The Poems We Used to Tell

Over on The Honea Express I just finished crying about the good old days. At the annual Christmas party that I put on a pedestal I used to recite an original poem to honor the occasion. Usually the poem was so original that I "wrote" it in my head on the way to the party. The following is no exception. The only reason that it exists to this day is that party goers were so upset that the girl with the video camera failed to tape it that they made me repeat it to be written down for the sake of prosperity. Thanks to Jeanine for insisting on that point.
The poem is classic beatnik stereotype bohemian slam, forty drunks in Santa hats and snowflake ties snapping their fingers in unison while the words are shouted over them in quick cuts of infliction and random pause. Imagine Mike Myers in 'So I Married an Axe Murderer', as it was the inspiration for the style and the beat.
(The words and sounds shown in parenthesis were performed by a friend that was out of sight of other guests.)

Christmas Party Poem 1998: The Fun One

SaSanta...
Santa Claus
He’s a hip cat,
Awful damn fat,
Pretty in red makes him jolly,
Like pink did for Molly.
He’s good and he’s wise
Doesn’t tell lies,
His reindeer flie…z
He knows who’s bad,
She was the best
I ever had.
Spank her once…for me.

Jack Frost
Jack Frost
He brings on winter
Quick like a sprinter
He makes it white and cold,
Or so I’ve been told.
At night when he’s trippin’,
Nose he’s a nippin’.
I’ll keep your cold hot
with the lovin'I got
and the whiskey I’m sippin’.

Jesus
Jesus
Took H20, made it Merlot
Got drunk and ate fish,
Was the poor boy’s wish:
Round of free bread and
Thorns on his head--
Didn’t that hurt?

Christmas
Christmas is here
I can tell by the beer.
And broke as I am
Eating green eggs and Spam,
Jimmy Stewart’s got nothing on me
Livin’ life wonder-full-y. (bell)
Every time a bell rings,
An angel gets its wings
("Come and get it!")
Or dinner’s being served.

More of the Artsy Fartsy Stuff

Seems like I've posted this before. Perhaps I did. Oh well, like "must see tv" in the summertime, it's new to me. Or you. Whatever.
I was inspired to write this poem while sitting on the toilet with a pretty severe hangover the day after my birthday and the morning after seeing Filter play in Seattle. I was looking at a book of dream interpretation and it said that dreaming of December meant that you would gain great wealth but lose a loved one in doing so. That intrigued me.
Somewhere between Seattle and Vancouver the poem wrote itself in my mind while my head leaned against the window for cold comfort. Since then it has been used by my old high school teacher in his AP English exams. Pretty cool I think. Nothing like a bunch of smart kids explaining what you meant while you were half-drunk on the can.

DREAMING OF DECEMBER

The long ride leaves me
Dreaming of December.
The shadows of heavy clouds,
The echo of melancholy piano keys
Lead me onward and away.
Hills once caressed by smooth sunlight
Turn inward under their icy coats
With their backs against frost
covered canvas of still warm fields
Left alone for now,
Stoic and forgotten,
depressing the uninspired.
I was told it should be spring,
Yet I am blind to the budding
And blooming lost between
Bouts of mists of rain.
What might I lose but you
If I forget the words to your song
Or the colors of your sky
Even the fruits that fall
Against the ground
Beneath your tree
Taste sour when you leave.
Remember my face
When you look at his,
And know how poor
I will always be.

Some Old Paintings

THE JAZZ CLUB
RED LEAVES ON DARK WATER

Published in India

I have something being published in India. It may or may not be one of my stories. I was contacted for permission to reprint Jazz, which of course I agreed to, seeing as the market for educated readers in India is fantastic. That's a lot of people being offended by my pen.
Then I was contacted again with a letter of thanks and they referred to my story as The Story of Duke's Grandpa, which you may know from Jazz as a tale within a tale.
That being the case I'm not sure what will be hitting the newsstand, but I will know when, and when I do I will share that information with you on the off chance you may wish to purchase it- which will hopefully encourage Bollywood to buy the rights. Cross your stuff.

The Buzz (a work in progress)

There are sounds that move me like a guide through these streets. Sounds that have been called silence, noise and music. To some they are healing, to some they are painful, to me, they are just the sounds that call me.
I’m not sure where I first tasted the sweetness of bourbon whiskey, but I remember how the ice rattled like dice against the empty glass before it was pounded still by the pour against it. There was muttering, a toast I suppose, and then the clanking of my glass meeting someone else’s in agreement to whatever had been said. The buzzing that competed with the whiskey for my attention. The buzzing that trapped others in thankless jobs and marriages, making them sign on dotted lines for things that no man needs but every man wants- bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger tits. I do not want for such things. I ignore the buzz.
What I want is any car, any house and I don’t give a shit about tits, just give me something warm that doesn’t cough or cry when I put my dick in it. That is what I taste in a sip of whiskey. That is why I treat my bottle like my baby, wrapped in blankets of brown bag and held close to my loving bosom, ever ready to kiss and comfort. I do not have a home, with no way to get there and nobody waiting there for me. I have cheap bottles of life attached to the end of each arm and the noises they create push me. Forward, onward, somewhere they push me. I am led without restraint.
Some years ago, I’ve lost count, I would have gladly sat my drink down and shaken your hand. I would have smiled with perfect teeth. I would have had teeth. The buzz was all around me then and I was all about it. We danced in cubicles and boardrooms. We were a regular Fred and Ginger, sashaying through the American dream, the houses, the cars and the tits. And then, just when I bent over to set down my drink and shake your extended hand, it fucked me. The American dream gave it to me good. I coughed and I cried and when the buzz turned away from me I turned away from it.
The sounds now are echoes mostly, of how it was and how I planned it to be. The noises around me, the cars and sirens and shoppers with children. I pay them as much heed as they do me. I walk a straight, albeit wobbly line, and it all dances around me like some cosmic ballet, planets around the sun; but while the planets are full of life, this sun is burnt out, and as far as it being a dance, I refuse to tango and they are reduced to a bunch of fucking idiots. The same fucking idiots that they have kissed babies and asses to become, bending over backward so as not to get the blind siding I got. Smart of ‘em.

A Funny Clip

View this clip on Vimeo

Angering Thought

What the hell do I care if someone’s purple, prays to lampshades or puts cheese in their ass? That’s their problem. I’ve got mine. How did this world ever get to where we are- where people are dying, daily by the thousands, for such things as the color of their skin, the teachings of their religion, the way they drive. It is insane. I sit in bars and converse with people that are real and decent, no matter the skeletons they feel obligated to lock away, yet when I turn on the television I am bombarded with stupidity and idiots running the world and terrorizing my neighborhood mall. It is amazing how readily people will believe what they are told about themselves. Didn’t anyone learn from Public Enemy? Don’t believe the hype. There aint nothing cool about being an idiot, no matter how many albums you sell (sorry Flav). Talk right. Stand up straight. And the next time you see someone face down in the gutter at least call him a cab before you steal his wallet.

Humbling Thought

I thought that I had made it, relatively speaking of course. There in search engines across the internet was my name. There was me being me. There was a paper written on me and one of my stories for someone’s college course. There were various blogs and quotes featuring my work. I thought that I had made it. I got cocky. I stopped looking up just my name (ego search- like you don't do it) and started looking up what I wanted the world to see me as; a prolific writer of all genres. I looked up "Whit Honea" and "poet", and instead of receiving a list of my published poems I was greeted with a screen asking me "did you mean 'what honeypot' ? "Yes. Apparently I did.

Hiatus

You may have noticed it's quiet over here. Believe it or not, that's a good thing. It means I'm actually getting some writing done, rather than rehashing old pieces and putting them on this site. That being the case this site will be on a self-imposed hiatus for a little longer. How much longer I can't say, it's up to the muse (whiskey).

Honeaexpress will continue to be updated for those of you that are jonesin' for your Whit fix- and who can blame you really?

