It happened without profanity or breath wasted on goodbyes; It happened shortly after lunch yesterday, and we laughed about it uncomfortably: A disgruntled plumber walked off the job. He told the foreman to get his check, that he couldn't take the lack of tools and constant criticism brought about by the impossible deadline demands anymore. True, this elementary school bathroom renovation gig will only last a month and is not a high-profile resume gem, but considering our local's had more than half its guys on the bench for over a year you'd think any man would be grateful. We all have our breaking points, though; our own tolerance levels. And it's hard not to respect a man who can turn down such an overpriced package. Money isn't everything to some people, even gray-templed functioning alcoholics with child support payments and ex-wives with frivolous spending habits. There is honor among thieves, there is dignity in tradesmen. More importantly, however, there's an unemployment check waiting in the mailbox. But it doesn't have to be that way for all my fellow man.
"I don't want this for my son," my foreman confessed as we walked down the art-lined hallway of the school in which we're working. The irony of these school jobs never escapes me. I wanted to work in one, but not in a blue-collar capacity. Be careful what you wish for, I suppose. "He's bright. I'm hoping he gets into something interesting and fun, something rewarding."
"Come on, now. You don't get satisfaction out of all this?" I quipped. "We're living the dream, brother." The laugh I held back was closer to tears as I rubbed a painful three-inch-wide burn on my shoulder that I'd gotten the previous day while humping ten-foot lengths of cast iron pipe inside after it'd been baking in the sweltering sun.
"He's sixteen and still has a chance," he said soberly, noticing my grimace as I fingered my wound.
"What's he thinking about doing?" I asked.
"All those forensic science crime shows hold his attention."
"Yeah? I took a class on that in high school. It was interesting. I have a good book by a retired Chief Medical Examiner of New York City that he'd probably enjoy. I'll bring it in tomorrow."
"Thanks," the giant Irishman walking alongside me said sincerely. "I bet he'll blow right throw that."
The rest of the day went as usual: the pipe, the plans, sore knees, and sweat-soaked misery. A coworker asked if I wanted to do a side-job with him that night. That turned to two side-jobs, fifteen miles apart. When all was said and done I didn't get home until eleven thirty. The sixteen-hour workday in ninety-degree heat beat my body to a dehydrated pulp. My feet disappeared in the murky water running down the drain when I finally got to take a shower. Disillusionment, fittingly, is a cloud-like shade of gray. I was so exhausted that climbing the staircase to my bedroom seemed too much to ask of my weary body. It's no way to make a living. It's no way to spend a life. I ain't no senator's son, but I don't want to be no plumber's father, either. Before getting into bed I pulled that forensics book from my tallest shelf and placed it next to my wallet on my dresser so I wouldn't forget to bring it in for the foreman's son. There was still hope for him.
The coffee was mostly sugar and milk by the time I pulled into the school parking lot this morning. That's not to say that it's a long drive from my house; I just drink my coffee quickly, possibly for full effect as well as my affinity for the flavor. I retired the styrofoam to the cupholder in the console of my pick-up and opened the book in my lap. I turned to the first blank page and wrote a few lines for a person I'd never meet:
"Don't do this plumbing nonsense for a living, kid. Stay in school and get a real job where you don't come home smelling like pennies every day from running copper." Signed, "Someone else who had potential," with the second-to-last word underlined.
The book found its way to the front seat of my foreman's truck in a casual, discrete fashion as only the best gifts do. I hope it changes a destiny that has yet to be decided. How else can I ensure that I keep the market cornered in the wonderful pipetrade industry? You've got to laugh, degree or none. You've got to laugh or they've taken it away.
Currently reading:
"Operation Broken Reed: Truman's Secret North Korean Spy Mission that Averted World War III" by Lt. Col. Arthur L. Bord (Ret).
7.19.2010
Did the men I love do this in the safety of their bedrooms?
I lay way past my bedtime
in a given orange glow
reading a book of outlaw poetry in my left hand
and flicking open an illegal switchblade
purchased out-of-state
over and over with my right
until both thumbs hurt
for their respective reasons
well-knowing which of the two
is the most dangerous
and resenting the fact
that I'll only ever be part of the other
regardless of my ranting.
It's twelve-thirty.
Do you know where your children are?
in a given orange glow
reading a book of outlaw poetry in my left hand
and flicking open an illegal switchblade
purchased out-of-state
over and over with my right
until both thumbs hurt
for their respective reasons
well-knowing which of the two
is the most dangerous
and resenting the fact
that I'll only ever be part of the other
regardless of my ranting.
It's twelve-thirty.
Do you know where your children are?
Through a lens that's smeared with Thursdays.
Plumber snot is laced
with copper dust and solder paste.
Her body is so hot
that it leaves marks on my skin.
People smell burnt toast
before succumbing to a stroke.
The seagulls fled the fireworks
shot from barges on the Hudson.
My acquittal wasn't clear
so I wore her on my beard.
The red lights will confirm it:
I'm in fact at home in hell.
Raise your head and fill your chest
as you jettison the best.
I've drank with him a dozen times
but he don't know my name.
Rejected from the hive
drones search for food
until they die.
You say that I've had all of you
but now I want the rest.
with copper dust and solder paste.
Her body is so hot
that it leaves marks on my skin.
People smell burnt toast
before succumbing to a stroke.
The seagulls fled the fireworks
shot from barges on the Hudson.
My acquittal wasn't clear
so I wore her on my beard.
The red lights will confirm it:
I'm in fact at home in hell.
Raise your head and fill your chest
as you jettison the best.
I've drank with him a dozen times
but he don't know my name.
Rejected from the hive
drones search for food
until they die.
You say that I've had all of you
but now I want the rest.
7.18.2010
A Little-Known Tale of Cosmic Intervention
For Connecticut it was unseasonably hot. The Krippels hadn't remembered it ever being so humid, not even on their ancient honeymoon to one of the many tropical paradises to which they had ventured back when they still made love every day; at least that's what they'd called it.
"Susanne, I can't take it anymore," John whimpered as he laid in the puddle of sweat forming underneath him in their sheets. "We're getting central air on Monday."
Susanne mumbled something incoherent and unsympathetic in her half-asleep stupor before rolling over to face the wall. She'd had enough wine to help her doze peacefully. She'd had enough of his whine, as well.
Outside their front door a meteorite hovered ominously. It was small, as far as meteorites go, but big enough to leave a car-sized crater upon impact for the authorities to take photos of later that Saturday night between sips of stale coffee.
"Susanne, I'm talking to you. I know you're still awake. You know how much I can't stand being ignored." For a couple with a combined age barely shy of a century they sure seemed to know a lot, according to John's brazen calculations.
Susanne turned to face him, her eyes still closed tightly, and slid her knee between his thighs. It landed within an inch of making him writhe in pain.
The meteorite stood suspended in the thick summer air like a massive orange yo-yo tethered to the finger of an angry god. The hiss of its flaming aura that licked the Krippels' windowsill flowers was somehow inaudible to the unsuspecting couple. It could've been floating there for hours or nanoseconds. The universe does not concern itself with time.
"Susanne, you almost got me good that time. And I don't care if it's not in the budget-- I can't take this heat anymore. I shouldn't have to suffer alone simply because it doesn't affect you as much. Are you listening to me?"
Susanne nestled her head in the crook of John's neck and drifted further into her lush slumber. She dreamt of her husband happily pissing on lightning bugs that were tangled in the unmowed grass of their back yard. An innocent smile formed on her face and kissed John's clavicle, releasing the tiniest trace of saliva on his skin. He forgot why he was so upset, forgot the heat and misery, and remembered why he'd married her so seemingly long ago.
God shook the yo-yo string from His omnipotent middle finger, delivering the Krippels from that unbearable Connecticut summer. Then it was the seventh day. He rested.
"Jess, did you see that shooting star over there?" Billy asked from the back seat of his father's station wagon as the two sat parked in an empty lot with bellies full of fast food and movie stubs in their pockets.
Jess reached forward to turn the air conditioning up, then moved closer to her future prom date. It was 1989 and the world was still relatively safe.
"Susanne, I can't take it anymore," John whimpered as he laid in the puddle of sweat forming underneath him in their sheets. "We're getting central air on Monday."
Susanne mumbled something incoherent and unsympathetic in her half-asleep stupor before rolling over to face the wall. She'd had enough wine to help her doze peacefully. She'd had enough of his whine, as well.
Outside their front door a meteorite hovered ominously. It was small, as far as meteorites go, but big enough to leave a car-sized crater upon impact for the authorities to take photos of later that Saturday night between sips of stale coffee.
"Susanne, I'm talking to you. I know you're still awake. You know how much I can't stand being ignored." For a couple with a combined age barely shy of a century they sure seemed to know a lot, according to John's brazen calculations.
Susanne turned to face him, her eyes still closed tightly, and slid her knee between his thighs. It landed within an inch of making him writhe in pain.
The meteorite stood suspended in the thick summer air like a massive orange yo-yo tethered to the finger of an angry god. The hiss of its flaming aura that licked the Krippels' windowsill flowers was somehow inaudible to the unsuspecting couple. It could've been floating there for hours or nanoseconds. The universe does not concern itself with time.
"Susanne, you almost got me good that time. And I don't care if it's not in the budget-- I can't take this heat anymore. I shouldn't have to suffer alone simply because it doesn't affect you as much. Are you listening to me?"
Susanne nestled her head in the crook of John's neck and drifted further into her lush slumber. She dreamt of her husband happily pissing on lightning bugs that were tangled in the unmowed grass of their back yard. An innocent smile formed on her face and kissed John's clavicle, releasing the tiniest trace of saliva on his skin. He forgot why he was so upset, forgot the heat and misery, and remembered why he'd married her so seemingly long ago.
God shook the yo-yo string from His omnipotent middle finger, delivering the Krippels from that unbearable Connecticut summer. Then it was the seventh day. He rested.
"Jess, did you see that shooting star over there?" Billy asked from the back seat of his father's station wagon as the two sat parked in an empty lot with bellies full of fast food and movie stubs in their pockets.
Jess reached forward to turn the air conditioning up, then moved closer to her future prom date. It was 1989 and the world was still relatively safe.
7.15.2010
Quads and Quivers
Then it came to me
like a punchline understood
days after the joke's been told--
Gabo was right
in at least one thing
despite his damned
magical realism:
the buzz of the cicada
makes the summer heat
feel stronger
regardless of which side
of the equator you claim.
I tried explaining that to her as she slid
her fingertips across my bare chest, my arms.
Women need to be caressed.
Men need some of that too, but prefer
to cut to the chase most times.
The chase doesn't come as often as we'd like.
Marriage is a doomed institution
unless it's between two whores.
It's something we must accept
like the fact that the carpet
rarely matches the curtains
if there even are any.
"I've always loved your legs," she said, moving her hands there
as we stared through the living room window
enveloped by the down-filled cushions of my couch.
"Why are you smiling?" She sounded
genuinely concerned. The other sex is good at that.
"Nothing. It's nothing," but what it really was
was that an old friend, Hank, used to say
how proud he was of his big, strong legs
when he couldn't find any other favorable thing
to scribble about himself, to pound into the keys.
The old buzzard meant it. If nothing else
he appreciated the power left in his legs
at the end of the day, even if nobody was there to notice.
It could've come across as a cop-out
to the amateur fan who read the lines
but those of us who've read enough
to see between them and recognize
the pattern got a quiet chuckle out of it.
Maybe I'm speaking too broadly.
Maybe it's just me.
But hell, if you devour almost forty titles
by one man you'd think you'd be able
to say you know him well enough
to know when he was faking--
another field in which
the fairer sex excels.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. It's nothing."
like a punchline understood
days after the joke's been told--
Gabo was right
in at least one thing
despite his damned
magical realism:
the buzz of the cicada
makes the summer heat
feel stronger
regardless of which side
of the equator you claim.
I tried explaining that to her as she slid
her fingertips across my bare chest, my arms.
Women need to be caressed.
Men need some of that too, but prefer
to cut to the chase most times.
The chase doesn't come as often as we'd like.
Marriage is a doomed institution
unless it's between two whores.
It's something we must accept
like the fact that the carpet
rarely matches the curtains
if there even are any.
"I've always loved your legs," she said, moving her hands there
as we stared through the living room window
enveloped by the down-filled cushions of my couch.
"Why are you smiling?" She sounded
genuinely concerned. The other sex is good at that.
"Nothing. It's nothing," but what it really was
was that an old friend, Hank, used to say
how proud he was of his big, strong legs
when he couldn't find any other favorable thing
to scribble about himself, to pound into the keys.
The old buzzard meant it. If nothing else
he appreciated the power left in his legs
at the end of the day, even if nobody was there to notice.
It could've come across as a cop-out
to the amateur fan who read the lines
but those of us who've read enough
to see between them and recognize
the pattern got a quiet chuckle out of it.
Maybe I'm speaking too broadly.
Maybe it's just me.
But hell, if you devour almost forty titles
by one man you'd think you'd be able
to say you know him well enough
to know when he was faking--
another field in which
the fairer sex excels.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. It's nothing."
7.05.2010
What I'd Give to Go Back
"Conor, say hello to Austin," said Marla, Conor's over-anxious mother and the woman for whom I'd been painting for the last nine days.
A weak "Hi, Austin," slipped quietly from the eight-year-olds pale lips.
Austin nodded his close-cropped, nine-year-old head in the general direction of his new acquaintance. Dave, his father and my boss, kept framing the wall he'd been working on all morning. Laid-off plumbers make better painters than carpenters, though some are surprisingly proficient electricians due to their practice wiring boilers.
"There, now you two go play," Marla suggested in her tentative falsetto. The two boys complied, probably more out of pity than obedience. I kept rolling on the semi-gloss white. Dave kept pulling sixteens to place his studs. The day went on as could be expected, right down to the radio station's predictable playlist.
By the time Marla was ready to leave her apartment house that Dave and I had been renovating for her a definite change had taken place. She summoned Conor from the other room and he and Austin came galloping into the kitchen. The two of them were speaking quite casually and joking in a way that made it seem they'd been backdoor neighbors for years. No one would've guessed that they'd only met an hour ago. There was not an ounce of awkwardness between the two of them. To further the illusion, Conor gave the ol' "Mom, do we have to?" when she told him it was time to leave. "Bye, Austin," Conor volunteered much more enthusiastically than he had upon their initial exchange. Again, though, Austin only nodded. That's the country boy in him. I respect that.
I slathered the thick paint into corners with my brush as the door closed silently behind mother and son. There was nothing left to do but guess the next song on the radio while contemplating the innocence of the meeting that had occurred there on the jobsite that day. Kids, when thrown together, will make fine friends of each other no matter what. Then we grow up and don't even like the people we call friends sometimes. We love them, sure, but it gets harder to like them. Day by day we lose that skill. Year by year we grow weary of that sense of Other. Cynical? Maybe, but try to deny it.
Though through it all, and regardless of age, race, color, or creed, the crane moves its neck faster than the fish moves its tail simply because it has to.
Currently reading:
"Collected Stories of Gabriel Garcia Marquez".
A weak "Hi, Austin," slipped quietly from the eight-year-olds pale lips.
Austin nodded his close-cropped, nine-year-old head in the general direction of his new acquaintance. Dave, his father and my boss, kept framing the wall he'd been working on all morning. Laid-off plumbers make better painters than carpenters, though some are surprisingly proficient electricians due to their practice wiring boilers.
"There, now you two go play," Marla suggested in her tentative falsetto. The two boys complied, probably more out of pity than obedience. I kept rolling on the semi-gloss white. Dave kept pulling sixteens to place his studs. The day went on as could be expected, right down to the radio station's predictable playlist.
By the time Marla was ready to leave her apartment house that Dave and I had been renovating for her a definite change had taken place. She summoned Conor from the other room and he and Austin came galloping into the kitchen. The two of them were speaking quite casually and joking in a way that made it seem they'd been backdoor neighbors for years. No one would've guessed that they'd only met an hour ago. There was not an ounce of awkwardness between the two of them. To further the illusion, Conor gave the ol' "Mom, do we have to?" when she told him it was time to leave. "Bye, Austin," Conor volunteered much more enthusiastically than he had upon their initial exchange. Again, though, Austin only nodded. That's the country boy in him. I respect that.
I slathered the thick paint into corners with my brush as the door closed silently behind mother and son. There was nothing left to do but guess the next song on the radio while contemplating the innocence of the meeting that had occurred there on the jobsite that day. Kids, when thrown together, will make fine friends of each other no matter what. Then we grow up and don't even like the people we call friends sometimes. We love them, sure, but it gets harder to like them. Day by day we lose that skill. Year by year we grow weary of that sense of Other. Cynical? Maybe, but try to deny it.
Though through it all, and regardless of age, race, color, or creed, the crane moves its neck faster than the fish moves its tail simply because it has to.
Currently reading:
"Collected Stories of Gabriel Garcia Marquez".
7.04.2010
Lost in a Familiar Place
Mark Knobler had been bested by a total stranger whom he'd never met. It wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last. The rub was that in a roundabout way his hard-earned money had funded the source of his current vexation. Who knew that a salon employee could be so vindictive?
"Up and to the left, Honey," Vicky said in a frustrated voice as she sprawled out on the mattress. It was clear that she was tired of instructing.
"I know where it is," Mark replied, taking a brief break from the task at hand. He felt like a scolded schoolboy. Normally the act in question was his specialty. Tonight, however, it was like he'd been thrown into the wilderness without a compass.
"Do you want me to turn the light on?" asked Vicky. "Maybe that'll help."
"No, no. I can see fine."
"Then what's the problem?" she inquired. "I haven't even been close to..."
Mark was well aware of what his beloved bride was about to say, but that didn't prepare him for the blow. They'd been each other's best lovers all along, or at least claimed so, and a change in that status would damage his ego more than any boss' berating.
"The damn wax girl's throwing me off!" he finally proclaimed.
Vicky slammed her thighs against Mark's ears as she belted out a roar of laughter. Had she not known her husband better she would've asked him to repeat his statement, but there was no doubt in her mind that he was indeed placing the blame where she'd thought she'd heard him say.
"Oh, really, my love?" Vickie asked. "Please explain this one to me, and be thorough," she said, lifting her left leg above Mark's reddened face in defeat. She knew she wouldn't reach climax by that point, though that's not to say she wouldn't be amused.
"Well, it's simple," Mark started, raising his upper body on his elbows and tossing the blanket aside. "Normally I keep my nose planted at the base of your...hmmm..."
"Strip?" Vicky courteously supplied.
