The Saga of Tripper Cop
“The Moving Mountain”
As the alarm clock shrieked through his waking mind he realized morning broke far earlier than he would have liked, which is never. He lied upon a bed with no sheets half covered by a barf colored blanket and surrounded by dirty pillows without cases. As he reaches over to turn off the howling wail from the clock he knocks over an empty bottle of Wild Turkey whiskey which falls off the floor and takes its place among the food wrappers, dirty laundry, and other debris scattered on the ground of the small apartment. He slides feet on to the floor as he sits on the end of the bed, running his fingers through his greasy brown hair, and gets up to go to the bathroom. Looking in the mirror he takes a look at the stubble on is face and judges it is well past a five o'clock shadow, probably closer to eight or nine o'clock, but he only shaves once it reaches midnight. He splashes some water on his face takes a few swigs of Listerine then looks in the mirror. “How did I get here? Did I do this to myself or did somebody do this to me?” He walks over to his dresser and opening the top drawer reveals a menagerie of pills, vials, and various bag filled with powder. He rummages around until he finds a small glass bottle with a dropper-top. Carefully, he sucks a small amount of the clear liquid out of the bottle and drips a single drop into his right eye. It stings a bit, but he will be fine in an hour or so. Inside his closet hangs a tattered and stained navy blue uniform which he puts on. He grabs his cap of the wall and heads out the door somewhat ready for the day.
Walking out his door he is greeted by his portly neighbor in the parking lot. “Is that you John!?” She says.
“I don't know. I'm John T. I don't know who he hell U. John is.”
“Isn't it a nice day?”
“Never seen a mean day, so what are we comparing it to?”
She laughs and waves him goodbye as she goes back to deep frying a turkey. “Goddamn, blimp, airhead, full of air....” John mutters under his breath as he gets into the car.
His patrol car was large 1991 Ford LTD Crown Victoria. It was not a new car. It was box shaped. Nobody else at the station wanted it. “Old, rigid, and unwanted,” he thought to himself. “No wonder I like this car.” The interior of his car look just like the floor of his apartment except with more fast food wrappers and less beer cans. Soon he arrives at the station to be greeted by a couple of his co-workers.
“Why if isn't John E. Trip! Peace officer extraordinaire!” Says Officer Shortkok.
“Well, well! Hey Johnny, you catch that elusive criminal yet? What did you say his name was? Repetitive Steve?” Asks Office Bigman.
“He is Competitive Steve and he's an asshole just like you.” Replies John. The two other officers start slapping there knees and laughing manically.
“That is a good one!” Says Shortkok.
“It looks like you need to take 'a good two' because your full of shit.” John replies.
“That's our Trippercop! Ha-ha!” Bigman has to grab a table to stop from falling over he laughing so hard. John didn't know if they were mocking him or actually found him funny,but he didn't care. He tried his best not to spend much time in the station because there is a risk that he might shoot someone if he did, which they would also probably find hilarious too.
Walking out the door into the cool morning air he started feeling tingly and a chill crept down his spine. He started feeling calmer and less agitated. He thought he would start the day with a nice drive. As he tooled along the country roads in his cruiser he began thinking about impermanence. “Have I always been here? No, surly I must have been somewhere before being here, but I can't remember. I can't stay here forever. Can I? No, nothing last forever. What a terrible thing that would be if nothing ever changes.” As he crests over a hill he looks into his rear view mirror. He sees in it a round green mountain covered in trees. Round as an umbrella covered in foliage. “That's a nice mountain.” He approaches a slight curve in the road. “But just like all things, except for maybe me, your view is impermanent and will be leaving my mirror now. Goodbye.” After rounding the curve John glances up to see what new view lay behind him. It was the still the same view of the mountain. Confused he turns his head and looks out the back of the window of the car. The mountain was behind him. He slams the brakes and flips a U-turn. Anxiously he looks at the mirror to find the mountain still there. “I need some confirmation on this.” He slams the gas and charges down the road until he gets behind a yellow station wagon. He hits his sirens and lights and proceeds to pull the motorist over. Before exiting his car he checks the mirror. Yep, still there. He quickly jumps out of his car, spins around, and pulls out his gun aiming directly at the mountain. He then hears a voice behind him.
“Was I speeding officer?” John spins around to see an elderly woman with her head peaking out the station wagon's window.
He walks up to the woman and asks, “Has that mountain always been there?” As he points at it with with his gun. A mixture of panic and befuddlement pans the woman's face as she looks back to where he is pointing.
“I believe so...”
“Mam, not interested in beliefs. I need to know has that mountain always been there.”
“Well... of course it has. Mountains don't move.”
“Are you familiar with plate tectonics!”
“No officer.”
“Of course not. But I digress. You answered my question. Carry on citizen.” Leaving the bewildered driver behind John starts his car and immediately begins doing burnout donuts in the middle of the highway. Spinning round and round he keeps a keen eye on the rear view mirror to see if he could shake the mountain out of sight. It remained. “I must go to this mountain. And it appears I must go backwards to get where I am going.”
He turns on the siren again, hits the lights, throws the Crown Vic in reverse and punches the throttle. The car barreling backwards at excessive speeds catches fellow motorist unawares as they swerve off the road and into oncoming traffic to avoid a collision. As he passes by them John catches glances of their terrified faces. Faces caught in the stare of uncertain death. “Haunting” he thinks to himself. The mountain grows closer until he can start making out the definition of trees. He sees one tree at the base of the mountain and it becomes the focus of his intention. He keeps heading towards it closer and closer until he smashes the back of the patrol car into it.
Unshaken John exits the vehicle with its siren still wailing, lights still flashing, and he proceeds to walk up the mountain. While walking beneath the trees, beams of light shine through the dark shadows created by the canopy above. The light and dark begin to mix and create images, shapes, forms that create an uneasy feeling in John. He pulls out his revolver and cautiously proceeds.
“You killed me Officer.” A voice rings out. John shoots wildly into the trees.
“Who is that!”
“You shot me officer Trip. Why did you do that?” The voice speaks again. Suddenly the light and shadow forms become faces. They look like the faces motorist that he had just passed by in his backwards pursuit, but he recognizes them from somewhere else too, like he had met them before but could not remember where. “Why did you do that?”
“Because that what I do! I'm a cop! I shoot people when they deserve it!” The echo of these words rings through the empty forest as the faces dissipate. John holsters his gun and continues up the mountain. When he reaches the summit he sees that there is a clearing from the trees where the shadows do not fall. In the middle of this clearing is a bench which he takes a seat upon. He hangs his head down and begins to reflect. “We are born and we die. That is impermanence. Some kill others are killed. That is haunting. Does a ghost have an expiration date? If one becomes a ghost does that mean you never really die? But to have death requires birth and what if a man has no birth or recollection of a beginning?”
“What you think your fucking immortal or something?” A voice asks. John looks up to see a fit, young, white man in running apparel, who looks like he just came from a frat house. He is running in place and chewing gum obnoxiously.
“Fuck off Steve. I'm not in the mood.”
“Oh, no! Is little Johnny in a bad mood? Come on dontcha wanna shoot me?” He then sucker punches John square in the face causing his nose to bleed. John draws his gun as quick as he can and unloads the remainder of his clip, but as usual the athletic Steve dodges all the bullets. John leaps up to tackle him, but Steve quickly kicks him in the groin and John falls to the ground in pain.
