The Writing on the Wall

A Dream: The Ambassadors

2011-12-21T15:46:00.001-08:00

It took months for us to work out all the details – thevisas, the airfare, the program stipulations, the itinerary and all the otherboring crap and this was just so we could PAYto fly to an impoverished country and volunteer. This wasn’t missionary work –we were just done with college and had nothing better to do. The program wechose had more to do with tourism than charity, but it didn’t matter much.Business is charity and charity is business.

Kyleand I chose Mexico because, why not? It wasn’t far and it seemed like a logicalchoice. We were sent emails from what seemed like a responsible, reputableorganization and everything fell into place.

Assoon as we stepped off the plane, I realized that Mexico was far different fromthe Latino country I had remembered. All the buildings were bombed out, nothingmore than shells and skeletal structures. Few people walked the streets and theonly traffic was from carriages led by half-dead ponies.

Ourguide, a short man named L____ met us near a crushed taxi stand and shook outhands with his sweaty palms. He wore an Acapulco shirt and a baseball cap,assuring us that we’d enjoy our time here.

Ilooked to Kyle. He looked back at me and shrugged. Either we’d been ripped offor there was gonna be a lot more work than we realized. Didn’t matter becausewe couldn’t go back now.

Thetourism center we were staying at was merely a compound of warehouses with thewalls blown out. The floors were filled with green, white and black garbagebags. Flies crowded the air and underneath was a carpet of maggots.

“Whathappened to your country?” I asked our guide.

Helaughed. “This isn’t my country.” He had a weird accent that wasn’t Hispanic.

“Well,OK, fine. What happened?”

“YouAmericans.” The guide shook our hand and walked away.

“Wasthat an insult or an answer?” Kyle asked.

Weset our luggage against a busted wall near some crates and started diggingthrough the trash. I’m not sure what we were looking for, but we started to finda lot of old VHS tapes, cartridge video games, trading cards and pre-teen horrorbooks.

Ibecame excited. “I remember this and this and this from when I was a kid! It’slike I’m digging through my past!” I shouted.

Kyleshrugged, his arms full of his own childhood. We shared a lot of the samememories and I kind of felt weird that they were so mass-produced. Like anyonecould have shared them. Like they weren’t unique.

Andthen we noticed some homeless kids rifling through our luggage. We chased themoff and cursed at them until we were out of breath. Then, in the distance, wewatched an American plane dropping bombs onto the city.

------

Thenext day, all the garbage was cleared out of the warehouse and thrown into thestreet, replaced with thousands of shelves of American brands of food.

“We’regoing to make this a booming tourism industry!” Our guide was ecstatic. “Builtespecially for people like you two. Built on your own garbage and the graves ofa third world country.”

Inodded and muttered, “I guess I preferred the garbage to this.”

Lucid Fluids vol. 1

2011-12-12T19:18:00.000-08:00

I present, LUCID FLUIDS vol. 1, the first in a series of surrealistic, experimental flash fiction based on the fantastic and disturbing pillow visions of Mene Tekel. These 14 tales (including three poems) spelunk into the deep, incoherent abstractions of the mind -- memory, dreams and fear. Written with an admiration for Franz Kafka, Stanley Donwood, the cartoons of David Firth, with a little bit of Neil Gaiman and David Lynch for good measure, Lucid Fluids will fill you with a restlessness and dread that's all too familiar.

You can buy it HERE.

Ending With Dreams

2011-12-08T01:04:00.001-08:00

Starting with dreams, well, that describes how I felt. I mean, the whole thing, the whole "go to sleep, hallucinate and wake up" thing isn't so Freudian for me. I always know what my dreams mean, not some symbolic, New Age bookstore crap either. I know what they mean.

When I dream of being locked in prison, having to tunnel my way out with a spoon, having to duck down a corridor just before the guard, demonic in appearance, turns around and sees me, well, I'm just dreaming of ways to escape from society. I guess it's some teenage angst thing, some rebellion against The Man thing I should have outgrown, but fuck that noise, I never sold out and just cuz I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get me. Some Woody Allen quote.

But when I dream of floating downriver, in out-of-control boats and deflated balloons, I can't steer and the current is just taking me away, well, that's just me swept up in all of my life and that's nothing new. Who isn't overwhelmed by everyday circumstances, by the pressure of routine and deadlines and just having to be honest with yourself when you jostle around in sleep, wake up and comb your hair back into place, like nothing ever happened.

And then there's all the fist fights I used to get into during my restless, midnight escapades. I'd always lose. I'd always take the first punch, then my retaliation was like my arms were rubber, like I was trying to kick underwater and nothing ever connected the way I wanted it to. I'd be stabbed and beaten or I'd run, sprint down dark alleys and under yellow street lights and I'd always lose.

I guess that's why, when my fist connected with the bastard's face, some prick starting shit with me over nothing, I couldn't hear myself screaming obscenities, didn't know I was yelling, "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, man," till I noticed he was on the ground, his buddy trying to both help him up and keep him from attacking me again, trying to stop something that shouldn't have started, that's why I felt so good. It wasn't just the adrenaline electrifying my swollen eye, blazing through my veins, wasn't just my bruised fist that felt so fucking good. And I felt on fire. It was the realization that I had overcome a nightmare.

The Hive

2011-04-15T20:45:00.000-07:00

Once you clear the fence, hit the ground running. If you're quiet, it will take about ten seconds for the dogs to notice you and give chase and it's only a 30 second sprint to the house. Think you can outrun a pack of dogs? The dogs, rottweilers and pit bulls mostly, are there to guard the estate from trespassers, assholes like you.
            The brick wall is ten feet high, so you jump from a tree, right into the barbed wire circling the top. The barbs claw up your arms and legs like a shredder to cheese, the whole spiral bending with your weight and when you land awkwardly on your bad ankle, it takes some flesh with it. Once you clear the fence, hit the ground limping, bleeding, terrified.
            Edging toward the house, you're quiet, like the breeze that teases the weed-saturated lawn, kicking up pollen from wild flowers. If you duck low enough under the grass, maybe the dogs won't see you, but it won't be long before they pick up your scent, the stench of your fresh blood.
            Barking. The sound of little paws racing invisible through the overgrowth. Your ankle's complaints are drowned out by one word: RUN.
            The beasts close behind, the ancient three-story mansion just within view, you notice all the windows, the doors, everything, boarded up, nailed shut, sealed like entrances to tombs. This is a dead end; there is nowhere to hide. Not far behind, you can already feel the spittle of the dogs behind you. Then, your foot catches in the anaconda coils of a garden hose and you trip, tumbling headfirst into the hatch trap door to the basement, which snaps in two. Down you pitch, making sure to hit every stair on the way down.
            Too dazed to move or even assess broken bones, the dogs snarl and growl at the top of the stair. Then they whimper and turn away.
            You pick yourself up, not sure what made the dogs leave. Not scared, are they? You can hear a slight humming sound, constant and steady like an air conditioner. Go up the stairs, turn the doorknob and pause. The hum is louder.             Suddenly, there's a strong burning sensation in your leg and you look down to see a single bee with its ass stuck in your calf. A swift swat and it's nothing but goo, mixing in with the blood.
            You grab the doorknob again, noticing two more bees fluttering near your head. Shoo them away and then pull the door open. You're in the kitchen, but it's dark, so you hit your keychain flashlight. The walls seem to be moving, swaying ever so slightly, like a bead curtain. The air is thick with flies or something. Then your eyes adjust and you realize the flies are actually more bees, lots more bees and the walls are thick with beehive. You wave your hand at bees getting too close, the stale air making it hard to breathe, and push through the swinging door into the living room.
            The den is no better, every wall coated in honeycomb like a bad mold. And then the truth dawns on you -- the entire mansion is one giant beehive. You’ve got to get out of here.
            Back up. Before you run out the door to face the dogs again, remind yourself why you're here.
            OK, so it began back with your father on his deathbed, but it was barely him anymore. The ex-military captain, amateur hiker and former jog freak was now as shriveled and emasculated as a castrated bull's ballsack. He was tangled in an assortment of cords, a steady pulse going through his heart rate monitor, his skin saggy like fried chicken flesh. Barely there, the indent in the mattress the only evidence he weighed anything, seeming more like emptiness.
            He asked quietly for death, asked you to ask the doctors to kick out whatever crutches he was standing on. But he was leaving you with his debts, the ruins of a mortgage company crushed in the latest economic scandal. Your frequent visits to the hospital were only to watch him suffer. You got some sick pleasure out of it.

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            You were there for his last moments when he finally gave in, when his breathing was mere gasps and he told you to remember the mansion on Cedar Grove, the one the bank snatched back, the one with the dogs roaming the grounds in case your father tried sneaking in to steal back any of his valuables. He said, in the Red Room, the one painted as sanguine as a Ferrari, under the floorboards he buried one of those priceless Islamic vases he used to collect. One of those is worth a couple million at least, enough to get you out all that impending debt.
            He told you to go to the house and you'd be fine, you’d be able to save yourself. Once you clear the fence, hit the ground running.
            When you asked him why he didn't sell the fucking vase in the first place to save everyone from all this trouble, he merely shrugged, half a grin on his face. "I didn't want to give it away." Then his eyes closed and he breathed in less and less and then finally stopped. He died with that stupid smile on his face.
            Now you're in this godforsaken mansion, worming through the corridors and high ceilings filled with millions upon millions of bees. You've heard the stories about how swarms take nest inside houses. They can grow comfortably in number in a way nature can't provide and given enough time, a hive could potentially take over the whole building. Or perhaps it's not just one hive, but several hundred, all coexisting. Either way, this house is alive with the numbing hum of countless flying, stinging insects.
            Standing in the living room, tracing your flashlight beam across the walls, marveling at the complexity of the place, the sheer numbers, the perfect tessellations of hexagon honeycombs covering everything in sight, you can feel dozens of little insects landing all over you, investigating the sweet smell of your oozing cuts. You tremble as bees tickle your neck, attempting to remain calm so as not to startle the things. You remember your mother was deathly allergic to these creatures and the venom in their stingers and that's how she passed -- the squatters built a makeshift kingdom in her bathroom and stung her repeatedly during the night. On some heavy-duty painkillers for whiplash from a near fatal car accident earlier in the week, she didn't wake up, she didn't feel a thing.
            You don't know if you're personally allergic to bees -- you've never been tested. You inspect the sting you got earlier, still smarting, but it looks fine. What do allergies look like anyway? But still you hate the bastard that did this to you.
            Some people say honey bees are disappearing and you could care less, but still, because of your mother, you know far too much about bees. You know that out of the 16,000 species of these insects, only eight produce honey. You know on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, the piercings from these bees ranks at a 2.0, just above a yellowjacket (which feels like a cigar being extinguished on your skin) and just below a red harvester ant (which feels like someone drilling into your ingrown toenail.) Bee stings, including the one on your leg, feels like someone flicked the cherry off a cigarette and let it smolder into your skin.
            The faster you get out of this hellhole, and what better term for this place, the better. When a bee stings, the barb gets stuck in the skin and the result is an eviscerated insect, it's tiny bee guts pulled out like a popper on the Fourth of July. You know that when honeybees sting, they release pheromones, a battle cry for other bees to come and join in the fray. Better hurry before they notice and begin some Kamikaze attack on you.
            As you climb the stairs, flashlight pointed down so you don't step on any honeycomb nurseries, you hear the sound of a tractor outside firing up. You hear men yelling orders and the steady pulse of some large machinery backing up. Checking your cell phone, the battery almost dead, you realize it's the 15th already, the day the bank threatened to tear down this mansion. Some zealous developer wants to buy the land and turn it into a themepark or a parking garage or a duplex complex or whatever, so as soon as your dad died, before his body was even cold, the mansion went up for auction. Like most other mansions in this housing market, it was sold cheap and quick from what you remember reading in the Sun and today, it's going to be torn down.
            At the top of the landing, you peak through a crack in the boards, getting your face up close and personal with the hive. Bees crawl on your face in circles, doing little bee dances, their antennae twitching back and forth like anxious metronomes. Outside, you can see the men with a gigantic crane and attached is a pear-shaped wrecking ball.
            Now you've really got to hurry. If you get caught, assuming the dogs don't come back and maul you, you'll be charged with trespassing, not to mention theft.
You pass into the first room on the landing. You can't remember which room is the Red one. It could be any of these, all of which are so caked in thriving hives you can't make out the color of the walls. The bees are living in everything in this room, which was probably a billiards room given the massive form in the center, a miniature city growing around the billiards and cues, hundreds of commuters flying out of the pockets.
            So you dig. You reach your hand into the hive wall and slowly pull back. The honeycomb bristles and crumbles like a weak plaster and bees swarm your hands so fast it looks like you dipped them into sunflower seeds. The wall is an eggshell white except for the dirt left behind. And then the stings come, hundreds upon hundreds, all over your hands.
            You shake them off frantically, but more just land and more sting. You hands become gloves of angry punctures.
            The next room is a bathroom and you thrust your bleeding, swollen fists into the dark, goopy tank of the toilet. Bees are evacuating the medicine cabinet, flying like some Great War-era fighter pilots, dog fighting, zeroing in on you.
            The air is thick with bees and sometimes you breath one in. At first you frantically try to spit them out, but that just results in stung and swollen lips, so now you crush them with your teeth before they have a chance to jab at your tongue. You soon have a paste of bees you're half drooling out your bulging mouth and the taste is like a waxy, furry glue.
            There's a crash downstairs and the whole house shakes. You look down over the banister and see a fog of bees angrily swarming around some giant light. Then you realize the light is coming from a gigantic hole in the living room. This time you see the wrecking ball crash through the wall, taking out a larger chunk, throwing honeycomb and dust everywhere and angering the bees even more. The house shudders and starts to lean, collapsing into the hole.

You run into the next room, quickly tearing at the walls. They’re peach. You run back to the bathroom, dip your hands into the toilet and lather, rinse, repeat. The next room has beige walls. The stinging is so constant you’re getting numb to it, your hands, your neck, your face ballooning like elephantitis mixed with chicken pox.

You’re on the third story. Another crash from downstairs and the wall next to you rips off, revealing the hot air outside. The light is blinding, the bees flying out like bats at sunset, vainly trying to save their home.

In the last room, your fingertips so fat and numb you can barely pry, you peel back the honeycomb and find that the walls are blood red. The wall behind you disappears, the wrecking ball retreating, and the ceiling starts to sag, the floor warping like a Dali painting. The bed, nothing more than a bee metropolis, slides past you and tumbles out the gap into the world. Bees are crawling through your hair like headlice, stinging you repeatedly. The floor splits in the middle, giving you the leverage you need to pry the boards back.

Just like good old daddy promised, there’s a box there. With mushroom hands, you lift the lid and remove the vase. You cradle it for a while, marveling at it’s intricacy, the hours of horned passion pressed into every groove centuries ago. It’s creator anonymous but more precise than any artist alive today. There’s a kinship man has with craft of this magnitude – no wonder it’s so invaluable.

Another wall collapses, leaving you naked to the open air. The bees, perhaps giving up on their sinking Titanic, varnish themselves on you like those coats of bees you see performance artists wear. You can feel your breathing swell up and you’re still staring at the vase when the foundation of the house gives way, the floor beneath you folds like a house of cards and you disappear.

The Joke

2010-11-30T17:43:00.000-08:00

Everyone was talking about it like it was the greatest thing to hit the art world since, I dunno, acrylic paint or something. Every magazine, paper, blog reel, zine, video podcast and Twitter feed shamelessly linked to the same photograph, taken on an iPhone the night of the bombing. It was a burning building, limp corpses hung in the windows and viscera littered in the streets, the contrast so warped by the low-resolution that you could almost feel the heat and smell the burning flesh.

The memorable part was a woman, her head greasy with blood and sulfur, her face frozen with a half-horrified shriek, half-hysterical giggle. There was some debate as if she was laughing or not, but no one could ask her. She was never seen again, like her existence was limited to the snapshot.

Everyone called it the most iconic image of the 21^st century, after the World Trade Center collapse and Bush’s Mission Accomplished speech. Alongside every reproduction of the bombing was a similar story, starting with a room full of taxidermic animals and a man named Damien Ringle. But I probably know the story best, because Damien was my brother.

Damien and I attended the same small university in Flagstaff, Arizona. He majored in Art, something our father called a “fart of a degree” and I focused on business, intending to inherit Dad’s mortgage company. Sometimes the university had a tiny show for students, encouraging the wannabe-Warhols to drag whatever hidden masterpieces they had stuffed in their dorm closets.

Even at a young age, Damien stole the show. His sculptures were stolen taxidermic animals that were painted over to look like cartoon characters. Damien’s all-star cast featured Donald Duck, Felix the Cat and Scooby Doo and managed to get the whole exhibit protested by the student animal rights population. The student paper tried to defend the little art prodigy, but once a couple windows were smashed, the animals stolen again, the Art Department shut down the gallery for the semester.