"Yeah. That. But it seems that the new girl who waxed you at the salon yesterday needs glasses. Things are well off center down there and it's affecting my ability to stay on target. My nose keeps trying to make its way towards its usual resting place and as a result it's affecting my performance."
There, he'd said it. It was all out in the open. Foiled by a spa employee who was probably part of some secret organization bent on ruining relationships. It may have sounded far-fetched to some, but in Mark Knobler's experience nothing was to be doubted when it came to the mysterious forces working against him and their Spartan determination.
"Don't sweat it, Mark," Vicky condoled. "Regardless, you're invaluable to me as long as you keep coming out with stories like that one."
Mark found her lips as easily as always as they embraced for much-needed sleep.
"Up and to the left, Honey," Vicky said in a frustrated voice as she sprawled out on the mattress. It was clear that she was tired of instructing.
"I know where it is," Mark replied, taking a brief break from the task at hand. He felt like a scolded schoolboy. Normally the act in question was his specialty. Tonight, however, it was like he'd been thrown into the wilderness without a compass.
"Do you want me to turn the light on?" asked Vicky. "Maybe that'll help."
"No, no. I can see fine."
"Then what's the problem?" she inquired. "I haven't even been close to..."
Mark was well aware of what his beloved bride was about to say, but that didn't prepare him for the blow. They'd been each other's best lovers all along, or at least claimed so, and a change in that status would damage his ego more than any boss' berating.
"The damn wax girl's throwing me off!" he finally proclaimed.
Vicky slammed her thighs against Mark's ears as she belted out a roar of laughter. Had she not known her husband better she would've asked him to repeat his statement, but there was no doubt in her mind that he was indeed placing the blame where she'd thought she'd heard him say.
"Oh, really, my love?" Vickie asked. "Please explain this one to me, and be thorough," she said, lifting her left leg above Mark's reddened face in defeat. She knew she wouldn't reach climax by that point, though that's not to say she wouldn't be amused.
"Well, it's simple," Mark started, raising his upper body on his elbows and tossing the blanket aside. "Normally I keep my nose planted at the base of your...hmmm..."
"Strip?" Vicky courteously supplied.
"Yeah. That. But it seems that the new girl who waxed you at the salon yesterday needs glasses. Things are well off center down there and it's affecting my ability to stay on target. My nose keeps trying to make its way towards its usual resting place and as a result it's affecting my performance."
There, he'd said it. It was all out in the open. Foiled by a spa employee who was probably part of some secret organization bent on ruining relationships. It may have sounded far-fetched to some, but in Mark Knobler's experience nothing was to be doubted when it came to the mysterious forces working against him and their Spartan determination.
"Don't sweat it, Mark," Vicky condoled. "Regardless, you're invaluable to me as long as you keep coming out with stories like that one."
Mark found her lips as easily as always as they embraced for much-needed sleep.
Pleading the Fifth on the Fourth
It was ten after eleven
as steam silently poured from an open manhole
in a dark stretch of the street.
We'd been looking for a liquor store
that'd still be open at that hour.
The spoils of our success hung from my
left hand in the form of a bottle of sauvignon blanc.
Proof of another victory clung loosely
in the clammy palm of my right.
Parked tightly to the curb was a dark green minivan
its gaping sliding door on the side
spilling costume parts onto the sidewalk:
a tophat, striped pants, a pair of stilts, a long-tailed blue jacket.
A boy of nine or ten stood in a tired daze
above the mess of red, white, and blue fabric
staring at us heavy-jawed as we walked by him.
Sprawled in the back seat of the vehicle
was a suspendered man, presumably his father
wearing white cotton from head to toe.
A cigarette dangled from his lips. His eyes were barely open.
A fake white beard slung down around his neck like a noose.
The puzzle put itself together in my mind
in the mere three seconds that it took to escape the scene.
We were all Americans on the eve of our independence
though some of us were trying harder than others
to prove something I'm not sure of
there on Thirty-Seventh Street.
None of us made eye contact.
That was the important part.
as steam silently poured from an open manhole
in a dark stretch of the street.
We'd been looking for a liquor store
that'd still be open at that hour.
The spoils of our success hung from my
left hand in the form of a bottle of sauvignon blanc.
Proof of another victory clung loosely
in the clammy palm of my right.
Parked tightly to the curb was a dark green minivan
its gaping sliding door on the side
spilling costume parts onto the sidewalk:
a tophat, striped pants, a pair of stilts, a long-tailed blue jacket.
A boy of nine or ten stood in a tired daze
above the mess of red, white, and blue fabric
staring at us heavy-jawed as we walked by him.
Sprawled in the back seat of the vehicle
was a suspendered man, presumably his father
wearing white cotton from head to toe.
A cigarette dangled from his lips. His eyes were barely open.
A fake white beard slung down around his neck like a noose.
The puzzle put itself together in my mind
in the mere three seconds that it took to escape the scene.
We were all Americans on the eve of our independence
though some of us were trying harder than others
to prove something I'm not sure of
there on Thirty-Seventh Street.
None of us made eye contact.
That was the important part.
7.01.2010
skipping breakfast
The people I envy most are those
with an internal alarm
that wakes them up at whatever time
they tell themselves
before going to bed.
I'm that sap who comes to
sweating in his sheets
an hour before the dreaded beep
only to dabble in sick lucid dreaming
until waking up with ancient names
plastered in his mouth
and his index fingers rigid
in the form of a last-ditch cross.
In other strange news
I discovered this week
that my left foot's
one whole size bigger.
We're coming apart at the seams, America
like bargain bin clothes in the drier.
with an internal alarm
that wakes them up at whatever time
they tell themselves
before going to bed.
I'm that sap who comes to
sweating in his sheets
an hour before the dreaded beep
only to dabble in sick lucid dreaming
until waking up with ancient names
plastered in his mouth
and his index fingers rigid
in the form of a last-ditch cross.
In other strange news
I discovered this week
that my left foot's
one whole size bigger.
We're coming apart at the seams, America
like bargain bin clothes in the drier.
6.27.2010
Falling at a rate of twenty-two feet-per-second.
It'd been two weeks since I changed the sheets and today seemed as good a day as any. I ripped off the striped flannel number and threw it to the floor. As I tossed my copper-colored Egyptian cottons over the mattress with a flick of the wrists I couldn't help but notice what it looked like as it landed: an inflated parachute, held "air buoyant" by the elastic around the edges. Maybe the parachute association was a result of the fact that I'm reading a book about Delta Force, an elite airborne Special Forces unit that specializes in counter-terrorism. Whatever the case may be it instantly made me think of those rare and beloved days in elementary school gym class where the teacher (who was more of an attendance-taker with a whistle) would bring the massive red-and-white-striped parachute out from her mysterious closet where various types of balls, scooters, and other potentially dangerous sporting implements were kept. We'd form a large circle, take hold of the parachute with our two overly excited hands, and spread out until it was taut. Then the order was given to lift simultaneously and run underneath the inflated tent, quickly turning around and kneeling on the spots where our hands had once been. We were supposed to be impressed once inside this rose-tinted parallel universe. Truthfully, though I'm not sure why, we were. Was it the fact that we were hiding inside something we'd created? Perhaps, though I think it may have had more to do with that for those brief seconds we were out of sight from any authority figure, which is rare at that age for most children. But alas, the gym teacher would blow her obnoxious whistle to cease any giggling or general uproar before telling us to come back out from underneath the parachute. This always proved to be a free-for-all since once our knees stopped holding down the edge of the 'chute there was no way to keep it afloat. It collapsed on those who weren't able to make it out from under in time. Nine times out of ten it was the same kid who was still fumbling around beneath the haggard silk, and not because he was too stupid to find his way out. The class clown always went for that easy laugh since he didn't get the attention at home. The class clown was never an only child. The class clown wound up being the one who made lots of mascara run ten years later, one way or another. I, on the other hand, was the first one out of the 'chute, and also a late bloomer who blossomed at seventeen and quickly wilted. That mascara ran for me as well, though not for the same reasons. Sometimes it still runs. Some say I'm still running. True to character I digress. But what else is there? A parachute and an ironically overweight gym teacher who was obviously of a persuasion that we didn't know existed at that innocent age. The post-game assessment is simple: I should've taken my time crawling out.
6.26.2010
Public
Some of my actions
were mistakes.
Half of my mistakes
were learned.
Most of what I've learned
was stolen.
All of what I've stolen
was worthless.
You're the only thing I'd save
if my life caught fire.
were mistakes.
Half of my mistakes
were learned.
Most of what I've learned
was stolen.
All of what I've stolen
was worthless.
You're the only thing I'd save
if my life caught fire.
Known
"You ready for one?" he asked as a commercial broke the tension in the television set. We'd only met that weekend, but it felt as though we'd known each other forever. Maybe, through one regrettably thin degree of separation, we had.
"Sure. Let's go," and with that we made way for the sliding-glass door.
Rain dripped down between the cracks in the porch above us as we cupped our left hands over our cigarettes and flicked our Bics. My lack of shoes forced me to stand in the limited two-by-two square of dry deck underfoot. This newfound friend of mine was smarter than me in many ways. He'd brought his sneakers outside with him. The rest of the gang watched Steve McQueen out-drive, out-smart, and out-shoot all criminals in his path while the two of us sucked in our sweet carcinogens.
"Your name sounds familiar. Weren't you friends with Mary?" I asked pointlessly.
"Yeah. We went to school together," he responded. I had him cornered. There wasn't much else for him to say, or so I thought. He proved me wrong by adding a well-placed "She's a nice girl," before taking a deep drag on his cigarette. I noted his subtle smirk in the glow of the TV screen. McQueen wasn't the only one winning that night. We both knew what that last comment meant, though neither of us would acknowledge it. That'd be uncivilized.
"Didn't you use to...?"
"Yup. Long time ago," I cut him off. Any dates or places would've further complicated things. I liked my fresh acquaintance, in spite of our ironic common denominator, and wanted to keep it that way. He reminded me of myself when I was younger, but with a penchant for marijuana. Nothing was perfect, least of all the fiasco he'd tried to reference before I interjected. Against that pillar I was certain as Samson.
It was starting to come back to me slowly as if in a dream. I could hear her ignorantly "white" mispronunciation of his Latin last name. There was an initially unnoticed fondness in her voice that suddenly gave it all away. She had. They had. He had. I was standing in the rain next to someone who knew, or thought he did. If I'd been a better man I would've corrected his first wrong assumption. I decided to let it go in favor of letting him draw his own conclusion since he would anyway. We all find out eventually. The self-flagellation that follows is more debilitating than any lashing someone else could dole out. The cycle rarely breaks in Smalltown, USA. Everyone's broken. Some of us just play it better.
"You almost done with that?" he asked as he doused his butt in the quarter-of-the-way-full beer cup we'd designated earlier.
"I've been done for awhile now," I told the poor kid. He glanced at my hands to check for a Marlboro that wasn't there. Like I said, I'd been done for awhile.
We went back inside as the credits started rolling. Brock Davenport played the part of Bad Guy #2. The rest of them did what the rest of them do and no one dreamt a thing that night.
"Sure. Let's go," and with that we made way for the sliding-glass door.
Rain dripped down between the cracks in the porch above us as we cupped our left hands over our cigarettes and flicked our Bics. My lack of shoes forced me to stand in the limited two-by-two square of dry deck underfoot. This newfound friend of mine was smarter than me in many ways. He'd brought his sneakers outside with him. The rest of the gang watched Steve McQueen out-drive, out-smart, and out-shoot all criminals in his path while the two of us sucked in our sweet carcinogens.
"Your name sounds familiar. Weren't you friends with Mary?" I asked pointlessly.
"Yeah. We went to school together," he responded. I had him cornered. There wasn't much else for him to say, or so I thought. He proved me wrong by adding a well-placed "She's a nice girl," before taking a deep drag on his cigarette. I noted his subtle smirk in the glow of the TV screen. McQueen wasn't the only one winning that night. We both knew what that last comment meant, though neither of us would acknowledge it. That'd be uncivilized.
"Didn't you use to...?"
"Yup. Long time ago," I cut him off. Any dates or places would've further complicated things. I liked my fresh acquaintance, in spite of our ironic common denominator, and wanted to keep it that way. He reminded me of myself when I was younger, but with a penchant for marijuana. Nothing was perfect, least of all the fiasco he'd tried to reference before I interjected. Against that pillar I was certain as Samson.
It was starting to come back to me slowly as if in a dream. I could hear her ignorantly "white" mispronunciation of his Latin last name. There was an initially unnoticed fondness in her voice that suddenly gave it all away. She had. They had. He had. I was standing in the rain next to someone who knew, or thought he did. If I'd been a better man I would've corrected his first wrong assumption. I decided to let it go in favor of letting him draw his own conclusion since he would anyway. We all find out eventually. The self-flagellation that follows is more debilitating than any lashing someone else could dole out. The cycle rarely breaks in Smalltown, USA. Everyone's broken. Some of us just play it better.
"You almost done with that?" he asked as he doused his butt in the quarter-of-the-way-full beer cup we'd designated earlier.
"I've been done for awhile now," I told the poor kid. He glanced at my hands to check for a Marlboro that wasn't there. Like I said, I'd been done for awhile.
We went back inside as the credits started rolling. Brock Davenport played the part of Bad Guy #2. The rest of them did what the rest of them do and no one dreamt a thing that night.
6.24.2010
Mind if I cut in?
Back when I was wise enough
to drink my weight in bottles monthly
I'd wake up with strange bruises
along the back of my shoulders.
I know now where they came from.
It was all about repentance.
I've landed my share of beautiful women.
I've bedded some gorgeous whores.
But none of them were ever
as comforting as vacuum lines
across a bedroom carpet.
None of them but her.
The truth is that I like the smell
of skunk and can admit it--
like a summer night drive
with windows down at fifty.
I'm probably alone
in seeing every set of lights
as a silent enemy until
they turn their brights back on
to fade in my rearview mirror.
I still flick them on and off
to warn of hidden speed traps
around the bend or down the hill.
I hope I'm not the last
but the air tastes like the stench
of documentarians swarming.
Do you know what human flesh
smells like when it burns?
Pork. It smells like pork.
to drink my weight in bottles monthly
I'd wake up with strange bruises
along the back of my shoulders.
I know now where they came from.
It was all about repentance.
I've landed my share of beautiful women.
I've bedded some gorgeous whores.
But none of them were ever
as comforting as vacuum lines
across a bedroom carpet.
None of them but her.
The truth is that I like the smell
of skunk and can admit it--
like a summer night drive
with windows down at fifty.
I'm probably alone
in seeing every set of lights
as a silent enemy until
they turn their brights back on
to fade in my rearview mirror.
I still flick them on and off
to warn of hidden speed traps
around the bend or down the hill.
I hope I'm not the last
but the air tastes like the stench
of documentarians swarming.
Do you know what human flesh
smells like when it burns?
Pork. It smells like pork.
6.22.2010
Oedipus catharsis and a lifetime supply of summer pants.
He'd eat half a carton of ice cream in one sitting.
A whole sleeve of cookies would disappear
in twenty minutes; thirty if he took the time
to dunk them in his tea.
He rarely had milk in the house
and when he did it was usually
from a previous visit weeks ago
when I'd asked him to buy some.
I'd wind up dumping the chunky contents
of the jug down the toilet
trying not to gag in the process.
That sad little box of baking soda
in the condiment rack of the refrigerator door
fought the good fight
but ultimately lost the battle against foul odors.
We washed down every meal with orange juice--
even steak, even hotdogs--
because he claimed it was good for the immune system.
Even at the age of eight I never failed to notice
that OJ only had that critical property
when it happened to be on sale.
The rest of the time we drank flat soda
that'd been in the fridge for as long as the milk.
His tap water, like his stance, was hard.
It's a wonder the man survived
after I grew too old and autonomous
to subject myself to his gruesome bachelor pad
every other weekend and for half the miserable summer.
But what gets my Goddamn goat to this day
is how he'd sit at the cheap diner we went to
every week for my entire fourth-grade career
and butcher his gums with one of the toothpicks
that came with the check
until they bled.
His teeth would be stained
with a light crimson
and his dead shark's eyes
would stare blankly above my head
at what I can only assume to be
a vision of his precious Heavenly Father
guiding his faithful hand
in whatever blundering move came next.
We'd sit in that awkward silence
until I'd try to use my homework as an excuse to go home--
home being the safety of my mother's condo.
She'd ran away from him already.
I hadn't had that option yet.
To this day she regrets not saving me sooner.
Maybe I shouldn't have revealed that.
Guilt is a useless emotion
like homework was a useless excuse.
He took me to the library.
I tried to find a quiet table
but all I could think of was how badly
I wanted to finish my assignments quickly
and get the hell out of there, get the hell away from him.
And that fucking toothpick
or the shards of what was left of it
would still be dangling from the corner of his mouth
several shades darker than it had been
when still in the plastic wrapper back at that greasy spoon.
--- roughly where it should've ended ---
You didn't know when to stop, did you, dad?
Another thing I've inherited
though none of that will ever be tangible
since you've spawned a second son clandestinely
in the fifty-ninth year of your wasted life.
I hope you fade away before you can do to him
what you did to me.
Joshua is a strong name, a soldier's name--
I know that's why you picked it from your Good Book.
Let's hope he plays his cards right
and has an ounce of faith in fate
by seeing through your ruse sooner than I did.
You've dodged my attempts at contact
for almost four years now, but that's nothing
new to you: you've been a coward
since your second breath.
Your father should've shot you into his mistress
and done the world a favor.
If it's you who's after me
then let me spare you this confusion.
If given the chance again
I'd slap that splinter out of your lips.
You don't scare me anymore
because I know I won't become you.
You've had ample time
to make right of your fissure.
"For God so loved the world
that He gave His only son..."
What did you give yours up for?
A whole sleeve of cookies would disappear
in twenty minutes; thirty if he took the time
to dunk them in his tea.
He rarely had milk in the house
and when he did it was usually
from a previous visit weeks ago
when I'd asked him to buy some.
I'd wind up dumping the chunky contents
of the jug down the toilet
trying not to gag in the process.
That sad little box of baking soda
in the condiment rack of the refrigerator door
fought the good fight
but ultimately lost the battle against foul odors.
We washed down every meal with orange juice--
even steak, even hotdogs--
because he claimed it was good for the immune system.
Even at the age of eight I never failed to notice
that OJ only had that critical property
when it happened to be on sale.
The rest of the time we drank flat soda
that'd been in the fridge for as long as the milk.
His tap water, like his stance, was hard.
