10.20.11

always one step closer…and how’d that work…knowing tomorrow was maybe there…and maybe not…it was like being on the Pinta…and wanting feet on the Santa Maria…what did one matter more than the other…dog bites…were his greatest fear…kept him awake on those fall afternoon naps…not really awake…just an eye part open…scanning for the unfamiliar sounds….the dragging noises…or something buzzing…behind a piece of furniture…clickity click…clickity click….those amusement park sounds…that made night to day and day to another place…there by the corners where all the whores stood on the Friday pay days…wanting some of something…and that was enough to make sense…so it worked and it worked all around…all the time… ‘so stop asking the questions like that’… she snapped…. ‘momma’s little helper’ came a lot more ways than the little pills that kept the string tight…or the moaning noises from the room next to mine ….and whoever he was…and the water  dripped…everyday…filled the old metal bucket….clear all the way to the bottom…and that’s where my dream went…there at the bottom…still I could see it…but you’d have to know where to look…the prints were in the mud…the scratch marks on the door…Ellen Magellen…tried to whistled every morning in the backyard…she wasn’t scared…she wore Mary Jane shoes…dreamed of being a stewardess…traced  her finger on every crack of…the sidewalk….and everything sounded clear because of the white chalk conversations…while the 102 degree days there on the plains…made it into leather…anyway…he’d gone from holding right in his hands to wearing it like a…too small suit…a cracked pearl button…and Bob Wills played on the radio in that 5 and dime…there next to Casper’s barber shop…where he’d lick his palm and slick back what was left of the…”Raven Blue” as momma had called his hair as a boy…black to blue…oh and sister…sister Ann…fan ban bo ban fe fi fo fan…Ann…she clutched her secret  tight…sort of some weird love affair with the body of Christ…while she clogged the drains with rubbers…Saturday night…you could call them what you wanted….by day…”miss”…”madam”…or even make one of those coughing sounds to get their attention…so it sounded like you did but weren’t really trying to do….they’d love you a long time…just don’t fuck with the hair boy and here’s the menu…10 bucks gets everything in red…got it…tell me you got it…she sprayed right guard up her skirt….there was a ring of lipstick…on a couple of cigarette butts…there in the can by the bed…I was still pretty sweaty….

the road was a thin ribbon line…there a few hundred steps away…from the end…but it was always a day long drive to the other side of nowhere…I’d watch the plastic bags stuck to the fence…like flags…snapping there in the summer wind…and I could only wonder where they’d go…if they could….I heard the whispers all of the time…kind of warmer…warmer…hotter…warmer…sort of thinking…with some Marco Polo thrown in for the uncertainty  I craved…I mean after all…we weren’t just visitors anymore…and that stuff about this is for “Company”….that shit had left close to when she did…and Mayri…she’d talk too loud to me…while she was ringing the necks of chickens…she didn’t think she couldn’t hear…”Bobby Ray…you got to speak your mind a whole lot louder than that”…it was Thanksgiving…then…we’d eat corn bread…with chicken and dumplings…all the pintos you could eat…maybe steal a few cigarettes…from H.A…smoke behind the shed…where I saw the rattlesnake the summer before…I think it was that summer….

you could close your eyes and think anything you wanted…pass the collection plate…take instead of give…just look serious…enough and nobody’d say a single thing…who could figure the money out anyway…it was oil on water…and sure she believed all of it…from the bobber right through to the hook…what was really making sense was the stuff that was out of focus…those blurry black and whites of who ever they were…on some beach…holding up wine glasses or maybe they were 38 specials…couldn’t tell…either way…and just maybe they’d shot each other dead…seconds after the picture…who the hell knew…written in pencil…on the back…”Michael and Olive…Lemon Beach, 1966 , “your stain marks many….love you always….M.G.”

2.28.11

they said breath…I heard breed…and thought of the pictures drawn on the bathroom wall….those weird stare you in the eyes drawings of somebody that lived close by…with a phone number you could call…for a “great time”…when you were just…”passing through”….but he was the colonel…and that’s what he wanted everyone to call him…smoked one lucky right after another…and his blind eye…the one with all the clouds floating across it… was the one that did all of the looking…maybe not the seeing..but sure as hell every single bit of looking…he broke my lip open that Sunday…in the car..said I was a “smart one”…needed to learn to “calm the beast…for the beast calmed me”…”don’t want to end up in prison like your brother”…he always said end with an “I” sound…so the d hung there like the strap on a dress that wasn’t working…for that girl down the street…Vanessa…who tried hard to look pretty…but never could be…and he’ll be there a long time…in them rodeo clothes…waiting for each summer to roll by…and I knew he hated those windy days there on the desert…the ones that made smiling impossible…and every dish on momma’s shelf collected dust…even the broken white ones with the roses…along the edge….

