Winded, I flip my mobile phone closed. It was three in the morning already. I felt I had just awakened, not but a minute ago, to the irritatingly cheerful jingle of my alarm clock. But apparently I was mistaken, an entire day had just past me by without notice. This routine of mine had become so familiar, it was as if I had just driven through it. My foot had pressed the accelerator on green and the brake on red, I matched my speed with the neighboring traffic while my mind replayed past conversations and television shows. I had now reached my destination, hours from my point of origin, with only snippets of insignificant road memories to show for it. Had I lived another day without full knowledge of actually living it? Why is it that nearly every conversation I had had today was as easily recalled as my first footsteps? I could’ve sworn I told my mind to store that information away, catalogue every goddamned event in this cycle of drinking and working, speaking and smoking.
Three o'clock with an empty pack of cigarettes. Obviously I had been doing something, whether or not it was productive, though, is up for debate. I stood up from the plastic lawn chair on our front porch and surveyed our nice little view of the peaceful street just beyond a wall of shrubbery that marked the boundaries of our humble front yard. Within this square of leased property, overgrown grass and ivy plants creeping up the neighbors dividing fence, we were safe from the hustle and bustle of the outside world. An all to familiar realm inhabited by university students on wireless pocket phones, hyped up or hung over, speeding up and down the street in questionably expensive vehicles. Immersed in their digitalized conversations and pixelated text messages with deliberately misspelled words. A reality spoon-fed to the new youth, the future, by popular television and fashion magazines. Life is no longer cruel or unfair, unless it’s on the discovery channel. Life is now glamorous and shallow; acceptance and self-fulfillment can be purchased at the local mall for ridiculous prices. Phone bills, rent, tuition or any other financial annoyances, are problems left for those best suited for them…the parents.
My back ached bitterly; I had sat there, still as a statue, for far too long. While stretching, I entered the dark, slumbering household, the door creaked open slowly and a rush of escaping warmth greeted me like an excitable dog rushing to its returning master. I had become so absorbed in my phone conversation that I hadn’t realized how frigid the air was and how it had made the tips of every angle on my body numb with cold.
The rectangular living room, with its ceiling fan spinning sluggishly, resembled a bear cave in winter, a room dimly lit and comfortably warm with wear. A square patch of carpeting, at the far end of the room, marked our seating and lounging area. A half circle of couches and cushioned chairs surrounds the entertainment center and a square coffee table, in the center of the sitting space, bustling with the recently forgotten drug and alcohol activity of the night. Empty bottles decorate a wooden, L shaped shelf in the corner of the living room, just below the ceiling, like tombstones marking the graves of parties long since past, spirits long since imbibed.
Rick, our road crazed squatter, lay sprawled out on the long leather couch against the wall, directly below the row of bottles. Without a blanket, the fine details of ursine figure were exposed to all, including a sliver of furry belly that slipped out from beneath his wrinkled shirt. His bearded face had a pleasant, drug induced grin stretching across it. Dan, my roommate, lay huddled under a thin sheet on the couch adjacent to Rick. Dan is sort of an intimidating character. Each of his arms is decorated with an impressive amount of detailed tattoos also he’s a very burly looking guy, not one easily messed with. In stark contrast to his character was the faded flower print sheet draped over his body. It was one of those aged blankets that one always finds in the back of a forgotten closet. Every so often it’s dug out, unfolded and examined. You find yourself remembering, vaguely, all the times you had to use it as a child when one quilt just wasn’t enough to build a sofa fort. Then the musky scent sends you into a fit of sneezing. It was a very innocent looking blanket on a very rugged looking man who was far too tall to be completely covered by it. I watched the two of them sleep for a second, the way one cautiously watches a napping bear, before continuing on.
I felt like a nicotine-crazed buzzard, of some sort, as I circled the inside of my pitch-black house, hovering over snoring bodies looking for something to smoke. I needed something to fill the growing void between my two tar stained fingers that seem forever frozen in the act of victory signing. I found nothing but empty packs scattered about, vacant seashells offering nothing but colorful patterns and faint signs of its pre-existing life. I know for a fact that the same disappointment resides in the kitchen as well as my room, so I don’t bother.
I think about quitting for the thousandth time than, begrudgingly, slip on my shoes and zip up my sweater, and head out the door towards the nearby circle K. I’m careful to close the door slowly and quietly as not to waken my inebriated friends. Once outside I exhale noisily and snort my nose, the airs effect on my sinuses is immediate. I clambered down the front steps, clumsy feet stomping, and walked down the driveway towards the little road in front of our house. My breath shrouded my face with a moist fog, I imagine my appearance to be visible only between exhales.
The spot where our driveway intersects with Lipona road, the small road in front of our house, was dimly lit by a streetlight veiled in a thin mist. An omen, I guessed. I felt the secrecy of the night. Not a full on cover-up, but a light lie and shushing finger over a friendly smile. Not an ill omen, perhaps, but certainly not a positive one either. I crossed the street, swept under the streetlight, and stepped onto the sidewalk. There was a minimal amount of noise outside; light construction to the east, a neighborhood dog barking to the northwest and a raccoon sniffing the fenced in yard of our neighbor, Mr. McCormick. I could see the black-banded nightmare watching me as I passed, two calculating eyes hiding unknowable thoughts, rotating on a face with a strangely bland expression. Those glinting orbs cut through the cloudy night, for only a second, before their owner skillfully climbed the side of McCormick’s trashcan and disappeared beneath the lid.
I suddenly envied all the night critters in the area, they must have it this good almost every night but without the weighted drag of sleep exhaustion.
I hit Pensacola Street, pretty quickly, and took a left headed west. The sidewalk is pitted and weathered, peppered with black blotches of hardened gum. No more than a mile ahead is a hill. Behind me, the same incline only much steeper. Pensacola Street, this side of town, is a series of U shaped valleys, a stretch of undulating asphalt frozen in action. The crest of each wave hides any oncoming activity of the adjoining valley. Both sides of the road are lined with various businesses, from corporate fast food joints to local establishments, each with a beckoning sign reaching out to the speeding cars. I felt as if this portion of the street were spiraling, on its own, throughout space, that I and any other conscious being had been completely disconnected from our home world.
The chill had, by now, numbed a good portion of my legs making them feel a little stiff and rigid. And, after a bit of walking, they even seemed to have developed a mind of their own. I was carried towards the store effortlessly on two fleshy hinges attached to my waist with boney poles fixed on the opposite ends. A wind-up toy soldier, without a turnkey, with a strangely life like expression painted on its face.
As I expected, the strip was ghostly and empty. If I hadn't known any better or if I had only just arrived in this little town, I would've mistakenly believed that the cities population consisted of two sedans (one green and one black), an expedition SUV and a cherry picker truck parked on the sidewalk by the liquor store up ahead. An enticing array of stoplights and streetlights, halos of light smudged with filmy fog, lit the walkway. They shone for no one else but me. The blue, beeping walk signal across the street never looked more welcoming then it did at that moment. It spoke to me in a gentle voice that seemed to say: “cross, if you’d like, to. It’s okay if you don’t need to. Just know that I’m always here for you and, if ever you need to cross, just let me know with a push of that button.” I smiled politely at the offer. The streetlights beamed down on me as I passed, their motherly instincts activated by the setting sun. “So long as you remain under my light, you will be seen. I offer little warmth, unfortunately, but the light I provide should take you far in relative safety.” I was grateful.
I suddenly found myself right beside the now rising bucket of the cable truck. I had been completely lost in thought and hadn’t been paying any attention. I had already passed the Cuban restaurant and the dry cleaners, now I was just outside of the liquor store.