The paper quoted Damien as saying, “It couldn’t have gone better if I planned it.”

From the beginning, this is exactly what little Damien wanted. It’s what he’s always wanted, controversy, conflict, chaos.

Growing up, Damien was the middle child, between me and our sister. You know how on road trips siblings will poke at each other until a fight breaks out? Damien never outgrew that provocative mentality. And our Dad was barely in our lives enough to whip around and vaguely threaten the brat, “If you don’t cut that out, I’m going to turn this car around…”

At a young age, Damien wanted to be a stand-up comic. He marveled at the way George Carlin and Lenny Bruce could say the most provocative, fucked up shit and get away with it and still leave their audiences in stitches. Damien soon abandoned those dreams when he realized he had incredible stage fright. He couldn’t divide himself from his audience.

The general teenage delinquency, the feigned interest in graffiti, the drugs and the broken curfews, it was all just part of Damien’s act. When he decided to step up and become the next Hirst or Fairey, my father steamed with anger and disappointment, but tried not to let it show.

Damien just saw art as another way to piss everyone off.

It wasn’t hard for my brother to get funding for his next installation piece. The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art opened up a basement and allowed Mr. Ringle to fill ten rooms with different artifacts, each representing a different Plague of Egypt. Most people found the Plague of Blood amusing, albeit disturbing, but entering a room fluttering with locusts and lice was too much. The Plague of Frogs once again attracted the attention of radical animal right’s groups, who broke into the museum, staging a “liberation” and releasing the plagues – the frogs, the flies, the fleas and the crickets – onto the city of Los Angeles.

The irony was not lost on the media, who praised my brother’s installation as the funniest art stunt since Phillippe Petit’s tightrope dance between the Twin Towers. The best thing some L.A. art critic said about the Plagues was, “Damien’s art is about suffering and he makes sure everyone suffers with him, intentional or not.”

For at least one week that February, Damien Ringle was the number one-trended topic on three different social media websites, overshadowing the death of a hip hop star, a pregnant model/junkie and an earthquake in Thailand. The only quote the papers could wrangle from the guerrilla artist was “Hallelujah, baby.”

More and more people were talking about art again. The general complaints of “I don’t get it” and “What’s the point?” were replaced with “Did you hear what he did at the Academy Awards? He dumped a bucket of pink paint on Jessica Alba and called her his masterpiece.”

Everyone ditched those Kanye West glasses and started wearing Damien Ringle’s bulbous headlamps. All over the country, kids everywhere were getting thrown out of art class for trying to outdo one another with daring, violent art pranks. One kid was quoted in the Chicago Tribune saying, “You know why you don’t nail dead birds to a board and coat them in that polyvinyl chloride shit they put on Christmas trees? At first, it looks cool as fuck, but then little bubbles start to form and when they pop, they smell like, well, rotting birds. And oh yeah, the mandatory counseling appointments kind of suck, too.”

If ol’ Dad had any feelings about this, he didn’t express them. Around the same time, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for stealing from his investors, just another victim of The Great Recession. I took over the company and although it was barely salvageable, I was still making a pretty penny. I guess that’s why I didn’t really mind when Damien approached me, asking for $5,000 in cash.

“This is for your next installation?”

“Uh huh.”

“Why can’t you ask someone else, someone from a museum or something? You’ve seen the economy, why come here?”

“The galleries are afraid to touch me now. Too many arsons, lawsuits, whatever.” Then my brother looked at me with those sad, sorry, “Please forgive me” eyes that he used when were kids, begging me not to tattle on him. And the trick always worked.

Leaving the bank, handing my brother the cash, I said, “I want this back before Christmas.”

“You’ll get it before Labor Day.” He smiled, like all that sibling rivalry bullshit didn’t matter any more. But I knew that wasn’t exactly true.

Come Halloween, I still hadn’t heard from my brother. I didn’t really have to anymore, I just had to pick up a newspaper or look on Google trends. Unfortunately, it wasn’t good news.

The Huffington Post ran a headline that read “Ringle’s new installation busts -- literally.” Every other magazine, newspaper, Livejournal entry and the mandatory Boing Boing feature echoed the same sentiment – Damien had blown it.

Damien’s big failure was stringing 4,429 balloons, one for each casualty in the Iraq Invasion, in a warehouse, filling each one with a different, random liquid. He gave each guest a rusty steak knife and an empty champagne class, instructing everyone that whoever found the balloon filled with crude oil would get a free, signed Ringle print, valued at $1.4 million.

Mostly on accident, the gallery soon became one giant knife fight. People were slipping like Bambi on the ice all over dish soap, goat’s milk, bleach, dolphin semen, Smirnoff Ice, no-pulp orange juice and liquefied butter, to name a few. But mostly everyone was slipping from all the blood from all the accidental and on purpose stabbings. Someone should have said “No smoking” because when the balloon filled with gasoline popped next to a guy with a cigarillo in hand – well, it wasn’t a pretty sight.

Because the violence stood out the most from the show, that’s what all the papers, the magazines, the blogs decided to focus on, bent over with sardonic laughter. Videos of the event made their rounds on YouTube, complete with the idiotic comments and auto-tuned remixes. Some blog, something like SomeLikeItHot.com, started a rumor that Damien was addicted to heroin. People stopped wanting to work with him so much. It didn’t matter if it was true if enough people linked to it.

I was almost furious when Damien approached me a second time, his hand extended for ten grand this time. But he always had this over-convincing way of getting anything out of anyone.

“Cash, this time, again?” I asked.

My brother nodded. “Don’t worry. The last show was a bust, but this next one will get you twice of what I’m asking, plus whatever I owe you.”

Even strapped for cash myself, I gave him the money, more to throw it in Dad’s face than to help out a sibling. I guess that rebellious streak wasn’t isolated in my brother’s genes. I hadn’t visited the old man once in prison, he even spent Christmas without a visit, but I knew he’d heard about this latest disaster. Damien’s celebrity reached even into San Quentin.

For his next act, aptly named Slaughterhouse Six Six Six, Damien bought an old slaughterhouse and built a playground inside. He didn’t remove any of the various decapitating, disemboweling machinery, but he did spread a thick layer of offal and guts all over the floor. The playground was filled with dead, decaying animals, broken glass and the ball pit was overflowing with dirty needles.

The worst part was going into the freezer, where Damien had hung towels from the ceiling, all of them dripping blood. The guests were herded to the end, which they did like sheep, assuming this was another way to get inside the mind of my brother.

I remember walking through the cold, the blood even colder, hitting my head like rain. It stained dozens of elegant, posh evening gowns of brainless trophy wives and ruined the Armani suits of their art collector husbands. I smirked the whole time, finding the stunt enormously funny, especially that anyone would willingly participate in this. Then, reaching the end, my grin faded.

At the end of the freezer a handwritten note was taped, saying the blood was HIV positive. Love, Damien.

Thirteen people sued, even though later it would be revealed no one had contracted AIDS. Damien was lucky this time, but the heat was really starting to rise.

The backlash, exaggerated as it was, made it seem like Damien was Richard Nixon. The media came up with a typical title, “Slaughtergate” and almost overnight, everyone seemed to abandon their obsession with the “pop-art infidel,” as 7minuteitch.com called him.

I didn’t hear from Damien after that, but I read about his next big thing as soon as Google Alerts updated. It was called The Joke and the buzz was like Britney Spears’ comeback – completely baseless media manufactured optimism. The papers, the magazines, the blogs, they all asked questions like “Will Damien be resurrected?” because they wanted to see him raised from the dead. But it seemed like it was just so they could nail him to the cross again.

The actual theme of The Joke was kept secret, the gallery windows blocked out. For the artist’s reception and opening night, it was invitation-only. Everyone who was anyone in the art world was given a ticket and I wasn’t invited. Feeling bitter and brushed off, I decide to show up anyway.

It’s a three-hour drive from my office and I’m worried I’ll be late, but I arrive just in time. From the parking lot, I can hear music and a long line of people entering the building. I stand behind a couple, trying to see inside. This art gallery slut, someone who dates guys with names like Florence from Barcelona because he’s “so deep”, she makes me want to puke. But she has a ticket sticking out her purse. Making sure no one sees, I take it and push my way to the front of the line. The bouncer barely glances at my invitation.

My first impression is that what I heard outside wasn’t music. It’s the sounds of animals being slaughtered, rabbits screaming and lobsters squealing and pigs crying. The whole aura is giving me a terrible chill.

The Joke, the actual exhibit, is relatively mild for Damien, just a bunch of silk-screen prints of various historical tragedies. A Warhol take on the World Trade Center Collapse, the Mai Lai massacre, the Hindenburg explosion, the Titanic sinking. In each corner, there are fake, homemade bombs, complete with wires and synchronized countdown timers. Painted on the wall in what looks like blood is the words “IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU.”

I walk over to the refreshments table, trying to think of something to say to my brother. I nibble on a brownie and scoop myself some punch. The air feels cold and fresh and I notice that everyone going around from painting to painting is laughing their ass off.

It almost feels like being in a sitcom, the laughter endless and inappropriate and canned. Everyone is giggling and guffawing till tears are trailing down their eyes.

I see my brother, talking to a couple of scrawny models and I tap him on the shoulder. He’s the only one not smiling and his face goes from shock to anger. He hisses at me, so not to offend the girls, but they walk off anyway.

“What the fuck are you doing here? I made sure, double sure, you weren’t fucking invited.”

“Wow, what a way to welcome your flesh and blood. I don’t know, I think I have a right to be here.”

“A right? What right?”

“I paid for your last two shithead installations, your stupid little stunts, I wanted to see how bad this was going to be. By the way, how did you afford this?”

“I maxed out four credit cards, but that doesn’t matter. You really don’t want to see how bad this one is going to get.”

“Looks like I’m gonna.”

My brother leans into me and whispers, “Why don’t we step out back for a bit?”

A bouncer’s gorilla hands suddenly clamp on my shoulder and I’m led through the back and into an alley.

“OK, so here’s how this works,” Damien says. “You’re going to go home. I don’t want to see you here again tonight. If you do, I’ll have Marvin here crush your face, got it?”

“Fine. You want to threaten me, treat me like shit, fine. But if I don’t have the cash I loaned you by tomorrow, I’ll see you in court.”

“Is this about money?” Damien reached into his pocket and gave me a business card. “Here. Call this number tomorrow and you’ll get your fucking money.”

“This is a life insurance company.”

“Exactly. And if you don’t get out of here, I’m going to kill you.”

I start to feel a little bit sick and suddenly puke. “What the fuck was in that punch?”

“Sunshine acid. There was some kush weed in the brownies, too. The nitrogen being pumped in the room wasn’t cheap either.”

Bent down in the alley, hovering over my own puke, I say, “What?”

And Damien leans down, with a smile on his face, saying, “The Joke. Do ya get it? Do ya get it?” And he laughs. “That’s not even the punch line.”

I get up and start to walk off, when Damien calls after me, “Hey, bro, tell Dad I love him, OK?” Then he stops and says, “Actually, scratch that. Tell him to go fuck himself.”

Walking back around to my car, the acid still starting to kick in, I fumble with the keys when an explosion comes from the art gallery. It’s so loud I nearly piss myself, I’m thrown to the ground and spend several minutes trying to figure out just what the fuck happened to me.

If they’re big enough, explosions aren’t like the movies, you can’t just walk away, at least in my experience. I’m barely even realize I’ve been hit in the head with a flying brick, my ears have shut off and I slump against the tire, bleeding from my forehead, trying to rationalize the irrational. I just wanted to sit and not think.

I mean, you read about post traumatic stress, but seeing a building full of people collapse on fire, killing dozens of folks that you saw breathing and laughing and alive just minutes before – well, it’s way harder to ignore. Something like that really doesn’t ever leave you.

I knew my brother was inside when the timers hit zero. The biggest surprise was that the bombs in the gallery were real the whole time. Everyone was so caught up in the artist’s illusion, they didn’t question it.

I guess Damien got his revenge, or finally made whatever statement he’d been trying to get across his whole life. In the end, I appreciated him throwing me out. Saving my life, sort of.

In the following weeks, everyone was talking about my brother’s suicide bombing like it was the greatest thing to hit the art world since, I dunno, the Mona Lisa or something. No one missed those art gallery junkies Damien murdered. Far as most art world aficionados were concerned, he did the world a favor. Things were changing already – no one was interested in stunts anymore. People wanted sincerity, truth, documentary, whatever. Most people stopped paying attention after that and art became another “thing” for weirdos and freaks and misfits.

Still, constantly watching and rewatching and hearing about the news of my brother’s death depressed the hell out of me, but later I found parts of the whole thing funny. Or at least, ironic. The Joke had become another example of the screen prints Damien had made.

I was legally able to collect my brother’s life insurance, getting my loans paid back in full, but none of that really comforted me. My doctor called me saying my blood test results tested positive for HIV. Sure, they said they wanted me to come in for some follow-up tests, but I didn’t bother. All I could think of was Slaughterhouse Six Six Six.

I went to San Quentin. My head in my hands, I sulked in the waiting room of the prison. A guard came in saying my father would see me now. I summoned the courage to stand and was led down the dim hallways and then I started to laugh.

Donations

2010-10-10T10:26:00.000-07:00

a little treat from JULY 5 07

     Last night, I stopped by my work to get some cheap drinks. I walked in, and this giant, fat woman was dumped on the floor, like a deflated blimp. My coworker, Duc took me aside, chuckled and said, "She slipped and fell. She'll probably sue the company." The paramedics arrived soon after I left. The end.
     Today, I go into work and my manager explains the new ALS promotion. Basically, I ask every single customer who comes in if they would like to donate to the ALS, which is a group of people working to find a cure for Lou Gehrig's disease. It costs a dollar, and they put their name on a perfect, little circle, which I then tape to the wall. Somehow or another, this cures Lou Gehrig's disease.
     There are about sixty little circles already on the wall. My manager says, "Each and every one of those are from Arielle. She's been working hard. The district manager is gonna buy her a soda, and she could win the district contest, which I think is a trip to the Bahamas." I decided at that moment, I was going to sell more of these donations that Arielle. I don't know why, I don't care about the Bahamas, it's probably just instinctual selfish ambition.
     I noticed my friend Tyler Doty was on one of them already. That was a trip.
     I sold four in the first ten minutes. A woman came in, paid for one and let me put her name on it for her. I put my own name instead. This happened twice more, so I started putting some of my aliases. I sold about ten in the first hour. It was so much fun.
     The entire day became a game. A competition. I was smirking the whole time, holding my breath as people signed their names. If people said no, I would sigh, and say whatever. To kinda guilt them into it. It worked about three times.
     A cute girl came in. She had a slight burn scar on the left side of her face, so she had her red hair tucked to the side to hide the blemish. To me, it was beautiful. She wasn't emo, just soft and still not self indulged. She must have been fourteen. I asked her about ALS and she kindly said no. Her friend had some kind of case with him, and I asked about it. He said he found it by the side of the road.
     I said, "That's cool, I do stuff like that too."
     He didn't look like he believed me, so I said, "I found a Jack in the Box T-shirt in the street once. It says manager on it, and I took it home and washed it. One day, I'll wear it into Jack in the Box, slam my hand on the counter and demand free burgers."
     The cute girl laughed, and said to her friend as she left, "He's cool."
     Too bad she's too young.
     A lot of different types of people donated. A cute Muslim girl buying makeup named Hina. A drunk Mexican. Boring white people. A disorientated Jamaican. And also, two blimp women, similiar to the one who slipped the day before, they both write checks. I must examine their ID's but not for anything special. I learn that they were born in 1938. Their were grumpy and impatient with me but I was calm because they could inadvertently send me to the beach.

