then a few weeks ago I decided to make an appointment
with a local vet that had been recommended to me.
It'd cost more than that Hamilton, but would be worth
it if it meant that the rabbit's paws would be protected
from any painful injuries. The day of the appointment came
and I was forced to cancel. Something else came up
that required my immediate attention. Since then I'd been
putting off rescheduling due to my lack of funds
other than the weekly unemployment check
and feeling rather guilty over it.

Tonight, after catching her on my bed
I noticed that she'd taken matters into her own hands.
No longer did her nails protrude from the fur on her paws.
I took a closer look and saw small toothmarks
where she'd bitten them off, essentially giving herself
a manicure since her broke owner wasn't going to foot the bill soon.
I kissed her head in appreciation. She clenched her eyes in disapproval.
The females in my life adapt and overcome my many shortcomings.
I wish they didn't have to, but they do. I hope to pay it back someday.
Don't be fooled by my bellyaching. I'm a lucky man.

Texas toothpick

Woke up with a wicked head
throbbing with Saturday's rum.
I'd won at cards, or had I?
A dagger stuck into the floorboards
next to my bed revealed the blunt attempt
at a mnemonic device I'd made before passing out.
I must've wanted to remember something in the haze
of the morning after and pulled the boot knife
I keep tucked between my mattress and boxspring
to stab into the worn-down grain. It came to me then:
a laughable idea, another attempt to right a wrong
by fumbling further into irreversible oblivion. She'd need
a helping hand from a guy like me like a hole in the head.
And what they said was wrong: I didn't drive her to do it
or to let it be done to her I should say. There's still
accountability, regardless of the weather. I yanked
the black blade from its solid vertical stance and
jabbed it back between the sheets all the while wishing
I had the brass to sink the steel where it really belonged.
Give me a song and I'll sing it. I can't seem to hold this tune.

The Fretboard

In offering
to teach
a friend
a few chords
I thought
of my last
remaining
unsold guitar:
the acoustic
my dad bought
me for my twentieth
birthday.
It sits in
my closet
untouched in its
case
like a sheathed sword
an untold tale
a love that
should've been
but won't.

The songs
the lines
the lives
I could've written
supercede the
ones I've forced.
Sometimes there's
more power
in the potential
to create
than in
the creation
itself.

You can't fall short
of what
may have been;
there's beauty
in that promise.
It's why Red left
his harmonica
unskinned.



Currently reading:
"American Primitive" by Mary Oliver

Lambo

A cop buddy told me once
about a late-night street racer
down on the Island that
the Suffolk County boys
couldn't catch speeding.
They'd be sipping cold coffee
half asleep in their cruisers
on a dark country road
when all of a sudden
something would zip by
through the night
detected only by their radar.
For months they couldn't
make a case of it
until one day the mysterious
Night Rider clipped a deer
and mangled the front end
of his sports car.
When an officer passed by
and found the third-of-a-million-dollar
vehicle immobilized on the side
of the road the pieces began
to fall into place. The driver
failed to hide the night vision goggles
sitting on the passenger seat
of his ride. Up until that night
it boggled the department
how a person could drive at
top speed without his headlights on
but the cat fell out of the bag
or should I say the deer?
It seemed a waste of speed
to not unleash the engine
to its full potential
but the courts failed
to agree. They promoted the patrolman
and impounded the remains
of the Night Rider's car.
The highway department scraped
the deer off the asphalt
and that was the end of an era.
I bought my cop friend a beer
and tried to conjure a whopper
capable of topping his.
I didn't.

George, Martin. George.

I was four or five
and still stumbling around.
He took me fishing
once or twice a week
and I'd lift the catfish
out of our bucket
to show the city kids
at the south end
of Bear Mountain's Hessian Lake
never once being stung
by their poisonous whiskers.
A mantle oversaw me then.

Then one day we graduated
to the mighty Hudson
and for forty-five minutes
he played a giant fish
at West Point's North Dock.
At first he thought it was
a striped bass
but the way the pole bent
and the strength of the beast
led him to believe later on
that it was a six-foot sturgeon
source of precious caviar.
For almost an hour
that sunny Sunday afternoon
he fought against the monster
with both hands
as both eyes were glued
to his young son
playing near the edge
of the dock twenty feet away.
The story goes that he cut the line
intentionally since he couldn't bear
the thought of his child falling into
the river any longer
but I'm not sure if that's
how it happened.
The benefit of the doubt
comes heavily into play.

Behind the trash
can in my room
there's a twenty-three-year-old
photograph that's laid
there crumpled by a drunken rage
for three-quarters
of a year now
and though several folks
have offered to do it
for me I still can't
throw him out yet.
I suppose I owe him that.
He was a better father than his own
but still lost to the cycle.

