Post by Steve on Oct 10, 2008 18:49:31 GMT -5
i was lying in bed, a mechanical sound much like a scallop boat filling my left ear, staring at the night between my face and the back of Sara's head. the air was cool outside, inside felt warm and moldy like morning after drinking. paranoia had the windows shut, drapes pulled and pinned in their stomachs; front door shut and dead-bolted. there was no circulation of air within the room.
i had turned on the air conditioning, the powerful fan, and moved the typewriter into the bathroom hoping it would make less ruckus. i was wrong. i typed six words before the keys sounded like; six words that were a string of fire-crackers.
i stretched onto the bed and resumed staring at the hair that i knew was there but couldn't see. from somewhere amidst the night, hair, and clogged engine grew the sore moans of a cat by the trash bins. it was a noise like someone slowly carving their initials into the trunk of a car. a train derailing into a scrap yard; the tin man rusted-drunk, falling down and trying to stand.
it was somewhere in this stew that i remembered...
it was a little strip-club on the outskirts of a city not worth remembering, i'll say it was a tuesday night. the building looked like a southern shack held together by mud and spitting tobacco; kept standing by old cargo trailers that hadn’t been moved this decade. generally speaking the building was a mess. we were safer in a paper bag drenched in gasoline situated fire-place-front.
prime real-estate.
the inside was where they had spent their money. the stage was in the middle of the club and the seating just big banged out from there. the platform was a giant glass circle with solid glass pillars to reinforce the surface for the weight of the girls. i assumed that this also prevented the girls from going a little over the weight limit the owner instituted. within the circle were tropical fish. exotic breeds that the normal person wouldn't have the slightest guess as to its name. i looked at them as i entered and was more impressed by their colours than anything else about them, though that could have been their entire appeal. i honestly didn't care.
a line of white lights wrapped around the stage and shot through the tables indicating where the walkways were. from the second floor the whole image would look like a poorly drawn sun. a big, wet, fish-filled sun.
it was gruesome to see but there was that charade of intrigue and shunning. the glance to see it again but only to become irritated or disgusted and have to look away once more. it was like being young staring at a dead animal with a stick in your hand. the sight was like a scab begging to be scratched and ripped from the fresh grapefruit skin beneath.
i was sitting at a table on the second floor, over-looking the dancers perfectly, that had the colour of a tired piece of charcoal. it was a frosted glass top with dark wooden legs and in the center-beneath the glass- was a red bulb. every other table but this one was a whorehouse red while mine blushed at the mentioning of sex.
the upper floor was lit entirely red, only the 'exit' signs were different, which were blue. the first floor, as expected, was blue and the escape signs were red. on the jaw of the balcony they had anchored blue and red lights so where they intersected a purple fog grew. it was in this grape-drink coloured cloud that my mind thought i should drink more of my beer.
"so how's your family?" i took a drink and shrugged. i was staring at the red-head that took the stage. she was covered in silver glitter and shimmered like a fish or diamonds behind a flame inside a cavern. the red spot-light turned the blue of the room into a purple where ever she walked. it melted over her like hot taffy, it turned on her hair.
"i guess they're doing alright." i sighed and slugged my beer back. "my sister can't keep her own head, my mother hardly ever gets out of bed and my father, he's eating pills for meals waiting to die-bothering them both while he waits." we both pulled a beer from the case he bought as we entered.
"did your dad have to have his foot amputated?" Pete wasn't paying any mind, he was staring at the match on the stage cat-crawling across the glass. i couldn't imagine that feeling pleasant on her knees. it didn't appear greased and all i could think about was the streaking sound i heard inside my skull everytime she slid an inch. he was an interesting fellow. Pete had his mind about him, knew what he liked and disliked and ate plentifully from the things he disliked. he was a vagrant, as though i wasn't, and was fully conscious of the coming Armageddon, end, whatever you call it, he was aware that we were inside of the vortex spinning dizzily downwards, willing to grin and laugh with whoever chose to accompany him.
two men came onto the platform and proceeded to spray, what only could have been a lubricant, onto the brass pole in the center of the stage. for reasons easily blamable on alcohol, i could only imagine the pole as sewing needle pushed through a small spool of thread. they finished shooting their loads and one after the other stepped off the stage.
one of the two men turned to watch the red-head fold in half raising her ass in the air.
"how's the wife?" he heard me through his fortress of a daydream and drank his beer down then lit a cigarette.
"we're not married."
"pretty damn close."
"Dana's alright."
"good to hear." truthfully i didn't give a damn. i hardly knew her.
"i'm only twenty-four."
"i know you are."
"it’s not like i could get better twat..." he paused to smoke his cigarette and replace our beer.
"there's just the possibility that i Could."
"i know what you're saying." i really did. i understood every bit of it and even more than what i should have at that age.
it was quiet between us for a little while, i knew he was thinking about her pros and cons. if he could actually marry anyone and truly be happy. i thought it was an odd pressure that society places on its era of people. How they came about with the average age that a person should settle and know exactly what they want in life, and how to get it. It’s a recommendation, a suggested number that if pressured into can cause extreme side-effects. It’s the median guideline set by those that chose to bend and give beyond what they should have to, and this number is what they gamble our social security and other financial investments on. It’s this number that if a marginal number of people follow then they can put the money back without ever letting out a squeal.