A Jamaican guy, with a hardhat and work jumpsuit on, was being directed from the ground by large, middle-aged white man in denim jeans and a plaid shirt. He was a Jackie Gleason kind of guy, someone you expected to have a lit cigar wedged between his molars at all times of the day and a permanent squint at the corner of each eye. But apparently looks aren’t everything. The only habit he seemed to have, neither good nor bad, was smoothing back his full head of grey hair. I wondered if this tic had developed as a result of some building stress or maybe a lack of sleep. Maybe the guy was jus picky with his hair. The two bickered back and forth, something about wiring and the trucks hydraulics systems, he pointed about wildly, with one hand, and worked his scalp with the other. I wordlessly made my way around them all the while silently wishing I had the old man’s beautiful head of grey.
Colorfully lit signs, of all shapes and sizes, pierced the thin fog like daggers through flesh. Stationary images now unobstructed by the traffic, smog, pedestrians and the noise of the morning, seemed so awfully clear and obvious in the empty night. Eye-catching colors and large billboard messages meant to forcefully grab and rape the attention span of the mid-day rusher. The idle car at the stoplight with the occupant absorbed in cellular matters, the fitness junkie speed walking in short shorts and whatever other hapless bastard that managed to wander by, all eyes were drawn to the radiant rays of light like moths to a lamp.
They preached various messages such as ninety-nine cent value meals, twelve-dollar haircuts, gas at three dollars and nineteen cents a gallon, freaky fast delivery service, but to a non-existent congregation. Brilliantly dressed holy men whose grandiose voices echoed throughout an empty church. Here I walk, intense visuals and light pollution bearing down on me, wondering why the street continued to remain so loud even without the ridiculous amounts of five o’clock traffic. Wasted efforts bleeding the city’s power supply.
Up ahead was a beacon of hope that cut through all the competitive jabbering. A familiar face spotted in a group of coercive strangers. The angelic symbol could be seen through the thin fog, a red K encircled by white. I shot straight through the empty parking lot, mindful of the pumps, and up towards wide expansion of crystal clear windows and glass double doors. The light this place emitted held promises of warmth, food and shelter, for a price, as well as reasonably priced tobacco. I opened the left door and entered, my body shuddered involuntarily as my skin rejoiced at the sudden rise in temperature.
The entrance bell binged, a king whose arrival was announced, not by flagged trumpets, but an electronic chime that drew the eyes and ears of every surf and peasant in the store. The single soul, an employee, was a dead eyed man behind the register whose puffy gaze briefly flickered up to me then lazily back to his tabloid. Truly this man was ready for what dangers could come, be it a ski masked man with a loaded handgun or a drunken bum with an attitude, either way, he was ready. I imagine him rolling up his tabloid into a tight paper bat and bludgeoning the shit out of whatever bastard decided to make this miserably boring shift into an interesting, possibly rewarding, night of action and adventure. This man loved inactive stretch of the morning hours, it was written all over that dreary mess of a face.
I goose stepped over to the refrigerator aisle, poked around and fridge window shopped for a bit, than decided to grab a gator aide. I wasn't exactly thirsty, or anything, it might’ve been the severe visual marketing mind fuck I had just received on the walk over that had me reach my hand back into the cold groping for a drink. The great deals while supplies last, extra value menu, useless bargain crap had wormed itself into my head and I needed to purchase something, anything, to feel better about myself.
I swiveled my way through candy aisle and condom lane until I stood right in front of the front register. He was still engrossed in that rag, though now I saw what exactly he was reading. Apparently batboy had a sex change operation done last week.
I set my drink down on the counter and the man lazily swayed upward. His movements, head and arm, required little to no muscle power, more swinging and nodding then anything. He seemed to rely mostly on gravity for strength and guidance. As a result, his movements became sloppy and uncoordinated, as if he were a Jell-O cube molded into man form. Was he drunk? No, he'd be having a little more fun with me and he probably wouldn’t have been so deadpan unless he had gotten sick already.
I wondered, out of the blue, if the man had ever slept with anyone. And if so, whether or not I would've found her even remotely attractive. He wasn't hideous, a patchy chin beard, small gut tucked under a tight belt and a beauty mark just above his right cheek, he was just sort of bland. The circle K uniform wasn't especially flattering, either. He looked beefy in it. The unlucky woman, what if she were small and fragile? Petite? I just couldn't imagine those apish arms gracefully thrown around a women's shoulder, not without knocking her flat on her face anyway. This made me smile, slightly, a response I hope he took as a positive greeting of some sort. His expression remained impassive.
I told him my brand and he grabbed it from behind the register and casually tossed it next to my drink. It landed and bounced over the edge of the counter. I reached down and picked it up.
"$6.44." he said simply, his mouth movements resembled that of a fleshy Muppet. A fish, a giant grouper perhaps, sucking in water and filtering out the oxygen.
"Here you go," I slipped him my debit card. "Thank you."
His mouth still hung there. It was as if he were silently dragging out the last 'four' of that single, short sentence he had just spoken. It hung there even after he had swiped my card.
The credit card machine started chattering and spitting, a paper tongue slipped out. He ripped it away and handed it to me. I glanced at his nametag, for no good reason, and it read, in plain text, Ted. A one-syllable name for a one-syllable kind of guy who lived a one-syllable kind of life. Dull.
I left, silently; the door beeped a robotic farewell, as genuine and warm as an answering machine operator’s voice. The K sign, which had once been so welcoming, now waved a single middle finger at my departing behind. It, like all the other signs, just wanted a piece of my hard earned pie. I kept my frozen hands deep within the pockets of my sweater and pulled up the hood from behind my neck. The few souls driving by would see a sullen young man with legs that moved as if bound to wooden stilts, a ghoulish character with a craving for, not brains, but nicotine and gator aide. A car passed by and honked. For a second, I entered someone's mind, I’m sure of it. I had now assimilated myself into that person's brain and played a minor role in their epic life. I felt both dirty and proud.
The cherry picker men ignored me as I neared; the man up top had busied himself with a malfunctioning transformer. I secretly prayed for an explosion, and then feared the after effect, a high voltage shock followed by a giant metal tube bearing down onto my unsuspecting head, which suddenly felt so frail and paper thin. I heard Jackie Gleason behind me complaining about his job, the Jamaican guy seemed to ignore him, or maybe he just didn't hear him.
This town sleeps for now. Just for now. In three hours, or so, something will stir. The beasts hibernate, shut down, for seven to eight hours, than wake up again, and with their internal batteries all charged up they climb into their cars and begin honking and screaming and cursing. Living, what they believe to be the new reality: What television has said is acceptable to say and what GQ has shown as physically attractive. Any new gadgets, no matter how unimportant they are, must be obtained. Being out dated is worse then death. Their parents, simpering providers and work slaves, are only around to pave the path to success with green bills. These sub-humans (although some may argue that, as the future, they are atop) selectively ignore all that is around them but, at the same time, are directed solely by what surrounds them. What a strange paradox.
I've seen the city naked tonight and, frankly, I’m not that impressed by its swinging member or those enormous breasts. It has no hold on me, no noticeable influence as of yet. But it feels like it presents an unspoken challenge, of some sort. An invisible gauntlet has been dropped and my cheeks are red and stinging. Shall I proceed to whip it out? The city itself is welcoming and positive, the force that drives it, on the other hand…
I remember the empty packs of cigarettes lying around the house. At one point they contained twenty cancerous sticks. When emptied, the packs become nothing more than harmless pieces of thin paper boxes.
What’s this I’ve suddenly come across?
I notice a pile of what appeared to have once been a serving of hamburger helper, a meal that had escaped the judgment of someone's stomach. A small river of bile trickled from the splatter of semi-digested food and snaked its way across the sidewalk. I avoided stepping in it by practically launching myself across with my feet. After landing foolishly, I had to adjust my pants, which had somehow slipped down past my butt.