“Haven't you figured this out you will never get rid of me!” Laughs Steve.
“What do you want!”
“To piss you off of course silly!”
“Well you have achieved that. Now kindly fuck off!”
“Maybe I misspoke.” Steve retorts, “No, 'piss off' is far to impermanent.... perhaps haunted is the correct word.” An evil grin spreads across his face as he says this.
“Are you real?” John asks. Steve lets out a loud belly laugh before kicking John in the gut while he lie on the ground.
“Does that answer your question?”
“It could be psychosomatic. I don't even know how I got here.” Steve then squats over John, grabs his collar, and yanks his face close to his.
“That is why I am here you son of a bitch. Because you're here. And I am never going let you forget who you are. You might think you can forget it, leave it all behind you and move on, but not as long as I'm here asshole.”
“You know where I came from?” John asks.
“No, I don't. But I know who you are. You feel me?”
“What?” John asks as Steve then headbutts him in the face.
“Do you feel me!”
“Goddammit yes!” Grabbing his bloody face.
“Good. Let me tell you a little quote then from one of my favorite authors then. I know you will relate to it. 'Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.'”
“What am I then?”
“If I tell you that then you win. I can't let that happen!” Steve laughs, puts in a pair of earbuds, and gives John one final kick to the abdomen before jogging off into the trees. The sound of a helicopter could be heard overhead and when John looked up he could see it was coming down for a landing in clearing where he lay. When it landed he could see it was the precinct's chopper and Shortkok and Bigman were inside.
“John!” Shortkok yells from the helicopter, “We saw your car wrecked and we came looking for you! What are you doing out here you nut! Did you go get yourself in trouble again?” Both the men began laughing. “Come on over here and we will take your crazy ass home!” John picks himself of the ground, limps over to them, and reluctantly gets inside.
As he gets in Bigman turns to him, “How many times have we come and got you now?” He laughs, “Your lucky we love you so much.” By this time it was getting dark, so rather than taking him back the station John asked if they could just drop him off in the parking lot of the liquor store by his house, which they were more than happy oblige. At the store he gets a bottle of Wild Turkey and walks back to his apartment. As he passes through the parking his portly neighbor sees him.
“Is that you John? Isn't it a nice night?”
“I fucking hate you.”
“Good to see you too honey! Sweet dreams!”
Friday, March 2, 2018
Saturday, January 6, 2018
Sea Bears (Pt. 1)
Sea Bears
Standing at the bridge of the ship, Afee looks out from under his orange beanie and could see the seas getting rough. His face seems to have a wild look about it at this moment, yet a sense of tiredness is there too, as the many years out at sea has made his black beard begin to streak grey and his skin become abrasive. He stares impatiently at the bow where an Albatross sits motionlessly, despite the tossing of the ship through the waves, and upon the bird’s head sits a metal helmet-like structure which covers most of its skull. He can see circuitry throughout the metal and the right eye appears to be covered by a red lens. Afee looks due east at the horizon as the ship steams towards the coast of California. After years of island hopping throughout the Pacific this was the second closest he had come to the continent since he, the crew, and everybody else had fled the mainland.
His first mate Andre McDoo then enters the bridge. “Sir, are you sure you want to do this?” Says the young crewman addressing the captain.
Afee replies, “Do you want to remain wandering these seas forever?”
“No Sir, But… do you think we are ready? Do you think that we will be able to make this plan work?” McDoo asks nervously. His large eyes weighing with concern upon his round face.
“We will be no better prepared in the future than we are now. Is the crew ready?”
“Yes Sir, they are…very afraid, but ready. Not many remember the last encounter at the Farallon’s.”
Afee’s gaze holds steady upon Andre and he asks, “What about the helicopter? Is it ready?”
“Yes, it is ready too.”
The last encounter at the Farallon Islands was the closest the crew had been to the continents since the exodus all those many years ago. Afee and the crew did not know as much then, where the boundaries were, and how the rules now worked. They wanted to see how close they could get to the coast. To see if maybe they could come back home one day. The weather was the very opposite of this day with calm sees and bright skies. The plan that day was to put a beacon on the islands, and track whatever activity may be occurring there for a few months, before hopefully pressing on into the bay. Then just as today an Albatross with a metal head also sat on the bow, but as soon as the ship neared the Farallon’s the Albatross suddenly bolted into the sky, and began to make broad sweeping circles above the ship while hundreds of feet in the air. Although the crew found this odd, they pressed onto shore and were able to plant the beacon without any incident.
It was when the ship pulled back out into the open ocean they were attacked for the first time. It started with crows coming and landing everywhere on the ship. Just as the Albatross they had the metal head cappings and they did not attack the crew. They just seemed to be observing and communicating amongst themselves. At the time Andre Mcdoo was asleep in his bunk down below deck when a huge metal blade suddenly came slicing through the wall near him. It measured at lest four feet tall and cut a huge gouge through the hull of the ship. A few men were cut in half by this giant blade as it tore through, and immediately following it rushed in the ice-cold seawater, which began to fill the lower holds of the ship. Andre was able to swim up through the drowning crew that flailed in the water, to the ceiling hatch above, and hoist himself up to the next deck where there was still air. Stumbling up through the flooding ship decks he found Afee at the bridge struggling to control the wheel and keep the ship on course. Looking out the cabin’s windows Mcdoo could see the crew having their faces pecked off by a flock of attacking sea birds.
He screamed at Afee, “What hit us just now! It tore open the hull! We are taking water!”
“Orca!” Afee replied.
“What!?”
“A pod of Orca! All of them with metal from nose to tail and all down their backs! We must have taken a dorsal blade to the hull.” He replied with a strange calmness about him.
While every person thought for sure they were doomed at that moment, the pod for some reason did not strike again, and once the ship had fled a few miles west the birds backed off as well. Though it had taken water the ship was able to limp on with it’s half drowned, bird maimed crew, and find repairs in the Hawaiian Archipelago. After the encounter, the ship stayed far out at sea only calling port in island harbors and floating way-stations. Other people had also made it out from the mainland alive after the Takeover, and they too set out among the Pacific Islands in their boats like Afee did. Over time, trade and a community of seafarers developed among the waves. Afee was eventually able to repair his ship as well as acquire more men, harpoons, and some helpful technology. He felt prepared to go back now. He now knew how far he could get to the coast, and the Farallon Island beacon has never stopped transmitting.
The plan this time is to stop the Albatross before it flies into the air. A cannon loaded with a net is carefully hidden on the deck and aimed directly at the bird. Also, harpoons are at the ready just in case the Orca pod returns. And of course all men are either below deck or have armor on to protect them from sea birds. The ship’s hull has been reinforced and at top speed they hope to reach land before their presence is known. If attacked however, they feel confident they can adequately defend themselves.
Just as predicted when the ship approaches the Farallon Islands the Albatross begins to leap into the air, but an ultra-precise motion detector that is monitoring the bird picks up this movement and instantly launches the net out of the cannon. The Albatross is ensnared and falls to the ship’s deck, frantically trying to escape the net as the crew rushes up to it. Andre is among them and yells to the crew, “Do not kill it! We want the Albatross alive!” As soon as the crew surrounds the bird and its escape is impossible, a deafening high-pitch noise chirps out into the air, causing the crew to drop to the ground with their ears throbbing in pain. Immediately after this noise the metal structure on the birds head explodes, killing the Albatross, and completely destroying the mechanism.