We both were wearing unshaven, Thompson type faces. Haggard and torn from booze and drugs, scarred by a crow bar and scarred by too much understanding. Looking at him I realized how much had changed since last we saw and drank with each other. I think it had been two years our roads crossed. Two years stranded in Europe, and he was two years stranded in life. The anarchistic bonfire behind his eyes had grown cold and tired replaced by warm coals that show they’re not long for life. He was thinner but developing a gut that fell over his waistband. I was still thin, eating only when I had to and not a bite more.
“whatever happened to that cherry you were eating?” he was referring to the girl I had been with last time we spoke.
“she’s doing alright I guess.”
“you guess?”
“yeah, I haven’t talked to her yet, haven’t contacted each other since I left for Europe.”
“what?”
“she said I was smoking & drinking too much. I disagreed but was willing to compromise at a lot.”
“and…”
“well, she didn’t think I should go in the condition I was in, and I did.”
“are you going to call her?”
“no”
“why?”
“and say what? ‘hey guess what, now I am drinking too much?’”
“s`ppose you’re right.”
“then most of it is wrong.”
He laughed and got up from the table pointing to the open door marked “MEN”. I nodded and drank from my bottle, choking its throat as if it had harmed me in some way.
The bulb beneath our glass popped leaving us the only unlit table in the joint.
I thought honestly and sensibly about calling her, may be just to see how she was. My pockets were silent when I swooshed my pants searching for fifty cents to make a phone call. After a sip of beer I decided that I wouldn’t ring her, perhaps ever. There were other people less fortunate that would receive a call from me.
The first person I thought of was Elise from Belgium. We had met at this opening of a new coffee house that was intended to be the new poetry site. It turned out to be bogus and we wound up getting two fifths of brandy and dreaming on a park bench through the early hours of night. And night, the great equalizer that it is, led us back to her apartment where we tangled, folded and unfolded each other before sleeping in the warm coma sun.
I was thinking about the small of her back, the way it felt against my stomach, about ringing her, inviting her to come to America. Pete came back to the table silently.
“so you noticed the real show has started.” I saw he was grinning but I hadn’t noticed any difference in the show. my eyes were on the cherry on the stage but all I could see was Elise’s apartment, one of the last times we saw each other. I was sitting on the edge of her bed, nude, watching the wall. we had just made it in every way possible. we were both drunk, it was sloppy sunshine sex, the moon still just a smoky orb in the sky, I was ready but she refused to let me out. I had to fight to get out from beneath her and barely escaped, spilling onto her thighs. like I said, I was on the bed nude, and she was raising a cigarette carefully to my lips with it in between her toes.
“what about the show?”
“look and listen.”
he was pointing to the stage knowing damn well that I hadn’t returned from wherever my mind had been.
“is she fucking the pole?”
“damn straight she is.”
he said it as if this was a scheduled event, like he was ordering a #4 meal at take out place.
the red-head had grabbed the pole above the grease and was riding it like some deviant carousel sex-horse.
what was more impressive was how they had managed a microphone so close without picking up the audience, and with no clothes to tuck or hide behind. through the loud speakers her moans and whines shadowed the songs in the background.
“yeah, this is a real show.”
the sarcasm wasn’t subtle the least. I turned away lit a cigarette and tasted the crisp pop of a fresh beer.
Lennon was singing about a warm gun as two girls worked out of their clothes
and into each other. the red-head left the stage unnoticed.
the night was young, still so many long hours left, and I thought about the contradiction in my perception of time. the hours were long and slow, like a nearly drowned worm, the days had no loyalty to either cause and the life in general was short. between the two of us we had seen life miraculously quit without warning at least a dozen times.
but they were the dead ones and the night was but an infant with a freshly slapped ass. plenty of time for it to grow old and desperate, time left to leave us bleeding out in the splunk water collecting over a clogged drain; or worse, drowned in the chocolate cream that filled the toilets in every place like this.
the stage was covered with clothing and items that had been used in every orifice of the body. there were the strip club ping-pong balls (a few of them still rolling around the glass); a few leather accessories (masks and whips etc…); a chain and hand-cuffs; a rolling pin; a variety of fruits and vegetables along with a plethora of store-bought dildos.
a trash bag blew off the stage caught in the current of the ceiling fans, and I could only think that it was used for a suffocation act. I couldn’t remember most of the acts that had passed, and it very well could have been used as a tarp for an oil fuck or something along those lines. the sudden hope that it was a suffocation thing, and the glimmering idea that luckily one of them died, filled my joints and made my skull feel like it was caught in a mudslide.
I needed fresh air.
I lit a cigarette as I walked through the doors and into wet sand that felt more like an enormous cow patty. it was raining, hard, and it looked like it had been for awhile. there was a stream running off the road and into the dirt parking lot that created a hybrid of quick sand and a small pond. the entire lot and building was surrounded by a forest that resembled the area where the cow-cunts of our high school lived. locale is everything for a mood and the environment was laid back but there was that unsettled feeling in my colon, the one that makes you think something terrible is lurking in the darkness waiting to molest you in every way. that feeling in your large intestines that isn’t a knot but more like a blistering ulcer leaking mucous into your shit-shaft. I felt like a child in a sand box. the world around me was green and grey, the road illuminated occasionally was like watching a glass of water shatter on an onyx table beneath a spotlight.
