Iron and other ferrous metals.

"...and all of you
will spend this year
learning how to weld...."
he said from beneath
a furrowed gray brow
above two eyes
green with envy
for our youth
and opportunity
still not quite gone.

"...and you will do it
my way, the Right Way
since all of you
are here tonight
because this is the Career
You've Chosen."

I tried.
I swear I tried extremely hard
but it happened--
that damn uncontrollable smirk
that only God can wipe off
through His almighty smiting.

"You. What's your name?
Something funny about what I just said?"

Better judgment intervened.
I had a whole year
of apprenticeship class
with this authority figure to endure
in the basement of the union hall.

"No, sir. Just thinking
about something
that happened earlier."
'Earlier that day' was implied
in order to get out of trouble
but I was really thinking
of what had happened
a few years ago
and how that had gotten me
where I was, sitting in front
of this bitter old man
who swore he was going
to make a welder out of me yet.

What he said was too much to handle--
I didn't chose the pipe;
the pipe chose me
or maybe the bottle
made the decision for both of us.

"Well there's no thinking
allowed here, Kid.
Just welding.
And what did you say your name was?"

But before I could respond
my buddy sitting
across the room
opened his mouth:
"That's Shakespeare, Chucky.
We call him that on the job, he reads
in his truck on lunch break."

Chucky exhaled the smoke
from a cigarette he wasn't smoking.
"Shakespeare, huh? I've got my eye on you.
I can tell you're 'The One' in this class..."

He muttered something under
his breath about how there's
always got to be One Per Group.
I was too busy correcting him
in my head to pay attention, though--
"The One in this class?
I'm the one in a million, brother."




Currently reading:
"The Plague" by Albert Camus.

With all their groaning, what do dogs dream?

It was a relief that I saw coming a quarter of a mile away. His right hand was stretched straight out, perpendicular to his body, his torso pointed plaintively at the oncoming traffic. Every time I'd seen a hitch-hiker for the last several years they had always thrust their thumbs out too late and there had always been a row of cars behind me that'd hinder me from stopping so abruptly. This time was setting up to be the one, though, since he'd given me plenty of time to slow down. Besides, I was the only one driving at the time on that part of the two-lane highway that meandered through those orchards and farmlands. I pressed my boot down on the brake pedal and fumbled for the hazard lights button as I veered to a wide spot in the shoulder ten feet beyond the old man. One look at him scurrying my way through my rear-view mirror told me that this was a break that this fellow needed.

"Ed, I'll have to call you back." He sounded confused as I rushed him off the phone since I had already begun talking to my new friend who was jabbering something incoherent to himself as he opened the door of my truck. I hung up the phone and slid it into my pocket, taking time to absorb the character that I was about to meet and would probably never forget. The first thing that struck me was the stick. He had been waving it around with the hand not projecting his thumb when he hailed me. Now that I had an up close view of it I found myself having some questions that I knew I wouldn't be asking. It was a wooden walking stick of some kind that appeared to have originally been something else, perhaps a fishing pole. Bits of bright plastic were attached to the center portion and rotting shreds of twine were rapped around various sections. He clutched it firmly in his old bony knuckles as he took his sweet time climbing up into the passenger seat of my pick-up. I watched with horror as he jabbed his stick skyward and stopped just millimeters short of the fabric lining the ceiling of my new truck. Even if he'd punctured it I wouldn't have said much, however. It's a general rule not to threaten a man who carries a stick such as his. Women and children should probably avoid men who carry strange devices like said multipurpose mystery stick, but I was not afraid, being a six-foot two-forty construction worker and all. "Howdy," I said in a tone amiable enough to show good will while firm enough to express my willingness to make it home alive.

"It's just a ways up the road," the old man muttered from somewhere inside his deeply wrinkled face covered with a dense layer of white stubble. His anxious response to a question I hadn't even asked yet suggested that he'd been through this before and knew the routine. Suddenly I felt bad for worrying about his crazy-person stick.

"Not a problem. Buckle up, though. That beeping won't stop for awhile unless you do. Damn technology." He complied, or tried to, but apparently didn't understand my intentions. Pulling the seat belt over his shoulder and tucking it under his arm, he turned and faced me for the first time. "Yeah, that cop who hides up ahead is a jerk. Short, pudgy little guy. Real bastard." It didn't click in his head that the ticket was not what concerned me. I wasn't about to argue the point. "Aren't they all, though?" I asked, adding a forced laugh afterwards. "I'm Al," the stranger said, staring me in the face with his piercing baby blues. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'd already gathered this information through my skills of inductive reasoning, or just the white tag with "Al" embroidered on it in red stitching that clung to the breast pocket of his haggard denim shirt by barely a thread. "Nice ta meetcha, Al" I replied as I turned off my hazards, put the truck in gear, and pulled back onto the highway. "I'm Dave." And sure enough, that beeping stopped shortly after.

It wasn't long before I came to the conclusion that Al was out of his mind, or at least did an Oscar-worthy performance pretending to be. I tried guiding the conversation in a logical direction but good ol' Al kept reverting back to that pesky cop that hides around the bend with his radar gun. His vehement hatred for this speed trap seemed funny since Al had probably not driven in quite a few years, which was probably for the best since I could smell it on him. The beer permeated through his pores and filled the cab of my truck with that unique scent of copper and bananas that only an old alcoholic can produce. He didn't appear drunk and didn't smell like alcohol itself, but barley and hops had definitely become their own food groups in Al's diet over the years, which in turn probably led to his need to hitch rides. I knew he didn't have his license because I'd seen him walking that road before many a time over my years of traveling it. The more I thought about it the more I found it surprising that this was the first time I'd actually seen him ask for a ride. My mind settled on the fact that his caving in this time must've had something to do with the ominous rain clouds rolling in over the hill and his lack of an umbrella, and then I started listening again since he was done complaining about local law enforcement for the time being.

"It sure is cold. Was beautiful today, cold now. Snuck up on me, this weather." I cracked a smile at my own sick pleasure with myself at having been right as to his decision to get a lift. It quickly faded after I remembered that pride is a deadly sin. "Yeah, it's supposed to rain tonight," I replied in conversational least common denominator fashion, but even my weather talk was not going to steer Al in any kind of predictable direction. This was a script that would play out according to how he wanted it to and the sooner I'd accept that the better of I'd be.

"Make a left here," he barked in a voice unlike the one he was using just moments before. It came as a surprise since it was his own fault I'd almost missed the turn and had to slam the brake and cut the wheel hard in order not to pass it. Al's demeanor instantly changed back to its happy-go-lucky and semi-insane self as soon as we were safely on his road. A broad grin smothered his face and a sparkle gleamed from the corner of his eye as he scanned the rolling green hills of farmland on which he'd probably spent a lot of time. This was home for him and it felt good. "Jackson Road," he blurted as if he was reading my mind. "Yeah, I've never been back here before. Sure is nice." I was about to attempt a question about the land when he shot his pointer finger out so rapidly and forcefully that it made a sound as it cut through the still air in the truck. "Deer! They're all over right now. People building homes, deer are all over." I imagined that Al had not legally held a weapon used in the sport for an even longer time than he hadn't operated a motor vehicle, so I didn't ask if he was a hunter. "Right, more construction forces them out of their habitat and the deer don't know what to do with themselves." It didn't click with him, though. He just kept staring blankly at the three does bounding through the field towards the forest. I didn't mind my inability to have a normal conversation anymore. There was comfort in giving up. Al was a strange duck alright, but I could relate to his solace in simple pleasures. The two of us watched the deer disappear in silence and I drove on, only more cautiously since I'd learned about Al's tendency to give directions at the last possible moment.

The barn seemed to rise up out of the ground itself. All of a sudden we came around a sharp bend and over a hill simultaneously and there it was, just as it probably had been for over a hundred years. The planks were in need of repair and it looked like it hadn't been painted in decades, but it was still standing, albeit at an angle that seemed to defy gravity. Just beyond that relic of architecture was a house in not as bad shape that relieved me for some reason. I slowed down in anticipation, but Al never gave me the cue to stop and I rode right by the ranch house. "Hundred and fifty cows here," he mumbled as he shifted his stick from one hand to the other. That was the first time that I saw the other thing he'd been carrying, a burlap sack. "Lots of cows but I can't ride one of them to the post office," he said in his attempt at humor. So that was where he'd gone? And what was with the empty sack? More and more questions flooded my brain as I continued to drive. It distracted me enough to almost miss the turn yet again when Al snapped "Right here!" as we almost passed a driveway leading to a shack. It was in not as bad condition as that barn, but not quite as new as the house. "This is my place," Al beamed with that same dreadful pride that had made me feel guilty before, only he didn't seem ashamed as I had over it. There was an innocence about him that I couldn't quite put a finger on, though it probably had something to do with humble years spent in solitude.

I pulled into the lot and put the truck in park since I figured it'd take him awhile to gather himself and get out of the truck. I was right. As he went to thank me I caught him off guard by asking a favor of him. "Can I use your restroom?" I had to urinate awfully bad and didn't want to have to wait until I'd reach my destination. "Sure, sure. Come on in," he replied as he hobbled away, his stick and sack now in the same hand in order to allow him to open the front door of his shanty. I could tell that he was talking to himself just by the motion of his jawbones that I saw from behind as I turned off my engine and stepped out onto the dirt. I didn't feel strange about asking anymore because it seemed to please him to be able to return the favor. Somehow Al and I had more in common than I'd first thought when he sat down next to me on the side of that highway, and part of me wanted to stretch out our encounter a bit longer if possible.

Al was about as big on formalities as he was on conversational etiquette. By the time I reached the door he was already inside and seated at a small table with only one chair. "Want some cider from the orchard?" he asked, throwing the stick and sack into a corner of the small room. "No thanks," but it almost didn't seem necessary since he had already started scribbling something down ferociously on a surprisingly pristine sheet of paper, his tongue sticking out of one corner of his mouth as the pen scratched the parchment hard. That cider was never a real option for me. In fact, that cider was probably still sitting down the road at the orchard. His offer was just a shallow gesture that his mother must've sowed in him when he was a child. I was OK with that.