Beggar's Tale: Confessions of a Rainy-Day Alchemist

2 teachers, a speech therapist
a handful of flustered artists
and a shit-luck alcoholic
walk into a bar...
What do they have in common?
Yeah, that's right-- a starry-eyed
plumber who carries a .40 cal
tucked into his waistband
and wears his heart
up his ass.

But we've wrestled with Death
all night and won. We've tossed back
lions' bones from the mouth of the pit
smirking and laughing and gasping for breath
and we're still not satisfied, you and I.

It's another bluegrass nightmare
in a world too fond of fiddles.
It's a second chance at not wanting
second chances.

I came because I knew you'd be here
and thanked God for the key change.

The Almighty Text Message

A quick glimpse askance
at my second-hand nightstand
while crashing to the bed
reveals an ancient question posed
by those with too much time:
Which is mightier?:
the Glock semi-auto
or the green highlighter
sitting next to it?

Before succumbing to a
nap I know I shouldn't take
I roll over to turn the table's
third occupant on Silent
and come to my conclusion:

It's neither.

An Ode to Susan Mitchell

Fell upon some photos
not entirely by accident
and saw the tell-tale signs:
bruised legs, bad ink, cans
of cheap beer displayed proudly
like badges of courage too stubborn to hide.
She'd been half-way across our great nation
with some greasy white trash half-wit
possibly in a traveling carnival.
There was a time when it seemed
she'd someday surpass her sister's beauty--
now that's out of the question, not that
I ever would've admitted to it had it happened.
And when I made the mistake of
falling upon that other dagger...

We're given one life: somehow
it's both too much and not enough.
There are things for which
you can never apologize. It'd be
unfair to appear again; you bear
it alone and wonder. A checkered floor.
It was always a checkered floor.
Don't fall any further west.
Don't let that scarf unravel.
I'd give that gold back if I could.
I never deserved it anyway.

The closest thing to living.

"So why do you stay?"
they ask me
"Like two cats
with tails tethered together
flung over a line
to tear each other to shreds
in the name of..."
but by then
I cut them off.

"No, not that word,"
I correct them.
"That's far too pragmatic."

"Then what is it?"
they ask, wishing for
a dictionary.

"Do you know
that feeling you get
when you're driving at night
on the left side of
a two-lane highway
and you come up behind
another vehicle at
twenty over the speed limit
and they immediately move
aside for you because they're
assuming you must be a cop
since you're going that fast
and when they realize you're not
and misjudged your headlights
they get back in the left lane
but its too late since
you've passed them already
and are almost out of site?"

"No."

"Then nevermind."

It's only skin.

Last night as I rode down a street near my mother's that I'd driven hundreds of times a funny image came to my mind's eye: myself, age eleven, and my best friend at the time gathering water-damaged sheets of paper in the grass next to the shoulder. Our bikes had been tossed aside without hesitation, once-prized possessions now reduced to second-rate scraps of metal and rubber. "This one's in good shape!" Brian called to me, stuffing the crumpled magazine into his coat. "Her head's missing on the page I found, but that doesn't matter," I may have replied. Cars were passing by us on that busy route, possibly our mothers, so we had to act fast to round up our quarry. "Come on, let's get out of her, Bri," a characteristically nervous pre-pubescent version of myself pleaded once the risk outweighed the reward. We rode our bikes back to whichever fort we currently had in the woods behind our development to examine our new-found booty.

Pornographic magazines were sinful treasures to be cherished growing up in the pre-internet explosion of the mid-90s. They held some answer to a question we weren't quite sure how to ask yet. Sure, we'd seen the naked female form before, but never like this. A full-frontal shot in a late-night movie on a pay channel sent us into a confused state of quasi-innocent bliss. A little bush was all it took. What lied underneath that puff of slightly darker hair, however, was still a mystery; sometimes one that I wish I'd never solved. This is where the likes of Hustler, Esquire and numerous periodicals with grotesquely explicit names came into play. Just what was going on behind closed doors that grown-ups seemed so ashamed of, exactly?

Our mothers may have still bought our clothing, but that made us no saints. We wanted to know what all the fuss was about and would go to extraordinary means to accomplish this goal. Sometimes that meant raiding the secret stash of an older brother that could have single-handedly thrashed both of us at the same time without breaking a sweat. "Sean's not home. I know where he keeps them," Brian would say. Then, depending on Sean's latest hiding spot, we'd raid a sock drawer, lift a mattress, or overturn some large flat rock in the woods down by the railroad tracks. "Here, check this one out," my partner in crime would say, handing me a folded nudie mag that he'd just peeled from a shopping bag used to keep out whatever moisture the rock failed to protect it from. "The blonde on page 42 looks like that student teacher in Mrs. Pringle's class." At that point page 42 couldn't come fast enough as my thumbs flipped frantically to unstick the soggy pages. There she was, in all her glory. No longer would we need to resort to undressing her with our eyes. We knew what Mrs. Pringle's hot little helper looked like in the buff, and that she had some other male fans interested in sharpening their pencils as well. Did people ever do that to our moms? They must've, at some point, otherwise we wouldn't be here. At times the revelation was a bit too much to handle. Even now at age twenty-five it's rather unsettling.

