Tuesday at The Corner Bar & Grille

i should have known better
i had no business being there
but she laughed when i hesitated
"as if you could still charm my pants off"
"you know we're not 18 anymore"

she said she could only meet at lunch
she worked evenings at Ballys
spinning class til 5, pilates at 7
she'd be at the Corner after her shower
just to talk & hear about the Alison

i was cautiously cautious at first
we had a past and she had a present
married a decade, 3 kids of her own
one played the piano, 2 danced ballet
she lulled me into apprehensive optimism

the conversation flowed then ebbed
she paused then asked if i was happy
"youve known me since i was 16"
"you ever know me to be happy?"
i noticed her eyes were as weary as my own

right then i hoped we could be friends
and she told me she decided to be happy
right after her dad died last year
it got closer to 7 and she had to go
sometimes her husband brought her lunch

i stepped up to hug her goodbye
as we stood shivering outside the bar
i swear to God i wanted to be friends
but the our lips somehow met
our bodies somehow embraced

"lets go sit a minute in my car"
she said as she took me by my hand
i should have known better
i had no business being there
but it was cold & maybe i could make her happy

she drove a few blocks away, quiet
she was going to be late anyhow
her tiny hands in mine, it began
slowly at first, then with a hunger
then with a longing, i began to drown

she unbuttoned my shirt, 6 buttons down
then my belt as she unzipped her pants
i looked around to make sure we were alone
both of us half-naked under the streetlight
the windows fogged, streaked by fingerprints

i saw the truth as she crawled in the backseat
leopard-print bra and laced black thong
no way she'd wear that just for work
it should have been boy-shorts & jogging bra
she knew we'd be here when she woke this morning

i should have seen this coming
i should have known better
theres no way i should be here right now
but i still crawled back to be with her
next to the child safety seat and bookbag

we couldnt be friends after this
we would be something else entirely
stolen glances as we past in the street
she'd be someone to give me what she wanted
me not man enough to give her what she needs

Assclown's Top Ten-ish

As has been discussed in here extensively, nearly all the posts chronicled here are complete driveled shit. If I didn't revel in my own pathetic decrepitude, I would have deleted it all long ago. Pretentious, imperceptive shit.
Here'a few that I don't think suck

She comes to me
One of these nights
What if
She gave it away
It's just sex
Locked in the bathroom
Heroin dreams
and I'm not even sorry
she pretended not to notice
Demographic hell
Numb
emptiness
Hard truth
First day of school
One of these nights
It doesn't help to be beautiful
12 stories
Safe

Dissociative Identity Disorder

I knew a little boy who dodged his shadow,
laughed at thunder & gave his milk money to beggars.

I knew an old man who cursed his children,
slept in his clothes & drank Finlandia from a coffee cup

I knew a frat boy who could quote Voltaire,
play a mean scrum half & seduce art history majors

I knew an uncle who pulled a card from thin air,
loaned money to the undeserving & bought teens beer

I knew a middle manager who lunched at TGIFridays,
wore birthday ties & looked around before telling a joke

I knew a boyfriend who bought reasonless flowers,
peeked at cleavage & tried to fix her Honda Civic

I knew a young deacon who counseled the faithless,
read Genesis 6:5 with conviction & frowned at your tithe

I knew an unremarkable man who feigned wisdom,
stole money from your purse & left you unsatisfied

Smerdyakov - 2007

Shallow Grave

Ts my second time out to the woods this year
well-worn shovel, maglite and a burlap sack
she got too close & I can't take no chance
bury her good so she ain't never coming back

Chorus
Gonna bury my baby in a shallow grave
that'll teach her I'm no one to enslave
I know this ain't no way for a man to behave
but I buried my baby in a shallow grave

Seven wilted roses atop seven mounds of earth
I say seven prayers to soothe each restless soul
though I know I can't be forgiven even once
Their lips like velvet, my heart like coal

Chorus

The dirt won't come clean 'neath my fingernails
razor-sharp splinters sink deeper into my skin
the rain won't wash away the foul stench of death
No god can absolve this lifetime of sin

Gonna bury my baby in a shallow grave
that'll teach her I'm no one to enslave
I know it ain't no way for a man to behave
but I buried my baby in a shallow grave



Smerdyakov - March 2002

The Lockless Door - Robert Frost

It went many years,

But at last came a knock,

And I thought of the door

With no lock to lock.



I blew out the light,

I tip-toed the floor,

And raised both hands

In prayer to the door.



But the knock came again

My window was wide;

I climbed on the sill

And descended outside.



Back over the sill

I bade a "Come in"

To whoever the knock

At the door may have been.



So at a knock

I emptied my cage

To hide in the world

And alter with age.

I Could Tell You

I could tell you that I went to Mexico
rented a little place on the beach
drank Pura Sangre from the bottle
hosted giggly black-eyed senoritas
all of us soaked in agave sweat

I could tell you that I hit the road
bought a twenty year old Winnebago
steering clear of the highways and cities
map of Nebraska across the dashboard
and my dog in the passenger seat

I could tell you that I flew to Europe
passport, Visa and a fistful of cash
La Posada de las Almas y Tibur Hotel
walked in the footsteps of Moors
lit a candle for you at La Seo

I could tell you that I went to Vegas
Subsidizing hookers and strippers
Losing track of what was lost & won
sharkskin jacket and boxer shorts
Ben Sanderson had nothing on me

I could tell you that I met some girl
whirlwind romance & a trip to Elkton
Sundays spent reading the banns
gumball machine rings & impromptu vows
marital bliss with Sara (or was it Stella?)

I suppose I could tell you the truth
the bad & the ugly, not so much good
but illusions have gotten us this far
why start now with brutal candor?
Just pick a stanza above to believe

She

Shi has always been my closest companion
my confidante, my lover, my judge
touching the lives of the people around me
her hand so close to grazing my own
I can feel the warmth of her fingertips

Shi whispers her name in my ear as I sleep
I'm unsure if it's a tease or a prophecy
uncertain if I want her to lay down beside me
taking me in her willowy arms
embracing me as the candle slowly burns

Shi comes and goes as she pleases
but never quite leaving me alone
reminders of her presence litter my room
a murder of crows, a salt-pepper ram
keep me company until shi returns

Shi promises me comfort & redemption
alluring in her matte black dress and veil
a vision of fate and relentless certainty
her broken watch oddly out of place
but still keeping perfect time

Shi goes days without a single word
then blusters on for weeks on end
"hominem te esse memento" & "memento mori"
repeated until I hear them in my sleep
never knowing if she'll be there when I wake

Show Me Where It Hurts

I was going through some boxes and I came across and old gig case for a guitar I no longer own. It was just folded up inside along with a few zippos and 18" x 12" unframed canvas painting. The initials "R.J" scripted neatly at the bottom right in black oil.
Regina J. was an art student I dated a long time ago. A million years ago, it seems like. She had this exquisite tattoo on her shoulder of Alice gazing through a looking glass to see herself reflected as the Queen of Hearts. She sculpted mostly. Industrial stuff - definitely not marketable to anyone mainstream. But she didn't give a shit.
We dated for a few months. Actually, "dated" would be a rather generous term. We fought some. A lot. About politics, about movies, about art, about other men or women. We would literally scream at each other at the top of our lungs while our faces were inches apart. But it would only be a matter of time before I'd grab her by her hair or she'd shove me against a wall.
Needless to say, it was a fairly frenzied couple of months.
Anyway, I unzipped the guitar case and found a sheet of spiral notebook paper with a song I'd written for her. It was from my early "three chords of crap" period. Not quite power-ballad, not quite bubblegum punk. Just self-important bullshit.
But I humbly present to you "Show Me Where It Hurts". For Regina.

Don't hide behind that bandage

Can't numb it with that pill

I feel a little greedy

but I promise I won't kill

***

Take your finger off the trigger

I'll take my hands off your throat

Who are you trying to fool?

I read your suicide note

***

(chorus)

Show me where it hurts
tell me where it bleeds
let's take off all our clothes
and find out where it leads

***

Don't you like it when I scratch?

Do you like it when bite?

candle wax and razor blades

I love it when you fight
***

(repeat chorus)

***

Let's get you in the shower

and wash off all that pain

some of yours & some of mine

half-naked in the rain

***

(repeat chorus)

Beautiful Without Me

I had found the place by accident. There are a few thousand acres of woods behind my house and I used to spend a lot of my time walking the horse trails that meander through the trees. Though quite primitive, the paths had always been lifesavers for me becuase of my uncanny sense of misdirection. Once you get a hundred yards or so beyond the treeline, it's difficult to find your bearings. A 30 minute walk could easily turn into a two hour domestic replay of Lord of the Flies.

But being the gadget man that I am, I invested a couple hundred bucks in a handheld GPS unit. Voila - I was no longer a slave to the tramped dirt pathways. I could mark my house on the GPS and use it to to find my way back without leaving a proverbial trail of breadcrumbs.

The forest was now mine.

So I set out, GPS firmly in hand, determined to discover the outermost reaches. Through clearings, crouching under branches, snagging my shirt on thorns. For almost an hour before I found it - a place where the rock ledges intertwined to form a natural cathedral of stone, accessible only through an almost invisible three foot wide crevice.

Emboldened by explorers of the past - Desoto, Magellan, de Leon - I walked through the opening to see........... crushed beer cans and broken whiskey bottles littering the leaf-covered floor. So apparently I wasn't the first to grace this virginal outpost. It must have had a 20+ year history as a hangout for underage drinking and general mischief.

But beyond the spray-painted graffiti and discarded trash lied a truly beautiful, almost majestic, place. The sunlight broke through the trees above to form a thousand spotlights, each one framing a a dark corner in a bath of light. The main 25 foot wide opening was encircled by a dozen or more rocky outcrops. And the intersection of each one of those formed an almost unpassable exit to yet another smaller opening. Definitely a place to be explored rather than defiled.

I marked the point on my GPS and filled my backpack with as many cans and bottles that I could carry.

I go back to that place every now and then, each time trying to scrub and little more paint off the rock walls or disposing of a little more litter. Not for myself - I think I can see past the traces of refuse and appreciate the sublime for what it is, before it was besmirched by inconsiderate shitheads. But maybe I can make little easier for the next guy to realize how beautiful it is. Even without me.

Schismatist

Even after I stopped doing some serious drinking, I still made a habit of spending a lot of time in bars. It was probably good for me to get out in a social atmosphere, even if I wasn't directly contributing to the fraternization. I suppose that my theory was that I would somehow absorb the ability to mingle via osmosis.
But mostly I just found myself clinically observing other people.
And I spent one night observing one person in particular.
She was drunk even before she walked in. It was a hotel bar, so my first thought was that she may have been a prostitute. But that belief quickly faded away. I knew a hooker when I see one, and she was no hooker. Though she was a little under-dressed for this particular bar. Her clothes a little too tight & cheap and her shoes much too Payless.
Just a drunk whore.
I'm surprised they even served her. She was visibly wobbly and obviously alone - a combination that's usually a prologue to trouble. So I watched her out of the corner of my eye as I nursed my sidecar. It wasn't so much a predatory gaze, but rather how one would look at a car careening out of control on a winding mountain road - something bad was about to happen and I didn't want to miss it.
As my eyes volleyed back and forth between her now slumping figure and my melting ice cubes, I noticed another man in the corner doing the very same thing. But he wasn't merely looking on in grotesque amusement. He was patiently waiting for opportunity.
He was about my age, maybe a little younger, well-dressed and sober enough to know exactly what he was doing. And planning. An unintentional predator salivating at a target of convenience.
He waited 30 seconds or so after she gulped what remained in her glass then stumbled toward the door before he left a twenty on his own table and followed her out. But not before scanning to his left and right to see if he was the only one eyeing the unsuspecting girl.
I watched them both through the picture window facing the street, their bodies now framed between Bass & Guinness neon signs. She was attempting to sort her thoughts, obviously in vain. Maybe trying to figure out how she'd get home, remembering the bus schedule or calculating what the cab fare would be . But much too engrossed in her ephemeral thoughts to notice him approaching.
I saw the whole episode acted out in mime to the jukebox soundtrack of Stevie Ray Vaughn's Tightrope. He was trying to give off the impression of a helpful stranger, offering her a ride home. Or maybe just walk with her a while to make sure she was ok - there were a lot of crazies out in the streets that late, right?
She clutched her purse tight against her ribcage, perhaps sensing that he wasn't as he seemed. She drew back as he reached his hand out to rub her shoulders - just a warm, friendly gesture, right? Her apprehension didn't deter his physicality. To the contrary, he must have liked his women with a little fire in their bellies. He stepped up his tactile offensive by wrapping his arm around her waist.
I'd seen enough. I left money on the bar to cover my tab and strode through the door
"Leave her alone, you piece of shit", I said.
Perturbed at being interrupted, he placed his hand on her breast and told me to mind my own business.
I asked her if she wanted me to call her a taxi. She looked at him before answering in the affirmative. I held out my hand for her to take and led her away from the dirtbag.
And he was pissed. But he didn't move from in front of the building. Just watched us walk halfway down the block to the hotel entrance and to the curb as I hailed a cab.
I opened the back door and made sure she was in safely as I handed the driver 2 twenties and told him to take her home. She looked at me without a 'thank you' as the car pulled away.
I started heading back to finish my "conversation" with the scorned shitbag. Since he clearly wasn't interested in going back in the bar, he must have wanted to have a few words with me. And by now, I couldn't help but notice a few patrons watching us through the window, waiting for the discussion.
But then I heard a car honk from the street as the same taxi pulled back next to me after circling the block. The driver rolled down his window.
"She's too drunk. She won't tell me where she lives. Told me to take her back here. I don't have time for this" he said, frustrated, as he handed me back one twenty.
She opened the door, nearly falling to the pavement face-first, and exited the car.
"Sorry", she apologized. "I don't remember my address. I guess I'll just have to go home with you".
I was suddenly disgusted by her tequila-slurred words and clumsy attention-seeking.
"Look, there's no way you're coming home with me. You better get your ass back in that cab before you do something really stupid or before someone does something real stupid to you", I spat out.
What the hell was the point of helping someone who was pretty much deadset on self-destruction?
"Come on, guy. Just take me home, ok? I just need to sleep a little then I'll feel better in the morning. I swear I'll be good", she pleaded.
The spurned suitor was watching this all in amusement.
"I'll take you home, sweetheart" he offered with a smile, ever the helpful gentleman.
She looked at him then she turned back to me.
"So what's it gonna be, huh? Are you going to make me go home with him?" she asked, almost daring me to take advantage of her.
"You're going to have to find yourself another hero, little girl" I told her as I walked back into the bar for 8 or 9 more drinks.

Does He?

Does he make you smile like I used to do?
whispering a dirty joke in your ear at a funeral
then glaring at you in mock disdain
as your cashmere lips form a resisted grin
Does he?

Does he make you laugh like I used to do?
when you're alone in your car, me miles away
but you titter thinking about the time
I painted happy faces on my nipples
Does he?

Does he make you come like I used to do?
turning you on like a switch
my finger tracing gently on your hip
as my teeth sink into your neck
Does he?

Does he make you feel like I used to do?
hunger, madness, longing and desperation
all before I finish your song
my fingers raw against the steel strings
Does he?

Does he make you scream like I used to do?
as I peel back your scabs
and probe your wounds with my finger
not sure if I'm a healer or a masochist
Does he?