I glanced around the room awkwardly for a few seconds trying not to seem too curious, but finally gave in to better judgment. "So where is it?" I asked of an audience that had long since left me. "Where's what?" was my answer, and I chuckled at what I thought was another bad joke. "Oh, right. The crapper." He'd really forgotten why I was standing in his home-- no, he'd forgotten I was there at all. All that mattered to him was whatever he was writing down on that piece of paper. "It's the door on the left." There were only two doors adjacent to the room and I was glad that my options were limited since further assistance would not be easy to obtain. His voice had changed back to that harried one that had first reared its head when I almost missed the turn onto Jackson Road. I was in his domain now, impeding him from doing whatever it was that was so important to him, which had something to do with whatever that arthritic hand was jotting down.

I walked into the bathroom, did my business as quickly as possible, washed my hands, and strode back out into that open room where he sat at the table for one. That's when I noticed something strange. All along the wall where I had walked in through the front door was some kind of sorting system. It looked similar to something a post office would have to organize letters, only the grid system was different. Instead of having zones or streets, the X and Y axes were curiously labeled with the months of the year and years themselves, dating all the way back to the 1960s. Each box in the matrix had been stuffed to the brim with envelopes to the point where it was almost hard to tell where one box ended and the next began, the thin wood being nearly covered by the fanned out ends of the letters. This man was clearly some form of farmhand, not a postal worker, which was a good thing since he obviously would have been late with his deliveries. What was the meaning of this? My better judgment succumbed again for no excusable reason and it slipped out before I could catch it: "What is all that?" I was afraid I'd just opened a can I wouldn't be able to close, but it was too late to turn back.

Al stopped writing for the first time since I'd walked in three minutes ago. He looked up at me, then at the wall of envelopes, then back at me. His head cocked to one side a little as if my question was a silly one. The five longest seconds of my life crawled by and his head straightened out again. "Those? Those are my ideas. What's your name again, mister?" He smiled wide, revealing spots where several teeth were missing, though the ones he had left were as white as the perfect piece of paper lying flat on the table in front of him. "Ideas?" I asked, still utterly confused and blatantly ignoring his question as to my identity since I suddenly needed to know what was going on in that tiny bungalow in the middle of nowhere. Al put his pen down, slid his chair back from the table, rose to his feet and walked over to his masterpiece. Choosing a coordinate arbitrarily from the rack he plucked out an envelope and held it up in front of his chest with both hands. "See? See the postmark? Dated, official." He flipped it around and held it the same way. "See this? Sealed." I started to comprehend what he was getting at but didn't want to break the news that this archaic form of cheap copyrighting would never hold up in court. That was an old wives' tale perpetuated mostly by people who would never have an idea worthy of laying claim to in the first place. "Oh, I see..." and let the last word trail off as if to show appreciaton for the genius of the man standing before me. It was evident that Al loved that charade because that boyish smile shot across his face again and those baby blues deepened. He turned to return his idea from June 1973 back to its rightful place and I headed for the front door. By the time my hand reached the knob he was already back at his desk and hard at work. I turned to thank him, but didn't bother. I knew he wouldn't hear me anyway. Al had big things going on here, whatever they were. I was only in his way. I understood that finally.

My truck seemed further from the house than I'd thought. As I made my way back to it I pieced together the facts: the old man still bursting with thoughts deemed important enough to save after years of living in isolation; the walking stick that helped him get to the post office in his worthless attempt to copyright his ideas; the empty burlap sack that was used to transport his treasures back and forth; but mostly, and to my greatest dismay, the tragic truth that no one would ever know what it was he was trying to say in those letters to himself and that they'd probably wind up in a dump someday, unopened. It broke my heart for a split second.

The truck started up, but the engine hummed differently. The final oddity came as I pulled out of the driveway. Just at the end of it was a post with a large tin mailbox, "LeGORY" painted in black lettering on the side. At first it seemed unreasonable that an absurd old man who lived alone in a tiny servants' quarters on a forgotten farm would walk all the way to the post office when he could have just as easily put his letters in that mailbox and addressed them to himself. As long as the stamp was on it the postal delivery worker would've taken it to be processed and brought it back. Then it dawned on me that I wouldn't have risked losing my life's work either if I could have limited the distance it had to travel outside the safety of my hands. One can only trust oneself in this world unfortunately.

I started whistling a song whose melody I didn't know I knew and drove off over the hill that hid this place from the main thoroughfare. "Good luck, Mr. LeGory," I said to myself aloud, which no longer seemed odd to me. "I'll see you again."

high speed ramblings over the air, vol. 1

the taste of blood in my mouth
from too much red meat
an autoerotic monopoly on God
one hand slicing the other

a coat left at my house
is its own license to wear it

and anymore there's no rush
quite like talking into a tape recorder
at eighty miles an hour.

oozing sex from the ears
and ailment from the eyes
ears popping with the elevation
of twelve hundred feet
and it's autumn in New York

like when you offer someone
a stick of gum
and they ask you
"what flavor?"

They suffer in silence.

It had been awhile
since she'd let me pick her up--
a typical specimen
with her own agenda
and little time for me in it.
I caught her off guard
in her half asleep state
rolled up in a mound
of fuzzy blue blankets.
Victory was finally mine.

She squirmed around at first
until I stroked her head
and between her shoulders
enough to calm her down
for a quick bit of affection.
Once I'd stopped, though
she seized the opportunity
and leapt from my my grasp
sprung from my torso
and landed on the hardwood floor.
It was only a two-foot drop
since I was sitting down
but the angle and force
at and with which she hit, respectively
didn't seem too accommodating.

My chores led me downstairs
so I left her to her own devices.
Half an hour later I came back
to check on her and managed
to pick her up again, cradling her
in my arms against my chest.
I moved my hand and saw
bright red blood covering my finger
then noticed two spots on my shirt
where she had been leaning.
I put her back down and inspected
her limbs and found where the blood
was coming from.
She must've broken a nail on impact
when she'd jumped before.
It had happened to others
I'd had in the past, but this was the first
time I'd seen her injured.
She hopped gingerly behind the chair
where she felt safe
and nursed her wound with her tongue.

I let her be for the rest of the day.
I knew she'd be alright, but it was hard
to watch her lose that precious blood
even in small quantities.
What shocked me was her serene
appraisal of the situation.
She'd never seen her own blood before
but it came as no surprise to her
and she mended herself as best she could
just as Nature embedded in her genetic coding.

The bleeding stopped in an hour
and so did the limp-wristed hobbling.
She was her same rambunctious self again.
We'd made it-- she'd survived and I still had my friend.
You can't say you've really loved something
until it's bled on you.

Chipped black nail polish and other things that turn my stomach.

We'd been working at getting
the plumbing up and running
for five hours by that point
after working a full day.
It was dark, we were tired
and dirty and didn't foresee success.
I called my mom at nine thirty
to ask if we could swing by
her place to shower
since going to bed
in waste water is less than sanitary.
I was shocked when she said no
since she was too tired to hear
the noise of the shower
and it was embarrassing to have to tell
my roommate that we'd have
to look elsewhere.
Did she want me to get a hotel room?
I said I'd call a friend instead
and hung up, disillusioned and confused
as to the meaning of blood relation
especially in a case of minor inconvenience
on her behalf versus our filthy plight.

Two days later she emailed me
as predicted, saying exactly what I knew she would
the same spiel about my selfishness
and unwillingness to see it
but I shrugged it off as usual
since reverse parenting
is so six summers ago.
I ran right over when she needed
something as simple as
a washer machine valve changed
which I'm sure her husband could've handled.
How could she not let me use her shower?

We haven't spoken since
and it's been three more days.
She seems to think I mind
but I'm used to losing parents now
and the main reason I even go there
most times is to see my grandmother.
Let her think she's proved her point.
I know where I still stand.

It's the same issue I've had
with any woman:
they don't comprehend
that I can hold out
much longer than they can.
I've learned to rely on myself.



Currently reading:
"A Happy Death" by Albert Camus.

a greater crime than parricide.

Tonight was the my first night
back at stupid plumbing class
down at the union hall.
It was just an orientation session
for designating schedules and doling out books
so we got out two hours early
but it still managed to leave me sour.

The coordinator of the apprenticeship program
a fake-tanned Italian man of fifty-five with a penchant
for fine scotch, expensive cigars, and leather blazers
was speaking in front of the fifty or so apprentices.
In his feeble attempt at professionalism
he mentioned an exam that the class about
to graduate from the five-year apprenticeship program
can take in order to receive an associates degree
in our trade, which is essentially useless
though it'd look good tacked to a wall next to a dirty calendar.
Only two members of our local can take the test per year
so it's up to the intructors to decide whom to nominate
from the unenthusiastic list of potential candidates.

Someone sitting in one of the front rows tonight
mentioned how no one went to take the test
last year anyway, implying that it's a waste of time.
The same heckler said that the one kid who would've gone
last year is the one who died in a car accident
after a night of heavy drinking at a Mexican restaurant.

That's when the feet started entering the mouths.
"Yeah, maybe he would've gone," said the coordinator
in his best Joe Pesci impersonation voice
"but that was yet to be determined by the instructors.
I just said that at the kid's funeral to make his mother
feel good."

I couldn't believe he had the nerve to say something
so audacious in front of the peers of the deceased.
It turned my stomach instantly and a buddy of mine
and I glanced sideways at each other simultaneously.
I didn't know the kid personally, but I recognized
the name when I heard of his passing
and came to find out that he was the older brother
of someone I went to elementary school with
who gave me a bookbag full of his older brother's toys
that are rolling around in my mother's shed somewhere.
We're reminded how small a world it is on a daily basis.

And on nights like tonight I'm reminded
of how cruel a world it can be
even amongst us alleged "brothers".

If they ever threaten to take my card
on account of my doing what I have to in order
to make a buck, scabbing it up on weekends and such
I'll tell them to make sure
to let that same prick do the talking
at my hearing so I can respectfully remind him
who dies in "Goodfellas," and why.

We would've known what to do if they weren't at their stupid Jehovah meeting...

For those of you who've lost faith in God:
don't count the Old Man out just yet--
He still smites, therefore He still exists.

Came home to what
for the sake of sparing you gruesome details
could be categorically considered
a plumbing disaster.

I know what you're thinking:
how perfect, since I'm a plumber, right?
Wrong.
See, 'plumber' is a term commonly misused
to describe my union brethren and me.
We are technically 'pipefitters'
who install piping systems of various sorts
that transport various fluids
so we don't encounter actual human excrement
quite as often as you'd like to assume.
Catastrophes such as this
still come as a shock to us.

My roommate and I
spent a good five hours in my crawlspace
snaking out waste lines in an attempt
to locate and neutralize the stoppage.
The trusty process of elimination
told me that the problem was further down
the main outside of the house
but the snake I borrowed didn't reach that far.