It's a wonder the man survived
after I grew too old and autonomous
to subject myself to his gruesome bachelor pad
every other weekend and for half the miserable summer.
But what gets my Goddamn goat to this day
is how he'd sit at the cheap diner we went to
every week for my entire fourth-grade career
and butcher his gums with one of the toothpicks
that came with the check
until they bled.
His teeth would be stained
with a light crimson
and his dead shark's eyes
would stare blankly above my head
at what I can only assume to be
a vision of his precious Heavenly Father
guiding his faithful hand
in whatever blundering move came next.
We'd sit in that awkward silence
until I'd try to use my homework as an excuse to go home--
home being the safety of my mother's condo.
She'd ran away from him already.
I hadn't had that option yet.
To this day she regrets not saving me sooner.
Maybe I shouldn't have revealed that.
Guilt is a useless emotion
like homework was a useless excuse.
He took me to the library.
I tried to find a quiet table
but all I could think of was how badly
I wanted to finish my assignments quickly
and get the hell out of there, get the hell away from him.
And that fucking toothpick
or the shards of what was left of it
would still be dangling from the corner of his mouth
several shades darker than it had been
when still in the plastic wrapper back at that greasy spoon.
--- roughly where it should've ended ---
You didn't know when to stop, did you, dad?
Another thing I've inherited
though none of that will ever be tangible
since you've spawned a second son clandestinely
in the fifty-ninth year of your wasted life.
I hope you fade away before you can do to him
what you did to me.
Joshua is a strong name, a soldier's name--
I know that's why you picked it from your Good Book.
Let's hope he plays his cards right
and has an ounce of faith in fate
by seeing through your ruse sooner than I did.
You've dodged my attempts at contact
for almost four years now, but that's nothing
new to you: you've been a coward
since your second breath.
Your father should've shot you into his mistress
and done the world a favor.
If it's you who's after me
then let me spare you this confusion.
If given the chance again
I'd slap that splinter out of your lips.
You don't scare me anymore
because I know I won't become you.
You've had ample time
to make right of your fissure.
"For God so loved the world
that He gave His only son..."
What did you give yours up for?
6.20.2010
How To Be a Good Reader
Read when you're hungry.
Read when you're full.
Read when your stomach's growling
and your mouth is sour
but you've been eating
the same leftovers
for three days running
and you can't bring yourself
to nuke that shit again.
Read when you're single.
Read when you're in love.
Read when you're in love
but you're single
and refuse to use the word
'unrequited'.
Read when two of your cousins
both younger
are getting married
somewhere greener
and expect you to show.
Read when your girlfriend's
lost her mind again.
Read when you miss your biological father.
Read when you miss the men
who have replaced him.
Read when it's Father's Day
and you don't give a damn
because you're saving money this way
and you've already made
your one required phone call.
Read when you hear only "Goodbye"
after saying "I love you."
Read when you're sure of one true thing.
Read when you doubt your very existence.
Read when you've heard the voice of God
but were surprised to discover it only
governs traffic exiting the Lincoln Tunnel.
Read when you have to go crazy to be sane.
Read when in a shimmering moment of weakness
so typical of your sign
you mistakenly think
that writing would be a good idea.
Don't write.
Don't ever try to write.
Read when you're full.
Read when your stomach's growling
and your mouth is sour
but you've been eating
the same leftovers
for three days running
and you can't bring yourself
to nuke that shit again.
Read when you're single.
Read when you're in love.
Read when you're in love
but you're single
and refuse to use the word
'unrequited'.
Read when two of your cousins
both younger
are getting married
somewhere greener
and expect you to show.
Read when your girlfriend's
lost her mind again.
Read when you miss your biological father.
Read when you miss the men
who have replaced him.
Read when it's Father's Day
and you don't give a damn
because you're saving money this way
and you've already made
your one required phone call.
Read when you hear only "Goodbye"
after saying "I love you."
Read when you're sure of one true thing.
Read when you doubt your very existence.
Read when you've heard the voice of God
but were surprised to discover it only
governs traffic exiting the Lincoln Tunnel.
Read when you have to go crazy to be sane.
Read when in a shimmering moment of weakness
so typical of your sign
you mistakenly think
that writing would be a good idea.
Don't write.
Don't ever try to write.
6.17.2010
Thank you. Come again.
It made my soul shudder to see that neighborhood again last week in the same way that the smell of the cologne my mother bought me for my twentieth Christmas does. The debauchery that went on every Friday and Saturday night in that first apartment; the bags and bags of empty cans and bottles; the beautiful young sacks of skin and bone, sans heart and dignity, leaving in the piercing morning light: it's not a time that makes any of us present proud. That doesn't mean it didn't happen. That doesn't let it escape this dreaded keyboard. You live, you learn, and you try to stop hurting-- yourself and others-- or you don't and the cycle continues. It's a conscious choice, much like the one I made to stop at the gas station at the light where I used to refuel and buy smokes.
This creature of habit parked in the same spot where he did six years ago, only this time in a nicer vehicle. I walked into the store in search of a refreshing drink to quench the thirst of a nine-hour day of working on a ladder in itchy, fibrous insulation. The Indian woman who owns the convenience store instantly recognized me after all that time. Her eyes lit up making her coffee-colored skin look darker. The smile that followed was the only greeting I needed to spark a conversation.
"You remember me after all these years?" I asked, my hoarse voice unabashedly surprised.
"Of course I do. My husband and I always wondered what ever happened to you." I refrained from telling her that I wondered the same.
An image of the man shot into my head. He was the same diminutive height as his wife with a similar complexion and jet black hair. A thin moustache perched above his lip as if to counteract his soft features and define his masculinity. His voice was pleasantly melodic, even when he was speaking on the telephone with some relative or friend in his native tongue while scooping my change from the register. Part of me was sad that he wasn't there alongside his wife whom I answered with a brief "I moved across town." I didn't go into detail. I didn't say how or why. She looked at me and nodded, telling me that my reply had sufficed. I turned and walked back towards the wall of refrigerated glass doors.
A bottle of red grapefruit juice called my name from the beverage cooler. I plucked it from the rack and returned to the counter where my Indian woman was waiting to ring me up. The phone was tucked between her neck and her ear this time, though. We wouldn't be continuing our discussion. I wanted to ask how her daughter was. She must be big by now, I thought. The pony-tailed pre-schooler used to follow her parents around the store every day and mimick their movements. Training for the next generation. Eastern cultures have us beat when it comes to keeping a business in the family. I admire that.
The door swung open and a middle-aged woman hurried in carrying her purse as if there was a small animal inside of it that had to come out for air. I swung my hand forward in a gesture that beckoned her to go before me. "Chivalry isn't dead," never left her lips as she urgently handed the shopkeeper a bill from her wallet, but it didn't bother me any. I was trying to stall to see if the Indian woman would end her telephone conversation so we could chat some more. I wanted to ask about her daughter, her husband, if they'd had any more kids. I wanted to tell her I'd switched to light cigarettes and then cut back to the "only when I drink" routine. I'm not sure why, but I wanted to tell her a lot of things. She knew me back then and she knew me now, but she didn't know that I'd changed in some ways. I don't wear that cologne anymore. I don't have to change the sheets quite as often. The bottles have slowed down, the cans disappeared altogether. And I'm learning what it is to sift the wheat from the chaff.
That confessional never came to be, however. She dropped a few coins into my cupped hand and winked at me as she squawked something mysteriously foreign into the mouthpiece of the telephone. That's life, I thought. No memory's perfect-- not even when typed in size-ten Arial to reflect upon in the comfort of an air-conditioned room.
Currently reading:
"Inside Delta Force" by Eric L. Haney.
This creature of habit parked in the same spot where he did six years ago, only this time in a nicer vehicle. I walked into the store in search of a refreshing drink to quench the thirst of a nine-hour day of working on a ladder in itchy, fibrous insulation. The Indian woman who owns the convenience store instantly recognized me after all that time. Her eyes lit up making her coffee-colored skin look darker. The smile that followed was the only greeting I needed to spark a conversation.
"You remember me after all these years?" I asked, my hoarse voice unabashedly surprised.
"Of course I do. My husband and I always wondered what ever happened to you." I refrained from telling her that I wondered the same.
An image of the man shot into my head. He was the same diminutive height as his wife with a similar complexion and jet black hair. A thin moustache perched above his lip as if to counteract his soft features and define his masculinity. His voice was pleasantly melodic, even when he was speaking on the telephone with some relative or friend in his native tongue while scooping my change from the register. Part of me was sad that he wasn't there alongside his wife whom I answered with a brief "I moved across town." I didn't go into detail. I didn't say how or why. She looked at me and nodded, telling me that my reply had sufficed. I turned and walked back towards the wall of refrigerated glass doors.
A bottle of red grapefruit juice called my name from the beverage cooler. I plucked it from the rack and returned to the counter where my Indian woman was waiting to ring me up. The phone was tucked between her neck and her ear this time, though. We wouldn't be continuing our discussion. I wanted to ask how her daughter was. She must be big by now, I thought. The pony-tailed pre-schooler used to follow her parents around the store every day and mimick their movements. Training for the next generation. Eastern cultures have us beat when it comes to keeping a business in the family. I admire that.
The door swung open and a middle-aged woman hurried in carrying her purse as if there was a small animal inside of it that had to come out for air. I swung my hand forward in a gesture that beckoned her to go before me. "Chivalry isn't dead," never left her lips as she urgently handed the shopkeeper a bill from her wallet, but it didn't bother me any. I was trying to stall to see if the Indian woman would end her telephone conversation so we could chat some more. I wanted to ask about her daughter, her husband, if they'd had any more kids. I wanted to tell her I'd switched to light cigarettes and then cut back to the "only when I drink" routine. I'm not sure why, but I wanted to tell her a lot of things. She knew me back then and she knew me now, but she didn't know that I'd changed in some ways. I don't wear that cologne anymore. I don't have to change the sheets quite as often. The bottles have slowed down, the cans disappeared altogether. And I'm learning what it is to sift the wheat from the chaff.
That confessional never came to be, however. She dropped a few coins into my cupped hand and winked at me as she squawked something mysteriously foreign into the mouthpiece of the telephone. That's life, I thought. No memory's perfect-- not even when typed in size-ten Arial to reflect upon in the comfort of an air-conditioned room.
Currently reading:
"Inside Delta Force" by Eric L. Haney.
6.10.2010
Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrence.
Left now with a gambler's share
to wonder what that means--
the division of zero unattempted
through the haze of calculus
and the tested skin of teeth.
Rain checks can't fend off the debts
that are left here in the wake
hoping the answer's in the mountains
again, one year later
with a few more and a few less
and a pocket full of the crisp yellow pages
of a fifty-year-old German Existentialist novel.
It'll be red rum, brown whiskey
and enough cigarettes
to fill a cancer ward:
the only way to make it right.
No work and all play's made
Jack a dull boy.
"La sangre llama," mother said.
And the blood does call
though it sounds so much prettier
in that language gone forgotten.
La sangre llama, mis amigos.
to wonder what that means--
the division of zero unattempted
through the haze of calculus
and the tested skin of teeth.
Rain checks can't fend off the debts
that are left here in the wake
hoping the answer's in the mountains
again, one year later
with a few more and a few less
and a pocket full of the crisp yellow pages
of a fifty-year-old German Existentialist novel.
It'll be red rum, brown whiskey
and enough cigarettes
to fill a cancer ward:
the only way to make it right.
No work and all play's made
Jack a dull boy.
"La sangre llama," mother said.
And the blood does call
though it sounds so much prettier
in that language gone forgotten.
La sangre llama, mis amigos.
6.09.2010
More wretched flashbacks from the pages of the Boy Scout Handbook.
"Red next to black
is a friend of Jack,"
they say of the harmless milksnake.
"Red next to yellow
will kill a fellow,"
and the coral snake laughs
all your way to the grave.
But what does Jack know
of my taste in company?
Who's to rate
his judge of character?
And what venom out there
can hurt me better
than the poison I've come to love?
It's sloshing through the myths
to dispel what's left of reality.
It's coming for you
and for me
or the remnants of
these parodies of ourselves.
It won't be judging colors.
"Skin next to skin
will do you in,"
and there's little for Jack
or Jill
to say about it.
Good luck.
is a friend of Jack,"
they say of the harmless milksnake.
"Red next to yellow
will kill a fellow,"
and the coral snake laughs
all your way to the grave.
But what does Jack know
of my taste in company?
Who's to rate
his judge of character?
And what venom out there
can hurt me better
than the poison I've come to love?
It's sloshing through the myths
to dispel what's left of reality.
It's coming for you
and for me
or the remnants of
these parodies of ourselves.
It won't be judging colors.
"Skin next to skin
will do you in,"
and there's little for Jack
or Jill
to say about it.
Good luck.
6.08.2010
Why eat with splinters?
We were sitting in a Thai joint
right down the block from some signs
and storefronts that I recognized
on the Upper West Side.
Even in a city that big
it's possible for the mind
to crystallize specific images
certain names of places
and bright neon lights
though if asked by a stranger
looking for directions
one shrugs for lack of
cognizant knowledge
of the intersection.
"...but I'm OK, really," I said
in response. Luckily my experience
with chopsticks had been mostly
limited to sushi, and even then
only within the past eight months.
The rice on my plate was posing
a bigger problem than I'd anticipated
but that made it easier to focus my attention
on something else and sound more
convincing with my previous statement.
"Are you sure?" she asked with
her empty plate sitting in front of her
as it had been for five minutes already
due to her proficiency with the
dreaded wooden utensils.
"Yes." I looked her in the eye that time.
A snap pea crunched between my tense jaws.
When the charade finally showed
its inevitable demise I abandoned my feeble attempt
to come off as more cultured, more talented
more stubborn than I truly am
by placing the chopsticks down on my napkin
and picking up my fork. It had been
there waiting all along, whether or not
I wanted to admit it. The rice had foiled me
enough for one sitting. Besides, how else
was I supposed to cut the tails off the shrimp
without using the unprovided knife? Believe me
when I say that the food tasted better when
it didn't have to be hunted with two shards of wood.
The rest of the meal went down smoothly
not a drop of the chili-garlic sauce going to waste
not a grain of rice escaping my aim.
Another brief chapter had been concluded.
I'd miss parts of it; even the undercooked vegetables.
Satisfied, I placed my utensils-- all of them--
on my bare plate in a triumphant show
of completion that the waiter noticed
and responded to without missing a beat.
He carried our dishes away and
yelled something in his native tongue
at the waitress passing by him. For once
I didn't bother wondering if it was about me.
"Come on. Let's get out of here."
Those familiar signs were still out on the avenue
but they looked more out of place somehow
as though part of a dream that
may never recur. It's easy
to get lost on the grid of Manhattan.
It's much harder to find yourself again.
Start with what you know.
For me it was a fork.
right down the block from some signs
and storefronts that I recognized
on the Upper West Side.
Even in a city that big
it's possible for the mind
to crystallize specific images
certain names of places
and bright neon lights
though if asked by a stranger
looking for directions
one shrugs for lack of
cognizant knowledge
of the intersection.
"...but I'm OK, really," I said
in response. Luckily my experience
with chopsticks had been mostly
limited to sushi, and even then
only within the past eight months.
The rice on my plate was posing
a bigger problem than I'd anticipated
but that made it easier to focus my attention
on something else and sound more
convincing with my previous statement.
"Are you sure?" she asked with
her empty plate sitting in front of her
as it had been for five minutes already
due to her proficiency with the
dreaded wooden utensils.
"Yes." I looked her in the eye that time.
A snap pea crunched between my tense jaws.
When the charade finally showed
its inevitable demise I abandoned my feeble attempt
to come off as more cultured, more talented
more stubborn than I truly am
by placing the chopsticks down on my napkin
and picking up my fork. It had been
there waiting all along, whether or not
I wanted to admit it. The rice had foiled me
enough for one sitting. Besides, how else
was I supposed to cut the tails off the shrimp
without using the unprovided knife? Believe me
when I say that the food tasted better when
it didn't have to be hunted with two shards of wood.
The rest of the meal went down smoothly
not a drop of the chili-garlic sauce going to waste
not a grain of rice escaping my aim.
Another brief chapter had been concluded.
I'd miss parts of it; even the undercooked vegetables.
Satisfied, I placed my utensils-- all of them--
on my bare plate in a triumphant show
of completion that the waiter noticed
and responded to without missing a beat.
He carried our dishes away and
yelled something in his native tongue
at the waitress passing by him. For once
I didn't bother wondering if it was about me.
"Come on. Let's get out of here."
Those familiar signs were still out on the avenue
but they looked more out of place somehow
as though part of a dream that
may never recur. It's easy
to get lost on the grid of Manhattan.
It's much harder to find yourself again.
Start with what you know.
For me it was a fork.
6.06.2010
The Blasphemous Balladeer
Noah had his flood.
Abel had his fall.
Jonah had his whale.
Peter died like Paul.
Jacob had his Angel.
We all begrudge him that.
Job, the sorry martyr
lost more than we will have.
Samson lost his strength.
Lazarus his life.
One of them regained it.
The other blamed his wife.
The point of sacred fables
and their warnings of the plagues:
Drink the poison willingly
since Eve obeyed the Snake.
Abel had his fall.
Jonah had his whale.
Peter died like Paul.
Jacob had his Angel.
We all begrudge him that.
Job, the sorry martyr
lost more than we will have.
Samson lost his strength.
Lazarus his life.
One of them regained it.
The other blamed his wife.
The point of sacred fables
and their warnings of the plagues:
Drink the poison willingly
since Eve obeyed the Snake.
6.05.2010
Pro Bono
Michael Stipe whined about pain
through the shoddy speakers of the convenience store
as I made my way towards the counter
with a soda and a candy bar in hand.
What did he know about hurting?
How could he speak for everybody?
It bothered me that his unconvincing assumptions
raked in millions for him and his pals.
Talk about cashing in on another's misfortune.
At least my dirges are non-profit.
"Sorry, this is all I have," I told the middle-aged
Hindu as I formed stacks of quarters on his spotless counter.
"It's OK. I can use them," he replied in that comically
sing-song voice standard of the stereotype.
He popped open the register and made room for the
oncoming influx of change in the appropriate receptacle.
No one was in line behind me so I took my time
enjoying the cranked AC of the store as Michael finished
belting his bald blues to an uncaring audience of two.
I slid the stacks of four his way and grabbed the goods
I'd come for after stretching out a cupped hand for my change.
As I left, the chime on the door rang with a single solemn note
unobtainable for any pop singer still among the living.