I walked around the building, close to its shore, smoking my cigarette thinking about the works I had in progress. thinking about the money advances and royalties and contracts and accountants and taxes; interviews and love and mortgages and leases and the term contract and how it means non-negotiable binding order of conduct and percentage of the signer’s time, which is ultimately a percentage of their life. I was about to come to terms with these things when I passed a groaning man leaning against the wall. his eyes must have been closed. they shot open like white splatter marks on a black wall and followed me as I continued around the building.
upon circling back to the front entrance the thickness of cottage cheese thinned to its normal consistency of murky confusion and I leaned against the wall and smoked a joint. there’s something mystical about the initial cloud of smoke, it has the appearance of having wisdom, emotion; something that half the people I’ve met lacked. may be it was just quiet understanding; an omni-presence that could be seen and related to physical boundaries that we’ve grown accustomed to abiding. it could just as easily have been the drunkenness and years of pot smoking that gave way to that thought. But I leaned against the building; watching the accessories shine on and off in the darkness like an S.O.S as people made their way through the parking lot. it’s when you get lost in the convoluted vortex of thoughts like: are the people the fish or the lures?; that you know it’s time to put the joint down and merge back into societic-traffic.
I arrived at the table (after a few flat-tires by the same driver; which ended in an instinctual elbow-to-the-stomach) to see Pete scribbling in a notebook. he didn’t look up but asked how the air was outside. he was shading in an area around an extraordinarily distraught goat who was not happy about being milked. beneath the utters was a politician looking at the observer; his face covered in milk. there was a small caption that read “is there anything he won’t milk?” written in box letters above the goat.
Somewhere in the time it took me to walk passed the stage and to take my seat the stage had been evacuated. the lights were out; only the clear bulbs hidden strategically within the aquarium were lit and as fish moved their bodies cast shadows like retinal hemorrhages on the walls.
“so did you finish that children’s book you were working on?” his eyes never left the pad he was scratching.
“just about, i despise it though, i highly doubt i’ll turn it into the publisher.”
“is it that bad?”
“well, you were never a big fan of my writing to begin with so, if i think it’s bad then yes; you would say it IS that bad.” i chuckled and sipped my beer.
“So, does that mean you don’t need illustrations for it?”
“Man, even if i did i couldn’t use a goat getting milked by the president.”
“it’s not the president, it’s the senator of Alabama.”
“my mistake.” i laughed and he looked up and smiled relatively sinisterly.
“there are other things that i’ve written that need pictures, specifically covers. i could mail them to your mother’s house.” Pete could draw and i had been trying to have him do something for me for years.
“yeah, i think i’ll whip something up for you.” his big eyes looked passed me and scanned the place.
“there’s some scum-fucks in this place.” we both finished our beer as a toast to the truth in his observation. it was the type of place that you’d expect to see an obese mob boss surrounded by scrawny knee-breakers; smoking cigars and drinking Christian Brothers. there were none to be found. instead there were less trust-worthy villains. a table of wall street suits, one with a foot fetish who kept wedging bundles of bills between the girls’ toes. a few of the tables had lawyers drinking red wine, enhancing the stereotype that they were blood-thirsty. i swore a few of the suits looked and sounded like politicians.
“are you ready to roll out of here?” he was putting away his notebook and breaking down the cardboard case from the beer. It didn’t seem like a question so i checked my pockets to make sure my keys and wallet hadn’t magically vanished. we rose from the table as another girl took the stage. “man, i’d lick her asshole.” and i looked at the blonde that strutted a crossed the stage knowing damn well that he was serious. “yeah, you’d be safe with that one, doesn’t seem like her shit stinks.” Pete glanced me over still adjusting to my infinite cynicism after two years absence and cracked a wide smile. “i’m glad we were able to meet before you left again.” he was turning to begin his route out of the building. “i’m not leaving for awhile, i could easily find a place to stay around your apartment, you’re still living around the corner from your mom right?” i knew he was but i asked anyway. i saw the back of his head nod in confirmation.
the rain had stopped and instead of being thick with droplets, the musk of unwashed twats was dense and aggressive. Pete and i were in the middle of comparing the latest presidential poll updates when he pulled out a genuine Cuban Cigar. he offered but i decided that a cigar was the farthest of the phallic tobacco products from my mind. he stuck the tip between his teeth and motioned with his head to follow him. “Do you honestly think you’ll stick around man? ugh...to sign and be restricted by a lease.” i wanted to give him the best and truthful answer so disturbed a clump of mud that fell asleep on my shoe. “ i know you’ve got your own shit on your plate to eat but, it’d be nice if you hung about the old neighborhood. might even brighten the place up a bit.” he paused and stared off into the woods. i wasn’t sure where we were going, conversationally and physically, we had passed my car and the one that i assumed was his; still walking as though a destination wasn’t relevant. “you haven’t even asked about any of the old cronies.” “Pete, it’s only been two years since i saw you, which is a damn long time not to see you but, some of the others i don’t really care. they were boring and i’m certain that not much has changed but, enlighten me.” it wasn’t meant sarcastically and thankfully he knew that we both were just heavily intoxicated, falling over the walls of our verbal inhibitions. “no, the people we thought would end up in prison did; a couple of kidnappings; a lot of holdings and dealings; a few assault cases and of course the infamous south jersey dui. Nancy’s doing a year or so for drunk driving.” “no way.” “yeah man. got shit-faced then decided that she bad-ass enough to eat some boomers and drive three hours home.” now, Nancy was a girl we both knew from high school, he more so than i, but both of us tortured and mocked her to the point where she just fell into friendship. Nancy was also one of the only people that we knew to go the longest without a vehicle, so the entire scenario of her obtaining a car then committing such a heinously stupid act was unfathomable; until i reminded myself that it was Nancy.