INSERT CRAZY RANT AGAINST THIS WHOLE TIRADE HERE.
    I was called away from the register to take out the trash. There were about five crates full of spoiled orange juice, and none of the girls wanted to throw them out, cause they smelt so awful. I could have just tossed them in the dumpster, but I decided to slam them, spraying fermented orange piss all over the dumpster. It dribbled into puddles of pulp and coagulated with the intense summer heat and the other trash. It was awesome, and the refuse has coated the dumpster ever since.
    I came back in to find my manager mopping up near the coolers. He had ordered too much ice and it didn't all fit in the freezer. So he stacked in the fridge. Of course, it melted and cost the store about 50 dollars worth of ice. My manager was a moron, and I took the dripping bags to the back.
    Later, these two women came running into the store, and tell my coworker Anna to call the police. "There is a belligerent man outside walking in traffic and disturbing people!" I had a line of ten people, so I just took note while Anna dialed and the women tried to calm themselves down.
     The first woman had a money card she wanted to buy. Basically, it's like a gift card for anything and she wanted five hundred dollars on it. She handed it to me in cash. Then the "belligerent man" walked inside the store. He was old and dirty, tall, bald, and red faced. Obviously homeless, obviously stark raving mad.
     He stood right in front of everyone and yelled, "Would anyone like to donate money to the pens and pencils and paper?"
     Everyone was freaked out, scared stiff, deer in headlights.
     "Anyone? If you don't do it, we're all gonna die."
     I smiled. My heart was throttling like I was scared, but I didn't feel it. The woman with the five hundred dollars asked me to "quick, hide it." She was totally afraid. I didn't. I continued her transaction, and told the man, "I can let you borrow my notebook if you want."
     He said, "Nevermind. Satan told me to draw the smiley faces or he was going to fight you. But never mind. I'm just losing my mind." And he walked out.
     Everyone tensed up even more. The woman with the 500 dollars started to shout at me, to rush me. "My kid is in the car, hurry up!" She was so afraid. I just laughed, finished her transaction and watched her run out. Anna hung up the phone, said, "They're coming." The women who reported this guy walked outside and rushed back in. "He's back in the road again."
     I don't understand what was wrong with everyone today. This man comes in needing help, and the whole store just freaks out in fear and cowardice. I mean, he was a poor hurting guy, and was no threat to anyone, yet. . .
     Well, the cops showed up and arrested him.
     Jeez, anything that scares someone should be arrested.
     Anyway, at the end of the competition, I sold about 90 little circles. Arielle got way more than I, but she didn't win either. I guess that's what really matters.

high there captain (fire is the divider)

2010-09-26T15:07:00.000-07:00

burning! burn burn burn!'
fire is the divider
between the absurd!

Jumping jump jump jump

Like elephantiasis, I expand with balloon accuracy. I'm a cancer, forming in the skin of society.
My anarchist skin is leathered with every human sin.
We can find a solution to politics by admitting there is none.
Admitting that the sickness of humanity is a cavity in the soul.
If we look in a mirror, we can remove the dirt. Only then flowers shall bloom from our chest.

I peel the edges of my fingers with unsympathetic rage.
My teeth are ripe, yellow and spotted. The rotted food falls out.
My hamster wheel, my repetitiousness, is devouring me.
I should be growing and infecting others with the doctrine of chaos and love.
My own hero, breaking down barriers of filth.

written in may or something.

Lavender

2010-09-02T11:40:00.000-07:00

Mar. 5th

At the same time, something changed in both of us.

She glided on one side of the Paseo Del Río, I stood shoegazing on the other, the turbulent green water between us. It rained like an angel's tantrum, heavy and cold, but not bleak, not melancholy.
Her hair flew back, parachuting in the gale and I could almost feel it stretching across the creek and stabbing into my senses. I could feel the perfume, lavender in scent, invading my olfactory, breaking down barricades and drawing my autonomy to its knees.
I was enslaved to her, the change between us occurring in different locations internally. My insides churned inside-out, mushed into one another. I had become a septic tank, withholding my own sludge. She glowed with intensity, her face reflecting the few rain-flecked dabs of sunlight like a golden idol.
The more my heart beat excitedly, the more it sunk into it's own cavity, shrinking in anguish. The more my eyes grew wide, the more they shrunk with hypothermic limpness.
Not once did her eyes turn to notice me.

Time is a flour mill, forever turning in the wind, crushing memories and history together. The more the gears twist, the more the result is unfamiliar, a strange flower growing until it overtakes entire gardens. What was once there is never replaced, never repeated, not once.

So that was then, and it doesn't matter. This is now and it still doesn't matter. The only experience worth noting is how my wristwatch continues to fade into the anonymous present. It ticks one way first, then flings back into the present, like an oar consistently propelling our craft forward.

She gave me one dinner. I sat back, barely attempting to act casual. This, after all, was just a business date at a seedy place off in some distant nowhere corner. She sat stiff and appeared ordinary, none of that floaty bullshit. No makeup, casual dress, her hands laid out face down, innocently on the table.
She noticed me staring into her crusted, chewed up fingernails. I followed them up to her withered, chipped knuckles, past criss-crossed scars dug across the wrists, to her chest, spotted with sunbleached freckles and adorned with a plastic necklace. Her feet, chipped and tattered, could follow the same pattern. Not once did I glance down.

The more my heart beat excitedly, the more it sunk into it's own cavity, shrinking in anguish. The more my eyes grew wide, the more they shrunk with hypothermic limpness.

It all came to this, a brief cup of coffee, yogurt sprinkled with granola and a hasty goodbye.

Fugitive Motel / The Greatest Excuse

2010-05-10T22:02:00.000-07:00

The phone rings and I'm lying on the motel bed, sprawled backwards and picking at a fingernail with my eyetooth. The phone clutched in my hand, pressed to my ear, I can hear the other line and all I can hear is the sound of chewing.
"It's about time you called. I'm bored to tears here. So anyway," I say. "I've started wearing glasses. I mean, well, I had them for two years, but I never wore them, but now my vision's getting so bad I kinda have to. I put them on and I never even noticed how dim the world was getting. With these glasses, I have something like 20/15 vision, which is perfect. Everything is beautiful again, and I'm not even high."
The motel TV is flopped on its side, tuned to the Travel Channel, some B-roll footage of boring people visiting beautiful places I've never heard of and I will never visit. Not like they will, anyway. It's not the same. Never the same.

Those little green lamps that most motels have, it's broken on the floor, surrounded by empty bottles and cigarette butts extinguished right in the carpeting.

"I'm just wondering why I'm slowly going blind. I'm really worried about it you know?"
"Maybe it's all the dope." The phone says. "That's supposed to make you go blind."
"Maybe. Could be staying up late and watching TV." I glance over at the set. Beautiful beaches and cobblestone streets and art and shit.
"Maybe it's masturbation. Or have you been eating enough carrots?" I can hear crunching.

"Anyway, I heard from Laura. Turns out she's got six weeks."
"Why did you bring her up? I don't want to hear anything about her for SEVEN weeks, OK?"

"She just crossed my mind. Do you even know her? Wait, before I forget, there's something I think you should know."

"Shoot." The sound of crunching popcorn.
"Today, I am depressed and I like it."
"The big come down, eh? Of course you like it."
"It makes me feel important."

"Most drugs do, as depression is just one of those."

"I've heard that about happiness, too." I sneeze, suddenly and I'm seeing spots. My hand is covered in blood and snot now, so I wipe it daintily on the mattress.

"On my end," The phone says. "I'm thinking of the great irony in birds taking down jet planes. Kamikaze-style. The beauty of loose screws dismantling an entire space shuttle. Poisonous pets devouring a careless owner. Building on advancing fault lines. You know, other staples of the anti-suicide society."

"Big deal. That's what I don't get about existentialism. What's the point?"
"If there's no point to anything . . ."
". . .What's the logic in bitching?"
"Like most widely held beliefs, it lessens the hurting. Also, it gives a great excuse to be a pretentious dick."
"And you like that?"
"You like being depressed."
"I like being a lot of things, and today, I don't mind much."
"You mean you mind everything."
"Sadly. That's the whole reason I'm blue. Can I ask another question?"
"Shoot."
"Is solipsism any fun? I'm a little afraid to try it."
"Only if you like killing people. Try chaos theory. It's more logical."
"How? Chaos theory is just another pretentious douchebag jumping onto a water tower and crying, 'I've figured it out!' The world needs less theories and more . . ."
"More what?"
"I don't know, I forgot."
"So that's basically how the party went last night?"
"More or less. A few girls, a few guys. I realized, tragically, I became the guy who brought drugs to the party."
"Stop saying tragic and sad. You're far from it."
"Stop saying shoot every time I ask a question."

"Why?"
"It's violent. It. . . bugs me."

"Can I ask a question?"

"Shoot."
"Har har. Did you sleep with anyone?"

"I don't know who invited her, but some chick was over and she kept hitting on me. Her age changed like five times, from 19 to 16 to 17 to 18 to 15. Never did break 20, though."

"That didn't answer my question."

"I turned her down. I don't want the clap from a 15 year old."

"Pleasant thought."
"I'm full of those today."
"I'll bet you are."

"I'd wager you are too. Tell me another." I pull back some skin on my finger. It starts to bleed. I clamp down on my fingernail and suck.
"I've been cloudwatching."
I laugh.
"Wait, it gets better. All I can see are dead things."
"Sixth Sense?"
"Not people, just animals. Puppies, ducks, cute things like that. I watch them and the wind blows and rips them to ribbons. Slow-motion, terrible and silent."
"Perhaps that's the winner. That's the greatest excuse."
"Perhaps."

I pause. "Who is this anyway?"
The phone clicks dead.

Through the blinds, the sun is reflecting off the pool so harsh I'm seeing spots. I can barely make out all the patio furniture sunk to the bottom of the pool. A cop car is parked nearby and one officer is talking to the hotel manager.

I realize what time of day it is, and how the room must look, with the peeling wallpaper and a busted window. The clogged toilet, the needles littered around the sink. The TV is now some documentary on head lice.

I go to the motel room door and make sure that little knocker is on DO NOT DISTURB. I go back and turn the TV right side up and adjust the rabbit ears. Then I pick up the phone and dial room service and vow to not answer the door.

Almost Touching

2010-05-02T16:47:00.000-07:00

non-fiktion
(see also: skylar)

During story time, in my six year old mind, a hundred things were going on. Our teacher, Ms. Merryman, reading from Charlotte's Web, reading how Wilbur did this, then this, then this. How we sat, in rows, the good kids up front, the goof-offs in back, me and Riel lined up in the very middle. My legs stretched out before me, leaning back, propped up on my hands and slowly, ever so slowly, my fingers would edge closer to hers.

It was static. It was electrifying. I dreamt of Riel the way I wish I could dream of girls today. Pure, unwavering devotion, pulling all my emotion together into one cluster, tucked deepest in my heart, nestled in with the beating, the throbbing. She existed there and she was safe. She must have known how I felt, even if I never told her.

And my fingers, inching closer to hers as Ms. Merryman told us how Charlotte did this, then this, then this. All these feelings, hot, expanding gas inside me, no room to pay attention to anything but my hand, drawing closer and closer.

It was sexuality, but it wasn't. I knew what sex was, as well as I could. The curiosity was too much for me. I explored. I stared at anatomy textbooks, looking over genitalia for clues. I saw nothing, so I looked on. I looked at the eyes, the corneas and cones and retinas. I looked at hands, those tight, fibrous muscles pulled over crooked bones. This was sex to me.

Everyone my age did this. We sat in rows and we touched each other and looked at each other and we wanted each other. I would draw on the back of floral print dresses, using my finger as a pen, carefully choosing who to sit behind or next to. Sketching with fingers, I wrote love notes, simple and without metaphor or excuses or questions, tracing the letters again and again. I hoped someone would get the message, decipher my codes, but no one could. I myself couldn't, when the occasional girl scooted up close behind me and wrote something, hieroglyphics, up my spine, down to the small of my back.

On the playground, we kissed, pretended we knew what we were doing. We missed, touching teeth and chins. We took it seriously, discussing marriage and children, mentioning love. We held hands on swing sets and hugged in the top portion of slides, where we were shielded from the playground monitors.

All this, it was sexuality, but it wasn't. It's hard to explain, but sex did not exist yet. We knew it would one day. We all felt it growing inside us. By the time puberty hit, when chemicals and hormones and emotions were poured over our brains, we forgot what it was like to not know. Puberty was how I really lost my virginity.

But now was different. Now we were exploring, without being explicit or wrong or stupid. This sexuality was hands and eyes and skin contact. This sexuality was fundamental and pure. What we do now, fucking and fighting and crying, it's all so wrong and backwards.

Now, on the bus, if someone is too close, we step away. If we bump each other, we apologize. The purity is gone.

Riel was my girl, even though she wasn't and never would be. It seems violent now, but I dreamt of burning down the school just so I could be the one to rescue her from the flaming building. This was valiant and courageous and pure.

Now, if I feel like it, I will text some people back. I worry how my hair looks. I pretend not to care, not wanting to seem too interested.

Two years later, I saw Riel again. I leaned against a wall, pretended to be cool. Acted like I never knew her. She smiled the same way. I think she forgot, or wanted to forget, too.

But I will always know that once, we touched. My hands drew closer and closer, enough to finally feel hers. Like a spark, like touching a 9-volt battery to the tongue, like my skin was rubbed with a balloon, the hair standing upright. I stared straight ahead, unable to level my breathing, pretending it was an accident, that I did not feel this electricity. She made no movement. And my fingers squirmed up, and rested on her hand entirely.

I did not want to touch her like I want to touch women now. I wanted to sink into her skin, pulling it over my own like covers, closing myself into the hammock of her body and submerging into a cocoon of her warm, warm blood.

But this never happened. A moment later she lifted her hand, her curiosity piqued, and my palm was left touching the spiral fibers of the carpet.

Walking.

2010-04-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

FEB. 26 2010

When I was eight and she was six, my sister and I escaped from an after school program one day. We walked home about three miles, in the 110* heat of June, stopping outside of Baskin' Robbins. I drank from the water fountain inside and I will always remember how the water was so cold it would hurt my teeth. I liked that feeling alot, especially after eating a cone of ice cream. A brain freeze was a sweet, beautiful thing.
But we had no money for ice cream, so we were asked to leave.
Outside, a woman in a car asked us if we wanted a ride.
"Look, I know you aren't supposed to ask for a ride from strangers. But you're more likely to get hurt from someone else than me."
The woman had a daughter. And she had a point. We had another two miles to go and it wasn't going to be easy. So we hopped in the back.
I remember being kind of terrified, thinking of elaborate ways to protect myself, but it was mostly just if, if, if.
If I had a knife.
If I had a gun.
If I had a chance.
The woman dropped us off without incident. I stole a dime from her backseat, went inside and we watched Veggie Tales.
Hours of cartoon vegetables later, my dad burst into the room, shouting, "There you are! We've been looking everywhere!"
My sister immediately broke down crying, thinking we were in trouble. We didn't even know we were missed.

And then I stupidly pushed submit.

2010-03-29T00:28:00.000-07:00

Dear New Yorker Magazine,

I'm going straight for the throat.
I have no experience in creative writing publication. Not a jot has seen professional ink. I oughta start somewhere. After all, this is a dream. A pathetic, clichéd, wonderful, innocent dream. So, I'll aim for the eyes, even if I'm doing this all wrong.
I'm being cocky. I don't mean to be, because pissing you off isn't my intention. My intention is to win, but how can I even hope?
I at least somewhat hope for a generic, soulless rejection letter. Better than being ignored, like when I was in third grade and I kept passing notes to the cute girl even when she rolled her eyes.
I'd learn my lesson. Don't be self-important next time, idiot! I'd learn something, too. All I know right now is there is a disproportionate amount of pink slips versus acceptance slips.
So fire away. I'm young, so I have nothing to lose. Maybe I'll keep dreaming. Lose a little cynicism. Does it help if I don't consider myself a poet?
Oh, speaking of which, I included a little poem from my heart and soul blah blah blah. . .

Have a nice day.

Mene Tekel

The Sewer (non-fiktion)

2010-03-09T14:17:00.000-08:00

The Sewer

Our feet sucking through the mud, we stomped through the swampy muck, this raw sewage drained from all the nearby farms, a trench and a tunnel, a big pipe, going through it and the dirt road going over it.
We were hunting frogs, me, my brother Junior and the neighbor kid, Mike. Mike had a small, lime fishnet for extracting goldfish. When we spotted the bulbous yellow eyes floating out of the syrupy grime, we called Mike and he scooped up our writhing, squirming prize.
The further down the sewer we went, the darker the drool became. Oily swirls and floating chunks of I-dare-not-think-what twisted in the ripples we caused. You had to duck your head or risk scraping your scalp against spools of cobwebs. Looking down at your shoes, filled with this goop up to your ankles, terrified of snakes or worse, sometimes we’d jump. What was that, what was that? Then, we realized it was our own splashing. Our own ripples.
We kept the frogs in a Tupperware container we took from grandma. We were careful as surgeons not to let them out when adding to the collection. Junior had the net now, and Mike had trekked to the other side of the tunnel alone. I scanned the brown murky mud and parted the reeds near the entrance, looking for any creatures trying to escape in the opposite direction.
Mike leaned his head into the tunnel and called that he thought he saw something. Something big. Bring the net, quick!
Junior wouldn’t let me take the net and soon it became a fight. I was small and gangly and Junior was 200 pounds, at least, and he was gonna kick my ass. Again.
I was tired of it. Junior was so big and stupid and always trying to push me around.
Rage surged through me and I did the most stupid thing possible. In my tiny mind, I became like Riki Tiki Tavi, the mongoose, a rodent that kills king cobras in India by biting deep into the neck and never letting go.
So I bit Junior on the nipple. Sunk my teeth in through his oversized Phoenix Suns shirt and chomped down. Did. Not. Let. Go. Junior pounded on my back with his fists, the whole time Mike watching from the side, rolling his eyes and telling us to cut it out. I wouldn’t let go and Junior wouldn’t stop hammering me.
But everyone has to breathe sometime and I let out a big exhale, enough room for Junior to shove me back and run off down the dirt road. It was a mile to my grandmother’s house and he ran the entire way, shouting, “I’m telling, I’m telling.”
The Tupperware of frogs knocked over, the net in the bushes. Nothing mattered. I ran off down the street after my brother. As I got to the door, my mother was there, asking what happened and I told her she should punish me so, so, so bad. I was crying. Guilt, or fear, but probably both.
Junior’s nipple was swollen and plum purple. My mother tried to stifle her laughter. Everyone was confused about the nature of the fight, but they figured we had it worked out. It was over and I wasn’t punished.
I went back to Mike, still baffled, but more bored and he said all the frogs got away. I looked down at my ankle, sticking out of my mud caked shoes and browned socks. A leech was suckling on my Achilles’ tendon.

