These Walking Wounds

What I loved most about Tony was his refusal to acknowledge the existence of a bush, let alone beat around the motherfucker. This time, however, there was no less awkward way to say it. It came as no surprise that he didn't bother trying.

"I can't fuckin' believe it, man. She grabbed his cock." And with that he dumped his coffee out on the pavement for the third time that week.

My coworker came right out with it, alright. Suddenly it was clear what was bothering him on that bright Friday morning. Payday was usually more upbeat for the men, even towards the end of the job when all but the naive see the lay-off coming. Those were fighting words, though. My partner's head was tormented by a looped reel of celebrity fondling on his girlfriend's part. I felt for the guy, as platonically as physically possible.

"What do you mean?" I asked unnecessarily. I knew where this was going. He'd mentioned his old lady's latest star obsession a few days prior.

"Remember when I said she was going to try to find that over-tanned cast of 'Cali Coast' while she was on vacation? Well, she did. She and her friends were out at some club that I wouldn't be caught dead in and the whole Guinea gang showed up with camera crew in tow."

I took a sip of my coffee. It was cold as usual, but unlike Tony I tried to force it down. The apprentice on the job always made the coffee first at the deli instead of waiting a bit for the egg sandwiches to be closer to completion. Amateur. "And?" I prodded as sympathetically as I could convincingly muster, grateful that it was something I'd never have to worry about.

"Sure as shit my girl weaseled her way through security to get up close and personal with that spiky-haired douchebag that calls himself The Dilemma. Before that asshole even had time to call her a grenade she had his balls in her hand." Tony paused for a moment, looking for the results of a litmus test on my face to decide whether or not he should continue. I'm not sure if I passed or failed. Regardless, he continued. "I knew I should've went with them to make sure nothing crazy happened." So there it was: he sought solace for his self-criticizing hindsight.

"No way, Tone. That's her fault, not yours. Don't beat yourself up over it." There, I'd thrown him a bone. It's not like The Dilemma had thrown one in his beloved. Or had he? Maybe the groping was only the tip of the iceberg. You know, the old deceitful trick of telling a small part of a shameful event to avoid being questioned about the whole ugly truth. But that led me to my next question: How did Tony know any of this? I asked him to explain.

"She told me her friend did it," Tony said with a straight face.

That was it. The jig was up. There was no way a grown man would come to that conclusion based on the facts presented. I called him on his bullshit with a deep belly laugh. His eyes narrowed to sparkling slits and that devilish grin I'd grown to love shot across his face.

"You had me there for awhile," I said, but it was more than a practical joke. Episodes like this one were how construction workers felt each other out. Who could be trusted with another man's feelings?, the things that most of us blue-collar suckers claim not to have? I hadn't laughed. I'd given the soundest advice I could. I'd passed the test. The apprentice was a different story.

"Walshie," I hollered in the general direction of the apprentice responsible for my ice cold coffee. He'd taken to sitting by himself on break to avoid Tony's wrath, his failure to see that oft-beaten bush. "We know you spit in this shit, but at least bring it back hot." He looked at me without smiling. It was true: he had a lot to learn, and not just about our trade.

Fill 'er up.

"Do you need matches with that?" the round-bottomed young blonde asked him from the relative safety of her eight-hour stance behind the gas station cash register. Her make-up, as usual, was far too thick, especially around the eyes. A gold nameplate swung from a fourteen-karat necklace, bookended on each side by huge hoop earrings that she could probably touch with ease using her tattooed ankles. The currently incarcerated father of her second child always loved that trick.

"No thanks. I'm good," he replied, taking into careful account that what took man so long to discover and was once so precious was now given away for free. Fire, his mind clarified with the mental equivalent of a cynical chuckle. Not that other, sloppier commodity-- though both had been known to burn greater men.

"Don't forget your smokes on the counter this time," she said, letting on that she remembered his previous distracted blunder. There was a sharp glimmer in her pale blue eyes that proved she saw right through him as well as most of the others had. He cupped his hand to accept his change as easily as he'd accepted his fate.