As his hearing begins to return, McDoo faintly hears the captain’s voice over the loudspeaker. “To the harpoon stations! The pod is in visual sight! To your stations!” As the crew scramble to their positions, McDoo runs up to the bridge. He finds Captain Afee transfixed upon the ship’s sonar screen. “They’re not coming near us Andre.”
“What to you mean Sir?”
Without looking up from the sonar Afee replies, “They know we are here, but are not approaching. Just surrounding us it would seem.”
“They must know wee are armed. Why else would they not attack like last time.?” Says Andre. Afee does not answer him. Though scared and unsure, Andre tries to act confident as he says, “Perhaps the Albatross could not transmit so far away? Or maybe it needs to be in the air to transmit? Like last time. Maybe they knew… but too late. Maybe they are unprepared this time.”
“Let us hope that is the case.” Afee replies as his eyes slip to the horizon. Upon the choppy waves he spots a noticeable rough patch of water where the whitecaps are particularly intense. As he watches as it seems to be getting larger, but the turbulent water is not growing larger at all - it is getting closer. Afee looks to his sonar. No objects below water are being pinged. He checks his radar. No air objects in that location. Soon both Captain Afee and Andre Mcdoo are staring at this approaching patch of torn water, and they can start to see what appear to be large animals riding atop this water. They actually appear to be running on it. Afee reaches for a pair of binoculars and upon viewing the maelstrom can see clearly that they are bears. From this distance the bears appear to be made of metal, as if they were robots, and they are running on the water at a very high rate of speed. As they approach the crew tries in vain to shoot the harpoons at them, but are unable to strike the fast approaching sea bears. Within minutes they are at the ship and begin to leap out of the water up onto the deck, quickly running down and mauling any crew in sight. With robotic exoskeletons they are easily able to rip off the reinforced doors and proceed to tear their way down through the lower decks.
Andre’s face is stricken with panic and body frozen in fear, as he stares unmoving out the window at the terrifying sight unfolding before him. He is awakened from his trance only by the increasing pings emanating from the sonar. The Orca pod is approaching. “Captain we got to get out of here!” Andre screams as he spins around towards the captain, “we got to get to the…”
As a bear approaches the bridge door McDoo sees that the captain is gone. Inches from him a steel claw punctures through the door into the bridge’s cabin. As the bear begins to pry the door off its hinges, Andre can hear the vicious snarling of the animal, he can hear the agonizing screams of the dying crew being ripped apart, and he can he the slow “chop-chop-chop” of helicopter blades.
*****
Peering through the small square window in the lab’s door Claudia looks upon a completely white room with a white table in its center. Upon the table is a black box. Behind her Alexander sets up a video camera aimed at the door and says, “its recording.”
Claudia turns around in a lab coat, with lab goggles on, her dark hair pulled back behind her head, and addresses the camera: “This will be our third up close encounter with a crow. After a period of remote observation, we will again attempt to study the neural linked cranial computational device, and if possible remove it from the crow. We are hoping in this approach that heavy sedation of the animal will allow closer observation.”
She then places a set of ear muffs on, turns around, and enters the lab. Once Claudia is inside the small room the camera switches to a ceiling mounted view looking down at the table. She approaches the box and opens it. A sedated crow lies inside. She reaches for a small telescopic video camera on the table and turns in on. At first the camera is out of focus, but as it gets closer to the box, the screen starts to reveal, in detail, the crow’s cybernetic head.
“CHIRP! POP!” A high frequency noise followed by the crow’s head exploding.
“Shit! Not again!” Claudia yells.
Alexander turns off the cameras and opens the lab room door. “We are getting better at catching them. We will catch more.”
“It seems more likely that they will catch us first.”
“We will catch so many we could actually start eating them.”
“You would eat crow?” She asks.
“I guess, they are the only animals we can catch up here anyway.”
Claudia steps out of the lab, which is a small cube that resides inside a large city flat. Beside the lab constructed in the center of the room, the concrete space of the flat is sparsely furnished and has vast stores of rations lining the walls. It sits on the 23rd floor of an abandoned skyscraper in deserted downtown San Francisco. The building’s first five floors have collapsed which made entry from the ground all but impossible for the larger predators.
Sitting on the edge of a mattress lying on the ground Claudia asks, “You know, I think I know the answer to this question, but for some reason I still ask myself it anyway. How did we let this happen? How did we let it get so out of control?”
Leaning back in a chair Alexander moves his blonde hair away from his eyes, “People created an intelligence based on human morals. Of course it would be awful to everyone!” He laughs.
“Be serious. How did we let it get so out of our control?”
Sitting up he replies, “Humans crated something they didn’t understand. Artificial Intelligence understood us more than we did. Would you want to be controlled by someone dumber than you?”
“No, and that is why I do not listen to you!” Alexander laughs. They get up to begin preparing dinner when they hear: “chop-chop-chop.”
“Is that a helicopter? How does a person get a helicopter?” Alexander confusedly asks.
“Its landing on the roof.” Claudia exclaims, “Come on!” They quickly grab their weapons and run to the roof of the building. Carefully they open the roof door and see a helicopter landed next to the solar array. A man is slumped back in the pilot seat and the passenger seat appears empty. “Put your hands up!” Claudia shouts, but the man does not move. Slowly, they approach the helicopter. Coming closer to the man they see he is unconscious and wounded . After securing the area and shutting down the helicopter’s engines, they take the man inside their flat to treat him for what looks like a head injury.
The man, now with a large bandage around his shaggy black hair, lies on the floor asleep while Claudia and Alexander eat their dinner. “Who do you think he is?” Claudia asks.
“I don’t know. First person we see since the Takeover and he comes to us in a helicopter. What are the chances of that!” Alexander excitedly replies.
“I wonder where he came from? Do you think he came from inland? Could that be possible?”
“I doubt it. Probably came out from the sea looking at his condition. But why come back to land? He must have a death wish or something.”
“Did you search him?”
“Well people don’t really carry driver’s licenses these days any more. And the bots shut down the internet, so what good would touching him all over do?”
“So, you didn’t search him”
“Yes.” Alexander smirks. A frustrated Claudia gets up and walks over to search the unconscious man. She kneels down and as she reaches inside the man’s pocket his eyes open. With a slight smile on his face the man says, “Well, you don’t need to touch me all over, I’ll tell you who I am.”
With a startled shout Claudia stands up and proclaims, “I am sorry! We thought you were asleep and you are the first person we have ever… seen in a long time.”
The man props himself up slightly on his elbows, “I am sure glad to see you and happy to find that there are still people on land.”
“We may be the only ones.” Alexander replies walking up next to Claudia. “Why did you come here? Can you take us to a ship?”
The man looks wearily at Alexander and says, “Those are big questions with long answers and I am afraid I am too tired to explain all that right now.”
“But you said you would tell me your who you are. Didn‘t you?” Claudia asks him curtly.
The man’s smile fades and his eyes cast downward before meeting hers, “I am Philstrom Afee.”
“The eco-terrorist!?” Claudia says with surprise..
“Wait, that Earth Liberation guy who said all humans should die so animals could live? Or something like that!” Shouts Alexander.