Once we were done perusing the stash we'd return the magazines to their temporary resting places as if they'd never been touched. Kids are just as sneaky as adults, they often leave things a certain way to know if they've been handled by someone else. It wouldn't be a crime brought to the attention of Brian's mother for obvious reasons. Sean would seek his own justice in the form of our pummeling; well, Brian's, but Brian would be sure to include me in the sentence with a simple "It was his idea!" since pain, like misery, loves company. In retrospect, it may have been a terrible idea touching those soiled pages at all, regardless of the danger. Sean was a few years older than us and may have discovered the true purpose of pornography. Just what exactly was he doing with the door locked all the time? I'll leave it at that for the sake of this one's light-hearted nature. Perhaps I've already said too much.

Just as wars are fought over and debts are paid with money, the sacred porno books were used as a form of crude currency. If a friend made you mad to the point of irreconcilability there was one place you could hit him where it'd truly hurt. Stealing, exposing, or (gasp) defiling ones collection was a blow dealt only to those with whom there was absolutely no chance of any future peaceful relations. Likewise, a truce could often come about through the gracious presentation of a valued piece. Then, of course, there was the amiable trade brought on by sheer boredom with ones own array of two-dimensional naked women. Think of it as a less traditional wampum, minus the ceremonial smoking of the peace pipe. Brian found the latter later on in life. I too found one, though in an unexpected place that led to further questions, spurred another mystery, fueled another fire; but we'll leave that alone for a later date.

And Brian, if you're out there, I'm sure you've learned the same thing about the three-dimensional variety: most of them are better as someone else's problem.

A laid-off Desk Potato rescued by Civic Duty.

The summons came
in the mail yesterday
seemingly a curse at first
but now that the expected agitation
has run its natural course
and fizzled out
I've come to believe
that next week's Jury Duty
may be a blessing in disguise:
at least it'll force me
to put pants on every day.

Embracing the Rag.

Fill Glass half-way with Ice.

Pour:
1 part Vodka over Ice.

Add:
2 parts Tomato Juice
2 Tbspn Horseradish
3 dashes Hot Sauce
1 dash Worcestshire Sauce
1 squirt Lemon Juice
Salt + Pepper to taste.

Shake vigorously, garnish with Celery or Lemon.


It won't get you where you want to be, but my God is it delicious...Just don't tell your friends.

amputations

Some has-been made a fool
of himself on the blaring TV
as the five of us sipped hard
for our own respective reasons.

A lull evoked a question:

"Would you ever get
a meaningless tattoo?"

"Most of mine
don't mean much anymore."

Some has-been made a fool of himself
and begged for that sweet castration.

Blood in His plumbing.

Haiti had a
seven-point-oh
on the Richter
its worst in two
hundred years.
It's another
reminder
of our angry

God who loves

to kick those
who are dark
and down.

Stooltop, pre-Happy Hour

"They used to add
saltpeter to
prisoners' food
to kill their libidos."

"Get outta here."

"It's true. Now they
use turkey
to make them tired.
Trouble is it does
the same thing
to the guards."

"Well let me tell you
why I worry
about what they say
happens once they eat
the wedding cake."

"The end of an era."

"Use it or lose it."

"Or both."

"Do you know what
the praying mantis
does afterwards?"

"At least it's honest."

"At least it's quick."

"Donna, get him another one."

"Thanks, Andy."

"You need it more than I do."

"Should I send the postcard here
or to your house?"

"Whichever she feels best."

"Then neither."

Writers and the women who've loved them.

There's a black-and-white
photograph in the first few pages
of my Robinson Jeffers book.
He's sitting in a wooden chair
wearing a checkered suit
and loosened white collar
reciting lines to his equally withered wife
as she transcribes his poetry.
He went blind at the end, the poor old hawk.

And the same with my first friend Fyodor.
Good ol' Dos lost his vision, too
but he had a hot young vixen
one third of his age
to write his last lines down.
That final masterpiece of his
never made it to the publisher.
The experts say it was supposed to be
the sequel to "Brothers K", but
I'd like to think that it was something
pornographic, something mildly obscene
just to get that little honey's panties
in a frenzy. That beard didn't reek
of vodka alone when they put
Dostoyevsky in the ground.