By now I had reached the corner of the street, my house lay just ahead of me and to the left on the other side of the street. I turned back towards the stretch of street, its glowing signs still seeming to ramble on foolishly, speaking to no one in particular. I thought I could almost hear them. It was a strange bird song, of some sort, made up of high frequency squeaks and chirps, vibrant messages my human ears couldn’t even begin to process. All I could hear was the hum of electricity. Subliminal wording? Maybe. Or maybe it the sound of the city’s population feeding. A growing fetus connected to the town via the umbilical cord. Undeveloped and incapable of rational thought, these creatures are somehow mistaken for fully-grown adults and are treated as such.
I take Lipona road, slip through the wall of shrubbery and climb the front steps to the porch. The walk is taken without thought.
I slip into my dark house and begin typing. Yellow teeth, all nestled in a bed of pink gum, form a crooked smile that reflects the glow of the blue screen. A cigarette, ember running on one side, masks my face in a carcinogenic haze.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
sleep deprived and paranoid
"One must be disinterested, accept that a sound is a sound and a man is a man, give up illusions about ideas of order, expressions of sentiment, and all the rest of our inherited aesthetic claptrap."
-john cage
a smoke break in the middle of a slow shift. uncomfortably seated on a curb not too far from the entrance of the restaurant.
i could see the narrow set of stairs that led up to the shaded patio dining area. my view was slightly obstructed by an over sized SUV parked crookedly beside the landing. so, really, i could only spot the last step, a slight drop afterwards and you were on asphalt, and also the varying tops of the disembodied heads of our satisfied customers as they left the restaurant with their invisible, possibly nonexistent, bellies full of cheesy goodness and tangy marinara.
it's kind of hard to say whether or not these mysterious heads leave the restaurant with the bodies they originally came in with. perhaps they had coldly left them in the trunk of their cars, squirming and scratching at the interior with frantic passion. without the head to reason and puzzle their situation, the body is left to its own carnal devices. the heads coldly float along with as much regard for their headless partner as a hit man for his cemented sneakered victim plummeting to the bottom of the boat basin.
or...
maybe they suddenly sprout them again, some strange evolved human with the regenerating powers of a skink, only more widespread throughout the body. have aliens conquered this city? subjugated it's people? mind fucking us into ignorant submission? i'll never know, for sure, they seem to grow them back when i think about it too hard or when i take any notice of it. what if, and maybe this sounds crazy, they had us so utterly pinned, we would unknowingly place replacement bodies in reserved seats? somewhere in the back of every restaurant in this town lies a miniature station where their biomechanical traveling suits are manufactured by brainwashed humans. i couldn't possibly be involved in the production, i'm way too technologically back-ass-wards. or maybe i am included. just another working component in this giant war machine. i just have to keep playing it their way, i guess, so long as i leave with my pathetic pay check and my equally pathetic life.
such bizarre thoughts on such a muggy day. the humidity seems to addle the ol' noggin.
i could also spot them (these crazy humanoids) leaving when the front door swung open. these faces seemed able to travel on the slight rush of air escaping from those spring loaded doorways. so light, they appeared to be, that even a simple gust of air conditioned air could send them whirling into their cushioned seats.
the plug was pulled and two wrinkled heads slowly hovered out, then gradually turned towards my little vantage point, which (and i didn't know this yet) just happened to be right next to their car. with god given, sloth-like grace common in most older couples, four sets of mossy loafers descended the stoop. time abruptly changed. flowed differently. as if a stone had been thrown in the middle of the shallows, redirecting the original flow of the creek.
dry paint began to dry more, sun began to dropped, grass grew noisily, and the yellow moss on their feet seemed to grow brighter. hours became minutes and seconds became minutes, months were years and days were years. these two characters seemed to have induced a universal seizure of some sort.
death has obviously been shadowing these two for a long time. he crept into neighbors attics, potato sack full of random surveillance equipment. a stake out with emilio esteves. bugs have been planted in every single phone in the house, mini cameras installed in their medicine cabinets, rotating cameras above showers and beds, not one sluggish footstep went without notice. the house hummed and beeped with electrical life, and the tenants were none the wiser. some how their time was never up. death grits his teeth and shakes his fists above his head, his frustration could not be more apparent. the couple was too slow to die, time was always way ahead of them, across the finish line and over the sea, hasn't bothered to look back. maybe it's about time death reset his wristwatch. pressed an ear to check the its pulse. then again, maybe this odd pair found a way around death, avoided the alleys and corners where he lurked. strange creatures with even stranger abilities.
they eventually hit the final step. an anvil thrown into an empty library.
there was something that took on the appearance of the female. wrinkled arms thinning with muscle atrophy, curled up over two hideous excuses for breasts, that dangled listlessly over a belly the size of a basketball. the skin was fake, it must have been. there was no way that could've been living tissue. this was one defective body she had been stuck with. should i tell her? no. too funny, too awkward. somehow those tyrannosaurus arms of hers could support enough gold jewelry to sink a spanish galleon. she could obviously afford a decent body. her neck. my god, it was a deflated cow's udder and, like most people her age, was probably covered in a field of fine white hairs. her body, in it's decaying state of being, must have mixed up the vials of testosterone and estrogen. an aging cell, keeper of hormones, with failing eyesight reads the label wrong. a practical joke, perhaps?
so ghostly pale and thin, silky even. i bet they'd be worth thousands of dollars on the black market.
yes. she appeared first, stooping and shuffling along as if she'd just been released from her little cubby hole in the bell tower. the man, her husband i assumed, though he showed absolutely no interest in her, also hunched, but much less so than his mutant wife. their postures resembling that of a drunkard beaten within an inch of his drunken life. the man wore his best, dusty old suit, that looked to have been purchased somewhere in the nineteen seventies. a thrift store get up, of some sort. something i would buy and wear with my darth vader helmet. the lady wore a shaggy moo moo fashioned out of kitchen window curtains.
*at this time i picture this old man naked slithering along into an old cardboard box labeled "donation bin." two seconds later, he pops out fully dressed, mothballs and cigar holes. a bottle of dime store cologne tucked away neatly in a shirt pocket.*
the couple kept shuffled along, wordlessly, stiffly and without any other bodily movement whatsoever, until they had reached the bench where i sat silently watching them. the old man's head then slowly, ever so slowly, turned towards me bringing, into the sunlight, a head as bald as a bastard. so clean and white was this fleshy spot that i was temporarily blinded by the reflection of the setting sun. his cold blue eyes regarded me thoughtlessly, two sky blue windows, beyond which a set of rusty cogs, stiff sprockets, and toothless gears, sputtered and groaned, shaking away a coat of rust and frozen oil. a dead hamster, skin drawn tightly over it's miniature skeleton, rocks back and forth on a squeaky running wheel turned cradling casket. all behind a brittle egg shell and some amazing liver spotted skin draperies, that swung about comically before those empty blue windows. He stared at me for a while, a very stern stare. a strange self-conscious mind examining me through the front windows built into a ridiculous facade. his gelatinous, pale skin seemed to be attached to his face with an ancient and very cheap epoxy, it quivered with senile confusion.
the more i stared, the more his physical form changed. his skin seemed to take on a life of its own. a symbiotic relationship of some sort, between man and costume, costume and man, the lesser species on the outside, blanketing the tender innards and conveying the thoughts, emotions and feelings of the greater inside organs through facial expressions and foolish hand gestures. it's very survival depends on its ability to decode and translate his decrepit master's electric signals into an acceptable form of human behavior. i pity that skin, i wonder if it knows it's life giver's own life is nearing it's end. will it crawl off, defeated, and slug along the asphalt only to find another skinless body to lazily drape over and hang onto like a wet sheet on a clothesline?