Transfiguration

2010-01-27T22:47:00.000-08:00

Transfiguration

The day was on the fringe of timelessness, frigid with glaring white sanctity. A brightness more radiant than any bleach, almost fusing my eyes shut. I had to walk through endless, tangled trenches of snow, higher than my head.
Through every corridor, the light headed straight for my eyes and flooded my corneas. Through squinting glints, I could make out the shapes of buildings just enough to navigate through the troughs.
And so quiet. Not a sound but sharp, soulless wind. The howling follows you, burrows into your head and reminds you, there is no life here. This is the edge of oblivion.
At a dead end, I feel my way around a trench wall and climb up. At the top, there is a building, the roof caved in, bombed out almost. No people around, so I crawl through the window and under a broken support beam. Inside, it’s warm like a shrimp bisque. Knocked over shelves, busted walls and insulation freely littered down every aisle.
I travel through the ruins, careful not to disturb any artifacts. I feel hunger, but something holds me back. I have no survival instinct other than to pass through ruins to the other side. Stepping over baskets and tilted doorways and spoiled fruit.
Once I uncover where these fragments of history end, I will step back into the searing, raw light, able to transfigure into a new form. Leave this infertile wilderness.
First, I must give up earthly needs. I must not eat.
But like an animal, I throw myself on all fours and devour the moldy, worm-infested fruit. I chew it down, juicily, like a broth. A different spirit has consumed me, taking over.
When I am disgustingly full, I can only start to gag. I will vomit soon, leaving another mark that I have failed in my goal.

A New Moon Rises

2010-01-06T18:48:00.000-08:00

No one is aware of the changes occurring in my life to the point that I wonder if they are really happening.
Oh, yeah, it's a new year.
The sixth day of it, in fact.
I've hardly noticed.
Internal changes are present but I barely recognize any adjustments outside myself.
Like that Dandy song. . .
"Hear me out, I must have changed."
The title, "Everyone Is Totally Insane" is fitting.

If you think of the term "worldview" in literal terms, I've traded in my glasses for a different prescription.
And I feel like speaking in purposely vague terms, so I'm gonna.

2009 was the worst year of my life.
If I could represent it in some kind of effigy, I would use napalm.
Never mind. That's a tough thing to say.
2009 had its moments.
Nothing happened, but in tiny bouts, I felt something breathing. Most of those times involved travel to little scraps of desert realty. California, Arizona, Nevada.

A friend died.
Remorse aside, that set off one weird chain of events.
I had to reexamine every one of my beliefs to make sure I was ready for that kind of thing. Turns out I'm not.

I got my foot in the door of some journalism career thing I suppose I want.
Wait. No, I want it. I know what I want. Most of the time.

Oh, we all do some things we regret, but not as much as the things we don't do.
I was sorta supposed to finish a novel a hundred times over.
And what else? Don't know, don't care.
I need chains to be free.

I guess my stumbling thoughts can be summed up in how I am coming full circle. Yeah. So where I started has led me to be where I already was.

It's interesting how the book of Ecclesiastes maps my recent thoughts perfectly. Everything is meaningless, even the good things, especially the good things.

The only question it leaves is: what to do now?

I haven't gotten to that part of the book yet.

I like resolving to be a better person, even if it's just masturbation. So I have one resolution for 2010.

(1.) Don't suck.

A new moon rises.
We press on.

Stealing the Communist Manifesto

2009-12-07T02:24:00.000-08:00

When searching for the top ten list of the most stolen books, I got many differing accounts. Some say Bukowski, Thompson, Palahniuk. Some say Kafka, J.K. Rowling, the Bible. Some sources don't even list titles, just authors. Then there's some book called Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman, which doesn't surprise me. I think the decade has a lot to do with it, which explains the variation, but a statistic like this is hard to prove in the first place.

Somehow I thought the Communist Manifesto made that list. I thought, if there's any book you have to steal, it's got to be this one. It has a typical red cover and two yellow price tags. The book costs $2.

Thousands of revolutionaries built empires on the spine of this trashy paperback. Some of them had to steal it. They were rebels, right?

I took the copy into the dressing room, buried under a pair of jeans and stuffed the book into my pocket. It fit perfect.

I took it out and took off the stickers. If an employee suspected anything, I was afraid they'd find the stickers, so I peeled the yellow tabs back. Wondered where to stick them and thought, leaving them in the room would be suspicious as well.

So I bent down and slapped it under the dressing room bench. Beneath it were hundreds of stickers.

sunday school.

2009-11-11T23:01:00.000-08:00

Nov. 8 2009

I thought I was "floating in a dream and all my dreams are musicals, so the dead fetuses hanging from the trees were singing". I sung that of course, like that douche from Singing in the Rain.
I kept passing out and writing one line of poetry at a time. This is what I got.

Gliding through fog like misguided lace flies.
The shriveled trees are but fingers groping from the snow.
We approach the exterior of a cave and look at the twisted jaws of a deeper eternity.

Delving between shelves of every level of history, a librarian craft floats us to the floors of time.
The sweet lower symphonies of our minds are scraped from the torn scalp.
The crisp ground of our skulls are the seeds for a meadow of miraculous flowers.

The plants grow three leaves and one eye, to gaze into the sacred realm of geometry.
Every octahedron spins in anatomical beauty until they make up every one of our atoms.
Our lace eyes blink solemnly and by this way we can bat our way over the foggy glade.

The fog is our breath, our very soul.

Skylar

2009-09-08T00:09:00.000-07:00

non-fiction

In first grade, I had a crush on this girl, Skylar. She had blue eyes like air, white like clouds, and she wore a baby blue jacket to school everyday.
Ah, love.
But, I didn't know how to talk to her! And I was at that age that it was WRONG to admit a crush. What to do?
So at recess, I would follow all the kids out to the playground and I'd stand on the edge and watch Skylar play and then she and her group of friends would move out to the field, next to the old tetherball courts, so old they didn't have balls anymore.
I would follow them out there, stand on the edge and fray a tetherball rope. Then, she and her friends would move back to the playground.
I'd follow.
And, to make matters worse, I talked to myself.
I kicked at the dirt, it was hot and I muttered what I was gonna say to her.
I used to imagine burning down the school so that I could rescue Skylar. Then she'd love me. Fuck.
Then we'd get married. All that shit.
I listened to a lot of classic rock at this age, because I had a little FM radio. Whenever "American Pie" came on, I would sing the whole thing. Whenever romantic songs came on, I would sit quiet and think of Skylar. My friends would nudge me, ask me what I was thinking.
Nothin'.
I followed her everyday, from a distance. I had friends, I had things to do. I still followed her, but Hell, I was cool. I had jeans that had holes in the knees, on purpose, because I wanted to be a '90s era rock kid. I didn't know who Kurt Cobain was, but I wanted to be him.
One day, this kid in my class gave me a bag of clothes. "These are from my mom." He said.
They were because of my jeans. The kid's parents thought I was poor. My mom felt insulted, told me I couldn't wear jeans with holes anymore, but she kept the clothes.
Inside, was my all-time-favorite t-shirt. It was a California Angels / Snapple shirt. I loved it and I wore it when my dad took me to my first baseball game at Peoria Sports Complex.
The game was surprisingly boring, but after the game I got to run around and kick leftover cups of beer. I talked to myself as I scattered sunflower seeds and toppled Big Gulps. Back when they had the Geckos on them. I sang to myself. I went home smelling like beer.

My best friend was a kid named Art. From what I remember, he was an asshole. He jumped on the pinata on Mexico Day and kicked the candy everywhere. He always got in trouble.
Art had holes in his jeans, too. But he didn't get a bag of clothes. No one liked him, but me.
There were Travis and Jordan and they were best friends and they were the class clowns. I would follow them around, too, because I thought they were funny and I wanted them to like me and be my friend.
I joined boy scouts. I thought we'd get to go camping! All I remember was making a model car with my father for little derby races. The first one we attempted, we had to carve into a block of wood, make a car out of it somehow. And well, my dad fucked up completely. So the next one we left as a block of wood, spray-painted it lemon yellow and drilled holes in it. We glued a toy rat on top and called it the Cheese Mobile.
At the race, my car didn't even move. The wheels got stuck. I got in last-last-last-last place. But I got the trophy for "Most Creative Car 1996." To this day, that means more to me than First Place ever would. And it was the best excuse to hang out with my dad.
But the boy scouts never went camping. Instead, we went to a creek in Payson and this guy caught me a crawdad. Me and Travis and Jordan found this shed and pulled open the door. A hundred black widow spiders poured out, and lots of skinks. I'd never seen a skink before. It's a snake with legs and it terrified me. We closed the door. I was terrified, but at the same time, curious. I wanted to open the door again.
I took the crawdad home and it died.
I quit boy scouts the next year.
I would still follow Skylar and I felt like they say -- following her like a sad, little puppy. Maybe she was avoiding me on purpose.
Then one time, this kid, who would always pick on me put me in a headlock. So I bit him as hard as I could. I got detention for the first time and I cried.
You were supposed to bring your lunch to this one room and eat it, but I didn't eat. This was punishment?
I sat there, head on my folded arms and I thought of Skylar.

Man, some things never change, do they?

Like the howling of wolves.

2009-09-05T03:25:00.001-07:00

I am a party, strangely enough, and I'm drinking, but not too heavily. It seems like everyone I know or used to know, even for a little scrap of time, they're all here. All drinking heavily. All of the people my eyes ever graced.
I start to feel it coming on, the vomit and I head to bathroom. It's not the alcohol, it's the pills I had hours before. Waiting outside and then, a guy in a red shirt walks out, passes me. He turns and looks me dead in the eyes. I know him, perhaps better than anyone else here, even my flesh-and-blood sister. He looks at me and we both know. He's coming for me, later. He's coming to get me.
I dash in the toilet, quickly vomit and leap up. Splash water on my face and look in the mirror. I can do this, my eyelids flinch. I have to escape. Out the back. Now.
I duck into the back bedroom, kick out the screen and this apartment is on the second story. I have to leap hard, land hard and roll. My twisted ankle, I don't think it's broken. So I run. I run down alleys cloaked in nightfall, past wooden fences with chainlinked pitbulls on the other side.
A howling, screeching terror follows me. Like the howling of wolves, I flee with pumping legs and throbbing lungs.
I dart across traffic, right in front of a police cruiser. The beast floods me with his violet lights and slowly crawls from the cradle of his car. He towers over me, checks that my ID is of age and breathalyzes me. I don't even blow a .07. So weak.
The cop decides to let me go, but I realize it would be better to be imprisoned in the cage of leviathan than the foul hunter on my scent. For I know, he comes for me.
So I sock the officer in the face. Hard. To give him a reason to handcuff me, to sacrifice my freedom for my breath.
But the officer goes down. He's unconscious in one slug.
The only viable option is to steal the cop cruiser. What else is alternative? By barely slipping into gear, I'm screeching off at speeds unknown to physics. The lights are still beaming in all directions as I tear down the wrecked neighborhoods of junkies, immigrants and thugs. A fool's paradise.
A mere second later the hood crumples up into the windshield and the airbag explodes onto my face. Glass and dust bond with my skin, until I am streaked with the blood of the stigmata.
I crawl from the wreckage and inspect my victim. A red sports car, the driver completely flattened by my tires. The angle his neck and limbs hang suggest he was killed instantly. On the other side, I twist the deceased face. It is truly, by the coincidence of saints, my enemy. His life essence leaks and mingles onto my own red covered hand. How could I?
I was guilty all along. He never meant to bat a cardinal eyelash at me. I killed my nemesis with little more than hallucination.
And sirens rise on the peaks and the heavy air, hunting me, like the howling of wolves.

Spacelab (Hundreds of Places)

2009-08-29T12:49:00.000-07:00

The car dipped and dodged in potholes, dust speedbumps and avoided jackrabbits, mice and occasional deer. The gas on “E” the whole way down. 40mph.
That isn’t fast enough, Sloan thinks and pulls to the side of the vacant dirt road. It’s 2:13 a.m.
Blackheart skips out the passenger side and Sloan follows, hovered over the door, and staring in awe at the thunderstorm currently attacking the mountains. Lightning tears electric wrinkles across the sky and illuminates the forest of surrendering cacti. There’s supposed to be a meteor shower tonight.
On the horizon, Sloan envisions a horde of angry townspeople, all carrying blazing torches, come to kill them. Blackheart screeches and lightning cuts vertical down the horizon. In rhythm, at every screech of Blackheart, a lightning bolt erupts.
Soon, Sloan hears the baying of coyotes and thinks this must be Blackheart's doing. He's inviting the terrible cannibal dogs!
‘Stop it! Fool! Swine!’ Sloan hisses. ‘You’ll attract the monsters!’
He whips out a butterfly knife and flings it around, cutting out chunks of his knuckles. Blackheart is still screaming at the dogs.
In the moment, Sloan does what he thinks best! He strips naked and wields his belt, still trying to silence Blackheart’s howling. Blackheart ducks back to the car and closes the door as the clouds above burst. Hot, wet saliva-like rain spits on the desert.
Now Sloan is rubbing his terrible cock across the windshield and the rain is rushing across the glass and Blackheart gets out and runs. He picks up a large stick, probably a cactus skeleton, and lunges at a passing minivan. It swerves off the road and is never seen again.
Soon Sloan, still slobbering on the windshield comes to his senses and dives in the car. He races a mile down the road, the wipers squeaking and finds Blackheart cowering in the soaking-wet bushes.
‘Get in the car,' he says. 'We have hundreds of places to be.’

Alone

2009-08-16T00:29:00.000-07:00

Sunday, May 31

I am alone in a dark, red room.
Watching a movie and it's horror and I've never been so terrified in my life, never so unselfishly considerate for another's well-being.
Too much fear even to remove myself and turn off the TV.

I watch a skeleton remove his hands and arms and shoulders and he didn't shrug and said, "I give up."

Suddenly, high-pitched screaming, non-stop echoing, so loud, my skin quivers and starts to pus over.
Then, silence.
A billion miles of static and I am strangled by a single note.

If only my life were condensed to a single, silent 8mm home film.

A woman dies of a fatal wound to the head, which slowly pours blood into a little pile for her. Her blood platelets slowly clot the gash, knowing full well this will be the very last time they will ever do it.
On a small street corner, she bleeds out her lungs and a homeless dyke tells her life story. Drugs, sex and rock 'n roll. Depressingly, she sighs, knowing this will be the last thing she ever hears.

Burden

2009-08-11T23:50:00.001-07:00

non-fiction
When I was a little kid, I used to pick up cigarette butts and put them in a bucket and throw them away. I was a little groundskeeper.
My dad smoked on our porch made of astro-turf and he'd throw the butts right on the green and then there was little melted footprints all over, little UFO treadmarks. I'd pick the butts out of the cradles they made. I'd pick up these beer cans of extinguished butts where hives of cockroaches would crawl into and drown in their drunkenness. I'd fish through ashtrays.

I had a mentally retarded neighbor named Keith that did the same thing. Cleaning up everything.
Keith was a twin, but sometimes one of the twins don't come out entirely OK. Keith was one of those twins.
He was confused, and he thought his purpose in life was to clean up the earth.
He'd crawl the streets on the way to the bus stop, crouching down for plastic wrappers and pop tabs and receipts and cigarette butts.
He'd mutter to himself.
Keith kept the trash in a grocery bag at his side. I never knew what he did with the bag when he was done with it.

One day I got real sick from picking up those cigarette butts, those cans, those roach motels.
"They check in, but they don't check out."
I lay in bed, sick to death and vowed never to do that again.
The task to clean the planet was too large a burden for me to carry.
I figured, let the world be filthy.

Now when I get sick, I don't reflect like that any more, I don't think about it.
I keep going. No rest.
I wonder, if I'm still carrying any burdens.

My First Computer

2009-08-08T00:39:00.000-07:00

non-fiction

I remember getting my first computer, the excitement I had, all of it. I loved it because it was all mine.
I got it from my mother's friend who had an autistic child who watched a lot of VHS tapes. It was used, but free and I loved it.
It was a Windows '95 or '98, not sure which, but it was heavy, a monitor that weighed more than me. I remember bringing it home and assembling it in my room and how I just loved putting the pieces together myself. I loved opening and closing the disc drive, the hum of the monitor, the special sounds it made on start up, the loading screens and the little words that said, "IT IS NOW SAFE TO TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER". I wanted to keep my computer on forever, but my mother wouldn't let me. I had to turn it off every night.