My buddy was waiting in my truck
with a familiarly impatient irreverence
that snapped me out of my pensive half-slumber.
"What the hell took so long?" he demanded, taking the soda
I handed him as he flicked a butt at the curb
and missed.
"Some schmuck was emptying his kid's piggy-bank,"
I said. There were no other cars in the parking lot.
Still, the excuse was accepted without resistance.
It's amazing how far a free soft drink will get you.
It happened over a month ago and I'm not sure
why I chose to remember it. It may have something to do
with the clerk's heavy-handed cologne application
and how it amused me to imagine that it'd be enough to make
my aural marauder go off-key if he were there
singing his lousy arpeggiated hit in person.
The day is long, alright, Michael.
Some of us just handle it better.
through the shoddy speakers of the convenience store
as I made my way towards the counter
with a soda and a candy bar in hand.
What did he know about hurting?
How could he speak for everybody?
It bothered me that his unconvincing assumptions
raked in millions for him and his pals.
Talk about cashing in on another's misfortune.
At least my dirges are non-profit.
"Sorry, this is all I have," I told the middle-aged
Hindu as I formed stacks of quarters on his spotless counter.
"It's OK. I can use them," he replied in that comically
sing-song voice standard of the stereotype.
He popped open the register and made room for the
oncoming influx of change in the appropriate receptacle.
No one was in line behind me so I took my time
enjoying the cranked AC of the store as Michael finished
belting his bald blues to an uncaring audience of two.
I slid the stacks of four his way and grabbed the goods
I'd come for after stretching out a cupped hand for my change.
As I left, the chime on the door rang with a single solemn note
unobtainable for any pop singer still among the living.
My buddy was waiting in my truck
with a familiarly impatient irreverence
that snapped me out of my pensive half-slumber.
"What the hell took so long?" he demanded, taking the soda
I handed him as he flicked a butt at the curb
and missed.
"Some schmuck was emptying his kid's piggy-bank,"
I said. There were no other cars in the parking lot.
Still, the excuse was accepted without resistance.
It's amazing how far a free soft drink will get you.
It happened over a month ago and I'm not sure
why I chose to remember it. It may have something to do
with the clerk's heavy-handed cologne application
and how it amused me to imagine that it'd be enough to make
my aural marauder go off-key if he were there
singing his lousy arpeggiated hit in person.
The day is long, alright, Michael.
Some of us just handle it better.
6.04.2010
A Rarity
Prior experience warned me
not to try to take the Brookside shortcut
at that time of day
for fear of not being able to make
the required left turn at the end
against the mid-afternoon traffic
but my stubborn side prevailed.
When I got to said intersection
it was a gridlocked parking lot
waiting for the light to change.
One kindred soul perpendicular from me
in a ten-year-old red pick-up
gave me the omniscient look:
He wanted to let me cut ahead of him.
The carload of Mexicans
in front of his truck was in the way, however
and when the light finally turned
there was a slew of cars coming my way
that'd prevent me from making that left.
His arm was dangling through the open window
and the sweat was stinging the corners of his
squinting eyes. I knew and understood the
wrath of the awkward in-between phase of growth
his buzzed hair was in and I sympathized
with his lack of air conditioning
having been there once myself.
The cars were getting closer
and the Mexicans moved up
but it was too late to pull out
without getting T-boned.
I waved him on thankfully
with an accompanying nod of the head
and he let his foot off the break
and spread his fingers in response.
We were two young men who knew
each other for a few brief seconds
and tried to make the best of it.
not to try to take the Brookside shortcut
at that time of day
for fear of not being able to make
the required left turn at the end
against the mid-afternoon traffic
but my stubborn side prevailed.
When I got to said intersection
it was a gridlocked parking lot
waiting for the light to change.
One kindred soul perpendicular from me
in a ten-year-old red pick-up
gave me the omniscient look:
He wanted to let me cut ahead of him.
The carload of Mexicans
in front of his truck was in the way, however
and when the light finally turned
there was a slew of cars coming my way
that'd prevent me from making that left.
His arm was dangling through the open window
and the sweat was stinging the corners of his
squinting eyes. I knew and understood the
wrath of the awkward in-between phase of growth
his buzzed hair was in and I sympathized
with his lack of air conditioning
having been there once myself.
The cars were getting closer
and the Mexicans moved up
but it was too late to pull out
without getting T-boned.
I waved him on thankfully
with an accompanying nod of the head
and he let his foot off the break
and spread his fingers in response.
We were two young men who knew
each other for a few brief seconds
and tried to make the best of it.
6.03.2010
Tip No. 451:
Ball up the blanket
next to you at night
since it's humid enough
to get by with just the sheet
and fall asleep clinging
to a temporary space-holder.
It's less conspicuous
than adopting a full-time
body pillow
and you've spent enough
already.
The bed's all yours again.
You can roll about
as you please
and lie until you love it.
Those who claim
they're scared of change
fail to praise
their ability to adapt.
next to you at night
since it's humid enough
to get by with just the sheet
and fall asleep clinging
to a temporary space-holder.
It's less conspicuous
than adopting a full-time
body pillow
and you've spent enough
already.
The bed's all yours again.
You can roll about
as you please
and lie until you love it.
Those who claim
they're scared of change
fail to praise
their ability to adapt.
Fishers of Men
The late-May sun was setting over rooflines down the street. Dormant chimneys served as grim reminders that they'd be needed again someday when the months grew cold again. We were tossing his tools into the back of his work truck when he remembered to confront me about his recent discovery.
"You wrote 'Jesus Saves' on the back of my truck, didn't you?" Dave asked with a smirk that tried its hardest to seem angry. There were two cross-shaped cuts in the rusted steel bumper of the beat-up box truck he'd recently purchased. It seemed only fitting to take the chalk I used to mark pipe with and scribble some religious slogan underneath.
"Yeah, it was me. The old lady found it?" In a subtle attempt at humility I laid the power drill I had in my hands down more gently than the last thing I'd loaded. It was bad enough I busted my employer's chops all day; there was no reason to break his tools as well.
"No, it was a potential customer. I went to look at a job yesterday and he asked if I was a brother in faith while we stood near the back of the truck talking business. I had to agree even though I didn't know where he got that idea from. Then I noticed your handiwork on my bumper, you bastard."
I couldn't deny either of the accusations in his last sentence.
Dave's tone never changed while addressing me, even if he had reason to be miffed. His constant demeanor was something I admired about him. It made the man a pleasure to work for, as well as an easy target. In typical mischievous apprentice fashion I prodded a little further.
"I was considering putting one of those Jesus fish on the back of your truck, too. Consider yourself lucky." I turned to look for a reaction that wasn't coming. Dave's face lit up with the same excitement a child gets when he's about to tell a story.
"When I was a kid I used to pry those off of people's cars. Half the Bible thumpers in our trailer park had the gray outline of a fish where the glue from the thing had stayed on the paint of their cars. The stubborn ones had two fish scars," he said, taking a moment to bask in the glory of the amusing term he'd coined. "I used to stick them on the wall of my bedroom. I even took some blue paint from my father's shed and painted a pond around them. I had no idea what they meant at the time. I just wanted some pets."
He gave me the simple, country-boy grin that his darling wife must've fallen in love with fifteen years ago. I couldn't help but feel the same. Dave was one of a dying breed. The innocence in his slate blue eyes couldn't be faked. I smacked him on the back of the shoulder, called him a thieving heathen, and let loose a wide-mouthed laugh. It wasn't just the money that made me crave those side-jobs.
We finished packing up the tools in sweaty, tired silence. It had been a long day of gritty pipe replacement and both of us were ready to go home. After he paid me for the day's labor we plodded towards our respective vehicles and pulled away from the curb. Dave was hoping he'd get that next big job that the Holy Roller was dangling in front of his face on the previous day. I was hoping I wouldn't be alive when his species finally goes extinct. Hoping is half of a plumber's life, one way or another. Hoping and fishing.
"You wrote 'Jesus Saves' on the back of my truck, didn't you?" Dave asked with a smirk that tried its hardest to seem angry. There were two cross-shaped cuts in the rusted steel bumper of the beat-up box truck he'd recently purchased. It seemed only fitting to take the chalk I used to mark pipe with and scribble some religious slogan underneath.
"Yeah, it was me. The old lady found it?" In a subtle attempt at humility I laid the power drill I had in my hands down more gently than the last thing I'd loaded. It was bad enough I busted my employer's chops all day; there was no reason to break his tools as well.
"No, it was a potential customer. I went to look at a job yesterday and he asked if I was a brother in faith while we stood near the back of the truck talking business. I had to agree even though I didn't know where he got that idea from. Then I noticed your handiwork on my bumper, you bastard."
I couldn't deny either of the accusations in his last sentence.
Dave's tone never changed while addressing me, even if he had reason to be miffed. His constant demeanor was something I admired about him. It made the man a pleasure to work for, as well as an easy target. In typical mischievous apprentice fashion I prodded a little further.
"I was considering putting one of those Jesus fish on the back of your truck, too. Consider yourself lucky." I turned to look for a reaction that wasn't coming. Dave's face lit up with the same excitement a child gets when he's about to tell a story.
"When I was a kid I used to pry those off of people's cars. Half the Bible thumpers in our trailer park had the gray outline of a fish where the glue from the thing had stayed on the paint of their cars. The stubborn ones had two fish scars," he said, taking a moment to bask in the glory of the amusing term he'd coined. "I used to stick them on the wall of my bedroom. I even took some blue paint from my father's shed and painted a pond around them. I had no idea what they meant at the time. I just wanted some pets."
He gave me the simple, country-boy grin that his darling wife must've fallen in love with fifteen years ago. I couldn't help but feel the same. Dave was one of a dying breed. The innocence in his slate blue eyes couldn't be faked. I smacked him on the back of the shoulder, called him a thieving heathen, and let loose a wide-mouthed laugh. It wasn't just the money that made me crave those side-jobs.
We finished packing up the tools in sweaty, tired silence. It had been a long day of gritty pipe replacement and both of us were ready to go home. After he paid me for the day's labor we plodded towards our respective vehicles and pulled away from the curb. Dave was hoping he'd get that next big job that the Holy Roller was dangling in front of his face on the previous day. I was hoping I wouldn't be alive when his species finally goes extinct. Hoping is half of a plumber's life, one way or another. Hoping and fishing.
6.02.2010
A Case of Mistaken Identity.
A red-breasted robin
floundered on the double-yellow
with no excuse
for its meeting with the grill
of a fading Chevy.
Contrary to the charlatans
I've got no use for wounded birds
mending wings and water into wine.
Take it hip to hip.
Take it any way you want to.
Roam around the world
since this valley's not enough.
It's no coincidence
that mating season
and the witching hour
always overlap.
floundered on the double-yellow
with no excuse
for its meeting with the grill
of a fading Chevy.
Contrary to the charlatans
I've got no use for wounded birds
mending wings and water into wine.
Take it hip to hip.
Take it any way you want to.
Roam around the world
since this valley's not enough.
It's no coincidence
that mating season
and the witching hour
always overlap.
5.31.2010
A Humbled Dostoyevsky.
The firing squad was halted
and the white hood torn from his head
before the sentence could be carried out--
his pardon came just in time.
The young anarchist was spared
by the grace of providence.
He grew and learned and wrote of life
and death
more convincingly afterwards.
He left his first wife
or maybe she died
or maybe it's the same damn thing
and replaced her with a girl
a third of his age
who cooked and cleaned and trimmed his beard
and fulfilled his selfish libido until he slept
and then woke him from his nightmares
about the lack of a God or a Father
that he wanted
so hard to believe in
and when that wasn't enough
and he had to get it out
but was too weak and blind to write it
she transcribed his words for him
though that book was never completed.
And somewhere in Russia
he's buried now
and has been for well over a century
his works translated in at least twelve languages
though there's only one that matters
to us foolish disciples who claim to know him best:
To love and to be loved.
and the white hood torn from his head
before the sentence could be carried out--
his pardon came just in time.
The young anarchist was spared
by the grace of providence.
He grew and learned and wrote of life
and death
more convincingly afterwards.
He left his first wife
or maybe she died
or maybe it's the same damn thing
and replaced her with a girl
a third of his age
who cooked and cleaned and trimmed his beard
and fulfilled his selfish libido until he slept
and then woke him from his nightmares
about the lack of a God or a Father
that he wanted
so hard to believe in
and when that wasn't enough
and he had to get it out
but was too weak and blind to write it
she transcribed his words for him
though that book was never completed.
And somewhere in Russia
he's buried now
and has been for well over a century
his works translated in at least twelve languages
though there's only one that matters
to us foolish disciples who claim to know him best:
To love and to be loved.
5.28.2010
on tenterhooks
The yogurt's so cold
it temporarily freezes my teeth
as I stand mostly naked in the kitchen
forcing down a snack even though
I'm not hungry. Turning the refrigerator down
seems like a good idea, but I'm not
known to act on those too frequently;
I let the notion pass downstream
floating lazily on the current of my mind
when something else distracts me.
It's a hole in the window screen in front of me
big enough for a small animal
such as a squirrel to fit through with ease.
The duct tape repair job is peeling
from the edges of the portal
lending free passage to the moths
who've been swarming around the lights at night.
There's a roll of tape up in my bedroom, but again
that sounds like too much work. It's not that I'm lazy
it's that the government has been dutifully paying me
to do nothing for the past eight months
and I wouldn't want to let them down
by breeching my end of the contract.
But, as usual, I go back to that hole.
It was chewed open by a squirrel
two summers ago-- a squirrel which
I've had the awkward honor of meeting
in my kitchen on more than one occasion
while walking in the front door
during one of its dry goods raids.
When the first screen was torn
we thought it was a fluke.
We closed that window and chalked it up
to chance. Four other windows
wound up being shut, however
after the persistent critter showed
how determined it was to break and enter.
It must've been the same one over and over.
It hasn't happened since that summer
so I suppose it moved along or died.
It forces me to believe that animals
are more than just instinct and muscle;
some of them have character, have souls--
even the lowly gray-furred tree rats
that chitter and chatter and lose buried nuts.
My spoon scrapes the last of the yogurt
from the side of the container
and slides into my mouth
as I think back to that summer
and the squirrel that got the best of us.
I use my tongue to remove a raspberry seed
from the canyon in one of my molars
and stumble towards the stairs
where a new book, a new world
a new distraction awaits
while I cringe and weigh the costs
of losing two more lives.
Even the mighty Ohio
catches fire sometimes
and its entitled.
Curently reading:
"I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson.
it temporarily freezes my teeth
as I stand mostly naked in the kitchen
forcing down a snack even though
I'm not hungry. Turning the refrigerator down
seems like a good idea, but I'm not
known to act on those too frequently;
I let the notion pass downstream
floating lazily on the current of my mind
when something else distracts me.
It's a hole in the window screen in front of me
big enough for a small animal
such as a squirrel to fit through with ease.
The duct tape repair job is peeling
from the edges of the portal
lending free passage to the moths
who've been swarming around the lights at night.
There's a roll of tape up in my bedroom, but again
that sounds like too much work. It's not that I'm lazy
it's that the government has been dutifully paying me
to do nothing for the past eight months
and I wouldn't want to let them down
by breeching my end of the contract.
But, as usual, I go back to that hole.
It was chewed open by a squirrel
two summers ago-- a squirrel which
I've had the awkward honor of meeting
in my kitchen on more than one occasion
while walking in the front door
during one of its dry goods raids.
When the first screen was torn
we thought it was a fluke.
We closed that window and chalked it up
to chance. Four other windows
wound up being shut, however
after the persistent critter showed
how determined it was to break and enter.
It must've been the same one over and over.
It hasn't happened since that summer
so I suppose it moved along or died.
It forces me to believe that animals
are more than just instinct and muscle;
some of them have character, have souls--
even the lowly gray-furred tree rats
that chitter and chatter and lose buried nuts.
My spoon scrapes the last of the yogurt
from the side of the container
and slides into my mouth
as I think back to that summer
and the squirrel that got the best of us.
I use my tongue to remove a raspberry seed
from the canyon in one of my molars
and stumble towards the stairs
where a new book, a new world
a new distraction awaits
while I cringe and weigh the costs
of losing two more lives.
Even the mighty Ohio
catches fire sometimes
and its entitled.
Curently reading:
"I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson.
5.27.2010
The Accidental Artist
Plastered
to the shoulder
of your road
were the
rotting carcasses
of a fox
and a squirrel.
That hunter never caught
his prey
but the driver
who took them both out
captured what many well-fed
trite morons never do:
a moment.
to the shoulder
of your road
were the
rotting carcasses
of a fox
and a squirrel.
That hunter never caught
his prey
but the driver
who took them both out
captured what many well-fed
trite morons never do:
a moment.
5.26.2010
Before the Bucket.
Stomping through the supermarket
last night
on a mission for frozen peas
I saw an old man
singing standards
as he bagged groceries
doing both equally poorly
not caring about
the outcome
or whether he'd
live to see it.
God, I know I claim
to not ask for much
but let that be me
someday.
last night
on a mission for frozen peas
I saw an old man
singing standards
as he bagged groceries
doing both equally poorly
not caring about
the outcome
or whether he'd
live to see it.
God, I know I claim
to not ask for much
but let that be me
someday.
Up and to the Left.
There is no more glorious moment
in all of your pointless existence
than right before bringing
your lover to climax.
In those brief seconds
when you both know
what those tightening muscles mean
you're the only one
who matters to them--
they'd have you believe
you're the only one
who ever has, in fact.
You can do no wrong
as long as you don't stop
whatever magical feat
you're performing.
That precious endorphin high
you're about to send
through their body is enough
to justify your presence, to buy
you some time...
And time, after all
is the one thing
we'll all be begging for at the end
one way or another.
in all of your pointless existence
than right before bringing
your lover to climax.
In those brief seconds
when you both know
what those tightening muscles mean
you're the only one
who matters to them--
they'd have you believe
you're the only one
who ever has, in fact.
You can do no wrong
as long as you don't stop
whatever magical feat
you're performing.
That precious endorphin high
you're about to send
through their body is enough
to justify your presence, to buy
you some time...
And time, after all
is the one thing
we'll all be begging for at the end
one way or another.
5.23.2010
If You've Got to Lose, Lose to the Best
I was on my way home from a brothel in Maybrook with a stubborn wad of cash in my pocket. The building hadn't been used as such for almost a century and a half, but as far as my plumbing partner and myself were concerned the same went for cathouses as for bullshitters: once is always. Some forty-year-old slumlord couple had subdivided it and was renting it out as four separate apartments. If only those low-income tenants could hear the stories that those walls could tell...