Greater men, indeed, old chap. Greater, scorn-singed men.

We're only as good as we look under fluorescent lights.

Rabbits chase the cats
in these regulation daymares
as the lightning bug's last glow
wastes in the shadow of the stove.
It's a lousy consolation
when God writes us a rain check.

The women like the scars
until they hear who put them there.
My calf muscle dangles
from the back of my leg.
I reach down and grab
where the cramp ripped me awake.
Again. Again. It's happening again.

We don the lay-off cowboy boots
and listen to the blue-hairs sing:
"It wasn't in the cards, Kid.
They would've been like you."

Opt for the reading lamp
since the ceiling light
looks too much like
the end of a tunnel.
They've tired us enough
with that ugly lie called hope.

(The rabbits win. It makes no sense.
The cats run down the steps.)
I guess that's the Roman in me.


Currently reading:
"A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn, the Last Great Battle of the American West" by James Donovan.

A Traveler's Fleece, An Anchor's Eyes

After three hours straight
in the car with my father
even the scenic route
became boring.
Winding two-lane highways
through the back hills of New England
all blended into the same monotonous route.
The old man would sense my
sudden disillusionment with our trek
and try to muster up whatever
bit of excitement that he could
sometimes in the false form
of a gentlemen's competition.

"You see that car way up ahead?"
he asked a tired, ten-year-old me.
"Can you read the license plate?"

"No way, Dad," I mumbled
my head against the passenger side window.
"It's too far to see."

Taking his cue
he squinted overzealously
making sure to emphasize the fact
that he was tapping into some superhuman ability
in order to decipher the characters printed
on the back of the license plate
that was at least an eighth-of-a-mile ahead of us.

"CK...P...," and he'd pause, squeezing his eyes
even tighter to further the illusion.
For a self-proclaimed Christian he sure was
keen on getting the best of an innocent child.
"...638. That's it. Let's go take a look."

He managed to find the accelerator
for long enough to catch up to the car
and verify the plate number.
He was correct. I was impressed
and slightly in awe of my father.

It took me the rest of the trip to figure it out
but I did: he read the plate and memorized it
then dropped back a good distance and waited
for me to zone out for long enough to be duped
into believing that he could see that far.

He failed to see farther
as the fate of our future now tells
and it wasn't the worst of his fibs.
Still, there are times
when I'm grateful for the fact
that he ever lowered himself
down to the level of us sinners
for long enough to seem remotely human.

And somehow I know
that he learned that trick
from the same man he swore
he'd never become.

For Todd

I hadn't ordered yet. Sweat was already running down my face as it had been all morning. The agony involved made me instantly pity the poor slob who had to slave in front of that sweltering pizza oven all summer long. There were suddenly worse fates than construction, though it was hard to fathom.

"You next?" the dripping young Italian man asked me.

"No. He was here first," I said, nodding towards a kid who looked far too young to drive. I was on the clock and had to be back to work by half-passed, but fair is fair regardless of age. Junior stepped forward to the counter, reached up to lay a few singles in front of the register, and looked Guido in the eyes as if he were about to say something profound.

"Corner slice of Sicilian, please," the boy said sincerely, more telling than asking.

"Sorry. We're all out of corners. I have a middle piece, though."

"No thank you," replied the youngster in a tone just as humble as if he'd received a positive response. The about-face came before the dough-slinger or the plumber in front of him had time to fully comprehend what'd happened. The two of us watched as he mounted his ten-speed and pushed off with his right foot.

"Can you believe that kid?" my confused cohort asked. "Rode his bike all the way here in this heat for nothing."

"Yeah, I can," I answered after considering the question for three brief seconds. "He's not one for settling. Let me have that middle piece."

A drop of sweat fell from the tip of the pizza man's nose as he looked at me unconvinced. He'd never understand so I didn't bother trying.

The crust was burnt. I never went back.