the way they felt was…like one of those Boy Scout moccasin kits…pre-punched….you know…chocolate brown with the padded cushioned inner for some support…sewed them together like a big project…the stuff that made heroes from…the other boys whose armpits smelled like stale washcloths…and their lips chapped…from licking the salt specks…one by one…on the ocean spray days…there just north of  Roller Coaster Beach…or south of anywhere…that was south of there…she thought stacking all of the smooth oval rocks was going to make a difference…for us in the big picture…sort of bring us full circle..back to that place we saw the lights for the very…first time…but we both knew differently…we both had felt the pull…kind of like stripping meat off the bone with your teeth…but it didn’t matter…now…I was here and she was somewhere else called here…but they were both red dots on the map…string could connect them… I suppose even little drops of blood could too…but…why…was what I kept humming…in between whistles…snapping my fingers…and clicking my heels together…thinking…was it…”no place like”…or “there’s no place like”…either way it wasn’t fucking working…so what else was there to do…except….play the warped records…..know when to sing the skips…clap my hands fast…for a few hours…watch the trucks hauling cars go by…smoke a few cigarettes until she…him..them..anyone… got home…then act like everything was perfect…you know…perfect in that way that wasn’t real…but sure had everybody believing…what we had…was what they wanted…just a fence with sharp rusted wire separated us…that was it…maybe boiling water some days…and packs of those crazy dogs left on the desert…but it was just a few things..nothing major…just a few small little minute changes that was going to make it all right again…and we could let our hair down…wear them pale colored corduroy suits with the vests…and pointy black boots like we was another kind of hero…when we went to Sambo’s…on Saturday morning 2am…eating pancakes…with a selection of twelve fruity syrups…a side of patty sausage…and anyone of them cowgirls sitting in that booth by the door…want to go home with me…just say so…I’m right here….

I could listen to the water drip for a lifetime…on each drop we’d move one space forward…me and the black Scotty dog…it only became larger…deeper..harder to swim across…in the dark…and maybe it was oil…or black thin tar…I once heard it was anything I thought it might be….that’s what really made the difference…and the kind of difference…like splitting a fingernail right down the middle …2 equal parts…yet neither one has any value…other than less or maybe a little more discomfort…than the other…one…right?….but it wouldn’t matter…and never had before…so trying to make it anything it wasn’t made good solid sense… driving with the headlights off on the full moon nights…making certain the blindfold was tight enough…pretending who ever it was…was who I wanted it to be…eating healthy so I could live a long prosperous life…sure it made sense…maybe a little more today than it did a few days ago…but I couldn’t tell you about tomorrow or even in the next few minutes what might change…or stay the same…it was all …”water under the bridge”…she’d meant…but it was really water “passing under the bridge”…is what she’d said…it made me question…ask for answers about water…and bridges..and ice…and was the bridge a safe one…because statistically…one in 5 bridges are unsafe…dangerous to pass over…better to pass under…maybe thats what it meant…danger lurks on the bridge…I was getting it…it was sounding like a bad high school play…with all of the drama queers…and the pimple faced kids that had nothing other Shakespeare…or Vonnegut…maybe they read a little Oscar Wilde…because they liked the idea he was in prison for a couple of years…something about kissing a man…and the law…but it wasn’t going to be bread and butter….for long…not many more goddamn days…of this…that was sure…

I was older…my hair was thinning…I was getting fatter…she was trying hard to be what she was then…except her stretch marks showed up too much under the blue lights…it seemed like a great place to end….after all…we’d made decisions…thought about directions…kept the water dripping on those really cold nights…

8.27.10

I understood everything the way it was laid out…she’d asked me a few hundred times……”do you understand”….I said “no”…. to all of them….but the 33rd….the hundred 6th…and the 119…..seemed these were the ones that had some level of importance….that kind like medals…type of importance….you know the military ones with the ribbons and the stars…beneath them….that had stuff written in Latin…about Valor….Honor….Death…all of those things that show up in the “Trick or Treat” bag…on the windy night…there before November begins….that few days before….everything all starts its wheel turning and pinging sounds….kind of a ball bearing sort of memory….bouncing down the linoleum covered steps….to land like silver eggs in nests made from sand….but really what did matter in those Spanish moss diaries….the ones written in her left hand while the right hand was doing all of the talking….while she could sit there blank dead…looking at the islands in the plaster….walls dreaming of ferry-boat rides across Lake Michigan….and the feel of the icy waters there just to the top of her ankles…to somehow find a peek at salvation  in that “This is for company to sit on” way that seemed….more like a sacrificial lamb….tied out there waiting for the wolves to come….and it would be a soft breath that dimmed the light….a glimpse into the eye of the beasts that haunted the dreams….and spattered crimson…spray on the white Sunday dress of the earth… then the gnawing sounds…would start….like an ice cube….crunch deep in the far back of your jaw…there at the movie theater on June like…. Saturdays…when they’d let you ride the bus downtown… past the alligators….in the tiled pond…through the plaza….where the old men with 3 pair of socks on..slept on the wooden benches…somebody donated…because feeling good about feeling good…just felt right….and if they drowned themselves in puke….some night….so what…..well after all it was really the thought that counted….right… I mean how else could it be seen…as anything but what it was designed to be….you’d have to be stupid…or so close to the edge of the thing that it was just far enough out of sight….to really not even be there….so you could spend all of that time…you would have spent….maybe thinking about the things that left the red marks….or made you bleed….or the stuff that no longer felt sharp….or any closer to dangerous…..than before…and maybe it would offer just enough time to close your eyes for an hour or so….pretend it was the same sheets….that bed you knew….and her….even if it was miles ago…

there were things like verses…and the bible…that were going to be the same….always…..like the smell of bus exhaust on a cool morning in fall…she called them days the “Peach Song Days”…and she’d hum low a song but never got the words…out like maybe she was making it up…as she cut fabric with the big scissors with the jagged matched teeth…the ones that went together like a zipper….never closed nothing….I could hear her singing on the rainy afternoons….sitting there like she was waiting for the lightening to come…like it did to Grandma Platt…struck her right there in the foot…sign from God…other than making all the window glass wavy …”lausy days…child….thata kilt anybody else”…she wore a bonnet and high rubber boots….on those days we’d unload the cattle from the trailer.with the rusty sides…talk to them soft….cause they was blinded by the sun…you know…”bouncing off of their white face” she’d say…she’d hold em steady…while I put the barrel of the pistol but an inch from their heads….their beautiful ivory-white heads….with their puss filled….stiched shut….tight eyes….they’d drop to their knees….die a little at a time…..the dogs would lick their pink stained faces……