he kept looking, some inner struggle seemed to tear him two different ways. or just one, but what it was, i'll never know. maybe he wanted to express his thoughts on the meal, the service or atmosphere of the restaurant or maybe he just liked my shirt. maybe he thought i looked goofy, just another foolish young brat that thinks he knows everything there is to know, but only understanding one biased half. good or bad, i felt i had to break this strange ice developing and show my good intentions. it would take them months to reach their car door, quite possibly years. my break was nowhere near done, so i figured i might as well make what few minutes we would share together more comfortable. i smiled, politely, and waved. i come in peace. a mere flowered shirt tourist lost in this brief overlapping of opposite circles. generation blank and generation old, come together and...
did he take it positively? wait, maybe i angered the sorry beast. no, i don't think his memory banks, so holed and dilapidated, could recollect the meaning of a simple smile and a friendly wave. maybe. harmless memory loss or blatant rudeness?
not a word was said about the food, service or speed. no complaints and no compliments. no smile or perfunctory nod, slight hand movement or a brief elevating of the eyebrows. just one long, endless stare. i broke eye contact and became lost in thought, a feeling a little embarrassed.
the female creature, who took absolutely no notice of me, pawed weakly at the passenger side door. her long, bright red nails scratching in patient impatience at the flawless wax coat on the car. her gaudy jewelry rattled and banged. so loud was it that i'm almost certain the ears of every homeless man, women and child in bangladesh, perked up in hungry anticipation. the man fumbled dumbly with a complicated set of three keys until he finally fit the point into the hole.
* i'm sure the man would experience some strange sense of doddering deja vu later in the night. i pictured him, glass of tiger's blood and panda milk in one hand, bottle of viagra in the other. dressed in his sexily conservative pair of pin striped long johns. the crone prepares for the romantic night ahead, topping off their sexy italian meal. the man's hard on, try as it might, is shamelessly losing the battle against the thin fabric of his pajamas. a small white flag is all it's able to raise.
his wife, in a silk nightie, unable to sleep lying down flat (lest the fluids in her hump consume her), is propped upright by a reading pillow. she's as close to being "good to go" as she's gonna get and her husband knows it. she crooks a finger in his direction, beckoning him towards her, then slowly spreads her veiny legs apart. the sound, i imagine, is one of an ancient stone door to an egyptian treasure tomb slowly sliding open for the first time in over two centuries. a grainy rumble that echoes impressively throughout the dusty chamber. a geyser of dust spews forth signifying that the vagina is open and ready, gaping like a hungry maw. the man desperately tries to rouse his defeated pecker, her withered vagina is about as appealing to him as the mouth of a lamprey eel. actually, just thinking of how much better those rows and rows of sharp, bloodsucking teeth would feel when compared to this barren, skin searing wasteland of a cunt, really got his motor running. he'd have to remember to get one of those next time. dig around in some swamp, bleeding cod fish as bait.
what follows can only be described as the lamest mummy fuck ever. rhythmic weight shifting, stifled yawns and desiccated wheezing orchestrates this repulsive dance of sorts. their pores audibly emit an eerie hissing sound, much like a tea kettle on a lit stove. powdered sweat mixed with what little moisture their rubbing bodies can spare creates a very pasty and very chalky sex cocktail. the soft sound of snake skin on a wet pile of yard trash can be heard above the monstrous crescendo of hacking and spitting, bone creaking and occasional snapping.
time has lost all meaning, somehow. once again, these abominations send the universal order spiraling into oblivion. any poor soul observing might get lost in their hypnotic pumping, caught somewhere between gagging and shitting themselves.
suddenly, the air is still and silent, no orgasmic moans have been heard in this room for the past thirty years, and, if the room actually expected to ever hear it again, it would be terribly disappointed. the old man collapses in a heap beside a snoring wife who may or may not have been conscious when he had finished. they will not move for seven days. *
i watched them leave, a smug smile creeping its way across my sorry old mug. they had unknowingly been casted in a perverted play of mine that. i'm sure in reality, they would've turned those bloated old noses up to it or maybe just keeled over from a heart attack. their sorry faces and pathetic routines, were all just props, sets and masks, easily pasted and thrown together in this mr. potato head imagination of mine. no copyright laws or U.S. patent documents or wavers that needed signatures of approval. just good ol' imagination and a guarded tongue. revenge is sweet, especially when the victim is none the wiser.
(i wonder if they really would've turned down my little script.)
they staggered into a box shaped scion with a heavenly white coat of unscathed paint, and slowly drove away.
i scratched the rim of my nose and was pleasantly greeted by a giant clod of green and yellow. this nose goblin had been dangling out in the open, probably had seen the whole thing too. wonder what he thinks of me now. i wiped it onto the bottom of my shoe.
i flicked my smoldering butt, got up and returned to the endless grind of alien slave labor. all the heads remained still. i was now onto their sick, twisted plot. smart, wise and ready.
-john cage
a smoke break in the middle of a slow shift. uncomfortably seated on a curb not too far from the entrance of the restaurant.
i could see the narrow set of stairs that led up to the shaded patio dining area. my view was slightly obstructed by an over sized SUV parked crookedly beside the landing. so, really, i could only spot the last step, a slight drop afterwards and you were on asphalt, and also the varying tops of the disembodied heads of our satisfied customers as they left the restaurant with their invisible, possibly nonexistent, bellies full of cheesy goodness and tangy marinara.
it's kind of hard to say whether or not these mysterious heads leave the restaurant with the bodies they originally came in with. perhaps they had coldly left them in the trunk of their cars, squirming and scratching at the interior with frantic passion. without the head to reason and puzzle their situation, the body is left to its own carnal devices. the heads coldly float along with as much regard for their headless partner as a hit man for his cemented sneakered victim plummeting to the bottom of the boat basin.
or...
maybe they suddenly sprout them again, some strange evolved human with the regenerating powers of a skink, only more widespread throughout the body. have aliens conquered this city? subjugated it's people? mind fucking us into ignorant submission? i'll never know, for sure, they seem to grow them back when i think about it too hard or when i take any notice of it. what if, and maybe this sounds crazy, they had us so utterly pinned, we would unknowingly place replacement bodies in reserved seats? somewhere in the back of every restaurant in this town lies a miniature station where their biomechanical traveling suits are manufactured by brainwashed humans. i couldn't possibly be involved in the production, i'm way too technologically back-ass-wards. or maybe i am included. just another working component in this giant war machine. i just have to keep playing it their way, i guess, so long as i leave with my pathetic pay check and my equally pathetic life.
such bizarre thoughts on such a muggy day. the humidity seems to addle the ol' noggin.
i could also spot them (these crazy humanoids) leaving when the front door swung open. these faces seemed able to travel on the slight rush of air escaping from those spring loaded doorways. so light, they appeared to be, that even a simple gust of air conditioned air could send them whirling into their cushioned seats.
the plug was pulled and two wrinkled heads slowly hovered out, then gradually turned towards my little vantage point, which (and i didn't know this yet) just happened to be right next to their car. with god given, sloth-like grace common in most older couples, four sets of mossy loafers descended the stoop. time abruptly changed. flowed differently. as if a stone had been thrown in the middle of the shallows, redirecting the original flow of the creek.
dry paint began to dry more, sun began to dropped, grass grew noisily, and the yellow moss on their feet seemed to grow brighter. hours became minutes and seconds became minutes, months were years and days were years. these two characters seemed to have induced a universal seizure of some sort.