Long Play the Night

It was the third of June, 1887, and unlike most men who called upon me, he did not have a wife and family to run home to. Where others would blush with guilt, he would hesitate and smile. Where others took their leave, he took to conversation. He was not tall for a man, but still he towered over my petite frame. His eyes absorbed the night, appearing grey as they fixed upon me. His words were soft, and they fell slowly from his heavy lips, as if every syllable demanded his complete attention.
So it was that I found myself strangely intrigued by the handsome stranger, feeling comfort in his presence. He moved unclothed to the chair where he had draped his jacket, and reached to the inside pocket, producing his money clip. Without even counting the bills he laid a stack on the small table and sat down. He had been speaking to me the whole time, and I strained to concentrate on his soft-spoken words. I realized he was telling me of a past love, and how hard it had been to leave her. Curiosity got the better of me, and I inquired as to why he had done so.
"I found myself resenting her for what she was, or rather what she wasn't. She wasn't like me, and despite my earlier denial, I knew that what I sought was myself- somewhere beneath the warm, rolling hills of her breasts. Passion that only I could know, piercing me through her eyes, as if finding my reflection in a moonlit pool. A soul, dark and deep, yet able to skip happily as a stone when thrown correctly. This I sought, yet now I cannot help but think it in vain."
Through the rain fell silence, and the man leaned back in his chair, shifting the shadow cast upon his face. I watched the flame sway across the candle, and waited for him to continue. After many minutes I decided him finished, and found myself searching for something to say. Not a sound escaped on my steamed breath, and I pondered him, finding neither lust nor pain. I rose, knowing his eyes followed, and poured us each another bourbon. I couldn't help but wonder if he saw what he longed for in me, and if so, could I love him?
I was feeling on a matter beyond my reach, for I knew myself to be yet a child. A silly girl that no man could want, let alone this stranger who lay his heart on my bed as easily as his wallet. I was beneath him, and felt grateful for the words he had spoken. I heard him stir his glass, and turned to catch his eye. A fool I certainly was, but the fantasy haunted me still.
He asked to use my basin, and I obliged, even though I had never let another. I stood awkwardly against the wall, bathing him with my eyes as if they were the sponge he now held. I felt his hands on my skin, and wished for the water he touched to quench my thirst. I could see but an outline of his torso through the dimness of my room, yet I stared, burning for him to beckon me to his side.
He did not. He bathed and dressed, then walked to the table at my bedside where he had already laid his payment. He did not look at me, although I stood naked not two feet from him. He reached into his wallet, producing another neatly pressed bill, and bestowed it upon the pile. I was about to thank him when he spoke.
"Do not thank me; it is I who offer my gratitude. This money is not spent as was our time, it is merely given. A token from a lonely man to you who have offered him refuge."
A faint smile rode across his lips as he left my room. For once the parting of a man did not make me feel a whore. My presence had served more than desire, but a genuine need as well. I had been pulled from the dirt in which I wallowed, and been given a purpose. I glanced at the smooth stack of green bills that had been the last thing he had touched, and never had I felt so alone.
My situation was not always as it is now. I had once been considered quite promising in my studies, both academic and musical. Yes, I had talent, that was never the issue. It was always a question of passion. Could I apply any amount of lust towards these noble pursuits? Finally, a day came when I had to decide which path to take. Pursue my books, or my music? It was actually a much easier choice than I had previously thought. Granted, I had been forced into both, but the tremble of the violin strings had always offered more excitement than any text I had read, by choice or not.
My father, though not a harsh man, did not approve of my decision. Much against my wishes he decided to enroll me in a New England boarding school. It was then that I decided to leave home.
I waited until the last of the servants had retired for the evening before leaving my room. I entered my father's chamber, knowing he was away on business, and left him a note of my love, and my intent. Stepping quietly down the hall, hesitating only once, I paused outside the door where my governess slept. She had been with us since my mother's passing ten years before, and she was truly my only friend. I longed to kiss her goodbye, to hear her soft voice wish me luck, but I knew she would not. She would demand I stay, and I did not wish to leave her in anger.
I had never ventured far outside Menefee, the small town of my birth. My only knowledge of New Orleans came from the stories that my governess had told me, filling me with wonder and visions of grandeur. The journey was four days by carriage and river- boat, and I quivered with anticipation.
It was quite by accident that I found this trade, selling myself to survive. It wasn't as if I had left home to become a prostitute! My ambitions had been somewhat higher.
I had combed the filthy streets, searching for a place for me and my music. Not once did anyone ask me to play. There were laughs, pity, and vulgar advances, but nobody wanted to hear a fifteen year old runaway play the violin.
My home would be either Lafayette Square or Marguerite Place, whichever seemed the safest on a particular night. Although church had never held my interest before, the guilt of leaving my father weighed heavy, causing me to attend mass at St. Patrick's. Finally, the streets took their toll, and my appearance passed the realm of acceptance. My presence was no longer welcome in God's house.
Often I slept under the eye of my savior, my inspiration, Margaret Haughery, the "Orphan's Friend". Her likeness had been erected in stone by the women of the city, praising her for her life of devotion to charity. Many hours her gaze fell across my troubled brow, my winding back arched into the sky as my neck lay upon her frozen gown. In times of loneliness she was all I had to turn to. I would sleep at her feet, and dream of my father.
It wasn't until months later while sitting in a cafe, sipping coffee that I had purchased with coins dropped in my instrument case, that I got my first real look at a prostitute. My God, she was beautiful! I watched her for hours, talking to the men and women that approached her. Finally she disappeared with a tall blond man. They had walked off arm in arm, as if longtime lovers out for an evening stroll. I wondered if perhaps my assumptions were wrong about the woman. What if she hadn't been a prostitute at all, but a friendly woman waiting on her tardy companion? I decided to come back the next evening and see if I had done her an injustice.
She was there again the following night, and the next, always waiting for her lovers to appear. Every night she seemed more beautiful than the night before, clothed in fine gowns, and hair pulled up into an elegant bun on the top of her head. She was always the lady, always perfect.
After weeks of my spying she began to take notice of me. I started playing my violin on the corner opposite her, knowing my music reached her ears, drowning out the echoes of squeaky carriages and heavy horses that divided us. There was always a hint of sadness in her eyes when she glanced my way. I faced myself in the window to see what she saw. I was gaunt and filthy, having slept the past months in parks and alleys, amidst shadows of forgotten people, and gutters flowing with excrement. There had been beauty once, but cold and hunger were not kind, and my reflection was but a faded image of what I once was. I was too proud to pity myself, and too pathetic to realize it. My entire existence would have just dissipated into the wind eventually if not for the happiness she gave me. Other than dreaming of my father, the desire I had each day to watch this captivating woman became all that I knew, all that I cared about.
One evening when it appeared that she might not meet her lover, I found the courage to approach her. I placed my violin in its case, and stepped from the small circle of light that the street lamp provided. I moved towards her as I saw others move towards her, for truly, I too loved her. She took me by the arm, leading me not to the nearby St. Charles Hotel as I had expected, but to her home.
She allowed me to bathe, and fed me before she even asked my name. "Clarise", I answered, not remembering the last time I had heard it spoken. I then proceeded to give her my narrative, in more detail than was actually necessary. Hearing my words aloud caused tears in my eyes, and soon I had cried myself to sleep in her arms.
Morning found me alone in a large chamber, not unlike the room I had left behind. I searched the entire house for Natasha, finding her at last in the garden. She wore a robe of silk, and carried a radiance about her that seemed to compliment the flowers as much as they did her. There was a scent of lilac in the air, which basked her as if it were her own. She smiled when I stepped outside, and gestured for me to join her at a small table where our breakfast was already waiting.
I stayed as her guest for well over three months. In that time we shared our stories, our dreams, and our love. It was unlike any other experience, and I relished it.
The topic of her profession however, was one that she refused to discuss. I tried constantly to persuade her to take me along, grant me a life such as hers. I wished to have the strength she had, and the independence that came with it. I dreamed of waking every morning to the beauty of my own garden, covering myself in satin sheets when I retired to bed. The control she had over her life, over men, was intoxicating.
She always refused. I came to resent her for that. How could she deny me such opportunity? Perhaps I posed a threat to her with my youth and my charm. Perhaps she was jealous. I decided to pursue the matter alone.
I waited until Natasha left for the evening, then dressed in the finest gown given me, and I too went for a stroll.
I hoped my months of observation would provide me with the poise and grace necessary to attract the proper clientele, but still I stumbled and blushed with nervousness.
At that time I was very intimidated by men, and I trembled when one approached me. Daring not to take him to Natasha's, we proceeded to his home.
He had bid me to undress, and forced me upon the wood of his bedroom floor. His mouth locked unto mine, his tongue throwing wicked lashes against my own. His hands violated every part of my person. There were no moments of subtle whispers, only boisterous commands. The acts we engaged in were both painful and awkward, and I cried aloud to God, not in ecstasy, but in despair.
He finally gave in to exhaustion, and I ran the whole way home, payment in hand.
The next morning, during our garden breakfast routine, Natasha asked me where I had spent the night. I started to ask what she meant, but it was obvious that she wanted an answer.
"I stayed at a man's house." I replied.
"What man?"
"I don't know his name, he was just business."
Before I could blink, her hand, which only moments before was soft and kind, slapped my face.
I fled to my room, not like the woman I wished to be, but like the little girl that I was.
Sometime that night, shortly after darkness fell, she came to me in my chamber. We exchanged apologies and excuses as our tears flowed into one mighty stream, soiling the pillow on its journeys end. I knew then that it would be the last time she ever held me. I took my leave, kissing her lips as sleep took her in.
Again I found myself alone in the cluttered streets of New Orleans. The nights were humid and clung to my skin with the foul stench of open sewage and unbathed bodies filling the air. I buried my hunger in my sleep, only escaping for a few hours at a time, always waking to the pain of emptiness, the pounding of the cold wind upon my face. I clutched my violin case to my chest, harboring it, fearing to open it lest the last shards of my humanity leak out. Lost, I returned to my woman in the park, my silent confessional, praying for her wisdom to guide me.
Her words never found me. She had spent a life helping those abandoned by others, whereas I had abandoned myself. I sat for days with my back to the statue, inviting sleep to take me. I looked over the grounds littered with the desolate, the sick, and the drunk. Across the way two Creole boys, their flesh bleached with opium, exchanged favors with an older man. I could hear the joy in their young voices as they took their prize into the night, running through the trees pulling their trousers from around their ankles. It was then that I realized my only chance of survival came in the path that I had already started, the footprints of Natasha.
I watched the old man wind his way through the masses of waste that separated us. He stood above me, pinning me against the base of the statue, as if between two giant bookends. I gave a glance towards the stone face, and knew she could not save me.