I tried remembering…the smell of the desert after it…rained….and how water would flood down the arroyo…..like chocolate milk….frothy and brown….I always thought of someplace else…then…where I’d rather be….than right there…and maybe get a glimpse of something there ahead of me….could be…bright colored…painted wood…that looked like pieces of windmills….or pinatas…overweight with candy…and ribbons of every colors….I couldn’t look at yellow then…it was always about melted nylon…..and things like fish out of the water…gasping for breath……and my dreams were of a place…I found…tin can butterflies and turtles…and rusted hearts….the size of nickels….and Devil’s claws…I laced together….hung on the nail on my light blue wall….they were lucky…not big kind of luck…like a real 4 leaf clover….or a St. Christopher medal…but that kind of state fair sort of luck…the luck that after a few tries….might get you a goldfish in a jar….or one of them fancy looking drinking glasses….with the grapes and vines embossed on the side….really like the glasses you’d get at the gas station…with a fill up…but the goldfish was real….that’s what mattered…she’d say…”high times high”…way high in the cottonwood tree house…with the soft tree whites…they’d drift….just falling like there was no place to go but down…and down was gonna have to be okay…

the chair scraped the hard wood floor enough to make it bare…I just wanted the lights dim…and only those sounds…the ones that never left….the same ones that I could bite my nails bloody listening too…….and the gouge got a little bigger…a little deeper…with each rock of the chair…I was ready then…to crawl from under the tracks…emerge like an insect from the burrow…spread my wings…dry them in the magnifying glass sun peeking over the top of everything to the east….but it was how it was…there was nothing new…and a hand holding a pocket full of old….just sort of waiting to fly out like hornets from under the eave….their hard plastic like bodies…striped….colored wire sticking out of the electric box…..just waiting for you to touch it…..there was the lure…but also the trap…like the spinning wheel….just dying to feel the edge enough to know some truth….that seeing doesn’t let you see…..alright….there was going to be time for everything…that was sure….it might be like a mask or maybe a stack of something trying to stay in balance there on the coffee table….but mom was going to wear that same outdated smile….while dad….and his brown suits with the thin polyester ties…..and his yellow teeth…..looked hard at all of the photographs…traced his finger over a few of them….he talked to himself…..then…those days were the dry ones…I was always… afraid to sleep…..because….the darkness didn’t say the prayers the same way I did…..

7.27.10

she was somewhere between almost there and  thirty miles away….a few heartbeats closer than a few days ago…but I don’t think that really made a difference in the way it all was laid out on the dry wooden table….there were Ohio Blue tip matches….an empty metal screw on film  canister ….a bag of something white and powdery….and a few words on a yellow strip of paper…I guess there was some sign…or treasure map….there it was about putting it all together before they did…he asked…if I could do it…just once…was all it was going to take…he couldn’t do it….he knew he couldn’t… he already saw the faces before they came into his dreams…and now it was my turn…maybe…I could always sleep on the brown couch…the checkered one …especially when we had the gas leak that winter…about the same time we were putting notes on the door….”Death in the Family, Please Do Not Disturb”…underlined and stressed…so we didn’t have to pay the rent…we could leave in the middle of the night….they were far to afraid of us to cause a problem….they’d rather we just slide out than be there in the morning…it was hell then…not even an Eden to escape too….I locked you in your room at night…past the metal door….where you’d squat….deep….back in the  bush…and scream those silent shrieks throughout….the night…..wait like an animal for the light to burn you back to some place that was safer than every place else….she put her tips in the big jar by the door….a few hundred dollars a week in ones….I’d watch her get ready….act like I wasn’t looking….because I didn’t want to see who she was going to be tonight…5 to 2…..bank in bank out….show her tits for a few handfuls of ones…..make them believe she was lonely…needed somebody especially…them….but it was a job right..it was the way…Wild Bill could be okay with the way it had to be….and we’d drink the cheap dollar 89 mescal…..arm wrestle…..break the house up alittle…talk about leaving…getting some motor bikes…going west…yea west…sure west…I didn’t know west from today….it might has well have been a bag full of dreams….that were acted out in some other language…cause it all made no mind to what was curled up just beneath the way things were….call it black when it was everything but…..black…..

she’d meow every time a white tourist would come to her cart….I knew what she meant….they were the reistaleros….huffing glue and practicing being nothing….they’d watch us like dogs waiting for a small piece to fall….move closer ready to steal from your hands….stack of corn tortillas…a cold tres equis…shots of white tequila…only 70 cents…for the rich white boys….you want speed….smoke…pussy…donkey shows…come on boys….let’s get fucking married…..let’s go….take you to paradise…..a place down the hill…back behind the canal there….where…you can do anything you want for ten dollars…really anything….call her Wendy or Lucy…..or Norma…..she doesn’t fucking care…..I wanted to comb my hair with the stiff black plastic comb…they gave me for my high school pictures…..but I couldn’t find it….