A man I used to work with was standing in his driveway as I drove by pondering the possibilities. I hadn't seen him in almost two years. The obligatory honk didn't seem like enough so I turned around and pulled into his driveway.
"Hey, Shakespeare," Johnny said with the suds from his lager clinging to the corners of his mouth. My early apprental nickname had stuck with this one; I'd shaken it from the tongues of most of the others, at least when I was around. People who call you by your alternate moniker in your presence are probably to be trusted more than those who wait until you leave. Johnny was somehow allowed to let that name fly, though. He was the one who gave it to me four years ago when a few of my fellow pipefitters caught me reading in my car on lunch break.
"What's new, John?" I asked through my rolled-down window after putting my truck in park and killing the ignition.
Right off the bat he was digging through the toolbox in the bed of my truck. "Hey, is this thing mine?" the notorious tool-thief asked of me, a shiny pair of tin snips in his hand.
"Nope, but these are," I replied, tossing a rusty pair of pliers I'd pulled from my backseat in his general direction. He caught it one-handed without spilling his beer. Practice, for some, does indeed made perfect. "Check out the handles."
John looked down at the blue rubber grips where he'd once written his intials. Since being in his possession the inscription had been modified-- the word "sucks" was scrawled in magic marker after his two letters.
"No one steals from me, kid," John snarled in his best attempt at intimidation. I was almost twice his size, physically and otherwise. We laughed at his charade and he handed the pliers back to me. "At least you learned from the best," and he was right-- though that applied to his craft more than his trade.
Not much had changed around the man's house. The grass was still the same sickly green hue. The driveway still needed some patching. His three daughters had grown quite a bit since I'd seen them, however. They chased each other through the yard in their bathing suits, screaming and dripping over-chlorinated water in their wakes. A jealous Johnny Jr. peered out from the living room window. He'd literally doubled in size since I'd seen him last. I could hear him speaking actual words from the English language through the screen. The squawking toddler I remembered was limited to monosyllabic Neanderthal-speak in my recollection. A chill went down my spine as I realized how quickly years pass. He too will be a plumber in no time.
"Here, have a beer," John blurted as he shoved an oh-so-familiar green bottle into my hand. "Come on in. I'll show you my new pellet stove."
Not his wife, Maria, whose wonderful Italian cuisine I'd savored several times at their dining room table after work. Not their oldest daughter whom I taught a few chords on the guitar. Not little Jon-Jon who could now amaze me with his early stages of the lifelong mastery of speech. A pellet stove. He wanted to show me a pellet stove. The mighty plumber had succumbed to a form of heat that required no boiler or pipes full of water. Worse yet, he'd forgotten the main thing I admired and envied: his family.
As we walked through the kitchen the smells of his house came back to my mind right after my senses. It's odd how much trivial olfactory information we file in the recesses of that spongy pink matter. The living room looked mostly the same, aside from its hardwood floors being slightly duller and the presence of two dozen more movies stored on the shelves of the entertainment center. "Here it is," John said with an unfittingly sinister grin. Had he gotten such a good deal on the contraption that it felt like a crime? If so, was I supposed to care? I pretended for the sake of his manhood.
"Wow. She's a beauty, alright." It was easier to lie without his wife and kids around. This man alone was no saint to be feared.
"Do you have a lighter on you?" he asked, pointing to his unopened beer.
"Yeah. Hold on." I set my bottle down on the pellet stove and rummaged through my left hip pocket for the lighter I always keep there. It comes in handy in dark crawlspaces or while lighting a torch at work. More often than that, though, it's used to open bottles. The trick is to hold the neck just under the cap and use the index finger as a fulcrum point to pry the cap free with the lighter. A simple matter of leverage is practically rocket science to amateurs at parties who witness the feat, whether or not the credit is warranted. Another thing that Johnny had taught me. The list was slowly growing. It wouldn't take too much longer to finalize.
"Thanks," he said after popping the top. I picked up my brew and joined him in a swig worthy of the frustrating day I'd had.
For the next twenty minutes I planned my escape. When the perfect segue presented itself I took advantage of the opportunity. John and I shook hands in his driveway and made each other false promises of getting together again soon. That's how it goes with that type of friend. It wasn't until later on that evening that I discovered the extent of it.
I was emptying my pockets onto my dresser and noticed something missing: my lighter. He'd pocketed it after cracking his beer with a hand as sly as a street hustler's. I smiled into the mirror on my bedroom wall, the day's dust and failure still glued to my face. My loss was minimal compared to the gain. Some things never change, thank God.
A man I used to work with was standing in his driveway as I drove by pondering the possibilities. I hadn't seen him in almost two years. The obligatory honk didn't seem like enough so I turned around and pulled into his driveway.
"Hey, Shakespeare," Johnny said with the suds from his lager clinging to the corners of his mouth. My early apprental nickname had stuck with this one; I'd shaken it from the tongues of most of the others, at least when I was around. People who call you by your alternate moniker in your presence are probably to be trusted more than those who wait until you leave. Johnny was somehow allowed to let that name fly, though. He was the one who gave it to me four years ago when a few of my fellow pipefitters caught me reading in my car on lunch break.
"What's new, John?" I asked through my rolled-down window after putting my truck in park and killing the ignition.
Right off the bat he was digging through the toolbox in the bed of my truck. "Hey, is this thing mine?" the notorious tool-thief asked of me, a shiny pair of tin snips in his hand.
"Nope, but these are," I replied, tossing a rusty pair of pliers I'd pulled from my backseat in his general direction. He caught it one-handed without spilling his beer. Practice, for some, does indeed made perfect. "Check out the handles."
John looked down at the blue rubber grips where he'd once written his intials. Since being in his possession the inscription had been modified-- the word "sucks" was scrawled in magic marker after his two letters.
"No one steals from me, kid," John snarled in his best attempt at intimidation. I was almost twice his size, physically and otherwise. We laughed at his charade and he handed the pliers back to me. "At least you learned from the best," and he was right-- though that applied to his craft more than his trade.
Not much had changed around the man's house. The grass was still the same sickly green hue. The driveway still needed some patching. His three daughters had grown quite a bit since I'd seen them, however. They chased each other through the yard in their bathing suits, screaming and dripping over-chlorinated water in their wakes. A jealous Johnny Jr. peered out from the living room window. He'd literally doubled in size since I'd seen him last. I could hear him speaking actual words from the English language through the screen. The squawking toddler I remembered was limited to monosyllabic Neanderthal-speak in my recollection. A chill went down my spine as I realized how quickly years pass. He too will be a plumber in no time.
"Here, have a beer," John blurted as he shoved an oh-so-familiar green bottle into my hand. "Come on in. I'll show you my new pellet stove."
Not his wife, Maria, whose wonderful Italian cuisine I'd savored several times at their dining room table after work. Not their oldest daughter whom I taught a few chords on the guitar. Not little Jon-Jon who could now amaze me with his early stages of the lifelong mastery of speech. A pellet stove. He wanted to show me a pellet stove. The mighty plumber had succumbed to a form of heat that required no boiler or pipes full of water. Worse yet, he'd forgotten the main thing I admired and envied: his family.
As we walked through the kitchen the smells of his house came back to my mind right after my senses. It's odd how much trivial olfactory information we file in the recesses of that spongy pink matter. The living room looked mostly the same, aside from its hardwood floors being slightly duller and the presence of two dozen more movies stored on the shelves of the entertainment center. "Here it is," John said with an unfittingly sinister grin. Had he gotten such a good deal on the contraption that it felt like a crime? If so, was I supposed to care? I pretended for the sake of his manhood.
"Wow. She's a beauty, alright." It was easier to lie without his wife and kids around. This man alone was no saint to be feared.
"Do you have a lighter on you?" he asked, pointing to his unopened beer.
"Yeah. Hold on." I set my bottle down on the pellet stove and rummaged through my left hip pocket for the lighter I always keep there. It comes in handy in dark crawlspaces or while lighting a torch at work. More often than that, though, it's used to open bottles. The trick is to hold the neck just under the cap and use the index finger as a fulcrum point to pry the cap free with the lighter. A simple matter of leverage is practically rocket science to amateurs at parties who witness the feat, whether or not the credit is warranted. Another thing that Johnny had taught me. The list was slowly growing. It wouldn't take too much longer to finalize.
"Thanks," he said after popping the top. I picked up my brew and joined him in a swig worthy of the frustrating day I'd had.
For the next twenty minutes I planned my escape. When the perfect segue presented itself I took advantage of the opportunity. John and I shook hands in his driveway and made each other false promises of getting together again soon. That's how it goes with that type of friend. It wasn't until later on that evening that I discovered the extent of it.
I was emptying my pockets onto my dresser and noticed something missing: my lighter. He'd pocketed it after cracking his beer with a hand as sly as a street hustler's. I smiled into the mirror on my bedroom wall, the day's dust and failure still glued to my face. My loss was minimal compared to the gain. Some things never change, thank God.
5.21.2010
Slowly Going the Way of the Pipe
I closely resembled a South American druglord.
The brown aviators, slicked-to-the-side hair
neatly trimmed beard, and rolled-cuff white buttown-down
worn recklessly four days prior to Memorial Day
made the comparison undeniable. The top few buttons
had been left undone, revealing a black T-shirt underneath.
My fellow graduating apprentices would chime right in
with the predictable Spic jokes which I more than welcomed.
It had become my identity within the group, it was better
to have one than not. Besides, I was on a mission to
change the stereotype through positive representation.
It was a role I embraced with open, olive-skinned arms.
I'd called my mother before leaving for the graduation dinner
asking where my old assortment of ties were hidden. It'd been
eight years since I'd worn some of them as a weekly requirement
for a criminal justice class I took in high school. I knew
that my stepfather had hijacked them, one hostage
at a time, whenever he needed to spiff up for an event.
On more than one occasion I'd had to tie the damn thing for him
the crude, thick-fingered construction worker that he is.
I didn't mind. It gave a kid an edge over a man three times his age.
My mom's house was only a mile from where the dinner ceremony
was being held. I could easily swing by and complete the get-up
with one of my old ties, loosely done of course. The effect would
be worth the process of rummaging through a bedroom closet.
Suddenly, however, it dawned on me: it'd been so long
that I'd forgotten how to tie the customary half windsor knot.
I could've looked it up on the internet as I had originally
due to the lack of a real father figure, but that would be a farce.
In my years away from the realm of formal attire I'd lost
the bit of knowledge that separated men from boys.
That was it-- I'd officially become blue collar.
"Congratulations," I told myself in the rear-view mirror.
A Latino cartel leader regrettably content
with his place in life smiled back
the points of his white collar flapping in the breeze.
The brown aviators, slicked-to-the-side hair
neatly trimmed beard, and rolled-cuff white buttown-down
worn recklessly four days prior to Memorial Day
made the comparison undeniable. The top few buttons
had been left undone, revealing a black T-shirt underneath.
My fellow graduating apprentices would chime right in
with the predictable Spic jokes which I more than welcomed.
It had become my identity within the group, it was better
to have one than not. Besides, I was on a mission to
change the stereotype through positive representation.
It was a role I embraced with open, olive-skinned arms.
I'd called my mother before leaving for the graduation dinner
asking where my old assortment of ties were hidden. It'd been
eight years since I'd worn some of them as a weekly requirement
for a criminal justice class I took in high school. I knew
that my stepfather had hijacked them, one hostage
at a time, whenever he needed to spiff up for an event.
On more than one occasion I'd had to tie the damn thing for him
the crude, thick-fingered construction worker that he is.
I didn't mind. It gave a kid an edge over a man three times his age.
My mom's house was only a mile from where the dinner ceremony
was being held. I could easily swing by and complete the get-up
with one of my old ties, loosely done of course. The effect would
be worth the process of rummaging through a bedroom closet.
Suddenly, however, it dawned on me: it'd been so long
that I'd forgotten how to tie the customary half windsor knot.
I could've looked it up on the internet as I had originally
due to the lack of a real father figure, but that would be a farce.
In my years away from the realm of formal attire I'd lost
the bit of knowledge that separated men from boys.
That was it-- I'd officially become blue collar.
"Congratulations," I told myself in the rear-view mirror.
A Latino cartel leader regrettably content
with his place in life smiled back
the points of his white collar flapping in the breeze.
5.16.2010
The Fettered Workings of Democracy in the Hands of a Gun-toting Novice
Today I wrote my senator
urging him against
the passing of a Bill
clearly aimed at discouraging
the sale of semiautomatic handguns
in the fine State of New York.
In masterfully ignorant form
from behind the safety
of my NRA card
I concluded the letter
with a shamefully neophytic display
in the form of a cliche:
"Outlaw guns
and only outlaws will have guns."
I was too weak to resist.
Mea culpa, Mr. Heston.
I hope I've not let down
your cold dead hands again.
Currently reading:
"Breakfast of Champions" by Kurt Vonnegut.
urging him against
the passing of a Bill
clearly aimed at discouraging
the sale of semiautomatic handguns
in the fine State of New York.
In masterfully ignorant form
from behind the safety
of my NRA card
I concluded the letter
with a shamefully neophytic display
in the form of a cliche:
"Outlaw guns
and only outlaws will have guns."
I was too weak to resist.
Mea culpa, Mr. Heston.
I hope I've not let down
your cold dead hands again.
Currently reading:
"Breakfast of Champions" by Kurt Vonnegut.
A Pocket Full of Posies
The random facts and slightly frightening anecdotes were running rampant from his lips now and I only had myself to thank. I'd been the one making the drinks, asking if he wanted another whenever I saw that his mug was empty. Sometimes in playing host we tend to forget the difference in tolerances. My heavy-handed Canadian Club portions weren't cut enough by the ginger ale. I'd made a blubbering spectacle of a brilliant friend and was forced to face the consequences. In true runner-up form I tried to make the best of it.
"Do you know how many people I've dumped into the Hudson?" he said with devilish grin, not bothering to wait long for an answer that wasn't coming from his stunned audience. "Five."
"Jesus." The others and I looked at each other across my kitchen table in shock and awe. Those of us who had a drink in hand took a sip. The topic of cremation had come up and our pal had the perfect story ready. Anyone who doubted his skills as a conversationalist would've been silenced quite thoroughly after a few rounds in the ring with our buddy.
"So many people who sell the estates of the deceased to antique dealers include ancient urns. They're usually dustier on the outside than they are on the inside. 'We don't want Uncle Frank,' they'll tell me casually. So when I acquire the remains with the rest of the junk I walk out to the middle of the bridge and dump the ashes."
There was little left to say to such a shocking revelation. The image was complete: a humble, struggling man put in an awkward situation walking half the span of the river's width in order to do what seemed right, or best. Was pouring Uncle Frank into the center of the mighty Hudson any more sacred and respectful than bleeding his ashes into its rocky edge? I didn't think so, the water being the same. But then again I understood his reasoning. It wasn't the location that mattered; it was the effort made to put him somewhere else that his relatives wouldn't have put forth. The last act of honor in Uncle Frank's name was performed by a stranger too courteous to say No. In my contemplation of the circumstance I found its latent beauty. Still, the mood had to be lightened if possible.
"Remember in 'The Big Lebowski' when the ashes blow back into the Dude's face?" my roommate asked.
"Yeah, that's my favorite part." We'd played it well, or so I thought.
"That happened to me once!" our over-served guest interjected with zeal as if he'd been waiting for his cue all along. That was it, the final brush stroke to complete the picture: a puff of gray ashes that had once been the remains of a human being raining on his face and outstretched arms, stinging his eyes in spite of his glasses. "The nozzle of knowledge had been opened," as someone else present pointed out. People often fail to imagine the size of the other man's shoes. More often than not the discovery is appalling. We don't know. We really don't know. The shame in it is that most of us would rather keep it that way; but just like in the case of his walk to the center of the bridge, I can understand.
There was no turning back for any of us. I could only make the cocktails stronger. If my morbidly burdened friend could shoulder the weight of his load then I would do the same. Know your roles. Embrace them.
"Do you know how many people I've dumped into the Hudson?" he said with devilish grin, not bothering to wait long for an answer that wasn't coming from his stunned audience. "Five."
"Jesus." The others and I looked at each other across my kitchen table in shock and awe. Those of us who had a drink in hand took a sip. The topic of cremation had come up and our pal had the perfect story ready. Anyone who doubted his skills as a conversationalist would've been silenced quite thoroughly after a few rounds in the ring with our buddy.
"So many people who sell the estates of the deceased to antique dealers include ancient urns. They're usually dustier on the outside than they are on the inside. 'We don't want Uncle Frank,' they'll tell me casually. So when I acquire the remains with the rest of the junk I walk out to the middle of the bridge and dump the ashes."
There was little left to say to such a shocking revelation. The image was complete: a humble, struggling man put in an awkward situation walking half the span of the river's width in order to do what seemed right, or best. Was pouring Uncle Frank into the center of the mighty Hudson any more sacred and respectful than bleeding his ashes into its rocky edge? I didn't think so, the water being the same. But then again I understood his reasoning. It wasn't the location that mattered; it was the effort made to put him somewhere else that his relatives wouldn't have put forth. The last act of honor in Uncle Frank's name was performed by a stranger too courteous to say No. In my contemplation of the circumstance I found its latent beauty. Still, the mood had to be lightened if possible.
"Remember in 'The Big Lebowski' when the ashes blow back into the Dude's face?" my roommate asked.
"Yeah, that's my favorite part." We'd played it well, or so I thought.
"That happened to me once!" our over-served guest interjected with zeal as if he'd been waiting for his cue all along. That was it, the final brush stroke to complete the picture: a puff of gray ashes that had once been the remains of a human being raining on his face and outstretched arms, stinging his eyes in spite of his glasses. "The nozzle of knowledge had been opened," as someone else present pointed out. People often fail to imagine the size of the other man's shoes. More often than not the discovery is appalling. We don't know. We really don't know. The shame in it is that most of us would rather keep it that way; but just like in the case of his walk to the center of the bridge, I can understand.
There was no turning back for any of us. I could only make the cocktails stronger. If my morbidly burdened friend could shoulder the weight of his load then I would do the same. Know your roles. Embrace them.
5.15.2010
You can't take it with you, but you should sure try.
There it is in perfect form:
a man's pride and joy
left to rust in his widow's driveway.
The metallic brown landship
of the larger-than-life Sixties variety
complete with fins and contours
lit up with bells and whistles
lays in wait for a turn of the ignition
that isn't ever coming.
A multitude of twigs and leaves
cover its hood and trunk.
The left rear tire is slowly going flat.