“Yes” replies Afee, “I was that person and I said those things. But, I hope you are happy to see me, there are so few of us now, and you must believe that I am really happy to see you.” Alexander and Claudia stand silently looking at him, with a mix of skepticism and fear, unsure what to say to this known man. Afee’s smile returns to his bearded face and he continues, “Besides you want me here.“
“Why is that?” She asks.
“Because, I just may be the guy who knows how things got so horribly out of control. Would you be interested in knowing that?”
Standing at the bridge of the ship, Afee looks out from under his orange beanie and could see the seas getting rough. His face seems to have a wild look about it at this moment, yet a sense of tiredness is there too, as the many years out at sea has made his black beard begin to streak grey and his skin become abrasive. He stares impatiently at the bow where an Albatross sits motionlessly, despite the tossing of the ship through the waves, and upon the bird’s head sits a metal helmet-like structure which covers most of its skull. He can see circuitry throughout the metal and the right eye appears to be covered by a red lens. Afee looks due east at the horizon as the ship steams towards the coast of California. After years of island hopping throughout the Pacific this was the second closest he had come to the continent since he, the crew, and everybody else had fled the mainland.
His first mate Andre McDoo then enters the bridge. “Sir, are you sure you want to do this?” Says the young crewman addressing the captain.
Afee replies, “Do you want to remain wandering these seas forever?”
“No Sir, But… do you think we are ready? Do you think that we will be able to make this plan work?” McDoo asks nervously. His large eyes weighing with concern upon his round face.
“We will be no better prepared in the future than we are now. Is the crew ready?”
“Yes Sir, they are…very afraid, but ready. Not many remember the last encounter at the Farallon’s.”
Afee’s gaze holds steady upon Andre and he asks, “What about the helicopter? Is it ready?”
“Yes, it is ready too.”
The last encounter at the Farallon Islands was the closest the crew had been to the continents since the exodus all those many years ago. Afee and the crew did not know as much then, where the boundaries were, and how the rules now worked. They wanted to see how close they could get to the coast. To see if maybe they could come back home one day. The weather was the very opposite of this day with calm sees and bright skies. The plan that day was to put a beacon on the islands, and track whatever activity may be occurring there for a few months, before hopefully pressing on into the bay. Then just as today an Albatross with a metal head also sat on the bow, but as soon as the ship neared the Farallon’s the Albatross suddenly bolted into the sky, and began to make broad sweeping circles above the ship while hundreds of feet in the air. Although the crew found this odd, they pressed onto shore and were able to plant the beacon without any incident.
It was when the ship pulled back out into the open ocean they were attacked for the first time. It started with crows coming and landing everywhere on the ship. Just as the Albatross they had the metal head cappings and they did not attack the crew. They just seemed to be observing and communicating amongst themselves. At the time Andre Mcdoo was asleep in his bunk down below deck when a huge metal blade suddenly came slicing through the wall near him. It measured at lest four feet tall and cut a huge gouge through the hull of the ship. A few men were cut in half by this giant blade as it tore through, and immediately following it rushed in the ice-cold seawater, which began to fill the lower holds of the ship. Andre was able to swim up through the drowning crew that flailed in the water, to the ceiling hatch above, and hoist himself up to the next deck where there was still air. Stumbling up through the flooding ship decks he found Afee at the bridge struggling to control the wheel and keep the ship on course. Looking out the cabin’s windows Mcdoo could see the crew having their faces pecked off by a flock of attacking sea birds.
He screamed at Afee, “What hit us just now! It tore open the hull! We are taking water!”
“Orca!” Afee replied.
“What!?”
“A pod of Orca! All of them with metal from nose to tail and all down their backs! We must have taken a dorsal blade to the hull.” He replied with a strange calmness about him.
While every person thought for sure they were doomed at that moment, the pod for some reason did not strike again, and once the ship had fled a few miles west the birds backed off as well. Though it had taken water the ship was able to limp on with it’s half drowned, bird maimed crew, and find repairs in the Hawaiian Archipelago. After the encounter, the ship stayed far out at sea only calling port in island harbors and floating way-stations. Other people had also made it out from the mainland alive after the Takeover, and they too set out among the Pacific Islands in their boats like Afee did. Over time, trade and a community of seafarers developed among the waves. Afee was eventually able to repair his ship as well as acquire more men, harpoons, and some helpful technology. He felt prepared to go back now. He now knew how far he could get to the coast, and the Farallon Island beacon has never stopped transmitting.
The plan this time is to stop the Albatross before it flies into the air. A cannon loaded with a net is carefully hidden on the deck and aimed directly at the bird. Also, harpoons are at the ready just in case the Orca pod returns. And of course all men are either below deck or have armor on to protect them from sea birds. The ship’s hull has been reinforced and at top speed they hope to reach land before their presence is known. If attacked however, they feel confident they can adequately defend themselves.
Just as predicted when the ship approaches the Farallon Islands the Albatross begins to leap into the air, but an ultra-precise motion detector that is monitoring the bird picks up this movement and instantly launches the net out of the cannon. The Albatross is ensnared and falls to the ship’s deck, frantically trying to escape the net as the crew rushes up to it. Andre is among them and yells to the crew, “Do not kill it! We want the Albatross alive!” As soon as the crew surrounds the bird and its escape is impossible, a deafening high-pitch noise chirps out into the air, causing the crew to drop to the ground with their ears throbbing in pain. Immediately after this noise the metal structure on the birds head explodes, killing the Albatross, and completely destroying the mechanism.
As his hearing begins to return, McDoo faintly hears the captain’s voice over the loudspeaker. “To the harpoon stations! The pod is in visual sight! To your stations!” As the crew scramble to their positions, McDoo runs up to the bridge. He finds Captain Afee transfixed upon the ship’s sonar screen. “They’re not coming near us Andre.”
“What to you mean Sir?”
Without looking up from the sonar Afee replies, “They know we are here, but are not approaching. Just surrounding us it would seem.”
“They must know wee are armed. Why else would they not attack like last time.?” Says Andre. Afee does not answer him. Though scared and unsure, Andre tries to act confident as he says, “Perhaps the Albatross could not transmit so far away? Or maybe it needs to be in the air to transmit? Like last time. Maybe they knew… but too late. Maybe they are unprepared this time.”
“Let us hope that is the case.” Afee replies as his eyes slip to the horizon. Upon the choppy waves he spots a noticeable rough patch of water where the whitecaps are particularly intense. As he watches as it seems to be getting larger, but the turbulent water is not growing larger at all - it is getting closer. Afee looks to his sonar. No objects below water are being pinged. He checks his radar. No air objects in that location. Soon both Captain Afee and Andre Mcdoo are staring at this approaching patch of torn water, and they can start to see what appear to be large animals riding atop this water. They actually appear to be running on it. Afee reaches for a pair of binoculars and upon viewing the maelstrom can see clearly that they are bears. From this distance the bears appear to be made of metal, as if they were robots, and they are running on the water at a very high rate of speed. As they approach the crew tries in vain to shoot the harpoons at them, but are unable to strike the fast approaching sea bears. Within minutes they are at the ship and begin to leap out of the water up onto the deck, quickly running down and mauling any crew in sight. With robotic exoskeletons they are easily able to rip off the reinforced doors and proceed to tear their way down through the lower decks.