When all else failed we dug up the lid
to the septic tank and pulled it off.
Sure enough, there was our problem:
a massive wad of tampons.

If you don't see the irony in this
you obviously haven't read my last little number
which is probably for the best.
I have been punished for lashing out
against our Maker's finest creation.
Unfortunately, my buddy had to suffer alongside me
but hey, you know what misery loves.

So now, after calling out of work
to deal with the aftermath
I'm off to the supply house
to gather parts needed to reinstall our toilet.
And girls, for the almighty love of
He Who Speaks Loud and Clear via Ironic Afflictions--
try to remember not to flush your rag
down the toilet from now on.

On losing the taste for the sport.

It's a good thing I got out
of the game when I did--
I was beginning to hate
its ultimate goal.

Have you ever actually seen
one of those things?
Most are by no means attractive
and seem almost foreign
some alien life form
grotesquely slimy, hideously confusing
like a lobster's face.

The smell of most
isn't much better.
Even the prettiest girls
get a fair share of funk
where the sun don't shine
after a day's worth of friction.
It's nothing to be ashamed of, ladies.
Just be more appreciative
of the next guy who goes down.

And he will, in more ways than one
and that's my real gripe--
not the various forms of unsettling discharge
nor strange pasty stains on inside-out underwear
nor any other of the physical oddities
of that unholy hole.
It's the unfair advantage that you're sitting on
that really gets to me, and more specifically
its ability to drive a man over the edge.

Case in point:
Here lies John Q. Average, another sad victim
of the Vagina Conspiracy.
Dignity and reasoning
first to go, followed by soul and spirit.
"Bros before...nevermind.
I'm turning off my phone,"
and that's only the beginning of the travesty
of sacrifice that comes with the territory
that I'm relieved to no longer
let enslave me.

It comes when it comes
so to speak.
(For me, it may never again
thanks to this one.)
It goes more easily.
(Yeah, now we're talkin'!)

Free at last.



Just kidding, girls.
Treasure that goldmine.

From one Dick to another.

His name is Richard.
He's about sixty, though he could pass for
seventy-five, a retired local cop who looks, walks
and sounds like some sort of balding scarecrow.

From where I sit in my bedroom
I can see into his kitchen window.
He's drying a plate with a white towel right now
and as frail as the man is, every motion he makes
during every task I watch him perform
from the safety of my voyeuristic perch
is done with such deliberate fervor
as if to stake claim to something
that could be lost if he isn't careful.
Sometimes I want to remind him
that if it hasn't left him yet
it probably never will
but we'll never speak
since we have no reason to.

I'd wager money that you could find
a lint-covered piece of butterscotch candy
in the right hip pocket of his brown slacks
and in his left would be a receipt from the oil change
he got today for that car that's older than me
which it seems he constantly makes excuses
to drive around town as if he bought it yesterday.

His back yard is filled with other vehicles, sheds
and unfinished projects long since rusted beyond repair.
Toys his grandchildren left out fill the gaps in between.
His family visits him daily and I see his peppered moustache
dance above his flannel shirt as he waves goodbye
in his driveway every evening as if he won't see them tomorrow.
He knows he might not.

Tonight I see you, Richard
and commend you for a life well-lived
though I don't know your last name
or whether or not you've ever cheated on your wife
or your taxes.
None of that matters to me anyhow.
That Frankenstein fence you rigged years ago
has made us good neighbors.
But honestly, why is the light always on
in your basement?



Currently reading:
"The Stranger" by Albert Camus.

Sac.

Being laid off isn't so bad. All concept of time goes out the window. Tuesday might as well be Saturday, and the fine State of New York pays for my laziness. That's not to say it's time entirely wasted. I've been catching up on my reading at least. And besides, I still work three or four days a week when the guy I work for on the side needs me to come in and bail him out. It's not a bad gig.

My stepfather, Craig, is also working for Tom with me right now since his sheet metal business is slow. The two of them go back twenty years so it's funny to watch them interact. Tom never refers to Craig by name. It's always "Good morning, Dickhead," or "Hey Mike, where's Asshole hiding?" And the gay jokes, can't forget the gay jokes. One time Craig made the mistake of saying "Fredo, my man!" to this Mexican gentleman as Tom walked by silently in the background. Later on in the afternoon Tom confronted Craig about "his man," and asked if there was anything going on between the two of them. Craig's not as quick with the comeback as Tom and usually just curses him out while storming away, tools clenched tight in hands. I absorb all of it and receive Tom's subtle winks with a secret pleasure.

Sometimes it's more akward than amusing to work with my stepfather and watch him be the butt of the joke. It turns out construction workers are perverts. There was a six-month period where Tom would not say "Good morning" to me, but opted for a more direct "Ya eat any pussy last night?" It was a comical way to start the day, and most of the time it was harmless. Until of course one time when I made a point to make Tom proud one night so I could answer in the affirmative the next morning, and after hearing the good news Tom took it upon himself to approach me and Craig as we were working. "Hey, Asshole. The Kid ate some pussy last night, I'm proud of him," at which point my stepfather and I laughed uncomfortably since my girlfriend at the time had just come over for dinner two nights previous. It's not so easy to switch back and forth between family and coworker at times like that, and things get even more complicated when the joke is on Craig since he's married to my mother.

One such instance occurred last week. It was unseasonably warm in the plant where we were working and all of us had walked back and forth for tools or material at least twenty times over the course of the day. Sweating profusely plus walking long distances equals chafing. As the bunch of us working for Tom washed our hands at the end of the day this subject came up. Craig mentioned how badly chafed his balls were. Another fellow, who must not have known our relation, told him to stop whining and have the old lady take care of it. Craig responded with "I can't, they're so torn up from working for Tom that she won't go near them!" What was I to do? Pretend not to have heard? Laugh uncomfortably? Express pride in my mom's better judgment? "Yeah, Ma, that's right. Stay away from those nasty red balls, you're better than that!" But instead I dried my hands and made sure to avoid eye contact on the way out of the bathroom.

And there it was. And so we are. God bless the American Way.

In loving memory of Jane Cooney Baker, who died before her time.

I'm so sorry, Sophie
and Olivia, it could've been grand
but none of us will ever know
'cause there was nothing quite like good times
at the expense of unsuspecting women
back then.

"Repent," he told himself
but it was not quite as easy
as getting rid of a broken toaster oven.
It was more like the aftertaste of milk.

It had been awhile since he'd heard from her
and he was hoping she said "He's a Hitler,"
but he was wrong, and the bruises
she went to work with for two weeks
proved it.

Then there was the one who'd pant his name
every other breath. She'd be reminding him
of whom he was trying to forget he was
while straightening her eyes
until the sun came up and the party rolled off
of their respective couches.

Again, the toaster didn't stand a chance
but I'm still brushing dairy teeth

and by the way, whose is that toothbrush
that's been on the vanity in my bathroom
untouched for over six months?
I'm throwing it out now.
This packrat lets go eventually.

Well, mostly.

It's a hard town to drive through still
avoided like the plague, the scene of a crime
the young Bohemian couples holding hands
because though I've since retrieved it in Another Form
I was robbed of something there once
and I blame it all on German engineering.

It's all just more
of the same soap opera
with less weddings--
a shoebox full
of many perfumed letters.

There are melodies lingering
in your head that you've forgotten
are there, but that makes them
no less real
and you no more innocent.

I put a knot in my hair
that I had to rip out
while watching a movie
the other night
and now I know how she feels.

I told all this to the rabbit
but she just cocked her head
and looked at me funny.
Our conversations have been
one-sided lately
the novelty of my presence
having worn its welcome
since I'm laid off and home all the time now.

So the King of Pronouns plays it safe again
though changing names and places
may still hurt the Dearly Departed
and more important Others.

A man like me has no choice.

Lo siento, Mi Amor...
con palabras como besitos.

You can't fire me, I quit!

It's an unseasonably warm October, yes
but where have all the ghosts gone?
My second day off in a row
after eight straight on
and I'm a greasy Puerto Rican
rolling around in bed with Hank and Teddy.
Trotted down the stairs in my underwear
put the thawed pork chops back in the fridge
since I was there, forgot what I originally
went down there for, settled on a slice of cheese.

The smell of strange smoke wafted through the window
and I bolted back down the steps, checking to see
if something caught fire on the stove somehow
but it was a false alarm. A look out the hallway window
told me what the problem was. Thick gray smoke
bellowed through three yards across the street
as an old man stubbornly continued to mow his lawn
with a constant cloud of heavy exhaust
pouring from his riding mower.
He rode out onto the street and I assumed it was to
stop the engine and inspect the problem
on non-flammable ground, but he turned right around
and mowed another strip of dying autumn grass
not caring if the whole yard went up in flames.
My hat was off to him for that.

All this commotion inspired me to put pants on
and venture into the real world to run some errands.
I knocked a book off the shelf at the first place I went
the silence being broken as it tumbled end over end away from me
and tipped over a sign at the supermarket afterwards
with the six feet of two hundred forty pounds of clumsiness
that I am. I saw a father in the juice aisle pleading with a toddler
to walk in a straight line and behave
and it frightened me to think that I can barely
manage my own self in public, let alone someone else.

I stumbled to the checkout successfully
after finding what I needed to cook those pork chops
and looked at the tabloid covers as I waited in line.
One issue had unflattering candid shots of female stars
sans make-up in some kind of selfish attempt
to make us ordinary people feel better about ourselves
for not being perfect. Fumbling my way through
the self checkout process and escaping that place
could not have happened fast enough.

But getting home was not as unhindered as I'd hoped.
I crept forward at the traffic light where I make a left
to pull onto my street and some guy was coming out
of the wrong side of the one-way lane where I had to turn
thus preventing me from getting my groceries home
as quickly as I'd hoped. I yelled at him and made
made suggestive gestures with my fingers showing him
which way he was supposed to go as I waited for the light
to turn again so he could get out of my way.
After I was done with my display of enraged bravado
he shrugged his shoulders innocently, his curly greying hair
bouncing a little, and I couldn't look at him after that
though I'm not sure why.
Maybe it was because he resembled Alan Alda from M*A*S*H.

Unemployment Insurance be damned.
I need to get out of here
before the bedbugs take over.

On rugburn and shirked responsibilities.