it smelled bad after the rainstorms there…kind of a mix between sewage and something I didn’t know about…maybe a chemical for cleaning cement or pools….or something to wash out grime…who knew…he’d promised those days would be short lived…we’d all be living high….not like paint peeling…or songs you don’t know the words to…but real life stuff…like those animal heads downtown….on the walls…like that kind of real…..or maybe more like how a record skips….and it takes the surgical hand to balance the penny on the arm to make it perfect….anyway it was…was a better way than before…we’d put the boxes of trash there by the donation box…take the good stuff….have the canned food drives for the orphans across the border…..eat the day old doughnuts…claimed we were saints somehow…..water walkers just praying…everyday….not for redemption…..praying not to get caught……they were the stained glass lives….the church school boys had gone bad…and there was no priest to save them….all of the Eucharist was green with…mold……and those days of crying loud in the chapel seemed so far away…that even if God could hear me…he woudn’t listen…..the baskets full of razor blades or rabbit fur…..sort of Russian roulette…with everything to lose and everything to gain…and none of it worthwhile to try…..so it was nightfall most of the time…..he’d shot him in the face….leaving me to tend for myself……making sure that my day began well after dark…..and went well into the darker hours…they pulled her like a Popeye cartoon….one direction then another…..until the bullet hit him…..then the pulling just stopped…..and that quiet stayed for a long time….kind of like the white on typing paper……

7.25.10

Nancy was a redhead…she had….long legs and an infectious smile….she liked the creamy filling of the Oreo…and fed pigeons….on her lunch break…from the…way he described her…someone he might want to bring home you know…that wholesome not 2% milk sort of gal…dad always called them gals…..and trousers….and fellas…..he’d been one of those world war two…fellas you know…..forced to do something…..be something he didn’t want to be….”killing krauts” he’d always say….”that was my job”….and he was country-fied enough to like Nancy….you know like biscuit and gravy and grits….sort of country….he still said things from the 20′s…..and picked his nose with his little finger…turned upside down…..yeah….but he’d really like her….brush his hair back the day he was going to meet her…..button his top button on his checkered shirt….make sure his suspenders weren’t all twisted up…..he’d be ready…..make a good impression…and when he’d laugh…he’d lightly touch her shoulder….maybe even put on some….”Four Roses”…..but he’d be alright…he’d sit right there in that tangerine colored chair…the one with all of his impressions in it…right where his head would be…when he fell asleep in front of the TV…watching the news…and the darker dips in the footstool…..where his heels always rested….but for right now…he’d sit upright….rub lotion on his hands….wait for a while…wait for the water to boil…..decide the small things….drink a cup of Kava instant coffee with whipped honey and milk…..maybe fix that drawer that didn’t pull out right…and one of these days….rearrange all of the stuff in it so’s he knew where everything was…..maybe make some lists…like an inventory…of all of those baby food jars in the garage filled with nuts and screws and those red hose washers…..he was going to use them some day…and it was always better to have and  not need  than to need and not have…..you know….that’s what separated the men form the lads….that was another word he liked to use…lads…he ask the black kids on the corner sometimes…..”what you lads doing”…they’d tell him to “fuck off….get a way from them”….maybe not because they were angry….maybe they thought “he was just some old guy picking shit you know… some old white guy calling them names….they gave him a black eye once…..but he…didn’t call the cops….just called them “punks….pussies”….carried a 38 snub nose pistol for awhile…after that….said he’d kill them fuckers if they ever even looked at him wrong…..the bruise around his eye…was a dull yellow….kind of like….that scarf…Nancy sometimes wore to work….when she wore that gray suit…..with the silver lapel pin…..with the pearl in the middle……always with the checkered coat…yes…the checkered coat….it always smelled like fall in Highland Park….

the nights the moon was lost…the hills were a licorice black…deep and oily like….those rags in the metal bucket…behind the wobbly work bench….he’d spray painted all of the outlines of the tools on the pegboard so’s I could tell where the water pump pliers went …and knew the long places for the long  screwdrivers…and the short ones for….the short ones….it was a system…a way of making sure…everything balanced on the rope between the real world…and that one he’d light up with all of the florescent  lights….where we could dip a little copenhagen…….and drink malt liquor on a Saturday night….look through the high windows…at all of them street lights…up against the cloud studded sky….the photo came out of the acrylic frame pretty easy…and the new one went in just as easy…it was switching people in his life….his arm was around another girl…she was taller…had a more seasoned look…one of those “not going to put up  with any of your shit” looks…..stared straight into the camera….see who was going to blink first…and he knew it wasn’t about love or anything even close…more about putting pegs in the close to the right holes…until that one day they all fit…that’s when the stars and buzzers would go off….spin wild around his head like an anvil…falling from the mesa top straight down on Wiley coyote…..shadow just keeps getting bigger…there’s that look…that one of innocence and fear…. not real sure if the trip is a trip or if it’s something wrapped in a candy wrapper…pretending to be something else….like the unknown in the bushes….or where those big raindrops come from…but what seemed to matter most was making certain that the pattern lined up…the threads went the same way…and all of it seemed to be a simple yet….structured way of doing things…I mean he had all of these saying that if you believed them….everything went from gray to black pretty goddamn fast….and it was taking the gas mileage to see how far we could go….but he always filled the tank at the half way point….just multiplied by two……and that had the safe answers….the ones that ensured we’d never be trapped there in the wasteland the…..whole day…watching nothing happen but  a few things that seems pretty loose…..like maybe some paper blowing across the road…or a plastic bag stuck on a barbed wire fence…making that rattling….hissing noise as the wind…cut it apart….little piece by little piece….the noise of the quiet was a different way of hearing the music…and though nothing was clear….nothing was really nothing…I had to figure a way to make it something…..something that fit perfect in the palm of my hand….like a smooth river rock….or a handful of razor sharp window glass….something I could touch and know right then what it was all about without having to think long….or dig through the letters to find the one that said what I wanted it to say…..it was clear like looking through the back side of the fishbowl….sort of blurred clear…but still clear enough to see…the things there…right there…and the things that were over there….that’s  the part I liked…binoculars that weren’t really for seeing….and I couldn’t carry them around…and alls I’d see  is that sparkly turquoise gravel in the fishbowl….a green rim where the water used to be….and smell that ocean smell ….