Thigh-High Modus Operandi

"Sorry, Honey," I say under my breath
after slashing her sunburnt face.
"I swear I didn't mean it," but it doesn't matter now.
There are no witnesses this time.
It's the perfect violent crime: unreported.

When I can't bear to watch her bleed any longer
the pipes call my name for the umpteenth time.
I lift the wrench and resume tightening
with an oath to be more cautious of the jagged
steel in the joists left dangling by the demolition.

Though the tattoos don't mean as much these days
it's still my skin underneath them.

Sunday School finally pays off.

It was only nine o'clock and already up to ninety-five degrees. The six of us sat in the shade of the school's brown bricks on milk crates borrowed from the adjacent cafeteria. There was no air-conditioning in the building, though even if there was we'd vote to sit outside. The smokers would demand to be in open air so they could effectively ruin their lungs. Majority ruled and coffee break was to be shared together. It was one union tradition not fading faster than the likelihood of steady work in an unstable economy. No one dared challenge it, from general foreman all the way down to apprentice. It felt good not to be the latter anymore.

"Get a load of this," Bill said as he turned his newspaper towards us. "They caught a seven-hundred-pound grouper off the coast of Brazil."

"You sure you didn't add a zero by mistake?" I asked after freeing a chip of bacon that'd lodged itself between two teeth.

"No, man. It says it took ten men to reel that monster in."

It was high time for another chiding voice to chime in with disbelief. As the greenest mechanic on the job there was only so much chop-busting I could get away with without having rank pulled on me unofficially. That voice came shining through without hesitation, without missing a beat.

"I know you can't read a tape measure, Bill," came Matt with a vengeance, "but whole numbers can't possibly baffle you as much as fractions."

"Read the article yourself then," Bill replied in the same tone that his eight-year-old probably used on him when it was begrudgingly bedtime. Things were getting thick in the humid summer air. Scott, a gray-haired old timer, took his cue to jump to the aid of his challenged union brother.

"He's not making it up, boys. Haven't you slobs read the Bible? Remember Jonah and the whale who swallowed him? That wasn't actually a whale; there are none in that part of the Mediterranean. They say that a giant grouper like the one Bill's talking about was probably the culprit." And with that Scott leaned back against the wall, his milk crate up on edge. He was proud of himself for sounding so superior. Someone had to stand up for us lay pipelayers. Why should it not've been me?

"I beg to differ with you there, Scottie," I said with a smirk only convincing on a man who knows which cup the pea is hidden under. "I've read that parable, too, and like much of the Bible it seems to be more of a metaphor than a text to be taken literally." A few of the guys turned their heads at that point. Their styrofoam cups stopped being so interesting. So this was why they heard his nickname was Shakespeare...

"What do you mean?" Scott asked, clearly flustered. His milk crate had lowered itself to the pavement again. A death-blow would still have to be delivered, however. The first harpoon was only to draw blood.

"Well, the 'whale' was probably meant to represent any big, lousy situation that could easily 'swallow' a man..." I replied.

Scott's left eye twitched. The others were listening intently. I'd managed to bring all eyes on myself, whether or not that was a good thing. It was sink or swim for the new kid. I swung hard.

"...this stupid four-week plumbing job, for instance," I concluded with a smile, thus shattering the suspended silence. All six of us laughed heartily at the discomforting fact that summer renovation work was only a temporary fix, that we'd all be back on the bench waiting for a phone call to go to work or our weekly unemployment checks. There were worse things to fear, though. There were bigger, whiter whales.

A healthy scorn for copper, mirrors, and size-twelve font.