death has obviously been shadowing these two for a long time. he crept into neighbors attics, potato sack full of random surveillance equipment. a stake out with emilio esteves. bugs have been planted in every single phone in the house, mini cameras installed in their medicine cabinets, rotating cameras above showers and beds, not one sluggish footstep went without notice. the house hummed and beeped with electrical life, and the tenants were none the wiser. some how their time was never up. death grits his teeth and shakes his fists above his head, his frustration could not be more apparent. the couple was too slow to die, time was always way ahead of them, across the finish line and over the sea, hasn't bothered to look back. maybe it's about time death reset his wristwatch. pressed an ear to check the its pulse. then again, maybe this odd pair found a way around death, avoided the alleys and corners where he lurked. strange creatures with even stranger abilities.
they eventually hit the final step. an anvil thrown into an empty library.
there was something that took on the appearance of the female. wrinkled arms thinning with muscle atrophy, curled up over two hideous excuses for breasts, that dangled listlessly over a belly the size of a basketball. the skin was fake, it must have been. there was no way that could've been living tissue. this was one defective body she had been stuck with. should i tell her? no. too funny, too awkward. somehow those tyrannosaurus arms of hers could support enough gold jewelry to sink a spanish galleon. she could obviously afford a decent body. her neck. my god, it was a deflated cow's udder and, like most people her age, was probably covered in a field of fine white hairs. her body, in it's decaying state of being, must have mixed up the vials of testosterone and estrogen. an aging cell, keeper of hormones, with failing eyesight reads the label wrong. a practical joke, perhaps?
so ghostly pale and thin, silky even. i bet they'd be worth thousands of dollars on the black market.
yes. she appeared first, stooping and shuffling along as if she'd just been released from her little cubby hole in the bell tower. the man, her husband i assumed, though he showed absolutely no interest in her, also hunched, but much less so than his mutant wife. their postures resembling that of a drunkard beaten within an inch of his drunken life. the man wore his best, dusty old suit, that looked to have been purchased somewhere in the nineteen seventies. a thrift store get up, of some sort. something i would buy and wear with my darth vader helmet. the lady wore a shaggy moo moo fashioned out of kitchen window curtains.
*at this time i picture this old man naked slithering along into an old cardboard box labeled "donation bin." two seconds later, he pops out fully dressed, mothballs and cigar holes. a bottle of dime store cologne tucked away neatly in a shirt pocket.*
the couple kept shuffled along, wordlessly, stiffly and without any other bodily movement whatsoever, until they had reached the bench where i sat silently watching them. the old man's head then slowly, ever so slowly, turned towards me bringing, into the sunlight, a head as bald as a bastard. so clean and white was this fleshy spot that i was temporarily blinded by the reflection of the setting sun. his cold blue eyes regarded me thoughtlessly, two sky blue windows, beyond which a set of rusty cogs, stiff sprockets, and toothless gears, sputtered and groaned, shaking away a coat of rust and frozen oil. a dead hamster, skin drawn tightly over it's miniature skeleton, rocks back and forth on a squeaky running wheel turned cradling casket. all behind a brittle egg shell and some amazing liver spotted skin draperies, that swung about comically before those empty blue windows. He stared at me for a while, a very stern stare. a strange self-conscious mind examining me through the front windows built into a ridiculous facade. his gelatinous, pale skin seemed to be attached to his face with an ancient and very cheap epoxy, it quivered with senile confusion.
the more i stared, the more his physical form changed. his skin seemed to take on a life of its own. a symbiotic relationship of some sort, between man and costume, costume and man, the lesser species on the outside, blanketing the tender innards and conveying the thoughts, emotions and feelings of the greater inside organs through facial expressions and foolish hand gestures. it's very survival depends on its ability to decode and translate his decrepit master's electric signals into an acceptable form of human behavior. i pity that skin, i wonder if it knows it's life giver's own life is nearing it's end. will it crawl off, defeated, and slug along the asphalt only to find another skinless body to lazily drape over and hang onto like a wet sheet on a clothesline?
he kept looking, some inner struggle seemed to tear him two different ways. or just one, but what it was, i'll never know. maybe he wanted to express his thoughts on the meal, the service or atmosphere of the restaurant or maybe he just liked my shirt. maybe he thought i looked goofy, just another foolish young brat that thinks he knows everything there is to know, but only understanding one biased half. good or bad, i felt i had to break this strange ice developing and show my good intentions. it would take them months to reach their car door, quite possibly years. my break was nowhere near done, so i figured i might as well make what few minutes we would share together more comfortable. i smiled, politely, and waved. i come in peace. a mere flowered shirt tourist lost in this brief overlapping of opposite circles. generation blank and generation old, come together and...
did he take it positively? wait, maybe i angered the sorry beast. no, i don't think his memory banks, so holed and dilapidated, could recollect the meaning of a simple smile and a friendly wave. maybe. harmless memory loss or blatant rudeness?
not a word was said about the food, service or speed. no complaints and no compliments. no smile or perfunctory nod, slight hand movement or a brief elevating of the eyebrows. just one long, endless stare. i broke eye contact and became lost in thought, a feeling a little embarrassed.
the female creature, who took absolutely no notice of me, pawed weakly at the passenger side door. her long, bright red nails scratching in patient impatience at the flawless wax coat on the car. her gaudy jewelry rattled and banged. so loud was it that i'm almost certain the ears of every homeless man, women and child in bangladesh, perked up in hungry anticipation. the man fumbled dumbly with a complicated set of three keys until he finally fit the point into the hole.
* i'm sure the man would experience some strange sense of doddering deja vu later in the night. i pictured him, glass of tiger's blood and panda milk in one hand, bottle of viagra in the other. dressed in his sexily conservative pair of pin striped long johns. the crone prepares for the romantic night ahead, topping off their sexy italian meal. the man's hard on, try as it might, is shamelessly losing the battle against the thin fabric of his pajamas. a small white flag is all it's able to raise.
his wife, in a silk nightie, unable to sleep lying down flat (lest the fluids in her hump consume her), is propped upright by a reading pillow. she's as close to being "good to go" as she's gonna get and her husband knows it. she crooks a finger in his direction, beckoning him towards her, then slowly spreads her veiny legs apart. the sound, i imagine, is one of an ancient stone door to an egyptian treasure tomb slowly sliding open for the first time in over two centuries. a grainy rumble that echoes impressively throughout the dusty chamber. a geyser of dust spews forth signifying that the vagina is open and ready, gaping like a hungry maw. the man desperately tries to rouse his defeated pecker, her withered vagina is about as appealing to him as the mouth of a lamprey eel. actually, just thinking of how much better those rows and rows of sharp, bloodsucking teeth would feel when compared to this barren, skin searing wasteland of a cunt, really got his motor running. he'd have to remember to get one of those next time. dig around in some swamp, bleeding cod fish as bait.
what follows can only be described as the lamest mummy fuck ever. rhythmic weight shifting, stifled yawns and desiccated wheezing orchestrates this repulsive dance of sorts. their pores audibly emit an eerie hissing sound, much like a tea kettle on a lit stove. powdered sweat mixed with what little moisture their rubbing bodies can spare creates a very pasty and very chalky sex cocktail. the soft sound of snake skin on a wet pile of yard trash can be heard above the monstrous crescendo of hacking and spitting, bone creaking and occasional snapping.
time has lost all meaning, somehow. once again, these abominations send the universal order spiraling into oblivion. any poor soul observing might get lost in their hypnotic pumping, caught somewhere between gagging and shitting themselves.
suddenly, the air is still and silent, no orgasmic moans have been heard in this room for the past thirty years, and, if the room actually expected to ever hear it again, it would be terribly disappointed. the old man collapses in a heap beside a snoring wife who may or may not have been conscious when he had finished. they will not move for seven days. *
i watched them leave, a smug smile creeping its way across my sorry old mug. they had unknowingly been casted in a perverted play of mine that. i'm sure in reality, they would've turned those bloated old noses up to it or maybe just keeled over from a heart attack. their sorry faces and pathetic routines, were all just props, sets and masks, easily pasted and thrown together in this mr. potato head imagination of mine. no copyright laws or U.S. patent documents or wavers that needed signatures of approval. just good ol' imagination and a guarded tongue. revenge is sweet, especially when the victim is none the wiser.