Lance wore suspenders…like the ones Pop wore when he got out of the hospital….they were rainbow colored….he wore baggy brown pants…and a dingy t-shirt with yellow stains under the arms…but he called it an “Undershirt”….his skin had grayed a little by then…death had visit him a few times during his sleep……and he knew it….knew it well….I saw Lance there crying one day by the blue dumpster…it was all about a box of baby turkeys……his mouth wide open…crying for them dead turkeys….. his missing front tooth…a long strand of spit hung from his bottom lip….he never made a sound….

6.17.10

things started like a walk….I guess…you know….the way feet are supposed to work….move you a direction that seems like it’s not towards the snake pits….or quicksand….more the mustard yellow hills…..where you can hide under the big trees….and call the bird calls all afternoon long….but we weren’t close to those days yet….maybe not much closer than looking through the binoculars from the wrong end….trying to make some sense…..from all of the small stuff….that was so unreal….so doll house sort of thinking….we’d tried the Jesus songs…..sang them loud and out of tune…prayed long into the night…but still I wanted…and you gave so it was the perfect cocktail….you in your white on white patterned house dress….standing barefooted on the paint peeling step of the old river rock house….with nothing but nothing dropping from your open hands….but maybe stigmata blood…dripped onto the white chalky driveway….but I never could look back at those days….see you crying without  single salt filled tear roll down you cheek….what was I to wonder….was it real like the moon walk….or contrived like the moon walk….who the hell knew the answers…about those things…and was it a better way to keep my hands tight than the duct tape…or the wire…or whatever they used on those trips to see the boys dressed in their clown suits…and crying cause mom and dad couldn’t do it nomore….not one more goddamn day….but we’d drive those afternoon drives to the landfill….where we’d watch them dump the dark blue trucks….filled with plastic bag lives…and seagulls flew overhead….drink that “White Hearse” vodka from the bottle….and hope you’d blow….me….while the sun went down….and the tingle from liquor was enough for me to take you on the hood of the car……and we could talk then….play house out there…like we both….really knew what we were doing….in some small faceted way…..I guess we were…like the crumbs at the bottom of the bag… just broken and thin….how we’d driven into the same photograph…..was still a mystery to me…there were those days that it had…and the other ones where……..having nothing was like having everything I ever wanted….everything I needed…..it was a full past the brim…now that was great way to spend a Saturday…wouldn’t you say….when the quiet is only as quiet as the last scream in my head…..or maybe the way the gun sounded when he’d shoot holes in their ears…..and laugh a little when they jumped….high….jackrabbit man…..with his jackrabbit boy…..we’d watch them lay there…brown disk eye….staring right at me…who’d thought winter was going to last all year….

“he has a “Blue Heart”….she’d say…”he has to be very careful”….”you have to be very careful with him”…..”he’s not like other boys”…..I still have his picture from my 7th birthday….I remember he always had white crust at the corner of his mouth….enough so….that I wanted to wipe it away but didn’t want to touch it….afraid maybe I’d catch…… “blue heart”…..

I thought the mug shot was pretty good…given what I’d been through…sort of a half smile….one eyebrow up….a few feathers…still protruding between my lips….I’d gotten away with nothing but began the whole event …with some idea that getting away with it wasn’t even part of the equation…so she lied…to me…and I lied to her…and everyone else that would listen….the rings came from TG&Y down the hill….and under the freeway overpass….these were serious times…I mean I loved her for as much as a 13 year could love anything….Nestle’s Quick…some old Playboys….Tiajuana Smalls….that shit was real love…no joke…it flashed under the high ceiling lights….”these are called Diamond Cuts” he said….just the word…scooped all of the lawn mowing money…right out of my pocket…”you mean with a real diamond?”…I know what it sounded like….but being assured gave me some level of talk …something that could maybe get my hand up her skirt later….sound like I was some TG&Y ring authority with a mission….a plan for later….one that a diamond cut ring just…..might help execute….we were going steady….not unstable….even though both of us needed a good dose of anything….anti-psychotic….I’d spend the whole pay check every Friday…in some Mexican bar…drinking 65 cent beers….waiting for something to happen other than….the same something….I looked at her stretch marks on her stomach while she slept…..usually Saturday mornings….wondered what that story was all about…there was no junior….no graduation pictures…no construction paper hands made into turkeys….nothing that said…”womb full….once”…….it was the same mystery…just a different type of story…..and I know we made those promises…there behind the bar…that no matter what happened…you didn’t know me…I never met you….and it was just a “thing”…just a fucking thing…like a cake before the icing…a fucking thing…..vines grown though the wire fence….type thinking…watcha going do…I guess….huh….pick them apart…bark from wood…from the pith…down to the marrow….she took the ring…silver with the diamond cut grooves…not real silver but kind of like it was…..I saw her bra…lacy….light blue……dreamed that night of getting a haircut…somewhere in Iowa….