We were eleven or twelve
and on top of our game, so we thought
the railroad tracks between
the woods and the back of our development
being our access to the outside world
of retail stores and pizza joints.
The strip mall the two of us had to walk past
in order to get to the department store
whose aisles we haunted
in our baggy jeans and camouflage jackets
usually buying nothing
had mostly been abandoned.
It seemed that no store could stay
in business there, not even a supermarket
that had been shut down and cleared out
long before I moved to the area.
It didn't even resemble a grocery store anymore
its concrete floors stripped of tile
and broken light fixtures dangling like
swinging convicts in an old cow town.
But the hundreds of dead pigeons
that lined the floor like an extra dense shag carpet
are what really got my attention
trapped and starved to death
only to drop one by one to the ground
in that dark mass grave void of all life
except the quickly dwindling bird population.
Why couldn't someone leave a back door open
once in awhile to let them escape
or sweep up the bony piles of feathers
or paint the windows black
or at least cover them with paper
so people walking by did not have to see?
Sometimes I'd slow down to get a look
through the dusty windows at the dead pigeons
and my friend would tell me to stop worrying
about the damn birds and to keep up with him.
I did, until I learned that he was filling the pockets
of that army jacket and those baggy jeans
with merchandise from the department store.
I stopped tagging along after that
and he eventually got arrested.
The strip mall was demolished eight years ago
and a new one sits in its place now.
Once every couple months
I go to the thrift store there
for T-shirts, but that's about it.

+++

Glancing sideways at my boxers thrown on the floor
the green background and billiard ball print
suggesting that it really was all just a game.
The drunken sex was so bad that I distracted myself
by trying to remember what numbered balls
corresponded to which colors
until finally it was over, and that was my life
in a nutshell for a few years.

+++

For a day or two last week
some sort of beetle
was stuck in my bathroom sink.
I brushed my teeth and washed my face
in the morning and watched it swirl around.
I washed my hands after using the toilet
and watched it swirl around.
It never went down the drain for some reason
and I never scooped it out of the sink
because I didn't care enough to bother.
Finally I went in the bathroom and it was gone
a tiny leg bent between forty-five and ninety degrees
the only trace of its stint trapped in the porcelain.
I'm not sure if it was flushed or escaped
and I don't care.

===

People who tell you
that they're good people
usually aren't.
That's one rule
without exception.

On my last talk with the Devil.

"I want it back. It's not worth it
anymore."

"Sorry, Kid. Doesn't work that way."

"Tough shit, Lou. Even you gotta have
some kind of warranty
if not a heart."

"Have you forgotten with whom you're dealing?"

"No, good point and good English...but come on.
It used to be fun, now it makes me
think too much
gets me out of bed at night
forces me to jot things down while driving
distracts me at work.
It used to get me pussy
now it just pisses off my friends."

"All part of the price you pay.
Should've read the fine print."

"I would've but it's dark down here."

"Funny."

"Cut me some slack.
It's late and this idea
isn't as original as I thought
it was in the shower this afternoon."

"Fair enough. Where were we?"

"Something about the trade I made
thinking it'd pay off in the long run
and the unfairness of the rude awakening
when I found out that no one can write
what they want all the time and get away
with it consistently, no one's immune
to the scrutiny of even those closest to them
and no matter how much a perfect world
would like to convince you otherwise
a writer can't just say his piece
without painful consequences
if he hopes to maintain any relationships
with friends, family, and the opposite sex
because self-imposed censorship
the filter between the brain and the mouth
well, fingertips
is the only way to sustain the balance
between chaotic creation and
a responsible product."

"Listen, pal, you got the better
end of the deal here.
I practically gave it away on this one.
Your number was as good as mine
according to those sixty-something souls.
This transaction was just insurance."

"Insurance in case of what?"

"In case later in life
you continue to follow
in your old man's footsteps
by choosing to go the way of
the Great Oppressor again
after you put them down."

"Them?"

"The bottle, the ego, the past
the list goes on and on.
You'd know it by heart
if you had the balls to call him
and level."

"Level. Plumb and square.
Oh, the irony.
You win again, Lou."

"Not in the Last Chapter, Kid."

And then we woke up.

Whatever you deem fit.

People assume the worst
when we tell them where we're from.
"Oh, I always see that place in the paper,"
but it's really not so bad, at least not
as long as you know which streets
to avoid and when.
Most of my fellow inhabitants
like the looks they get
during these conversations
like hailing from this locale
is some badge of honor
or like someone might get sliced
if the wrong thing is said.

There's a lot of history
in this city and its surrounding towns
that I could bore you with for hours:
Washington had his headquarters here
Broadway was the second city street
illuminated by electric light bulbs
and it was the first place
to have fluoride in the water
which may explain some of the natives.
Well, either that or the fact
that it was the first American city
to have crack cocaine introduced to it
back in the 1980s.

It's had many nicknames over the years:
The Crossroads of the Northeast
due to the intersection of Routes 87 and 84
The City of Churches
due to all of the steeples visible from Beacon
just across the Hudson River
but none of these associations
have any bearing on my biggest gripe
with where I live:

What really bothers me
about this town is the simplicity of its name.
For such a diverse and exciting place
it sure sounds like something dull
an unimaginative author would come up with.
It consists of two syllables
'New' and '-burgh'
that are typically
only descriptive parts of a place's name
but never the root, never the meat.
It is essentially a prefix and a suffix
combined to form one boring word
that falls far short of describing
what living here is about:

Anole.

Every time my uncle Ray
comes to visit from Florida
he tells a story about me staying
with him down there as a kid
catching lizards to pass the time
while he was away at work.

Only somewhere along the line
his mind's eye gets muddled.
He claims to recall
a trick I allegedly did
where I'd con the captured lizards
into opening their mouths
hold them next to my ears until
they'd bite down on the lobes
and wear them as earrings.

I'm not sure where he conjured
this false memory from
but it sure is elaborate
for a totally incorrect story
though most fibs usually are.

Whenever he tells this tale
the people present in the room
always look at me and laugh
uncomfortably, smiling a little
while trying to figure out
how the hell a small child
would get such an absurd idea.
I always respond by glancing away
to avoid awkward eye contact

but never
not once
have I denied that it happened
however ridiculous a notion it is.

Sometimes you have to let people
remember what they want to
even when it didn't really happen
even when other people judge you for it.

It's the least I can do
for a man who taught me to fish
before I could even ride a bike.

I strangled that bluebird long ago, kid.

Hone your craft, oh soldier of misfortune.
Go west, young man, and prosper.
But if by chance you return with less than expected
they'll tell of your failure for decades to come.
So save yourself some time and pride
and beat fate to the punchline

though the worst part about
that kind of death is the logistics of it
more than anything.
The blood and the shit and the piss
on the floor, seeping into the cracks
and underneath the door
until someone you know and probably love
finds you and then someone you don't know
and probably cut off in traffic once or twice
carries you out in a bag
because it's their job.

That whole scenario is the frightening part
not the question of whether there are Pearly Gates
or a light at the end of a tunnel to be followed.
A stranger should not pack away what's left of you;
we give too much of ourselves to people
we don't know on a daily basis already.
Why honor them with those last rites as well?
No, it should be your best friend to cart you off
and your worst enemy to give the eulogy
since maybe then that person would be forced
to find some good in the you that once was
or at least pretend to for the sake of the service.

In the meantime I sleep better knowing I'm worth more
dead than alive these days, seventy-five grand
to my secret beneficiary.
At least she'll finally get what she deserves
in a good way, of course.
Somewhere on God's sliding scale
it'll all even out in the paperwork and dividends.
Until then it's a matter of more of the same:
hallelujah, praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition.




Currently reading:
"Living On Luck: Selected Letters 1960s-1970s" by Charles Bukowski.

Anchors Away

I was not made
to wear a shirt and tie;
my arms are too long
my shoulders too wide
and I sweat like a pig
wearing a T-shirt in October.
Who could take seriously
a pit-stained teacher
in too-tight dress clothes?
Or for that matter
one who can't say with conviction
that he never ends
his sentences
with prepositions
or leaves participles
among other things
dangling.

But I do just fine
weaving in and out of highway traffic
in my truck on the ride home from work
windows down, wild hair waving in synch
with the blasting music
too miserable to sound good at such levels.
I dodge police radar
karmic car accidents
and the Good Lord's Lightning
with equal dexterity
always making it home
mostly intact
aside from a few burns
from the soldering torch
and shoulders sore
from humping pipe.

Still, that's not to say
that it's always open lanes
and exact change.

Sometimes it's like
that void in the sill
between the glass and screen
paved with chipped white paint
that grasshopper legs
and dead flies
line

but I've got to admit
that if the last fading rays of sun
hit it just right
even that grotesque scene
can be beautiful.

And at the end of the day
I'm always reminded
that I have friends
who turn the lights out
when they leave
my house at night.

Those are the best kind.

A day in the life of Frank Stallone.

Went to cash my boss' check that was bad last time I tried, insufficient funds and such, and was unpleasantly surprised. Not having an account with that particular financial institution, I had my license out and was prepared to stamp a thumbprint on the check as is sometimes required; this would not suffice anymore, however. The teller had the nerve to informed me that there would be a fee of six dollars to cash the check, at which point I told her how I felt about said monetary penalty. "No other bank has ever charged me for cashing one of their own checks. You mean to tell me you can't honor this piece of paper with your bank's logo on it without charging me six bucks?" It seemed like a reasonable question. "Unfortunately, sir, we just adopted this policy." It seemed like a cop-out of an answer, but I knew it wasn't her fault so I scapped up the money she had laid on the counter and walked out. If she had given me all twenties instead of large bills there would've been another problem, though.