Sorry, Robbie.
The Russky's got you beat.
But hey, if it's any consolation
I'm lucky if my old lady
even let's me use the damn typer
since the clickety-clack conflicts
with her beauty sleep.
She's a keeper, though. I swear it.
I'll just need a room to write in
when it's time to buy a house.

Game. Set. Match.
And if she were here
I'd be sleeping on the couch.

The local bookstore's closing and I'm not at all surprised.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

A pipewrench in the cogs of Democracy.

The apprenticeship committee seems to think they have a free supply of slave labor at hand. Us plumbers in training may be eager to lend our services for a valiant cause, but most of the assignments we've received through the years have been of question. There always seems to be some underhanded deal behind the scenes, some personal gain for an unkown string-puller somewhere, some hidden agenda that the likes of us "lower than whale shit" peons aren't to question. This year's "community service" was no different.

They told us we'd be running a phone bank for a local politician whose name we've all seen plastered throughout the county for years. His incumbent status made our efforts feel futile; this guy's been entrenched in his office like a tick between the rolls of fat on a dog's neck for years. In no way did he need our help. That was not the worst part of the task set before us, however. Once again it was the age-old story of the ends not justifying the means. "Phone bank", you see, is a pretty little euphemism for "glorified telemarketers who call during dinner hours". Nobody likes receiving those calls in the evening while trying to enjoy a meal or unwind on a recliner after a long day's work. In fact, if some stranger were to harass me via telephone in the name of some politician I'd probably be even less likely to vote for him. That's why I didn't feel so bad about dialing my own number over and over again on the provided touch-tone phone and pretending the recite the speech the political organizers had handed out to us. "Hello, my name is (blank) and I'm calling on behalf of (so-and-so) to ask you to come out and vote on November Fourth..." Sometimes I'd mix it up by cutting the lines short and shaking my head, a forced frown on my face. It was more convincing if I acted like people hung up on me once in awhile.

When the Higher Ups weren't looking I'd sit back in the cushioned swivel chairs of the campaign headquarters and peruse the list of names and numbers. There were pages upon pages of county residents, I couldn't believe the effort involved. It made me wonder how the information was gathered. Another third-party records salesman perhaps? I recognized some last names common to the region and wondered if they were of any relation to the people I knew. A Pungello from Washingtonville, a Barber from Middletown, a long list of Roses. Then there was a girl I used to know in the Biblical sense from time to time post-party during my drunken rabble-rouser days. Funnily enough, her number was one of the few not listed next to its corresponding name. I took it as a sign not to bother calling her toll-free to catch up and apologize for the blunders of youth. She was one of the few who was older than me anyway, and therefore inherently wiser. I'm sure she's since forgiven me; at least that's what I tell myself.

Naturally there were the funny names. I can't remember all but one of them, thankfully the best one. I'm assuming the man was of Indian descent, maybe Pakistani. The most logical explanation for the poor choice in surname would be a foreign origin. I hoped for his sake that he immigrated here after completing high school in his own country of birth. If not, I'm sure he suffered a world of pain in the form of locker room mockery. "Hey there, Ramdass. Feeling a little sore this morning?" I highlighted his name on my list and passed it along to the other apprentices. A violent chuckle usually came after reading the man's name, or sometimes just a sympathetic snort. By the time the sheet of paper got back to me it had been adorned with an accompanying cartoon devoted to the irony of Mr. Ramdass's name. I'll leave that illustration to your imagination, though; I opt for the written word to express myself. Everyone works best in his own particular medium.

Oddly enough, I think I was the only one of my apprental brethren to refuse to actually call anyone. It's not that I have a problem with authority, it's that I don't believe in advocating for a political campaign that I know very little about simply because my union has told me to do so. As far as I know that politician won his silly election regardless. And me? I got to miss a night of plumbing class, washed three slices of free pizza down with half a liter of equally free Coke, and got these five paragraphs out of the deal. Milk 'em for what you can, brothers.

A Penny-Pincher's Gift

I found it in the foyer closet at my mother's house two weeks ago and already it's a bust. At first I was excited: a normal black zip-up hoodie that my father must've given me ten years ago. He had an obsession with giving me coats, jackets, and sweatshirts-- always at least two sizes too big. This long forgotten one, however, fit perfectly when I tried it on. "Oh, that looks good on you," my mother said as I checked for fit. Thankfully, the small logo on the chest was gray and tasteful; most of the stuff my father bought was bright, gaudy, and of brands more becoming of a downtown drug dealer's wardrobe. A modest piece like this one was a rare find. After three years of silence between us it seemed a sub-par delayed parting gift, but one that would be accepted.

As the weekly nightmares about him suggest, however, Charlie always wins.