5.26.10

I knew why everything in my world usually stopped counting backwards somewhere around…26…not because it equaled eight…or that it was the first year in my life I questioned the answers I’d been giving myself all along…it was because it was the way it was…black washed gravel on the cement driveway…I found a 1934 quarter…under the car that year…and it still was what…it was…sometimes  a race horse… always comes in third….no matter how he runs that day..or the next week or a year from then…it just is…and you try changing that horse…it’d be better to take him out back….shoot him in his head…than to try to make his legs move faster…or for him to  give up the other 2 horses here next to him…there just a bit in front of him….there’s those life time things…that sometimes finding them is good for the soul…while other times the idea they even are there….is like taking that one black ant with the tweezer…pulling him from the jar and dropping him…into the red ant world….it’s pretty short lived…but etched like a piece of glass…deep…into the surface of the skin….like that scratch on grandma’s table….the one you did with your fork…used your eyes to point at me……

seconds before he was born…I mean real seconds….the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck…but the birth was another for the text book…no coned shaped head…no c-section…just a fat baby with dark brown hair parted on the left…he was born a survivor…and always seemed to make those plans that would ensure he died one as well…it started with one of those haircuts that followed his skull…even the flat spot in the back…the one where he could balance a coffe cup…that would make his mother laugh…sometimes snort from laughter…that pig way is what they called it…”ma snorted that pig way”….the checkered flannel shirts…made sure the top button was always buttoned….or he’d get a whippin…..his cuffs folded up high…four sometims 6 inches…not like the older boys who tucked their cuffs underneath…and wore black jeans…with the pointed shoes….and everything seemed to come to him…like dragging the big magnet through the dirt….all those little specks of don’t know what they were….stuck to the end like gray iciccles…he remebered those from the house up in the north…where the cottonwood trees in spring….puked white billows of down…and he could only imagine what things were going to be like….be right there waiting for the older kids to come home on the bus…with their stories of the world outside of the wooden coyote fence….he could listen to them all night…even when they lied to him…called him stupid cause he was the littlest…..next to little Jack….but he was covered in gold….little Jack was….he was whatchud call “Illuminated”…or at least that’s what auntie said…she said he came right from God…right into her arms….a gift straight from heaven….not like him….he’d sit on the porch after a whippin…eating with the big red dog…and the black one that growled….alot…crying between bites…swearing it would change one day….wasn’t sure how….wasn’t certain when…..but he’d never live there in the north…not with all of them stacks of pipes and roughnecks…and those girls with the black shoes and the white socks….their hair done up real nice…..maybe waiting for a package….or a letter from someone special…and he’d watch them paint ponies run circles in the paddock…..sometimes till well after dark….and maybe Homer would come out….roll up a Red Cap and let him lick the paper…..get the first light…..roll that smoke around in his mouth….they’d say nothing…instead….listen for the whispers on the west Texas breeze……

there were those smells….it smelled like something was dead…..and the hot day only made it worse…thick almost like smoke …..made my mouth watery…..hard lump in my throat….I kept thinking of the Golden Gate Bridge…..the first time I ever walked across it….and how the sea air…was like nothing I’d ever felt…that’s when the noise started…I closed my eyes…there a moment and I could hear it….like how those rocks talked to me all of my life….it didn’t make any sense….it was just a noise,…sort of sounded like someone talking on the other side of a wall…with a styrofoam cup over their mouth….so I just listened…thinking maybe there were some answers….I needed to hear….they said I was crazy…that rocks and wind don’t talk…..so I said “yes” just to be normal……I kissed her for the very first time….when I was 13….she was a Mexican Beauty…named Laura……I guess there’s not much more to say about her…she was an inch taller than I was…though…..

5.6.10

like pie in the sky…she’d say…as she rubbed her belly…Daryll Wayne was busy trimming the Huskies….for the summer….dying the ball on the end of their tails a Christmas ball green….he wore those high leather boots all year round….his legs were too white for shorts and sandals were never part of the equation…nor would they ever be…they’d  lasted through a few hard years…I mean she was a topless dancer when they met…he was just out of one of the many 12 step programs…this one was for Oreo addiction or….tying his shoes way too tight…seemed he needed the life of….”Hi….I’m Daryll Wayne…and I’m a….three zinger a day eater”…..she on the other hand needed the folded dollar bill thinking you’re coming home with me type men…the ones that always had some excuse for being where they weren’t supposed to be….drove big cars with big ideas…had big plans you know…plans for boxes and paper sacks….windows covered with aluminum foil so they could do their dirty work right there in the neighborhood…and nobody’d hear nothing…bleached bone thinkers…way out west cannibals…..not your ordinary run of the mill…take it or leave it…sort of monogamous Rexall Ranger…if you get what I mean…he’d slapped her a few times…mostly though when he’d drink…but he’d nestle there in her neck…call her a few names that made her laugh…forget about the hot lip feeling she knew maybe a little better than most woman….even bought her a shiny silver balloon…with a teddy bear…that said “I love you”….when you squeezed its belly hard…..that cost plenty…and when she shunned him a little…she got a black eye….”you’re just a non appreciative bitch”….he said as he left the house…like there was going to be a crowd that was there just to listen….the silver balloon….just hung up under the porch….sort of lost but sort of not knowing what else to do….a cowboy cadillac….with real glass mirrors….and them blinking red lights when you push the brakes…”goddamn son…how much you making a hour these days?”…..”sometimes 15 dollars…sometimes 17….just depends…but it’s good money…how else you think I can what I can and can’t what I can’t”……she sat looking in the mirror…the stand was that brass….with the white pillowed seat…kind of a clam shell….with a decorative…back…..they gave you an alan wrench with it so’s it was easy to put together….had a nice oval mirror…with a masonite back…it was real quality…..for the money….she couldn’t but she could….didn’t know how to make these decisions without a man pulling the chain tight around her neck….she knew a few men at the club…they’d made some promises….said a few things that sounded like maybe it was love….or could be….and that one who took the antibuse…well…he was dying anyway….fatty liver…and smoked those red nose cigars…until his lips was brown….coughed too much to sleep near him…but he was safe…safe as a moon filled sky….