“is Useless still alive?” “Oh yeah, he’s at one of his relatives’ homes. still eating free food and paying minimum bills; bitching as usual.” Pete stopped suddenly at an old Chevrolet Caprice, needless to say i was wrong in the car i selected as his. he opened the rear passenger door , retrieving a small black bag; no larger than a bowling ball bag. “hope you don’t mind me throwing a few things in your ride. figure it’s a guarantee that you’ll still be here later.” i shrugged my shoulders not giving a damn and knowing that i really was going to stay in the hell of south jersey.
we reached my car and i climbed through the passenger’s door, my door couldn’t be opened from the inside or outside, and Pete slid in behind me tossing his sack onto the back seat. “you mind if we drive by my car? i just want to make sure i locked the damned junk metal.” so i pulled up to the trunk of his car and he hopped out running to his window, peering through the glass. he paused on his way back to check his pockets, “okay don’t drive off yet”. he struck a group of matches and torched the end, then lit the entire booklet of matches. they fell to the ground and in the light i saw a thin metal pipe leading from that spot to the building; specifically the area where the restrooms were. “alright. now we can be on our way bud.” i lit the joint i had in the armrest and made a u-turn in the dirt, avoiding puddles when i could. we had barely driven a tenth of a mile when we heard the tearing of silent-early-morning atmosphere.
in the rearview the panoramic image of flames towering well above the trees had me hesitant and confused, though briefly before i put what Pete had done together. i pulled on the joint and laughed. “they were bunch of scum-fucks. weren’t they?” he smiled and rolled down the window to admit the raunchy smell of burning pines and other coniferous trees. the first thing that came to mind were the fish in the aquariums. just then Pete gathered the bag, far from gracefully, from the back seat. he opened it and inside was a white plastic bag. “what’s in there man?” i didn’t even ask about the violent explosion, this plastic bag was the most recent focus of my curiosity. he opened it and turned on the interior light. inside were two of the exotic fish.
i took another puff with relaxation and headed south. the scent of boiling sap and marijuana, the cool autumn air, Pete, and open road; things were fine.
#2
the handle of the iron mechanic’s wrench is slippery and the clunky tool crashes into the side of the house “Fuck” hisses between my teeth as the pipe in front of me wheezes into the night. i go and collect it, leaving a trail of pepper behind me just for good measure, and toss the barrel into my back-pack. i get a text on my cell and know it’s the twat that’s out-somewhere-here with me. i drop a match as i enter the busted blue sedan that has pulled up, simultaneously a larger fire cripples the night and the southern bridge out of town. there’s a brief bridge (pun intended) of sirens performed by the local fire departments and other friends from the neighbor hood before the next verse of flames. it rips through the wails and whoos of the sirens, even if it is only for a second or two, and elevates over the elder fire.
the driver is Girth. if you’re thinking `bout his cock; yes, every one he knew walked into his place and onto a shag. “what shat in your mouth and stole all your socks?” i ask him as he shoves another stick of gum into his large face hole. “dismal day”, that’s how he responded. short sentences, usually non-vernacular or at least more pretentious sounding than meant. “come on. don’t piss about while you got those mountains flames behind you.” “it’s grand. i just have this pounding headache...” i start rooting around my pockets for a cure and a giant deafness falls over everything. i look through the rear windshield and see that the pepper burnt quickly back to the building, combustion hopping in patches along a two block reach.
i finally find the baggy of diesel in my pocket and wave it making an “EH?” noise. he tells me it’s sinuses; that it will only clog him up more, so i twist another joint out of the shag i have left and watch him inhale deep moose-breaths off it. honestly it’s not the brightest thing to do but at the moment it seems fine, especially since smoking and a little jane in my pocket is all they can hold us with. after i take my round i make sure to wipe the wrench down with the individual hand-sanitizer wipes, just to be safe, then i light it on fire and throw it out of the window; rather the ashes fly out of the car.
we have another ten minutes before the next text comes through, so Girth and i stop at a convenience store for a few crucial snacks we know we’ll need. i head towards the fruit section as he makes his way to the hotdogs and “Ready-Serve” grub. i’m standing in line listening to the people waiting with me, inwardly snickering at the speculations and gross departure of class of the people. standing in line with my coffee, black and sweet; banana, bruised from yesterday’s thumbs; a processed “health” bar, boasting its naturalness and nutrition (which doesn’t taste too badly); growing anxious with the whoop of sirens, i begin unconsciously tapping my fingers on the counter. an elderly woman rummages through her purse, that exterior twat that most women guard relentlessly gaping wide on the surface, fumbling over a pair of nickels and dimes as i rap my finger tips. she looks pleadingly towards me, the contrast among the good and evil of the elderly is phenomenal, and i manage the best of a smile that i could urge onto my countenance
i had turned on the air conditioning, the powerful fan, and moved the typewriter into the bathroom hoping it would make less ruckus. i was wrong. i typed six words before the keys sounded like; six words that were a string of fire-crackers.