Andre’s face is stricken with panic and body frozen in fear, as he stares unmoving out the window at the terrifying sight unfolding before him. He is awakened from his trance only by the increasing pings emanating from the sonar. The Orca pod is approaching. “Captain we got to get out of here!” Andre screams as he spins around towards the captain, “we got to get to the…”
As a bear approaches the bridge door McDoo sees that the captain is gone. Inches from him a steel claw punctures through the door into the bridge’s cabin. As the bear begins to pry the door off its hinges, Andre can hear the vicious snarling of the animal, he can hear the agonizing screams of the dying crew being ripped apart, and he can he the slow “chop-chop-chop” of helicopter blades.
*****
Peering through the small square window in the lab’s door Claudia looks upon a completely white room with a white table in its center. Upon the table is a black box. Behind her Alexander sets up a video camera aimed at the door and says, “its recording.”
Claudia turns around in a lab coat, with lab goggles on, her dark hair pulled back behind her head, and addresses the camera: “This will be our third up close encounter with a crow. After a period of remote observation, we will again attempt to study the neural linked cranial computational device, and if possible remove it from the crow. We are hoping in this approach that heavy sedation of the animal will allow closer observation.”
She then places a set of ear muffs on, turns around, and enters the lab. Once Claudia is inside the small room the camera switches to a ceiling mounted view looking down at the table. She approaches the box and opens it. A sedated crow lies inside. She reaches for a small telescopic video camera on the table and turns in on. At first the camera is out of focus, but as it gets closer to the box, the screen starts to reveal, in detail, the crow’s cybernetic head.
“CHIRP! POP!” A high frequency noise followed by the crow’s head exploding.
“Shit! Not again!” Claudia yells.
Alexander turns off the cameras and opens the lab room door. “We are getting better at catching them. We will catch more.”
“It seems more likely that they will catch us first.”
“We will catch so many we could actually start eating them.”
“You would eat crow?” She asks.
“I guess, they are the only animals we can catch up here anyway.”
Claudia steps out of the lab, which is a small cube that resides inside a large city flat. Beside the lab constructed in the center of the room, the concrete space of the flat is sparsely furnished and has vast stores of rations lining the walls. It sits on the 23rd floor of an abandoned skyscraper in deserted downtown San Francisco. The building’s first five floors have collapsed which made entry from the ground all but impossible for the larger predators.
Sitting on the edge of a mattress lying on the ground Claudia asks, “You know, I think I know the answer to this question, but for some reason I still ask myself it anyway. How did we let this happen? How did we let it get so out of control?”
Leaning back in a chair Alexander moves his blonde hair away from his eyes, “People created an intelligence based on human morals. Of course it would be awful to everyone!” He laughs.
“Be serious. How did we let it get so out of our control?”
Sitting up he replies, “Humans crated something they didn’t understand. Artificial Intelligence understood us more than we did. Would you want to be controlled by someone dumber than you?”
“No, and that is why I do not listen to you!” Alexander laughs. They get up to begin preparing dinner when they hear: “chop-chop-chop.”
“Is that a helicopter? How does a person get a helicopter?” Alexander confusedly asks.
“Its landing on the roof.” Claudia exclaims, “Come on!” They quickly grab their weapons and run to the roof of the building. Carefully they open the roof door and see a helicopter landed next to the solar array. A man is slumped back in the pilot seat and the passenger seat appears empty. “Put your hands up!” Claudia shouts, but the man does not move. Slowly, they approach the helicopter. Coming closer to the man they see he is unconscious and wounded . After securing the area and shutting down the helicopter’s engines, they take the man inside their flat to treat him for what looks like a head injury.
The man, now with a large bandage around his shaggy black hair, lies on the floor asleep while Claudia and Alexander eat their dinner. “Who do you think he is?” Claudia asks.
“I don’t know. First person we see since the Takeover and he comes to us in a helicopter. What are the chances of that!” Alexander excitedly replies.
“I wonder where he came from? Do you think he came from inland? Could that be possible?”
“I doubt it. Probably came out from the sea looking at his condition. But why come back to land? He must have a death wish or something.”
“Did you search him?”
“Well people don’t really carry driver’s licenses these days any more. And the bots shut down the internet, so what good would touching him all over do?”
“So, you didn’t search him”
“Yes.” Alexander smirks. A frustrated Claudia gets up and walks over to search the unconscious man. She kneels down and as she reaches inside the man’s pocket his eyes open. With a slight smile on his face the man says, “Well, you don’t need to touch me all over, I’ll tell you who I am.”
With a startled shout Claudia stands up and proclaims, “I am sorry! We thought you were asleep and you are the first person we have ever… seen in a long time.”
The man props himself up slightly on his elbows, “I am sure glad to see you and happy to find that there are still people on land.”
“We may be the only ones.” Alexander replies walking up next to Claudia. “Why did you come here? Can you take us to a ship?”
The man looks wearily at Alexander and says, “Those are big questions with long answers and I am afraid I am too tired to explain all that right now.”
“But you said you would tell me your who you are. Didn‘t you?” Claudia asks him curtly.
The man’s smile fades and his eyes cast downward before meeting hers, “I am Philstrom Afee.”
“The eco-terrorist!?” Claudia says with surprise..
“Wait, that Earth Liberation guy who said all humans should die so animals could live? Or something like that!” Shouts Alexander.
“Yes” replies Afee, “I was that person and I said those things. But, I hope you are happy to see me, there are so few of us now, and you must believe that I am really happy to see you.” Alexander and Claudia stand silently looking at him, with a mix of skepticism and fear, unsure what to say to this known man. Afee’s smile returns to his bearded face and he continues, “Besides you want me here.“
“Why is that?” She asks.
“Because, I just may be the guy who knows how things got so horribly out of control. Would you be interested in knowing that?”
Thursday, November 23, 2017
Misinterpreted Meaning
Perfect you
in eyes of jealousy
walks to his arms
Not
Mine
Holds your heart
a Burden
and Trust
You
give
May not our affection be tarnished by the honesty of my dejection
You
love him
Ernest is lost
in such jealous eyes and
My emotions are cruel and unfair
Untie me
from
you
Release me to platonic warmth
and may,
I,
finally find a friendly platitude
Shallow Beauty runs deep and obscures
friends in nostalgia
and those with helping hands
Secretly deserved
My love is unreal
unattainable
it is a loss of a friend
it is my discontent
and it is my diet
A beauty that can never be touched but dreamed of in abject denial of affection.
This
Love
a faux fantasy
and an unknowing loss
in eyes of jealousy
walks to his arms
Not
Mine
Holds your heart
a Burden
and Trust
You
give
May not our affection be tarnished by the honesty of my dejection
You
love him
Ernest is lost
in such jealous eyes and
My emotions are cruel and unfair
Untie me
from
you
Release me to platonic warmth
and may,
I,
finally find a friendly platitude
Shallow Beauty runs deep and obscures
friends in nostalgia
and those with helping hands
Secretly deserved
My love is unreal
unattainable
it is a loss of a friend
it is my discontent
and it is my diet
A beauty that can never be touched but dreamed of in abject denial of affection.
This
Love
a faux fantasy
and an unknowing loss
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Of Tigers and Donkeys
Christopher Robbin had long since moved out of childhood and in time the inhabitants of The Hundred Acre Woods moved out with him. For, the forest had been sold and a subdivision of single family housing was to be developed in its place.