Headed over to the Chinese food joint to place a take-out order for lunch. "Ten minute," the clerk said right before yelling something far more vulgar sounding in her native tongue at the downtrodden cooks in the back. I went for a walk since I'd left my book at home and didn't feel like sitting a table without some form of entertainment. A few shops down in the strip mall was a mattress store. Strolling past the large display windows it dawned on me to walk in and pretend to shop. The salesman paid no mind to me since he was closing a deal with a young couple. I found a nice specimen in a back corner of the large open showroom and proceeded to lay down. My eyes had just closed when I heard the front door open and close, presumably that couple walking out of the store. Cheap shoes on cheap tile headed my way told me that I was next on this guy's list, or so he thought. "Sir, can I help you find something you like?" His voice was so plaintive and weak that it made me wonder if this was his first day trying to sell anything at all. "No thank you, I'm doing fine shopping on my own," I replied as I removed my hands from their folded position behind my head and rolled over on my side to face the wall in the hopes that this schmuck would walk away for nine more minutes while I copped a quick nap. "Sir, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to..." but he didn't quite make it that far before I faked some snores and he sauntered away, the rough friction sounds of his cheap suit almost audible. I thought I'd won. I thought that for a good thirty seconds until I was roused from a dream state by a firm poke in the shoulder. "Hey, I thought I told you to..." but that sentence didn't get finished either. I opened my eyes to a large bald-headed man in a form-fitting black T-shirt three sizes too small, the word "SECURITY" printed in white block letters on his chest. "Come on, buddy. Don't make a scene. We get your type here all the time." My type? And is it really such a crime to take a rest on a display mattress for ten minutes?, I thought to myself as I was escorted to the door. Do homeless men and teenagers too tired to ride their bikes home just yet really resort to this strategy often enough to warrant having a security guard present? The neckless wonder walking next to me must've read my mind somehow. "Don't worry, that Chinese food place is fast. Your order's probably on the counter already."

And he was right. The woman at the register motioned with her hand in my general direction as soon as I walked through the door as if to insinuate that I had been gone for hours and better get up there and pay already. I whipped out my wallet and forked over the cash, not worrying about the change at that point, and carried the hot paper bag out of the restaurant. My first total success of the day, and for a mere five dollars. That price was even less than what it had cost me to cash my paycheck! I grumbled obscenities to myself over the first few encounters of my day all the way home, and Stop signs seemed to read more like Yields. Sitting down at the table to eat calmed my nerves a bit. There was no soy sauce in the bag, but that was probably my fault for not asking. I chalked the loss up to experience and chowed down. Just as I went to scoop up one of the last stalks of broccoli in the container I noticed something wrong with the scenario. A small, curly black hair about an inch in length was beckoning to me from its hiding place in my food. I plucked it out and wondered what else I had already eaten, and tried to remember if any of those distraught looking Chinese men in the kitchen had curly hair or not. Not remembering for sure, but admitting that the Chinese are a fairly homogenous race and I've never seen a Chinaman that didn't have straight hair on his head, I confessed to myself the probable source of the hair in my food. Alas, even the exchange of the day which I thought had gone well had ended in my defeat. Maybe something could be salvaged after all if I'd only adhere to the advice inside the unopened fortune cookie sitting on my kitchen table in front of me. "Avoid taking unnecessary gambles," it read, and I tried not to choke with laughter as I swallowed the dry semisweet bits of ironic wafer. Maybe I wouldn't be venturing back out to the grocery store that day after all.

A Legacy, in 150 words or less.

Grandma knits lop-sided doilies
of yarns of many colors
since her mind left her
unable to spin her own ninety years worth
and her eyes left her
unable to see asymmetry.
They're pawned off on guests
bags and bags in the closets
a failed attempt to sell them
at a yard sale once thankfully forgotten.
Someday, when she goes, all those
who possess the multicolored monstrosities
will go on mad dashes through their homes
to get rid of the sad reminders
unable to cope with the tokens of her life and death
but not me.

I will be picturing her humming
those Spanish gospel songs, tiny wrinkled hands
working diligently at the yarn in her lap.
Her subtle sense of humor
her final joke on all of us
will not be lost on me, and I'll smile
knowing that I should celebrate her
last victory in the face of death that'd make
great generals fallen on the battlefield jealous.

the problem with this picture

A valley town can't hide its cemetary
nor a hamlet its whore
any more than a faltering prophet his fears...

"It smells like a family lives here," he said
as we marched up the stairs--
him to the shitter and me to the fridge.
I knew what he meant, had thought
the same myself seconds sooner.
The combination of his proclamation
and the motherly centerpiece on the pristine
dining room table made me feel bad
for heading to the kitchen for ice
to put in my fourth cocktail of the night.
But hey, the song was not going
to write itself, and someone had to melt.

...And maybe mine is that wherever
I wind up planting my roots
will never achieve that precious scent
unable to be faked, made only by years
of sacrifice and mingling bodies loving
unconditionally, as only they know how.

I finally got the world's attention and this is what I waste it with.

Somewhere on this crazy earth
my hero's blood is being spilled
and there is not a goddamn thing
that I can do about it

But the song must write itself, Kid.

Staring at the light in the center
of the ceiling until my eyes burn
in case it helps them close for good
for the night, despite the noise from the party.
Propped up on a pillow
with a pulled muscle in my shoulder
for going on a week now.
Cuts and burns on my hand from work
soldering and other sins at fault
two mangled stumps of faulty flesh.
You don't know the song stuck in my head
and how hard I try to ignore it, for your sake.

It used to be my thing; it's not anymore:
the war waged, all of their faces Hers
when the lights went off, but when
it didn't feel the same, even after they'd let me again
sober in the morning
I'd come to as if from a Costner film
only to be frightened by Gravity until
I'd feign sleep and they'd gather what was left
of their dignity and clothes, and leave.

When the process repeated the next weekend
I'd have to act surprised like a contestant on The Price is Right
in order to pull it off, not that I wanted to--
a new contender up to bat
a new lamb on the chopping block
a new old modus operandi.

But who the fuck am i kidding
the stock market fell out yesterday
and me and the rest of my union brethren
lost an assload of money
and the government tried to step in
which shows there's no real capitalism
no laissez faire
and no point in capitalization
and i dropped the f-bomb oh-so-soon
so in other words, it's another empty glass
and we're all dead and we don't even know it yet:
aperture, motherfuckers.
aperture.

my nextdoor neighbor drives a grand marquis circa 1987
and every time i watch him pull into his driveway i'm in awe
of his obvious dedication to routine maintenance.

i thought of sending a few blank messages
but realized i didn't care
what the response would be, though
i could use a few new synonyms for 'asshole'
just to keep things fresh.

so yes, it's been too much wine
and he told me to "drop the eggplant"
as the purple lips moved arbitrarily
muttering something to the effect of
"no, no. that's tomorrow."

sometimes i worry too much about
metaphor, transparency, and the hits, but
what's it really matter if you score a hundred
or a thousand? they're gonna look either way
trainwreck or a fender-bender.

you know you've had enough
when you can't pour the wine with elegance anymore
when it comes out not so smooth as a morning beer piss
but choppy and sporadic like a State School whiskey shit
and how the balls did i blow a full scholarship?
oh, Right...

(the slice of the butcher knife in the crease of my thumb
hasn't stopped bleeding yet
so i just keep sucking
and so does this.)

there was a bar that closed down in Vails Gate
where every week the same loser crowd would show
and where did they all go?
probably back to their parents' basements
and jobs pushing carts in grocery store parking lots--
no really, they did...both.

pictures of people i graduated with at the Blue Martini--
maybe i could've stopped her from becoming a dike.

and the greatest insult of all time (drum roll, please):
"you're too pussy to off yourself."
but at least i didn't chop my hair off after the break-up
(why do girls do that? you're still the same pains in the ass!)

remember when it was 'friggin' this and 'friggin' that
and if someone fucked someone they 'scored'?
ah, the influence of Beavis & Butthead on American society...

it's like laying in your bath water, somehow.

in case you've just tuned in:
i am a raging something-or-other.

...but I blame it on my partner in Crime
I picked up from the impound.
He brought me bottles of red (red) wine
and this is how I thank you all.

On gaining and maintaining respect for a breed.

The difference between this voice
then and now is that I see the back side of the banner
and know that it is just as justified:
No martyrs on their marble crosses
no holds barred for friendship's sake
no time wasted coating raspy notions with smooth words.

I'd rescind my sentiments, but that doesn't seem right either.
In the words of Walken, "as an artist I'm sure you'll understand";
this has been a tool again
to bury hatchets otherwise left unpronounced, dead or otherwise.

So come on, Statistical Minority--
you use the shovel, I'll use the pick
and we'll both dance gracefully away
(with a deeper knowledge of ourselves and each other)
back to our respective notebooks
clearly as real as the talk we walk.

Not that I owe anyone an explanation, but...

Because I own three D.A.R.E. T-shirts
that aren't worn ironically like the rest of my Goodwill wardrobe.

Because this is your brain
and +h15 is your brain on drugs, fried eggs be damned.

Because it's the one vice
I can honestly say I've never indulged in.




Because if the people who live here don't do it
then you shouldn't have the nerve to ask.

Because when the people who live here allowed it before
the rules were broken.

Because your car is a smaller space than our garage
so you'll get more bang for your buck in there.

Because our large drunk friends will need those couches
to pass out on at some point during the course of the night.

Because a few good childhood friends became less good and fewer
when they got into that whole scene.

Because I've waited up all night
for someone who was too busy getting high to call.



Because a third cousin became a vegetable
after taking a bad dose.

Because my uncle went to prison for fifteen years
for an atrocious crime committed under that influence.

Because my mother's first husband was a drug dealer
and some of his bad habits rubbed off on her.

Because she started snorting heroin in the Seventies
and kicked the habit when I was conceived.

Because she kicked me out of the house when I was fifteen
after I found her bowl and threw it in the Hudson.

Because she still reeks of weed when I hug her
when I go see her once a week for dinner.




Because it wasn't even three o'clock in the afternoon yet.

Because she was in my room innocently doing her homework
and I was looking forward to coming home to her from work.

Because she knows better but wants to fit in with strangers sometimes.

Because she has good character and will make a good role model.

Because she wants to be a teacher, too.

Because she actually will.

Because I want to help her grade papers in bed at night someday.




Because I may have settled down quite a bit
but my Latin temper can come out when it has to.

Because I'm good at being the asshole who's still right.

Because I know that, and there are no hard feelings
now that y'all know why I stand where I do.

12 Ga.

If this were one of those romantic pastorals
I'd say something to the cliche effect of
"Came upon you in a pine, and wished
I'd gone the other way," but let's face it:
to raise Black Angus on a ranch in the Adirondacks
was the unfulfilled dream of my father's father, not mine
just as much as I remember being cropped
out of pictures for the sake of the case
and if you claim to understand any of that
then you're worse off than I thought.

But this isn't like that at all, is it?
It's more along the lines of a movie
where you root for the bad guy--
the best kind, in my book--
the one whose pages
you never tire of lining.
Well, you've worn out your welcome again.

The air cav never came, those Hueys stayed grounded
and the Allied firebombing of Dresden
did far more damage than both nukes dropped combined
but they don't tell you that in history books
like we won't tell our respective kids
about the times waking up with alcohol on our breath
and each other's blood on our clothes.