Does he make you cry like I used to do?
wiping your tears before I walk back in the room
pretending everything couldn't be better
as if I never said the things I did
No he doesn't, does he?

Yet

Grown up to be a woman
yet still a little girl inside

Settled for a boy
yet still longing for a man

Found her purpose
yet not the one she hoped it would be

Living with uncompromising honesty
yet still hiding one dark secret

Content to wear jeans and a sweater
yet gazes longingly at the gown in the window

Pleased with her life
yet holding out hope for another

Grasped hard-learned lessons
yet feels like a schoolgirl next to him

Sees the beauty around her
yet dreams of somewhere else

Intoccabile

I exited the lobby of my hotel
temporarily blinded by the reflection
off the glass highrise across the street
I had to quickly jerk myself back
to escape being trampled by commuters

I stood motionless waiting for my chance
to merge with the industrious crowd
not wanting to be absorbed by the bustle
shrinking myself to fend off their touch
practically leaping into an approaching void

I skitted to the right and left
nearly colliding with oncoming traffic
not even wanting to be casually brushed
nor inadvertantly bumped, tapped or rubbed
content to be tactually invisible

Then I noticed a strange phenomenon
just before I would flinch to dodge a passerby
they would move away from me instead
the more I condensed myself
the bigger the buffer they allowed
until I was surrounded by an ethereal halo

It was warmly comforting..... at first
unconcerned with their brutishness
lengthening my stride, slowing my gait
brazenly immune to my environment
my own aura of sanctuary

But as I reached out my open hand
to aid a fallen pedestrian
her purse strewn across the pavement
she suddenly withdrew from me
with a sickening churlishness

And she wasn't alone in her revulsion
a colleague refused my handshake
a grandmother dismissed my embrace
a lover spurned all intimacy
as my sanctuary became a prison

My Own Medicine

It was really just pure chance that I was close enough to stumble over to your house
I was at that hotel bar a few blocks away and must have lost track of my drinking
Didn't even realize how far gone I was until I stood up to try to leave
Yeah, I know there are bars that are a lot closer, walking distance even, to my house
But I wasn't even thinking about that when I headed out the door. Swear.

I was just going to walk for awhile because I accidentally drank my cab money
But then a car drove by and that "Anything For You" song was playing on the radio
You know, the one that you dedicated to me on K105 after I broke up with you?
I thought it was pretty cheesy back then, funny even, but it kinda struck me as I walked
It made me feel guilty for not returning all the voicemails you left that week

So that song reminded me of you then I remembered your house was close by
I knew you wouldn't be home yet. You're still on second shift at the hospital, right?
That's why I didn't even knock on the door & just headed on back to your porch swing
Maybe to sleep for a while until I sober up enough to drive on back home
I probably should have bought a coffee when I passed that convenience store

I didn't even hear your car pull into the garage, I was sleeping so hard
Only knew you were home when you closed the door and went inside
Right then I figured I should just go because you were probably to tired to deal
I was going to wait until the lights went out, but I guess you heard me swinging
Don't know why you weren't scared at first, but who else would it have been but me?

It was real cool of you to invite me in to sleep on your pullout couch
You really really didn't have to do that. But I know you're that kind of person
I promise I'll get up and before your new boyfriend comes over tomorrow
That might be hard to explain. What's that? Oh yeah, I know were just friends now.
And again, I'm really sorry for causing so much trouble. And for that stuff before

Do you have like a trash can or something that I can keep here next to me?
I should be ok, but 'member that time we rented that beachhouse with Mike & Laura?
I got so plastered and couldn't stop throwing up. I might've had the flu then too
But I felt better the next day because you made me drink fluids and take Tylenol before bed
That was a pretty good weekend, you think? Oh yeah, probably not as much fun for you

Just go to bed, ok? I'll be fine out here. Besides, you look tired. You should try to get more sleep
I worry about you sometimes thinking about you here all alone without someone to care for you
I really hope you find someone to make you happy. What? He proposed? That's .... good for you
Ummm I'm really happy, but you know what? I feel better now so I'm just gonna go
I'll be alright once I get back to my car. The roads should be pretty clear by now

One more thing before I leave....... thanks.

Equal Opportunity

I used to hang out at this bar called the Custom House when I was in grad school. I wouldn;t go so far as to say that it was a hard drinker's bar, but it was about as close as you could get reasonably close to campus. It was a small little place with a nice selection on draft and they'd leave you alone and let you drink.
I didn't really hang around the other people in my class. Or anybody else for that matter. I took a couple years off after college and worked for a bit, so I really didn't have much in common with these kids fresh out of school. They were still into keggers and Hairy Buffalos and all that stupid shit. I just wanted to get finished and go back home.
I was still working during all this, not full-time, but still missing a class every now and then while I had to go out of town on business. I still managed to keep up. I'd pretty much been living it over the last two+ years, so I did well overall. I was near the top of the class most of the time, though it was more important to me to just pass.
But rankings were a lot more important to others in my classes. There were a few in particular who made it a point to be the first to check test & evaluation scores, revelling when they did better than me and cursing when they scored below me. I wasn't part of any study group so I didn't make many friends. On the contrary, my aloof personality and anti-social tendencies made me pretty well reviled throughout the program.
Jason Ward was perhaps the one with the singlemost intense hatred directed towards me. Man, he hated my guts with the burning heat of a million suns. Jason was about as close to a prototypical dork as you'll ever meet - greasy hair, 50 or so pounds overweight, trying way too hard fashion-wise. He would study for hours, hell, DAYS on end while I sat on the third barstool from the end at the Custom House only to see me barely outscore him on nearly every exam, every paper, every assignment. After a while, his only purpose in life was to beat me in the final class rankings.
And I couldn't give less of a shit.
I couldn't care less where I finished. I really didn't. I'd read the texts more out if interest than out of desire to prepare for any test. I performed on the mock facilititions more out of instinct than reliance on any theoretical principle. So I only met Jason's challenge with amused disinterest.
And that just served to make him that much more angry.
The last course we had together was this blowoff Professional Concerns class. It was pretty lame, but it was a core requirement and attendance was mandatory. Final grades were determined by the results of two tests, 50% each. By this time, I was spending almost all my time at the bar so my focus was pretty much everywhere except my studies.
So guess where I was sitting when final grades (and the resultant final class rankings) were posted? That's right - 3rd barstool from the end. And thats where Jason found me to wave the scores in my face . He beat my overall score by 3/1000ths of a percentage point.
He walks, nay RUNS into the bar with some of his friends holding the printout. He comes right up to me, holds it up in front of me and growls "I BEAT YOU! I BEAT YOU!".
Now this is the last thing in the world I wanted to deal with, but I decided right then and there that I wasn't going to let him have his moment of glory. Nope, it wasn't going to happen.
He sat down on the stool next to me and ordered a drink.
"Just how exactly did you beat me, Jason?" I asked him.
"My 97 versus your 88!" he grinned as he spoke.
Just the answer I expected.
"I don't think you get it. How does that mean you beat me?"
He looked confused. "I finished with a higher score, genius. I think it's pretty obvious", he replied.
"Hmmm, do you have a girlfriend?" I continued with the questions.
"Yeah, I have a girlfriend" he answered indignantly.
"Do you love her?"
"What?"
"I asked if you love her".
"Yeah, I love her".
"And does she love you?"
"Hell yeah, she loves me".
"Let me guess - you met her in undergrad school. She's 2 years younger than you. She played trumpet in the high school marching band".
"Clarinet".
"Yeah, anyways. So how long did it take you to get in her pants? Three, four months?"
"That's none of your business, fag".
"Whatever. So do you want to make a wager?"
"What kind of wager?"
"I'll bet you $500 that, inside of 2 weeks, I can get your girlfriend - who didn't put out to you for several months - to sleep with me".
"There's no way".
"Really? No way at all? Then it's easy money for you, right?
"I'm not going to bet you!"
"That's damn right you're not going to bet me. Because you know damn well what would happen. What do you think she'd do? Yeah, all women just hate tall, good-looking, smart & funny men, right? Two weeks? Hell, I could get her panties around her ankles tonight".
"You're such an asshole!"
"Oh, you have no idea, buddy. There's nothing that you have that I couldn't take from you. Especially your chubby little girlfriend. So tell me again how you beat me".
"Don't be a dick".
"I haven't begun to be a dick. You think you getting a higher grade than me means anything? Do you think it's going to get you a better job? That's hilarious. What do you think would happen if you and I walk in for the same job interview? Do you think they'd choose you in your polyester tie under your K-Mart short-sleeved shirt? Or would they give the job to me - charming, good looking, humble?"
"You're just saying this because I beat you".
"You really don't it. It doesn't how well you scored. I could still bang your girl. I'll still get a better job. Even your friends. Do you think your friends would rather hang out with you than me? Do you even have any friends, not counting 'online' ones?"
"I have friends", he answered, his voice beginning to quiver.
"Are you about to cry, you pathetic piece of shit?" I asked incredulously. "Seriously, you're going to cry right here in front of me, aren't you?
He wanted to punch me so bad. So damned bad.
"You want to hit me? Go ahead, I'm begging you to hit me. I'd even let you. I'd sit right her and let you beat the living shit out of me. Just fpr the pleasure of thinking how your sorry bubblegum ass would do in jail with a cellful of crackheads and tweakers. Do it, you big pussy!"
He was literally shaking. I could tell that he wanted to say something, but didn't dare because he knew his voice would crack. As he tossed a five on the bar and turned to leave, I saw a single tear well up in his left eye.
"Before you go, why don't you give me your girlfriend's name, little bitch" I said as I went back to drinking my own beer.
He stormed out without turning back.

The worst part? I went back and got a re-grade from my professor. Added 5/1000ths of a point to my final score.

Égoïste

I used to have a real job. A real boss, 401k, bi-weekly paychecks - the whole 9 yards. And because I wasn't bound by the constraints of family, friends or a social life, I used to work relatively long hours. The only problem with that is, at that time, I lived about an hour commute away from the office. So working until 10-11 o'clock 5-6 nights a week, then driving 40+ miles home, sleeping for 4-5 hours, then getting up and driving another hour back into work got a little old after a while. So I was left with 2 basic options - either sell my house and get a place in the city OR find a cheap little studio downtown to crash after working late.
I opted for door number two.
I found a place about 2 blocks from my office. It was an unfurnished loft in a converted bottle factory (glass, not baby). Nothing extraordinarily special about it - about 600 sq ft of open space with ladder access to a raised sleeping area, but it was perfect for my needs. And it had a lot of good light, which was unfortunate because I didn't think I'd see much of the place during the day.
I signed a 6-month lease with an option for month-to-month after that. I bought a cheap couch, a platform bed and stashed a week's supply of clothes in the closet. It was pretty sweet for a while. Kinda like my own little private hideout, a safehouse that only I knew about.
Until I made the mistake of letting someone else in on the secret.
There was this admin in Finance. We had exchanged pleasantries and innuendo for a few weeks until one night when we were the last two people in the office. I was working late. She was working late. We went for drinks afterwards. We wanted a little privacy.
You get the picture.
This went on for the better part of 2 months. We'd work late, get drunk then go back to my place and have at it. We even took advantage of the close proximity to have a few long "lunches" as well. We'd come back to the office with our hair mussed and clothes wrinkled, but I don't think anyone suspected anything nefarious.
A little background on her - early 20's, graduated from a private catholic college in Texas, tight swimmer's body, dating a 3rd year med student. It would be fair to say that she didn't have a lot of bedroom experience up until that point in her life. And the experience she did have wasn't much more than the drunken-frat-boy "grope'n'poke" variety. Since her boyfriend spent a lot of time at school, they didn't have much of a chance to spend much time together. So she really came of age bedroom-wise while we were together.
So anyway, this goes on a bit longer until she starts feeling guilty about her boyfriend and decides that she needs to spend more time with him. She tells me that she can't do this any longer and breaks it off. She even gave her notice at our company and started working for the census bureau. I was definitely ok with it because I was getting even less sleep than when I was driving all the way home each night. And it wasn't like I had anything invested in her except the physical thing.
So I stopped seeing her...... for about a month.
She developed this habit of hanging out with her friends at a downtown bar and getting too drunk to drive home. So she'd walk over to my loft and knock on the door to see if I was there. This happened once every couple of weeks. I'd let her in, put her to sleep in my bed then I'd go sleep on the couch. Then she'd come over to the couch and start kissing my neck. I'd tell her to knock it off because I had to go into work early. Then she'd start rubbing my chest. So we'd end up making out for a while. Out of a convoluted respect for her relationship with her boyfriend, I wouldn't go any further than that.
A few months of this goes by. It starts getting pretty old for me. I got the place so I could get some sleep after working late, but now I was sleeping way less if at all.
So she comes over late one Friday night. After her engagement party. Smashed as she could be. I tell her that she can sleep on the bed but she better stay there. I lay down on the couch and go to sleep. I wake up about 7am when I feel her on top of me, completely undressed. I tell her to cut it out. She starts doing certain things to me (for the sake of decency, I'll leave it at that). I push her away and tell her to get off me. She starts doing something to me even more provocative.
I'm a man. I have weaknesses.
I roll over on top and enter her. Nothing intimate. Nothing affectionate. Just going through the motions to get it over with.
I look down to see her avoiding eye contact with me as her eyes almost start to tear up. I couldn't freaking believe she was pulling that shit. I roll off her said things that I regret. Pretty much a total prick. Things like "what the hell did you expect me to do?" and "what's your f-ing problem?".
You know, being the sensitive guy I am.
She stopped coming over after that.

The Redline

When I was younger, I used to take the train into the city to buy my drugs. It was a real pain in the ass, but if the cops saw a nice car with suburban plates in that part of town, they'd pull you over every time. Not that they'd have probable cause for a search, but that rarely stopped them. Fortunately, I learned this fact by proxy when one of my college roommates got busted for possession when he was pulled over in his Lexus one block away from a crackhouse.
So I'd drive to Union Station then take the Red Line to Logan Circle (this was right before the area started getting gentrified) then walk four blocks around the back of this 3-story brownstone. It was one of the only places I knew about where you could get both coke and heroin. Moonrocks was my thing at the time and it was a real pain to go to two different dealers.
I'd made this trip a couple dozen times maybe. This was over about a year and a half, so it's not like I was a complete junkie or anything.
So, I'm sitting there on the train in a pair of A&F cargoes, an Eddie Bauer rugby shirt and my Timberland leather jacket. It had been a good month since I'd really let loose so I was getting a little heavy, counting the minutes until my stop.
We pulled into Metro and I noticed this black dude, a younger kid - maybe just old enough to drink, wheel himself into my car in a beat-up old wheelchair. I was surprised that his transfer was almost... well, graceful. I figured he must have been in it for a while to the point where this was second nature for him. He got himself settled in as the doors closed and the train pulled away.
He was a big guy, even to me. Not "fat" big. Just substantial. Massive even, to the point where his frame looked grossly disproportionate to the chair that supported him. He was nattily dressed, sweatsuit and cap, but it was clean and in good repair. A 7-11 nametag, Ruslan, was affixed to his chest so I assumed he was on his way to work.
I found myself silently theorizing how he ended up chairbound. Aside from his shrunken, degenerated legs, he didn't have anything else obviously wrong with him. Car accident probably. But as he backed himself into the handicap slot, the sleeves of his sweatshirt worked themselves up to reveal a telltale one inch crater scar bullet wound on his forearm and I assumed that wasn't the only one.
He was directly across from me when he took off his redskins Starter cap, placed it upside-down in his lap... and began to sing.