I wrote novels on my computer. I'd open up the Word knockoff I had and just type and type and type for hours and I didn't care what came out. I wrote a story that was a Paperboy knockoff and one called 20,000 Pennies Under the Duckpond that was about guinea pigs and hamsters that lived on a farm and had to find some money. They were terrible stories and I never finished them, but they felt so good to write.

I had Juno, which was like AOL only so simple and pathetic it only allowed you to check email. You couldn't even get on the internet with it for anther three years. I'd check my mail all the time, but I never got anything so I'd email myself. It took forever to get them.
I'd hack onto my mom's Juno account and email her friends long-winded stories I wrote, mostly re-tellings of faerie tales so they were funny. Or at least so I would laugh. I wanted my stories to be like the chain emails that my mom forwarded to me and I forwarded to myself.

Fuck solitaire! On my computer, I played hours of games (that came with it somehow) like WinBreakOut '95 and I'd install dollar-store floppy disc games. A few times, if they sucked, I'd erase them off the floppy disc and reuse it.

But what I remember most is it had awesome screensavers of pipes and a maze thing and I loved customizing those. I'd change them every hour and then wait for the computer to start them up. It came with these themes, like the Jungle Theme and the Space Theme and it would change all the colors and the cursors and the sounds when the computer started up, loaded up and fucked up.

Really, all I liked to do was mod the shit out of it. It was mine and that was a powerful feeling, knowing I had something so useful all to myself. I felt privelegded. My computer could do anything! I mean, it didn't have internet or any music on it or anything but it still felt amazing to me.

But the computer didn't have a lot of hard drive space. So what did I do? What any kid would. I went into the :C drive and deleted any files I thought I didn't need. Such as old games, themes I didn't use and . . . system files.

After that my computer didn't work anymore. I totally fucked it up and lost everything. But somehow, I didn't really care.

The other day, I bought a new computer for a C-note. Got it for a song, really. It's an eMac with a thousand features that my old '98 never had, even if the eMac is a couple years outdated. It doesn't have a very big hard drive but I'm not about to delete anything I shouldn't.

Anyway, I got kinda giddy again, buying it. I started to feel like I used to, like my computer was the best thing in the world.

But then it faded after a day.

Still, I'm gonna keep my computer on all the time, deep into the night.

Slaughter Machine

2009-07-06T02:41:00.000-07:00

None of this was done on purpose. None of this, was, intentional. John Carpenter owned a small farm, too small for most vegetables to make profit, so he slaughtered livestock. Under these circumstances, someone could say, it was bound to happen eventually. But as it was said, none of this was done on purpose.
Carpenter was behind on his mortgage and he was feeling plagued by a real estate agency that wanted to acquire his land. The pig farmer didn't want to sell the farm because he wanted it to be in his family for years. He didn't inherit anything, nothing in his family was generational so he hoped to be the first to create a heirloom. He hoped that would be his farm.
But what if had to sell? Carpenter woke up in the middle of the night for weeks, with nightmares of living in an inner-city apartment and leaving his grandchildren with nothing but a box of photos. And he wasn't a good photographer.
Late one night, Carpenter awoke and couldn't get back to sleep, so he went out to the slaughterhouse and sat on a stool. The poor farmer gazed around the shed, the meat hooks, the carving knives, the special sickle they used to execute the animals. None of this meant anything?
Late in the month, as the old farmer advanced closer to his mortgage payment date, he came across a catalogue that boasted of special machinery. Carpenter flipped, bored, at all the specialty order mechanical bulls, auto-parts manufacturers and vending machines until he came upon a slaughterhouse assistance bot.
Carpenter could easily order this monster on a credit card and he'd slice up so much meat, he could sell thrice as much and make his payment on time.
So Carpenter ordered the machine. Six-to-eight weeks later, the mailman came up the drive and dropped off a six foot-by-eight package. Carpenter tipped the mailman, unwrapped the box and wheeled the machine into the slaughterhouse. It looked like a giant refrigerator, only with wheels on the bottom to help it move.
He didn't have any electricity in the shed, so he ran some extension cables from the house to the bot. Then he switched it on.
The refrigerator popped open and extended six bladed spider arms, each gleaming in the daylight. Carpenter, frightened for a bit, approached the machine again and pushed a few buttons on the front, to see what it would do.
He stepped back and the machine whirled and extended robotic fingers to Carpenter's outstretched right arm.
It quickly snatched and ripped the hand right off the bone and set it down. Carpenter, muted in agony, squealed and fell over, shooting currents of blood against the porcelain exterior of the machine.
Rolling in his fluids, Carpenter flipped over and grabbed his detached right hand. He immediately tried to shove it on the bone, sticking out from the wrist. It stuck on half-way and but got too thick and stringy to push on any further.
The machine quickly snatched Carpenter by the foot and spun him upside down, smacking his head against the floor.
Stunned, Carpenter wheeled about and then tried to free himself. A blade extended from the machine and sliced at Carpenter, detaching his left foot. He collapsed to the floor and his right hand skidded off. The old farmer flipped on his belly and reached for his lost limb, until the robot reached for him again. He lashed out and kicked away an arm with the stub of his left leg. On the other foot, he hobbled over to his second lost limb, snatched and rounded about again for the hand.
He held his foot in his mouth by the toes and tried to force his hand onto the bone again. This time, it was so deflated of blood that it wouldn't but flay around.
The robot advanced on its wheels, scattering puddles of blood. It extended another blade and sliced at Carpenter's good leg. It hacked halfway to the bone, but stopped. Carpenter slipped on it, cracking it off and sending his leg flying across the shed. Still clutching the hand and the foot in his mouth, Carpenter crawled on his single hand, pushing with the stubs of his legs in the blood and muck of the slaughterhouse floor, some of the blood of Carpenter, some of the blood of animals. He scrambled to the base of a huge trashbucket and pulled himself upright. The leg had landed inside the bucket, which had been used to store the skeletons of killed chickens and pigs.
Carpenter fished out his leg, shoved it into place under his calf and balanced on it. He bent down and shoved his foot underneath his ankle, meanwhile pressing his wrist into his hand against a wall.
At the moment that he had pieced himself back together, the robot advanced and decapitated Carpenter. His head fell, splat, into the bucket of pig skins.

Showbiz (2007)

2009-07-05T21:06:00.001-07:00

Nervous. Jittery. Breathe deep. I can't stop shaking. Reread my notes. Smile. Fake confidence. Check mirror. Check clothes. Check watch. It's time.
I walk out the dressing room. Nervous. Anxious. Up the stairs and behind the huge, thick red curtain. A stagehand smiles, bright, straight teeth, bright eyes. "Break a leg, sir".
Out into the light. It’s searing white, heated glare, I'm so blinded I cannot see a single member of the audience. No one claps. Is this a small or large crowd? Complete silence. I can't tell their size by the usual nervous shuffling or crunches of their eating. Sigh. Breath deep. Smile. Fake confidence. Then, I start my comedic routine.
I introduce myself, make a joke about my identity. Give a lame excuse for my purpose in life. I wait 1, 2, 3 beats for laughter. No one says anything. I cough and move on, deeper into the comedic buildup.
I make humorous observations on routine life. I criticize the weak-minded government with a gleeful, cynical attitude. I jump on a few puns and ride them around. I wait, but no response from the audience. This must be a really dead crowd.
Nervous. Unsettled. Cough, choke, breathe. Continue. Aren't I funny? Where is the laughter, the applause or at least the jeering?
I make jokes desperately now. All I want is to be ridiculed. I laugh at myself, my life, my family, my friends. No acknowledgment. Desperate, I make jokes not even on my notes, I make sexist and racist jokes. Anything to get some reciprocation. Some attention.
Silence. Nothing.
Nervous. Discouraged. I make sick jokes, sexual jokes, horrible, dark comedy. Not even a snicker. I make jokes out of the air. Anti-humor, not even remotely funny. The audience is as silent as the grave.
In frustration, in mad desperation I attack the audience with my sharp tongue. And then I begin to hear a reaction.
A low hissing rises above the dark emptiness, the void just beyond my vision. I'm silent, nervous, afraid. This noise does not sound human. It sounds like the life being sucked out of something. Like an angry, dying cat. I back away from the stage, step by step, slowly.
Then the stage lights dim and all the light that is left is the spotlight. I'm in an island of brilliance on the stage. I can faintly see the audience. Their eyes glisten, soulless, white shark eyes ready for the kill. Their gaze has a haunting, hypnotizing hold on my soul; I can feel it like cold hands on my throat.
The hissing of this crowd rises higher and louder until I can hear nothing else. The sound of steam escaping a teakettle.
I watch, immobile as they advance closer to the stage until they are surrounding and mobbing it, the way wolves envelop a kill. They are hissing and growling like sick, hungry dogs. Eyeless, inhuman, beasts.
Nervous. Terrified. Breathe. Gasp.
I watch as one by one, the creatures rip the flesh off each other and throw it at me. One monster grabs the chest of another and aggressively tears it until I can see the bare ribcage, the organs stale and sagging and lifeless. He throws the chunk at me and hits my leg. This dead flesh staining my perfect rented tux. I'm sickened. There are worms in the skin writhing around and through it. I slap it off myself, but the audience is whipping me with more and more of themselves. The air becomes an indoor storm of blood and rotting flesh.
They rip off skin, rip out eyes and lungs and throw them on stage at me. The organics spray clotted, crimson blood everywhere as if it were mud. The liquid is as coagulated as curdled milk, and it soaks into my clothes and my skin, and I become this red martyr in the island of shredded organs.
As the audience self-destructs, I look to the stage wings for escape. The stagehands are there waiting for me, their shark eyes, empty and vicious, gnashing their broken glass teeth tentatively, ready to tear into my life.
I cannot escape.
I'm hit repeatedly with rotting skin and intestines and stomachs, every ventricle leaking something. I'm in a horrifying nightmare but cannot move. My legs are nervedead, my mouth frozen in horror, it tastes everything.
I collapse to my knees and withstand each and every blow; guts and blood and flesh, like being stoned in a morgue. A scalp hits my shoulder and sticks. Half a brain clunks into my jaw. All this organic material is decaying, rancid meat, and the smell is overwhelming.
I watch as the audience gets more and more violent. They are sadistic. They begin to throw heavier objects at me; bones, appendages. I'm slapped across the face with a gangrenous hand. A foot follows, and breaks my nose. My pure blood mingles down my face and into the filth I kneel in. A human heart bursts on my forehead like a rotten tomato. The maggots inside erupt out and nestle in my hair.
I'm losing consciousness. I can't breathe in this filth. I collapse on my face and lay in the sickening sludge. I vomit.
Nervous. Disgusted. Breathe. I can't breathe.
Can't anyone take a joke?

Charon 40

2009-06-30T00:38:00.001-07:00

The way the sunlight on a hot day ricochets off the windshields of every car in the mall parking lot, that's how the sunlight reflected off of every stone on Planet Taurus' moon, Charon 40. The surface, like a house of mirrors, every direction bright and glassy.

Marc bounced gently on the moons surface, careful not to rip his spacesuit on the sharp, broken-bottle rocks. He didn't want to melt and the littlest rip could do anything. . .

The astronaut watched his companions get out of the ship, really slowly. Two guys, two girls: Mitchel, Wayne, Abigail and Caci. Marc knew all too well, they were all stoned as hell. He remembered, back in the shuttle's cockpit, Wayne passed a fat blunt to Caci, who was staring out the window at the stars, fucked up on shrooms. Abigail was snorting coke off Mitchel's eyelids. At least three of them had dropped acid.

Marc didn't do anything and earlier, Wayne had nudged him and shouted, "C'mon man, don't pussy out, you won't regret this, I mean, c'mon, how cool would it be to DROP on the fuckin' moon?!"

Marc didn't move. Didn't answer, even though he had a hundred legitimate excuses. It's not a good idea to fuck the brain up in the middle of a difficult search-and-rescue mission. On the surface of a planet, somewhere safe, a coffeeshop even, maybe. Nothing could be more fun, a head full of acid, walking down the street toward . . . wherever.

That's fine, Marc thought. But Charon 40 isn't the best place.

So he withheld and the rest of the crew partook.

On the moon's rocky surface, scattered with those millions and millions of little mirrors, gems and disco balls, Marc watched the crew file out of the ship. He watched them stumble over themselves and glisten in the rocks and forget to put their visors down and nearly blind themselves. The sober one watched the drunk as they bounced out, over the surface of the moon, like blissful pixies.

Caci bounded up to Marc and said, "Jesus, aren't you glad they don't drug test anymore?"

Marc wasn't thrilled. He was thinking of the six or so lives the crew had to save, not counting the ones that may have already been roasted alive in the heat of the moon. Say, if their suits ripped or the hull disintegrated, whatever.

The junkies scattered off and Marc trailed behind, loose as a feather, worried as an anchor. They were going the wrong way. But they stopped at a large rock, gleaming blue and beautiful against the infinite night sky. It was worth more than several countries back on Earth. Too bad they couldn't remove it at all, against intergalatic park laws.

"Guys . . ." Marc said into his microphone.

"Guys, I got an idea." Wayne said. "But before I tell you, you all have to tell me the dirtiest secret you have. Do it. We may never be on the moon again."

"Your idea has to be amazing." Abigail said. "I'll go first. I starred in my first porno . . . when I was fifteen."

"Oh, ok." Mitchel said. "When I was six, I took my grandmother's chiuauaha, the one she loved so much and castrated it. Cut the balls clean off."

"Did you make your grandmother eat them?" Wayne asked.

"Hell no. The dog escaped and ran into traffic. My grandmother never knew which pieces were missing. And she never blamed me."

"Wayne's next." Abigail said.

"OK," Wayne breathed in deep. "Let's see. . . I almost set my cat on fire?"

"No. . ."

"I was molested by my older cousin. . ."

"C'mon man, we don't wanna hear your life story. . ."

"Ok, ok." Wayne breathed heavy. "I knew what the Martinville Killer looked like and never told anyone."

Mitchell crouched up, excited. "REALLY?"

"I saw him kill victim no. 17. Night of April 11th. Didn't tell a soul."

"You know, that other guy who was accused of being the Killer, he got the gas chamber."

"You mean lethal injection."

"No, they brought the Chamber back. It's easier to afterward just cremate the bodies. Course, the gas only knocks them unconscious now. It's really the fire that gets them."

"Anyway, the the Martinville Killer has blue eyes, red hair and he's five foot eleven." Wayne sighed smugly and leaned his five foot eleven frame against the giant blue diamond, blinked his eyes to match and shook his red hair out of his eyes. "Believe it or not." He said.

"Caci is next."

"Oh, you don't want to hear about little, ol' me." She said. "Trust me."

Marc spoke up. "When I was six, I accidentally poisoned my parents." Everyone turned to the one person who's head was straight.

"Just a kid, playing with some chemicals under the sink. Poured something bad into my mother's cooking. They ate their food and I ate something for kids and the next thing I knew, they were in the hospital. Watched them die. And I didn't shed a tear."

There was silence on the moon, as there always is, but something about it seemed even quieter than usual.

Finally Wayne said, "OK, now for my big secret plan. I was planning to do this all along, no matter what you did." The intoxicated astronaut reached up to his neck and pulled the seam and his helmet floated away. Instantly, his head froze, instead of bursting into flame.

Abigail did the same. Then Mitchel, then Caci. Their heads froze, dark red and blue icicles running across their faces, the blood vessles exploded with ice. Their eyes shattered into crystal, floated out their heads, now empty and lifeless. Soon, each corpse lifted up by the giant blue crystal and then up further, higher and higher into space.

Marc watched them in envy until he couldn't see them.

Stories from the Blacktop

2009-06-28T18:48:00.000-07:00

Unum

We played football, I rushed David and we collided. His eyetooth dug into my forehead and I twisted it out.
We both got to leave school early.
I went to the hospital.
David went to the dentist.

Duo

Ladybugs began to appear in the spring. We caught as many as our fists could hold, until they squirmed out and flew away.
We found a water bottle and tossed our prisoners inside. We added leaves, grass and twigs.
I found a pen and put it with them, so they could crawl on it.
But the pen was broken and ink gooped out, blue, black, trapping our ladies in an oil slick.
They slowly suffocated.
To this day, the smell of dead ladybugs horrifies me, until I sit in the corner, knees tucked under my arms.
Until I am covered in my own oil slick.

Tria

On another day, we followed Joe out to the far reaches of the field.
He caught wasps with his bare hands and decapitated them and put them onto little spikes.
I would have helped, but I couldn't catch any.
I still remember how they twitched.

Quattuor

The sixth graders attacked the fifth graders, held them down and humped them to the ground.
It had nothing to do with sex, I thought.
I escaped, unscathed, anyway.
But I heard the screaming from far away.