Though the man was a stranger, his presence carried an odd comfort, like that of my father about to scold me. I found myself enjoying the fear he imposed upon me. He flashed me a toothless smile, and offered me his hand.
There in the park I committed myself to my profession. He had his way with me amongst the filth of the city, and he left me where he had found me, clutching his money, drenched in his odor, and thankful that I would finally eat.
A year now stands between the brief happiness that Natasha gave me and the sadness I have brought upon myself. Ironic that on this night, this anniversary of our last embrace, that I find another that strikes the same passion and awe in me that I thought only Natasha capable of.
This man, like countless before, came into my life not because of who I was, but what I was. However, that is where the similarities end. He carried not only his lust and his money, but a story, a sorrow. He gave me humanity, something that I had long forgotten. I prayed that he would seek my comforts again.
Six nights passed before I saw his face, and as before he walked alone, immaculately dressed, and appeared both surprised and relieved when he caught my gaze. I knew then, that indeed, I could love him.
He escorted me to the hotel room that was my practice, and locked the door behind him. I wished to know his name, but feared my words would halt the moment. Then, without taking his eyes from mine, he breathed the name Courtland. I then heard my voice return the introduction, as if my name was pulled from me. The entire exchange seemed odd, almost forced, but gentle. I felt my will was not all my own.
We never touched that night. We sat in the flickering darkness of my small room, and spoke of childhood dreams and the breezes of springtime, of books we had read and music that we loved. Topics I had never before found words to express, or a soul to confide in.
I played for him with all the passion that burned within me. Never had I played so well, and never had I witnessed the response of emotion that fell from Courtland's eye. I continued long after he wept himself to sleep, then lay my tired body around his.
He returned the next night, again declining my favors. Never since leaving home had I felt such peace, such trust as in his presence. As before we talked through the night, and many times, when I believed him deep in thought, he would smile, and ask me to play. He never grew tired of listening to my music, even after fatigue had caused me to error he would say, "Again Clarise, please let me hear it again."
Courtland was gone when morning came, leaving me to wonder if it all had been a dream. I rose from my plush bed, and adjusted the shades on the east window. It was then that I noticed an envelope tucked under the vase on the nightstand. I opened it finding a rather large sum of money. Just as I was feeling both foolish and insulted, I saw that there was a note attached:
My dearest Clarise,
this money is not for
your work. It is so
you do not have to.
love,
Courtland
Was I mad? Did his hand actually write of love? Could it be true?
I twirled my silk robe as I danced in circles throughout my tiny ballroom. I grabbed my violin and played with a joy that only love could create. I danced and played until I could no longer stand, and then I fell into the satin sheets of my welcoming bed, and dreamed of him again.
When at last night returned I dressed in one of my finest velvet gowns, and waited for my love, knowing his arrival was imminent.
Time passed without a trace of Courtland. Could it be I was mistaken?
I begged God to fulfill my visions, asking for him to bring the man that I loved. The air around me grew stale as my hopes, with the night, slipped away. I called upon the company that only misery could bring, sitting in blackness, and drowning myself in bourbon as the sorrow poured from my violin. I doubted God, and I doubted my visions, but worst of all, I doubted my heart.
I played through the night until my fingers grew as numb as my soul, and then I played some more. Come sunlight all that lived were my hands and my bow, still screaming the pain that I knew.
By the next evening I knew the continuous rhythm to be not a scream as I first thought, but just the whining of a girl engulfed in self-pity. I let the instrument fall from my grasp, and looked down at the blood that stained the fingers on my left hand, the welts growing on my right, and I surrendered to sleep.
I was still alone the next morning. I sat on the foot of my bed, knowing the time had come for a change. I thought of Natasha, and how happy she had appeared, content in her life. Why had I not seen her sorrow, her loneliness? I realized that I had become like her, losing my own dreams somewhere along the way.
I wanted to burn my bed, where night upon night I had forgotten who I was, soiling my ambitions. Each man I had brought in had taken me one more step away from pursuing the music that I loved, and pushed me deeper into the lie I now lived.
Could I return home? I missed my father, my governess, and even my studies. It would be so easy to accept my failures, and run to my father begging forgiveness, but I did not wish to fail. It was not yet time to concede that I had lost.
No, I would not go home. I had saved enough money to live comfortably for months, allowing me time to pursue the music that had brought me to the city in the first place.
Over a week had passed since Courtland disappeared, and still I found myself thinking of him. I had managed to leave the streets behind me, but still I lacked the strength to carry my violin from the room. Instead I wrote, I played, and I dreamed, always with Courtland in the back of mind. Had he left me for his old lover, or had he found the soul that he searched for? Everyday that passed without him was one more day I spent in pain.
I warmed myself in the morning sunlight that found its way through my window. I pressed my cheek against the glass, watching the world pass beneath me, and the irony that my view provided me. Not long ago I would have thought myself incapable of looking down on anyone, I had no right. Yet here I sat, casting my glance, along with my judgements, upon the people in the street below. There were men in suits carrying large amounts of food for evening dinners. Women and children stood at store windows, all gay in their strolling, as if on a holiday. How dare they have someone to go home to, leaving me to spend my every moment alone. I envied them just as I despised them.
I noticed the hunger filling my body, and I dressed for market. I reached for the bills that covered my nightstand like fallen leaves, but I stopped. This was the money given to me by Courtland, given as a gift. I pondered what my acceptance of this token would mean. If indeed it was given in love, then accepting it would suggest I felt the same. However, if the money had been left as payment for a perverse fetish, of which my heart was the victim, then taking it would make me as much a fool as a whore. I decided to leave the bills unraked, and went in search of other funds.
It was moments later in the corner store that my greatest fear was realized. I had stood studying a small baguette, when I noticed a man watching me from across the aisle. I let my eyes climb towards his, expecting Courtland's knowing smile to greet me. What I found were the tired eyes of a worried man.
The man was my father. I heard the bread bounce on the wooden floor, and I trembled as he walked slowly towards me. My first instinct was to cry, then to run, but I did neither. I let him embrace me, and I collapsed in his arms.
When I regained my composure I took my father's arm, and let him escort me into the street. We moved together as if lovers on a stroll, so happy with each others presence that words were not necessary.
As we headed into the corridor that guarded my room I realized that it was he who had guided our path. How did he know where I stayed? What else did he know of me? Shame shot through my veins, and I wished for God to strike me down, knowing my prayer would go unanswered.
I was surprised to turn the handle on the door and find it unlocked. I tried to smile at my father, fearing the wrath he would unleash once inside. He returned a forced grin of his own, and gestured me to enter the room.
On my bed sat Courtland, and my heart skipped as our eyes met. At once I was nauseous, and I excused myself into the morning air.
I paced nervously along the railing outside my door. My mind raced with the accusations I would hear, and the excuses I would make. Would the word `whore' escape my father's lips? Would I deny what I had been? Once again my mind turned to running, but I knew I could not. Not a day had gone by that some piece of guilt had not found me, often bringing tears at the pain that I had caused my father. I bit my lip and entered the room.
There across the room sat my father, chatting quietly with a smiling Courtland. I pressed my eyes shut, wishing them away, but when I peeked again they still appeared. They both stood when they saw me enter.
"Come eat, dear," my father invited, pointing to the lavish plate sitting on the table beside him.
I did as I was instructed. I was so fearful of conversation that I ate the entire meal without breaking for breath or water. As I wiped my chin I looked at the men that I loved.
My father. My poor father whom I had deserted. I had been selfish in my leaving him. My decision to come to the city had been made only in thinking of myself. I dreamed of playing the violin in a beautiful orchestra, and not furthering my studies as my father had wished. His presence at my side was both intimidating and comforting.
Courtland, the man who let me see what I had become, and not judged me because of it. His very name sending shivers across my back. Where had he been, and why had my father not been upset to find a strange man in my room?
Surely there was no secret of what was, until just days ago, my occupation. Yet my father remained calm, and Courtland remained smiling.
"My dearest daughter, as upset as I have been, it does my old heart wonder to see you well. This gentleman who brought me to you has indeed earned my blessing." My father placed his hand on the shoulder of Courtland. "I hear you have a brilliant future in the orchestra, and to fall in love with the conductor, it would appear your dream has come true."
I stood uneasily, "Orchestra? Blessing? Of what do you bless me, Father?"
"Why, to be wed of course."
I darted my eyes to Courtland. "Wed?"
"Only if you'll have me, Clarise." Courtland actually looked nervous, as if there was even a doubt of my love for him.
"Father," I said, smiling as I spoke, "would you please excuse us a moment?"
"Certainly." He winked as he nodded, lighting his pipe as he stepped out the door.
Turning to Courtland my mind was a tempest of unanswered questions. Apparently he interpreted my silence as an invitation for his affection, and he leaned forward to kiss me. Suddenly, my hand, which had been prepared for an embrace, flew open against his cheek.
"How dare you lie to my father." I scolded him with my finger as I spoke. "Telling him that I will be in an orchestra, and that you," my face grew flushed as my voice became louder, "and you, who cries when a whore plays the violin, are the conductor! How dare you!". My fist tightened when the words were gone, and the thought of striking him again entered my mind.
"Clarise, please be still, do you want to alarm your father?". He gently took my fisted hand by the wrist, and directed me towards the chair. "I can explain myself."
"It best be good." I whispered just loud enough for him to hear.
"It is true. I cried when you played, for it was at that moment that I realized that I had indeed found my reflection, and what I saw was you.". He stepped away from me, causing me to recall the night that he had told me of his search for the perfect love. I smiled as the memory of my fantasy rushed back to me.
It had come true! My longing to be the love of which he had spoken was finally realized. I fought back my joy and inquired as to the rest of the story he had told my father.
"Again, it is true. I am the conductor, and you do have the brightest of futures in the orchestra." He returned my smile and kneeled at my feet.
"Even if I do not agree to marry you?". I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt.
He appeared as if I had indeed struck him again, and looked at my violin case resting on the bed. "Yes, I would like you to play regardless of your decision."
I felt as if some wild fever overcame my body, starting at my toes, and ending on my lips as I replied, "Then I will marry you."
Courtland jumped to his feet, causing me to laugh as he danced with the gown I had placed over a chair. He spun himself around, stopping at me, and extended his hand. We must have danced for an hour before my father entered, bewildered that we could have forgotten him outside, and ecstatic that his daughter's dreams had been fulfilled.
EPILOGUE:
Many nights when my mind starts to wander, I find myself on my old street corner watching the young girls play their instruments. Sometimes I’ll play my violin for the crowds that gather. Always searching for her face, not sure if I crave her praise, or her jealousy, if indeed she has either. If she would have it I would try to help her, as she once tried to help me. But I fear it is all in vain, for I have never seen Natasha again.