The Better Half and I were getting ready to leave her mother's house after an impromptu dinner get-together. I went to the bedroom where our jackets had been tossed and donned my new black hoodie. After washing my hands in the bathroom I took a moment to inspect the garment in the mirror above the sink. That's when it dawned on me: I'd been had. I heard him laughing the last laugh.

"What's wrong with this picture?" I asked my girlfriend and her mother, spreading the front of the sweatshirt out for them by pulling on the elastic band along the bottom.

"Nothing. Why?"

"Look at the gray patches," I said with an admittedly defeated smirk.

"The ones on the shoulders?"

"No, near the pockets."

"Oh..."

There was a small gray triangle under the left pocket, but none under the right. My old man loved to shop at the local clothing store outlets. This must've been one of the factory rejects that he pulled triumphantly from the bargain bin. It fit his modus operandi perfectly. Even in death he wins. He's still breathing, but a man who denies his son's existence may as well be underground, at least to that son.

"Really, it's not noticeable," they tried to console me.

"Maybe not, but it's fitting," I replied before explaining the painfully comic backstory of why it made such sense.

Sure, I'll still wear it. But damn, Dad...for a few weeks I thought you may have done something right for a change.



Currently reading:
"The Early Stories: 1953-1975" by John Updike.

You never forget your last.

I'd only planned on stopping by for a few minutes-- just long enough to drop off her plastic food containers and have some face time with my stepfather. They'd found spots on his tongue that day at the dentist's office. My arrival would show my support. The small unsaids go a long way. Most people don't realize that.

"Alright, ma. I gotta run." I'd considered leaving the truck running as an excuse, but decided not to dig that deep for a ticket home. "Kristen's waiting for me." Not entirely a lie, though she was quite fast asleep in my bed.

"Give me a hug. Thanks for coming by." She squeezed the backs of my arms. The look in her eye seemed to say "I'm the only one who still touches these who remembers them before they were covered in tattoos." Hell, even I don't sometimes.

"He'll be OK. It's probably nothing."

"Yeah. I know you say you don't Believe anymore, but..."

"I will."

It's hard to deny a woman a prayer, even for a lost soul. His father died of throat cancer. They say it's in the blood.

"You wanna run upstairs and say Hello to your grandmother before you go?"

Truthfully, I'd been avoiding it. The old lady was already tucked in at the late hour of six in the evening and her Alzheimer's caused us to have the same conversation every time we met. It was usually about food and my need to eat it while visiting. A Puerto Rican mother's primary concern is feeding her family, even when she's too old and senile to be trusted with the gas stove.

"I would, but I really gotta get going..."

She gave me a look while saying she understood, the two of them contradicting each other. I closed the front door gingerly behind me before coming to my senses. One never knows how many Hellos one has left when it comes to a person of ninety. I turned around and went back inside.

"I couldn't leave."

"Come on, I'll go upstairs with you," my mother said. "She'll be so happy to see you." That look in her eye recognized the son she'd raised regardless of the scars, self-inflicted or otherwise.

"Look who I have here, mom," my mother said as my grandma rolled over in bed to greet us. Her gown was soft and fuzzy like something you'd see in a hospital nursery. Life comes full-circle.

"Oh, my love!" she exclaimed in Spanish. "How good it is to see you. I was thinking of you today. Have you been staying safe at home?"

My mother and I looked at one another accusingly. This must be where the paranoid gene came from.

"Yes. Always." I bit my lip at the absurdity.

"Good, good. And how is your mother doing?" my grandma asked.

My mother, her daughter, glanced sideways at me. "Sad, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said through a still mouth like a disheartened ventriloquist.

"Mom, this is my son. I'm his mother. Remember?"

"What? Really? But I raised him when he was little."

"Yes, you took care of him often, but he's mine."

The three of us laughed uncomfortably. It's hard to watch and harder to ignore the unraveling of a once-sharp mind.

"He has to get going now. His girlfriend is at home making dinner."

"Yes, he should go eat," my grandmother said with the severity of a subpoenaed minister.

"Goodbye, grandma. I love you."

"I love you, too," she said with a dentured smile.

My mother turned her bedroom light off before closing the door. The blue glow of the television shone under the door as we stood in the hallway for our debriefing.

"It was only a little lie to get you outta there. I know she's really sleeping."

"Thanks, mom." I said as I jostled down the stairs to leave. "I'll see you next week."

We say that with an unjustified confidence. One has to believe in something.