LIMN

2009-06-26T15:52:00.000-07:00

maybe my jacket was on fire.

I couldn't tell if any smoke was coming out or not. But my head felt detached from my neck. Floating a few feet above my spinal column. I quivered in my seat and the room quivered with me. I felt all the muscles it took just to sit still. Any smoke yet?

when I breathed out vapor trails hung in the slow air. I knew this moment was long coming.

I couldn't stop shaking. I kept tapping my feet like an eager child. I sang:

"The ocean is an hourglass,
crystal chandiliers underneath the water
bathing with sharks
and I waltz down in my suit and tails
a rastafarian softly plays a xylophone
until he disappears
he knows this is my domain
i stand and i wait, cocktail glass in hand
in the swirly shifting sand of time
my opponent approaches, for he knows i wait
in a grey suit he swims to me,
right to my head, faster and revolving
until he becomes a torpedo and
travels through me."

Existing No Longer

2009-06-18T20:28:00.000-07:00

This is true.

I was six. My best friend Ryan, who lived at one end of the trailer park, me at the other, were playing one spring afternoon.
I proposed we go on an adventure through our neighborhood.
'You know,' I said. 'A real adventure. Like Indiana Jones or something.'
So we asked permission from our parents and they smiled, condescendingly, but still adoring. Asked where we were going and when we'd be back. And said yes.
Ryan's mom packed us a lunch. With Capri Suns. I remember this because she only gave us one apiece and I loved Capri Suns as a kid, except they were too expensive for my family budget and they were small. Unsatisfying. I craved them, constantly.

We left.

I remember, I brought my Burger King Halloween Bucket and Ryan brought his backpack so we could save any treasures we found. I don't remember what we put inside them, maybe pennies, or bits of broken plastic or strange insects. In my head, things get muddled. Sometimes it's everything. Sometimes it's empty white, bucket. I'll never be sure of the truth.

We went up to the middle of the park and then doubled back, trespassing through our neighbor's backyards.
I was so excited. Ryan seemed nonplussed, but went along with it.
He was kind of a boring kid that liked pro-wrestling and shitty cable television.
I didn't have cable or my antennae didn't get reception. Essentially, no TV at all.

He had a Sega Genesis, I had a Super Nintendo. But he had cooler games, somehow.
I had Kirby's Avalanche and Rampart and Jurassic Park.
He had Sonic the Hedgehog and Jurassic Park too, only in his, you could be a velociraptor and eat people.

We had the same shitty, faux-mullet blond haircuts.
Ryan lost his baby teeth first.
I bit my nails. I think he did too.
We both liked Power Rangers.
My favorite color was green. His was red or blue.

I first met Ryan when my mother met his and we went over to his house and I played in Ryan's room. Within five minutes of knowing Ryan, we were crawling under his bed and suffocating in the huge piles of clutter. We were instant friends.

And it seemed perfect, crawling under bushes and hopping fences in stranger's backyards. TV was boring anyway. These adventures were the memories I'd always treasure. Somehow, I knew that already, as I created them. I knew the moment was special.

We hadn't been hiking for twenty minutes before we propped ourselves up behind someone's air conditioning and quickly ate all our snacks. I was still hungry. I remember that.

The place we rested was shaded and tranquil. A little tangerine tree, painted white. The hum of the air conditioning. The suck, suck, sucking sound of the Capri Suns.
I wanted to stay there forever.

And yet . . . I was disappointed that this was all our adventure had been so far. A twenty minute walk and a mediocre meal.
We hadn't even gone anywhere new or exciting. We were behind a trailer that was next to my babysitter's. I knew where I was.
And still, I went back to the peace I felt, however mild it was. For several years, I'd often revisit that place.

And then we heard footsteps and the home owner yelled at us and we ran off.

So far, we hadn't fought any monsters, like the ones in my favorite video game, A Link to the Past. No Octoroks or Moblins or anything. Just shady, crab-grass infested backyards. We hacked at bushes with sticks.

We went to the far reaches of the trailer park, a place I'd never been before. The very last trailer home was lopsided against a cul-de-sac and the front yard was completely filled with a giant prickly pear cactus. A forest of prickers and green discs.
We threw rocks at it, tearing up the fruitless crowns, bleeding out its juices all over.
I got paranoid that we'd get caught again. But we didn't.
And something about destroying that prickly pear was incredibly surreal.
I vowed to come back one day and finish its destruction. I really did. I don't know why.
And I returned once, many years later, and it was gone.
Maybe it never existed.

It's hard to say what happens to memories so long discarded. Maybe we never went on an adventure, maybe we didn't drink Capri Suns or get yelled at and maybe Ryan didn't exist at all.

It had been an hour or so. We were already exhausted little explorers.
We came upon an empty lot, the large concrete slabs where abandoned trailerhomes used to stand, until they were excavated and dragged away. Existing no longer.

Ryan found a dead bird laying on the slab and dared me to touch it. A dead morning dove, curled up in withered defeat. Existing no longer.
I said, no way.
Ryan reached inside the ribcage and pulled out an organ. Right through the skin. It was easy.
'Look,' he said. 'It's a heart.'
But who knows, it could have been a liver or a lung or something. All I know is it was a quarter-sized ball of red and violet and it leaked.
He dared me to touch it.
'No way,' I said.
Ryan threw it at me and I screamed.
He put the entrails in my bucket and we took it home.
We got back to my room and went through our treasures, which honestly, had to be the most worthless shit ever. I don't remember any of it. None except the organ, kinda drying up, kinda sticking to the side of the bucket.
Ryan left it at my house when he left, and I had to clean it out.

That's the end.

The thing about retelling a story, is, in the gaps of the temporal lobe, we fill in the holes.
With age, more gaps formulate. More are filled.
Some true, some lies, but it doesn't matter. Whatever changes occur, we make them the truth.

Since this is the first time I've told this story in 13 years, there were many gaps to fill.
I actually sit here, wondering, if any of it happened the way I think it did.
I think it did.
I nearly forgot it happened at all.
But retelling the story has changed it, the way you cannot observe anything in nature without yourself influencing the observed. I've changed this story beyond repair. In a way, the original events never existed. In truth, this story exists no longer.

Pursuing Sirens

2009-06-09T23:29:00.000-07:00

poetroy

I am magnetized to sirens; like
Conquistadors of old; like
resigned mariners.

With sloth the soothsayer speaks;
with pride she predicts the gravity
of tomorrow's newsstands.

The crackled whispers in her coded
breath whisk me away with lust for
bloodshed.

I chase these auditory hallucinations
down streets I never knew so well;
pursuing with a wrath I have not known.

Spiraling Ecureuils flutter above
violent smoke piers, enticing gutless gluttony
with disastrous kitchen scents.

My fingertips sprint across dials; meters;
switches. Mildly stroking colorless, broken light.
Each negative stab a sirin to the sedated.

Black bags exit buildings in blue hands;
yellow strings to tie greedy paparazzi to pavement, observing
white charcoal shadow puppets written in white hands.

One winking eye raised; infested
fascination crushes ribs, crushes
infatuated spirits.
A soul tossed on jagged rocks,
devoured by deranged shark teeth.

In silent cardboard detention,
envying for pursuit of flesh,

I decay from within;

my breath shortens to ribbons.

Now I scour sunsoaked lanes, a
jaywalker's purgatory, for the
viscera of a different animal,
the distorted tangles of my own breed.

As I lag, certain horrors realize their potency;
the silence of the sirens is worse than their song,
a panic not in need of wax or chain prisons.

Never have I aged more wading

in the fountain of forsaken youth.

The Chair

2009-06-07T15:02:00.000-07:00

I am tied to a wooden folding chair, being beaten in the face by some thug.
The Mafia.
But I don't mind.
I've never felt this good before, I say in between the sounds of fist sinking into bone.
The feelings.
I have to be honest, I tell my captors.
My entire life, I've never done anything important.
I was the middle child, ya know.
I didn't do well in school, I didn't do well with women.
I had trouble managing myself alone.
The thug socks my jaw.
The gang leader watches me get destroyed but he doesn't seem moved.
Dropped out of college, I continue.
Haven't kept many jobs.
Still can't make it with the ladies.
Here I am, I say.
Being beaten to death by the Mafia.
The thug punches me in the cheek.
I have to be honest.
I've never felt more important in my whole life.
The thug rubs his fist, like it's getting sore.
He lands a knuckle in my gut, where it's softer.
You guys make me feel needed, I choke out.
Thank you.
The gang leader looks up in disgust.
OK, untie him, he says.
I stand up, wobble and smile wide through a bleeding gumline.
Thank you, I say again.
The gang leader doesn't look happy.
He looks worried.
Like I'm gonna retaliate now.
Here's the money we owe you, he says.
He hands me a paper bag.
Don't count it, he says.
Same time next week? I ask.
Sure, he says.
But next time we're going to use duct tape.

whale watching

2009-06-07T02:08:00.000-07:00

March 30

I was hungry for some crystal and I followed my shadow into the park, from whence I could smell the most delicious scents. They calmed my hunger, but still excited my senses. I tripped through bushes and puddles like a madman until I stumbled to a moss-covered bench. It was surrounded by trees on all sides, completely alien. I collapsed on the seat and instantly fell asleep.
I was awoken by an old man, dressed in a petticoat and poking me with a wooden cane.
"Let me tell you a story," he said looking through me in disapproval. I must have smelt like old cigarettes, ale and moldy paper bags. As I sat up, a single pigeon flew onto his shoulder.
"Once, I was on the vomit-covered shores of an old town and I lay on the beach naked. I ignored the smell and my surroundings. but I noticed the seagulls. They circled more and more above my head and so I decided to follow them. I tracked them two miles upon a beached whale, still breathing, with gusts awaiting death. The birds were patiently landing upon the beast, as they awaited the hungry opportunity to tear it apart."
I sat up. A pair of pigeons joined the one on the old man's back. They nuzzled up against him and cooed, but their yellow eyes watched me angrily.
"I sat and watched, deciding to witness this massive act of nature. As I observed more gulls gently descending on the depressed monster, I notice some had strings in their mouths, and I saw them tie them around barnacles and teeth."
I could hear my stomach rumble. More and more birds landed on the old man, until he looked like a walking aviary.
"I watched this miracle and I clapped my hands with glee. This startled the birds and they took off, carrying the whale with them and I watched in reverence until they disappeared behind the clouds and the wind."
The old man leaned down, the birds covering his body until just his nose stuck out from all the feathers.
"It was the only miracle I have ever witnessed, but I could not ask for more."
Then the old man clapped his hands and the birds took off with him in tangled talons. He wasn't very high before my sight of him was obscured by the trees.
I stood up and went in search to satisfy my hunger, again, but this time to gratify a new lust. A lust for something I could not explain.

april 23

2009-05-31T22:25:00.000-07:00

punching bag dream

The pigeon-catcher stands in a clearing, sifting through feathers with his feet. He looks down all the time, except to glance up and change direction. The catcher finds no carcass, no blood, only feathers. But a shot is fired and a falling bird falls right into the pigeon-cather's open, waiting arms.

Crawling on hands and knees, our heroes soon discover the very ovary of decay, a batch of filth from which every sinister beast originates. Every ounce of sickness and disease pours forth from this vulva of the vile. Slobber and semen boil, hot as molten lead, bubbles up from the orifice and our heroes stand above it.
'Will you dive in?' asked the one.
'I must.' said the other. 'It is the last place on Earth to explore.'

Two men, suspicious of the other, are screwing the same woman. Her name is Roxanne and she has shit for brains. The birds know this and they cry.
The first to produce a ring shall be the winner. But while Roxanne essentially pisses on both her entertainers, she secretly harbors a frightening type of disease. This illness is capable of toppling the remainder of civilization, if it gets loose. So terrible is this version of death that is will grind your intestines to jelly, it will burst hemophiliac cysts over your skin and melt your spirit to mucus.
All three characters die, including Roxanne, but they manage to go to Heaven, a place of dog farts and vomiting rainbows.

Imagine a man standing in line, the register closed, the light turned off, the stored closed, but still he wants his cigarettes.

The street sweeper swerves his truck up onto the sidewalk and snatches me in his revolving brushes of sterility. He vowed to clean up the filth and so he did, so he did.

Perks

2009-03-04T22:32:00.001-08:00

Our hero awakes with a bloody nose. He doesn't seem worried as he wipes away the crust with spit on his thumb.

He drinks coffee with seven canisters of creamer, easing into his day with a slight twitch. He puts on his work uniform, a pair of dark khaki pants and tucks his white button-up shirt beneath the belt. On the news is a story about a plane crash.

He drives to work in a 2005 Toyota Prius. It's a rental. His car is in the shop.

At work, he enters data into a computer for three hours and then takes a lunch break. He eats a pita bread sandwich and some baked Lays potato chips. He's not sure this is a healthy alternative to a McDonalds hamburger, but the packaging tells him it is, so he feels better. He takes a sip from a bottle of purified water and then swallows two Percocets.

The pills taste bitter and almost immediately start to dissolve on his tongue. His dealer told him these little white tabs will make his day so much easier. And our hero desperately wants an easy day. It is, after all, a Thursday. One day short from one day from freedom. The anticipation is almost too much to bear.

Our hero pauses to watch the sky, the clouds. He somehow doesn't feel connected to anything, anyone, but he can't explain why.

Back inside the building, our hero starts to feel the pills taking effect. He gets a little anxious as he moves in and out of the feeling, keeps asking, "Am I feeling it yet? Am I feeling it yet?"

Less than an hour later, his computer screen starts to fade in and out. He can't focus on the fluorescent buzz coming off every object in the room. His hands slip from the keyboard and rest on his lap. He's flying.

Our hero has never felt so good. This isn't like normal highs he's felt. His mind isn't affected at all. This isn't like Mary or Sally or anyone. He just wants to lie down and stare at the ceiling and think about the things that make him happy.

This reminds him of some artwork by a modern artist he really likes. Something about being trapped by society and conditioning and just lying back and taking it. No fighting back. The painting could be asking, "Am I feeling it yet?"

So our hero lies down and he begins to think, but nothing important or pleasant comes to mind. It should, but it doesn't make our hero disappointed.

A knock comes on his office door and a scrawny secretary wearing a miniskirt comes in. She looks down at our hero and says nothing, a puzzled expression on her face. She watches him smile incessantly, until he sits up, looks at her and says, "I'm going to throw up." He does so, promptly, all over himself and it pours down his khaki pants and rubs up against the secretary's high heels.

The feeling of euphoria leaves our hero. But the point is, it was there.

A Bar Scene

2009-01-24T13:31:00.001-08:00

Two men of the same age find each other in conversation at a bar and learn that they both loathe life.
“My wife left me for my best friend, I was laid off and my mortgage was foreclosed. My children don’t call or write and I’m getting too old to start over.” Said the one. “I can find only one way out, either through a bottle or a gun.” He finished drinking his beer and waved for another.
“What a coincidence.” Said the other. “You have lost everything but I never had those to begin with.”
“Maybe you’re taking things too seriously,” the bartender interjected. “Many things are worth living for. You don’t have to drink yourself to death.” It was his way of saying, I think you’ve had enough.
“Any happiness in my life makes me feel guilty.” The first muttered. “Perhaps, then, starting right now, I refuse to laugh at anything ever again. I refuse to allow myself any pleasures until I pull through this.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” said the second man. “I will make a similar resolution, only I will laugh at everything.” He finished drinking and then turned to his companion and burst into high-pitched squealing. He pointed and he held his stomach and he fell off the stool onto his back.
The first man didn’t react at first, just listening to the man crawling on the floor, laughing. Then he abruptly stood up, bent over the laughing man and slowly beat the shit out of him. But it was no use. The laughing man was already free.

Inheritance

2009-01-15T19:13:00.000-08:00

June 14, 2008

NOTE: I started this and never finished it. I actually like it better that way.

TV made me do this. Cops and robbers. Japanese cartoons. Even censored, those R movies persuaded me. Tipped me over the edge. That's why I'm here.

It's raining and later I will be swimming with pneumonia. This will only help my case. I'm sitting in the bushes blinking away raindrops and watching the upstairs window of my girlfriend's house. I should say, "ex."

The light flicks on, glows bright and I can see the flowers I gave her for Valentines day on her dresser. I'm waiting for the right moment and then I'll burst in and kill her and that bastard she's screwing. I'm waiting til they start kissing.

Video games made me do this. Stealing electronic images of cars and gunning down anyone who gets in my way. Big, red, pixel-blobs of blood. There ain't no halo over my head. I was taught this was OK.

I already know that I'll be tried as a minor because I'm 13 and this is the way things work in this town. Maybe I'll get some time in juvenile hall, maybe some community service. I'll get out soon enough and my ex and her new boyfriend will still be dead. I may be able to watch the history channel documentary, in which they'll ask the question, Why did this kid snap?