Have a Pabst Tiff

It's my sister's birthday today. Here's a little clip from Madness & Bubblegum that was inspired by my sister and the part-time job she had of delivering mail in the twilight zone.

My sister runs a rural mail-route in the middle of Nowhere, Arizona. It's the kind of place where you will find more mobile homes than teeth. A part of back road America where trespassers will be shot, and shoes and shirts are optional. It is the Bible belt, the wild west, the backbone, and the heartland. It's too close for comfort.
She's a pretty girl, my sister, with shoes and a full set of teeth. She likes country music and cowboys, tattoos and trucks, but she is far from relating to the element that surrounds her through her work day.
However, the element lives high on the confidence of Coors and Milwaukee's Best, and they have plans for this pretty girl delivering their court summons and food stamps. They want her on the back of their motorcycles, and sitting tight against their side on the bench seat of their Ford pick-up. They talk to her of Nascar, and look for their reflection against the shine of her smile. Then they both laugh, her because it's funny, and them for not knowing what else to do. I like to think that I’m different from them, but I don’t know really. I mean how many times did I have a bowl of chili and three glasses of whiskey for dinner?

Faith and the Lack Thereof

He had heard that God existed, but he had never actually seen him. For Holden McAllister seeing was believing, and therefore he had his doubts. Then again he had never seen Betty Straus' breasts, but he had no doubt of their existence, or their magnificence. He was a young man of controversy, but he could live with it.
One other thing that he had not seen first hand, yet was quite convinced of it's presence, was war. America was fighting a war that he opposed for two reasons; the first being that young men were dying for a cause that they didn't believe in, and the second was that he could die for a cause that he didn't believe in. More and more he became occupied with ways to stay alive, and more so with ways to see Betty's breasts. These were the driving forces in the life that Holden was surviving.
His friends were all gone now, either drafted or dodging, and he was feeling the hot breath of his impending draft notice breathing down his neck every time he saw the mailbox. He finally vowed to avoid the box and the mail altogether, and started leaving the house only threw the backdoor. He soon realized however, that his family was not the only ones in the neighborhood that received mail in equally haunting mailboxes, so he returned to his earlier practice of using the front door, but only at night when possible. Any necessary daytime travels would cause his hands to immediately rise to each temple as makeshift blinders, making him feel like a horse as he trotted to the bus stop.
It was at the bus stop that he saw Betty and her wool covered breasts. His narrow focal point zoomed to the treasures that she hid in her sweater until her purse swung square into his unsuspecting head and knocked the blinders right off. He walked back home to find that his mother had brought in the mail and left it on the kitchen table.
One afternoon his mother, much to Holden's dismay, brought his growing stack of mail directly to his room. He screamed as she dropped the letters on his bed. "Mom, what are you doing?"
"We're playing bridge honey. We need the table." She smiled at him in a way that frightened Holden, as if she knew something that he didn't. It was a look that said,"Yes, it's there son, and as soon as you leave we're putting four card tables in your bedroom." He looked at the letters cautiously.
The first was from his best friend, Higgins, who had actually volunteered for the service. Holden was convinced that Higgins was an idiot.
It wasn't the first letter that he had received from his friend since he left for V- and that damned war. The letters were actually quite amusing as Higgins had managed, due to severe allergies that the army had somehow overlooked, to land a job as the bartender and caretaker of the officer's club on his base. There were always dirty japes that he had overheard or been told by the officers as they got drunk and lonely in his bar. Some of the officers even started to become familiar to Holden as he read their accounts, as if they were characters in an entertaining book. The letter was about Holden's favorite character, a drunken colonel that treated Higgins like his personal servant. It was humorous enough that the thought of going to V- didn't seem so bad, but only to watch.
The letter ended with a few words of personal note and an inquiry to the treasures of Betty Straus.
The next few letters were nothing important. The last one was from Higgins' mother. She wrote to tell him that her son had been killed in V- when he was driving a colonel, and their jeep had hit a mine. She wasn't sure if it was the same drunk colonel.
Holden tore up the letter and ran out of his room, past the bridge game, past Betty Straus and her breasts, all the way to Higgins' home eight blocks away. There were cars that he didn't recognize in the drive, and fearing that they might be military people who would wonder why he wasn't giving his life for drunk colonels, he stopped and went back home. The breath on his neck got hotter.
He devoted hours to the library, searching any book that might hold a way for him to avoid the draft. He refused to embarrass his father by running to Canada. His health was great and his grades were bordering him on expulsion. He had two older brothers that were either graduated or close to graduating from college, and both were married. Every loophole slowly tightened like a noose as he read frantically through the restrictions that made each unattainable.
It was on such a day, when he had walked with blinders around the kitchen table, put them in his pocket as he tried not to stare at Betty's sweater passing him on the sidewalk, that he first saw God. He was on page seventy-six of a lawbook regarding the legalities of a wartime draft, paragraph four, clause two: CLERGY EXEMPT. Clergy exempt period, no footnotes or restrictions, fine print, or regulations, just exemption, and with it salvation. So it was that Holden McAllister became Brother McAllister of the Vivavino Monastery and Wine Distributing Company.
Days passed into months, and those into years, and although he couldn't recall ever taking an oath of silence, he had yet to hear a single word. Brother McAllister passed the time by picking grapes and drinking wine with the other silent monks. On Sundays they prayed. Everyone except him, who continued to drink wine and pondered if he really had faith, or whether or not he had ever seen magnificent breasts. Time had passed so cruelly on his hormones that he began to doubt their very existence. These thoughts perplexed him, and yet kept him strangely focused. He was positive that they were the grounds for his staying sane.
"I've got to see some tits before I go insane!" he would write repeatedly in his journal, which of course only confirmed the fact that he was indeed crazy, since breasts didn't even exist. His desire to accept the unproven only drew him closer to the other monks that picked grapes everyday but Sunday.
It was when he stumbled upon Brother Epstein drinking wine in the game room that his lack of faith was exposed into the open.
"Do you really think that you're the only one here that doesn't believe in God?" he asked McAllister as soon as he entered the room.
"What are you talking about?" was Holden's reply as he was startled by two things at the exact same time. Those things being the question, and the fact that it had been asked aloud by a voice other than his own.
"I read it in your journal. You doubt God.", Brother Epstein continued as he offered the wine with a graceful swooping gesture.
"You read my journal?"
"Of course."
Brother McAllister sipped straight from the bottle. "Are you suggesting that you don't believe in God?"
"It's not a suggestion," said Epstein with such conviction that you would think he spoke everyday. "It's a fact."
"Then why are you here?"
Brother Epstein opened another bottle. "Because I feel guilty. I feel bad for not believing."
"You feel guilty for not believing in God so you've devoted your whole life to him?"
"Yes, to make it up. Penance."
"To whom are you making this penance?" asked McAllister in disbelief.
"Well, God of course." Epstein answered, failing to understand his companions lack of comprehension.
"Of course," repeated McAllister,"who else?"
They drank for a moment in mutual thought. "Epstein, why did you break your oath of silence to tell me that?"
"Oath? There's no oath."
"Then why are you the first person to speak to me since I've arrived?" McAllister snapped in disbelieving anger.
"Nobody talks to each other. They're fighting over existence."
"Of God?"
"Breasts."
On that day Holden decided to leave the Vivavino Monastery and Wine Distribution Company, and promised to contact them with any information he could obtain regarding the faith. The monks waved him farewell, but none spoke, not even Epstein.
Holden returned to the outside world unsure of his status. Was he still exempt? Was he still clergy? Was he ever clergy? He took comfort in the fact that he was almost twenty-five now, and would soon be older than the government wanted their dying boys to be. He also took sadness in the fact that he was almost twenty-five now, and wasn't sure he had ever seen breasts.
These were the thoughts that plagued him as he slept on the sofa in his parents' livingroom. His father had been so embarrassed that his son had become a monk instead of running off to Canada like any other good American boy would have done, that he had turned Holden's room into a game room, complete with wine rack.
Two weeks passed, it was his birthday and he was walking to the mailbox, which was difficult with blinders on, in hopes of a card from his grandma with a lovely check tucked inside, when it happened.
They were more spectacular than he ever could have dreamed. Pinned between his hands on either side of his head, and pushed smack against his face they sat, as if they had been coming up the sidewalk to welcome him home. He had turned towards them from his walkway. His blinders were on and his neck was hunched over so as to watch his feet, when he ran right into Betty Straus, and with her, her breasts. The smacking of a purse against his head sat them free, and he immediately sent a telegram to the monastery.
A telegram that was received by Brother Epstein who quickly let out a shout of joy in knowing that his faith had been restored. The other monks also rejoiced, and they loaded all of their wine onto their official monastery bus to go on a crusade into the holy city and see for themselves.
Later that afternoon is when the second best thing to ever happen to Holden occurred. He and his father had just loaded their truck with bricks and rocks for a wall they were building when they heard on the radio that the war was over. He had never been so happy, and his father drove straight to the train station where there was sure to be a party with all of the returning soldiers, drunk monks, and girls with beautiful breasts in town.
"What a great birthday." his father said as he padded Holden on the shoulder. His father was so proud that his son had joined a monastery, and couldn't wait to show him off in front of all the other fathers who were embarrassed that their sons had been so un-American as to fight in the war instead of fleeing to Canada.
They drove the weighed down truck slowly through town so that everyone would be sure to get a stone to throw.

Letter From the Editor (hey, that's me!)

It has been suggested that I have been dumping a bit of filler on this site. That's not to say it isn't quality, most of the posting are pieces that I am very happy with, whereas others are more, um...lacking I guess. That being said, then yes, I have dumped some filler here, but only as a way to keep the site updated on a regular basis. This shit is hard man. Of course, who am I to suggest you will like or dislike the same pieces as me. My favorites may be lining your canary's cage and vice versa, assuming any of us actually own canarys and/or cages.
All in all, I do believe that the site is doing ok, regardless of the few weak links that have surfaced. If you would like to add your thoughts then please leave a comment, otherwise shut the fuck up.
Thank you-
Whit

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

THE TAB OF AN IRISHMAN

Damn that which swelled within
causing anger, and then the end.
Instead of treating life like wine
sipping, not tipping, a thing so fine,
I forced her down, drunk as hell
until she left, and the bottle fell.
Then I lay upon the floor
amid the pity, a timid bore
screaming out that I'd been kicked,
my heart, my soul, they'd all been tricked!
I cursed that jester, cursed his name,
'til I took pause, for mine was the same.
Was it true? Was it I?
That bid she leave, that sad goodbye?
It was. It is. I brought this 'bout
when all she asked was time without
the pressure, the hurting, and the fear,
but I sipped not once, I did not hear.
Within her heart did a cancer seed,
and in my darkness I gave it speed,
letting it fester, build, and grow
and when came fall, the time to sow
it was ripe, it left the vine
along with which it took my wine.
Then it was I rose from the floor,
put on my jacket, and made for the door.
Glancing back I was glad to see
that what I left was the weakened me.
I stepped outside and gave a shout,
"I've gotten rid, the beast is out!"
And although the street was brisk and bare,
I had to smile, for I knew out there
was the girl of whom I drank too fast,
and though she left my drunken past,
I had the faith that after a while
she would return my heart, and I her smile.
And so it is with empty glass
I await the day to enjoy my lass.

DRIVING TO WORK ON A MONDAY MORNING

With socks not matching, shorts and hat
I drove slowly by the "hey baby" catcalls
of thirteen year old girls smoking cigarettes
on the far end of the football field
during their catholic school recess,
wondering if it was me, or the car.