(i wonder if they really would've turned down my little script.)
they staggered into a box shaped scion with a heavenly white coat of unscathed paint, and slowly drove away.
i scratched the rim of my nose and was pleasantly greeted by a giant clod of green and yellow. this nose goblin had been dangling out in the open, probably had seen the whole thing too. wonder what he thinks of me now. i wiped it onto the bottom of my shoe.
i flicked my smoldering butt, got up and returned to the endless grind of alien slave labor. all the heads remained still. i was now onto their sick, twisted plot. smart, wise and ready.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
suntan lotion
boy, i am tired.
my eyes burn from staring at the sun for too long. the only way to stay awake in the face of all the danger. i'm suffocating under this veil of weariness. mental and physical exhaustion bolted to each of my ankles like over sized sinking lures. hands hanging languid, arms swinging back and forth to the beat of the ambulating living dead. a thin sliver of drool makes its way down the length of my chin as i type. blood shot eyes rolling about in dry sockets, sandbags grating against the lids. those irritating mobile organs set in my face. my brain has shriveled to the size of a peanut, which is not really a nut, but a legume.
i'm not really thinking. i'm really bound by brown, leather straps to a rickety wheelchair in a mental institution somewhere in harlem.
yesterday i left school early to get some well deserved rest. at least, i thought it was well deserved, i guess there could be a number of hard working people in this world who would angrily disagree. but who the hell gives a damn about them? i sure don't. those bastards were born to work. since the time of their conception (of which i am convinced they came out of the womb at forty years of age, fully clothed in a business suit and tie, ready to work) to the time of their death they have probably worked non-stop trying to make their lives as miserable and mundane as humanly possible. from hammering circle pegs into square holes at the playground to the STAT reports they've toiled over endlessly that were due yesterday. the bastards have done and can do nothing without first draining it of fun, scrutinizing the life out of it until it becomes yet another one of their meaningless tasks.
this, right here, is one hundred percent hard work. failing miserably, but with much dedication.
anyways, i went home early to get, what I thought was, some well deserved rest. i turned a corner swiftly next to the church over in...well, jesus i'm not sure what village that is. Barrigada? whatever. i saw a dog lying in the middle of the goddamned road. by middle i mean, of course, within the safe boundaries of the median. at first i had to take my fatigued consciousness to the ring for a good ol' one on one wrastling. the only move fatigue seemed to know, and do successfully, was the sleeper hold. but, being so damn tired himself, he could only manage to do his moves in a sluggish fashion. my better half wrestled the weakened bastard to ground, a move met with much resistance. slightly bruised and sleepy eyed, my better half took control of the wheel. i turned my tired ass around and pulled up into a bedraggled, unkept street across from some typical chamorro household. i looked at the dog in the middle of the road who appeared surprisingly at ease with all the damn traffic zooming inches away from his snout. it was one of those bastardly thin medians that are only about half as long as a car's width. i don't know what the point of those is, i mean why not just make it the proper size? why not go the whole nine yards and make room for the entire car?
i put on my hoodie and approached the edge of the road. the sun was blazing down on my brown sweater, beating the living hell out of the back of my neck. not so bright of an idea, but one that worked...i think. some sort of means to an end? i just can't stand being stared at, especially by these rubbernecking bunch of yokels. i just know that one occupant in some speeding vehicle would slow down to almost a complete stop to stare from the panting dog on the road to the idiot white boy in the hoodie. i would be the topic at at least one of their conversations at their overstuffed dinner tables. maybe. who knows, it more than likely didn't even make it to the table. these bastards are so hungry for gossip that they would find any opportunity to start running their traps. i bet they started yammering on about it in the car. fuck.
i stood there, staring at the dog, who stared right back at me, waiting for the right chance to dash onto the road, grab the dog and dash right back off. seemed pretty damn easy. i even hoped some beautiful, distraught damsel would come fleeing out of the house crying "oh, my baby, my beautiful baby! you saved him! how can i ever repay you?!" i would then say something along the lines of "oh, it was nothing. just doing my part to keep all the citizens of this village safe and happy. even the little ones like ol' sparky here!" then i would nudge the panting snout of the dog, politely, and he would miraculously heal.
sparky would yip happily and do something very cutesy at that moment, me and ms. distress would then look at each other and respond with a simultaneous "aww" or something. i'm not too sure what a traumatized dog can do that would be considered cute, though. besides lick our faces or do back flips into pools or something.
so...
i waited for the traffic to subside on both sides of the road. i was afraid that if i ran out too quickly i would startle the dog into limping headfirst into the speeding wheels of a passing car. i tensed up, crouching low, all ready to sprint, but then the dog barked at me in a threatening way. this seemed strange to me for some reason. then i realized that i hadn't taken any of the potential variables into account. i was acting capriciously, foolhardy even. i mean what if the dog snapped at me, what if it struggled painfully from my grasp while i was running, what if its spine or neck had been broken and by moving it i would have just caused further injury or even death? what if it bit me and i had to get a rabies shot, or worse, what if i immediately contracted rabies! but that thought was completely dismissed from my head. i don't think rabies are on guam. hydrophobia?
i figured i had to chance it. this was the moment i had been waiting for, the flood of gawkers in their dilapidated trucks and chintzy mercedes had momentarily ceased. luck. i burst out on to the road, past the two empty lanes and into the median where i crouched beside the dog. of course at that very moment my luck vanished without a trace and all the neighborhood dogs, aroused by their wounded compadres barking, rushed out from under the shade of their owners trucks and garages to bark at the strange man on the road. also, at that very moment, every car on guam decided to take a little detour through barrigada. the road became packed with spectators and loud mouths. someone had pulled the lever and released the stray hounds and gawkers from their cages.
i almost expected to hear the booming voice of a sports commentator over some goddamn loudspeaker. "he crouches, goes for the scoop up...will he? will he? oh, no bite so far. i think...yes...i think the dog is yowling in pain, ohhhh the clumsy kid drops it!"
the dog was covered in piss. a pile of dog crap laid neatly at his side that it looked as if been placed there on a serving tray by a butler, and puddles of urine that appeared to be pretty fresh. the dog reeked of death and piss. i guess it had lost all hope of rescue and just sort of started to rot. dogs do that though. they stink. i remember when my dog was hit by a car years and years ago. i was all panicky, pacing back and forth from my room to the living room knuckling my forehead stupidly. my parents were scrambling all over the house looking for something to stop the bleeding. any make-shift tourniquet. a huge puddle of blood, spurting through my father's pushing hands, was making its way down the hallway. god, the stench was unbearable. panic and death and excrement's and fart. absolutely terrible.
i scooped it up, whimpering, in my arms and ran across the street. two cars had stopped for me, i attempted a wave at them from beneath the dogs weight (which was surprisingly light), hoping to convey some sort of thanks. they just stared back at me, dumbly watching me pass, then slowly started back up again. once i reached the sidelines i realized i had nowhere to set the dog down. i scanned the area hoping to find a large, shaded tree or anything that would keep my doggy friend out of the sun. i found none, nothing but skinny coconut trees whose shade would shift as the sun progressed through the afternoon sky. i set him down in the garage across from my car instead. a nearby leaky faucet provided an adequate, maybe a little muddy, water supply so he could cool off. i bet that asphalt must have cooked the hell out of him. i patted him (or maybe her) on his or her head and walked over to the car. by this time, all the barking and honking had aroused the attention of the house owner and he made his way out of the house. a shirtless chamorro guy with a prominent beer gut covered in home-made tattoos, sauntered out of the back door in mild interest. he seemed completely oblivious of the dog laying comfortably in the shade of his garage. i pretended to examine something under my car; some invisible imperfection or defect under the wheel. then i got in. i completely avoided looking the whole time, started my car and casually feigned an interest in my troll-like reflection in the mirror.