Who hasn't had some kind of impulse to kill before? Isn't this some sort of human nature? Every one thinks like this once in a while, why am I to blame for going through with it? Evolution made me do this.

I can already imagine the little bullet holes in her chest. Right through the heart she said she gave to me. Lying, stinking whore, you're gonna get yours. She'll be half-naked, because she never goes all the way.

As for that twat she replaced me with, some jock who's 15, I'll shoot him in the head so many times that they won't recognize his teeth.

I don't even know what kind of gun I have.

a small story

2008-12-20T22:03:00.000-08:00

She walks out, leaving forever, says, "I'm doing you the biggest favor in your life."
I roll over and fall asleep, the pillow still wet from her tears.
I'm awake at 2am in an insomniac fit.
All the drinks are empty.
At least a dozen vacant bottles.
So I walk to the corner market and I'm the only customer in the store.
I have a tiny cart and put ten bottles of Wild Turkey in it.
Then I grab an extra bottle.
At the checkout, all those little impulse items, I take a package of condoms and some beef jerky.
The cashier asks me if I have ID.
I show it to him and notice he only reads the birthdate.
The cashier asks me cash or credit.
Credit.
The cashier asks for my ID again.
He just reads the name and makes sure it matches the card.
No one ever looks at the picture.
I leave, pushing my little cart down the street.
Two cops pull over, one fat and one short and ask to see my ID.
Do I have a choice?
They run it through a machine without even looking at it.
No warrants, they say, but just in case, what's in the bags.
Eleven bottles of Wild Turkey, some condoms and some beef jerky, I say.
I think this guy is a pervert, the short cop whispers, loud enough that I can hear.
What are you, some kind of pervert? the large one asks.
I plead the 5th.
The cops take me down to the station, sirens blaring.
They say it's just in case.
For several hours they grill me with questions about murdered people.
All I know is what I read in the papers, I say.
This isn't the guy, the one cop whispers, still not quite quiet enough.
You aren't the guy, the other cop says, arms crossed.
The short cop holds up a black and white mugshot.
This man, fat cop says, has been causing terror all over town.
He's killed eleven people already, the other cop mutters.
We thought you were him.
There is a likeness, I say, but how did you get his photograph if you don't know his name?
You can go, says the fat cop.
Can I have my groceries back? I ask.
You can have one bottle.
That's all I need.
I'm forced to walk back to the hotel, about five miles from the station.
I decide to drink.
By the time I have finished half the bottle I start having paranoid delusions that around every corner, down every filthy alley is the serial killer.
I imagine my doppelganger stabbing me with long sharp fingernail knives.
Deep into my neck he thrusts until the blades poke out the other side.
Each step increases my paranoia and my pace, until I am running for my life down empty streets.
It's very quiet.
Then I trip and fall flat on my face.
The Wild Turkey bottle shatters and inch long slivers stab into my neck.
The alcohol seeps warm into my jacket.
I pull the glass out painlessly and I don't bleed much.
The sun rises the moment I return to the hotel.
I go back to my room, which has been cleaned by the maid.
There is a tiny mint on my pillow.

wearedriving

2008-10-31T19:18:00.000-07:00

We are driving.
Roadtrip.
That kind of thing.

A previous argument has disabled everyone in the vehicle.
No one wants to speak and the driver is especially uncomfortable.
I sit in the back seat and stare out the window.
It’s dark as electrical tape outside, the only light from the high beams that bounce off the road in front of us.
I’m too wired to sleep.
Everyone else is wide awake as well, unable to ignore each other.
And so goes it.

The driver decides, to fill the silence, turns on the radio.
Ticking through the channels like a worried teleprompter, he tries to discover a station that plays music everyone likes.
Not likely.
But besides that, all he can locate is static.
STATICSTATICSTATIC.

The passengers – and me – are getting sick of this white noise.
It’s no substitute for conversation.
Until –
the driver discovers a voice.

It says, T-MINUS 1 HOUR 3 MINUTES
And then static again.

A minute later.
T-MINUS 1 HOUR 2 MINUTES.
And then static again.

We’re still silent in the car, but we’re all sitting upright, waiting for the lulls in the nearly endless static sea.
Still silent to each other.

T-MINUS 57 MINUTES.
The cold voice of a computer echoing in our little box.
A sign says, 50 miles to somewhere.
Destination isn’t important anymore.

T-MINUS 49 MINUTES.
Still waiting.
No explanation.
No reasoning behind any of it.

We’ve mostly forgotten the argument, but not the anger.
We’re retaining that at least.
I think the argument was something about . . .

Existence.

T-MINUS 33 MINUTES.
. . . and counting, one of us whispers.
No one else speaks. The static is enough for us.

And we just kept driving.
Just kept going.
And going.

And going.

Sea Cucumber

2008-08-18T18:23:00.000-07:00

These things take planning, but I wasn't prepared for this.

I love the way my eyes swell in the morning, crusted so bad I have to peel them open. I love the bloodshot hopelessness in the worm-like veins. The tears that choke in the corners and the sporadic dilation in the morning sunlight. Like my eyes are rotten grapes bleeding wine.

I love the aching I get in every tired, pulled muscle of my damaged frame. The way my bones crinkle with weight and age. The way my mouth is dry as sand and the way my teeth throb with cavities.

I'm not kidding. It really makes me happy.

I made myself anorexic just last week. For fun. I'm not really concerned that I'm fat, I just want to be disgustingly thin. Like a living skeleton, sucking and smoking thin little cigarettes. I want my bones poking out my back like dragon skin. Like a dead lion, the ribs wrapped in tattered flesh. I want it to hurt to masturbate.

After a big meal of blueberry pancakes and orange juice and bagels with cream cheese and some chocolate bars I use a toothbrush and massage my epiglottis. It's sore and cancerous, but soon my gag reflex is stimulated enough that I puke my guts out, disgorging viscera like a sea cucumber. My salivary glands are swollen and dry. I think some of what I regurgitate is blood, but who knows. That gag reflex feeling is beautiful. I'm pulling myself apart.

I love this.

The brown-red barf swirls down the bowels of the toilet bowl and into oblivion, like this never happened. I feel tired all of a sudden and lay on the tile, focusing in and out on the ceiling light. The sporadic dilation in the florescent sunlight.

Some of the bile splattered on the magazines next to the toilet paper, smearing the ink of a weight loss book. The title screams "LOSE 30 POUNDS IN SIX WEEKS!"

Five more weeks to go.

FULL UPRIGHT LOCKED POSITION

2008-05-26T12:38:00.000-07:00

FULL UPRIGHT LOCKED POSITION
MENE TEKEL
05/26/08

Walking down that boarding gangway, can’t help but feel like a steer being led to the slaughter. But still, check out that blonde. What’s taking so long? I have a headache. Just another red-eye.

And they cram us into this tube of toothpaste. We passengers are concerned with the environment. Baby seals. Dreams of a greener world. Don’t mind that our identity is trampled upon. Expect slight turbulence.

We’re looking out for the greater good. God is sex. God is money. God is vacation where everyone goes. There’s a guy with a Mac next to me, but he’s watching National Treasure 2 and I lose all respect for him.

We’re handcuffed into our seats. These buckles won’t protect us from any crash. We dive-bomb, we die. The seatbelts are just here so they can find our charred bodies and chisel them out. Identify our dentures. Please remain seated.

The flight attendant who presents a safety film, she’s old. She doesn’t do special favors for anyone. The video they show us is still VHS. Not Blu-Ray, not even DVD. The screen flickers that de-ionized magnetic film. Even if it was made yesterday, it’s so over-the-top. There’s no need to relearn this; I think we’re trained to do this at birth. Natural reactions to disaster.

Take-off. Angled up, just like a roller coaster before the descent. But we aren’t anxious. We don’t raise our hands except to yawn or adjust the air. Full upright locked position.

An airplane is a room full of sleep apnea. A chiropractor’s wet dream. Across the aisle, a young girl pukes her guts into a barf bag with an advertisement on it. Even now, they are trying to sell us useless shit. Sky Mall. Miles above civilization. Would you like to sign up for a credit card?

I met a psychic yesterday. I forgot her name, she knew mine before we talked. She was called something normal like Diane or Katie or something. Not anything over-the-top like the Countess Foresight or Madame Cassandra. Met her on the subway.

She shivered when she saw me and kept glancing back at me. I think I was reading a magazine. Tried to ignore her. A mile before her stop she marched up to me and grabbed my shoulders and told me not to get on that plane.

Now, I can’t help but smile. So, does that make this suicide? Knowing how this ends, going ahead anyhow. The woman next to me, trying to sleep, she’s not watching me, but I still feel self-conscious.

During an over-the-top in-flight drama the aging airline attendants hand us half-ounce bags of snack mix. Can’t give out peanuts, someone could be allergic. They feed us the bare minimum. Prison food. Last meals.

That every bump and grind against the air, 10,000 feet above dirt, gives me excitement better than sex. Money. Vacation where everyone goes. I feel so free. So over-the-top. Outside the window, those could be shooting stars, or they could be sparks. Did I just hear the engine sputter out? Is that dew out there or smoke? Did the landing gear deploy or snap off?

Soon enough, we all feel it, we’re going down. Down, down, down. And finally, I can let myself go.

Bicycle Morning

2007-10-23T21:08:00.000-07:00

Dedicated to my father.

This is a mistake and I know it.

I should be sleeping, but I can't. It could be the voices I hear echoing down the hall, it could be that buzzing bathroom light that won't die. . . It could be caffeine, or sexual repression, or bad food.

I can't sleep, that's not a big deal. It happens at least twice a month. I'm unable to rest for two days. I'm anxious like a wasp trapped at a windowsill. I buzz around the same glass, and I can clearly see slumber on the other side, I just can't burst through. And it hurts. Insomnia's like no other pain you can feel. It's like a headache someone else has, but it's so strong you can feel it across the room. But you get used to it, it's no big deal. Nothing to lose sleep over.

Every time I get insomnia, I go out late at night, vandalize something and then I can doze off. I spray paint a dirty word on a police car. I break a dozen windows. I set a few dumpsters on fire. Nothing that really hurts anyone, and then I can get my beauty sleep.

It's April 19th, 2007. I'm up to a record five days without sleep. I've tried to go as long as I can without my routine destructive behavior, and this is what I get.

I have no feeling left in my spinal cord, in my bones, in my skin. Withdrawals? I must give in. I need to get out of my house or I will go crazy. . . crazier. Desperate, I run down the apartment stairwell, throw my backpack over my shoulder, and leap on my bike.

What I'm going to do tonight is the most dangerous thing I've ever done before. People will remember it for years, and I'll be in all the newspapers, but no one will know it was me. The only evidence will be smoke and fire. I smirk to myself as I pedal down the sidewalk. This is going to be grand.

Riding is exhilarating. I'm like a bird in a thermal. Nothing but air all around and I just glide through. Breathless, weightless.

I pedal uphill as fast as I can, until my wrists ache like twisted rope, and my legs crack with stressed muscles. Blisters are searing up at the base of my fingers. My throat is dry and sore. But I can't stop.

At the top of the hill I look down at all of San Francisco below me. It's 4:20AM, my digital watch squeaks. No one is awake. I'm all alone. And I let go.

I pedal downhill and turn the still air into a cyclone. I'm already going about 45mph with gravity's help alone, and I pedal harder and faster, pushing any limits my bike has left. I can feel the frame rattling and my backpack is slipping, and I'm trying to secure it.

I'm coming to the end of the hill, must be going a good 60mph, and I attempt the brakes. Like a bad movie, like a linear plot in a pulp fiction novel, I can already see where this is going.

The thin, tiny brakepads aren't enough, and I don't remember the next thing that happened. I closed my eyes and opened them in a dizzy buzz of pain. The first thought I have is, how did I survive? This isn't right. I know I should be dead. I should be fragments of myself.

Maybe I am in pieces. My wrist feels broken, and I've never even broken a bone before. I guess you just know. That twisted rope snapped. I landed on my back, so my head isn't cracked, but it still feels like a tangled slinky.

All I can taste in my mouth is blood, and I wonder why, until I choke on a molar. I cough, but it's scraping down my esophagus before I know it. That's going to hurt to shit out.

I swallow more teeth and more blood, lift my head up, and survey the damage. I can't see anything because of the glow of a white SUV's high beam. But I can tell that because only one headlight is functional, I must have somewhat totaled it. The license plate glistens; TBI-APB. I make a mental note in case I need that information to sue. I look at my watch to document the time of the accident. The face is shattered, but I can read that it's 4:23AM.

My bike is twisted so badly it looks like origami from hell. I look down at it, how it's shiny black, and my clothes are even darker. I'm like that unlucky black cat that crosses someone's path. And I hear the SUV's driver door open and slam shut. Shit.

I expect the driver to be all panicked and concerned, the way someone should feel if they hit a pedestrian with a truck. He's not. He's really, really pissed off. He walks into the light and he's towering over me, and he growls, "You motherfucker."

I shouldn't be alive. I should be smithereens. I should be popcorn chicken. I wonder if I act like I am in more pain than truthfully, would he have mercy on me? I moan in agony, slowly getting louder, the way a girl fakes an orgasm. Rhythmic-nonverbal lying is what I call it. He doesn't buy me. I can tell by the way he lifts me to my feet by my neck.

He's pulling on my skin, twisting my throat with one large Indian burn. He looks me in the eyes, but I can't see anything but darkness in his sockets. This man is the soul-sucking devil himself.

"What the fuck are you doing in the middle of the road?!"

I don't like rhetorical questions so much, so I weakly respond with one of my own. "Why don't you watch where you're going?"

In rage, he throws me in a heap on top of my bike, and kicks me a few times in the gut. The air inside me gushes out, and I'm coughing for life, hacking up blood. I should not be alive, so even in this much pain, I feel blessed. I should be lying dead, in halves and thirds on an autopsy table.

I watch this guy walk back to his SUV and dial the cops on his cell. I want to ask if he'll call me an ambulance, but I'm afraid he'll make me eat his boot through my belly button again. My pain coupled with my throbbing insomnia, it's giving me a headache so severe I'm seeing triple. Three guys call, three guys yell into three phones, and three guys spit on me. One thick loogie dribbles down my face.

For some reason, anger probably, he kicks my backpack. Even in my misery, my tired, worn out brain kicks in. I pick myself up, raise my crippled bike on it's wheels and peddle off. I know I can't stay here. I am going to be dead if I do. I should be dead. I should be nothing more than a crater.

The man screams after me, so loud, so distant. His complaint is like a headache someone else has, but it's so strong you can feel it across the universe. My bike wobbles, but I know I'll get away. I start to roll downhill again, and at that moment, the dynamite in my backpack explodes, taking the man and the SUV up in flames with it.

Venery

2007-07-12T22:10:00.000-07:00

Fiction

VENERY
Mene Tekel
VI-XXIII-MMVII

Dedicated to Ultra_Hacker for all the rides he gave me.