LIFE ON THE DULL SIDE: A POEM; or 34 ON A TUESDAY: AN ESSAY

My stomach ain’t what it used to be
Iron lining and flat as a board
Now eaten away by glasses of Beam
And expanded by bottles of Bass.
My hair is retreating
And my bones depleting.
I get older and I get along.
One more shell of broken dreams.

THE RAINDANCE

I dance upon the breath of a thousand lies
To unknown breasts
And forgotten lips
Aloof with the pride of man
And the loneliness of one night stands
Wondering . . .
How many drinks to the bottom of a soul?
And how does a heart burn so cold?
But there is warmth in the whiskey,
And a song on the jukebox,
So I shall drink
And I shall dance,
Until the music stops.

LIES & THE LIARS THAT WRITE THEM, I.E. ME

I have decided to create my own style of fiction, genre if you will, which will be called liation. Basically it will consist of taking the truth and passing it off as fiction. Why would someone do this? There are many reasons. The first is that they are tying to protect someone and/or the feelings of said someone. More likely though, is that the writer is lazy and unimaginative but has experienced and/or heard experiences that make for an entertaining read. Hence, truth, albeit stretched in matters of size, i.e. fish and/or penis. That is where the word liation comes from, "lia" being the base of "liar" and "tion" being the end of fiction, and probably meaning something that would be relevant in this new form.
Admittedly, this new style, while shiny and still smelling of leather seats and freshly unwrapped pieces of pine scented cardboard, is not entirely new outside the realm of writing. Liation was first created in ancient Rome, or perhaps Greece, and was called "Politics". The main difference between "Politics" and my creation is that the original was implemented into society in order to screw people, while mine was created to get people to screw me. This may sound like splitting hairs, but really, there is a world of difference.
Take if you will our current example of a political figure, George W. Bush. Seriously, take him. I know that is an old joke, but it is a perfect example of how art from the past becomes the liation of today. In this case the classic "take my wife. . .please" comedic styling of Henny Youngman, wherein his plea to take his wife is very real, but he plays it off like a joke so as to keep her from getting pissed. Not only is this smart in terms of wit and comedic genius, but also in terms of not having to sleep on the couch.
The uses of liation are only limited by the imagination. Of course, if the liator had much imagination then they would be capable of creating actual fiction rather than taking this shortcut. To further illustrate my point I have provided the following short example of liation. I hope that you enjoy it:
I have decided to create my own style of fiction, genre if you will, which will be called liation. Basically it will consist of taking the truth and passing it off as fiction. Why would someone do this? There are many reasons. The first is that they are tying to protect someone and/or the feelings of said someone. More likely though, is that the writer is lazy and unimaginative but has experienced and/or heard experiences that make for an entertaining read. Hence, truth, albeit stretched in matters of size, i.e. fish and/or penis. That is where the word liation comes from, "lia" being the base of "liar" and "tion" being the end of fiction, and probably meaning something that would be relevant in this new form.
Admittedly, this new style, while shiny and still smelling of leather seats and freshly unwrapped pieces of pine scented cardboard, is not entirely new outside the realm of writing. Liation was first created in ancient Rome, or perhaps Greece, and was called "Politics". The main difference between "Politics" and my creation is that the original was implemented into society in order to screw people, while mine was created to get people to screw me. This may sound like splitting hairs, but really, there is a world of difference.
Take if you will our current example of a political figure, George W. Bush. Seriously, take him. I know that is an old joke, but it is a perfect example of how art from the past becomes the liation of today. In this case the classic "take my wife. . .please" comedic styling of Henny Youngman, wherein his plea to take his wife is very real, but he plays it off like a joke so as to keep her from getting pissed. Not only is this smart in terms of wit and comedic genius, but also in terms of not having to sleep on the couch.
The uses of liation are only limited by the imagination. Of course, if the liator had much imagination then they would be capable of creating actual fiction rather than taking this shortcut. To further illustrate my point I have provided the previous short example of liation. I hope that you enjoyed it.

UNCLE SAM HAS A FARM or AN ESSAY ON SLAPPING THE OTHER CHEEK

So, I'm over on http://honeaexpress.blogspot.com doing that voodoo that I do, and I'm talking about building an ark. It's wet here. That idea brought to mind this little piece that I was saving for another rant about hating my job, but felt it worked nicely here. Some things have changed since this was written in 2001, most noticeably, we are living in CA, have a bigger place, less debt, more cats and a baby. Just little changes.

I live on a farm. A 725 square feet farm. And on this farm we have some pets. E-I-E-I-O. We have two dogs that weigh close to eighty pounds each, and two cats, one that is sweet and one that is evil personified. Catified. Two dogs, two cats, and two people; Noah wait up!
I'm from the country originally, although the 'country' left home shortly after I did, leaving housing tracts and strip malls in its wake. What used to be farmland is now 'civilized' and the country took a bus to somewhere else.
That's what I did too. I left for somewhere else, for 'civilization'. I'm still looking. In the meantime, you can take the guy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the guy. Hence, the farm.
Why, you might ask, would two people trapped beneath a mountain of debt and despair take on the responsibility of raising pets? That is a question that we hear often. Usually from ourselves when we are wiping any number of interesting things from the floor. Why the hell are we doing this again?
But we know why. Love. It is for love. The love we give them and even more so, the love that they give us. Every stereotype about unconditional love from a pet is true, only better. They love us, and let's face it, we need that.
In the shadow of September 11th love has gone from shelves of Hallmark to the lips of news anchors. There is a lovefest in this country, and it is out of sadness. We are sorry for the victims, the heroes that became victims, the ones that made it, and the ones left behind. We are sorry for firemen, policemen, medics, soldiers, construction workers, and reporters, anyone that has had to step foot in places we have only seen on television, with tears in our eyes. We are sorry for what happened, what is happening, what they did, and what they are doing, and even more so, for not telling them that we loved them long ago.
The pets don't love out of sadness, they are happy and grateful. In a moment they can turn tears into smiles, and maybe, just maybe, somehow tie your heartstrings back together, albeit loosely, so that you can sleep at night. They have no regrets. They send you off to work in the morning, sleep all day, and greet you eagerly upon your return.
They send me off every morning to a job that I do not like. I really despise it. It is low paying and dead-end. It is equal parts stress and boredom. I work at a mindless, meaningless, monotonous, and mundane job. But the insurance is good, and it pays the bills, which is something that we cannot overlook right now. So I grit my teeth all day, taking long walks down to the coffee shop instead of punching my boss, and I think happy thoughts about winning the lottery and buying a bigger farm. Someday we will all buy the farm. Does yours love you?
There is sad love in the lobby of my building. People converse in elevators and bank lines. Pretty girls in business skirts who have looked through me for years strike up topics of general chit-chat for 18 floors instead of staring intently at the descending numbers light in a countdown to freedom. Strangers smile at each other. My fly is not down and people smile at me. It is loving ones neighbor and it is as beautiful as it is sad. Why did it take what it took for people to realize that they care about each other?
There is something else in this smile that we share; it is the look in the eyes that tells us that we have your respective backs. " I have never seen you before, may never see you again, but I'm glad that you are well, and if the shit goes down I will fight to the death to save you. Have a nice day." That is what a three-second smile in the lobby of my building gets you. Not bad. And it is true. We are unified. We will fight evil together.
Evil is much grander than it used to be. I referred to my cat as evil. He isn't evil so much as he isn't very nice. Especially to the other cat. Evil is terrorism. It is so much harder to label than the dreaded communism of my youth. Those were commies. They lived in the USSR and we beat them in hockey. You don't play hockey with terrorists.
Communists were human beings with different ideologies that seemed worth fighting over once, but now seem trivial in the world today. The world of evil. This, of course, is the way the world works, we could never have the type of love that we have if we didn't have this evil to pit it against. It is balance the ying to the yang. We are against it, but we don't know what it is.
What is a terrorist? A Muslim? No. Someone from the Middle East? No. It is so much bigger than that. Just ask the people in Oklahoma City. Terror can be anywhere. Anyone. Therein lies the dirty little secret of our lovefest. As much as we are sincere in all that a smile conveys, there is also this, "P.S., if you have any plans to hurt anyone I will kill you." Eye for an eye and all that. It is scary.
Where is this enemy that we hate so much? I don't even know if hate is a strong enough word. I have always thought it to be the strongest. Yet, there is more pain and loathing in my heart for this evil than anything I have ever bothered to hate before. Just as our love transcends new heights, so too does our hatred.
We, America, and to large extent, much of the global community, are experiencing an awakening. A determination to be strong and happy in the face of grave and lurking danger. To be ready to jump into action should the situation arise. There is a line we are walking between living our lives to the fullest and being alert to any challenge against it. A lifeline if you will. If only Regis could guide us! But he can't. He is but one of us in this humbling of our country. Our 'heroes' are no longer the fodder of the E! Channel, but found in sobering pictures in newspapers and emails. They are ordinary people doing amazing things. They are any of us if need be, and we hope it never will.
We want nothing more than to live our lives, and work our stupid jobs, with the idea that we are safe, and that people love us. We want girls in elevators to talk to us because they think that we look like Kevin Costner, and not out of some underlying since of duty. We want strangers to smile at us because there is no evil left that we have to recruit each other against, and maybe it's just that my fly actually is down. It is physically draining this lifeline, this hope. Yet, every night when I step foot into my farm I am loved, without compromise or threat. For a moment I can put my guard down and breathe. I can smile because I have a wife and pets that are glad I am well, and would fight to the death to save me. Except perhaps one cat. And that is what it is all about.

Fear & Loathing in Death

Well, in one brief moment Hunter S. Thompson was able to accomplish what 67 years of drug abuse couldn't- death. I'm very sorry to see him go and think he's a jackass for going. His style, his "gonzo journalism" inspired me so much that I was taken off the sports beat of my college paper. Apparently, according to my editor, readers don't care what I'm doing in the stands, they want to know about the game. Go figure. That is what Thompson did, he didn't cover an event, he covered the impact the event was having on those, mainly himself, in the area. My list of how to pick up a girl in the stands of a basketball game, which should have been titled 'how not to', was a direct result of me being more interested in the teachings of Hunter S. Thompson (and girls of course) than JC basketball.
He was a crazy talent and to be honest I can't believe he lasted as long as he did. Rest in peace Hunter- you jackass.