I call, You hear me

I’ve lost it all

And it’s more than I can bear

I feel so empty
You’re strong I’m weary

I’m holdin’ on

But I feel like givin’ in

But still You’re with me

His voice was... soulful, heartbreaking, joyous, triumphant and broken all at once. I've never been one for gospel, but he was simply amazing. I mean, after the first note, every single person in that train car stopped whatever it was that they were doing and just gazed at him in awe.

And even though I’m walkin’ through
The valley of the shadow
I will hold tight to the hand of Him
Whose love will comfort me
And when all hope is gone
And I’ve been wounded in the battle
He is all the strength that I will
Ever need
And He will carry me

The words "wounded in battle" struck me and all of a sudden I knew exactly how he ended up in his chair. Might've been a drive-by. Might've been a deal gone bad. Might've been ice-driven frenzy. But one was the same as the others. And the outcome was sure the same.

I know I’m broken
But You alone
Can mend this heart of mine
You’re always with me

He breathed out the last word and stared right into my eyes. Not because he saw me as a fellow broken soul. But because he saw me as a predator. As a killer. His killer.

And he was right. I pulled that trigger. Not literally, but it didn't matter. I hadn't picked up a gun in years, but the bullets in his arm and his back were mine. Or maybe even meant for me. My money bought the gun, loaded the clip and squeezed the trigger.

The train stopped at Farragut as passengers drifted by and filled his cap with singles and a few fives.

The train moved on towards Logan Circle, but he didn't sing again. He just looked at me with a sense of.... I wasn't sure at first. But then I knew. He was sitting in judgment, waiting to see which stop I'd make my own. Would I get off on the next stop or would I stay on until Bethesda or maybe Rockville. If I stood up too soon? He'd find me guilty. And he'd be right.

The train slowed as it pulled up to the platform. He stopped looking at me only long enough to gather his things in preparation for his own departure. But he glared back at me as I began to stand up myself. He was about to say something, spit out some invective perhaps, when I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out my wallet.

I placed 7 fifty dollar bills in his hat and sat back down.

Sprache Lektion

Es ist dieses Mädchen, das ich zu wissen,
Ich erinnerte mich an sie zu vergessen, heute Morgen
Morgen werde ich vergessen, sie zu merken
Ich sehe, ihr Versteck ihr Lächeln
Sie wird nicht vergessen, mich noch recht

Are You Experienced?

Has it ever hurt so bad that you didn't care what happened
90 miles per hour down Suicide Hill
seatbelt unbuckled and The Cure full volume
Not quite deliberate but not quite unplanned
Reckless and surrendering to chance?

Have you ever fallen so hard that you plan your breakdowns
laying a Franklin and a Jackson on the bar
your address scribbled on the twenty
to (maybe) get yourself home
as long as you don't puke in the cab?

Are you consumed by the past that you risk your future
hiding her painting in the trunk with your old trophies
her first initial and last name in the bottom corner
an excuse already prepared if someone finds it
"Oh, I didn't even know I still had that old thing"?

Have you ever felt so alone, lying next to someone else
just as beautiful, just as passionate, just as kind
holding out your arm to keep her at the right distance
close enough to invite her inside
far enough so that she won't stay?

Ever want the pain to stop so much that you........
still refilling your prescriptions
but no longer taking your pills
full honey-colored bottles with childproof caps
lining the inside of your medicine cabinet?

Because if you haven't felt what I've felt
desperation, anguish, rage, wretched longing
then no amout of caring or desire
will countermand the difference
between my past and our future

She Doesn't Deserve Me

I can give her a good five minutes a day
I'll be there for her most of the time
Her birthday is next week, I think
I'll try to get her some flowers
She doesn't deserve me

I kinda have my own thing going on
Things I'm trying to work out
Maybe I'll figure it out this year
She's got time to waste, right?
She doesn't deserve me

I'll always love someone else more
but she's right up there, top 5 at least
She really means something to me though
I say "me too" when she says she loves me
She doesn't deserve me

There's that guy that likes her at work
who brought her soup when she was sick
She ate it as she ironed my shirts
I didn't give her a hard time when she spilled
She doesn't deserve me

I should probably call her tonight
She's seemed kind of down lately
especially when she left this morning
I thought last night was great though
She doesn't deserve me

Chapter Two

Even before my recent hermitage, I haven't been working all that much. Technically speaking, I still have an office, but I eased back my schedule to less that a half dozen sessions per month. Bridge sessions - deaths in the family, temporary job woes, ex-clients who need some quick reinforcement - that sort of thing. None of them are long term. If I see them heading that way? Immediate referral.

Pretty much everyone here knows this. I'm effectively out of business. Then they had that mall shooting in Omaha last month.

I have these friends, David and Dahlia ("Dolly" to friends) with a 17-year old son, Seth. I saw Dolly for about 4 years, so I was well aware of Seth's issues - self-harm, drug use, violent behavior, etc. I was there when he was involuntarily admitted to residential care after a suicide attempt a couple years ago. The kid has been in a pretty dark place for a long time. A lost cause if there ever was one.

So anyway, after that kid in Omaha shot up the mall a couple weeks before Christmas. David and Dolly call me and tell me that their very worried about Seth. They had found a box of shotgun shells in his room. No gun, but they were alarmed nonetheless. They couldn't get over the fear that they would see him on the news after he shot a dozen of his schoolmates. They just wanted to know if I can just talk to him and get a feel for what kind of path he was on. He was already in court-ordered therapy (group and individual) after his last legal run-in, but unfortunately it was with a court-appointed therapist. And a kid like Seth can easily manipulate most of those types. Real life isn't like Good Will Hunting.

So I'm back at the office.

He walks in, pretty much exactly as you'd think he'd look. Black on black on black.

I started by asking him if he knew why his parents were so concerned. He was fully aware that they saw him as a ticking bomb. In fact, he took pleasure in that role. It empowered him. His parents weren't the only people who saw him as a potential threat. He said he had heard the same thind, directly or indirectly, from his teachers and classmates. "Freak" and "psycho".

"So do you think that there is an appeal to something like that? I mean, is there a temptation for yo to fulfill that?" I asked.

"I can't tell you that. If I talked about wanting to hurt people, you'd have to report it to the cops", he replied.

"Actually that's kind of a gray area", I answered. "Technically speaking, there's a relatively fine line between mandatory reporting and therapist privilege. It's even more nebulous in this particular instance. Your father is a attorney, correct? More importantly, your father is YOUR attorney - he represented you when you vandalized the school last year, right? There was a case a few years ago, New Jersey I think, that found that psychologists contracted to evaluate a client by that client's attorney now fell under the attorney-client privilege and were not legally required to report past of future acts of violence or abuse. It's probably splitting hairs, but I'd be in as much trouble for not reporting anything as I would if I actually did report it. But if it makes you more comfortable, you can just talk about it in hypotheticals - you hypothetically thought about taking a gun to school - that sort of thing."

He seem a little confused.

"What kind of therapist are you?" he asked.

"The kind that's been around long enough to know that you're probably going to do what you want to do regardless of how well I do my job".

So he talked about "hypothetically" buying a gun from a kid at school who "hypothetically" stole it from his father. He wasn't planning on doing anything with it per se. He just liked the way it felt in his hand. Cold, substantial, powerful. He was oppressed, after all. Picked on at school. Beat up on a fairly regular basis. So sure, it crossed his mind to take the gun to school, "hypothetically". But he doubted he would ever do anything with it.

"I guess there's one thing I don't get", I stated. "School shootings, aside from being totally passe, actually accomplish the opposite effect of what the killer is trying to accomplish".

"What do you mean", he asked.

"Well, these kids take their guns into school and shoot up the people that have somehow wronged them - the bullies, the girl that jilted them, the teacher that gave them an F. Or they shoot up the place thinking that they'll somehow gain some eternal infamy. But what actually happens is that they martyr the people they mean to harm while they themselves become soon-to-be-forgotten footnotes. The victims will get plaques, statues, posthumous book deals, while the killer gets a few days of the press talking about what a loser freak he was. I just don't see how that's anything that anyone would want. Especially if they're willing to kill themselves to do it.
He shook his head. "That's not true. People remember the school shooters", he responded.
"Really now?" I said. "Let's try an experiment. I'm going to give you some homework. You ask 20 random people to try to name the person who shot those kids at Virginia Tech, or the kid that shot his classmates in Arkansas or Columbine. Heck, see if they know the name of the kid who shot up the mall in Omaha. That was just last week. If 20% of the people you ask know them, then I'll get you out of your counseling sessions".
He came back two days later. One person knew Robert Hawkins from Omaha and three knew Klebold & Harris from Columbine.
"So what does that tell you?" I asked.
He thought his answer would startle me. "It tells me that if I want to be infamous, I (hypothetically) need to kill even more people."
"Wrong" I said. "If the goal of this 'hypothetical' school shooter is to be remembered, then he needs to forget about the quantity of his (hypothetical) victims and start thinking about the quality of his victims. These killers have just targeted innocent people. Like I said last time, that's totally passe. But if you (hypothetically) want to be remembered when you go out in your blaze of glory, why not take out those that deserve it in the process?"
He sat up straighter in his chair.
I continued. "Take child molesters for example. They have all these laws that prohibit them from living within so many yards of a school, playground, etc. So they end up clustered in these little shitty apartment complexes filled with their own kind. They're easy to find. All you have to do is look in the online database and check for a bunch that have the same address. If someone were to (hypothetically) shoot a place like that up instead of their school, then they'd be remembered. Forget being called a loser freak. They'd call that person a hero. A vigilante. A martyr for justice".
Seeds of thought began sprouting in his head.
I didn't stop. "And it probably wouldn't stop there. There would be copycats. Maybe even an entire movement. If a person were to do something like that? They'd be remembered. Revered even".
There was a minute of silence between us.
From there, the conversation gradually segued into his grades, his relationship with his parents, his friends, etc. But I could tell that the seeds were taking root.

It won't happen today. It probably won't happen next month. But it's going to happen. I'm certain of it.

Venetian Plaster

I was eighty-five miles away
close enough to think about driving home
far enough away to justify staying the night
a ring not quite on my finger
her ring not quite on hers

Reading Freaky Deaky in strip mall B&N
She was doing a Q&A for her book
an anthology of local murders, I think
it wasn't something I'd ask about
I just overheard every other question

She walked by twice, hoping I'd stop her
before she said that Leonard seemed light for me
I asked her what my middle name was
She said "I don't know, I don't know you"
I sneared "And don't you forget it"

Dean Koontz was her brain candy
I couldn't read him after Lightning
but we both liked DeMille
me for Cathedral & her for Charm School
It would be easy to get her home
but hard to get her undressed

I left my car in the parking lot
she drove a Prius or an Insight
I can't tell them apart
to an upscale cookie cutter flat
Minimalism could have been her style
but she was probably just poor

We drank cheap wine out of Riedel Sommelier glasses
She talked about Proust
I pretended to listen
until it was my turn to talk
about Lennon's nigger and The End
She ruined my favorite sweater
I got hard anyhow

She said she needed to change
I waited a half hour
then opened her bedroom door
she slept with a pillow between her legs
in a bra and panties
her alarm set for six ayem
I took 3 Ambiens from her cabinet
and fell asleep against her bathroom door

I woke when the pool opened at noon
her long gone for work, presumably unshowered
I went through her photo albums
the same boy at her prom
and again from just last year
I ripped out all his pictures
then burned them in the sink before I left

Si Usted Me Necesita...

I won't be easy to find
alcoholico de pueblo
in Salsipuedes
middle of nowhere, Mexico
far enough down the baja
where you run out of beach
and run into rocky inhospitable coast
not even in una casa
more like una choza
wearing a perpetual week-old beard
where the coast looks like...... hmmm
upside-down senos (not to be coarse)
but I'll be around

Well, there or in town
for cervezas and arroz
my dog in the truck
I'll be the one
with Doc Martens & guitar
no phone or address
just ask for the gringo chistoso
they'll know who you mean
and point you down a long dirt road
towards Fin del Mundo
both in name and in purpose
waiting for perdon o muerte
whichever comes first
or maybe both

You'll be expected
an extra cup, an extra plate
but only one cama
just for me
so you can't stay long
probably not even worth the effort
to talk to a broken old young man
no good to anyone anymore anytime
except my dog and my bartender
but if you're in the area
within a hundred miles or so
and you want to say 'hello'
I promise to kiss you goodbye

My Calling

If you asked me eighteen years ago where I thought I would be today, I would have told you with near-certainty that I would be a mission specialist preparing for my first shuttle launch. Yeah yeah, it was a goofy sappy aspiration but I pursued it with single-minded determination and fervent resolve.

If you told me that instead of working at Kennedy Space Center, I would be strapping an unconscious & naked 66-year old man to work table in the basement of my house, I would have had you institutionalized.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

My father was a psychiatrist, by training and sometimes trade. And as I still am now, I am my father's son. When I was young (10 or so), my dad's job fascinated me. Back then, my dad has his office downstairs at our home. We had a walkout basement and his patients would walk around the side of our house and through a set of french doors into an anteroom outside my dad's den/office. It wasn't a large room, maybe 12' x 12', but it was nicely appointed and had a wood-burning fireplace against the west wall.
During the summer when I was supposed to be outside playing, I would instead sneak around of the side of the house, quietly open the exterior ash cleanout door of the fireplace and eavesdrop on his sessions. And when my parents would go out for the evening, I would creep into my father's office, steal one or two of the cassete tape recordings he made of his appointments as well as his post-session recorded notes. I would get into bed and listen to the tapes on my Walkman until late into the night.

I don't know that if it was that I was getting more mature and subsequently more capable of recognizing nuance and subdued verbal cues or if my father was just becoming more calloused, but the tapes seemed to reveal a progressive degradation in the attention he placed towards his job. Initially, he would spend about 45 minutes after each session recording notes to himself, summarizing the appointment and preparing his approach to the next scheduled session. It was very detailed and meticulous. But as the months and years wore on, there was a subtle yet inarguable shift in his approach to his work. Where he was once proactively probed and questioned his patient during their session, he now just randomly interspersed some "hmm"s with a few "uh-huh"s. His once voluminous post-session recordings now became "Patient feeling more and more sorry for himself - I should make an effort to blow some smoke up his ass next week".

It was right there laying in my bed listening to those tapes that I decided that I didn't want any part of an occupation that numbed your soul and jaded your compassion.


I was in the Physics club in high school (sexy, I know). I went to college with a relatively prominent physics program. I was a physics major..... until midway through my sophomore year.


I am my father's son.


I was a psychologist way before I was a psychologist. Free will never had much to do with it.

You see someone hurting, you see someone lost, you see someone in pain - if you have the means and ability, then you have to do something about it.


When you're in you 20's, that sounds noble and righteous.

When you're in your mid-30's, you realize that it's a Sisyphean task. You never run out of the hurt, the lost or the pained. You start out naively thinking that you can immerse yourself in the depths of human misery without succumbing to despair. If, day after day, you hear about abuse and self-harm and adultery and incest and failure, it wears on you. You're faced with three distinct courses of action;

• you either become my father - calloused to the torment of the people who place their trust in you


• you let yourself sink deeper and deeper into a bottomless pit of sordid misfortune


• or you walk away

I walked away about a year ago. My thinking was that I would allow myself to be powerless - unable to help a stranger looking for directions, unwilling to pull over to help an old man change his flat tire, unqualified to talk a jumper down from a ledge. I was going to be selfish. I was going to ignore any plea, any cry for help.