The radio is playing Queen so loud I can't hear anything but "Radio Ga Ga".
In the dark, I see those dark, green pools reflecting light. "There!" I shout and point.
Chase guns the engine, flips on the headlights, and at 32 miles an hour we run the cat down with his car. The cat doesn't get far before it lurches under the right tire and lifts the car a foot in the air. In the passenger side mirror, I can see the mass of fur behind us, a puddle of blood and guts oozing out of its broken belly. Chase, I, and Thomas in the back, all laugh.
We turn left and right and hit a cul-de-sac and do a u-turn in someone's driveway at 28 miles an hour, burning rubber. The radio is playing Queen's "We Are The Champions". We drive down another road, and I see it, another cat, sitting in the gutter. Chase hits the lights, and we chase the feline down at 44 miles an hour. Imagine a giant balloon of strawberry jelly. That's the look the animal makes as it bursts under our tires, fur and viscera spraying out.
We all laugh, we all laugh. Thomas sits up. None of us wear a seatbelt. Thomas injects himself with a vial of heroin and sighs. And laughs.
The radio is playing Queen's "Who Wants to Live Forever". Thomas is singing along, Chase is drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. I close my eyes and breathe the music. It's a mix cd on random play, and each song is ecstasy.
Chase is driving a 2006 Grand Prix. The color is a egg white hue, and each flash of streetlight we dart under illuminates the speckles of blood dotting the hood. It's beautiful.
Chase drives faster, wheeling around a corner at 54 miles an hour. He speeds up to 67 when I see a raccoon, and point it out. Before it can dash back into the woods, we nail it, bouncing over it like a living speed bump. We all laugh, we all laugh.
Driving at 51 miles an hour, we wheel down the street and run a red light. It's so late at night that no one sees us. We run a stop sign fifty feet later at 49 miles an hour. I see something black and white and scream, "There!" We smush it into the gutter. Turns out it was a skunk, and the stench bombards us as we race away choking at 73 miles an hour.
Chase turns off the headlights, and we crouch along at 17 miles an hour, hunting for prey. I see a black cat sitting in the beam of a streetlamp. "There!" Chase hits the highbeams and the cat takes off. We chase it down the street until it runs into someone's yard and up a sapling. We can't stop, and we whack into the tree. It crackles and falls, and the cat runs out of the leaves in panic. We accelerate again and chase the kitty into. . . .the beams of an oncoming car. The cat tries to turn and run laterally, but the car taps it into the air. It soars into our windshield, killing it instantly. The car is out of control, and we hit a mailbox before we're straight on the street again. A flurry of bill-me-laters and magazines and one baffled driver is our wake as we leave the scene at 89 miles an hour. And we all laugh hysterically.
The unlucky black cat is still on our windshield, bleeding from rips in it's flesh. Chase flips the windshield wipers and rubs it off the car. It flops into the road, rolling like a rag doll. The radio is playing "Killer Queen".
At 47 miles an hour, we hit a rabbit on accident. At the irony of this we cannot stop laughing. Thomas is in the back, tears streaming from his eyes, laughing, high as a fever. He moans, and lies down across the back seat. At 33 miles an hour we hit a speed bump, and he flies onto the floor. We all laugh, we all laugh.
I see a rabbit nibbling dandelions in a patch of grass by an intersection. "There!" We hit the lights and chase the bunny into the street at 40 miles an hour. The animal runs diagonal to our tires as they roll over him and squish his little bunny frame.
I scream, "Stop!" and Chase does. Without answering their questions, I spring out of the car, and over to the rabbit's body. It's still alive, it's eyes blinking like an epileptic, it's front leg twitching. I grasp it's paw, place my boot on it's face and pull. It's little head cracks like bubble wrap under my foot, and I pull up an entire drumstick of bunny meat. I hop back in the car, and toss the leg at Thomas. "For good luck." I say. We all laugh, we all laugh.
The radio is playing Queen's "A Kind of Magic".
We drive down another neighborhood at 23 miles an hour, and see a white cat. It glows angelic in the headlights. It almost gets away, but we trample it's hind legs. We do a u-turn in someone's flowerbed and face the dying animal. It's legs are twisted, broken and it's trying to escape by pulling itself along the ground with its front legs. It's pathetic in a funny, helpless way. Chase accelerates to 45 miles an hour, flattening the cat's head and ending its misery. We all laugh, we all laugh.
"There!" I see a tiny calico kitten, it's stupid little bell ding-a-linging as we mow it down. It became a gum stain on the pavement. We all laugh, we all laugh.
The radio is playing Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls". We're driving down a stretch of interstate and we thump over deer roadkill. An animal that we wouldn't even try to hit. It sends the car out of control, offroad, and we're driving in the grass. All kinds of animals run out of the bushes and into traffic. A few rabbits get slaughtered, a raccoon as well, but most get away. This just kills us and we laugh and laugh like maniacs. We pull back onto the road at 52 miles an hour, and take the next exit.
We drive out of the suburbs for a minute. Cruising down an empty street behind a warehouse we see a homeless man pushing a shopping cart of his possessions. Chase doesn't stop. He hits the cart, and the man at 61 miles an hour and sends them both flying over the roof. The bum's ribs cracked, and his face peeled off, but he was still alive enough to stand and curse at us as we drove off laughing.
The radio is playing "Under Pressure".
We see two dogs fighting each other, ripping each other's throats out. Vicious, stray dogs, the kind that inspired Kujo. At 38 miles an hour we rush into their little fight. They try to move, but we still tear off the smaller dogs leg. I can hear it's howling as we race off. In the rearview mirror, I see this three legged dog, still taking on the other, snarling, dog eat dog.
The shopping cart had cracked our windshield and broken a headlight. Like a one eyed predator, we stalk through the shadows until we see a small, grey cat sitting in the street. We chase this one down, but it keeps running faster and faster. It dives under a chain link fence and we follow it, bursting through. We shoot into a dried up canal, and the cat is just ahead of us, dodging the glow of the sole headlight. It bounces in and out of the beam, like a shadow. Chase accelerates slowly, just barely idling up beside it, til it's fluffy tail is close enough to the fender. Then he tips the steering wheel just so, and the cat's tail catches, ripping it up and tearing it around the axle. A stream of blood sprays across the passenger side window. Thick, meaty blood, like tomato sauce. We all laugh, we all laugh.
Suddenly, at 47 miles an hour we hit a steel post at an angle, flipping the car and flopping down the pavement until the ceiling becomes the floor. My head hits the dashboard and breaks my face open. My teeth are chewing on teeth. Thomas finds a needle in his mouth. Chase is cut up by shattered safety glass. Blood everywhere.
We lay upside down in the wreckage, bleeding and immobile with pain.
The radio is still on, static and fuzz. The song is "Another One Bites the Dust".
And we all laugh, we all laugh.

Project Toenail

2007-05-19T04:19:00.000-07:00

31 May 2007

Some Worthwhile Advice - Project Toenail / X-13D

A dear friend of mine believes that Jones soda has eerie, almost true to life advice and fortunes on their caps. I bought three today, and the first one said, "Many people are seeking you for worthwhile advice." Cool. Here it is.

I also bought a new marketing scheme by Frito-Lay called X-13D. It is a new flavor of Doritos that YOU get to name. Buy the chips, go to the website, and name it. Well, these chips taste like toenails, so I went on the website and called it Extreme Toenail Flavor. That's seriously what they taste like. Like stale, cheesy toe fungus chips. Here is your advice.

Fight back against stupid marketing schemes and name this product Extreme Toenail Flavor. It will take you five whole minutes. You go on the website and enter in the name, create a username, and some boring personal information. If you think that is too much to ask, just use my information. Make stuff up. No one cares.

Let me give you three reasons why:
1. I am your friend, and this is cool.
2. You will be making history, but you have to spread the word.
3. They really do taste like toenails.

In the end, we, together, will create a grand scale scheme against this stupid, stupid ploy to buy processed tortilla chips. Tell all your friends about it, spread the word, and help create Project Toenail.

It will take five minutes. The website is here:

http://x13d.doritos.com/

Good luck. As a final note the second Jones I bought said, "your mind, being creative and original will make you famous."

GO PROJECT TOENAIL.

Keith

2007-03-26T22:12:00.000-07:00

(non-fiktion)

I'm not ashamed to admit that when I was a child I lived in a trailer park. It was a very nice place, across the street from my church; it is where almost all my childhood memories took place, and although it was a low standard of living for most people, it was perfect for me. When I got older, I moved to an actual house exactly one mile south of Turf Mobile Manor. I went from being trailer trash to just regular white trash. I loved the social mobility; having a pool that was always open; having walls that were actually insulated; having my own private bathroom; having space to breathe.
I'll never forget that in the trailer park, I had a neighbor who was certifiably crazy. His name was Keith, and my parents told me to stay away from him. He lived three trailers down, near a wall. He had extra parking, and no car, but he put up barricades in case someone tried to steal his parking.
Keith would always walk around the neighborhood with a plastic bag and pick up trash. My mom said he was a little mentally retarded, and felt it was his job to clean up the entire world. He was also a very paranoid person who didn't trust anyone. He had made homicidal threats on my family, but we were okay.
He was middle aged, with grey hair, and had this creepy stare. I never talked to him, I was always afraid of him.
After I moved, I didn't have to be paranoid of this paranoid man, but he would still wander around for miles and miles cleaning up trash. So I occasionally saw him, because I still lived within a mile of my old house.
One day, I was in the grocery store and he was there as well, buying weird granola shit for constipation. I recognized him immediately, and for some reason, said to him, "Hey Keith."
He stopped in the middle of the cereal aisle, and gave me this look of extreme confused paranoia. His eyes moved behind his thick glasses like a combination of an owl and a chameleon. He was watching every inch of me with fear and loathing, and it got under my skin. I was getting uneasy, so I dashed off in the opposite direction, and huddled behind the toilet paper aisle, trying to act casual. I watched him leave, and then burst out laughing. He obviously didn't recognize me. It had been months since I had lived in the park anyway. I knew how paranoid he was, and realized he was probably really freaked out about me.
The next couple of weeks, every time I saw him, I would say, "Hey Keith." before quickly walking off, before he would recognize me. Each time, he got more and more neurotic. I would always laugh afterward, like some horrible child who amused himself destroying an anthill. When I drove by Keith waiting at the bus stop, I leaned out the window, "Heeeeeeeeeeeeey Keeeeeeeeeeeeeith!" He jumped up and frantically watched me drive off, leaving him in a dangerous confusion. Other people at the bus stop were not amused either, and they looked after me with perplexed horror. Not that they knew the details, and they certainly didn't want to.
One fateful day, I actually had to wait for the bus with Keith. I was nervous, afraid that if he distinguished me as the person tormenting him vicariously he may hurt me. So I sat quietly at the bus stop, absolutely speechless, and pretended to read a book. He was standing behind me, carrying his bag of trash, and muttering to himself. I couldn't make out much of what he said, but it was something along the lines of, " . . .he knows me . . . how can he know me? . . . what should I do? . . ."
His muttering and nervous tugging at his sack of trash made me deathly afraid of even breathing. My heart was beating like a jackhammer against my ribcage, trying to commit suicide which had to be better than whatever torture he might have in store for me. I was afraid of even appearing nervous, but no one else at the bus stop seemed to notice. Just a creepy old man and a shaky kid reading a book upside down. They would never have guessed the identity showdown going on between us. When the bus impatiently pulled up, late, I scrambled on, and sat in the back of the bus. Keith sat in the very front, looking back every few seconds, staring at me, and I staring into my book. The words were jumping off the page, words like DEATH and FEAR and BLOOD.
Finally, Keith got off the bus, and the carriage trudged forward. I watched until he was out of sight, and then burst into manic laughs of relief. I couldn't stop. Everyone on the bus began to stare at me, looking back every few seconds, just as paranoid as Keith was. No one likes a raving laughing person on a public service vehicle. When I got off, everyone seemed much happier.
For some reason, a few weeks later, I started a hobby of taking pictures of strangers. I stopped it when I realized the pictures weren't very good. I didn't do it to be creepy, though it was, I just liked knowing that there were other people in the world who existed. I was taking some pictures of strangers on the bus, with the flash off, sitting in the back, trying to be subtle, when Keith gets on the bus, and sits just in range of my camera lens. I began to take pictures of him, and he noticed. I snapped one after another and each time the shutter batted an eyelash, Keith looked more and more paranoid, until it came to his stop and he ran off the bus, scared as hell. I was laughing madly in my seat.
Then one day, I stumbled across a website called a reverse address search. You type in an address, and you can obtain the phone number for whoever lives there. It's free, and since I used to be neighbors with Keith, I knew his address was only three numbers off from my own. I entered his residence, and got his phone number. I spent the next week chuckling under my breath with anticipation. What would I do with this number?
Eventually, I grew the courage to call it from a public pay phone. I tossed in two quarters and dialed. My heart was beating crazily again, but this time for no reason. I got his answering machine and left a message: "Keeeeeeeeeeith." I whispered it, snakelike and eerie. The next day, I called again from a different pay phone, and got his machine again. I left another creepy message, and the same the next night. Finally, one night, at around midnight I called again.
He answered. His voice was berserk and vicious. "Who is this? Who the FUCK is this? I'll fucking kill you! I'll sick the pigs on you!"
With manic laughter that I could not suppress, I hung up the receiver.
I stopped calling after that. It was a waste of quarters. After that, I stopped seeing Keith going around cleaning up the world. I began to wonder what happened to him. About 2 years passed, then I saw him today on the bus. I was sitting in the back, thinking about some deep stuff, until he popped onto the bus, and sat down by the front. As soon as I saw him, I could not stop laughing, manic bursts of an insane inside joke in my head. He looked up at me in confusion, and I could not stop laughing, unashamed.

Smirk

2007-03-23T19:32:00.001-07:00

(non-fiktion)

My friend, maybe he did it for the attention, but he shaved off his eyebrows.
He said, it's capitalist.
He said, he was stopping the brows from merging and fighting.
He gave a lot of bullshit answers. No one really understood why he did such an impulsive thing; me least of all.
Everyone laughed. They painted on his face with paint, to make him look like he had eyebrows again and they all laughed. Then they painted a Hitler mustache and all laughed. He wiped off all their makeup and everyone laughed.
I didn't; just not my humor.
After school, we went shopping in Target for a half hour. Just meandering around, just losing ourselves in the aisles of consumerism, mostly empty, slow. Everyone we passed gave my eyebrowless friend a raised eyebrow, a glare, or a confused stare. He laughed, getting the kick he wanted out of it. I laughed too. It was some enormous inside joke, but hung outside like a fat neon marquee.
It was disturbing to look at him, to think about looking at him. It was because his every expression that day was eager, gleeful, happy and he didn't have little lines of hair to compliment him. He was this completely open person with his grinning, stupid laughing. His eyes weren't darkened or as covered anymore, and seeing his eyes so broad and piercing was unsettling. He didn't have a forehead, it was more like he had a fivehead.
It's weird, but I admire him for it. It took courage, on some level. It's a big fuck you to society, in one way or another.
He looks like a doll or a puppet, but not quite, because even those have more facial features than he does. He looks surreal, like something in a dream, or something a coked out artist would sketch.
We went to a Starbucks and stared out the window at some birds, people staring back in. It felt like we were in a zoo, caged in as a living display case for gawking idiots; but I felt alive and free, careless and eager; who had the freedom, society, or us?
I demanded my friend go and buy me a soda. I gave him a container of pure pennies. He spent a full ten minutes at the counter buying me my drink, as the cashier slowly got over my friend's appearance; then as he counted the pennies, then she nervously recounted them. He couldn't stop laughing when he came back to my table.
On the second day with his new style, we went bowling. Some cute female employees were flirting with me until they noticed him. Then they straightened up, shut their mouths in confusion, they gave us our shoes and didn't talk to us again. I didn't mind, it was worth the laugh.
By the end of the week, I was somewhat used to it. Not enough though, and watching him trying to express anything, anger, humor, even depression was like watching a pathetic rag doll try and imitate life. It was hard to even pity him, let alone sympathize, but I managed it. His emotions reminded me of a movie I once saw about a robot who wanted to be human. It was like this, except in reverse. I think he wanted to be a robot. Schizophrenic. Dead.
I always like it when my life becomes a little more surreal. I wish more things like this happened to me. Often life seems to bland, uninteresting. . . . hairy.
My friend wants me to shave off my eyebrows too.
The funniest thing is, I actually considered it.

Psycho

2007-02-22T13:12:00.000-08:00

Current mood: I am Jack's Sociopathic Social Games

Bullshit isn't right but it's the first word that comes to mind.

Have a little fun with your subconscious. Take a piece of paper, and write this down.

First choose a color.
Now, choose three words to describe that color.
Second, choose an animal.
Choose three words to describe that color.
Third, choose an body of water.
Choose three words to describe that color.
Fourth imagine you are in a white room, with no windows or doors. How does this room feel to you?

Below are the interpretations.

According to Carl Jung, this a form of psychoanalysis. The color represents how you view yourselves. The animal represents how you view the rest of the world. The body of water is your sex life. The white room is how you feel about death.

Perhaps this is just bullshit.

Amusing isn't right, but it's the first word that comes to mind.

Shade

2007-02-20T18:39:00.000-08:00

There was this time that I was really bitter at the entire world. I hated everyone, and only tolerated the people I loved. It was mostly political. I don't tolerate stupid people, and I just felt everyone was incompetent and inefficient.
Then I spent an entire Saturday, sitting in the shade of a tree with a friend. He is so different from me, especially politically. But after talking to him for five hours, he unintentionally reminded me that people are people. That everyone in the world wants the same things, the only difference is how each individual gets it.

I've come to love that feeling, the feeling of being reminded that everyone is the same.

I've been reading a lot on body language, graphology, art, comas, drugs, and diaries. It's all pointing me back to one glorious conclusion. That we are all very complex, deep, emotional, and intricate things. There is no such thing as a simple human being, just an incompetent one. Everyone really is a magnificent system and the only exceptions are those that shove monkey wrenches in their own gears.

I saw the movie Bobby today. It's about the Robert F. Kennedy assassination. It was an amazing film, really something spectacular. It follows the lives of 24 characters who are working, living, or visiting a hotel. The story weaves in and out of all these people's lives similiar to Traffic, Crash, and Magnolia. It deals with racism, just like Crash, but in a different way. Crash said everyone is racist and evil, but Bobby said that racism is wrong because everyone is human. A much stronger, less aggressive point of view.

Bobby dealt with almost every possible stage of a relationship; good friendship, work, middle aged, old aged, middle-old aged, and young. And of course, in the end, all of it was meaningless, which makes the strongest point.

RFK was not in the movie, except for his propaganda speeches. I really should have hated this movie because of the politics, but I love it because it focused on the people themselves, and put the politics on a backburner. It said that people are more important than wars, or elections, or assassinations.

It reminded me of that shady feeling I got. This time, I haven't been feeling bitter to the entire world.
But love for the entire world is always a necessary reminder.