APATHY OF ANGELS: AN ESSAY

I’m neither fat nor lazy. I am out of shape and tired. It isn’t easy living life these days. Television is taxing and taxes are television. Death and steroid use haunt us from every direction. We are not safe on the street and we are not safe in our home. The world is hate and confusion. Yet, I know there is good out there, even in here, in me. I have the ability for good. I also have the ability to jog, but I don’t do that either.
My days are made heavy by stresses known and speculative. My shoulders sink in a constant hunch, as if ripped open at the neck and filled with endless grains of sand. Am I a sandbag to hold back floods of whatever is thrown upon me, or am I an hourglass, always trudging along, even as time runs out? Regardless, I am heavy. I am not your brother.
Or am I? We are supposedly all brothers and sisters, according to numerous cult literature and Motown songs. More so, I have an actual brother lost to me before I was even born. I know not of his whereabouts, his name, or if he even lives. He is nothing but sand to me and it slows my steps.
I saw on the news today that a tsunami in Asia has killed over 200,000 people. I didn’t know any of them. That does not make it any better. Maybe I did know someone. Perhaps I said ‘excuse me’ to one on the train, or stood next to them at Starbucks. I helped a guy push his car up a hill in Prague once, just like the jeans commercial, he could have been there. My brother could have been there. How would I know?
There are so many people suffering in the world, so many people full of anguish and hate, loss and love. What of us? We are indifferent thanks to venti lattes and plasma screens. We feel pity, perhaps sorrow. We feel that someone should do something. How about those pundits in Washington? They aren’t doing anything productive, just killing our own for no apparent reason, why not spend some money to save someone else? Someone should do something, but we have to go to work, plus the game is on tonight. I would go over there in a minute mind you, if I were to find that my brother was there, but how would I know? We’re all brothers aren’t we? Funny how we show it.
My sister and I used to fight all the time. We fought over many things, but never religion or oil. Yet, now our world is on Amber Alert for those very reasons. Why should I care what someone believes? Shouldn’t we be looking for alternative fuels at this point anyway? What is it about these things that makes my trip to the market so dangerous? Your beliefs are your own problem. Leave me alone.
Leave me alone. What an easy notion, but we can’t do it. In a world of avoiding eye contact and stepping aside for fleeing purse snatchers, we can’t leave each other alone. It’s ‘I want we he’s got’ and ‘they better think like me’ and of course the famous ‘or else’ that really puts our collective back against the wall.
How is it that in the same world where 200,000 people have died from an act of god, we are still fighting wars over which of ours is the god that did it? Who cares? Just help those people! How is it in a world where brave men and women fight wars against AIDS and cancer that my stepfather is having a tumor removed at the same time a carbomb is going off to prevent such forward thinking? Would fanatics rather those of us that survive earthquakes and tidal waves instead die from explosives and disease? Or would fanatics rather those of us that live with anguish and hate focus it upon the officials in Washington. There are floods of questions that grow stronger with time, and perhaps that is my answer: I am both the sandbag and the hourglass. And I am your brother.

THE BEATLES ARE BIGGER THAN JESUSAUROS REX: AN ESSAY

We woke up early to watch the parade. It started at 7am, which seemed to me a fairly unreasonable time to get out of bed, especially for Al Roker. New York City was buzzing with people doing something as simple as watching a parade and as brave as leaving their homes. It was two months after the terrorists attacks and we sat in our living room drinking butter-rum coffee and feeling as safe as ever. It was the first Thanksgiving morning since we lost so much, and it felt good. We had much to be thankful for.
The parade announcers, including Mr. Roker, were dressed smartly in their free Macy's wardrobe, and the song numbers were lip-synced to near perfection. It was how Thanksgiving was supposed to start; family, coffee, the parade, and then football, turkey, and six bottles of wine. We had much to be thankful for.
About midway through the Parade the women announcer said something that I will never forget. That women that is so cute. Still. She had lost her husband, and she has kept her cool. Katie! That's it. Anyway, they are cutting to commercial and she is telling us what balloons are making their way up the street, and she says to stay tuned for Jesusauros Rex. Jesusauros Rex.
"What did she say?" we asked each other even though we all knew the answer. There was a balloon coming, somewhere between the high school band from Alabama and the 27th boy-band float of the morning, that encompassed everything that we wanted, that we needed. That America needed. It was a monster, a dinosaur of the Rex variety, the kind that devoured its enemies. And America has enemies. Yet, it was Jesus. Jesus is kind and understanding. He turns cheeks. He forgives. He makes a mean Merlot. Jesusauros Rex was everything we were feeling. Everything we wanted. Revenge and understanding. War and peace. Rage and reflection. Not to mention the endless bottles of wine. We looked at each other and waited his arrival like it was the Second Coming.
He never came. There is no such thing as a Jesusauros Rex. There is however, a Cheesasauros Rex, a giant dinosaur that encompasses something else America needs; pasta and cheese powder in a nice blue box. Kraft had a balloon and it wasn't a giant smiling cigarette. We had much to be thankful for.
So Cheesasauros Rex came and went, followed by the two oldest men alive, Tony Bennett and Santa Claus. It was really a nice parade. Al Roker was great. Katie Couric! Yes, I believe that is her name. Well, she and the other guy were great too. Yes Katie, there is a Cheesasauros Rex.
The funny thing is that when the parade was over I couldn't shake the message it had sent, even if I had imagined it myself. Love and mercy. Revenge and redemption. These were things that I needed, and so, as I always do in times of trouble I turned to the Beatles. After all, they were spiritual and blasphemous, revolutionaries and pacifists. They were eggmen. Fragile and hard-boiled. I am the walrus.
But football was on, so I forgot it all. Again. As if it hadn't happened, and I had never known the kind of pain that I had. The pain that was but a pinprick to the pain they had felt. Still. They lost their husbands, and they kept their cool. Those people gave new meaning to the word 'hero', and the old guard, like our professional athletes for example, could do nothing but say thank you, salute, and dry their tears. Sure, the Lions can't remember the last season they had that wasn't filled with pain, but it doesn't matter. It's a game, football, like so many other things we elevate it to pedestals it may not deserve, but it's okay. It keeps us sane and entertained. Football is a great game. An American game.
The Beatles, however, are not American, yet they are as much a part of our culture as any force in entertainment could possibly be. And then some. They are Beatlemainia. They were bigger than Jesus for God's sake! John Lennon said that, not me, but he had a point. They were selling out much bigger stadiums than God.
On September 11, 2001, Paul McCartney sat in an airplane in New York City and watched the world burn down. He saw through a first-class tinted window what we saw on our TV sets. Hate personified.
But for us it was Thanksgiving. We had each other. There was wine in my glass, football on the TV, and in the next room my wife and my sister sang Beatles' songs on the karaoke machine. We had much to be thankful for. And it was bittersweet.
It came and it went, tethered heavily upon our heartstrings, floating like a giant balloon. Yes Katie, there is a Jesusauros Rex, and he loves you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A SENTIMENTAL FOOL AM I or ESSAY ON BEING A WUSS

In my search to find something sensitive for the holiday yesterday I came across this little piece that I wrote one morning in September of 2001, days before 9/11 and a few years before the Red Sox sold their soul to the devil. Turns out that I have quite a few of these essays and even though they aren't 'fiction' per se, I think that I'll include them on this page. Here 'ya go:
A sentimental fool am I. Really. I am much more sensitive now than I have ever been. When I was younger I was easily moved, even touched, by things around me, but those things always involved me directly, and most often than not, sex. Sensitivity was foreplay, and in the far too many cases where things went wrong in that matter, I was also feeling enough to drown myself one glass at a time with beer and cheap whiskey. I cared about things, sure, but I definitely had my priorities.
Then I grew up. Or old. Or soft. I grew something. Perhaps in a moment of Grinch-like awakening my heart grew to an incredible size. I don’t know. All I know is that I used to be different inside. Now I am a wuss.
The weirdest things choke me up. Commercials. What in the world can there be worth crying about in a thirty second ad? There’s something, and Hallmark makes it.
Take last night for instance, I was alone on the couch watching baseball. Yes baseball. It was the Yankees and Red Sox in the last game of a three game series in Boston the first weekend of September. Now, you may read this and think that crying in this situation is understandable, but the thing is, I’m not a Sox fan. I’ve no reason for tears. Besides, I didn’t actually cry at this point, but I was touched deeply by how close Mussina came to pitching a perfect game. It was his first year with the Yanks, and he had been pitching wonderful all season. The only reason that his win total wasn’t higher was the lack of bat support that the bombers were failing to supply. So last night it was the 8th inning, 2 out, 2 strikes to Carl Everett, and that bastard had the nerve to get a hit. Christ, you would have thought he was Ted Williams the way the crowd cheered him, Carl Everett, the man all of Boston treats like a boatload of tea. That really made me feel bad.
I changed the channel to the MDA telethon. It was a little odd, because as far as I could tell Jerry Lewis wasn’t there, or maybe he was napping, or sleeping one off. Like the rest of America I have grown accustomed to the lack of actual entertainers that do the show, but I figured Jerry might make an appearance at some point. I watched some guy named Norm slur and sit through half a dozen "entertainers" (of which the Oak Ridge Boys were the only legit, albeit has-beens, in the stretch, and even they were via satellite from Branson, which is something else that bugs the hell out of me. What is up with Branson?) while Ed McMahon played straight man for some "comic" and called out tympanies at a rate that seemed much more forced than I remembered. Then out of the blue they cut to Lou Gerhig giving his famous speech about being the ‘luckiest man alive’ and how he died from his disease just two years later. Even though that happened before I was born I have always been amazed by that footage to the point of goosebumps and periods of silence. With that effect still lingering Norm introduces a video clip featuring a woman singing ‘Amazing Grace’, my all-time favorite song to sing in the shower, to the names of all the people that have died from various sorts of Muscular Dystrophy in the past year. Man, that was heavy. Bank accounts across America were depleted by the second verse. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not making light of this, it was very moving, and that’s my point. I found myself holding back tears and watching the MDA telethon, not for the hopeful chance that Kiss might make an appearance as I did for many years on my livingroom floor when I was a kid, but for the humanity and pain and hope behind it. I didn’t even care that the Oak Ridge Boys made us sit through two other songs before they played ‘Elvira’, I cared about Jerry’s kids.
This isn’t to say that I haven’t always cared for people that face odds on a daily basis that I will hopefully never know, of course we all do, but how often do we actually think about it. Unless our lives are actually involved we pretend it doesn’t exist and then every St. Patrick’s Day we pay a buck for a Shamrock with our name on it to hang in 7-11.
I decide that I needed a change of pace so I turned the channel again, this time stopping on one of my favorite movies, Awakenings, with Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro. I remember seeing it the first time years ago in the theater, and that I had cried even then. If you haven’t seen it then turn of your computer and go rent it. It is based on a true story about the deterioration of the human body and the perseverance of the human spirit. It is a very touching movie that always makes me cry, and then I was. I laid in the dark on the couch and I cried.
That’s when I went to bed where my wife had been sleeping for hours and lay down against her, holding her as close as I could with my eyes closed and my lips lost in her hair, thanking anyone that cares that I am not going through this world alone.