Just north of Mt. Shasta we find a lonely two lane highway stretching across the volcanic tableland of grass and brush, which is interspersed with outcroppings of igneous rock. Upon this highway we find a donkey, mulling along with a slow gait and head hung low. And a tiger, who from his feet leans back on his tail, which curls like a spring beneath him, before propelling him forward several yards. He lands on his feet, leans back and repeats the motion. He says to the donkey,
“When we get to Weed you need to be happy! H – A – Double P – Y! Don't you know it is a wonderful thing!?”
“I know....I guess I will try” said the donkey.
“Don't just try you gotta do! We can have a home again my melancholy friend! You just got to stick with me! Don't you trust me?”
“What happened to Rabbit?” donkey asked.
The tiger sprang off of his tail onto his hind feet with arms crossed. Annoyed, he responded, “How many times do I have to T – E – Double L you! He left the woods at some point and is probably being a pain in the A- Double S to a whole new cast of “friends.”
“I know,” the donkey continued, “it is just...I miss them all...even Rabbit...so much...”
“Why!?” Exclaimed the tiger, “The bear and little pig were the favorites and got to go with C.R. Not you or me, and the kangaroos are expats now! We got shafted! F – O – R -G -O – Double T- E – N!”
“I know...” says the donkey in a downtrodden voice as the setting sun cast long shadows and they continue down the lonely highway.
Just after dusk they reached the frog's farm. The frog has a wife, a pig, that meets them outside the estate's main residence.
“Are you the new farmhands! I have never seen a more petulant, sullen, sorry looking laborers in my life! I must tell my husband this will not do!”
It was then the tiger sprang in front of her, “My most beautiful of swine, I can assure you our work is not just G – Double O – D, GOOD, but the best you will ever find! And such a beautiful pig as yourself must be looking for a tiger to trust and I have a donkey that can grind! Won't you give me a chance to win your heart and perhaps we could have some wine?” he exclaimed with a twirling bounce and a brimming smile.
The pig pulled out a hand-fan to cool her face and while giggling said, “Well, I will give you and your donkey a job, but the wine will have to wait!” That night the donkey bedded in the barn, while the tiger, being the new farm foreman, stayed within the residence. Donkey did not sleep that night but instead listened as the nearby river whispered. It whispered in the voices of friends now gone. And he looked at the stars. They looked like a million candles on a black frosted birthday cake. In the morning the barn doors flew open. Leaping in with a front flip the tiger landed on his tail striking a cross-legged and cross-armed pose,
“You ready?” The tiger asked.
The donkey raised up and stood on all fours. He reached back with his head, bit his tail and pulled it off his behind, then dropped it in front of his feet. Kicking it towards the tiger he asked, “How many kids this time?”
The tiger shouted, “N – O, N – O, N – O, NO!” Falling off his tail onto his back. “Remember the last birthday party? How you made all the children cry!?” The tiger said while writhing in laughter.
The donkey laid down on his belly on the hay and staring at the ground and asked, “then what are we doing here?”
The tiger said, “Come outside.”
The donkey followed the tiger onto a vast potato field, where at its edge stood a large rat and a skinny, red-haired fellow near a piece of farm equipment. They both seemed very nervous and made strange noises as the two approached. Once the donkey got close enough, he saw the farm equipment was a iron plow attached with leather straps to a wooden yoke.
“Put it on him” the tiger told to two mumbling field-hands.
The donkey asked the tiger, “What are we doing?”
“You are plowing potatoes.”
Donkey's field was the first to go. He didn't mind. But after the rest of the woods were gradually bulldozed over, he found himself alone except for a couple inhabitants that remained. The tiger had been hopping around looting all the residences of those who had fled before. The only resident that did not leave was Rabbit. He refused to leave. He said he would never leave. That is when the fire broke out Donkey ran towards rabbit's burrow, but the flames were too high and donkey's hooves started to burn. When the tiger, out of nowhere, sprang through the flames grabbing him. Tiger leaned back on his spring-tail, jettisoning donkey to other side of the valley, and away from the flames.
“But Rabbit!” donkey wept as they flew through the sky.
“Donkey, rabbit got out... I saw him leave yesterday... he told me... to T – E – Double L you goodbye.”
In the morning donkey woke up to find tiger staring across the valley with a slight smile. The fire had been extinguished and bulldozers had already leveled what was left of The Hundred Acre Woods.
The two muppets placed the yoke on donkey and scurried away. Tiger rode the plow and yelled to the donkey, “ P- U – Double L! PULL!” Donkey tried but the plow did not move. “Donkey! P- U – Double L THE PLOW!” Donkey tried again to pull the plow, but could not and collapsed into the mud.
Then a slamming door was heard and a shrill voice became louder in approach. The pig stomping up in anger said, “Tiger! What is going on here! You told me this donkey could work, no, he could grind you said!”
“He can... P – U – Double L this plow! Donkey! Let's make us proud!” Said tiger, but donkey did not get up.
Standing next to donkey the pig holding a whip says, “Tiger make him pull” and hands the whip to tiger. Without a word he looks at donkey and donkey gets up. Donkey tries to pull the plow but it does not move. “Tiger, whip him,” says the pig. The tiger, with unflinching eyes, pulls his arm up and strikes a gash upon donkey's back.
Donkey jolts forward and one of the leather straps attaching the yoke to the plow snaps at a metal joint. The strap with a broken steel fragment at its end whirls around like a flail and strikes the pig in the face. It strikes just below the right corner of the mouth up to the left temple leaving a four inch deep gash in between. The pig falls to the ground with blood flowing profusely from where a face used to be and the tiger tries to push the gray matter back into her shattered skull with his paw.
“L – Double O – K what you did!” Tiger screams.
Sobbing, donkey says, “I didn't mean to. I am so sorry...”
“You really fucked up donkey” said tiger looking over his shoulder as the ambulance's made their way over the field, painting the landscape with is red and blue light.. The pig was not dead yet and was rushed to a local doctor with the tiger close beside her. Donkey remain in the potato field looking at the bloodstain upon the ground. He kept looking at it until it became night and the color of the blood on the ground became indistinguishable from the dark of the night sky above. The pig died that night from her injuries.
The next morning the tiger kicked open the barn door expecting to find donkey there. Instead, he found a set of donkey tracks leading down to the nearby river. With a satchel over his shoulder he followed the tracks and found donkey sitting by the riverbank.
“Donkey you know what you did?” Asked tiger.
“Yes.” Replied donkey.
“Well, you B – E – Double T – E - R get up and come with me.”
“No, I think I am just going to stay here.”
“So, you are not going to come with me?” Tiger asked
“What happened to rabbit, tiger?”
Without hesitation, a blink, or a studder tiger said, “They buried him alive. He survived the fire. I watched the next morning as a bulldozer approached his hut. He came out and surrendered with bandaged hands and feet. The bulldozer did not stop though, and he ran inside as the plowed over his home. Thy immediately laid concrete on top of it... They buried him alive.”
“No!” donkey replied as he looks deeply into the river at his miserable reflection.
“Are you ever going to get up?”
“I don't...”
A long silence fell, with just the birds above softly chattering, when tiger asks, “Do you remember when we all threw you a surprise birthday party? Remember all of our friends we had there in the woods?” The distant wail of police cars become louder as tiger looks over his shoulder, reaches his hand into the satchel, and pulls out a small handgun. “Do you remember how happy you were?”