i stretched onto the bed and resumed staring at the hair that i knew was there but couldn't see. from somewhere amidst the night, hair, and clogged engine grew the sore moans of a cat by the trash bins. it was a noise like someone slowly carving their initials into the trunk of a car. a train derailing into a scrap yard; the tin man rusted-drunk, falling down and trying to stand.
it was somewhere in this stew that i remembered...
it was a little strip-club on the outskirts of a city not worth remembering, i'll say it was a tuesday night. the building looked like a southern shack held together by mud and spitting tobacco; kept standing by old cargo trailers that hadn’t been moved this decade. generally speaking the building was a mess. we were safer in a paper bag drenched in gasoline situated fire-place-front.
prime real-estate.
the inside was where they had spent their money. the stage was in the middle of the club and the seating just big banged out from there. the platform was a giant glass circle with solid glass pillars to reinforce the surface for the weight of the girls. i assumed that this also prevented the girls from going a little over the weight limit the owner instituted. within the circle were tropical fish. exotic breeds that the normal person wouldn't have the slightest guess as to its name. i looked at them as i entered and was more impressed by their colours than anything else about them, though that could have been their entire appeal. i honestly didn't care.
a line of white lights wrapped around the stage and shot through the tables indicating where the walkways were. from the second floor the whole image would look like a poorly drawn sun. a big, wet, fish-filled sun.
it was gruesome to see but there was that charade of intrigue and shunning. the glance to see it again but only to become irritated or disgusted and have to look away once more. it was like being young staring at a dead animal with a stick in your hand. the sight was like a scab begging to be scratched and ripped from the fresh grapefruit skin beneath.
i was sitting at a table on the second floor, over-looking the dancers perfectly, that had the colour of a tired piece of charcoal. it was a frosted glass top with dark wooden legs and in the center-beneath the glass- was a red bulb. every other table but this one was a whorehouse red while mine blushed at the mentioning of sex.
the upper floor was lit entirely red, only the 'exit' signs were different, which were blue. the first floor, as expected, was blue and the escape signs were red. on the jaw of the balcony they had anchored blue and red lights so where they intersected a purple fog grew. it was in this grape-drink coloured cloud that my mind thought i should drink more of my beer.
"so how's your family?" i took a drink and shrugged. i was staring at the red-head that took the stage. she was covered in silver glitter and shimmered like a fish or diamonds behind a flame inside a cavern. the red spot-light turned the blue of the room into a purple where ever she walked. it melted over her like hot taffy, it turned on her hair.
"i guess they're doing alright." i sighed and slugged my beer back. "my sister can't keep her own head, my mother hardly ever gets out of bed and my father, he's eating pills for meals waiting to die-bothering them both while he waits." we both pulled a beer from the case he bought as we entered.
"did your dad have to have his foot amputated?" Pete wasn't paying any mind, he was staring at the match on the stage cat-crawling across the glass. i couldn't imagine that feeling pleasant on her knees. it didn't appear greased and all i could think about was the streaking sound i heard inside my skull everytime she slid an inch. he was an interesting fellow. Pete had his mind about him, knew what he liked and disliked and ate plentifully from the things he disliked. he was a vagrant, as though i wasn't, and was fully conscious of the coming Armageddon, end, whatever you call it, he was aware that we were inside of the vortex spinning dizzily downwards, willing to grin and laugh with whoever chose to accompany him.
two men came onto the platform and proceeded to spray, what only could have been a lubricant, onto the brass pole in the center of the stage. for reasons easily blamable on alcohol, i could only imagine the pole as sewing needle pushed through a small spool of thread. they finished shooting their loads and one after the other stepped off the stage.
one of the two men turned to watch the red-head fold in half raising her ass in the air.
"how's the wife?" he heard me through his fortress of a daydream and drank his beer down then lit a cigarette.
"we're not married."
"pretty damn close."
"Dana's alright."
"good to hear." truthfully i didn't give a damn. i hardly knew her.
"i'm only twenty-four."
"i know you are."
"it’s not like i could get better twat..." he paused to smoke his cigarette and replace our beer.
"there's just the possibility that i Could."
"i know what you're saying." i really did. i understood every bit of it and even more than what i should have at that age.
it was quiet between us for a little while, i knew he was thinking about her pros and cons. if he could actually marry anyone and truly be happy. i thought it was an odd pressure that society places on its era of people. How they came about with the average age that a person should settle and know exactly what they want in life, and how to get it. It’s a recommendation, a suggested number that if pressured into can cause extreme side-effects. It’s the median guideline set by those that chose to bend and give beyond what they should have to, and this number is what they gamble our social security and other financial investments on. It’s this number that if a marginal number of people follow then they can put the money back without ever letting out a squeal.