No, those records will be burned
smashed, destroyed within our minds
by the shotgun of time
like clay pigeons at a skeet shoot.
Pull.
Boom.
Pull.
Bang.
Pull.
Pull.
Pull.

Damn Injuns!

My foreman came up to me laughing
after the weekly job meeting.

"Hey, college boy! You'd appreciate this one."

It was an introduction that I'd grown to hate
more and more each time it was used
by my beloved union brethren.

"What happened now, Nick?"

"The architect just asked Paulie, the electrician
if the light fixtures he planned on installing
in the hallway of the library will have enough panache."

He took a big pull on his cigarette
the perfect rows of pearly teeth
in his shit-eating grin almost glistening.
I waited a second as he basked proudly in his glory at having
used and pronounced a five-dollar word correctly
him not being one of us "college boys" and all.

"Yeah, so?," my pliers looser in my hand
since this joke wasn't on me for a change.

"So his dumb ass looks right back at the architect
and goes 'Yeah, sure...but what the fuck is panache?'
and the whole trailer was rollin'!"

I cracked a smile; I couldn't not.
It's not every day us stupid plumbers
get to feel smarter than those bright electricians, you know

(though I'm not convinced Nick knew the meaning either
and two days later he called up his apprentice after work
with a question from his fourteen-year-old kid's math homework).

The saddest scene on any stage wasn't what I'd thought.

It was two-thirds of the way through
lunch break today when it happened:
I was sitting on a wall with my foreman
around the corner from the jobsite chowing down
on an overpriced chicken cutlet sandwich when
a 15-passenger van full of retarded people
drove past us, and sure as shit
it was him behind the wheel.
I knew it'd transpire eventually, and was
relieved that I handled it so well
meaning I didn't fall over
burst into tears, have a seizure
and/or spontaneously combust.

"That was my father," I said nonchalantly
as I chewed my food and took a sip.
Nick smiled faintly and didn't have
a witty comeback for once, probably for the
same reason that he's been unusually
nice to me for the last two weeks
ever since I told him the story on our way back from work
in an effort to explain my pissy mood that day.
I thought to myself for a few moments
letting it sink in that it was really him
and that the first time I'd seen him in two years
was just a wild coincidence an hour away
from where we both even live, a fluke
that will never happen again.

By the time I shoved the last chunk of bread
into my mouth I had already almost forgotten;
it was the same as if any other person had driven by
a random intersection of two totally separate lives
and as unfortunate as that is
it's the way it has to be from now on, I suppose.
It did me well to come to grips with it
in such an odd way, but I can't say I was that shocked.
How else would it read
in this ridiculous script God's writing?

On Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain.

"You have any desire to do that?" I ask my foreman
while passing a camper in the middle lane
during our afternoon commute.
"Do what?" he asks from the passenger seat
and I nod my head towards the RV in response.
"Drive around the country, yes...but I'd never go
somewhere tropical again. The wife and I hated
the Bahamas when we went when we first met."
I could tell he'd light a cigarette at that point
if he wasn't in my new truck. You work with a guy
forty hours a week and you develop a sense of his habits.
"How bad could the Bahamas have been?" I ask, not yielding
to a young buck trying to pass me on the right
in his father's late-model sports car.
"Dude, never take your old lady anywhere tropical.
We were walking on the beach at night and reached
a point where the lights just stopped. I told Bridgette
that was the end of the line for us and she looked at me
with disgust for marrying a pussy afraid of the dark.
I said I had a bad feeling about such a desolate beach
on a foreign island and that it wasn't worth the risk.
Another vacationing couple we'd met on our trip
caught up to us and continued on down the beach.
We found out the next morning at breakfast what
happened to them that night."
I slow down a bit to let a car merge from the entrance ramp
during his dramatic pause that would normally be accompanied
by a deep drag on his Marlboro Ultra Light.
"So what happened?"
"Some guy popped out of the bushes and held a gun
to the husband's head as he raped his wife in front of him.
Didn't even rob them, just got his rocks off and ran."
There's nothing like an image like that to kill the jovial mood
in any vehicle.
"You'd have to shoot me," we both say simultaneously
after envisioning the scene with its players switched up
and weighing the logistical success of a hate-fueled bum rush
on a man who may or may not be too scared to pull the trigger.
In the absence of a smoke to light
we both go for our drinks in the center console.
It's quiet for awhile after that and the next misfortune comes
when I don't have exact change for the toll.

Extra bitter hotmilk, coming right up.

Right after church growing up
it was the same order from the same chain:
very-very-very light, one sugar.
He told me to make sure I always said
the third 'very' so they'd get the point
but I never did and always felt the rebel
for limiting my emphasis to double.
He'd reach into the ash tray in his Eighty-something
Monte Carlo with only one working door
and drop a handful of coins in my lap
reminding me to bring back all the change.
I'd stand in line by myself, chest-high to the counter
with him still sitting in his car trying to memorize the sermon.
When the cashier slid the coffee across the counter
I'd shamefully slide the nickels and dimes
back in her direction, her face dropping a bit
until she realized that I was just as disappointed.
The people in line behind me must've felt bad
because they never seemed to mind the hold-up.
I pride myself on not once adding a donut
for myself to the order, not on his precious tab.
To this day I can't drink that swill enjoyably
swearing I taste burnt grinds from dirty pots
when I know damn well it's really something
quite different on my tongue.

On 'mercy buckets', and other poor attempts at speaking French.

Lafayette didn't do it
for the sake of being kind
so don't let the textbooks
fool you--
Do you really think
all the street names
in his honor mattered?
If anything, I'd say it was more
due to his hard-on
for Washington's wig.

"Lafayette, we are here," was
Col. Stanton's famous line
delivered at his grave in Paris, 1917
and even then it was too little
too late, the trenches
and the Kaiser be damned.

If every thug had a lady
there'd be no good songs written
ever again, and without adventures
in high crimes and infidelities
at least from a safe distance
we'd all fall asleep at the wheel
or pretend to and hope that
the life insurance policy pays out
to the proper beneficiary.

That's all fine and good for some
but God bless text sex
and a girlfriend good
with adjectives.

My bologna has a first name.
My sunblock has a shelf-life.
My God does this reek of a rehashed theme.
I wonder if when Atlas shrugged
his back fell out of whack like this.

Remember the Wonder
and you can rinse if you want
but sure as shit
don't repeat.
Why's it seem you've been twenty forever?

If and when I'm ninety
I want to own a white three-piece
that I can wear well after Labor Day
without anyone at the party
having the heart or the balls
to correct my blunder.

So mercy buckets, honey, oui
y lo siento, Senor Lafayette
if it means anything to anyone
this late in the game.

Some people say
good art should match your sofa;
I think it should match your floor.

On why it's best to turn ones phone off after the third call from angry drunks.

There's really nothing
funnier than leaving
a three-hour liquid lunch
on the Company Dime
at the local biker bar
in the friendly town of Walden
after taking the boss' ten-spot
to load the jukbebox
with the likes of "Y.M.C.A"
Hanson, and "I Touch Myself"
and for that, if nothing else
I still maintain my claim of brilliance.

And the indecipherable
yet clearly agitated
voicemails were almost as priceless
as not getting pulled over
on my way home.

Minus all the Japs running down the streets of Tokyo, pointing and screaming.

One of the bennies of working construction
plumbing, in particular
is that you tend to see some shit sometimes
literally and otherwise
that most people usually don't get to witness.
Today, as you must've guessed
was one of those days.
My partner and I were welding up a gas main
at the courthouse in the lovely City of Newburgh.
The job's located at the corner of Broadway and 9W
and the gas station and accompanying parking lot
across the street from the site is
where several women of ill repute
crackwhores, if you will
sell themselves on a daily basis.

One character in particular is a mainstay of the spot.
Her bleached blonde hair and gaudy pink outfits
always give her away, even from hundreds of feet away.
The bubble-butt protruding invitingly through ripped jeans
the shameless wave she gives to passing cars
the slutty little dance she does
where she grabs her hair and stands up on the balls
of her feet like the shadow of some sort of stripper
without a stage--
they don't tell quite the same tale
that her sunken eyes, sallow skin, and shaky walk do
or how she disappears for a few days at a time
to God knows where and for God knows what.

One time a few of my coworkers watched her get picked up
by a John driving by. He parked in the back of the lot
her head disappeared in his lap for no more than thirty seconds
before the passenger door opened and she leaned out dramatically
to spit his wad onto the pavement. That short timespan proved
that she knows her trade as well as we know ours. My friends almost
threw up as they backed away from the window, went back to work.
Ten minutes later she was seen with a Slurpee from the gas station
probably fighting a losing battle to get the taste out of her mouth.
That's probably why the one time several months ago
when she asked me for a cigarette I just fucking gave it to her--
a cigarette, I mean-- since she obviously needed one more than I did.

As much as I try to paint a picture of this prostitute for you to pity
I can't deny the fact that she's been given a less-than-human
nickname on the jobsite, though I take no direct responsibility for it.
Yes, Cockzilla, as she's affectionately referred to, is quite the source
of entertainment when material and/or morale are low on the job.
Today my partner and I were standing on the marble steps
with a fellow pipefitter who will be taking over the job for us soon
when Cockzilla sauntered into sight on her usual corner.
We informed the newcomer of her given name and rank
and warned him not to venture too close
since she's proposed doing business with guys we know before.

We stared for a couple minutes as she did her stroll down
the sidewalk in search of her next customer to fund her next fix.
I yelled "How much?!" to get a rise out of my coworkers--
a harmless joke, she was out of earshot.
My partner took it to the next level, however.
He pulled a few crumpled singles from his pocket and held them
above the head of the third guy in our group
as if to say he'd pay for our unsuspecting buddy's tune-up.
Cockzilla saw his humiliating gesture and proceeded
to give him the finger; him, or all of us, probably the latter
since the three of us had been standing there gawking
for the past five minutes at a person with far more problems
and it made me wonder who the real loser was in that scenario.
I felt bad for making a spectacle of a person
forgotten and cast out by society, the same one that made her
so I picked up my tools and headed back to work, the two
forty-three-year-old men who still didn't get it
following a few steps behind, still laughing like junior high kids.

As I walked by a window ten minutes later
I didn't see her standing out there anymore
but noticed a cop car parked near where she'd been.
I couldn't tell if she was in the back seat or not.
I kept chewing my gum until my foreman
told me to put the tools away for the day.