Butterface

It's been almost four months since I've worked. Probably should've read more by now; don't have much to show for my time creatively, either. That's the nature of these things, though. Something about a daily routine helps ensure that things get done. In this lazy laid off mode of mine I get around to things when I please or blow them off entirely. Not much seems to matter when you're living on the State's dime. In one of my feeble attempts at changing the pace I skimmed some old notes I had jotted down over the summer when I was renovating the heat system at North Junior High. It's a story my laborer buddy told on coffee break one morning. Must've stuck with me, but never found its way to the surface. Here's what I remember:

There was a female worker on a road crew somewhere in town. She was your typical lady laborer: lean, mean, and far from pretty. Her body was hard and sinewy, yet feminine enough in the right places, but something about her face threw off the whole package. I'm not sure if the proportions were wrong or there was some gross abnormality, but whatever it was it excluded her from a modeling career. From what I gather she's not one you'd tell your friends about the next day. All of that changed in an odd stroke of luck.

Some ditzy broad was driving through the construction area while applying make-up one day. Her distracted state caused her to veer off to the left where our poor little flag girl was standing. Sure enough the blonde's side-view mirror whacked the laborer square in the face, breaking bones and tearing flesh. The driver sped off before anyone could get a license plate number. Fortunately, her boyfriend must've come from equally brilliant stock. He showed up on the job later on that day asking for money for the damaged side-view mirror. The guys dropped their shovels and rakes to respond accordingly. When the cops showed up half an hour later an ambulance was called. No incident report was filed. Justice had been done.

But this isn't a tale of revenge. It's more the Happy Ending sort. With the money from the lawsuit our lucky little laborette was able to get plastic surgery, both reconstructive and cosmetic. Once the doc liften his scalpel for the final time and pulled the last stitch tight she was a regular bombshell. The guys on the job barely recognized her and lonely men passing by in their cars were more than willing to obey her traffic commands. I'm not sure if that mirror ever got fixed, but its owners boyfriend did finally regain use of his limbs after a few months of physical therapy. I didn't say everyone won; someone always has to lose in a truly happy ending.

Now send me back to work, Bobby. I need more yarns like these.

Read the classifieds instead.

For those of you (the dwindling germs...gems)
who've asked
where I've been (licking wounds that haven't come yet)
as of late:

There's a time (it comes, like spring, it comes)
I've learned
when I shouldn't do this:
when I might
be fool enough (don't laugh)
for the truth.

Sing it a capella, friend. (used loosely, of course)
I'm sure that you still can.

An early sign went undetected.

Over on the neighbor's porch
there's a cat that's been pacing
in the two inches of snow (and counting)
trying to scratch its way
through the sliding-glass door.

If only it were eleven already
I'd be watching with a drink in hand
and a chuckle in my gut
well aware of my status
according to the experts.

Embrace what you are.
It's all you've got.

trite and rote in equal parts

"It's like green eggs
and ham," she said.
"You love it or
you hate it."

The cavalry?:
A laugh.
A fairytale to put kids to sleep.

Like breaking plans with friends
and dodging family functions...

Languish:
What a perfect word.

And what am I
to mention now?
Lots of the best
has come from Here
but I can't rack my brain
for the strokes that won't be coming.
The lights? The sirens? The whores?
I can find them anywhere, and have.

I'd rather hide out
between blanket and fan
waiting for the night shift to end.
Take me home, Montezuma.
You can drive my truck; I'll sleep.

"It's more like that cartoon," he sighed.
"An elephant's promise:
one hundred percent."

sans confectionary

In certain lighting
and from certain angles
I swear I'm back in time
though I darenot say where
exactly.

...was the son of a preacher man.

Charlie dragged me along
to a lot of his Born Again functions
when I was a child too young to say No.
Playing catch in the yard
during weekend visitation
was not to be expected; "revivals",
"retreats", "seminars", "conferences"
and many other synonyms
for "Holy Roller nonsense"
were. I saw people "speak in tongues"
and pretend to pass out
when the traveling magicians
would lay their annointed hands
upon the sinners' heads.
In retrospect it was disgusting--
the farce of all farces
based on insecurity.

It seemed each guest speaker
each "minister"
(and I'll refrain from further
quotation marks to avoid redundancy
though you can assume they
are implied)
had some gimmick to set
him apart from the last prophet
or apostle to roll through town:
a new mantra for weak souls
to live by, a fresh-pressed pinstripe suit
or a direly important word from the Man Upstairs.

But it dawned on me today
some ten years since
I've set foot in a church
for anything other than
a secular tradition
that all of those men
had one thing in common:

breath so bad it
would've raised Lazarus.

Snow behind closed doors.

The bedroom door was locked
for a few disheartening minutes
at the party's drunken zenith--
it raised several stiff eyebrows
among the dizzy cocktail crowd.

"What's going on in there?"
a drinking buddy asked me.

"No idea," I lied, sucking harder at my rum.

The truth would've made me
seem quite the sudden hypocrite;
I prefer the slow-burn method:
such a tasteful crucifixion.

When the door opened again
we saw the tell-tale mirror compact
as it checked for evidence
but pretended not to notice.