i felt a little bad depositing such a burden on the guy. then again, maybe it was his dog. if so, maybe he should put some restraint on the dog. maybe he should put on a shirt, as well. i felt great. the incident had me shaken, aware and awake. i'm still waiting for that crazy damsel though.
it's a great world run by terrible creatures.
june 29th, 2005
my eyes burn from staring at the sun for too long. the only way to stay awake in the face of all the danger. i'm suffocating under this veil of weariness. mental and physical exhaustion bolted to each of my ankles like over sized sinking lures. hands hanging languid, arms swinging back and forth to the beat of the ambulating living dead. a thin sliver of drool makes its way down the length of my chin as i type. blood shot eyes rolling about in dry sockets, sandbags grating against the lids. those irritating mobile organs set in my face. my brain has shriveled to the size of a peanut, which is not really a nut, but a legume.
i'm not really thinking. i'm really bound by brown, leather straps to a rickety wheelchair in a mental institution somewhere in harlem.
yesterday i left school early to get some well deserved rest. at least, i thought it was well deserved, i guess there could be a number of hard working people in this world who would angrily disagree. but who the hell gives a damn about them? i sure don't. those bastards were born to work. since the time of their conception (of which i am convinced they came out of the womb at forty years of age, fully clothed in a business suit and tie, ready to work) to the time of their death they have probably worked non-stop trying to make their lives as miserable and mundane as humanly possible. from hammering circle pegs into square holes at the playground to the STAT reports they've toiled over endlessly that were due yesterday. the bastards have done and can do nothing without first draining it of fun, scrutinizing the life out of it until it becomes yet another one of their meaningless tasks.
this, right here, is one hundred percent hard work. failing miserably, but with much dedication.
anyways, i went home early to get, what I thought was, some well deserved rest. i turned a corner swiftly next to the church over in...well, jesus i'm not sure what village that is. Barrigada? whatever. i saw a dog lying in the middle of the goddamned road. by middle i mean, of course, within the safe boundaries of the median. at first i had to take my fatigued consciousness to the ring for a good ol' one on one wrastling. the only move fatigue seemed to know, and do successfully, was the sleeper hold. but, being so damn tired himself, he could only manage to do his moves in a sluggish fashion. my better half wrestled the weakened bastard to ground, a move met with much resistance. slightly bruised and sleepy eyed, my better half took control of the wheel. i turned my tired ass around and pulled up into a bedraggled, unkept street across from some typical chamorro household. i looked at the dog in the middle of the road who appeared surprisingly at ease with all the damn traffic zooming inches away from his snout. it was one of those bastardly thin medians that are only about half as long as a car's width. i don't know what the point of those is, i mean why not just make it the proper size? why not go the whole nine yards and make room for the entire car?
i put on my hoodie and approached the edge of the road. the sun was blazing down on my brown sweater, beating the living hell out of the back of my neck. not so bright of an idea, but one that worked...i think. some sort of means to an end? i just can't stand being stared at, especially by these rubbernecking bunch of yokels. i just know that one occupant in some speeding vehicle would slow down to almost a complete stop to stare from the panting dog on the road to the idiot white boy in the hoodie. i would be the topic at at least one of their conversations at their overstuffed dinner tables. maybe. who knows, it more than likely didn't even make it to the table. these bastards are so hungry for gossip that they would find any opportunity to start running their traps. i bet they started yammering on about it in the car. fuck.
i stood there, staring at the dog, who stared right back at me, waiting for the right chance to dash onto the road, grab the dog and dash right back off. seemed pretty damn easy. i even hoped some beautiful, distraught damsel would come fleeing out of the house crying "oh, my baby, my beautiful baby! you saved him! how can i ever repay you?!" i would then say something along the lines of "oh, it was nothing. just doing my part to keep all the citizens of this village safe and happy. even the little ones like ol' sparky here!" then i would nudge the panting snout of the dog, politely, and he would miraculously heal.
sparky would yip happily and do something very cutesy at that moment, me and ms. distress would then look at each other and respond with a simultaneous "aww" or something. i'm not too sure what a traumatized dog can do that would be considered cute, though. besides lick our faces or do back flips into pools or something.
so...
i waited for the traffic to subside on both sides of the road. i was afraid that if i ran out too quickly i would startle the dog into limping headfirst into the speeding wheels of a passing car. i tensed up, crouching low, all ready to sprint, but then the dog barked at me in a threatening way. this seemed strange to me for some reason. then i realized that i hadn't taken any of the potential variables into account. i was acting capriciously, foolhardy even. i mean what if the dog snapped at me, what if it struggled painfully from my grasp while i was running, what if its spine or neck had been broken and by moving it i would have just caused further injury or even death? what if it bit me and i had to get a rabies shot, or worse, what if i immediately contracted rabies! but that thought was completely dismissed from my head. i don't think rabies are on guam. hydrophobia?
i figured i had to chance it. this was the moment i had been waiting for, the flood of gawkers in their dilapidated trucks and chintzy mercedes had momentarily ceased. luck. i burst out on to the road, past the two empty lanes and into the median where i crouched beside the dog. of course at that very moment my luck vanished without a trace and all the neighborhood dogs, aroused by their wounded compadres barking, rushed out from under the shade of their owners trucks and garages to bark at the strange man on the road. also, at that very moment, every car on guam decided to take a little detour through barrigada. the road became packed with spectators and loud mouths. someone had pulled the lever and released the stray hounds and gawkers from their cages.
i almost expected to hear the booming voice of a sports commentator over some goddamn loudspeaker. "he crouches, goes for the scoop up...will he? will he? oh, no bite so far. i think...yes...i think the dog is yowling in pain, ohhhh the clumsy kid drops it!"
the dog was covered in piss. a pile of dog crap laid neatly at his side that it looked as if been placed there on a serving tray by a butler, and puddles of urine that appeared to be pretty fresh. the dog reeked of death and piss. i guess it had lost all hope of rescue and just sort of started to rot. dogs do that though. they stink. i remember when my dog was hit by a car years and years ago. i was all panicky, pacing back and forth from my room to the living room knuckling my forehead stupidly. my parents were scrambling all over the house looking for something to stop the bleeding. any make-shift tourniquet. a huge puddle of blood, spurting through my father's pushing hands, was making its way down the hallway. god, the stench was unbearable. panic and death and excrement's and fart. absolutely terrible.
i scooped it up, whimpering, in my arms and ran across the street. two cars had stopped for me, i attempted a wave at them from beneath the dogs weight (which was surprisingly light), hoping to convey some sort of thanks. they just stared back at me, dumbly watching me pass, then slowly started back up again. once i reached the sidelines i realized i had nowhere to set the dog down. i scanned the area hoping to find a large, shaded tree or anything that would keep my doggy friend out of the sun. i found none, nothing but skinny coconut trees whose shade would shift as the sun progressed through the afternoon sky. i set him down in the garage across from my car instead. a nearby leaky faucet provided an adequate, maybe a little muddy, water supply so he could cool off. i bet that asphalt must have cooked the hell out of him. i patted him (or maybe her) on his or her head and walked over to the car. by this time, all the barking and honking had aroused the attention of the house owner and he made his way out of the house. a shirtless chamorro guy with a prominent beer gut covered in home-made tattoos, sauntered out of the back door in mild interest. he seemed completely oblivious of the dog laying comfortably in the shade of his garage. i pretended to examine something under my car; some invisible imperfection or defect under the wheel. then i got in. i completely avoided looking the whole time, started my car and casually feigned an interest in my troll-like reflection in the mirror.