It's a slow death that's hard to watch
from the window of my ivory tower.
My neighbor's been dead for a good
four months. His wife's sold or given
away most of his belongings
though I feel it's been more to get rid of him
and the memory of their loveless marriage
than for any other reason. But this--
this travesty, a final slap in the face
to a buried corpse unable to defend himself--
this is more disrespect than the deceased
should ever bear. I wish she'd sell the thing already.
Something tells me that car
was the only thing he loved
at the end.
She must know that.
a man's pride and joy
left to rust in his widow's driveway.
The metallic brown landship
of the larger-than-life Sixties variety
complete with fins and contours
lit up with bells and whistles
lays in wait for a turn of the ignition
that isn't ever coming.
A multitude of twigs and leaves
cover its hood and trunk.
The left rear tire is slowly going flat.
It's a slow death that's hard to watch
from the window of my ivory tower.
My neighbor's been dead for a good
four months. His wife's sold or given
away most of his belongings
though I feel it's been more to get rid of him
and the memory of their loveless marriage
than for any other reason. But this--
this travesty, a final slap in the face
to a buried corpse unable to defend himself--
this is more disrespect than the deceased
should ever bear. I wish she'd sell the thing already.
Something tells me that car
was the only thing he loved
at the end.
She must know that.
5.14.2010
Asking permission.
"It's been a long time
since we've done it this way."
"Yes. Wait. Have we ever?"
"Oh we used to. Believe me.
We used to."
I crack a fresh bottle of tonic
and dump it into a half-glass of ice
fighting to swim in the gin.
A few weeks ago I drank
at a bar in Midtown
where the Bloody Mary originated
only there they called it a Red Snapper.
The cocktails were a stiff twenty
which was fine since I wasn't paying.
A bowtied bartender complete with engraved nameplate
opened a new ten-ounce bottle of soda
for each drink in an act that made me feel
further out of place in my tight green T-shirt. No type
of syrup-to-bubbles-to water ratio error could be tolerated
for a cup of overpriced rotgut in such a fancy joint.
The factory's bottled contents were
the only thing to be trusted in that whole damn place.
That whole damned place.
"Yeah, this is how it used to get done
alright."
There's no one around to disagree this time.
The accompanying smirk is guiltlessly savored.
A sip better than any I've tasted all week
passes my bored Friday lips, sinks somewhere into the fat
perched above my hairy thighs. I've gained and lost
and gained again in a fashion typical of life.
The current phase isn't so appetizing
I must admit. The beach beckons not this summer.
A stranded brown sea mammal trying desperately
to squint hard enough to be able to read
the glowing pages of a sun-drenched book.
Children will run screaming from the abortion.
There's an image for you, Adam.
Swallow it whole.
And Adam responds accordingly:
"Hey Lush, have fun. It's the weekend.
I don't think that you know what you've been missing."
We never do; or we do, and we embrace the cross
in the hopes of a posthumous sainthood.
God, I wish I could save them all--
or maybe myself in stride.
But I answer Adam back with a Click.
To me that sound is more than it is for most.
Only one of my nine firearms has a hammer
that can be physically cocked with the thumb.
There's something lovely in that noise
that all of us lose every day. Call it Choice for now.
I lower the steel heel, make it go away.
A wise decision.
Again with the tonic
still fighting the gin.
My father used to order it when we'd go to dinner.
"You mean a gin-and-tonic?" the confused waitress
would ask.
"No," he'd sigh from his hesitant booth. "Just a tonic water
with lime." That crooked jaw of ours
would grin at no one afterwards.
I've topped him, improved upon his wheel.
And still I will become him.
since we've done it this way."
"Yes. Wait. Have we ever?"
"Oh we used to. Believe me.
We used to."
I crack a fresh bottle of tonic
and dump it into a half-glass of ice
fighting to swim in the gin.
A few weeks ago I drank
at a bar in Midtown
where the Bloody Mary originated
only there they called it a Red Snapper.
The cocktails were a stiff twenty
which was fine since I wasn't paying.
A bowtied bartender complete with engraved nameplate
opened a new ten-ounce bottle of soda
for each drink in an act that made me feel
further out of place in my tight green T-shirt. No type
of syrup-to-bubbles-to water ratio error could be tolerated
for a cup of overpriced rotgut in such a fancy joint.
The factory's bottled contents were
the only thing to be trusted in that whole damn place.
That whole damned place.
"Yeah, this is how it used to get done
alright."
There's no one around to disagree this time.
The accompanying smirk is guiltlessly savored.
A sip better than any I've tasted all week
passes my bored Friday lips, sinks somewhere into the fat
perched above my hairy thighs. I've gained and lost
and gained again in a fashion typical of life.
The current phase isn't so appetizing
I must admit. The beach beckons not this summer.
A stranded brown sea mammal trying desperately
to squint hard enough to be able to read
the glowing pages of a sun-drenched book.
Children will run screaming from the abortion.
There's an image for you, Adam.
Swallow it whole.
And Adam responds accordingly:
"Hey Lush, have fun. It's the weekend.
I don't think that you know what you've been missing."
We never do; or we do, and we embrace the cross
in the hopes of a posthumous sainthood.
God, I wish I could save them all--
or maybe myself in stride.
But I answer Adam back with a Click.
To me that sound is more than it is for most.
Only one of my nine firearms has a hammer
that can be physically cocked with the thumb.
There's something lovely in that noise
that all of us lose every day. Call it Choice for now.
I lower the steel heel, make it go away.
A wise decision.
Again with the tonic
still fighting the gin.
My father used to order it when we'd go to dinner.
"You mean a gin-and-tonic?" the confused waitress
would ask.
"No," he'd sigh from his hesitant booth. "Just a tonic water
with lime." That crooked jaw of ours
would grin at no one afterwards.
I've topped him, improved upon his wheel.
And still I will become him.
5.09.2010
A Merry Old Soul Was He.
The only feature more distracting
than the gray tufts of hair
protruding from George's massive ears
were the wiry caterpillars above
his dark, sunken eyes.
With every coming year he shrunk
another inch and his cigarette-weakened voice
became more and more faint.
I'd have to step closer and closer
to the quietly rotting Italian man who lived
alone in a trailer in the neighbor's back yard
in order to hear whatever trivial question
the seventy-something-year-old man
had for a kid trying to play by himself
in his father's lonely yard.
Sometimes my parents, when they still
lived together and made decisions that way
would send me to his tin-sheathed time capsule of an abode
on a Saturday morning to watch television
on his tobacco-stained couch. Had they needed
a babysitter they would've called one of the cute
little ponytailed teenagers in the neighborhood;
even at that naive age I knew that my presence
at George's place was more for his benefit
than my own, though it didn't bother me
enough to protest the directive and risk being
banned from playing Nintendo for a week.
There was always some form of candy in a bowl
on his coffee table and he let me pick which programs
we watched. When he'd had his fill of company
I'd be dismissed graciously like a wife departing
from an inmate's conjugal visit. The favor was repaid
one time when my elementary school was hosting
some function for its students and their grandfathers in a
blessed pre-politically correct era that conveniently denied
the fact that this may've caused problems for those
with deceased or AWOL patriarchs. Good ol' George
was happy to fill in for the occasion. He wore a bowtie
that probably hadn't seen the light of day since
his wife was still alive and wouldn't do so again.
I'm not sure what ever happened to the man
though I assume he's happily underground with his beloved.
If by some chance I met him again in that driveway
between my father's home and his I wouldn't know
how to answer any of the questions that by now
would be inaudible to the human ear
and equally irrelevant.
George, you should've quit sooner--
the cigarettes, I mean.
Currently reading:
"Demian" by Hermann Hesse.
than the gray tufts of hair
protruding from George's massive ears
were the wiry caterpillars above
his dark, sunken eyes.
With every coming year he shrunk
another inch and his cigarette-weakened voice
became more and more faint.
I'd have to step closer and closer
to the quietly rotting Italian man who lived
alone in a trailer in the neighbor's back yard
in order to hear whatever trivial question
the seventy-something-year-old man
had for a kid trying to play by himself
in his father's lonely yard.
Sometimes my parents, when they still
lived together and made decisions that way
would send me to his tin-sheathed time capsule of an abode
on a Saturday morning to watch television
on his tobacco-stained couch. Had they needed
a babysitter they would've called one of the cute
little ponytailed teenagers in the neighborhood;
even at that naive age I knew that my presence
at George's place was more for his benefit
than my own, though it didn't bother me
enough to protest the directive and risk being
banned from playing Nintendo for a week.
There was always some form of candy in a bowl
on his coffee table and he let me pick which programs
we watched. When he'd had his fill of company
I'd be dismissed graciously like a wife departing
from an inmate's conjugal visit. The favor was repaid
one time when my elementary school was hosting
some function for its students and their grandfathers in a
blessed pre-politically correct era that conveniently denied
the fact that this may've caused problems for those
with deceased or AWOL patriarchs. Good ol' George
was happy to fill in for the occasion. He wore a bowtie
that probably hadn't seen the light of day since
his wife was still alive and wouldn't do so again.
I'm not sure what ever happened to the man
though I assume he's happily underground with his beloved.
If by some chance I met him again in that driveway
between my father's home and his I wouldn't know
how to answer any of the questions that by now
would be inaudible to the human ear
and equally irrelevant.
George, you should've quit sooner--
the cigarettes, I mean.
Currently reading:
"Demian" by Hermann Hesse.
Brain Bait to Our Dismay
According to Stephen Hawking
the world's current authority
when it comes to aging, crippled geniuses
Time Travel is possible
if one can orbit a Black Hole.
It's got something to do with its general relativity
and the fact that Time is slowed down
there to somewhere near the equivalent
of one second for every one hundred Earth years.
Here is raised the obvious limitation
that even the masters of physics have yet to
and probably won't solve:
We can only move forward in Time
even with the help of a renowned
self-proclaimed scientific heretic.
There's no unspilling that milk, my friends.
And now, for effect, the conclusionary quote
in which you may or may not find solace:
"The universe is governed by the laws of science.
The laws may have been decreed by God
but God does not intervene to break them."
the world's current authority
when it comes to aging, crippled geniuses
Time Travel is possible
if one can orbit a Black Hole.
It's got something to do with its general relativity
and the fact that Time is slowed down
there to somewhere near the equivalent
of one second for every one hundred Earth years.
Here is raised the obvious limitation
that even the masters of physics have yet to
and probably won't solve:
We can only move forward in Time
even with the help of a renowned
self-proclaimed scientific heretic.
There's no unspilling that milk, my friends.
And now, for effect, the conclusionary quote
in which you may or may not find solace:
"The universe is governed by the laws of science.
The laws may have been decreed by God
but God does not intervene to break them."
Lacing up for the let-down.
Killing them didn't warrant this final outcome.
I was a kid. How could I've known better?
The nature camp I went to over
in Putnam County was having
its Native American week
and all of us elementary-aged campers
were excited as ever
running around through the woods
with our "Indian" names. My parents
had urged me against White Cloud
since it was the name of a popular
brand of toilet paper at the time.
I settled on something else
that to this day is forgettably sub par.
Our main project for the week
was to construct a miniature
Native American home
that our local indigenous people
may have lived in long ago:
a wigwam, a longhouse, some sort
of branch-and-bark shelter.
Setting to work on the shoebox-sized
house was easy. Never had my focus
been so keen. The twigs and birch bark
I'd so carefully gathered practically
fastened themselves together.
No one else was done by the time I'd finished
so I continued the fun by searching
for things to decorate my pint-sized
Injun family's yard. Tiny pine cones
became shrubbery. Some chunks of gravel
from the camp's parking lot were glued
to the cardboard "ground" in a circle
to signify a campfire. That afternoon
when I arrived home from my productive
day at camp I found something else
to use in my project.
The flowers on my father's rhododendron bushes
hadn't bloomed yet. Their buds looked
exactly like small ears of corn that'd look great
stacked up alongside my Native American home.
I walked up and down the driveway
picking the green buds from the bushes
and shoving them into my pockets
excited to bring them to camp the next day.
Sure enough, they looked exactly like corn
when I set them in place. My masterpiece
was complete. Had there been a prize for
creativity I would've won-- at least that's what
one of the counsellors told me in confidence
later on that day during a hike.
He didn't notice that anything was wrong
right away. Who looks at the plants in their
lawn that often? When the neighbor's rhododendron
bloomed beautifully a few weeks later, however
my father was puzzled and inspected his own specimens.
It was only a matter of time before the interrogation
commenced. Then, as now, I was a terrible liar
and didn't bother trying. I don't recall
if I was punished for my ignorantly overzealous
addition to my summer camp project
but I do know that I wished my dad had seen
how hard I'd worked at it and how proud of it I was.
Approval's been harder to come by since then.
I wish I'd never plucked those flowers.
I was a kid. How could I've known better?
The nature camp I went to over
in Putnam County was having
its Native American week
and all of us elementary-aged campers
were excited as ever
running around through the woods
with our "Indian" names. My parents
had urged me against White Cloud
since it was the name of a popular
brand of toilet paper at the time.
I settled on something else
that to this day is forgettably sub par.
Our main project for the week
was to construct a miniature
Native American home
that our local indigenous people
may have lived in long ago:
a wigwam, a longhouse, some sort
of branch-and-bark shelter.
Setting to work on the shoebox-sized
house was easy. Never had my focus
been so keen. The twigs and birch bark
I'd so carefully gathered practically
fastened themselves together.
No one else was done by the time I'd finished
so I continued the fun by searching
for things to decorate my pint-sized
Injun family's yard. Tiny pine cones
became shrubbery. Some chunks of gravel
from the camp's parking lot were glued
to the cardboard "ground" in a circle
to signify a campfire. That afternoon
when I arrived home from my productive
day at camp I found something else
to use in my project.
The flowers on my father's rhododendron bushes
hadn't bloomed yet. Their buds looked
exactly like small ears of corn that'd look great
stacked up alongside my Native American home.
I walked up and down the driveway
picking the green buds from the bushes
and shoving them into my pockets
excited to bring them to camp the next day.
Sure enough, they looked exactly like corn
when I set them in place. My masterpiece
was complete. Had there been a prize for
creativity I would've won-- at least that's what
one of the counsellors told me in confidence
later on that day during a hike.
He didn't notice that anything was wrong
right away. Who looks at the plants in their
lawn that often? When the neighbor's rhododendron
bloomed beautifully a few weeks later, however
my father was puzzled and inspected his own specimens.
It was only a matter of time before the interrogation
commenced. Then, as now, I was a terrible liar
and didn't bother trying. I don't recall
if I was punished for my ignorantly overzealous
addition to my summer camp project
but I do know that I wished my dad had seen
how hard I'd worked at it and how proud of it I was.
Approval's been harder to come by since then.
I wish I'd never plucked those flowers.
5.06.2010
On Killing a Lover of Life's Finer Things
There are parts of my room
that'd never been inspected
let alone cleaned--
the spatial version
of the backs of a ten-year-old's ears.
Last week by chance
which I won't try to pawn off as maintenance
I moved one of the computer speakers
on my desk aside while opening a window.
To my surprise there was a small pile of
dried corn kernels and seeds
which must've been gathered, gnawed on
and then forgotten by one of the mice
that took up occupancy in our house
over the winter. This small collection of food
was all that remained of the rodent's existence
the nightly Snap! of the trap my roommate set
in the bathroom being evidence of the pests' demise.
I brushed the food, which the mouse had obviously
stolen from my rabbit, into my hand and peered
through the window at the budding tree and other signs
of spring in full bloom. I was never the one to set
or empty that trap, and for good reason that
my discovery only proved:
Mice, like people, enjoy a good view.
We're bound to have more in common.
that'd never been inspected
let alone cleaned--
the spatial version
of the backs of a ten-year-old's ears.
Last week by chance
which I won't try to pawn off as maintenance
I moved one of the computer speakers
on my desk aside while opening a window.
To my surprise there was a small pile of
dried corn kernels and seeds
which must've been gathered, gnawed on
and then forgotten by one of the mice
that took up occupancy in our house
over the winter. This small collection of food
was all that remained of the rodent's existence
the nightly Snap! of the trap my roommate set
in the bathroom being evidence of the pests' demise.
I brushed the food, which the mouse had obviously
stolen from my rabbit, into my hand and peered
through the window at the budding tree and other signs
of spring in full bloom. I was never the one to set
or empty that trap, and for good reason that
my discovery only proved:
Mice, like people, enjoy a good view.
We're bound to have more in common.
5.04.2010
Razorback Flashback
I had the strangest dream this morning:
two of the three daughters from "Full House"
were living with my future Broadway starlet cousin
in New England. A State Record-worthy boar [though
wild hogs are not native to the region, -Ed.] was
rampaging through the birch trees behind the house
so the Great Brown Hunter set out with his scoped shotgun
to eliminate the threat. I fired numerous slugs at the beast
reloading at least twice. The neighbors must've been scared
because before I could thrash into another dreamscape
the authorities were on the scene investigating the source of the
gunshots. I tried to explain the danger DJ and Stephanie Tanner
as well as Miss West Side Story were in, but the troopers
weren't having any of it-- not until they trekked into the woods
and finished off my quarry with their rarely unholstered pistols.
I was exonerated, using that exact word in my dream, and all
was well in the land until that little problem hit me hard:
waking.
two of the three daughters from "Full House"
were living with my future Broadway starlet cousin
in New England. A State Record-worthy boar [though
wild hogs are not native to the region, -Ed.] was
rampaging through the birch trees behind the house
so the Great Brown Hunter set out with his scoped shotgun
to eliminate the threat. I fired numerous slugs at the beast
reloading at least twice. The neighbors must've been scared
because before I could thrash into another dreamscape
the authorities were on the scene investigating the source of the
gunshots. I tried to explain the danger DJ and Stephanie Tanner
as well as Miss West Side Story were in, but the troopers
weren't having any of it-- not until they trekked into the woods
and finished off my quarry with their rarely unholstered pistols.
I was exonerated, using that exact word in my dream, and all
was well in the land until that little problem hit me hard:
waking.
5.03.2010
Broad enough Strokes
My box spring and mattress sat on the floor of my bedroom for so long that the thought of putting them back on a bed frame seemed absurdly foreign. A recent moving job I completed in the city left me in possession of a like-new plastic bed frame that snaps together and sits much more sturdily than the cheap metal affair I had before which I always feared would give way at a most inopportune time. As a result my bed is now a good two feet higher. If it had four posts around it and some form of flowing fabric veil it'd closely resemble something from the chamber of a pre-pubescent princess; but here, in this dimly lit room lined with bookshelves and firearms, it's just another awkwardly high mattress.