No, sister: this one is not
in your vein, though it may be
just vain enough for you.
No fantastic events
no pretty colors or foreign fabrics
or cosmic anythings that neither of us
will ever live to see;
just something about someone
else's veins and how I don't know
just how thin they are these days.
My biggest criticism, my only one, in fact
is the same thing that you're banking on:

The algebra of human hearts
is far too horrific to pretend
to know anything about, and by the time
the first variable is even remotely identified
we'll be well on our ways
to our respective deathbeds
and not a moment too soon.

Plan for the Zombie Apocalypse [Revised].

The next time the power goes out
I'll assume it's the beginning
of the End of the World
throw the Mossberg pump-action
in the back seat of my truck
quilts and cans of soup in the bed
and jump on Eighty-Seven
doing ninety-five
en route to the one
who cried that time
I was too drunk to proof-read.

I'd be lying if I said
there's any way I'd rather go down.

The Warpath, continued.

Woke up with knots in my hair;
sadly, You didn't put them there.
I have a rabbit that won't eat carrots
though she loves chewing my sheets
and it boggles my mind.

Woke up with a loaded shotgun in the closet
in case those three Mexicans came back
and an empty bottle of wine on the floor
singing what was ringing
through my head last night:
zombies and dull knives
in abandoned houses
that I used to live in.

I am not a writer;
A writer wouldn't rest until his work was done.
I am a person who likes to write, maybe
even right on a night when I'm on.

And I got other news for ya:
The Union ain't all it's cracked
up to be; this ain't the Seventies
when people's heads were busted
if they didn't hire Local boys.

I'd be lying if I said I smoked for the taste.
It's more of a way to kill time
while thinking of what to say
instead of strangling whomever
I'm talking to at the moment.

Never tell them what all
of your tattoos mean;
there are some things
you still owe some people.

"And you're wrong; I study your eyes
and they're different from his."
"If you saw his you'd disagree."
"No, you're different."
"Yeah."
"Say you're different."
"I'm different."

Maybe I'm just jealous
because he beat me to
the wife part, and he predicted it
far better than I could've.
Then again, I always enjoy a good twist.
I thought of buying him a belated wedding gift
and leaving it on his doorstep, maybe something
with the words to John 3:16 as an added kidney shot
but realized there's no point anymore.
Let the man live his life
despite his choice to do it
without me in it.
I guess it's only fair that we both
get our second chances.
One of his favorite bands (pre-Jesus), the Beach Boys
came on the radio at work the other day and I
snorted, hoping he finally found his California girl.

And now:
your chance
to come out of the Woodwork
and give up your voyeurism.
(You fail.)

I park my truck in a large parking lot
every other day for my carpooled commute to work
and though no one is around my vehicle
when I pull in there at six in the morning
the lot fills up by the end of the day when I return.
Last week I noticed a small scratch near the door handle
where someone's door hit mine upon opening
and though you can't even see it from two feet away
I know it's there.

It's true:
I don't like people.

But the real kicker came yesterday;
wiped my ass
saw blood
and remembered that even I
am only human

and tonight, in Your absence, I will drink You
straight from the bottle.



Currently reading:
"The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens."

Why I could never be a journalist.

The City of Newburgh Courthouse renovation job I'm on right now has been shrouded by a thin layer of hushed controversy for the past several months due to an alleged planning blunder. While having trenches dug for the underground piping last spring, someone noticed a bone laying in a heap of dirt that had been excavated by one of the machines. It appeared to be human so a forensics unit showed up on the job. No one knew at first if it was part of the remains of Jimmy Hoffa or a buried mafia hit or some other victim of foul play, but further analysis proved it to come from a far older source: an African American buried in the 1800s. A halt was ordered on all underground work on the site as authorities and politicians tried to decide what to do. An archaeological team was called upon to conduct a proper dig, and its findings have been pretty incredible. To date, there have been seventy-something more bodies uncovered at the corner of Broadway and Route 9W in the City of Newburgh, and no one supposedly knew they were there.

Why?, you may ask. How could this cemetery be so easily forgotten, and even have a massive building erected on top of it a hundred years ago? People claim it was a mix-up due to a lack of records, but the answer is far more cut and dry than those in power want to admit: it was a Black burial ground that was simply abandoned when the time came for it to be convenient. All of the skeletons found so far have been of African American individuals from families who were probably too poor to afford proper burial in the large cemetery on Prospect Street around the corner. One ribcage had remnants of Civil War medals in it, the hero who earned them ignored to the point of disrespecting his final resting place by building right on top of him. Archaeologists uncovered an entire row of bodies protruding from underneath the concrete footing of the original building. The people who poured the foundation a hundred years ago must've realized what was there, they just chose to turn their heads. But they're not the only ones to blame; a gas main installed as recently as the late 1970s was placed right through the torso of another skeleton. So why now are the right measures being taken to exhume the bodies by the book? Is it because of the politically correct time we live in where everyone's afraid of a scandal? Is it because there's a Black man running for president whom the State of New York does not want to anger by being so insensitive? Is it because the City is now receiving additional funds from the State to put towards the construction of the building since the job has been held up so long by the research process?

No. It's because fat lesbians who were misled by Harrison Ford's most beloved role wasted their time majoring in Archaeology at various schools around the area and then needed jobs. That's right, you heard me. The entire team of "researchers" hunched over in the dirt all day is composed of large-style females in their early twenties who definitely played on the girls softball team at some point or another. All day long for months on end they've been scraping away at the ground with paint brushes and trowels and whisk brooms and toothpicks, all at the expense of our almighty tax dollar. And for what? Why should college students be paid by the state to take on such an important task? Shouldn't they be sent on a less important dig of some sort, something where a metaphysical hard-on would be obtained upon finding a mere shard of glass or piece of pottery? Some people in the field probably go their entire careers without uncovering a body, let alone an entire grave site. Why should these kids have the honor of taking on a task so serious just barely out of school? And again, as always, the answer is the same: money.

That's not to say that Joe Blow the Archaeologist makes all the dough in the word; no, he is not capable of balling out of control quite as much as, say, a proud union pipefitter. But still, a person who's been in the business for awhile, probably a college professor with a few books under his belt, would definitely cost more to employ for said endeavor. You'd think they'd leave the big stuff for the seasoned veterans, but instead these obese man-haters are waddling around with neatly labeled bags of bone fragments laughing all the way to the bank while some poor bastard who had a hard enough life a century-and-a-half ago is rolling over in his would-be grave at the thought of being the fun little project of some college kid still wet behind the ears. Where's the respect in that? I watched them do their thing through a second-story window a few times this week and was not impressed. The laughing and general sense of cheer among the girls seems just a touch inappropriate considering their task, and I also know a hangover when I see one. I want misery! I want sobriety! Yes, sometimes the two can go hand-in-hand! And besides, one girl was digging around a femur with one of those white plastic spoons used for wonton soup, just like the one I have at home that I stole from the sushi joint down the road, and I'm not sure if I can ever use that sucker again.

What was the point of all this? I didn't really contradict myself, if that's what you're thinking: I'm not saying our precious tax money should not fund such projects or that we should've continued building on top of the bones. I just think that we should possibly hire people with a few more years of experience under their proverbial belts for something as critical as a cemetery exhumation. Seeing seven skeletons of various sizes and states of decomposition the other day really got me to thinkin'. I could very well be a pile of brown bones someday, ribs collapsed on top of each other and skull crushed due to compaction (yes, even my enormous head will someday succumb to gravity and the elements). A rotund carpet muncher who looks like the lost Belushi brother could possibly end up exposing my remains with a toothbrush and dumping them into a nicely labeled paper bag. Well balls to that, my friend! I now want to be cremated. Well, not now...but you know, when the time comes. I suggest you do the same. The whole 'dead' thing will suck enough, no need to add such violation to the equation.

The one you've all been waiting for (though more angry than miserable), or at least the truth.

different strokes for different folks, different drinks for different stinks, and tonight it's bacardi. jack daniel's used to be my exclusive drink in college and i indulged when i wanted to feel in control of my life, even though i was only rotting away in a dank dorm room with handles of eighty-six-proof gasoline laced with sour mix. vodka is one i throw back for my stepfather; it did wonders for him throughout his life, and still does as he comes home to his uniform of sweatpants and an ancient t-shirt to veg out on his recliner and watch the yankees suck balls. canadian club is my new whiskey of choice since tim kasher of cursive enjoys it and the very smell of JD makes me want to vomit due to the bad memories it's associated with at this point. the captain is a go-to guy, much like the friend i wish i could say i really had; he's always smooth, always comforting without saying a word, never leaves me wanting any more or any less, even with the next day's triumphant hangover. but tonight it's bacardi; that was my grandfather's drink of choice, the fire that made him come home and raise hell when my old man was growing up, throwing things across the living room and screaming so loud that even the dog hid under the bed. so tonight, dad, it's bacardi alright, since i know it's the one drink you could never take a sip of, even before you quit drinking and went even crazier after being "Born Again," a euphemism for alienating oneself from one's family and reality altogether. tonight, pops, i swallow your Kryptonite and laugh in your face at my own power over it, even though it may be you who's won the last laugh, depending on who's tallying votes.

so let's hear it for introductions, right? it's been awhile since i've laid it out there in this fashion-- bad prose with too many commas trying their hardest to avoid inevitable run-on sentences, as opposed to bad poetry with virtually none, line-breaks in their places. but tonight is different, and there's far too much to say to waste time trying to make it "art," whatever that is. tonight is venting in it's highest form, or lowest. most of you probably won't finish reading my rant, most of you probably prefer my short-form pseudo-misery, but for the few and the brave who dare to finish this manifesto of misfortune there will be a prize: you'll be on the cutting edge of the same mystery/misery that's been bugging me for almost two years now, the same thing that's given me nightmares and cold sweats once a week since i last saw my father two years ago. you'll get to see first-hand how ridiculous my life is, and that i'm really not making this shit up. and hopefully that's enough to justify wasting your time reading it, hopefully it'll give you some sort of closure to the book that you may or may not stop reading if and when my life settles down and i'm married with children and a mortgage and happy and no longer have exciting things to write about like debauchery its friends. if not, then i apologize in advance and urge you to stop reading right here. (damn, i may have hyped this up too much already. it's really not that big a deal unless you're involved, unless you're me.) and no, i won't want to talk about it so don't bother calling out of the blue with some fake alterior motive; this is how i cope, this pointless pounding of the keys alone in my room late at night, and it's a goddamn shame that my hand's been forced time and time again to rely on myself, a bottle, and a piece of obsolete machinery to make it all ok, at least until the next explosion, but that's a matter that even i'm not ballsy enough to take on in this venue. don't worry, however; my madness is based in reality: i'm well aware that i've probably let Humanity down as much as the opposite, though i wouldn't testify before twelve alleged peers as to who was only evening the score.

perhaps a little back-story regarding the attached letter will make things more clear. Jeremiah is a friend of mine (though not a bullfrog), one really acquired after our high school career together had ended (though I did rather enjoy our candid chats via loose-leaf paper in Ms. Chan's oh-so-Communist library study periods). he deals in antiques and recently opened a shop in cold spring, a small tourist town across the river from west point that deals mostly in said artifacts. he was salutorian of my graduating class of 2002 at Newburgh Free Academy and is hands-down the most brilliant person i know personally, though not as well as i'd like to. our infrequent correspondences always make up for in substance what they lack in regularity. hell, the letters he casually sends me from time to time make me wish that i had half the talent, half the mastery of imagery and metaphor that he throws around like a two-line joke, even though he's more the man of science than art from what i gather. anyway, Jeremiah sent me an email this evening informing me of an interesting encounter very particular and relevant to my own confused life of an american twenty-something. the following is what i read (four times over, in case my eyes deceived me yet again), with commentary by your favorite cynic in [brackets] for your MLA-brainwashed convenience.

and i quote:

[To Jeremiah:

Sorry for the direct quotation if it offends you, though I can't apologize for the bitter/vulgar editorial commentary. I'm sure you understand.]