i felt a little bad depositing such a burden on the guy. then again, maybe it was his dog. if so, maybe he should put some restraint on the dog. maybe he should put on a shirt, as well. i felt great. the incident had me shaken, aware and awake. i'm still waiting for that crazy damsel though.
it's a great world run by terrible creatures.
june 29th, 2005
Sunday, February 13, 2005
old shit
woke up and got stuck in the neighbors garage.
i was only a few years old.
that's the oldest memory i have, and really, i don't actually remember it.
i know it happened because people tell me it happened. then again, people tell me a lot of things. i used to walk to the park next door in nothing but my god given skin.
i have these frozen images in my head, pictures in a sort of blurry stasis. sometimes they mimic movement, dusty film flickering and flackering.
god do i hate it. that's all i have left. now i'm an old bastard, sitting in my old bastard chair, smoking my old bastard cigarettes and drinking my old bastard wine. tomorrow i'll be an adult, some stuck up prick locked in a basement investing in shady stocks or something.
so sad.
if you see me walking on the side of the road, high off the serotonin, don't wave or say hello. i won't remember you. i'm still stuck in that goddamn garage.
*
he wears a tweed suit, carved from granite.
he speaks the good word that puts a hole in the heart
and a tear in the eye of even the most righteous man.
he drives a bug, a beetle made of concrete.
it spews green chemical waste, complex smog
that could put a hole in the lung.
with retractable wings, made of solid stone.
can fly a man to mars and back again.
boys are boys. it all exist between the lines of
fiction and reality. i have a hole in my heart
and a stone in my belly. i have a soul, a command center
in my brain.
*
so today i'm trying to print out this damn paper but my computer in the lab is giving me shit.
adam: ahhh, finally done with this stupid paraphrasing. what a great article though, i'm glad to have read up on Cambodia's gruesome past. now let me just hit the old print button here. annnndd...
computer: nope.
adam: hehe, what's that?
computer: huh uh, no printing here, bub.
adam: i'm sorry, but, uh, i really need this paper, it's uh, well, it's due today.
computer: yeah, well, you're gonna have to move your ass on over to the next poor sucker, because i ain't your bitch.
adam: hey, now just a minute...!
computer: don't you 'juss a minute me' i'll whoop your bastard ass into submission, you sorry sack of shit!
adam: look man, there's no reason to get violent...
computer: hey! hey! you comin' all up in here making me print your shit! i will kill you! you hear that? kill you!
adam: jesus, hey you wanna go?! fine we'll go! *roll up sleeves on my short sleeve t-shirt*
computer: yeah, c'mon just gimme your best shot, ya bastard!
adam: oh i will, don't you make me...
computer: c'mon, i dare ya, ya fucking cunt rag!
adam: you know, what? you know what? i'm calling your damn computer management man! how's that mister big shot?!
computer: ahh, ya fucking bastard, you ain't even a man! go cry to mommy!
then i go up to the computer supervisor guy that sits around at his desk looking bored.
adam: hey man, your damn computer's giving me guff, man, i really need this...
guy: whoa whoa whoa, guff? did you just say, guff? what is that, guff?
adam: what?
guy: well, i mean, what, are we in the eighties? you gotta use the word guff? are you some damn handy man husband giving me a lecture? what is this?
adam: look man, i just meant your...
guy: hey, i know what you meant, but did you have to use that word? guff? christ man, that's a loser's word right there...if you know what i mean. you want the chicks? you keep up with that 'guff' stuff you ain't gettin any.
adam: wait a minute, eighties word? i think guff's been around much longer than that. and, well, you know what? guff is a word too, it has just as much right to be used in a sentence as any other word.
guy: hey man, you can say guff till your face turns blue. just don't expect to get any props from it.
adam: what the hell are you talking about 'props'? i couldn't care less about what these college non-identities think of my vocabulary skills, or use there of. look, i just want my damn computer to print my goddamn paper, alright?
guy: hey, don't have to get all testy and start using the lord's name in vain. i'll fix your computer, you damn vocabulary crazed heathen.
*
i was only a few years old.
that's the oldest memory i have, and really, i don't actually remember it.
i know it happened because people tell me it happened. then again, people tell me a lot of things. i used to walk to the park next door in nothing but my god given skin.
i have these frozen images in my head, pictures in a sort of blurry stasis. sometimes they mimic movement, dusty film flickering and flackering.
god do i hate it. that's all i have left. now i'm an old bastard, sitting in my old bastard chair, smoking my old bastard cigarettes and drinking my old bastard wine. tomorrow i'll be an adult, some stuck up prick locked in a basement investing in shady stocks or something.
so sad.
if you see me walking on the side of the road, high off the serotonin, don't wave or say hello. i won't remember you. i'm still stuck in that goddamn garage.
*
he wears a tweed suit, carved from granite.
he speaks the good word that puts a hole in the heart
and a tear in the eye of even the most righteous man.
he drives a bug, a beetle made of concrete.
it spews green chemical waste, complex smog
that could put a hole in the lung.
with retractable wings, made of solid stone.
can fly a man to mars and back again.
boys are boys. it all exist between the lines of
fiction and reality. i have a hole in my heart
and a stone in my belly. i have a soul, a command center
in my brain.
*
so today i'm trying to print out this damn paper but my computer in the lab is giving me shit.
adam: ahhh, finally done with this stupid paraphrasing. what a great article though, i'm glad to have read up on Cambodia's gruesome past. now let me just hit the old print button here. annnndd...
computer: nope.
adam: hehe, what's that?
computer: huh uh, no printing here, bub.
adam: i'm sorry, but, uh, i really need this paper, it's uh, well, it's due today.
computer: yeah, well, you're gonna have to move your ass on over to the next poor sucker, because i ain't your bitch.
adam: hey, now just a minute...!
computer: don't you 'juss a minute me' i'll whoop your bastard ass into submission, you sorry sack of shit!
adam: look man, there's no reason to get violent...
computer: hey! hey! you comin' all up in here making me print your shit! i will kill you! you hear that? kill you!
adam: jesus, hey you wanna go?! fine we'll go! *roll up sleeves on my short sleeve t-shirt*
computer: yeah, c'mon just gimme your best shot, ya bastard!
adam: oh i will, don't you make me...
computer: c'mon, i dare ya, ya fucking cunt rag!
adam: you know, what? you know what? i'm calling your damn computer management man! how's that mister big shot?!
computer: ahh, ya fucking bastard, you ain't even a man! go cry to mommy!
then i go up to the computer supervisor guy that sits around at his desk looking bored.
adam: hey man, your damn computer's giving me guff, man, i really need this...
guy: whoa whoa whoa, guff? did you just say, guff? what is that, guff?
adam: what?
guy: well, i mean, what, are we in the eighties? you gotta use the word guff? are you some damn handy man husband giving me a lecture? what is this?
adam: look man, i just meant your...
guy: hey, i know what you meant, but did you have to use that word? guff? christ man, that's a loser's word right there...if you know what i mean. you want the chicks? you keep up with that 'guff' stuff you ain't gettin any.
adam: wait a minute, eighties word? i think guff's been around much longer than that. and, well, you know what? guff is a word too, it has just as much right to be used in a sentence as any other word.
guy: hey man, you can say guff till your face turns blue. just don't expect to get any props from it.
adam: what the hell are you talking about 'props'? i couldn't care less about what these college non-identities think of my vocabulary skills, or use there of. look, i just want my damn computer to print my goddamn paper, alright?
guy: hey, don't have to get all testy and start using the lord's name in vain. i'll fix your computer, you damn vocabulary crazed heathen.
*
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