We both were wearing unshaven, Thompson type faces. Haggard and torn from booze and drugs, scarred by a crow bar and scarred by too much understanding. Looking at him I realized how much had changed since last we saw and drank with each other. I think it had been two years our roads crossed. Two years stranded in Europe, and he was two years stranded in life. The anarchistic bonfire behind his eyes had grown cold and tired replaced by warm coals that show they’re not long for life. He was thinner but developing a gut that fell over his waistband. I was still thin, eating only when I had to and not a bite more.
“whatever happened to that cherry you were eating?” he was referring to the girl I had been with last time we spoke.
“she’s doing alright I guess.”
“you guess?”
“yeah, I haven’t talked to her yet, haven’t contacted each other since I left for Europe.”
“what?”
“she said I was smoking & drinking too much. I disagreed but was willing to compromise at a lot.”
“and…”
“well, she didn’t think I should go in the condition I was in, and I did.”
“are you going to call her?”
“no”
“why?”
“and say what? ‘hey guess what, now I am drinking too much?’”
“s`ppose you’re right.”
“then most of it is wrong.”
He laughed and got up from the table pointing to the open door marked “MEN”. I nodded and drank from my bottle, choking its throat as if it had harmed me in some way.
The bulb beneath our glass popped leaving us the only unlit table in the joint.
I thought honestly and sensibly about calling her, may be just to see how she was. My pockets were silent when I swooshed my pants searching for fifty cents to make a phone call. After a sip of beer I decided that I wouldn’t ring her, perhaps ever. There were other people less fortunate that would receive a call from me.
The first person I thought of was Elise from Belgium. We had met at this opening of a new coffee house that was intended to be the new poetry site. It turned out to be bogus and we wound up getting two fifths of brandy and dreaming on a park bench through the early hours of night. And night, the great equalizer that it is, led us back to her apartment where we tangled, folded and unfolded each other before sleeping in the warm coma sun.
I was thinking about the small of her back, the way it felt against my stomach, about ringing her, inviting her to come to America. Pete came back to the table silently.
“so you noticed the real show has started.” I saw he was grinning but I hadn’t noticed any difference in the show. my eyes were on the cherry on the stage but all I could see was Elise’s apartment, one of the last times we saw each other. I was sitting on the edge of her bed, nude, watching the wall. we had just made it in every way possible. we were both drunk, it was sloppy sunshine sex, the moon still just a smoky orb in the sky, I was ready but she refused to let me out. I had to fight to get out from beneath her and barely escaped, spilling onto her thighs. like I said, I was on the bed nude, and she was raising a cigarette carefully to my lips with it in between her toes.
“what about the show?”
“look and listen.”
he was pointing to the stage knowing damn well that I hadn’t returned from wherever my mind had been.
“is she fucking the pole?”
“damn straight she is.”
he said it as if this was a scheduled event, like he was ordering a #4 meal at take out place.
the red-head had grabbed the pole above the grease and was riding it like some deviant carousel sex-horse.
what was more impressive was how they had managed a microphone so close without picking up the audience, and with no clothes to tuck or hide behind. through the loud speakers her moans and whines shadowed the songs in the background.
“yeah, this is a real show.”
the sarcasm wasn’t subtle the least. I turned away lit a cigarette and tasted the crisp pop of a fresh beer.
Lennon was singing about a warm gun as two girls worked out of their clothes
and into each other. the red-head left the stage unnoticed.
the night was young, still so many long hours left, and I thought about the contradiction in my perception of time. the hours were long and slow, like a nearly drowned worm, the days had no loyalty to either cause and the life in general was short. between the two of us we had seen life miraculously quit without warning at least a dozen times.
but they were the dead ones and the night was but an infant with a freshly slapped ass. plenty of time for it to grow old and desperate, time left to leave us bleeding out in the splunk water collecting over a clogged drain; or worse, drowned in the chocolate cream that filled the toilets in every place like this.
the stage was covered with clothing and items that had been used in every orifice of the body. there were the strip club ping-pong balls (a few of them still rolling around the glass); a few leather accessories (masks and whips etc…); a chain and hand-cuffs; a rolling pin; a variety of fruits and vegetables along with a plethora of store-bought dildos.
a trash bag blew off the stage caught in the current of the ceiling fans, and I could only think that it was used for a suffocation act. I couldn’t remember most of the acts that had passed, and it very well could have been used as a tarp for an oil fuck or something along those lines. the sudden hope that it was a suffocation thing, and the glimmering idea that luckily one of them died, filled my joints and made my skull feel like it was caught in a mudslide.
I needed fresh air.
I lit a cigarette as I walked through the doors and into wet sand that felt more like an enormous cow patty. it was raining, hard, and it looked like it had been for awhile. there was a stream running off the road and into the dirt parking lot that created a hybrid of quick sand and a small pond. the entire lot and building was surrounded by a forest that resembled the area where the cow-cunts of our high school lived. locale is everything for a mood and the environment was laid back but there was that unsettled feeling in my colon, the one that makes you think something terrible is lurking in the darkness waiting to molest you in every way. that feeling in your large intestines that isn’t a knot but more like a blistering ulcer leaking mucous into your shit-shaft. I felt like a child in a sand box. the world around me was green and grey, the road illuminated occasionally was like watching a glass of water shatter on an onyx table beneath a spotlight.