"They were discussing Christmas presents,"
I fibbed through crooked teeth, well aware
he didn't give a damn about my gifts or me.
"All top-secret stuff."

That second line wasn't a stretch.

It's harder to feign naivety
than it is an air of splendor.

Take your pills.

Herbert Krinkstrom sipped what was left of the instant coffee he'd made and put the empty mug down on the night stand. His wife, Marlene, had recently made him switch to decaf. A mound of pillows supported him as he leaned back against his bedroom wall and sighed to himself. He knew Marlene be coming home soon. That woman was like clockwork. If only he could have a few more minutes of peace.

"Herb? Herb, why isn't the water running?" came her shrill voice through the foyer. She had barely been in the house for five seconds before she noticed his failure to comply. Could she hear the plumbing's silence through the brick exterior walls of their house? "Herbert, you know I like my bath at eight-thirty. Why can't you manage to get anything right?" Her words trailed off as she disappeared into other regions of their brownstone in search of nits to pick regarding the many short-comings of Herbert's less-than-productive day.

"Guilty, your honor..." he whispered to himself as he scrambled down the hall to draw her bath.

"What was that?" Marlene shrieked from some unknown location. "Herbert, I may have to start leaving you a list on the refrigerator. If this marriage is going to work, then..."

But he'd already closed the bathroom door behind him; gingerly, of course.

Herbert Krinkstrom sat on the edge of the cast-iron tub with his wrist under the faucet. If Marlene sprung through the door and caught him ignoring the water's temperature it'd be curtains for his evening. The detective program he'd planned on watching later on that night would no longer be for his viewing pleasure. If Herbert didn't straighten out his act, and quickly, Marlene would force him to watch her shopping shows. He knew this from prior experience.

The tub was finally three-quarters of the way full so Herbert withdrew his wet wrist and turned off the tap. Steam rose from the tub in what appeared the be the same rhythm as his heartbeat. Was he having another anxiety attack? Marlene wouldn't like it if she had to take him to the hospital again...

Rising to his feet, he reached for the make-up mirror on the vanity. It was a free-standing round affair, a thin rim of blue glass surrounding its circumference. The glass was dull and smooth like it had been washed by years of waves. Herbert though back to the sea-glass he and Marlene found on the beach during their honeymoon. It seemed like ages ago. He smiled briefly, until he remembered how that vacation ended.

Herbert lifted the round mirror to his face for the first time ever. To his horror his nose appeared to be elongated and bulging at the sides, his pores dark caverns filled with unflattering bodily oils. It must be magnified on this side, he thought to himself as he flipped the mirror around. Why would women want to intensify their flaws? No wonder they had insecurity issues. No wonder he was so miserable. No wonder half the male population of the city seemed to be homosexual.

"Herbert, stop zoning out with my mirror and fetch me some fresh towels," Marlene nagged. He hadn't even heard the bathroom door open. Maybe that doctor was right. The episodes seemed to be getting worse. No one would have to know about the prescription. No one but Marlene, of course.

"Sorry, dear," he plaintively replied. "I'll be right back."

By the time Herbert returned from the linen closet his wife was already in the tub. Five years into their marriage they stopped making love, eight years in she stopped undressing in front of him, and now she barely admitted to having a vagina at all. As long as things flowed undisruptedly Herbert didn't mind so much. He'd gone without sex for most of his youth; he could manage again in middle-age.

"Marlene, I...I'm sorry to have to ask this, but I really have to..."

"Oh, go ahead and use the toilet, you brute. You had all day to urinate! Why'd you have to wait for me to get home? You know how important my bath is to me, but you completely forgot to have it ready. Now I'll have to hurry if I'm going to catch the beginning of my shopping program..."

Checkmate. The shopping show. If a life-sized queen were in the room he would've knocked it over, preferably right onto his loving wife reclining in the tub.

"...and make sure you sit down while you do your business. I don't want to hear that awful tinkling sound while I'm trying to unwind after a hard day's work. Work. Ha! Remember when you used to do that, Herbert?"

His blood pounded in his temples as he sat on the toilet seat biting his lower lip until he tasted copper. The blow-dryer was still plugged into the outlet next to the sink. Maybe he could toss it into the tub and make it look like an accident. Hell, even prison would be better than this, he thought.

Once the final drop was squeezed he stood and buttoned his pants. It'd only be two hours until he got to go to sleep. That was the only thing keeping him from a jury of his peers and a twenty-year sentence in a medium security country club.

"You're not going to leave that in there, are you?" Marlene asked snidely, shattering Herbert's pleasurable prison fantasy. "Flush that vile stuff!"

"Sorry, my love," Herbert replied in a tone far from autonomous. He pushed the lever down and the contents of the bowl splashed out onto his leg as the violent flush cycle commenced.