So almost a full year passes.

I'm still alone. But now I don't have the excuse of an emotionally-draining job for my isolation. I'm still thirteen hundred miles from any close family member. But now I don't have the excuse of the tempestuous relationship with my father to blame for it.

I was lost. Didn't know where I was going and now I wasn't even sure where I had been. Worse still, there was still no escaping the pain and grief - you turn on the TV and it's nothing but little girls being raped and killed by meth addicts, little boys being kidnapped and molested, wives being murdered and dismembered. At least when I was younger and saw someone in need, I had the means and ability to help them.

Then it came to me.

My calling.

I DID have the means and ability to help the raped, the molested and the murdered. I'm relatively financially secure. I live alone in a fairly remote house and property. And perhaps most importantly, I'm already convinced that my lifetime of inflicting pain on others has reserved my spot in hell.

It first hit me when I was watching Court TV. They were running one of their cold-case docudramas about a woman who had gone missing in 1975. She tucked her two kids into bed one night then was reported missing when she didn't show up at her job the next morning. There was wide concensus that her recently estranged husband was responsible for her disappearance. He had been a real dirtbag, a history of domestic violence against both his wife and his kids, alcoholism and drug abuse. The police had some forensics evidence from the house, but without her body, they never had enough the press charges. He was still walking free that day. The last shot of the show was him walking in to his front door with a smirk on his face.

So I was watching this show and I couldn't help but thinking that somebody should just take a 2"x4" to the husband and smack that smile clean off his face. Then I looked across the room to the hall bathroom where I've been doing some work to see a half dozen 2"x4"s leaning against the wall.

The means and the ability.

THIS is my calling. I have never been so certain of anything in my entire life. I am vengeance. I am justice. I am the reckoning.

Given enough time (and a strong enough stomach), it's relatively easy to get somebody to talk. Interrogation is all about psychology. When I was in school, we learned about a few different "interviewing" techniques most of which were modification to what's now known as the Reid technique - a nine step methodology for eliciting confessions. But what I needed to do was a bit different, essentially just steps 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 9 with welding torches substituting for 2, 7 and 8. And I didn't necessarily care about a confession per se - I needed evidence - the location of a missing body, a murder weapon or anything else objectively incriminating.

But you know what? Maybe I didn't even care about that. Maybe I'm just trying to assign nobility to the sociopathic. Maybe the only difference between him and me is that my victims deserve it. But does it matter to you anyhow? Do you really care if my motivations are honorable or if they're demented? Would you care who saved you if you were drowning? Fuck it all.

I snuck into his house while he was at work and bought an Amtrak ticket to Salt Lake City in his name with his Visa Card.

I tailgated with him in the muni lot before the football game.

I offered to drive him home as he stumbled back to his car.

I placed his cell phone in an open boxcar as he lay passed out in my passenger seat.

I strapped him to the workbench in my basement with cargo tiedowns.

I burned his clothes in my bedroom fireplace.

I scorched the soles of his feet with a soldering torch so he knew I was serious (and so he couldn't run).

I ignored his muffled pleas for mercy.

I burned his tears as they ran down his face.

I smeared Vaporub on my upper lip to cover up the smell.

I felt nothing as he lost control of his bodily functions.

I placed the tape recorder closer to his face when his voice lowered to a whisper.

I listened as a godless man prayed for forgiveness.

I think he was relieved when I placed my fingers around his throat.

I laid down on the couch as my dog licked my hand.

I buried a husband next to his wife.

I said a prayer for absolution.

I said a prayer for guidance.

I began to plan.

I'm No Father - A Scheherezade Project Entry

She had been the first single mom I had ever dated. Looking back, it probably should have been a bigger deal for me but, at the time, I just didn't think that much of it. She had a kid - it just wasn't that big of a deal to me. Little brunette Bobbie.

I had met her in a crowded bar. Technically speaking, I met her friend (little blonde Vicki) in a crowded bar. They had been standing by the jukebox when I walked over and started to put a quarter in.

"Don't bother", they said. "We put money in there almost an hour ago and it still hasn't come around to our songs".

"Oh ye of little faith", I replied. "Of course it's not going to play your songs when you have that kind of attitude. All that negative energy is blocking the jukebox's chi" I said as I slid my quarters in and selected three songs.

They half-smiled, half-scowled as they repeated their assertions that I was wasting my money.

Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai started playing.

"See? I told you so. Positive energy", I scoffed at them.

"There's no waaay that you played this song" Vicki protested.

"Of course I played this song", I replied indignantly. "This is the song I play as I do my laundry and busta move".

Vicki started casual small talk as the song continued until it was soon replaced with Wannabe by the Spice Girls.

"Now I suppose you're going to try to tell us that you play this song too", Bobbie said as she rolled her eyes.

"I played it indeed. I'm not ashamed to say that I like the Spice Girls. It's got a funky little beat and an addictive hook", I said.

"Oh yeah? Then what song did you pick next?" she asked, thinking that she had me boxed into a corner.

"Refugee by Tom Petty", I replied, not having anything to lose.

"Jamiroquai, Spice Girls AND Tom Petty? That's quite the eclectic taste in music you have", Bobbie said, clearly mocking me now. "I'll bet you a BILLION dollars that Refugee isn't the next song that plays".

"Well for your sake, I'm going to ignore the fact that you're questioning my integrity. But if you make it a round of beers instead of the billion dollars, I'll take that bet", I said as I mentally prepared myself to buy the next round of drinks.

"Deal", they both said as we shook on it.

We all waited in anticipation as the jukebox went from;


"Slam your body down and wind it all around

Slam your body down zigazig ah

If you wanna be my lover"


to............


"We got somethin', we both know it

We don't talk too much about it"



Refugee by Tom Petty.
I freakin' rule.


That was one of the best tasting beers I have ever drank.
So anyway, we end up at the club next door where Blessed Union Of Souls were playing. I give Vicki my number and I head home.

We end up going out a few times, mostly with a group of her friends and never anything super physical. It was pretty clear that we really weren't clicking and it wasn't going to go much farther. It possibly had something to do witht he fact that her license plate read "RL BLOND", but I won't get into that.

Bobbie, on the othe hand, was a different story.

Over a period of the next month, we were getting to the point were we knew that there was something between us and it was just a matter of working through the awkwardness of shifting to her from Vicki. Bobbie was smart about it though and put way more thought into how I would be with her son. She wasn't technically divorced yet either, so that only added to the complexity of the situation. But after I passed a series of tests in her eyes, the relationship moved forward.

It was going pretty well for a few months. Her son Josh was a great kid and we got along fine. He was six and the spitting image of his father (red hair, mischievous green eyes). I was slowly phased into the equation - I only slept over on nights when he was at his dad's house, we took separate cars whenever we all went somewhere together, no physical displays in front of him aside from holding hands, etc.

I had taken them both to the zoo on a Saturday. We had walked halfay through when we saw they were offering camel rides for the kids - five bucks or somewhere around there. Josh went crazy wanted to ride one so we headed over there and got in line. When we finally got to the front, the zoo worker took Josh by the hand to lead him to the camels.

"Your mom and dad can wait for you on the other side over there", he said a he led him away.

I don't think Josh caught it as he just started running towards the animals..... but Bobbie and I definitely caught it. And that very second was the first moment that I actually thought that maybe, just maybe I could see myself as a dad - even if it was just as a step-dad at first.
But I knew Bobbie wasn't quite there yet when she said to him "uhhh, that's not his dad, we're just... ummm".
It was a pretty good day anyhow. A great day, in fact.
I wasn't working a lot at the time, so it got to the point where I would pick Josh up at daycare when Bobbie worked late and drop him off at her office. She was a loan officer at a local bank and sometimes had to stay over a little longer when she had a lot of paperwork to handle.
I didn't mind doing it at all. I was driving a convertible jeep-like thing at the time and Josh loved riding in it. He'd see me pull up to the daycare and he'd just go crazy. We'd usually take the long way there and sometimes I'd "accidentally" drive over a curb or cut through the woods or drive through a huge mud puddle.
So over a period of a couple months, she worked late maybe 8-10 times. It was going pretty well.
It was on a Friday the last time I had to pick him up. The bank was located on the first floor of an eight-story office building and was open until 6PM on Fridays to give the officeworkers a chance to cash their paychecks. Josh and I walked through the outside doors planning on waiting in the building lobby outside the bank until his mom was done with her work.
Initially, I didn't notice the three men hustling out of the bank carrying duffel bags OR the two security guards running towards the bank from their station at the other end of the lobby.
It was only after I heard one of the guards yell "STOP" that I knew something was wrong. For a second, I though the guard was yelling at me and I wondered what the hell I had done wrong. It was just then when I realized the men coming out of the bank were wearing sunglasses and ballcaps.
One of them raised a gun.
Armed bank robbers in front of me. Armed security guards behind me.
But then I noticed that it wasn't just ME between them. It was US between them.
Me AND Josh.

BANG!



BANG!

When they looked at the surveillance footage later, it looked like I grabbed Josh by his shoulders and pulled him into my body to protect him from the bullets. It looked like they bullet ricochted off the marble floor, sending debris in all directions, and struck him in the stomach despite all my efforts to shield him.

What actually happened?

Once I heard the gunfire, I looked down to see Josh frozen in time staring at the security guards running down the concourse, completely oblivious what was happening behind him. A single thought kept repeating in my brain;

"I'm too important to die"
"I'm too important to die"
"I'm too important to die"
"I'm too important to die"

My instinct for self-preservation took over.

I grabbed Josh by the shoulders and yanked him in front of me as I dove to the floor, effectively shielding myself from danger.
In the next 3-4 seconds, my brain processed a million thoughts. Among them;

• the part of Lord Jim when the main character is deciding whether to jump into the lifeboat or return to the ship in an attempt to rescue the 800 pilgrims
• my three years in the Boy Scouts which was supposed to prepare me to handle moments like this
• I wish I wasn't a coward
• Please don't let me die
• How will I live with myself after this
• This is my opportunity to be a hero
• I wish I wasn't a coward

My only consolation was that Josh didn't die on my arms. He lasted all the way until the ambulance ride to the trauma center. Bobbie arrived in time to see her sheet-covered son wheeled out of the ambulance.

I drove home and washed the blood from my hands.

Baby, It's Cold Inside - A Scheherezade Project

This is one of those stories that requires a substantial prologue. So here it goes;

Growing up, my family wasn't big on the traditional holiday experience. I don't mean this in a judgmental way, in terms of bad or good - they just weren't. Specifically, I don't ever remember a time when I actually believed in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. That illusion was just never perpetuated in my household. The one symbol of yuletide jubilee that we did tolerate - the Christmas tree - became nomore as we started spending the holidays in south Florida when I was a teenager. Most of my birthdays consisted of a drive into town so I could pick out something from the mall.
I went to high school out of state. I went home during the holidays of my freshman and sophomore years, but after that? I just mostly hung out at school.
Even now, with my family scattered between the west, midwest, southeast and western Europe, I usually just take the holidays as an opportunity to hole up and relax.

And now on to the story.....

I spent most of the year 2001 doing some contract work for pharmaceutical company. As far as the nature of the work went, it was pretty mindless for me. Even then, I just wasn't well-suited for rush hour commutes, cubicles and performance reviews. Just not my thing.
But there was one thing that I DID like - the company softball team.
Now, I wasn't technically an employee of the company, but considering that 90% of the people who worked there made Stephen Hawking look like Mark McGwire, they made an exception for me.
It was pretty much a beer league - not very competitive by any measure. But it was coed.
And that's where I met Leah.
At the time, I was working exclusively in HR while she worked in Research. So the only time we ever crossed paths was on the softball field. It was hard for me to get a bead on her. The contrast between her jet black hair against her pale pale skin made it hard to tell if she was Snow White or Meg White. But that was kind of my thing at the time. I was a fool for the goth chicks (which sucked for me since I was about as attractive to goth chicks as a Touched By An Angel marathon).
And she just worked me. I'd catch her eyeing me from across the infield as she played second and I played third. She'd stretch out right in front of me before our games. She'd sit just far enough away from me on the bench. And she'd brush by me to grab a beer at the bar afterwards.
But she never approached me. She never came on to me. She never dropped a clue.
She made me work for it.
And right around the start of the playoffs, she finally broke me. She completely wrecked me.
I asked her out. She said yes.

Things went well, to say the least. Given the nature of my job at the time, we had to keep things on the down-low at work, but I think that only served to add to the intensity of out relationship. The simply act of passing her in the hall turned into... I don't know. It was something else. She just had a way.....
So this goes on for a few months. Through September. Through October. Through November.
Then came December.
Were were laying in her bed when she asked me to spend Christmas with her at her folks house outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. I don't think we had talked about my predisposition for non-traditional holidays, but it seemed like she knew in advance how to sell it - we'd just spend Christmas Eve and Christmas day at her parents house, then we'd spend a few days at Greenbriar all by ourselves. No big deal, right? Besides, I didn't have any other plans.
So we went.
Looking back at it now, she spent the whole drive down there preparing me for what was going to happen - her parents were kind of old-fashioned so I was going to sleep in her brother's old room, there will probably be some of her aunts & uncles there too, she was the only daughter so her brothers were probably going to give me a hard time (but they mean well), etc.
So I should have seen it coming.
What I pictured was something out of a suburban Addams Family, but what I got was something more out of a de-pigmented Cosby Show.
I spent the morning of Christmas Eve playing "flag" football with her brothers, cousins & uncles. Well, not so much "flag football" as it was "throw the ball to Assclown then let everybody pile on top of him". But it was kind of a blast. I got my ass beat, but I was a good-natured ass-beating. After we showered and changed, Leah and I ran into town real quick to do some last minute shopping for a few of her cousins that she didn't know were going to be there. We were looking through the boys clothing at the Abercrombie & Fitch when she took me by the hand, led me to a corner in the back, pushed me against the wall and put her right hand over my mouth.
"I'm going to tell you something, and you're not going to say a word in return, ok? You're just going to listen and shut up about it, right?" she said.
Before I could even nod out a yes, she told me that she loved me.
I started to say something......... but she raised her eyebrows, muffled my words with her hand and led me back into the store.
When we got back to the house, there were even more family there. Grandparents and nieces and Aunts and in-laws. And I had to be introduced to every single one. What did I do? How did Leah and I meet? Where do my parents live? Did I go to UVa? Etc, etc, etc.
I spent most of the night catching glimpses of her as the swinging butlers door opened and closed. A half second of her licking a mixing spoon. A momentary glimpse of her whispering in her mother's ear. A flutter of her looking towards me.
We sat next to each other at dinner. We held hands under the table as her father said grace, giving thanks for the blessings of his friends and family. About 20 minutes into the meal, he father gives me a smile and says, "Soooo, Leah tells me that you're a consultant. How does that work - do you just go from company to company, doing your thing until a better offer comes around?"
She shook her head in his direction, but I answered the question he was really asking. I hoped he took comfort in my answer.

We went to the candlelight service at their church, then came back to put the younger kids to sleep and go downstairs to just have a few drinks.

Or so I thought.