I walked around the building, close to its shore, smoking my cigarette thinking about the works I had in progress. thinking about the money advances and royalties and contracts and accountants and taxes; interviews and love and mortgages and leases and the term contract and how it means non-negotiable binding order of conduct and percentage of the signer’s time, which is ultimately a percentage of their life. I was about to come to terms with these things when I passed a groaning man leaning against the wall. his eyes must have been closed. they shot open like white splatter marks on a black wall and followed me as I continued around the building.
upon circling back to the front entrance the thickness of cottage cheese thinned to its normal consistency of murky confusion and I leaned against the wall and smoked a joint. there’s something mystical about the initial cloud of smoke, it has the appearance of having wisdom, emotion; something that half the people I’ve met lacked. may be it was just quiet understanding; an omni-presence that could be seen and related to physical boundaries that we’ve grown accustomed to abiding. it could just as easily have been the drunkenness and years of pot smoking that gave way to that thought. But I leaned against the building; watching the accessories shine on and off in the darkness like an S.O.S as people made their way through the parking lot. it’s when you get lost in the convoluted vortex of thoughts like: are the people the fish or the lures?; that you know it’s time to put the joint down and merge back into societic-traffic.
I arrived at the table (after a few flat-tires by the same driver; which ended in an instinctual elbow-to-the-stomach) to see Pete scribbling in a notebook. he didn’t look up but asked how the air was outside. he was shading in an area around an extraordinarily distraught goat who was not happy about being milked. beneath the utters was a politician looking at the observer; his face covered in milk. there was a small caption that read “is there anything he won’t milk?” written in box letters above the goat.
Somewhere in the time it took me to walk passed the stage and to take my seat the stage had been evacuated. the lights were out; only the clear bulbs hidden strategically within the aquarium were lit and as fish moved their bodies cast shadows like retinal hemorrhages on the walls.
“so did you finish that children’s book you were working on?” his eyes never left the pad he was scratching.
“just about, i despise it though, i highly doubt i’ll turn it into the publisher.”
“is it that bad?”
“well, you were never a big fan of my writing to begin with so, if i think it’s bad then yes; you would say it IS that bad.” i chuckled and sipped my beer.
“So, does that mean you don’t need illustrations for it?”
“Man, even if i did i couldn’t use a goat getting milked by the president.”
“it’s not the president, it’s the senator of Alabama.”
“my mistake.” i laughed and he looked up and smiled relatively sinisterly.
“there are other things that i’ve written that need pictures, specifically covers. i could mail them to your mother’s house.” Pete could draw and i had been trying to have him do something for me for years.
“yeah, i think i’ll whip something up for you.” his big eyes looked passed me and scanned the place.
“there’s some scum-fucks in this place.” we both finished our beer as a toast to the truth in his observation. it was the type of place that you’d expect to see an obese mob boss surrounded by scrawny knee-breakers; smoking cigars and drinking Christian Brothers. there were none to be found. instead there were less trust-worthy villains. a table of wall street suits, one with a foot fetish who kept wedging bundles of bills between the girls’ toes. a few of the tables had lawyers drinking red wine, enhancing the stereotype that they were blood-thirsty. i swore a few of the suits looked and sounded like politicians.
“are you ready to roll out of here?” he was putting away his notebook and breaking down the cardboard case from the beer. It didn’t seem like a question so i checked my pockets to make sure my keys and wallet hadn’t magically vanished. we rose from the table as another girl took the stage. “man, i’d lick her asshole.” and i looked at the blonde that strutted a crossed the stage knowing damn well that he was serious. “yeah, you’d be safe with that one, doesn’t seem like her shit stinks.” Pete glanced me over still adjusting to my infinite cynicism after two years absence and cracked a wide smile. “i’m glad we were able to meet before you left again.” he was turning to begin his route out of the building. “i’m not leaving for awhile, i could easily find a place to stay around your apartment, you’re still living around the corner from your mom right?” i knew he was but i asked anyway. i saw the back of his head nod in confirmation.
the rain had stopped and instead of being thick with droplets, the musk of unwashed twats was dense and aggressive. Pete and i were in the middle of comparing the latest presidential poll updates when he pulled out a genuine Cuban Cigar. he offered but i decided that a cigar was the farthest of the phallic tobacco products from my mind. he stuck the tip between his teeth and motioned with his head to follow him. “Do you honestly think you’ll stick around man? ugh...to sign and be restricted by a lease.” i wanted to give him the best and truthful answer so disturbed a clump of mud that fell asleep on my shoe. “ i know you’ve got your own shit on your plate to eat but, it’d be nice if you hung about the old neighborhood. might even brighten the place up a bit.” he paused and stared off into the woods. i wasn’t sure where we were going, conversationally and physically, we had passed my car and the one that i assumed was his; still walking as though a destination wasn’t relevant. “you haven’t even asked about any of the old cronies.” “Pete, it’s only been two years since i saw you, which is a damn long time not to see you but, some of the others i don’t really care. they were boring and i’m certain that not much has changed but, enlighten me.” it wasn’t meant sarcastically and thankfully he knew that we both were just heavily intoxicated, falling over the walls of our verbal inhibitions. “no, the people we thought would end up in prison did; a couple of kidnappings; a lot of holdings and dealings; a few assault cases and of course the infamous south jersey dui. Nancy’s doing a year or so for drunk driving.” “no way.” “yeah man. got shit-faced then decided that she bad-ass enough to eat some boomers and drive three hours home.” now, Nancy was a girl we both knew from high school, he more so than i, but both of us tortured and mocked her to the point where she just fell into friendship. Nancy was also one of the only people that we knew to go the longest without a vehicle, so the entire scenario of her obtaining a car then committing such a heinously stupid act was unfathomable; until i reminded myself that it was Nancy.