Its new altitude has taken some getting used to, and not all of us have adjusted. Tonight, in the thousandth vain attempt to receive affection from my rabbit, I learned this the hard way. She'd been fascinated by the recent addition of the pseudo-subterranean realm created by the bed's sudden elevation. I chased her out of her favorite new hiding spot, captured her in the laundry hamper, and dumped her onto the bed in hopes of being able to pet her for a minute. In utter defiance typical of the ironically antisocial bunny she leapt from the edge of the bed and landed hard on the hardwood floor. She looked like a painfully compressed accordion upon impact. A jump that used to be so easy for her had changed its nature entirely with the introduction of that pesky frame. In sheer shock she turned around, slightly bow-legged in the hind quarters, and jerked her head backwards as her tongue licked the whiskers on her right cheek. A sporadic twitch attacked her neck that brought my hands to my mouth in horror. This is it, I thought. She's broken her spine. Her ears flicked to the side a few times and she chewed at the air in a punch-drunk stupor. Finally, to my relief, she hopped back under the bed to recover her senses and lick her invisible wounds. Animals too make stupid faces and odd gestures when slightly injured and severely dazed. The chuckle came late, but definitively. I was saved from a manslaughter rap.
And in the end, as always, I'm grateful for the fable: rabbits, like people, should look before they leap.
Its new altitude has taken some getting used to, and not all of us have adjusted. Tonight, in the thousandth vain attempt to receive affection from my rabbit, I learned this the hard way. She'd been fascinated by the recent addition of the pseudo-subterranean realm created by the bed's sudden elevation. I chased her out of her favorite new hiding spot, captured her in the laundry hamper, and dumped her onto the bed in hopes of being able to pet her for a minute. In utter defiance typical of the ironically antisocial bunny she leapt from the edge of the bed and landed hard on the hardwood floor. She looked like a painfully compressed accordion upon impact. A jump that used to be so easy for her had changed its nature entirely with the introduction of that pesky frame. In sheer shock she turned around, slightly bow-legged in the hind quarters, and jerked her head backwards as her tongue licked the whiskers on her right cheek. A sporadic twitch attacked her neck that brought my hands to my mouth in horror. This is it, I thought. She's broken her spine. Her ears flicked to the side a few times and she chewed at the air in a punch-drunk stupor. Finally, to my relief, she hopped back under the bed to recover her senses and lick her invisible wounds. Animals too make stupid faces and odd gestures when slightly injured and severely dazed. The chuckle came late, but definitively. I was saved from a manslaughter rap.
And in the end, as always, I'm grateful for the fable: rabbits, like people, should look before they leap.
5.01.2010
'One Shot, One Kill' in a Perfect World.
What they teach
in sniper schools
around the world
is quite correct
though I think
they've forgotten
one part of the mantra:
Your first shot's important
but never miss your last.
in sniper schools
around the world
is quite correct
though I think
they've forgotten
one part of the mantra:
Your first shot's important
but never miss your last.
4.30.2010
"I before E except after C."
For fourteen long months
I spelled a name wrong
over and over
beyond what was due
my ignorance thanks to an adage, a rule.
The worst part
is that I was never
corrected--
Not until now
the jawline, the jawbone.
I spelled a name wrong
over and over
beyond what was due
my ignorance thanks to an adage, a rule.
The worst part
is that I was never
corrected--
Not until now
the jawline, the jawbone.
4.28.2010
Two birds dancing in the dust.
Back when I was
young, strong, and stupid
I used to haul
two bags of concrete at once
over my shoulder
during hungover Saturday side-jobs.
That's how I knew
I could lift you
this morning
though now
at twenty-six
I'm no spring chicken
and no wiser
for the scars.
Two wrongs don't make a right
but three lefts do.
I'm sorry about tomorrow.
young, strong, and stupid
I used to haul
two bags of concrete at once
over my shoulder
during hungover Saturday side-jobs.
That's how I knew
I could lift you
this morning
though now
at twenty-six
I'm no spring chicken
and no wiser
for the scars.
Two wrongs don't make a right
but three lefts do.
I'm sorry about tomorrow.
4.26.2010
Safe than Sorry
Clouds
in your fingernails
mean
you're not
getting enough of
something:
zinc, I think.
Zinc.
It's alright.
They
grow out.
in your fingernails
mean
you're not
getting enough of
something:
zinc, I think.
Zinc.
It's alright.
They
grow out.
4.23.2010
C-
It was one of those moments
where you know that whatever god
you happen to believe in at the time
is testing you. There was a definite choice
to make and whether or not I responded
correctly would determine the outcome
of the rest of the afternoon for both myself
and a stranger.
I'd just finished up a moving gig in Manhattan
and was cashing the check my employer had
given me. Tired, sweaty, and in need of both
alcohol and water I waited in line at the branch
I'd never been to and to which I'd never return.
The teller smiled without comment when she saw
my license, but I knew why.
"The DMV charges forty bucks for a new one
and I move a lot so I just put a label over
the address to change it when I need to."
A pearly grin spread across her tired
mocha-colored face expressing appreciation
for a change of pace at the end of her day.
"May I have large bills?" I asked. "The money seems
to last longer if I don't have a wad of twenties."
She smiled again, though this time it was
as though she'd heard a joke already
and was offering her condolences for my mediocrity.
The bills came through the small portal
beneath the shield of bulletproof glass--
three hundreds and a fifty. I thanked her
and turned to walk away while thumbing
the cash into my wallet when I discovered
her mistake: she'd given me an extra hundred.
I'd been laid off for seven months and was
lucky to have any side-work whatsoever, hence
the moving job. That extra C-note would
help get me back on track financially, maybe even
help justify some luxurious poor decisions. The only
thing between me, the sidewalk, and a much-needed break
was a glass door beckoning from a mere five feet away.
That's when I did an about-face.
I'm not a religious man by any means.
I believe that when you die it goes back
to how it was before you were born, the only
difference being that you either learned lessons
in the process or taught some things to those around you
or you didn't. You improved the world or you detracted from it
though, more likely than not, you did both to some degree.
The worms will be your only final judges as they
devour your corpse as far as I'm concerned.
That being said, I do believe in karma; or, to keep it
on a more tangible level, Every action has an equal
and opposite reaction. I see it every day, though maybe
that's by choice. Regardless, I knew I had to return
that unearned money. If I didn't a stray air-conditioner
would probably wind up falling on me from an apartment
window during my walk back to my truck.
"How much was that check for?" I asked
after returning to the teller.
"Two fifty...Oh Jesus, I gave you three fifty!"
"Yeah. You did."
I slid the culprit back under the divider
hoping the woman's manager didn't notice
and walked out of the bank
knowing I'd sleep better
and there wouldn't be another person
joining me on the unemployment list.
You'd be fair in contesting my track record
but none of my wins were stolen.
I sleep best at night
with nothing to fear but my shadow.
where you know that whatever god
you happen to believe in at the time
is testing you. There was a definite choice
to make and whether or not I responded
correctly would determine the outcome
of the rest of the afternoon for both myself
and a stranger.
I'd just finished up a moving gig in Manhattan
and was cashing the check my employer had
given me. Tired, sweaty, and in need of both
alcohol and water I waited in line at the branch
I'd never been to and to which I'd never return.
The teller smiled without comment when she saw
my license, but I knew why.
"The DMV charges forty bucks for a new one
and I move a lot so I just put a label over
the address to change it when I need to."
A pearly grin spread across her tired
mocha-colored face expressing appreciation
for a change of pace at the end of her day.
"May I have large bills?" I asked. "The money seems
to last longer if I don't have a wad of twenties."
She smiled again, though this time it was
as though she'd heard a joke already
and was offering her condolences for my mediocrity.
The bills came through the small portal
beneath the shield of bulletproof glass--
three hundreds and a fifty. I thanked her
and turned to walk away while thumbing
the cash into my wallet when I discovered
her mistake: she'd given me an extra hundred.
I'd been laid off for seven months and was
lucky to have any side-work whatsoever, hence
the moving job. That extra C-note would
help get me back on track financially, maybe even
help justify some luxurious poor decisions. The only
thing between me, the sidewalk, and a much-needed break
was a glass door beckoning from a mere five feet away.
That's when I did an about-face.
I'm not a religious man by any means.
I believe that when you die it goes back
to how it was before you were born, the only
difference being that you either learned lessons
in the process or taught some things to those around you
or you didn't. You improved the world or you detracted from it
though, more likely than not, you did both to some degree.
The worms will be your only final judges as they
devour your corpse as far as I'm concerned.
That being said, I do believe in karma; or, to keep it
on a more tangible level, Every action has an equal
and opposite reaction. I see it every day, though maybe
that's by choice. Regardless, I knew I had to return
that unearned money. If I didn't a stray air-conditioner
would probably wind up falling on me from an apartment
window during my walk back to my truck.
"How much was that check for?" I asked
after returning to the teller.
"Two fifty...Oh Jesus, I gave you three fifty!"
"Yeah. You did."
I slid the culprit back under the divider
hoping the woman's manager didn't notice
and walked out of the bank
knowing I'd sleep better
and there wouldn't be another person
joining me on the unemployment list.
You'd be fair in contesting my track record
but none of my wins were stolen.
I sleep best at night
with nothing to fear but my shadow.
4.21.2010
past lives and ex-wives
"Prison food was so much better," I quip
as the three of us exit the hospital elevator.
The stranger in front of us laughs
as she hustles through the lobby alongside us.
"It was a joke," I say in my defense
hoping that the vivid tattoos on my arms don't
resemble jailhouse artwork done with pens and razors.
"It wouldn't bother me," the forty-something-year-old
woman replies, barely taking the time
to look over the padded shoulder of her business suit.
"I've seen a lot in my life."
She speeds off down some corridor
heading deeper into the heart of the hospital
as my girlfriend and I make way for the automatic doors.
There are still some people worth talking to in the world.
You've just got to try harder.
as the three of us exit the hospital elevator.
The stranger in front of us laughs
as she hustles through the lobby alongside us.
"It was a joke," I say in my defense
hoping that the vivid tattoos on my arms don't
resemble jailhouse artwork done with pens and razors.
"It wouldn't bother me," the forty-something-year-old
woman replies, barely taking the time
to look over the padded shoulder of her business suit.
"I've seen a lot in my life."
She speeds off down some corridor
heading deeper into the heart of the hospital
as my girlfriend and I make way for the automatic doors.
There are still some people worth talking to in the world.
You've just got to try harder.
4.19.2010
To the tune of your dentist's office music.
It seemed unseasonably early
to be sleeping with the windows open
and our precious silence paid the price--
all night long, or so it seemed
the two local firehouses
called for reinforcements
waking us up
with their wailing sirens.
In the morning I put her on the train
to join the other tired commuters
hoping she'd fall asleep
for most of the buck-fifteen ride
into the city. When the text messages stopped
I knew that she had. I did the same.
When I woke I did a load of laundry
washed, dried, and put away
taking mental note of the fact that I folded
her clothes better than my own.
My pleasures are simple and my stars awfully low.
It's the best way I've found to live.
Nothing's perfect, but it's nice getting close
sometimes.
to be sleeping with the windows open
and our precious silence paid the price--
all night long, or so it seemed
the two local firehouses
called for reinforcements
waking us up
with their wailing sirens.
In the morning I put her on the train
to join the other tired commuters
hoping she'd fall asleep
for most of the buck-fifteen ride
into the city. When the text messages stopped
I knew that she had. I did the same.
When I woke I did a load of laundry
washed, dried, and put away
taking mental note of the fact that I folded
her clothes better than my own.
My pleasures are simple and my stars awfully low.
It's the best way I've found to live.
Nothing's perfect, but it's nice getting close
sometimes.
4.18.2010
Flied Wice
The faint black hairs above his upper lip
left me with only one question:
was he old enough to finally have gotten laid?
Although he was surrounded by women
in the Chinese restaurant where we'd been reunited
they were surely family, and working the register
every evening may have taken up too much of his time
to leave him with much of a social life.
I gave him my phone number and asked
if my pick-up order was ready. He scanned
the receipts stapled at the tops of the
brown paper bags and responded with a confident "No."
His voice, like the spot between his mouth and nose
had matured. Ten years ago when he'd come through
the Burger King drive-thru he used to deafen us
with his high-pitched squeal. Beth, one of my elderly
coworkers, would pull her headset away from her ear
and cringe whenever the seven-year-old
leaned out of the back seat of his mother's sedan and
said "Can I have a double-cheeseburger, no pickles?"
We'd suffer through his aural assault once a week
and wished that his off-the-boat mother spoke English
so she could order instead, but to no avail.
It's funny what pointless things one remembers.
"That'll be thirty-seven eighty," he said, reaching out
to accept my crumpled bills in one of life's splendidly
ironic role reversals. When he handed me my change
I let the coins slide into the tip jar on the counter
well aware that he'd need far more than that to help him
if my assumption about his recent manhood was correct.
"Good luck," I said as he handed me my bags, still not
recognizing me. He looked confused. I let it stay that way.
He'd figure it out in a few years if he ever made it out of there.
left me with only one question:
was he old enough to finally have gotten laid?
Although he was surrounded by women
in the Chinese restaurant where we'd been reunited
they were surely family, and working the register
every evening may have taken up too much of his time
to leave him with much of a social life.
I gave him my phone number and asked
if my pick-up order was ready. He scanned
the receipts stapled at the tops of the
brown paper bags and responded with a confident "No."
His voice, like the spot between his mouth and nose
had matured. Ten years ago when he'd come through
the Burger King drive-thru he used to deafen us
with his high-pitched squeal. Beth, one of my elderly
coworkers, would pull her headset away from her ear
and cringe whenever the seven-year-old
leaned out of the back seat of his mother's sedan and
said "Can I have a double-cheeseburger, no pickles?"
We'd suffer through his aural assault once a week
and wished that his off-the-boat mother spoke English
so she could order instead, but to no avail.
It's funny what pointless things one remembers.
"That'll be thirty-seven eighty," he said, reaching out
to accept my crumpled bills in one of life's splendidly
ironic role reversals. When he handed me my change
I let the coins slide into the tip jar on the counter
well aware that he'd need far more than that to help him
if my assumption about his recent manhood was correct.
"Good luck," I said as he handed me my bags, still not
recognizing me. He looked confused. I let it stay that way.
He'd figure it out in a few years if he ever made it out of there.
4.17.2010
My union's lousy health insurance doesn't cover therapy.
My father grew up in a bar and died in a church; it's the opposite of what most would suspect, but I must get these quirks from somewhere. There, I've said it. Now let me explain.
Port Chester, New York was in many ways the armpit of Westchester County. Nestled on Long Island Sound with a train station and high bar-to-church ratio, it was no wonder that locals referred to it as Sin City. My grandfather, who died of cancer before I was born, owned one of said beverage-serving establishments. As could be expected from an overly proud German the pub, like any other child, took the family name. It gained popularity points for my father in high school when attendance was being taken and his surname was recognized, but it did more harm than good in the long run. People who come from restaurant-owning families can attest to the toll it can take on the quality of home life. Those raised in the tavern industry have them beat in the war story department, however. My father, wherever he may be, still has the scars to prove it-- physical and otherwise.
I remember stumbling upon a crate of pewter tankards in the attic at his house one day. "Hey, what are these?" I asked him.
He pulled one of the gray metal beer mugs from the box and stared at it. Our last name was stamped above both an eagle with spread wings and the name of the town in Germany where our ancestors had lived and died. "Just some antiques," he replied softly. "You can have one if you want."
I wanted. Twelve years later at my first apartment I wound up handcuffing that stein to my wrist and drinking cheap beer from it all night alongside the amateurs. There's a picture of it somewhere, my visibly drunk face framed by a mane of curly brown hair. It was one of many wild nights when war was waged against the weaker sex with alcohol as the catalyst and God-knows-what as the motive. There are those who have to make their own mistakes despite parental examples. Some call it fate, but it's more a lack of sensibility. We didn't learn, my father and I; not in time, at least. The mug sits on my dresser now collecting dust with the pens and highlighters it contains. I sit here as well, though not as serenely. My old man and I pay our penance in our own private hells without any chatter between our two cells. It's been that way for years now and can't see it changing. But back to that bar of his.
The lineman of his Catholic high school football team worked there as bouncers. Eighteen-year-olds from nearby Connecticut used to cross the state border to party since the drinking age in New York had not yet been changed to twenty-one like many of its neighboring states. As a result my father was hip to the emigrant Greenwich crowd as well. Just what he needed: even more girls to choose from. The dark-eyed ladykiller in two ties: a plaid parochial uniform version by day and its thin black cousin by night. There's a black-and-white photo of him standing behind the oak in a crisp white shirt and that classic black tie. One hand is a buffer between his hand and the bar. The other is holding a clandestine pint that servers sip during lulls. The healthy sweat of a busy barkeep glistens on his olive-hued face. His mouth is half open as if he were caught between smiling and begging for the camera to be put away, but it's a good thing his request was ignored. It's one of the best photographs of my father ever taken. Even my mother who divorced him nineteen years ago will admit to this day how handsome he looks in that picture. In fitting form it's probably tucked away somewhere far from the appreciative eyes of any of his fans, past or present. We're notorious for selling ourselves short.
Maybe in this case his modesty's intentional. Not all of his memories of that place are such gems. In another one of my foolish forays of yore into the attic I found an old newspaper. Again, like a novice still rubbing his ears dry, I made the mistake of asking.
"Here. Read this article." His voice was strangely somber as I began scanning the lines. "No. Read it aloud." I didn't like where it was going. The ancient yellowed newspaper felt like a cursed parchment in my pre-adolescent hands.
According to the article a young man had been gunned down outside my grandfather's tavern. The name of the deceased sounded like that of an African American male, Gerome Jackson or Larry Williams or something of that nature, and the inlaid picture corroborated it. "He was my best friend growing up. I was there that night but left early." His voice began to shake, his eyes welled with tears. "Keep reading," he pleaded, but I couldn't. Why was he making me take him back to such a horrid event? Had his only son been reduced to a master of masochistic ceremonies? Big salty drops rolled down my cheeks, though not for the unfortunate stranger I'd been reading about. I saw my dad hurting and wanted it to end. He wasn't immortal anymore. He'd been dethroned, robbed of his omnipotent grace and glory that all children naively see in their parents. Ask most people if they recall the first time they witnessed either of their parents shed their godlike skin and become regrettably human. They'll tell you. I don't remember how that particular scene ended. Perhaps, in a lot of ways, it didn't.