Until her aunt busts out the karaoke machine. It was worse than I could have possibly imagined. Her goateed uncle sang Bad to the Bone. Her Dad sang Luck Be a Lady. My heart stopped as Leah sang Killing Me Softly. Her mom wanted to a duet with her father, but he was too tired to get up from his chair. So she drug me up to the microphone and we sang Baby, Its Cold Outside.
It was about as Norman Rockwellian of a moment as I've ever experienced.

And I spent the entire two days alternating between sheer bliss and unbridled fear.

I waited two weeks after we got back to break up with her.

I just don't know if I could be that person. Certainly not then. And maybe it's too late for me now.

I'm Not Anymore

I'm not 10 years old anymore
eyes freshly opened
newly aware of others pain
but still keenly naive
of my own ability to hurt

I'm not 14 anymore
feeling rage instead of grief
no desire for comfort
no use for condolences
running anywhere but here

I'm not 18 anymore
so stupid to think I was a man
that my hands could wash clean
a cacophony of bullshit
hiding my tattooed back

I'm not 22 anymore
getting feeling back in my extremities
not quite so numb
taking pleasure in pleasure
and feeling pain with pain

I'm not 27 anymore
a thousand ways to blame myself
chanting the tired mantra
Gentle Lady, Do Not Sing
doesn't deny me my own hell

I'm not 30 anymore
losing track of whores
Amy and Lil and whats-her-face
they're remnants in my bed
unwilling to sleep alone

I'm not 34 anymore
the path behind me now dark
only glimpses of the road ahead
waking to see a half-sun on the horizon
uncertain if it's dawn or dusk

I'm 35 years old now
still no use for pity
save your tears for yourself
there are no victims here
I'm just the sum of my days
not a slave to my hours

The Sins of My Fathers

You probably couldn't tell just by looking at me, but I'm the last in a long line of semi-harmless rogues and semi-charmless outlaws.
My great-great grandfather spent some time in jail for selling phony deeds to government land to Irish immigrants fresh off the boat. An "involuntary guest of the federal government" as the colloquialism went in my family. Rumor has it that was the least of his crimes. He had a legendary reputation as a unrepentant swindler and a world-class avoider of all physical labor.
My great-grandfather was the product of an ephemeral relationship with the "touched" daughter of an Baltimore Lutheran minister. Given the unsuitability of his parents, he was sent off to live with a distant childless aunt in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He soon overcame the distinct disadvantages of the absence of any bad influences by becoming something of a scalawag in his own right. He made a decent living collecting the rewards from "lost" horses and livestock as well as working short stints as a dentist/doctor/undertaker (slightly unlicensed, of course).
He was shot dead as he was climbing out of someone else's bedroom window.
But not before he could leave his seed in the belly of a widowed Denver schoolteacher.
She raised my grandfather on her own. She'd had seven children who were mostly grown by the time he was born. They grew up to be fine upstanding citizens - lawyers, bankers and college professors. But my grandfather missed out on that gene and was cursed with the wayward blood of his father. Though he became very educated, it seemed to just make him a more effective crook. "Embezzlement" is probably too strong of a word, but he definitely leaned toward crime of a more white-collar variety. He was arrested (and acquitted) four times for "accounting errors" at a steel mill, coal & gold mines and a Methodist church where he served as a deacon. As the legend goes, the witnesses just liked him too much to testify against him.
It would have been a pretty safe bet that my father would have broke the chain of lawlessness, but it wasn't meant to be. He grew up straight as an arrow in Eisenhower's America, but soon regressed back into the shadowy crevasse between illegal and unethical. "It's just pot" soon became "I just need something to take the edge off" which in turn descended into search warrants and Ethics Review Boards.
Me? I've managed to stay out of jail and outside the crosshairs of wronged husbands. But not by much. And I couldn't tell you how long the streak will last. I don't presume to know when the pirate blood pumping through my veins will come to a boil.
Gentleman or charlatan.
Faithful or adulterous.
Honest or corrupt.
Pious or immoral.

It's still too soon to know for sure.

Random American Psycho Quotes of the Day

"Harold, it's Bateman, Patrick Bateman. You're my lawyer so I think you should know: I've killed a lot of people. Some girls in the apartment uptown uh, some homeless people maybe 5 or 10 um an NYU girl I met in Central Park. I left her in a parking lot behind some donut shop. I killed Bethany, my old girlfriend, with a nail gun, and some man uh some old faggot with a dog last week. I killed another girl with a chainsaw, I had to, she almost got away and uh someone else there I can't remember maybe a model, but she's dead too. And Paul Allen. I killed Paul Allen with an axe in the face, his body is dissolving in a bathtub in Hell's Kitchen. I don't want to leave anything out here. I guess I've killed maybe 20 people, maybe 40. I have tapes of a lot of it, uh some of the girls have seen the tapes. I even, um... I ate some of their brains, and I tried to cook a little. Tonight I, uh, I just had to kill a LOT of people. And I'm not sure I'm gonna get away with it this time. I guess I'll uh, I mean, ah, I guess I'm a pretty uh, I mean I guess I'm a pretty sick guy. So, if you get back tomorrow, meet me at Harry's Bar, so you know, keep your eyes open. "

"There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone, in fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape, but even after admitting this there is no catharsis, my punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself; no new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing. "

"There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable... I simply am not there. "

"I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside of me and I don't know why. My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip. "

"I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I'm 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I'll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion. "

Why She Went Away

I spent hundreds of hours trying to reach level 70 in WoW
I didn't ask who she was talking to while I watched TV
I offered her a drawer when she needed my entire home
I convinced myself that what she wanted was what I wanted
I pretended to sleep while she cried next to me
I turned away when she showed me who she really was
I took her to the same restaurant where I'd taken all my ex's
My only present to her wilted in the cheap plastic vase
I waited patiently on my couch for her to come over
I touched her where my last girlfriend liked to be touched
The only ink on my birthday card to her was Hallmark's
I thought my wants were more important than her needs
I cooked her dinner in the microwave
I thought she was ugly when she was never more beautiful
I wrote about inanity when I should have been writing to her
I let her think she wasn't important to me
I fucked her when she needed to be loved
That's why she went away

Grooming Tips & Lyric of the Day

Though I'm smack dab in the middle if the Grunge Generation, I never really bought into the lifestyle. I'd be the guy at the STP concert wearing pressed khakis and a Polo oxford. But that doesn't mean I didn't get my rock on. I could hold up my fingers in the little devil sign and bang my head with the best of them. Sure, some people would be thrown off by my meticulously crafted sideburns and freshly polished deck shoes, but that couldn't be helped.

Better Man - Pearl Jam

Waitin, watchin the clock,
its four oclock, its got to stop
Tell him, take no more,
she practices her speech
As he opens the door, she rolls over...
Pretends to sleep as he looks her over
She lies and says shes in love with him,
cant find a better man...
She dreams in color, she dreams in red,
cant find a better man...Cant find a better man
Talkin to herself, theres no one else who needs to know...
She tells herself, oh...
Memories back when she was bold and strong
And waiting for the world to come along...
Swears she knew it, now she swears hes gone
She lies and says shes in love with him,
cant find a better man...
She dreams in color, she dreams in red,
cant find a better man...
She lies and says she still loves him,
cant find a better man...
She dreams in color, she dreams in red,
cant find a better man...
Cant find a better man
She loved him, yeah...she dont want to leave this way
She feeds him, yeah...thats why she'll be back again
Cant find a better man

The Lie - A Scheherazade Project Entry

I told her I was tired and really didn't feel like going out
she seemed ok with it but asked if she could just come over
just for a little while, maybe order Chinese & watch a movie
I felt better knowing she was on her way over

She unlocked the door, key in one hand & groceries in the other
"I felt like cooking. Is that ok?" she asked before kissing my neck
and stroking my back as I sat working at my desk
"Sounds perfect. Let me finish this one thing then I can help"

We maneuvered around each other in my under-construction kitchen
grilling chicken, boiling noodles and slicing tomatoes
like we've done dozens of times before, our tasks unspoken
she gives her "naughty boy" look when my hand lingers on her thigh

She tells me about Mrs. Thaelus at work, matchmaker for her gay son
knowing that I don't care but only talking about it to make me laugh
and it works as I try to hide my smile, but she sees it anyhow and grins
by now wearing only a camisole, her blouse draped over the chair

We eat as she pries out the details of my week, labors unrewarded
knowing that I need to tell them despite my half-hearted reluctance
it feels better getting it all out, but I'm sorry she's bearing the brunt
on her slight wispy shoulders and graceful musician's hands

She leans her back against the arm of the couch as I rest my head in her lap
her fingers interlaced in my hair as we half pay attention to The Guardian
drinking a bottle of wine she brought back from Asheville, saved just for me
she slides down in front of me, facing away, as I wrap her in my arms

I feel her breathe dance on my wrist and her pulse throb in my hand
no more talking as we take pleasure in this fleeting peaceful moment
A moment that I'd rarely allowed myself before her, before this
smelling her hair and perfume as I draw her even closer

The credits roll as she turns to face me, bliss and contentment in her eyes
placing her hand on my face as our lips and bodies come together
"I'm going to stay the night, ok?" she asks as if it was even a question
she takes my hand and leads me down the hall to the bedroom

So why couldn't I stop thinking about you?

A Few Of My Least Favorite Things

Def Poetry
McDonalds
Spandex
Hats
"Insert Opressed Peoples Here" Rights
Sarah Jessica Parker
Gamers
White sneakers
Dredlocks
Senses of entitlement
Personalized license plates
People
Non-Tour de France bicyclists
Robin Williams
UFC
Drivers who block right hand turn lanes
Movies where non-retarded actors act retarded
poor quality cotton swabs
Eddie Murphy
Rudy Giuliani
Chain restaurants
Fosters Lager
Bill Belichick
Razr cellphones
99.996% of poker players
Male strippers
Self-righteous pot smokers
Junk drawers
Tank tops in public
The name "Barbara"
Solar energy
White collars on blue dress shirts
Cheap suits
Hip huggers
Fringed leather jackets
Apathetic waitstaff

A Few Of My Favorite Things

Women in knee-length skirts
High quality garbage bags
Oral-B Sonic Complete toothbrush
Women who play bass guitar
Those ebay "It" commercials
Watching my dog fall asleep
Peace Kills
The first 15 minutes of Desperado
Quoting Army of Darkness at inappropriate times
MST3K - I Accuse My Parents
Pot Roast
Mouthwash that leaves a real good burn
Women driving a Jeep
The "WHHIRRRR" of a freshly charged cordless drill
That perfect tenth of a second nap while I'm driving
Hazelnut
Watching my dog try to run through ten inches of snow
Fresh wiper blades
The Country Boy Breakfast at Cracker Barrel
Singing "I Just Called To Say I Love You" to telemarketers
Jambalaya with lots of okra
The bookstore in my town
Revision Pore Refining Pumpkin Mask
Being slightly over-dressed
The theme song to King of the Hill
The "Girls Gone Wild" commercials (not the videos - just the commercials)
Spicy Chicken Burritos at Taco Bell
Glimpses of skin
Hotels with bathrobes
A perfectly mitered corner
Watching old drunk people trying to do the Electric Slide
Kevin Spacey as Mel Proffit
My mini-fridge at work
Jamming a q-tip so far in my ear that it comes out the other side
Mike Tyson vs Trevor Berbick
MXC
Slicing portabello mushrooms
Despair.com

The Truckee Greyhound Station

For the second time in my life, I woke up on a bench in a bus station. The latest incarnation was a result of a series of very very poor decisions. What started out as a glorified plan rapidly devolved into an ill-conceived scheme over the extended Thanksgiving holiday.
But as I woke, I wasn't thinking of my current circumstances but rather my original walkabout twenty-some years ago.
I was fourteen years old when I stole eighteen hundred dollars out of a secret compartment in my dad's office drawer. I'll give you two guesses as to why he'd hide that much cash in his office. Both guesses are probably right.
By that point in my life, my parents had grown used to me taking off sometimes for a couple days on end. We lived out in the boonies so camping was only a half-mile hike away. I'd walk out the door with my backpack and tell me folks that I'd be back later. They'd nod and mumble something in reply. As long as I didn't miss any school, it was never a big deal. I only went camping about half the time. The other half was spent riding a Greyhound bus no where in particular, usually as far as half of whatever money I had would take me.
But this time I was going to take the train. I had the eighteen hundred plus about three hundred of my own lawn-mowing and babysitting money. I caught the Zephyr just outside of town (it's discomforting how easy it is for a fourteen year old to buy an out-of-state train ticket). I was going to take it to Truckee then hitch to Westville where my grandfather had an old hunting cabin. It was pretty much a shitbox - no electricity or running water but it was isolated and perfect.
It was scheduled to be a 19 hour train trip through some of the least scenic landscapes on planet earth. Not that it mattered much because it got dark a couple hours after we left the station. I past the time planning the next couple months - buying sundries, a fishing pole and a bunch of toilet paper. I figured the money would last me about six months before I'd have to think of something else.
I estimated that we'd be passing through Elko before anyone would notice that I wasn't where I was supposed to be. Not that they'd start looking or anything. My dad would think that I was with my uncles and my uncles would figure that I was over at some friend's house. I could probably get pretty near my final destination before anyone would start to panic.
But they'd be too busy getting ready for my mom's funeral. When I'd left, my sister was trying to decide what to wear, my dad's secretary was parked down the street after spending the night at our house (a year later she'd be complaing that I refused to call her "mom") and my grandmother had drugged herself catatonic.
The blizzard slowed us down quite a bit and it took nearly three hours to get to Truckee from Reno. I didn't have much luck hitching from there. I-70 had been shut down for about an hour by the time I got there. Semis and station wagons lined the streets with their engines running to keep the occupants warm. This wasn't part of my plan.
It's only four or so blocks from the train station to the Greyhound station so I trudged through the snow dragging my Yankees duffel bag behind me. I figured the bus would give me a better chance to get me close to where I wanted to go. It was close to 10PM by the time I got there and I had 9 hours until the next departure.
I fell asleep on a bench next to the window.