So we're stuck back in the plumbing trap
my union brethren and myself
for our six weeks of work a year
when the schools are closed
for the summer
and renovations are in order
though the little runts won't notice.
We walk the marble hallways
scratching sweaty heads
and kicking ourselves
for winding up back here
smoking in the boys' room
though for me it's extra poignant:
I should've stuck around
and made something of myself
made someone of myself
made it into a nice desk job
doing what I love and getting paid for it
but most importantly
the showers would come before work
instead of afterwards.
And there's a sign in the tech room
where my crew has set up shop
in an ironic twist that only I notice.
It reads "There's no such thing
as a dumb question
except the one you don't ask."
My uncle Ray who did fifteen years
used to tell me that
as a kid and now I'm left to wonder
which vital query my mind omitted
though I know that whatever it was
would've been directed at myself--
What do I want? How badly?
Whom will I not become someday?
"Get over here, Kid," a fellow journeyman
yells at the senseless apprentice.
At first my neck jerks in the direction
of the order, old habits dying hard
but that's not my role anymore.
I'm a mechanic now, a genuine union pipefitter
overpaid and underappreciated simultaneously
a resentful shell of a man who should've been more...
but I can fix your pipes, pal
just as well as I can proofread
my letter of resignation.
Signed. Sealed. No plans to deliver.

The Lining on the Miles

It's the tail end of a shower
after ten hours of rough construction
on a ninety-five-degree day.
I glance down at the dirt
under my fingernails
but refrain from reaching
for the brush I keep
for just such a purpose:
there's no one around
who matters
to see it
tonight.



Currently reading:
"The Garden of Eden" by Ernest Hemingway.

For a jaded friend, on his birthday, who'll never see these words.

Life is not a Magic Eye puzzle
waiting to be solved through savvy staring.
The Big Picture won't pop out at you
simply because it isn't there.
Find the patterns, learn to appreciate them
if they can't be loved entirely
and be sure that at midnight next year
someone will still be calling you.

I hope it isn't me next time.

It's no wonder that God lives under water.

In a fitting twist the book was soft and the sand was hard, the beach blanket fairly indifferent. We were in what she considered shade, but sweat still ran down my forehead above my mirrored sunglasses. "That seagull's got it out for us," I told her between pages. "It knows we have no food. Remember the one in Maine?" I watched the angry white bird scowl in our direction while it paced hard in the sand as if its visceral stomping would conjure a meal in its midst.

"No, not there. The one that kept raiding picnics at..." but I stopped listening when I realized I wasn't the one who'd joined her that time. The Korean War became interesting again. I lowered my eyes to the non-fiction in my lap. It beat the hell out of the current truth. More beach-goers showed up as the lazy Sunday morning progressed. The mighty Hudson rolled its discontent against the shoreline. I kept mine to myself.

A young father, tanned and toned with a tattoo high enough on his shoulder for any shirt to hide, stood above his toddler as she balanced in the tide. To splash the brackish water was divine and she was making herself a god. Great-- another female deity to rule and ruin ones life. Still, she was a cutie. Dark brown curls fell over her eyes. I caught my companion watching the same show and knew what she was thinking. "I wonder if he put sunscreen on her." Yup, I knew what she'd been thinking.

Back to the book: an M14 strapped around the neck of the only unscathed survivor of Truman's top-secret mission fighting his way to the Thirty-Eighth parallel, Gooks and Chinks yelling their dirty pig latin all around him in the night, the hovering threat of Commie pinko Russkies dropping their nukes from afar. But he made it; our hero made it, and World War III never happened, or if it did we never knew about it and we basked in our ignorant bliss. Not all sacred ceremonies happen in a temple. I stroked her hair until she couldn't take it to confirm my old assumption.

"Come on, let's go home and have lunch." There's no need to specify. Who could argue with food? We walked back to my truck, mostly hand-in-hand aside from one brief spat when I foolishly corrected her Spanish, without running into my father on the path. If you find more to be grateful for you'll lead a longer life.

Personage

Ignore the Devil's understudy
scowling from the corner.
The clouds over his head
are the same ones over yours.

But beware of the man with only one gun;
he probably knows how to use it.

What's with that yelp we hear through the walls?
It's safe to say she's not singing opera.

And what are the lines? What are the lines?
Where is the script and the poor slob who wrote it?

The nurse shook her head at the sight of my veins
as I sang to myself, "What a wonderful world..."

Reckoning With Myself Ten Years Ago

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).

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?

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.

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.

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."

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

'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.