"Pater." [it means Father, jackass.]



By coincidence [a term i've learned does not exist in so small a world] I was at your father's house Friday evening. He and his new wife [i did not know he was getting married. over the course of the last seven years or so he always told me that "God had a wife" for him, and i caringly criticized his blind faith. i suggested that he get out there on the dating circuit and look more, that this god of his that he tried so hard for years to push on his family was not simply going to drop the woman of his dreams out of the sky and into his backyard. it was an awkward position for a son to be put in, lecturing his father on the hunt for the elusive spouse, but his naievity disturbed me and i did not want to see him wither away alone. needless to say i feel quite foolish now that the stubborn old bastard managed to land himself a bride, and didn't even bother to fill me in, quarrel or none. he also used to say that "God promised a new family, children included," so maybe our estranged state made it easier for him to forget about me and move on...but Jesus, not even a postcard after the honeymoon filling me in? don't worry, i don't want to be in the will or anything...] purchased a mirror from me a few weeks ago and got me down quite a bit on the price [this is the first thing that made me realize that my vision was correct, as my father has always been a penny-pincher to the point of publically humiliating heckle sessions that caused me in later years to simply fork over the dough when it came time to purchase anything], and in annoying and dithering fashion [yeah, i remember the salesmen's faces vividly]. Actually if I knew it was him, rather than some random guy named Charlie calling me saying that "he saw the things I had in my store and had things he knew I would want [musty old junk kept in various basements over the years that he inherited from his notorious father]," I probably wouldn't have waited all evening in my store so that I could meet him at 8.15. He would not give his address but insisted I follow him home from a gas station [the one around the corner from his decrepit house, which is obviously in need of a paint job, or (gasp) vinyl siding!. i know this because every couple months i make a point to come home from a southbound excursion on 9W in order to do a drive-by just to see how things are holding up at the old fort which, ironically, is in Fort Montgomery.].

Only when I walked into his small office [that'd be the little yellow room towards the front of his house which used to be my bedroom growing up. i remember the hanging plant in the corner, and my mother laying on the couch in the living room just outside my door reading her Cosmo magazines as i tried to drift off to sleep. if i didn't hear her there after awhile i'd call out from my dark room, "mom, i don't hear you turning the pages!" funny what you remember. anyway, my dad filled that tiny closet of a room with his hundreds and hundreds of God Books after the divorce, thus beginning the initial transformation into his 'office.'] and noticed the rather tombstone-like name on his desk [another bit of information that convinced me of the validity of Jeremiah's experience, which i did not want to admit to myself. it belonged to his father, another Charles Vahsen who failed his family, and my old man used to brag to his high-falutin' Christian Brethren how he loved the fact that the name-plate looked like a tombstone since his former self had "died" the moment he was "Born Again." yeah, is it any wonder my mother left him, his family treats him like recycled diner coleslaw, and i had a hard time swallowing all of his sermons growing up?] did I inquire if he had any relatives in the area. Oddly enough, he replied "Only in Connecticut." [oh man, this motherfucker right here...] until I mentioned knowing a Mike Vahsen, whom he then acknowledged as his son [gee thanks, asshole. i'm not so proud of my relation, either. keep the house you sold your family in, and the two houses in the Adirondacks, and the crappy cars and thousands in unused fishing gear and whatever rifles you have left, and, most importantly, the debt and shame you'll someday die with. i won't play out my greatest fear: i won't become you.].

His eyes are rather interesting [one of the traits people who've seen both of us always pick out, unfortunately]. They are terribly hard and focused and stare for long periods, but neither warmly nor coldly [i receive the same criticism, though for different reasons. i'm not that bad once you get to know me and see past the hundred-yard stare that takes over sometimes]...rather they seem more empty than angry [i guess ridding your life of what really matters, the people in it, will do that]. He showed me a picture of you as a young child posing with him, and you did not look happy [i wasn't big on forced poses and couldn't muster false smiles, especially when the pictures were taken primarily as evidence to be used in divorce court later on to fight over custody and child support issues].

He wanted way too much for his stuff, listened intently (along with his wife) [birds of a feather i'm sure] as I discussed microwaves, atomic theory, and electromagnetic-pulse weaponry. He refused my offer of free National Geographic magazines [we had a bunch on one of the bookshelves from when i was a kid, though he may have used them for kindling in his effort to get rid of the evidence of my pesky existence], and gave me a book enumerating all the names of God.. though it really doesn't [i remember seeing the book a few times on the coffee table the last few times i went to his place several years ago. it was about five inches thick]. The title is misleading... it should read "All the phrases referring to God in the Bible." [i greatly appreciate Jeremiah's dry sense of humor in times such as this.]He spent for [i believe he meant 'more;' even salutorians are allowed to fuck up once in awhile, and not just in their attempted business transactions.] than a few minutes inscribing it but I could not find the inscription [more of that disappearing ink he inscribed all of my birthday cards with, perhaps?].

Anyway, a strange coincidence [again, no such thing at this rate]. Aside from the shape of your face [it's ok, you can acknowledge the fact that we both have big heads. it's because we each have a second brain whose sole purpose is to foster bad ideas...only mine just tells me to drink on nights when i have to work the next day.] it is hard for me to see you as his issue. Maybe you prefer that [i didn't officially until tonight, no fault of Jeremiah's], I do not know precisely of your relations [neither does he, don't feel bad]. I can't say I took the best liking to him [neither did my mother, hence her filing for divorce when i was seven, though i blamed her for that until a few years ago when i realized just how crazy the man really is, and not even in a mildly entertaining way like Yours Truly], but I generally don't like people with annoying yappy vicious small ratdogs anyhow. ['ratdogs' is by far the best improvised compound word of 2008 to my knowledge. the fact that my old man owns one just may be the biggest let-down thus far. and see? i'm a master of maintaining my sense of humor in less-than-funny situations, if nothing else.].

You should try to get those two .50 black powder guns he is selling [i built one of them, but he can have the money if he needs it that bad and if its absence aids in my disappearance]. I can't make money on them at $100 a piece but they are worth that [not really, he scratched some of the metal on the buttplate on the one i built with sandpaper and i got pissed, despite my timid nature at age twelve]. The ugly figurines of flowers, or birds, or flowers with birds, are not [i remember those too, and they were rather hideous and cheap].


All is busy here. Store is open daily and is making money [please go buy antiques from this man, i'd help his business out by doing the same if my friends and i weren't a bunch of alcoholics who get rowdy at four in the morning and wreck things unintentionally.] but ploughing all back into new merch. We will be having an auction sometime around the 20th over behind Gus's tavern [shameless vicarious plug: Gus' Tavern, Route 9W in lovely Newburgh, NY] in my second location that I just opened. I will be auctioneer.. should be an interesting evening. Details to follow [oh, do tell...] ...



Best [i'll try my hardest, circumstances permitting],

Jeremiah




so that's it. i wish it was ed i was working with tomorrow, but that'll have to wait until our scab side-gig on saturday. no, tomorrow it'll be nicky; cold, ball-buster, "leave your shit at home" nicky, and that's fine. i'll warn him as soon as he gets into my truck tomorrow morning-- MY truck, dad...my brand new, $28000 Toyota fucking Tacoma that i bought with my hard-earned money with the job i re-earn every day, no thanks to you...not some used-piece-of-shit that i was always embarrassed to ride around in with you even as a kid...remember the one that blasted the heat all summer or the one that didn't have a functioning driver's-side door that forced you to crawl out of my door after i got out? yeah, none of that-- like i said, i'll warn nick right off the bat that it's not going to be a good day for me, and yes, i had a few strong drinks last night and that's what he's smelling on my breath, and when i light up a smoke and he calls me weak for doing it again i'll tell him to fuck off because it's a rough day. but don't worry, it has nothing to do with you, nick, and i'll make it through the day, and maybe after we pick up the tools and head back home i'll give ed a ring and see if he wants to meet me for a beer somewhere. it'll do him good, too; he has a son somewhere stolen by a lunatic mother or something of the sort, and in some weird way i know i've made that ok for him by not having a father of my own anymore and seeking ed's advice from time to time.

thanks for bearing with me. all of this just flowed out like a shit a long time in the making on that still-drunk sunday morning, and if you made it this far then maybe you're not as fucked as i'd assumed; either that or more-so. then again, maybe you're just another rubbernecker waiting to see how far i can fall until i implode, or worse, repeat the mistakes of the bloodline i try every day to redeem myself for having. either way, my hat's off to you for reading this far. it's been one of those things that makes or breaks a situation, an event that causes fate to decide itself from here on out. i guess i know where i stand now in his life, and i shouldn't feel so bad for disowning him in my head (though still not totally in my heart, secretly compassionate sucker that i am), or not wanting to invite him to my wedding someday either. but Dad, in case your lovely new bride is computer-literate and manages to find this trash someday, let me close with one that i know will hit home, wherever that may be for you:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son." --John 3:16

...but what the fuck did you give yours up for?