As donkey listens, the the voices of the river become muddled and he watches as the candles of the night's birthday cake grow dimmer with the coming day. “I have never been happy.”
“Not even s a child?” asked tiger.
“No. Never.”
“That is a shame.”
The ensuing concussion causes the chattering birds to scatter and donkey's body collapses into the river. Tiger tosses the gun into the water, then leans back upon his spring-tail, and bounces into the woods, away from noise of the encroaching sirens.
Just north of Mt. Shasta we find a lonely two lane highway stretching across the volcanic tableland of grass and brush, which is interspersed with outcroppings of igneous rock. Upon this highway we find a donkey, mulling along with a slow gait and head hung low. And a tiger, who from his feet leans back on his tail, which curls like a spring beneath him, before propelling him forward several yards. He lands on his feet, leans back and repeats the motion. He says to the donkey,
“When we get to Weed you need to be happy! H – A – Double P – Y! Don't you know it is a wonderful thing!?”
“I know....I guess I will try” said the donkey.
“Don't just try you gotta do! We can have a home again my melancholy friend! You just got to stick with me! Don't you trust me?”
“What happened to Rabbit?” donkey asked.
The tiger sprang off of his tail onto his hind feet with arms crossed. Annoyed, he responded, “How many times do I have to T – E – Double L you! He left the woods at some point and is probably being a pain in the A- Double S to a whole new cast of “friends.”
“I know,” the donkey continued, “it is just...I miss them all...even Rabbit...so much...”
“Why!?” Exclaimed the tiger, “The bear and little pig were the favorites and got to go with C.R. Not you or me, and the kangaroos are expats now! We got shafted! F – O – R -G -O – Double T- E – N!”
“I know...” says the donkey in a downtrodden voice as the setting sun cast long shadows and they continue down the lonely highway.
Just after dusk they reached the frog's farm. The frog has a wife, a pig, that meets them outside the estate's main residence.
“Are you the new farmhands! I have never seen a more petulant, sullen, sorry looking laborers in my life! I must tell my husband this will not do!”
It was then the tiger sprang in front of her, “My most beautiful of swine, I can assure you our work is not just G – Double O – D, GOOD, but the best you will ever find! And such a beautiful pig as yourself must be looking for a tiger to trust and I have a donkey that can grind! Won't you give me a chance to win your heart and perhaps we could have some wine?” he exclaimed with a twirling bounce and a brimming smile.
The pig pulled out a hand-fan to cool her face and while giggling said, “Well, I will give you and your donkey a job, but the wine will have to wait!” That night the donkey bedded in the barn, while the tiger, being the new farm foreman, stayed within the residence. Donkey did not sleep that night but instead listened as the nearby river whispered. It whispered in the voices of friends now gone. And he looked at the stars. They looked like a million candles on a black frosted birthday cake. In the morning the barn doors flew open. Leaping in with a front flip the tiger landed on his tail striking a cross-legged and cross-armed pose,
“You ready?” The tiger asked.
The donkey raised up and stood on all fours. He reached back with his head, bit his tail and pulled it off his behind, then dropped it in front of his feet. Kicking it towards the tiger he asked, “How many kids this time?”
The tiger shouted, “N – O, N – O, N – O, NO!” Falling off his tail onto his back. “Remember the last birthday party? How you made all the children cry!?” The tiger said while writhing in laughter.
The donkey laid down on his belly on the hay and staring at the ground and asked, “then what are we doing here?”
The tiger said, “Come outside.”
The donkey followed the tiger onto a vast potato field, where at its edge stood a large rat and a skinny, red-haired fellow near a piece of farm equipment. They both seemed very nervous and made strange noises as the two approached. Once the donkey got close enough, he saw the farm equipment was a iron plow attached with leather straps to a wooden yoke.
“Put it on him” the tiger told to two mumbling field-hands.
The donkey asked the tiger, “What are we doing?”
“You are plowing potatoes.”
Donkey's field was the first to go. He didn't mind. But after the rest of the woods were gradually bulldozed over, he found himself alone except for a couple inhabitants that remained. The tiger had been hopping around looting all the residences of those who had fled before. The only resident that did not leave was Rabbit. He refused to leave. He said he would never leave. That is when the fire broke out Donkey ran towards rabbit's burrow, but the flames were too high and donkey's hooves started to burn. When the tiger, out of nowhere, sprang through the flames grabbing him. Tiger leaned back on his spring-tail, jettisoning donkey to other side of the valley, and away from the flames.
“But Rabbit!” donkey wept as they flew through the sky.
“Donkey, rabbit got out... I saw him leave yesterday... he told me... to T – E – Double L you goodbye.”
In the morning donkey woke up to find tiger staring across the valley with a slight smile. The fire had been extinguished and bulldozers had already leveled what was left of The Hundred Acre Woods.
The two muppets placed the yoke on donkey and scurried away. Tiger rode the plow and yelled to the donkey, “ P- U – Double L! PULL!” Donkey tried but the plow did not move. “Donkey! P- U – Double L THE PLOW!” Donkey tried again to pull the plow, but could not and collapsed into the mud.
Then a slamming door was heard and a shrill voice became louder in approach. The pig stomping up in anger said, “Tiger! What is going on here! You told me this donkey could work, no, he could grind you said!”
“He can... P – U – Double L this plow! Donkey! Let's make us proud!” Said tiger, but donkey did not get up.
Standing next to donkey the pig holding a whip says, “Tiger make him pull” and hands the whip to tiger. Without a word he looks at donkey and donkey gets up. Donkey tries to pull the plow but it does not move. “Tiger, whip him,” says the pig. The tiger, with unflinching eyes, pulls his arm up and strikes a gash upon donkey's back.
Donkey jolts forward and one of the leather straps attaching the yoke to the plow snaps at a metal joint. The strap with a broken steel fragment at its end whirls around like a flail and strikes the pig in the face. It strikes just below the right corner of the mouth up to the left temple leaving a four inch deep gash in between. The pig falls to the ground with blood flowing profusely from where a face used to be and the tiger tries to push the gray matter back into her shattered skull with his paw.
“L – Double O – K what you did!” Tiger screams.
Sobbing, donkey says, “I didn't mean to. I am so sorry...”
“You really fucked up donkey” said tiger looking over his shoulder as the ambulance's made their way over the field, painting the landscape with is red and blue light.. The pig was not dead yet and was rushed to a local doctor with the tiger close beside her. Donkey remain in the potato field looking at the bloodstain upon the ground. He kept looking at it until it became night and the color of the blood on the ground became indistinguishable from the dark of the night sky above. The pig died that night from her injuries.
The next morning the tiger kicked open the barn door expecting to find donkey there. Instead, he found a set of donkey tracks leading down to the nearby river. With a satchel over his shoulder he followed the tracks and found donkey sitting by the riverbank.
“Donkey you know what you did?” Asked tiger.
“Yes.” Replied donkey.
“Well, you B – E – Double T – E - R get up and come with me.”
“No, I think I am just going to stay here.”
“So, you are not going to come with me?” Tiger asked
“What happened to rabbit, tiger?”