Painting of the Day

In The Woods - Anders Zorn

One Of These Nights

One of these nights
I'm going to knock on your window
even if no one else is home
you'll giggle in your pajamas
while I tell you to "get dressed, let's go"
you'll be half-hearted hesitant
just for a second though
before you toss on some jeans
and run a brush through your hair

You'll slide it to ride shotgun
and ask "so where are we going?"
I'll just smile and head south
avoiding highways like we were on the lam
getting warmer the farther we go
top down, stars out, chance of rain
caring less the faster we drive
no responsibilities or concerns
the only souls we're saving are our own

We'll pass a tattoo shop at 3AM
an exchanged glance, an illegal u-turn
you'll get a butterfly on your shoulder
I'll get "Tragedia Hermoso" across my back
we'll make "Dude Sweet" jokes
the rest of the way down
and snicker at the names of the towns we pass
Red Lick, Hardwood and Kleinpeter
like we were fourteen years old

We'll pick our aliases before we get into town
you can be Veronica Lucretia, socialite from Rome
I'll be Roscoe Steele, bronc rider from Waco
ridiculously bad accents and even worse lies
we'll buy you a sequined black cocktail dress
with slightly-more-than-appropriate cleavage
I'll wear a Stetson and ostrich skin boots
and walk pigeon-toed and bow-legged
we'll count how many people point and stare

Everything and nothing has changed in a year
the Lions Den is gone but Irma's still here
Mudbone's still driving his carriage
and the angel still stands in Jackson Square
that record shop is back open on Decatur
we can roll the bones at Harrah's
as you kiss the dice for luck
we'll either go home rich or go home broke
but no regrets and no promises to break

Fuck It, I'm Going To Mexico

Ten degrees too cold for my Shaft jacket
six degrees from where I want to be
Rafters and studs and drywall and mud
fuck it, I'm going to Mexico

The doctor's never seen what I have
she'll never know what I don't
Stitches and pills and iodine and bills
fuck it, I'm going to Mexico

Running 'round to keep every door closed
light creeps through the keyhole
Sitcoms and news and cigars and booze
fuck it, I'm going to Mexico

Chinese takeout, three days in a row
Li Ma doesn't even work there anymore
Styrofoam and soy and dim sum and koi
fuck it, I'm going to Mexico

Same conversation, four hundreth time
the more they talk, the less I listen
phobias and shame and repression and blame
fuck it, I'm going to Mexico

Four things left from my room back home
survived countless trashcans and gasoline
letters and veil and pesos and shale
fuck it, I'm taking my dog down to Mexico

Better

I know it's just the same old wine
a nineteen dollar bottle of Louis Jadot
but it just tastes better on your lips

I know that I've heard it before
two syllables a million times
but my name just sounds better when you say it

I know your sister wears it too
that paralegal from work does too
but Amarige just smells better when you wear it

I know it's just my white dress shirt
sleeves rolled up, collar unbuttoned
but it just looks better when you wear it

I know it's just a spot on the small of my back
I've been around the block a time or two
but it just feels better when you touch it

I know it's just the same old house
been here for eighty-some years
but it just feels better when you're in it

Mystery Assclown Friday - La Fin Du Monde

It wouldn't be the end of the world if we just met
what's the worst thing that would happen if we kissed?
No one would have to know if I stayed the night
Nothing would change between us if we were more than friends
Who would be the wiser if we just kept it between us?
How bad could it be if we just dropped our guards?
It's not against the law to show that you care
¿Cuándo puedo sentirle al lado de mí?

Mon Rêve

In my dream you were walking down the sidewalk
in front of my house wearing a breezy cotton sundress
As you passed my fence, we shared a stranger's smile
a momentary love affair foreshadowing things to come

I waited until you turned the corner to unlatch the gate
on the off-chance that tomorrow you'd let yourself in
I planted tigerlilies around the side of the house
and pulled some thistles that had rooted in the beds

The next morning you came in holding an empty leash
looking for your dog who had worked himself loose
we found him as he leaped into my pond, barking at ducks
we drank espressos in the yard while we waited for him to dry

You walked home without a promise, just a little hope
that maybe tomorrow would bring more of the same
thinking about me as I sat on my couch thinking about you
my hands still shaking and warm from when you touched them

The next morning you didn't need the lost dog charade
just walked over and sat down next to me on my porch
your leg touching mine on the swing as I tried not to stutter
laughing nervously, watching dogs chase deer through the yard

I set the kitchen table after you left, lunch - nothing serious
picked out some non-committal, unpretentious music for ambience
I stayed up all night thinking of things to talk about
that would seem spontaneous and wickedly clever

You seemed at home at my table, comfortable in new surroundings
still there were so many things left unspoken and undone
clumsily dancing on the tips of our tongues and fingers
we bathed in so much uncertainty and premature regret

Still we were left with the cautious promise of another afternoon
I trembled and laid fresh linen sheets across my empty bed
then the next morning I peered through my basement window
and watched you walk away after finding the gate to be locked

The Shit I Have To Put Up With

I've been on deathwatch for about five months now. And it can't come soon enough. I mean, it's not as if she's a bad person or anything. It's just that she annoys the living shit out of me.
I live in the bottom unit of a beat-up old duplex. It used to be nice about a million years ago, but my absentee landlord isn't real good in the way of keeping up repairs or fixing stuff I complain about. But I can live with leaky faucets, sporadic hot&cold water and crappy furnace.
It's that wheezing bitch upstairs that really drives me out of my gourd.
She must sit right next to the laundry chute, because her raspy breathing just radiates straight down into my apartment. I've tried stuffing pillows in the chute, shutting doors and shoving towels in the gaps, even wearing earplugs to bed at night. Nothing works. It's probably not even all that loud but once you hear it even a little bit, you can't get it out of your freaking head. It's like the ticking of an old clock - you never even notice it 95% of the time but once you do, it pounds in your skull until you're ready to bash it with a baseball bat.
"Huuuuhhhhhh.......huuuhhhhhh......coughcough........huuuuuuuhhnnnnnn".
She has to be pushing 80 years old and was fine when she moved in. She had been pretty active, playing cards and going for walks with the lady up the street every couple days. But her health has definitely taken a turn for the worse over the last few months. Hell, I can't remember the last time she left her place. She just plods up and down her steps every day at 6AM to get her paper and then again at 6PM to get her mail. I know the exact time because it wakes me up with her clunk...wheeeeeeze.....wheeeze.....clunk......huuuuufffffff.....gaaaaaasp...clunk as she walks down the steps. I don't know if she wears tap shoes around her house or what, but it's loud as shit.
At first I was cool about it. She's an old lady living by herself after all, so I cut her some slack. But after about a couple months of putting up with it and losing sleep, I totally went off on her. I grabbed a hockey stick and started banging it against the ceiling "JUST FUCKING DIE ALREADY SO I CAN GO TO SLEEP!!".
Even that didn't work. Somebody seriously needs to put a pillow over granny's face at night so we all can rest easier. Don't think that thought didn't cross my mind a time or two. I'd be doing everyone a favor and it would only be bumping up her appointment with death by a few months. I can't freaking believe she's hung on this long. What the hell does she have to live for anyhow?
I'd totally move and find another place but I'm trying to work through some minor money problems. That and I just renewed my lease right before Mizz Daisy upstairs started pulling her asthma shit. So I'm pretty much screwed.
I did have one other idea I might try - I thought about waiting until it got real quite up there then crank my stereo up full blast all of a sudden. Or maybe light some M-80's off right outside her door - anything to put some serious stress on that old ticker of hers. The only downside would be hoping someone would discover her body before she started to stink. I don't know what would be worse - listening to her breathe like an octogenarian phone sex operator or smelling her rotting corpse through the heating vents.
But If I lose any more sleep because of her wheezing, I might be willing to live with the stench.

The Long Walk Home

If you've ever been down to Church Street Station in Orlando, you'll know what I'm talking about.
Church Street Station is the little entertainment district of downtown Orlando. Every Friday and Saturday night, the OPD cordons off two square blocks and open the streets to drunken tourists and college students. People mosey in and out of Rosie O'Gradys, the Cheyenne Saloon and the Orchid Garden.
But my favorite part?
At about 12:15AM, there's a CSX freight train that pulls directly through the party.
The first time I ever saw it, I was amazed. One minute there's hundreds of people carousing around the track, the next minute the RR crossing signs start flashing and barriers drop signalling the coming train. For several minutes the partying is put on hold while the freight train inches through. Once it's gone again, party on.
I was there with some friends of some friends of some friends. How I got from here to there is another post altogether. But anyways, on Friday night my group had met up with another group. I can't recall exactly if they were TA's from Rollins College or RA's from UCF, but I'm pretty sure it was one of the two.
Out of the new group, I had my eye on two or three women. Back then, my theory was to cast a wide net just in case one or two wiggled their way through the net. But there was one that I hadn't paid much attention to. Our only interaction had been when she finished one of my jokes. So we shared a laugh and little else.
We'd all decided to meet back up there the next night with the intention of getting stupid drunk then go driving go-karts at one of those places off International Drive (if you slip the guy at the gate an extra ten bucks, he'll turn a blind eye to any extracurricular bumping and slamming).
But by the time the next night rolled around, several people from both groups had found something (someone) else to do, so only about a half dozen of us were there on Church Street. Given that we now lacked our designated drivers as well, we thought it best to just hang out there for the evening. Drinking, flirting and general stupidity ensued.
A couple hours passed before we heard the tale-tell DING DING DING and saw the flashing lights. So we stood there drinks in hand as the train crawled through the intersection. But after about 10 or 12 cars, I noticed that many of them were empty and the sliding doors wide open. Now, maybe I'm just weird but when I see a slow-moving train with a bunch of open box cars, only one thought was crossing my mind;
I gotta jump on that bastard.
So I look to my left to see my friends standing there completely oblivious to the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity staring them in the face. Then I turned to my right and locked eyes with my joke-sharing compatriot. She had this evil little mischievous smile on her face and, without a word, I could tell that we we thinking the exact same thought.
I raised my eyebrows and tilted my head toward the train. She nodded and we both ducked under the barrier and paced the train until we could hop in through an open door. Howls of laughter and raucous applause could be heard as hurried inside and out of view of any police.
The inside of the car is pretty much what you'd expect - plank wood floors, girded metal walls, some scrap iron littering the deck. I guess it was around then that we first gave thought to a couple of fairly obvious questions - what do we do know, where the hell is this train going and how are we going to get home?
After laughing our asses off for a few minutes in pure idiotic glee, we answered the first question.
As the train finished it's trek through downtown Orlando, it began to gradually build up speed. The resulting rocking motion forced us to sit down against the forward wall. She turned to me and said," So are you going to kiss me or what?"
I guess when you're young and stupidly irresponsible, you haven't learned of many ways to communicate feelings of joy, passion, excitement, etc. If this had happened now that I'm older, I would have told her how amazingly brave and wonderfully crazy (in a good way) she was for jumping on the train with me. We would have spent that time telling jokes and exchanging antecdotes, finding out about who we were, building a foundation for later on.
But I was in fact young and stupidly irresponsible, so I just kissed her.
And she kissed me back.
The trained cruised through Winter Park, Maitland, Altamonte Springs and over the inland waterway before finally slowing down 100 miles later in Palatka. We jumped off a few hundred yards short of the railyard and sprinted behind an old metal shed to make sure we weren't caught. We hadn't planned on riding for so long, but.......
She held my hand as we walked a couple miles or so to a 7-11 for coffees and directions to somewhere we could rent a car. Then we huddled together down in the Enterprise parking lot while we waited a few hours for them to open. She sat to my left with her head on my shoulder and both arms wrapped around my one. I tried to think calming thoughts so she wouldn't feel my heart slamming against my chest.

First Day of School

If I hadn't paused to scan through CD's to find the right song
I would have made it in front of the bus on my way to work
I had forgotten that this was the first day of school
and I should add ten minutes to my commute

My delay was made worse by parents, camcorders and hugs
wishing kindergarteners love & luck with long goodbyes
Crying kids and tearful moms, clinical separation anxiety
But by next week they'll be glad to see them go

I was barely paying attention by the third stop, a safe distance behind
A woman hand in hand with her raven-haired son
her grip preventing him from racing towards the school bus
I hadn't seen her in almost five... no, six years

I heard that she had moved shortly after her wedding
Married an orthodontist or an oncologist, I can't remember which
I was at home drinking myself unconscious as they exchanged vows
Jim Beam in my right hand and wedding invitation clutched in my left

We'd never even officially broken up, just both knew it couldn't work
she met him sometime as we were fading away from each other
I secretly wished she'd find someone to take my place anyhow
Any excuse to blame my failure, my disease, my weakness on her

I wondered where she was working now, her hair done & mostly dressed
When I knew her, she'd grown weary of nightshifts in the NICU
One too many times coming home to me in blood & tear-stained scrubs
She was barefoot now beneath her tasteful skirt and blouse

They embraced then she checked his backpack - pencils, glue, scissors
He wiped her kiss off his cheek as he darted onto the bus
She waved while he stumbled his way to the empty back seat
Then he turned and looked at me with my eyes, my face, my lips

The Slow Sort Of Bad - Scheherazade Project

He used to think that flooding at test depth would be the worst way to go - a massive surge of pressure as the ocean overwhelmed the submarine would cause the men within to essentially implode. An instant yet ultraviolent death.
But waiting to die? This was much worse.
It had been 17 hours since a torpedo hot run had filled the forward compartment with cyanide gas, the faint scent of almonds lingering in the air. The subsequent explosion irreparably damaged the seals on the hatch separating the torpedo tube from the compartment.
It had been 14 hours since the knocking on the airtight door between the forward compartment and engine room had stopped. It had started out as a cacophonous banging but slowly degraded to an almost inaudible tapping as the men on the wrong side of the hatch succumbed. Only one of the remaining 11 crewmembers on the right side of the hatch made any effort to open it, but he was quickly restrained by the others. Opening that door would only slightly extend the life for the few lucky enough to survive the initial blast but would mean certain death for everyone else as the gas and smoke filled the only compartment not yet inundated with them.
So they sat there and listened to the banging turn into knocking turn into tapping turn into silence. None dared make eye contact with anyone else as the waited for their comrades to die.
Alexei dreaded the impending shame he would feel in the event they were rescued. How could he look into the eyes of the wives and children of the men he let die? How could he face his own family, his own father knowing he was a coward? He had been trained to fight fires and combat flooding. He had been drilled on every conceivable casualty scenario. But he had never been trained on how sacrifice other lives so that he may live.
Their initial expectation was that rescue was imminent. They could hear the emergency beacon reverberating of the sides of the hull and transmitting a signal to the other ships in the area. Surely it would be heard.
Hours passed before beacon faded to nothing as the ship's battery weakened, it's output now a trickle as the lights began to slowly dim. This was among other signs that their situation was getting worse rather than better - the aft section rising as the bow filled with water, the periodic bursts as the forward compartments & tanks collapsed under the intense pressure, and the undeniable diminishing of the ever-present hum of machinery and electronics.
The only officer present assigned teams of two to alternate pounding on the hull with wrenches, weighing the importance of signaling their position with the inescapable fact that the more energy they expended, the more oxygen they consumed. The sound would resonate through miles of seawater in hopes of reaching the sonar arrays of rescue ships.
They kept this up for 11 more hours, their efforts sustained only by drinking handfuls of water from the bilges and eating packets of sugar found in one of the lockers.
The monotonous sound of wrenches pounding against the bulkheads began to be interspersed with the sound of grown men weeping - weeping for sons & daughters never to be seen again, weeping for words unspoken to their wives, weeping for wasted years and weeping for their impending doom. Some began to write letters on whatever scraps of paper they could muster. While not knowing how much time they had left, the notes were rushed and absent of any extraneous thought or emotion. One was even a remorseful confession to his wife for infidelities too numerous to mention.
Then it began to happen.
At first it was the overweight diesel mechanic that drifted off to sleep. Then it was the 42-year old electrician. Not a word was spoken but every single one of the remaining men was secretly relieved - more air for them.
But the distress beacon MUST have been heard. Or at least some ship must have heard the rhythmic metallic beating against the hull. It was only a matter of time before they were rescued. They just had to stay awake.
But now gathered in the aft-most bay and surrounded by silent machinery, the men slipped away one by one. Some attempted to only inhale tiny amounts of air at a time, hoping against hope to buy just a few more minutes. Others discreetly took slow deep breathes, consuming more so that others would have less.
But not a single person moved. Not even an inch, fearful that any wasted movement would mean wasted air. But no matter how they tried, they couldn't stop their own hearts from beating faster and faster, racing away in panic and knowledge that rescue efforts would come too late. The more rapid their hearts fluttered, more oxygen was stripped from their lungs.
Then there were just eight left.
Then seven.
Four others went in rapid succession - one moment with tears running down their cheeks and the next moment..... nothing.
Alexei watched as his officer's eyelids began to slide down, pause for just a moment then continue all the way shut.
"I don't want to die. Please God don't let me die", begged his last remaining comrade.
Those were his last words, repeated over and over again until they became a whisper.
Alexei reached over and removed the philanderer's letter from the grip of his lifeless fingers. Pulling out his lighter and fully understanding it's oxygen-burning implications, he lit the note and brushed the ashes into the bilge below. He scribbled "I'll always love you" on a page ripped from his bible and put it in place of the original goodbye.
Then he held his breath and waited - waited for the slow sort of bad that robbed him of tomorrow.