he spit into the white handerchief…the one with his initials…in red…”H.A”…with the frilly edge…hoping the last of the blood was done….he opened it part way to see….but he already knew what he was expecting…..he always rubbed that scare on his face…went from just under the left side of chin….to just beneath his left eye….he’d been kicked in the face that summer…maybe 1963…..or there abouts…. landed flat footed….behind him…both feet came up…split his face open like a melon hitting cement…”ruined him”…his mommy said….”he was so damn pretty”…..that’s what she’d say…”damn pretty”…there in them pictures with his checkered blue and white western shirt with them real pearl snaps…”Just face your right side at the camera”…. “turn your hat down a little”….then it was purple dots for a few seconds…..a little stretch in Huntsville….and the scar served him well….but that was way back then when car thieving…shooting some joker in the neck….got you a work sentence…. not a fucking luxury hotel with a color TV and weight room…his world was not a clear pond….just wanted to see the see thorough pictures….somehow make some sense…and either…take him out back and blow his fucking brains…out…or let him be…load the truck up for a day trip…to the desert…maybe do it out there…. where it was just one sound…no nothing after that…and the smell was what would give it away…but by then…..who’d care…maybe some wetbacks would find him first…and still nothing mattered…he saw the stain…on the ceiling….kind of a tobacco color….looked left…then right…..nothing but breeze…..looked at the stain…one more time….tried to make a shape that made sense out of it…the glass cracked behind his head……the desert smelled like it was going to rain….

4.11.10

it was really but a few hours….left…and she’d be riding the white horses…you know…right through the pearly gates….right past Saint Peter….right up to the face of God…because she was….and always was a good person…and her velvet bag of pearls….and the few ideas that she kept….would still be under the wooden floor boards…and maybe…in 1947 or 1951…they’d tear that house down…..that musty smell of the old poplar wood….rough sawn….would dust the surrounding bushes…enough to make it look like herbicide….or fertilizer from one of them planes there on the prarie…wear daddy’s friend chewed that big wad of Beechnut….let a little dribble down his chin…just before he’d spit…and I’d watch it leave his mouth….big coffee colored spit on its way to the planet…it’d bubble when it hit the pavement…..sort of splash and stay together…like shellack……then he’d rub his hand flat through his hair….smell his hand…..looking for flower petals or bee stings….or maybe the high country was calling hime…but whatever we were thinking was only making sense to us…and I say us…as we were the same…and he…..just a few seconds older…..than me…like orchids blooms on the long stem….or mice…broken neck under the spring trap… “beauty is in the eye of the beholder “…she’d always say….with her tight swollen ankles…and her lace up shoes….black of course….and the hat pins…with the fake pearl ends….made her look a bit distinguished….when  she scolded the taxi driver for being 8 minutes late….and pulled his tip from her coin purse…..handed it to him with his diseased look waiting for the dope….to reach the brain….when he could squint his eyes…close them all the way…fall limp in the big overstuffed red and gold patterned chair…wait for some of the darkness to touch him…like she used to….when she was his…not really his….but stayed there as long as she could…..before the other would find her gone…start calling the neighbors…oh they had plans…places they wanted to go…things they really needed to do to make the wheels spin less but the miles go by quicker…she was still in October….ash still…only enough to run his fingers along the lines left there….the ones on her chest…that chest….wher his lips rested many long summers….and she panted…pleaded….demanded he do those things…..he could smile now…..it was a medal …a piece of the fabric…that mattered more than the bolt itself…..and wether they stuffed it with Thai sticks and did their best to smuggle it to Auckland was there business…but heads would roll….that was a certain as the orange burning globe coming up….that those guys at the filling station called Mr. Fucking Smiley…maybe not tomorrow….but surely the next day…..and when he patted her down…he felt her…smiled a little like this was going to be a forever sort of feel…she…saw dad in his face…cried those 30,000 tears all over again…because she protected little Roxanne….she knew nothing about what Big Sis had done for her…..and the envelope stayed sealed….and they all went their separate ways…and they never knew a thing about eachother…other than they somehow had a connection….like a silk strand from a spider’s wed…long thin….menecing…like a cat hair in your eye when you’re…trying hard to sleep it all off….and figuring what lie to tell next……