"Now look at what you've done to your pants, you slob!" Marlene yelled, her hair lathered with shampoo. "You've truly gotten worse, Herbert. These zombie spells of yours are starting to worry me. Maybe it's time..."

He wasn't listening anymore. His Happy Place descended onto his consciousness like a warm blanket. Seaweed, Herbert thought to himself. He wanted to be reborn as a tiny clump of seaweed waving gently on the ocean floor. Even at the Jersey Shore.

"...and when you're done putting those filthy pants in the laundry basket why don't you go and call that plumber friend of yours and see if he can come fix our toilet tomorrow?"

"Joe's not in town, Marlene. He and his wife went..."

"Oh, for crying out loud! Enough with the excuses. Why can't I have a normal marriage with a responsible husband who takes me on vacations like Mrs....Mrs...What's Joe's last name again? Herbert? Herbert, come back here!"

As he cut the cable connection behind the television set Herbert Krinkstrom smiled knowing he didn't have any electrician friends. Marlene would have to lie through her lipstick tomorrow on her coffee break at work when the other women chatted about those stupid shopping shows.

The barristas sighed in unison, rolling bloodshot eyes.

"Babe, that's him!" I said
almost choking on my
Chocolate Truffle Espresso.

"Who?" she asked
turning around in her seat.

"Albert Taylor," I answered.
She knew the name well.
I'd mentioned him every time
we passed the McDonald's on
Eighth Ave where Albert and I met
three months ago at four in the morning.
I'd been chasing shots of Sambuca
with gin-and-tonics for five hours;
he'd been talking to himself
in busy fast-food restaurants
for a few decades.
Somehow the playing field
was leveled.

When I stumbled through
the Golden Arches
in a non-discerning search
for breakfast food or cheeseburgers
Albert caught my ear, my heart, my liver.
He was muttering to himself about
Xerxes, Thebes, Alexander the Great.
A sheet of music and three wrinkled
newspapers sat on the table
in front of him, a cup of black coffee
in his left hand.

Al was one of those intriguing black men
who could've been anywhere from fifty
to seventy-five. His melon-colored button-down
meshed nicely with the pinstripe suit he wore
and his gnarled, broken teeth sat between
his heavy lips making him resemble
a jabbering hippopotamus.
I sat across from him for at least two hours
listening to his passionate soliloquies
as I ate my Deluxe Breakfast Platter
washed down with orange juice from concentrate.
Twice I offered to buy him something
perhaps a refill for his Joe
but he fervently declined.
All Albert wanted as a soul to talk to, or at
and I was in no shape to refuse
let alone walk back and figure out
which of the three keys
opened their three respective locks
to her apartment.

By the time I managed to escape
the sun was coming up over
the jagged city skyline.
He was talking about the laws of Logic
after my failed attempt to explain the
Law of Syllogism when I finally interjected:
"Albert, the Law of Woman says I'd better
be getting home before mine starts to worry."
He kept on rambling as I rose and donned my coat.
I'd done my part in terms of exiting politely.
He'd done his in helping me sober up a bit.
The odds were in my favor again.

When I told her about my fascinating encounter
she shook her head and said I shouldn't
talk to crazy strangers while drunk
and alone in public. The beauty of
the scene was lost in my poor explanation
as is often the case with my limited abilities.

But now the man was back.
Out of seven million people
bustling about the Isle of Manhattan
I had chanced to stumble upon
this unmistakable individual yet again.
It seemed a gift from God.

"I want to say Hi," I told her
with naive enthusiasm.

"Don't bother. He won't remember you,"
she said snidely between sips.

"I know that. But I remember him.
Come on, I'll introduce you."

"Don't you dare..."

The conversation drifted elsewhere though
my eyes kept drifting back
to Albert's progress through the room.
All the seats were taken
at the overpriced chain coffeehouse
and that was all he'd come for.
After one disheartening lap throughout
the shop he made his way for the front door
and walked back out into the brisk night.
His lips didn't stop moving once
while he was amongst us. Albert
was just as certifiably nuts
as the first time I'd seen him, not that
this came as a surprise.
Part of me was glad to see the man
was still kicking. I thought of
how ridiculous I must've looked that night
sitting at his table listening intently
to all he had to say. Who was truly
the one out of his mind in that scenario?

"I should've said something," I groaned
shortly after his departure. "It's such
a random coincidence to be seeing him again
that it seems like a waste of fate not to act on it."

"No. You're better off leaving him alone."

Too many people already have in his lifetime, I thought.

We left it at that and went back to talk
of Russian literature
and all its confusing characters
and sub-plots. It seemed much
less substantial, though.
Dostoevsky spun in his grave.

Next time, Al.
Next time.



Currently reading:
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" by Hunter S. Thompson

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.