A Hard Truth - Scheherazade Project

It's easier than you might think.
By the time I volunteered to do pro bono counseling at Mansfield Correctional (not to be confused with the Mansfield reformatory, site of Shawshank Redemption, Tango & Cash, etc - it's been closed down for over 15 years) most of the work had already been done. By then I already had a fairly comprehensive list of all the inmates, their crimes and sentences. From there it was only a matter of developing a profile for just the right target. God bless the internet.
You'd also be surprised at how easy it was to get inside. Prisons are so desperate for counselors that the background check consisted of little more than a basic criminal history (I didn't have one - my record has been expunged) and a set of my fingerprints.
Done.
Within two weeks of my initial offer to volunteer, I was counseling inmates in my own non-tape-recorded office. It was pretty much what you'd expect - anxiety over their wives fidelity on the outside, feelings of hopelessness, rough facades replaced by tears, etc. Not that I gave a shit about them or their problems. That wasn't what I was there for.
I started out hoping that one of the prisoners I had targeted would just walk right in, but after a week or so I started to get a little anxious. Thinking that I'd have to settle for less than desireable, I started amending my plans.
But I didn't have to. Because that's when I met 50 Grams. And he was perfect.
He was nicknamed 50 Grams because that's the smallest amount of pure methamphetamine that will trigger the harsher mandatory minimum of no less than 20 years. He was busted after a routine traffic stop turned up the meth in the trunk of his car - boom, first offense. The subsequent search warrant for his apartment turned up another 75 grams - boom, second offense & twenty to life.
Already 51 years old, it was essentially a death sentence and he knew it. He was going to die behind cinder blocks and razor wire.
I meant to work him along slowly, but I was just giddy in anticipation. I turned every session towards his feelings of remorse and regret for not being able to take care of his family. Week after week after week, I fed his inner turmoil until he was ready to explode.
"You have a daughter graduating high school this year, right? Is she planning on going to college" I asked innocently.
He answered that she had done well in school, but there was no money for college. Personally I found it remarkable that she even made it that far. I'd already searched the county records to find that she'd been in and out of foster care as her biological mother fought her own drug demons. The kid certainly deserved a better fate.
"But there are all sorts of scholarships and grants out there for deserving students, especially if there's a financial need. She'll find something". I just egged him on. "As a matter of fact, I give a $5,000 scholarship to children of inmates. I've done it for the last 3 years".
His eyes lit up.
Criminals know another con when they see one. It's just an awareness they have after having lived the Life for so long. And he knew right then that something devious was in the books.
I continued - "She really does sound quite deserving. Plus, it's not like you're some lowlife kiddy rapist. You know, kinda like the one living right down from you on the block - the guy that molested all the pre-schoolers. That guy is a real scumbag and deserves something else entirely."
His shoulders squared to me as he responded.
"So what would think he deserves?", both of us NOT having the same conversation.
"Oh, I don't know. But if it were me, I'd want him to get some of what he'd been giving to those little kids. A taste of his own medicine. Then I'd want him to bleed out as slowly and painfully as possible. Too bad he's locked up here though".
We both walked a little farther across the line.
"Well, things like that have been known to happen here behind bars. Guys like him usually don't make a lot of friends" he said, tacitly agreeing to his half of the deal.
"Frankly I think there's a certain honor in dealing justice like that. It's scary knowing that he's up for parole in 16 months. I don't see how he got 4 years while you got 20. It's just not right. But I'd bet that someone will take care of your family while you're in" I said as I tacitly agreed to my half of the deal.
We did one more session before he stopped coming. I did another month before I told the associate warden that I wouldn't be able to volunteer anymore. It was just becoming too big of a burden on my professional life.

A child molester was buried in scarcely marked grave on the prison grounds a few weeks later. The daughter of a meth junkie started community college four months after that.

And my pain still hasn't gone away.
Not after the molester.
Not after the punk that shot a gas station attendant for 27 bucks.
Not after the babysitter that shook an infant to death.
And not after the drunk driver that killed my fiance.

But maybe after the next one........

What We Needed - A Scheherazade Project Entry

Disclaimer - I wrote this in the window seat on a red-eye flight to Florida after a long day and a few drinks. I take no responsibility for it's shittiness.

What We Needed

The three of us originally planned to go island-hopping in the Caribbean for 10-12 days to celebrate college graduation. Not that our commencement was in any way praise-worthy. In fact, we’d all cruised through our four years with minimal effort and fanfare. So I suppose the vacation was really just an excuse to drink Red Stripe by the caseload in our best attempts to convince comely exotic beauties to recreate the Lancaster-Kerr beach scene in From Here To Eternity.
But after reviewing my finances, I knew that we would have to scale back our trip if I was going to be able to afford to go. I was a scholarship kid and the money would be coming out of my own savings. The cost wasn’t a factor at all for Travis or Derrin. They were both trust fundies and seemed to have unrestricted access to their fathers’ bank accounts.
So we decided to limit our trip to one island – Puerto Rico. There would be plenty to do and see to keep us busy between the beaches, rain forests, bars, etc. Besides, Derrin had said he had a Puerto Rican housekeeper as a kid and had a thing for that type ever since – soft eyes, raven hair, winsome bodies. I could tell that the opportunity to fulfill some prepubescent wanderlust was very appealing to him.
Our original plan was to spend the first four or five days touring the island and taking in all the tourist sites. But after we missed the tour bus on the first day, inertia kept us at the bars of San Juan pretty much the whole time. The nights were blurs of dance clubs, giggly island girls and empty Cuervo bottles. Mornings were spent stumbling back to our rooms, sometimes alone and sometimes not. The afternoons consisted of each of us filling our ice buckets with a three dollar bottle of Captain Morgans & a two liter of coke and slowly emptying them as we recuperated in lounge chairs by the pool.
It didn’t take us long to figure out that the discos weren’t the safest places to loiter after about 1-2 in the morning. Cash-soaked, liquor-drenched Americanos were prime targets for muggers, pick-pockets and bad characters in general. Fortunately for us, we were able to find a few places we could drink, relax and fraternize in relative safety after hours.
The bordellos.
Now it’s not necessarily what you think. They’re actually very nice establishments with bars downstairs and bedrooms upstairs. The working women chat you up as you drink and, if you’re interested in that sort of thing, lead you upstairs for a little stress relief. But if you just want to sit and drink, there weren’t a lot better places to do it. The Lucky 7, the Hawaiian Hut and the Black Angus were our favorites, the latter in particular.
We had three or four days to go and morose melancholia was beginning to set in. You can only drink so much before you drown in introspection or regretful contrition. Travis & Derrin dealt with it in their way and I dealt with it in mine. They had requisitioned a handful of girls at the Black Angus for a few hours of depraved gluttony. I had requisitioned a bartender to keep my glass filled downstairs.
I watched her descend the stairs through rum-filled eyes. It wasn’t just her natural blond-hair that made her stand out from the rest of the native women working there. It was just a clumsy gracefulness that seemed more than a little out of place. And I couldn’t figure out if she was smiling at me or just in spite of me. It wasn’t even a smile really. More of an upturned lip acknowledging me acknowledging her.
By now, I’m sure that everyone who worked there realized that I was only there to drink, but she sat down next to me anyhow.
“Is it ok if I hang out here while they clean my room?” she asked without regard to what my answer would be. She said it would be about a half hour and ordered a drink on my tab.
“You probably want to hear my story. How I got here, right?”
I’m sure she had a story, well-rehearsed and completely false, that she repeated to different men every night, explaining how she went from rural South Carolina to Puerto Rican whorehouse. Probably filled with larger-than-life characters and tales of rebellious (mis)adventure. I imagined the real story had more to do with a sexually abusive father and parasitic “boyfriends”, but neither of us really cared at that point.
“It depends. Do you want to tell it?”
“Not really” she conceded.
So we talked about personal nothings. She drew on a cigarette, leaned back in her chair to exhale, then leaned back in to draw me nearer. As if affirming some secret only the two of us shared, unspoken. Every few minutes she would take my left arm, pull it towards her and look at my watch, mindful of how much time we had left until she had to go back to work. And every time she did, I was filled with more and more panic that I was about to lose something I’d never had. It never occurred to me how little sense it made.
A khakied Brit walked across the room and placed his hand on her shoulder.
“How bout we go upstairs for a bit, sweetheart?”
I followed her eyes as they went from mine, to his hand, to his face, then back to mine again.
“A little later. I need to finish this conversation first”. Docile yet subtly assertive, he got her point and sulked over to the girl at the next table.
Effortlessly she took me by the hand and walked me over to the bartender.
“How long you gonna be?” he asked.
“The rest of the night” she answered for me as she took my wallet from my pocket, extracted four crisp one-hundred dollar bills and handed them to him.
Placid serenity washed over me as she led me to her room and laid me on her bed. Using the chair in the corner to support herself, Lillian leaned down and slid off her surprisingly casual heels and began to remove her stockings.
“No, that’s not what I want” I protested.
“I know, but I just don’t want to wrinkle my dress” she replied, seemingly amused by my chaste resistance. She turned around and knelt in front of me so that I could unzip her dress. It was only when she pulled it over her head and laid it gently on the chair that I noticed her become nervous, self-conscious. But it passed in a moment and she was herself again.
Now clad only in her bra and panties, she straddled my body and placed her lips next to my ear.
“Trust me” she breathed.
Using her left hand, she deftly unfastened the buttons of my shirt, unbuckled my belt and undressed me. She carefully folded my shirt and pants and placed them next to her clothes before lying down next to me. Her lips pressed against my ear as we wrapped our arms around each other and drifted off to sleep.

I was awoken by Travis the next morning. We were being “asked” to leave by management and the faster the better. I looked around groggily to see she was gone. Not a trace of her remained except for a faint scent of perfume. Travis tossed me my clothes, I got dressed and we left.
Before falling back to sleep in my own hotel room, I found a pink envelope in my jacket pocket that hadn’t been there before. In it were 4 fifty dollar bills and a note scribbled in eyeliner;

“Here’s my half. We both got what we needed – L.”

Out My Front Window

My house was situated at the crest of a hill, the downsloping Huron Street to the west and the summit of Eastwood Drive to the south. There were benefits to living at one of the most elevated parts of town - my friends could congregate on the roof to watch the fireworks on the 4th of July and I had a fantastic view when the sunset over the reservoir two miles away.
But there was one distinct disadvantage - it was a mecca for bicycled neighborhood kids. All day long kids of all ages would walk their bikes up Eastwood (it was too steep for most of them to pedal up), turn around, pump their legs on the pedals like a locomotive building up speed and fly the half mile or so to the bottom of the street. An endless parade of prepubescent and pimply delinquents littering my front yard with juice boxes and gum wrappers. They'd loiter directly in front of my driveway, making backing out of my garage an exercise in caution and crowd control.
But there was one who would annoy me the most - couldn't have been more that 6 or 7 and worse than the most blood-thirsty mosquito. He'd started coming around while he still had his training wheels on, trying to assimilate himself into the cliques of older boys. But of course none of them wanted to hang out with a glorified toddler. Undeterred, he'd make his way up the hill almost everyday working up the courage to make his own descent down Eastwood. Yet, without fail, he'd end everyday the same way - walking his bike back down just as he'd walked it up that morning, pathetic in his cowardice and determination.
I'm not even sure where he lived or who his parents were, though they must have been real losers. What kind of parent lets their kindergartener ride his bike on busy street without so much as a care or a watchful eye. I don't have any kids myself, but parents like that should be sterilized and tossed in jail so they'll stop breeding such pesky little brats.
From my desk window, I would watch these kids every single day while I tried to work. Now one contributing factor was that the intersection of Huron and Eastwood didn't have a stop sign in either direction. It wasn't that big of an issue because, being a small town, most people knew to slow down as they turned the blind corner onto either street. Sometimes the driver of a car would roll down their windows to yell at the kids for blocking the street.
It was an early Sunday morning and I'd gotten up at 7AM to get some work done before heading out to the lake. As I sat down and composed myself, I looked out my front window to see the pesky little mosquito kid perched on his bike facing down the hill, headphones on and undoubtedly listening to to some motivational "Eye of the Tiger"-type music. Clearly he was trying to build up enough bravado to pick his feet up off the street and start pedaling. One minute passed. And then another.
I'd resigned myself to the fact that he was going to sit there all day like a birdcrap-speckled statue when a barely perceptable shift in the wind breezed through my window screen and brushed through my hair. I saw the moving truck barreling up Huron through my side window. My crimsom maple tree obscured my view of the windshield so I couldn't make out who was behind the wheel. It could have been the Winston's who lived farther up Huron and were moving to New Hampshire. Or it could have been the Correll's who lived to the left of me on Eastwood.
I looked back through the front wind to see the little Mosquito inhale a lungful of courage and oxygen, pull himself over his banana seat and begin to pedal, oblivious to everything else but the bottom of that hill.
It was the Correll's.
The truck barely slowed down as it made the left turn onto Eastwood, not heeding caution as I'm sure they expected the street to be empty this early on a Sunday. I saw the easterly sun overwhelm the winshield of the truck, blinding the vision of whoever was behind the wheel, blinding their view of seven year old Jacob as he began his flight down the precipice, deaf to the cacophany behind him.
I was reaching for my cup of coffee as the bumper struck the back wheel of the bicycle. I was bringing the cup to my lips as the rider disappeared beneath six tons of rolling metal. I was walking back to bed as the truck screeched to a halt.