“is Useless still alive?” “Oh yeah, he’s at one of his relatives’ homes. still eating free food and paying minimum bills; bitching as usual.” Pete stopped suddenly at an old Chevrolet Caprice, needless to say i was wrong in the car i selected as his. he opened the rear passenger door , retrieving a small black bag; no larger than a bowling ball bag. “hope you don’t mind me throwing a few things in your ride. figure it’s a guarantee that you’ll still be here later.” i shrugged my shoulders not giving a damn and knowing that i really was going to stay in the hell of south jersey.
we reached my car and i climbed through the passenger’s door, my door couldn’t be opened from the inside or outside, and Pete slid in behind me tossing his sack onto the back seat. “you mind if we drive by my car? i just want to make sure i locked the damned junk metal.” so i pulled up to the trunk of his car and he hopped out running to his window, peering through the glass. he paused on his way back to check his pockets, “okay don’t drive off yet”. he struck a group of matches and torched the end, then lit the entire booklet of matches. they fell to the ground and in the light i saw a thin metal pipe leading from that spot to the building; specifically the area where the restrooms were. “alright. now we can be on our way bud.” i lit the joint i had in the armrest and made a u-turn in the dirt, avoiding puddles when i could. we had barely driven a tenth of a mile when we heard the tearing of silent-early-morning atmosphere.
in the rearview the panoramic image of flames towering well above the trees had me hesitant and confused, though briefly before i put what Pete had done together. i pulled on the joint and laughed. “they were bunch of scum-fucks. weren’t they?” he smiled and rolled down the window to admit the raunchy smell of burning pines and other coniferous trees. the first thing that came to mind were the fish in the aquariums. just then Pete gathered the bag, far from gracefully, from the back seat. he opened it and inside was a white plastic bag. “what’s in there man?” i didn’t even ask about the violent explosion, this plastic bag was the most recent focus of my curiosity. he opened it and turned on the interior light. inside were two of the exotic fish.
i took another puff with relaxation and headed south. the scent of boiling sap and marijuana, the cool autumn air, Pete, and open road; things were fine.
#2
the handle of the iron mechanic’s wrench is slippery and the clunky tool crashes into the side of the house “Fuck” hisses between my teeth as the pipe in front of me wheezes into the night. i go and collect it, leaving a trail of pepper behind me just for good measure, and toss the barrel into my back-pack. i get a text on my cell and know it’s the twat that’s out-somewhere-here with me. i drop a match as i enter the busted blue sedan that has pulled up, simultaneously a larger fire cripples the night and the southern bridge out of town. there’s a brief bridge (pun intended) of sirens performed by the local fire departments and other friends from the neighbor hood before the next verse of flames. it rips through the wails and whoos of the sirens, even if it is only for a second or two, and elevates over the elder fire.
the driver is Girth. if you’re thinking `bout his cock; yes, every one he knew walked into his place and onto a shag. “what shat in your mouth and stole all your socks?” i ask him as he shoves another stick of gum into his large face hole. “dismal day”, that’s how he responded. short sentences, usually non-vernacular or at least more pretentious sounding than meant. “come on. don’t piss about while you got those mountains flames behind you.” “it’s grand. i just have this pounding headache...” i start rooting around my pockets for a cure and a giant deafness falls over everything. i look through the rear windshield and see that the pepper burnt quickly back to the building, combustion hopping in patches along a two block reach.
i finally find the baggy of diesel in my pocket and wave it making an “EH?” noise. he tells me it’s sinuses; that it will only clog him up more, so i twist another joint out of the shag i have left and watch him inhale deep moose-breaths off it. honestly it’s not the brightest thing to do but at the moment it seems fine, especially since smoking and a little jane in my pocket is all they can hold us with. after i take my round i make sure to wipe the wrench down with the individual hand-sanitizer wipes, just to be safe, then i light it on fire and throw it out of the window; rather the ashes fly out of the car.
we have another ten minutes before the next text comes through, so Girth and i stop at a convenience store for a few crucial snacks we know we’ll need. i head towards the fruit section as he makes his way to the hotdogs and “Ready-Serve” grub. i’m standing in line listening to the people waiting with me, inwardly snickering at the speculations and gross departure of class of the people. standing in line with my coffee, black and sweet; banana, bruised from yesterday’s thumbs; a processed “health” bar, boasting its naturalness and nutrition (which doesn’t taste too badly); growing anxious with the whoop of sirens, i begin unconsciously tapping my fingers on the counter. an elderly woman rummages through her purse, that exterior twat that most women guard relentlessly gaping wide on the surface, fumbling over a pair of nickels and dimes as i rap my finger tips. she looks pleadingly towards me, the contrast among the good and evil of the elderly is phenomenal, and i manage the best of a smile that i could urge onto my countenance