we called it quits….told them “No more” in a few different languages…. “we have retired…moved on”…..but that was never going to be enough for the window shades to draw enough down…to hide it all…we’d been awake since 5:23 am…..went to bed well past 1am and you’re wondering why…what and how….seemed so present moment…so right now type of thinking…rather than letting the water build up….over some time….and slowely wash over your body….would have been easier….less…and more at the same time…and I climbed down that ladder many dark mornings….praying for a slip…that would break my neck on the polished concrete floor….sure I may lay there for a few hours maybe a day at most but….it could be like bath maybe or a ride in one of those saucers at Disneyland….except I couldn’t hold the little smooth worn stainless wheel…and never laugh again…at least outloud…and I could see the fall…slow…backwards….looking through the nail holes in the ceiling….with their perfect round …yellow blinding light…maybe it was god…and even though I covered the stigmata with Bandaids….and wool mittens…I still refused to believe it was he and I was me…some weird saving to be saved….like drinking cobra blood from the clear glasses with the painted swirls on them in red and green…their in some Singapore back alley….and there would be the symbols….the noises that assured me….I was me…the trance was lifted…and a few shakes of the head would break it all up just fine…..I needed nothing but a different stamped ticket….that 13dollar…a day whore…who lived by the traffic circle….some of those red funerary papers…with the writing….and boxes of matches to keep my world aflame…..sounded pretty simple when it was spoken in slow motion…on the 33 instead of the 78…but there had been many times I raised the pistol to my head….opened my mouth…prayed the prayers….and still it looked like blue skies ahead….hey and what could I have been thinking…..she was there not to clean up my mess…but I told her in a few different ways…what I thought love was….and how it looked like the way shoes are wrapped up in paper in the box they belong in…you know the toes are crammed with paper too…and it’s like some ritual to unfold the pieces of the shoes…like love…take the papers off in a nice way…a delicate way…like a white glove sort of way…and maybe it was like a prize…under that see through brown paper….just like a prize….for sure……it was….

3.29.10

they had fasted for 19 days she told me…”19 full days”…..was that hard to believe or what…I thought…who’d voluntarily go without eating for 19 full days…I mean not even a Rice Crispie Treat….I was done with that kind of thinking and more into the basement mind of things you…know…the place we say is below the house but really we’re talking about those places we’ve taken trips to like the beach in San Diego…Ocean Beach…where you stepped on the board with the nail in it….cried like it was the last supper picture above your bed….couldn’t say a word….until we got home…cause dad in his checkered bathing suit…with his tan arms and white clam shell body…just wanted to read the paper…drink the small beers from the clear glass bottle and smoke them Gauloises…the ones that made me throw up all over aunt Denise’s coffee table with the books on it…she cussed  me…while I puked on some Better Homes and Gardens Annual…hard cover book…”Those Goddamn hard backed books aren’t cheap…Bobby Ray” ……she probably would have hit me in the back of my head…but was afraid I’d blow mac and cheese on her feet or something…..but today we were taking the car apart to put it back together…. some weird experiment…some Scottish ritual….we did every few years….to just make sure we were making the right lists….checking things off….so that when the real big waves hit…we’d some how have an edge…like extra water in the gallon glass bottles there in the back of the back closet….didn’t make a great deal sense…but the pearl tie clasps with the “alligator” tooth closure didn’t either…so I could see there were going to be a whole lot of questions before this was even close to over….I mean I maybe might have an Adams apple…and grow that patchy hair on my face….that’s not a beard…but still looks like Uncle Johnny’s mug shot photo if you don’t shave everyday….or worse…the mole on Audrey’s face……with those finger hairs a mile long…just waiting to grab hold of you….and strangle you to death…now that could make me puke….just thinking about….he had a stack of dirty magazines….a foot high…and they showed everything…you know…all of the magic stuff…I’d only heard about…and maybe once saw when Nanette was changing her clothes at Thanksgiving…but I’didn’t really see anything but hair….so we stole some 151….in my baby brother’s drinking cup and a few cigarettes…to make sure we were bigger than life…and moved to the hills…those dead mesquite mounds with the high cut out centers…even used one of the magazines to cover our tracks….I thought of Judith…she was the naked girl on the card I stole from my Father’s deck of playing cards… we were tortured….all of these beautiful women and what we’d do with them if we could….we called him Omar…cause he had boner….his pants were…sticking staight out….I did too…but I made sure mine was pushing down..so they wouldn’t make any fun….

I liked how all of the car was rusted and full of holes from everybody in our small town shooting it…because it was right there to shoot….that was a hard pill to swallow….I guess…knowing that he’d…..never again…talk like Woody Woodpecker…..or dance like the Lollipop kids from the Wizard of Oz…but sticks was sticks…and stones… was stones…and now what mattered was waiting till that thick skin settled on the chocolate pudding in the refrigerator….making sure my brother didn’t get to it before I did….he was way to busy with his German Exchange student girlfriend…Olga…or Unta…or something with an “UH” sound at the end…he was even wearing colgne…”English Leather”…came in a glass riding boot…with a brushed finished…metal screw on top….he said it “changed him”…made him more sophisticated…and stung his face because he had so much acne…..mom said the alcohol was good for his skin…dad…he said…”don’t get her pregnant….or you’re moving”…..he knew what he meant…I had dirt under my fingernails….and cared about the candy red color of the bike I wanted for Christmas….it was not the way the photo album had been organized….you know…first we’d be wearing bow ties and missing a few teeth while we smiled those affected white middle class smiles…and then I wanted everything purple…you know like drapes in my room and sheets that were dark purple and crisp…but it was white…those days…cause white said everything….dishes…placemats…underwear….didn’t matter….while I was here it was not my world to spin on it’s axis….it was somebody else who spooned the daily stuff out…and somebody else that put up with it…..me I was to play cards like I knew all of the games…and lose graciously when I did…no more fucking cry babies here…you got it…I could see the collar of my t-shirt was twisted and wrinkled….and out of shape…..but whose fault was that I thought…..I couldn’t for winter…when I could squint my eyes over the brown dead grass….and say I was flying home…….