All Talked Out

Don't say a word when I walk in the door
don't say "everything is gonna be all right"
I wouldn't believe it even if you did

I know there's a lot you want to say
words of comfort, words of compassion
but I'm just not ready to listen

I'm sure there's a lot you want to know
questions about my day, my week, my life
but you just caught me at the exact wrong time

because right now I'm all talked out

I'll loosen my tie and lay on the couch
leaving just enough room for you beside me
but that's all the invitation you'll get

There's not a word that can console me
Irma Thomas is the only voice I want to hear
so just speak with your eyes, your hands, your soul

I'll tell you "I love you" by brushing your hair from your face
I'll tell you "I need you" by bringing your head to my chest
but that's all I can afford to give

because right now I'm just all talked out

Tomorrow may not get any better
I won't promise to share anymore later
some things will be left unanswered

Sometimes just being there is all I can give
other times you won't even have that
I've been used up by those who needed me less than you do

I'll understand if that isn't enough to keep you here
I doubt it would sustain me if roles were reversed
but I still wouldn't whisper a word as you walked out the door

Can't give you more because I'm just all talked out

Song Lyric Of The Day

A lot of times as I start to write a random blog post, it'll start to become eerily familar - as if I've heard my own original thoughts somewhere before.
Happened again today. I was writing when, out of no where, music started to accompany my words.
So I googled an "original" line from my post.
It was Ben freakin' Folds.
So here's Ben saying it better than (and before) I did;

Best Imitation of Myself

I feel like a quote out of context

Withholding the rest

So I can be for you what you want to see

I got the gesture and sound

Got the timing down

It's uncanny, yeah, you think it was me

Do you think I should take a class

To lose my southern accent

Did I make me up, or make the face till it stuck

I do the best imitation of myself

The "problem with you" speech

You gave me was fine

I liked the theories about my little stage

And I swore I was listening

But I started drifting

Around the part about me acting my age

Now if it's all the same

I've people to entertain

I juggle one handed

Do some magic tricks and

The best imitation of myself

Maybe I'm thinking myself in a hole

Wondering, who I am when I ought to know

Straighten up now time to go

Fool somebody else, fool somebody else

Last night I was east with them

And west within

Trying to be for you what you wanna see

But I can't help it with you

The good and bad comes through

Don't want you hanging out with

No one but me

Now if it's all the same

It comes from the same place

And if my mind's somewhere else

You won't be able to tell

I do the best imitation of myself

Yes it's uncanny to see

You'd really think it was me

The best imitation of myself

The best imitation of myself

Show & Tell Tuesday - Litmus Test for Chicks

I proudly present to you the sweetest-ass cufflink set in the known universe. On the rare occassion that I get to don a tux, these are the accessories I wear when I really want to make an impression - the cufflinks themselves are cowboy hats and they're accompanied by boot, saddle, sheriff's badge & horse button covers. Kick ass, huh?
Now I call them my litmus test for chicks because that's exactly what they are - if a skirt doesn't like them then she immediately gets kicked to the curb. Because after all, only no-taste miscreants wouldn't swoon over manly flair such as this.

Mystery Assclown Tuesday - Bastard

You wanna hit me again mother fucker?
Come on!
I've been looking for a reason to leave.
Come on!
Do it!
I'll break your fucking neck!

Mystery Assclown Tuesday - The One He Thought He Wanted

Calls were answered
By canned recordings

Emails returned
Undeliverable

A flight was taken
A rental car
Dark windows
Empty rooms
Echoing doorbell

Panic sets in
He waited too long

Emptiness fills him
Replacing the panic

An alarm beeps incessantly
He wakes from the dream
Lying in the dark morning
The emptiness remains
Even after she calls

Mystery Assclown Tuesday - Emptiness

Mystery Assclown Tuesday AND Scheherazade Project Entry

I 'as out at this here bar one time. It was karaoke night and I love me some karaoke. It was crowded and the only place to sit was two empty seats at the end of the bar way back in a corner. I sit me down and order me a long island ice tea, I love me some of that shit too and commensed drinkin it and listening to the singers. They had some good ones that night, and this one gal sounded just like Janis Joplin if you closed your eyes to listen. She sang Me and Bobbie McGee and while she was singin she swung her long hair and swayed with the music and it almost gave me a hard on right then and there, I swear. That gal could move. I thought to myself, "man I'd like to git me piece of that tail, I bet she's a wildcat in bed." Well, as luck would have it,when she was was done singin she came and sat down in the empty chair next to me. Her drink was almost empty and I offered to buy her anothern, she just turned and looked at me with those black eyes she had with not one iota of a smile touchin 'em and didn't say a word but when I ordered her a drink she drank it in nuthin flat so I rightquick ordered anothern. You see, I just had to dip my stick in that little thang and I figgered the more she had to drink the better my chances was. She never said a word to me but ever oncet in a while she'd turn them eyes my way and sorta stare almost like one ofthem there zombies in a scary movie. Her number was called to sing again after two, three of those drinks I's buyin her and you'da thought she was a differnt person up there. She sang another Joplin song, this time it was Mercedez Benz and lordie but she could belt it out all the while swayin and ashimmyin and I thought "Roy, ol boy, this is your lucky night." If she can move like that while singin just think how she gonna be in bed. Purty soon it was last call and when she got up to leave I stood too and put my arm around her and sorta guided her out to my car. She didn't put up no fight, never said boo, go to hell or nuthin so I went for it. She said not one word when we got back to my place, just followed me inside. Never said a word as I took her clothes off and laid her down neither. Now I been told I know how to please a gal but she just laid there a lookin up at me with those empty black eyes a hers and not movin nary a muscle. It was some kinda disappointin after the show she'd put on while a singin at the bar, let me tell you. I was about to stop and take her back to her car when I had me a idea. I said to her, "sing me a song, baby." And sing she did, this time it was Piece of My Heart. Lord amighty she commensed to buckin and a grindin underneath me and singin her fool head off and when she got to the part in the song that says, "Cum On, Cum On," I'm here to tell you folks, I did. I never seen hide nor hair of her again after I took her back to her car. But that there ended up bein some a the best sex I ever had, uh hummm yessireebob, sure was.

Emptiness - Scheherazade Project Entry

She had to stand tiptoed on a dining room chair to even be able to reach the heating vent. Her foggy recollection of a stashed bottle drove her frenetic search. The butter knife bent just a little as she unfastened the two retaining screws holding the cover in place, reaching inside and pulling out a blackdust-covered fifth - mere ounces left. The amber liquid served as a prism as the light from the chandelier filtered through the rum and danced on her face.
She drank until it was empty.

Ungracefully climbing down from her perch, she continued to the kitchen. Callously knocking over cereal boxes and Tuna Helper, she knew it was there somewhere there amongst the bottles of vinegar and salad dressings. Cooking sherry. Never opened. Bought under the suspicious eye of her husband (there was a new recipe she wanted to try, she told him). Her trembling hands slipped on the foil cover, unable to gain enough grip to twist off the cap. Undeterred, she grabbed the bottle by it's body and broke the neck over the edge of the marble countertop. The shards bloodied her lips as she up-ended the bottle.
She drank until it was empty.

Redness dripped down her chin and neck as she tried to organize her thoughts. The garage. Her gait a little more awkward now, she rambled down the hall and through the door. Unzipping each pocket of her husband's golf bag and probing until she found what she was looking for - his flask, given to him for serving as a best man at his little brother's wedding (the night she hit four mailboxes on the drive home). Past the point of being able to taste the scotch inside, she let every drop fall from the silver vessel.
She drank until it was empty.

With a new-found clarity of purpose, she returned to the kitchen. The refrigerator. The thirty-two ounce bottle of real vanilla bought for fifteen dollars during their vacation to Jamaica (his idea - he wanted to celebrate her six months of sobriety - she ended up unconscious at the bottom of Dunn's River Falls). 35% alcohol. Her apathy morphed into a reluctantant smile as the cool sweetness burned her bloody lips and coated her screamed-raw throat.
She drank until it was empty.

Now that she had drunk enough courage, she walked the mile down the hall and into her bedroom. Leaning up against the headboard, she pulled three things out of the nightstand drawer. The first, a pack of Newports - she slid one out, snapped off the filtered end, lit it and drew the delicious smoke into her lungs. The second, the note her husband had left on the dining room table - she read it one last time, folded it back up and laid it on her lap. The third, the S&W revolver her father had given to her when she turned 22 and moved out on her own - she placed it in her mouth.
She drank until it was empty.
She drank until she was empty.

Worst of Assclown - Volume II

Since I really don't feel like doing anything other than sitting here on my futon with my feet up on a milk crate while wearing nothing but a pair of novelty underpants and eating Wal-Mart trail mix, I can't be bothered to offer up any original content today. In that spirit of laziness, here's some recycled crap from the last several months. I did manage to insert some accompanying thoughts for a few of them - what I was thinking when I wrote them, a little background, etc.
So please enjoy while nap, fart and scratch myself.

* Things That Separate Us
* Found Blog Poetry - This is easily my favorite blog post of all time. I found it while I was poking around Blogger and it just captured my imagination. It had an almost lyrical quality about it. Apparently she had been blogging for about a month (about her cats, temp job, etc) and she figured that her multitude of devoted readers should have the opportunity to have her pearls of wisdom delivered straight to their inboxes. So delightfully pretentious.
* To Charlotte, The Girl Of My Dreams - Semi-true story with much added to make it interesting.
* She Gave It Away
* What If -
* Random Couplings
* Blog That Sounds Dirty, But Really Isn't - It was funny to me. That's all that matters
* She Comes To Me
* Pretentious Jackass - My first attempt at collage. Mr B (HS art teacher) would be proud.
* And I'm Not Even Sorry - Very telling anecdote.
* Then What? - Mushy Valentines post
* Locked In The Bathroom
* It's Just Sex
* Hypotheticals
* Most Depressing Poem
* Stupid People Getting What They Deserve - I think I just felt like messing with people that day.
* It's Not Enough
* She Pretended Not To Notice
* Bridge To No Where
* Without Saying A Word
* C17H19NO3 - The chemical formula for morphine
* Numb
* Slither

Which is your favorite/least favorite?

Anonymous Comments Only

Serenity

The first time I tried to kill myself
I inched forward towards the lip of the cliff
until I could almost feel myself falling
the perfect sensation of reckless control
Then I remembered this was "our" spot
and how could I be so selfish to taint that
and replace our memories with this one?
so I took a step back

The second time I tried to kill myself
I collected all the old Percocets
that I was supposed to have taken for months
but suffered through and saved for today
Then I looked at the empty spot on the bed next to me
where you used to sleep and cry and laugh
Then it was almost as if you were still there
and I couldn't bear to be numb to that

The next time I tried to kill myself
I could feel the trigger move ever millimeter
the blissful intersection of Certainty & Uncertainty
waiting for the inertia to be shattered
But the lingering touch of your lips replaced the cold steel barrel
on the spot on my head that you used to kiss
when you joked that you didn't love me
I placed the bullet in bottom drawer

The last time I tried to kill myself
I'd never driven that fast with my eyes closed
empty black highway with the bridge up ahead
such a peaceful calm, my heart near still
But I felt you sitting next to me, your hand on my knee
your perfect half-smile and hair dancing in the wind
our drive down to St Simon's we never got to take
I down-shifted and headed south

Tonight I'm going to kill myself
walking into the ocean until the water stings my lungs
feeling it surround my body in its cool embrace
too far from the shoreline to turn back
no memories of us left to rescue me from sleep
hard to believe you're not here beside me
hard to believe you've been gone for so long
Just ten feet of water until we're together again

Not Quite Drunk Enough

Not quite drunk enough
to give her a call
to say her name out loud
to leave my door open
to throw away the key
to tell her I'm sorry
to explain why I'm an asshole
to ask her to come back
to tell her to stay away
to send her the letter
to remember her touch
to forget her voice
to stop picking her scab
to delete her number
to run to her
to make it better
to make it worse
to finish this bottle
to pass out in my chair
to open the childproof cap
to let her know how I feel

Stolen Poem of the Day

If You Were Coming In The Fall by Emily Dickinson

If you were coming in the fall
I'd brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year
I'd wind the months in balls
And put them into separate drawers
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed
I'd count them on my hand
Subtracting 'till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen's land

If certain when this life was out
That yours and mine should be
I'd toss life yonder like a rind
And taste eternity.

But now all ignorant of length,
Of times uncertain wing,
It goads me like the goblin bee
That will not state its sting!

Predator

I watched you dance through the rain-streaked window
swaying to a song only you could hear
oblivious to the danger just beyond your door

I crept up on your porch, thunder muting my steps
still watching you glide over the tile floor
I wondered if you were in there alone

My hand is against the glass now, shadowing your neck
the chill down my spine not from the cold
my claws scratching against the window pane

The latch barely creaked as I slipped inside
your back still turned facing the wireless
nothing between us but a thin cotton sun dress

Our eyes met in the stainless steel reflection
but you weren't alarmed or frightened
but casually reached for your sharpened blade

Damned

I was damned the moment I let her walk away
from the moment I didn't say a word
I didn't call her back

I was destined for hell the second I sat next to her
the second I let her drive me home
I walked her upstairs

I surrendered my soul when I made her push me away
when I left the door open for her to leave
I left it open for her return

I became lost when I returned her letters unopened
when I pretended I didn't care
I didn't say goodbye

The die was cast when I saw her across the room
when I saw her with someone else
I died a little inside

The tumor became malignant when I laid down with another
when I thought about her when I did
I thought about her when I did

thestraycatdream

ihadadreamlastnightwhereastraycathadwonderedintomyyard
andupontomybackdeck.icouldtellthatitwasanoldercatbutiknew
itmusthaveahomeconsideringhowwellgroomeditwas.ithadared
leathercollararounditsneckandicheckedtoseeiftherewasaname
ontheidtag.sureenoughtherewasanameandaddress,afriendof
minethatiusedtoworkwithandlivesafewblocksaway.hehappens
tosharethenameofafamousmovieserialkiller.atfirstithoughtabout
keepingitbecausemydogcouldusethecompanyduringthedayand
ireallywouldn'tmindhavinganotherlittlepetaroundthehouseas
well.ilaiddownonthefloorandbegantoplaywiththecatbutinoticed
ithadexceptionallylongfrontclaws.iwasalittlesurprisedthatacat
thatoldhadntbeendeclawedyet.asiplayedwithit,itbegancrawling
upmypantlegandthenupmychest,itsclawsnowdiggingintomyskin.
isetitdownanditbeganplayingwithmydog.iwaskindofhappytosee
thattheyweregettingalongverywell.butiknewthatihadtoreturnher
toherrightfulhome.iwokeupbeforeidecidedwhatIwasgoingtodo.

Show & Tell Tuesday - The Drive Home

There are a few different routes I could take home, all about the same distance and duration, and I never know which one I'm going to take until I get there. I don't even think about it until I reach the appropriate intersection and, even then, I leave it more to chance than choice - what's the flow of traffic doing, is there a dead deer on the side of a particular road, did I leave my blinker on from a previous lane change - things like that.
A few times I've taken a course only to find out later about an accident on the road I didn't take. Or once I changed directions at the last minute only to hit a deer ninety seconds later. It's almost scary how the paths of our lives our dictated not by the monumental life choices we make, but rather by the seemingly inconsequential decisions we make every day - highway or backroads, leave early or work late, cook dinner or eat out.

The Hotel Room

Warm champagne spoils in a bucket of water
one lipstick-ringed plastic cup
three broken french manicured nails
black cumberbund draped over the back of a chair

silky petals sleep on the carpet below
Tuxedoed groom slumped unblinking in the corner
his shirt slowly turning from red to brown
scattered envelopes litter the bed

Her never-worn teddy stuffed in the trash
the morning sun peeks through the drawn curtains
both key cards tossed on the dresser
"Do Not Disturb" sign hastily hung on the knob

Overturned lamp next to the still-made bed
neighbors still upset from the newlywed's vigor
two calls to the front desk complaining about the noise
six-inch stiletto dropped thoughtlessly in the sink

Simple yet beautiful wedding dress hung up with care
jeweled heels placed perfectly beneath
a note scribbled on a napkin & pinned to the pillow
unconsummated air grows stagnant in the room

Mystery Assclown Thursday - Pieces Of Me

PIECES OF ME

I give him
my love, companionship and support,
he expectedly takes
pieces of me

I give them
my care, guidance and love
they expectedly take
pieces of me

I give everyone else
my time, energy and knowledge
they expectedly take
pieces of me

Until there's nothing left for me
nothing left to give to you
the one who appreciates
pieces of me