And as any cowboy movie will demonstrate there's always the classic bar brawl. Mine involved a beer bottle sucker-punch to the bridge of my nose, eight stitches, and a story that I can't tell in all circles. My father's was more noble. A rowdy drunk had wandered into the tavern, or more believably had been overserved there, and started to quarrel with my grandfather. The situation seemed to have been diffused and my grandfather turned to talk to one of his regulars. A few moments later he was attacked from behind by the belligerent fellow, taking a punch to the back of the head that sent him reeling to the floor of his own business. My dad, then still a teenager, witnessed it from across the room and hopped over the bar to aid his wounded father. Apparently the offending party had an unknown accomplice present; a chair came crashing down over my father from behind and splintered into a hundred pieces like a stage prop as it split his head open. The two of them, father and son, fumbled around on the beer-soaked floorboards like derelict sea mammals stranded on the shore. It's an image that would repeat itself metaphorically decades later in a moderately different scenario. Whenever my dad told me that tale he said it with an inflated chest. The fact that he'd been assaulted in the act of defending his aging father. Here I am tearing mine down with a similar sort of arrogance. It wouldn't be that way if he hadn't replaced his penchant for booze with an addiction to religion during my formative years, sacrificing his family at the altar of his new Father. He chose to be a prophet in his own land and judge his own blood. I took the weekly sermons at the diner for as long as I could, but there came a time when my father had to shed his skin for the second time in my life. Whether I like it or not I see him for what he is now-- the saddest example of what not to become: an unbroken cycle of abuse and addiction, a hurt person only capable of hurting those he claims to love, a self-fulfilling prophecy staggering through the remnants of his wasted life on two unwieldy legs.
His photos will rot in my basement someday, but right now I still need to grieve him.
Port Chester, New York was in many ways the armpit of Westchester County. Nestled on Long Island Sound with a train station and high bar-to-church ratio, it was no wonder that locals referred to it as Sin City. My grandfather, who died of cancer before I was born, owned one of said beverage-serving establishments. As could be expected from an overly proud German the pub, like any other child, took the family name. It gained popularity points for my father in high school when attendance was being taken and his surname was recognized, but it did more harm than good in the long run. People who come from restaurant-owning families can attest to the toll it can take on the quality of home life. Those raised in the tavern industry have them beat in the war story department, however. My father, wherever he may be, still has the scars to prove it-- physical and otherwise.
I remember stumbling upon a crate of pewter tankards in the attic at his house one day. "Hey, what are these?" I asked him.
He pulled one of the gray metal beer mugs from the box and stared at it. Our last name was stamped above both an eagle with spread wings and the name of the town in Germany where our ancestors had lived and died. "Just some antiques," he replied softly. "You can have one if you want."
I wanted. Twelve years later at my first apartment I wound up handcuffing that stein to my wrist and drinking cheap beer from it all night alongside the amateurs. There's a picture of it somewhere, my visibly drunk face framed by a mane of curly brown hair. It was one of many wild nights when war was waged against the weaker sex with alcohol as the catalyst and God-knows-what as the motive. There are those who have to make their own mistakes despite parental examples. Some call it fate, but it's more a lack of sensibility. We didn't learn, my father and I; not in time, at least. The mug sits on my dresser now collecting dust with the pens and highlighters it contains. I sit here as well, though not as serenely. My old man and I pay our penance in our own private hells without any chatter between our two cells. It's been that way for years now and can't see it changing. But back to that bar of his.
The lineman of his Catholic high school football team worked there as bouncers. Eighteen-year-olds from nearby Connecticut used to cross the state border to party since the drinking age in New York had not yet been changed to twenty-one like many of its neighboring states. As a result my father was hip to the emigrant Greenwich crowd as well. Just what he needed: even more girls to choose from. The dark-eyed ladykiller in two ties: a plaid parochial uniform version by day and its thin black cousin by night. There's a black-and-white photo of him standing behind the oak in a crisp white shirt and that classic black tie. One hand is a buffer between his hand and the bar. The other is holding a clandestine pint that servers sip during lulls. The healthy sweat of a busy barkeep glistens on his olive-hued face. His mouth is half open as if he were caught between smiling and begging for the camera to be put away, but it's a good thing his request was ignored. It's one of the best photographs of my father ever taken. Even my mother who divorced him nineteen years ago will admit to this day how handsome he looks in that picture. In fitting form it's probably tucked away somewhere far from the appreciative eyes of any of his fans, past or present. We're notorious for selling ourselves short.
Maybe in this case his modesty's intentional. Not all of his memories of that place are such gems. In another one of my foolish forays of yore into the attic I found an old newspaper. Again, like a novice still rubbing his ears dry, I made the mistake of asking.
"Here. Read this article." His voice was strangely somber as I began scanning the lines. "No. Read it aloud." I didn't like where it was going. The ancient yellowed newspaper felt like a cursed parchment in my pre-adolescent hands.
According to the article a young man had been gunned down outside my grandfather's tavern. The name of the deceased sounded like that of an African American male, Gerome Jackson or Larry Williams or something of that nature, and the inlaid picture corroborated it. "He was my best friend growing up. I was there that night but left early." His voice began to shake, his eyes welled with tears. "Keep reading," he pleaded, but I couldn't. Why was he making me take him back to such a horrid event? Had his only son been reduced to a master of masochistic ceremonies? Big salty drops rolled down my cheeks, though not for the unfortunate stranger I'd been reading about. I saw my dad hurting and wanted it to end. He wasn't immortal anymore. He'd been dethroned, robbed of his omnipotent grace and glory that all children naively see in their parents. Ask most people if they recall the first time they witnessed either of their parents shed their godlike skin and become regrettably human. They'll tell you. I don't remember how that particular scene ended. Perhaps, in a lot of ways, it didn't.
And as any cowboy movie will demonstrate there's always the classic bar brawl. Mine involved a beer bottle sucker-punch to the bridge of my nose, eight stitches, and a story that I can't tell in all circles. My father's was more noble. A rowdy drunk had wandered into the tavern, or more believably had been overserved there, and started to quarrel with my grandfather. The situation seemed to have been diffused and my grandfather turned to talk to one of his regulars. A few moments later he was attacked from behind by the belligerent fellow, taking a punch to the back of the head that sent him reeling to the floor of his own business. My dad, then still a teenager, witnessed it from across the room and hopped over the bar to aid his wounded father. Apparently the offending party had an unknown accomplice present; a chair came crashing down over my father from behind and splintered into a hundred pieces like a stage prop as it split his head open. The two of them, father and son, fumbled around on the beer-soaked floorboards like derelict sea mammals stranded on the shore. It's an image that would repeat itself metaphorically decades later in a moderately different scenario. Whenever my dad told me that tale he said it with an inflated chest. The fact that he'd been assaulted in the act of defending his aging father. Here I am tearing mine down with a similar sort of arrogance. It wouldn't be that way if he hadn't replaced his penchant for booze with an addiction to religion during my formative years, sacrificing his family at the altar of his new Father. He chose to be a prophet in his own land and judge his own blood. I took the weekly sermons at the diner for as long as I could, but there came a time when my father had to shed his skin for the second time in my life. Whether I like it or not I see him for what he is now-- the saddest example of what not to become: an unbroken cycle of abuse and addiction, a hurt person only capable of hurting those he claims to love, a self-fulfilling prophecy staggering through the remnants of his wasted life on two unwieldy legs.
His photos will rot in my basement someday, but right now I still need to grieve him.
4.15.2010
...then the five of us cleaned the carcass.
My mother had given me
the free turkey she'd won
at the supermarket
since there was no room
for it in her freezer.
"Better to complain of having
too much food than too little,"
the youngest daughter of a young widowed
immigrant told me as she handed
me the twelve-pound bag.
"You want to deep-fry it this week?" I asked my roommate
upon arriving home, already knowing his answer.
When the night came we worked together--
he manned the bird submerged in hot oil outside;
I prepared the side dishes over the stove.
Out of combined courtesy and admitted ignorance
I let him carve the turkey while our dinner guests
sipped their cocktails on the porch in the dying sunlight.
"Here," he said, using the knife to point at a small hunk
of dark meat he'd set aside on the cutting board.
"Eat that. There're only two of them."
I complied, figuring he'd already sampled the first
of the pair.
"That's that little knob on the edge of the thigh
isn't it?" I asked.
"Yeah," he replied. His cold blue eyes
were like a shark's: they never changed
regardless of what his mouth was doing.
"When I was a kid I tried to explain that
part of a chicken to someone
and said that if I were ever rich
I'd have plates of them served to me for dinner."
I silently pondered the fact that even from
an early age that's what I'd been doing:
trying to get people to understand me.
The shark's mouth widened to show teeth
though they weren't menacing.
The eyes remained the same.
The juicy morsel melted
leaving me only to savor the swallow.
I finished setting the table and
went to the door to tell our company
that it was time to eat.
In years to come when I remember him
I hope I picture the two of us
standing in the kitchen
over that bountiful cutting board
having just shamelessly shared the best poultry parts
and as close to a moment in time
as we'd get.
the free turkey she'd won
at the supermarket
since there was no room
for it in her freezer.
"Better to complain of having
too much food than too little,"
the youngest daughter of a young widowed
immigrant told me as she handed
me the twelve-pound bag.
"You want to deep-fry it this week?" I asked my roommate
upon arriving home, already knowing his answer.
When the night came we worked together--
he manned the bird submerged in hot oil outside;
I prepared the side dishes over the stove.
Out of combined courtesy and admitted ignorance
I let him carve the turkey while our dinner guests
sipped their cocktails on the porch in the dying sunlight.
"Here," he said, using the knife to point at a small hunk
of dark meat he'd set aside on the cutting board.
"Eat that. There're only two of them."
I complied, figuring he'd already sampled the first
of the pair.
"That's that little knob on the edge of the thigh
isn't it?" I asked.
"Yeah," he replied. His cold blue eyes
were like a shark's: they never changed
regardless of what his mouth was doing.
"When I was a kid I tried to explain that
part of a chicken to someone
and said that if I were ever rich
I'd have plates of them served to me for dinner."
I silently pondered the fact that even from
an early age that's what I'd been doing:
trying to get people to understand me.
The shark's mouth widened to show teeth
though they weren't menacing.
The eyes remained the same.
The juicy morsel melted
leaving me only to savor the swallow.
I finished setting the table and
went to the door to tell our company
that it was time to eat.
In years to come when I remember him
I hope I picture the two of us
standing in the kitchen
over that bountiful cutting board
having just shamelessly shared the best poultry parts
and as close to a moment in time
as we'd get.
4.11.2010
One Can Still Lose With Science On His Side
Roy Hexull tried his hardest to breathe slowly and deeply to give the illusion of sleep but his wife was no fool, at least not when it came to the habits of her husband. In all of their twenty-eight years together she'd never known him to fall asleep in the position in which he was awkwardly sprawled. It seemed too loose, too comfortable. Ever since finding his first love, science, Roy had slept rigidly like a man who needed numbers, laws, and predictable outcomes to trust the world around him enough to make himself vulnerable through the supposedly restful act of sleep. Anne knew that something was wrong when he laid there like a ragdoll. She was also well aware that her groom would not come forth with his tormentor without any provocation. In a rare act of marital defiance she reached for the switch on the bedside lamp and brought the quantifiable world that Roy loved and needed so desperately back into their vision.
"Honey, what's wrong? We've been in bed for almost an hour and you still haven't fallen asleep."
"Nothing," Roy lied. "It's just something that happened at work today."
Anne pulled the comforter down to her waist and sat up against the headboard.
"Oh dear. Have they been talking about downsizing further?"
"No."
"Did Dr. Thurston start in on you again about your book not being published? That mean old toad's always been a thorn in your side. It's only gotten worse since Molly died. I hate to say it, but he was such an impossible man to deal with that I think she's better..."
"No, Anne. My colleagues aren't getting the best of me." Roy's tone was even and calm. In the dim orange glow of their bedroom he was somehow more in control than when the lights were off. His wife, on the other hand, was growing frantic with her inability to guess his dilemma. The passionate one had sparked the conversation but was quickly losing her composure. The man of science was cool as an executioner and equally as shrouded.
"Have they taken the coffee machine out of the break room?" came the last vain attempt to solve the mystery. Roy had had enough of the charade.
"No, Anne. Everything is fine in the break room. My coworkers are the same boring middle-aged men they've always been. There wasn't talk of another round of lay-offs, and the sandwich you made for me this morning was delicious." A faint and rare smile shot across Roy's lips at the addition of that last one he'd added for good measure. He was confident that it went unnoticed. Sometimes, when Anne wasn't paying attention, her husband was quite the comedian in spite of himself.
"Well then what is it? Why have you been pretending to be asleep for the past hour in the hopes that I'd drift off without you? What are you trying to spare me from with your silence? I'm your wife, Roy. Your partner."
It was suddenly obvious that Anne had been watching her empowering television programs again. He could tell when she'd been inspired by some overweight talk show hostess by the way that her words failed to sound like her own. Cable television was one invention that Roy wished had never been created. Not all scientists were on the same team.
"It's nothing that'd concern you, dear. It's a minor crisis that only another lab rat would cringe at. I can assure you that it won't affect our time-share at the shore this summer or my pension plan. After tomorrow it won't ever cross my mind again until I review my notes sometime down the road. It was an odd quirk in a simple procedure, something that couldn't even be considered an experiment. A culture I'd been growing in a petri dish reacted in a way I'd never seen before in all my years of research. I added a solution that was supposed to turn red upon contact with the control substance, but instead it turned blue. Bright blue. It's a process that we do multiple times a week in the lab and it shouldn't have happened that way. I tested the compounds present. I charted and diagrammed the chemical equations. I asked Dr. Thurston if he'd switched vials on me as a practical joke and he almost threatened to file a grievance. None of it got me any closer to the answer. For the first time in my life I'm completely stumped with no further means of pursuing the truth and I'm having a hard time chalking it up to one of the world's unexplainable phenomena. There. Are you satisfied?" After giving his speech the corners of Roy's lips were thick with white spittle. That faint smile was long gone.
"No. No, I'm not," Anne said, wiping the crud from the mouth of her beloved. "I knew I should've married that nice young carpenter like my mother told me to thirty years ago. Have some water. You're dehydrated and probably losing what's left of that overworked mind of yours."
She picked up the glass of water that they'd always kept on their nightstand and never used, thrusting it towards Roy's dumbfounded face. He sipped obediently from the glass staring wide-eyed at his bride, stiff and tense and put in his place. The tides had turned again. Anne had managed to get her husband back. After turning the light back off Roy was snoring within minutes. Anne listened lovingly for awhile before following suit. Part of her wanted to wake him and put him out of his misery, but she refrained. Perhaps it'd do Roy some good to fall asleep thinking his formulas had finally let him down. Maybe he'd dream in color, like that bright blue. She'd wait until morning to remind him of the date. That Thurston was sure a riot. If only her May flowers would come a little sooner for once...
"Honey, what's wrong? We've been in bed for almost an hour and you still haven't fallen asleep."
"Nothing," Roy lied. "It's just something that happened at work today."
Anne pulled the comforter down to her waist and sat up against the headboard.
"Oh dear. Have they been talking about downsizing further?"
"No."
"Did Dr. Thurston start in on you again about your book not being published? That mean old toad's always been a thorn in your side. It's only gotten worse since Molly died. I hate to say it, but he was such an impossible man to deal with that I think she's better..."
"No, Anne. My colleagues aren't getting the best of me." Roy's tone was even and calm. In the dim orange glow of their bedroom he was somehow more in control than when the lights were off. His wife, on the other hand, was growing frantic with her inability to guess his dilemma. The passionate one had sparked the conversation but was quickly losing her composure. The man of science was cool as an executioner and equally as shrouded.
"Have they taken the coffee machine out of the break room?" came the last vain attempt to solve the mystery. Roy had had enough of the charade.
"No, Anne. Everything is fine in the break room. My coworkers are the same boring middle-aged men they've always been. There wasn't talk of another round of lay-offs, and the sandwich you made for me this morning was delicious." A faint and rare smile shot across Roy's lips at the addition of that last one he'd added for good measure. He was confident that it went unnoticed. Sometimes, when Anne wasn't paying attention, her husband was quite the comedian in spite of himself.
"Well then what is it? Why have you been pretending to be asleep for the past hour in the hopes that I'd drift off without you? What are you trying to spare me from with your silence? I'm your wife, Roy. Your partner."
It was suddenly obvious that Anne had been watching her empowering television programs again. He could tell when she'd been inspired by some overweight talk show hostess by the way that her words failed to sound like her own. Cable television was one invention that Roy wished had never been created. Not all scientists were on the same team.
"It's nothing that'd concern you, dear. It's a minor crisis that only another lab rat would cringe at. I can assure you that it won't affect our time-share at the shore this summer or my pension plan. After tomorrow it won't ever cross my mind again until I review my notes sometime down the road. It was an odd quirk in a simple procedure, something that couldn't even be considered an experiment. A culture I'd been growing in a petri dish reacted in a way I'd never seen before in all my years of research. I added a solution that was supposed to turn red upon contact with the control substance, but instead it turned blue. Bright blue. It's a process that we do multiple times a week in the lab and it shouldn't have happened that way. I tested the compounds present. I charted and diagrammed the chemical equations. I asked Dr. Thurston if he'd switched vials on me as a practical joke and he almost threatened to file a grievance. None of it got me any closer to the answer. For the first time in my life I'm completely stumped with no further means of pursuing the truth and I'm having a hard time chalking it up to one of the world's unexplainable phenomena. There. Are you satisfied?" After giving his speech the corners of Roy's lips were thick with white spittle. That faint smile was long gone.
"No. No, I'm not," Anne said, wiping the crud from the mouth of her beloved. "I knew I should've married that nice young carpenter like my mother told me to thirty years ago. Have some water. You're dehydrated and probably losing what's left of that overworked mind of yours."
She picked up the glass of water that they'd always kept on their nightstand and never used, thrusting it towards Roy's dumbfounded face. He sipped obediently from the glass staring wide-eyed at his bride, stiff and tense and put in his place. The tides had turned again. Anne had managed to get her husband back. After turning the light back off Roy was snoring within minutes. Anne listened lovingly for awhile before following suit. Part of her wanted to wake him and put him out of his misery, but she refrained. Perhaps it'd do Roy some good to fall asleep thinking his formulas had finally let him down. Maybe he'd dream in color, like that bright blue. She'd wait until morning to remind him of the date. That Thurston was sure a riot. If only her May flowers would come a little sooner for once...
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