Send A Kid To Camp

They start them young. As if three phone calls a night trying to sell, give, and survey crap wasn’t bad enough, they send their young door to door with cartons of said crap for every club and sports team ever invented. They solicit donations and sell cookies or tamales outside the grocery store. They chase you through mall parking lots with imitation perfumes. They stand on street corners stripped of all gimmicks save hunger and beg for you to give. Give! Give! Give till it hurts, and then buy some stale boxed peanut brittle from some kid you have never seen before, that somehow got into your gated community, because selling crap to you will keep him from doing drugs. Kids are supposed to be on drugs. That’s what growing up is, pulling bongs and dropping acid. How else are kids supposed to form an opinion on anything unless they experiment. That kid should be sitting at home playing XBOX, smoking dope, and eating peanut brittle. . .this damn six-dollar stale-ass peanut brittle.

FOR THE LOVERS & THE BITTERS

Happy Valentine's Day Lovers:

FIRST TIME THIS TIME AROUND
Against the candle
Her eyes were dark,
And lost all meaning
in their deepness.
Her hair gathered
The shadows of the night
That danced about her.
Each breath was a kiss
Upon her cheek.
Her skin the moonlight
That closed doors denied.
He lay there safe
and warm beneath her breasts
collecting her lips
that shot like stars
against his mouth
burning from the touch
of their passion.
It was late and cold,
But what is time or season
To a moments happiness?

Valentine's Day is for jerks, isn't it Bitters?

MERRY-GO-ROUND
I drink till I'm fucked
I fuck till I'm sober.
It's a jackass on a carousel
This thing called loneliness.

MOUNTAINS FROM WHITE HILLS

"Reading Hemingway always makes me wish that I drank more." He said as he sat the book down on the table and picked up his cup of coffee.
"You should." She said smiling. "There are still moments in the day when I think you might be sober."
"I’m sober now, aren’t I?"
"Yes, you are sober now. For now." Her eyes did not go with her smile.
"Come on baby, you know I’m not a drunk."
"I know Robert. I know." She had been doing a puzzle while he had been reading and after a short pause to let her words sink in, unsure if they were meant for her or for him, she continued with it. He sipped his coffee while looking at the lines of the city through the window and wondering how long he should wait now before he made himself a drink.
"It’s funny," he said, "how sharp the buildings are against the horizon. They almost seem fake, like a movie set or a giant billboard."
"Or a puzzle." She added, not looking up.
"Or a puzzle." He repeated slowly as he traced the outline of each building with his eyes. "You’re right, Anna, that’s exactly what it is, a puzzle."
She smiled when he spoke. He did not give her praise often enough and his words warmed her.
"Will you make me a Bloody Mary baby?" she asked him.
"I thought you liked me sober."
"I love you sober, and I love Bloody Marys. And I would love for you to make us some drinks and get drunk with me."
He got up and walked towards the bar. "What else would I do on a Sunday?" he asked. He took a bottle of Grey Goose from the freezer and poured two glasses halfway over cubes of ice that he had layered with pepper. He then added a wedge of lime, some Tabasco and Worcester sauces, a dash of fajita spice, tomato juice, and an olive to each.
"You could write something."
"Or I could play solitaire for hours. It’s more productive."
"Just take a drink and kiss me you asshole."
So he did.
Her lips were sweet and tangy with a touch of spice that lingered after the kiss along with a shadow of vodka.
"There." He said jokingly, as if he had just done her a favor.
"Good boy." She said as she ran her fingers through his hair.
He walked back to the table and opened his book. "That’s better." He said after reading a few words and taking a sip. "That’s the way it’s supposed to be read."
Her mind was on the puzzle.
"If you want to live like Hemingway the least you could do is take me someplace while we still can." She said after an hour of mutual silence.
"Where? I took you to Key West. Besides, hunting isn’t cool anymore, Africa’s not safe, and Cuba is restricted."
"What about Paris?"
"It isn’t the same place that he knew. It’s like this." He motioned at their view out the window of the Seattle skyline. "It’s a puzzle. Café’s and bookstores are now McDonald’s and the Gap. Even the museums are like shopping malls."
"I still want to see it." She said.
"You will baby. Someday." They both looked out at the city.
"I did love Key West. I miss the warm water and sunshine."
"And the humidity?" he asked her.
"Not as much." She answered. "I miss The Blue Heron and passing people I recognized buying books and drinking beer. I want to walk barefoot outside the church like we did on our wedding day."
"And into the sea." He added.
"Yes." She said. "The sea. That’s what I want." She stood from the place that she had been sitting on the floor while doing the puzzle and walked to the kitchen. She returned with two glasses and a can of Guinness that she split between them. He kissed her hand as she poured the beer then returned to his reading.
After an hour more he finished "Islands in the Stream", and turned again to the window. He didn’t see the city this time, instead he looked at the reflection of himself that seemed somehow absorbed by the sheet of glass that held it, and he thought things that people often do when they stare at their own drunken and unshaven image. He remembered a conversation they had had before on a different Sunday, that was a lot like the one they were enjoying now, only that it had more rain.
"If you must be rich," she had said to him when the subject had never been brought up, "why don’t you start by getting a job?"
"Why would you say such a thing?" he responded. " I have no desire to be rich, although I wouldn’t turn it down. No, what I want is fame. I want someone to remember me after I die."
"I’ll remember you."
"Of course you will. Just don’t kill me yet."
It had seemed to him that he should have been bothered by the fact she assumed he would die before her, but it didn’t. It did, however, cause him to write a poem on a piece of scratch paper that he was using as a bookmark. The poem read:
This isn't another poem about love and rainbows,
this is me, morbid and naked,
the cleansing of my soul.
My life under glass,
viewed on a slide
would only provide
my critics with the power to judge
my actions and regrets,
their breath would smudge.
To the man who'll crush my dream,
I beg you sir to heed my scream,
bury me by a riverbed,
but be sure I'm dead...
be sure I'm dead.
He had been sure at the time that he had created something rather insightful, and if not pretty, at least real.
"Utter crap." He said as he took it from his finished book, read it again, and dropped it to the table. "Everything I write is utter crap."
He glanced at Anna’s reflection which was also absorbed through the glass of the window. "Do you know what I wish?" he asked her image, never turning around.
"What’s that dear?"
"That I had something so profound, or meaningful, or down right moving to say that I had to say it twice."
"What do you mean?" she asked. "You say lovely things all of the time."
"I mean the type of thing that you hear in movies or speeches. Words that come out so heavy that they linger inside you for a moment when you hear them before they really sink in, and then just as they do they are repeated slower and softer, pushing the whole phrase to the pit of your stomach. Words that you never forget."
"Do I say things like that?" she asked.
"I’m sure you do Anna, but damn if I remember. Hemingway always found the words. He wrote that whenever he was at a loss he would force himself to write the truest sentence he could, and then follow it with another. I don’t even know if I know what that means. The only true sentence that I know is that. ‘I’m not sure what that means’. And I could follow it with, ‘ but I know that everything I write is utter crap’. What’s wrong with us? My whole generation is at a loss, and the only true sentence we know is that we don’t know."
"Do you remember one night?" she asked, pausing to make sure that he was still listening to her.
"I remember a few." He answered never taking his eyes from the window.
"Good. Do you remember one night long before we married that you whispered in my ear that you were going to marry me?"
"The night I asked you that question?" he replied.
"No, not the night you asked that question. Long before, shortly after we met."
"Were we drunk?"
"I’m sure we were."
"Did you love me?"
"Yes I did."
"No, I can’t say that I remember it. Why?"
"No reason." She said. "But you knew that. That was true."
He smiled at her. "That’s right baby. It was."
"And your whole generation isn’t lost. It’s mine too, and I know where I am."
"I know where you are too." He said watching her in the window. "I didn’t say we were lost. I said that we are at a loss. Everything is changing faster everyday, and we couldn’t stop it if we wanted to. We are the future, and the future is out of our hands. There is a revolution out there, and we are fighting it in chatrooms armed with cynical apathy."
It was a good conversation she thought. They hadn’t talked about anything real in a while and she enjoyed the fact that his voice rose as he continued.
"I just wish that someone would do something. The politicians are still a generation ahead of us, the actors are either supporting the NRA or going vegan. Nobody will take a stand on the individual issues, so they flock to the extremes where everything is assumed for them."
"Why does it have to be politicians or actors?" she asked. "There are other platforms than money."
"That’s what I’m talking about baby; fame. They are famous and we want them to tell us how to dress, decorate, shop, and vote. I need to know that Brad Pitt likes my coffee table."
"And if he doesn’t?"
"Then I’ll vote for someone who does. Or I’ll go back to Ikea."
"What about writers. I though they were the conscience of a generation."
"Not today we’re not." He said. "The only writer in our generation who has proven to be worth his weight in anything else but bullshit is Douglas Coupland. The rest are at a loss."
"That’s rather cynical of you."
"Yes, and I don’t care. Do you want another drink?"
"Are you having one?"
"I think so." He said rising from the table.
"I’m okay right now. Perhaps in a bit."
"Suit yourself baby." He walked to the bar and filled a glass halfway with bourbon. He drank the warm brown liquor down fast and quiet. She wasn’t watching and he filled it again, this time to the top.
"Coupland?" she asked. "Which one is he?"
"You know the book in the livingroom, Life After God? The one that everyone looks at, but none will read because they think that it will define them."
"You love that book." She smiled.
"Damn right I love that book. I remember when I first read it. I had stayed a week skiing in Colorado with Joseph, back before he was painting and instead spent all his free time drinking and remembering women. I had read Bukowski non-stop for a month at that point, and when I was through, feeling sufficiently bitter and coarse, I started Coupland’s book. I read the entire book from the top of the Rockies to the rivers at the bottom while Joseph drove us home to Arizona."
"Did it define you?"
"I don’t know," he said, "but it did describe me."
He sat in an empty bar waiting for the Mariners to clinch against the White Sox on TV, and spending his time by not thinking about it. Instead he thought about his wife and the things that he longed to tell her while knowing that they were topics that should never be spoken.
She’s too damn negative he thought to himself. She seems to find happiness in complaining, and in doing so she ruins mine. Why can’t she glow like she used to? With something good, warm, and secret inside, instead of spreading shadows of negativity like a plague that only fed on him.
Some things you just don’t talk about he thought as watched two men and a single heavy-set woman enter the bar, look around, and take seats with clear views of the television. The men each ordered beer and the woman had a cup of coffee with a shot of Irish whiskey to keep it warm.
Who loves them? He wondered. Do they smile when they leave bars or do they release their tears in the backs of taxicabs and empty hotel rooms? You don’t have to be alone to be lonely he thought, unsure if he had heard the phrase somewhere along the way, or if he had coined the words himself.
Another man came in and sat on the stool immediately next to him. He asked the bartender for a pull of beer and a menu. In his maneuvering of the stool he brushed against Robert and mumbled an apology as he fixed his gaze upon the game.
He felt guilty sitting there with his wife out in the shopping mall buying things for him that he didn’t need, and being the happiest she had been in a while.
"It’s almost like cheating." He said under his breath and then realizing he had done so he glanced at the man next to him. His eyes were still on the TV, and if he had heard he gave no sign of it. Robert looked back down at the shine of the bar top that reflected the light through his glass and the sharp darkness of his eyes hanging over it. That’s what it is though, he continued in his head. It’s just like cheating if I can’t make her happy. But damn if she doesn’t complain about every little thing, throwing guilt at me as if it were my fault. I guess it’s cheating me too if I let it get me down. But damn if her words aren’t heavy.
And then there were other matters that might just change everything. He looked across the bar at the mirror in which he could see the lines of trees through the window behind him. They were swaying quietly in the wind and rain that were as much a part of his life as anything else. Seattle was good about that. Keeping things constant. A city that consumes that much coffee doesn’t like surprises, or even the possibility of them. The streets of Seattle are paved with leaves that have been weighed flat and smooth by the constant pounding of drizzle after drizzle after drizzle. The air floats on clouds of steam from blue collared men and espresso machines, creating a feeling of perpetual morning that lingers throughout the day. The nights hide in darkened clubs and cold bottles of micro-brewed beer. People are everywhere. They are from everywhere. Yet they are all the same. It is as hard to hide in this city as it is to be found. Instead the trees dance to the song of the rain, and all the while the wind leads with gentle arms. The leaves slowly turn from green to the signs of autumn, deep and dull oranges, plums, reds, and yellows. Each falling down of it’s own accord once it tires of the constant dance. Ashes to ashes.
Behind the trees he could make out the parade of cars which sped past on 156th street. Passing him, the bar, the shopping center, and the rhythm of the fall, oblivious to everything but their own battles.
"Another Guinness?" asked the bartender. He looked at the empty glass in his hand and answered ‘please’ with a forced smile. He hadn’t even noticed that his glass was empty and while studying it in his hand he noticed that his fingernails, while clear and clean, could stand to be trimmed. He tried to remember when he had done so last. He glanced back at the mirror and realized that his hair was also due. How was he supposed to take care of anybody else if he couldn’t even take care of himself?
"Here you go." Said the bartender while setting the pint down on a fresh cardboard coaster and taking away the old one along with the empty glass.
"Thank you." He said as the bartender faded into a conversation with the man on his right about whether or not the Mariners could beat the Yankees in a seven game series. It was the type of conversation that would normally get his interest, and of course he had his own opinions, but for the time it didn’t really seem to matter. He sipped his beer and stared at himself in the mirror, oblivious to the dance.
How many cups of coffee would I need to drink before I blended with the masses? He asked himself as it occurred to him that he stood out perhaps a bit too much. What are the masses of Seattle? Computer geeks and gays seemed to be the current fad, overshadowing the layman, even quite sadly, the beer makers. Why don’t we dance in the rain? Because it’s cold and wet, and yet the trees are like anything else, they are one and they are many, and within the masses they blend.
I could wait tables he thought watching the bartender greet a new couple, but the hard part is the waiting. I couldn’t stand the wait. I can’t stand the weight. How can she?
His beer had been served in a pint glass. Guinness is actually supposed to be served in a princess glass, which starts like a pilsner at the bottom and bowls out at the mouth. Pretty feminine name for something that holds such a masculine beer. What is it that lets a woman hold a man in he pondered, his stoutness, his flavor, his being? All the while he thought of her gentle arms wrapped tightly around him. What makes a woman that strong? Maybe princess wasn’t such a bad name after all.
She came in with her bags and sat next to him. "Have you been sitting here drinking the whole time?" she asked. "I thought you were looking for a job, something to make ends meet? Instead I find you here. Being a drunk doesn’t pay well."
He didn't want to argue. He ordered a bourbon and took an antacid. She was talking of things beyond his control, and making them much more dramatic than they deserved. He came close to interrupting her, but decided against it. Any words from him would only drag out the conversation.
She was quiet for a moment and then asked for a water. He shook his head as he watched her in the mirror. "We are going to need some money Robert." She said. "If you can’t get off your ass you could at least try and sell a story. You haven’t even written in a month."
"Why do we need more money?" he asked quietly as he put the glass to his lips. "We are doing fine." He added as he finished the drink and sat the glass down loudly on the bar top.
"Don’t be an ass." She answered as she smiled to the bartender who had glanced towards them and the sound of an empty glass in a heavy hand.
He looked once more to the mirror and the ballet of trees that it encased. I am oblivious he thought.
"Could you carry these for me please?" she asked him, pointing towards the large bags that rest against her legs. "What’s the score?"
He felt the weight of her bags as he took them from her hands.
"I don’t know." He said.
He wasn’t sure what time it was when they got home. It was gray outside, and it was always gray. The ground and the clouds had long ago quit fighting over lines of division and had come to an understanding of surrender. Everything was gray and that’s the way it was. He imagined a steel wool pad stretched into thin strands and then wrapped repeatedly around his eyes with only enough of an opening for some last lingering glow of light and splashes of rain to get through. It was that gray. And it was cold.
"I’m going to go lie down kitten." He said as he walked past her towards the bedroom.
She watched him walk down the hall and then she poured herself some whiskey.
"Don’t fuck with Ernest Hemingway!" he shouted as he grabbed the book from her grasp. He had been sleeping and at some point she had joined him in bed. She had been writing something in pencil on one of the pages when he opened his eyes.
She bit the back of his shoulder playfully, shaking his flesh slightly in her teeth, as if at any moment she might change her mind and rip it off.
"Damn woman, you got something against drunks?" He reached to the nightstand by turning on his side, put the book down and took a sip from the glass he had left there. She let his skin slide from her lips as she adjusted herself, straddling him atop his lap and pinning him to the bed.
"Don’t think that just because you drink like Hemingway that you write like him."
He could feel the bite. "That’s cold baby."
"Honesty’s cold Papa."
She pulled herself across his body to her side of the bed and faced her back to him.
"Don’t call me that." He said as he stared at the ceiling. The room was quiet and they both listened to the sound of the trains from across the city that only seemed to run at night. They rolled slow and constant as they went in and out, like the sound of sleeping breath. Now and again a whistle blew and Anna would answer with something soft that was not quite a sigh, and not quite a whimper. It was as if they shared some secret, Anna and the trains, that could only be whispered in the deepness of the night.
"Hey" he whispered after some time had passed, but she was asleep. He sat up against his pillow with his pen and pad of paper. The trains were quiet now, and he closed his eyes to wait for the next one as the whiskey rolled slowly across his lips.
The next morning he had crackers with peanut butter along with his coffee for breakfast. She was gone by the time he had gotten up and there wasn’t any bread in the house. There wasn’t much food period. Maybe that’s what she’s doing now he said to himself as he sat down at his desk and thought about the things that he could write if he ever got around to writing. He stared at his portable Corona number 3 and thought about never going to Paris.
"I’m never going to be a writer." He said as he sat on the edge of the bed. He was drunk and she had just walked in from her doctor’s appointment.
"You will and you are." She said facing him while she placed her hands on his shoulders. "You are going to be something else too."
He looked at her as she stood there smiling and waiting for him to smile or wink or say something. She noticed that he had been cleaning his gun. "Baby, you shouldn’t do that when you’ve been drinking."
"Why? It’s not loaded. I am, but it’s not. Do you want a drink baby?"
"No."
"Hemingway always drank, and his women always drank. I always drink and I thought you would always drink, but now you don’t, and I’m not a writer. I’m an idiot." He slurred his words as he rocked slowly back and forth between her outstretched arms.
"Don’t say that Robert. You are a great writer. You can drink if you want. You can do whatever you want. Just do what you want." She held him still by his shoulders.
"Put your arms around me princess."
She did. He felt her hold him in.
"I want the sea." He whispered as he placed his head tightly against her chest and listened to her breathe.
"You can’t live your life being someone else." She answered, running her fingers through his hair. "That’s not your destiny. It was theirs. All it is is bullshit."
"Maybe you’re right baby," he said as he stared into the barrel of the pistol, sliding his thumb along the smooth crescent of the trigger, pausing before he spoke, "maybe you’re right." His words were soft and slow, and they lingered inside her, falling into her abandoned stomach even as he fell to her feet.
The shot was quick, and it was clean.