Without hesitation, a blink, or a studder tiger said, “They buried him alive. He survived the fire. I watched the next morning as a bulldozer approached his hut. He came out and surrendered with bandaged hands and feet. The bulldozer did not stop though, and he ran inside as the plowed over his home. Thy immediately laid concrete on top of it... They buried him alive.”
“No!” donkey replied as he looks deeply into the river at his miserable reflection.
“Are you ever going to get up?”
“I don't...”
A long silence fell, with just the birds above softly chattering, when tiger asks, “Do you remember when we all threw you a surprise birthday party? Remember all of our friends we had there in the woods?” The distant wail of police cars become louder as tiger looks over his shoulder, reaches his hand into the satchel, and pulls out a small handgun. “Do you remember how happy you were?”
As donkey listens, the the voices of the river become muddled and he watches as the candles of the night's birthday cake grow dimmer with the coming day. “I have never been happy.”
“Not even s a child?” asked tiger.
“No. Never.”
“That is a shame.”
The ensuing concussion causes the chattering birds to scatter and donkey's body collapses into the river. Tiger tosses the gun into the water, then leans back upon his spring-tail, and bounces into the woods, away from noise of the encroaching sirens.
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
A Brief and Sincere History Pt.1 (Draft 1.0)
A book I am starting to write. Any feedback, negative or positive, is much appreciated.
A Brief and Sincere History
Chapter 1
Home Street Middle School was pinkish in color and had a huge decommissioned smoke stack jutting up from its roof. The stack was the tallest structure in town and remained from the building's past life as a sawmill. It sat just a couple blocks west from the intersection of Line Street and Main Street, an intersection that was indisputably the center of Bishop. The building was shaped like a capital letter “E” with each branch of the letter-shaped building being a hallway with a different grade of the the school (6th, 7th, and 8th) in each of the three wings. The ends of the hallways all pointed towards the main schoolyard where we had recess and ate lunch. When the bell rang at 3:05 PM class was dismissed. Each individual grade would file out of their respective hall and reorganize into lines for the school buses to take us home. I exited out of the 7th grade hallway which was in the middle of the other two. The school buses, after picking up the elementary school kids, but before picking up the high school kids, would one by one swing into the parking lot, then back up into their parking spaces, lining up in order from left to right by bus number.
The buses where numbered 1 though 27. Buses 1 through 4 were the oldest buses. They where shaped like Twinkies and had dark green, thinly padded seats, which had short backrests framed by metal tubes, that even on us kids only came up to our shoulder blades when sitting down. The seats were uncomfortable. They were only made even more uncomfortable by the extremely bumpy ride and the tremendous noise of the engine, which all the kids would scream over in a deafening roar. These buses would go to the east part of town, the oldest and most crowded part of Bishop. The houses had no yards or very small ones and a lot of people lived in apartments. All the kids it seemed wear clothes from K-Mart and generally had bad haircuts.
Buses 5 through 9 were still the same snack shape as the others but were also considerably newer. The seat backs were tall, above my head, and somewhat comfortable. Also, the engine was not so loud and the ride not so rough. Bus 7 was my bus. It would go through parts of the Paiute Reservation and on up into unincorporated North Bishop, which is where I lived.
The buses then suddenly skipped numbers 10-24 for some reason. The next buses where numbers 25-29 and these buses were the newest and nicest buses. They were shaped like rectangles and would lower to the ground when parked to make getting in easier. Their engines made just a soft hum and unlike the other buses with manual transmissions, which the drivers constantly wrestled with as they drove, the square buses were automatic and glided over the road like riding on a hovercraft. These buses would go the to West Bishop and the secluded community of Starlight. These where the nicest parts of town. We always would drive through them at Christmas time because they had the biggest, most beautiful lights on their large houses and endless lawns.
It was late spring and it was very warm outside. You could feel that summer was coming soon. Most of us were in tee-shirts for the first time since last year and everyone was full of energy. I remember Chris had just gotten out of band practice and while we waited for the bus he was playing Taps on his Tri-Tom drums. He was walking up to groups of girls having conversations and following them around while playing the drums loudly to their great irritation. He was always a jackass, but that was part of his charm and he could be fun to be around. I hadn't been hanging out with Chris for that long and usually wouldn't be standing over by is bus, number twenty-six, but I did not want to wait in my bus line that day.
I had always rode bus seven home. As a child I really did not have a lot of friends that live by me and those who did got picked up from school by their parents. So, usually when I rode the bus I would just try to find an empty seat and would look quietly out the window. Sometimes, when the middle and high school kids would get on there would be no open seats left, so somebody would have to sit next to me. But they usually just talked to their friends and left me alone. But one day when I was in third grade a middle school boy sat next to me. I remember it because that day the bus was not full and there were plenty of available seats in the back. I wondered why he had sat next to me? He was a skinny pale guy with straight, greasy, black hair that extended down over past his ears and eyes. He had his headphones on with his head hung down looking towards the floor. Looking over at him all I could see through his hair was a long pointy nose above a wispy mustache and an acne covered chin. He never looked at me or said a word and got off at the stop just before mine. Everyday after that he would always sit next me. I do not know his name, we never talked, and I never saw him ever even look at me, but for the next couple years he would be my silent companion accompanying me home everyday. It was in 5th grade I joined the pee-wee football team and soon met some friends that rode the same bus as me. I would sit with them and soon lost track of my silent friend over the next few years.
I said goodbye to Chris, got on my bus, found an empty seat, and looked quietly out the window. When we got to the high school one of the fist students that got the bus on sat next to me. It was my old quiet companion. He looked at me this time, and gave a slight upward nod as if to say, “hey, I remember you.” Just then another high school boy wearing a letterman jacket walked by and gave my seatmate a hard wack on is head, which knocked his headphones off. He did not look at the person who hit him, whom continued to walk down the isle chuckling with his friends, but just put his headphones back on, hung his head down, and did not look up or say anything the entire ride home.
The bus went west on Line Street a short distance before turning north on Barlow Lane through the reservation. After a few stops there, the bus would continue into North Bishop. The bus was still mostly full and there was only two stops after that. The first stop was the “back gate” of Highlands Mobile Home Park, which is where almost all the kids got off. This gate into park was pedestrian only, so a mob of kids would walk off the bus and stream into the park, eventually dispersing to their homes. After that stop I sat alone and usually there where only a few of us at most left on the bus for the last stop. The bus would continue north on Barlow until reaching Dixon Lane, which was the last paved street on the north side of town. Turing east onto Dixon there was my neighborhood to the right. Most of the people considered it the “redneck” part of town as there were no sidewalks, dirt driveways, and most of the the houses were small on big overgrown lots which always had a stack of firewood somewhere on it. To the left was nothing but miles of fragrant Sage Brush and bright yellow Rabbit Brush that rolled over the valley floor punctuated by canals and cattle pastures.
I got off alone at the last bus stop, which let us off at a large dirt parking lot of a plastics company called Cal-Tron. It was at the corner of Dixon and Valley View Drive - the street I lived on. The parking lot was a place I spent a lot of time at. It was just across the street from Billy's house and we would always be out there building dirt jumps to ride our bikes over. Every once in a while, Billy's step brother would bring his motorcycle out and let us ride it and that lot is where I learned to ride a dirt bike.
That day I tried to walk as fast as I could through that parking lot and kept my eyes fixed away from Billy's house. As soon as I had past by his house, and I was sure no one could see me, I slowed my walk. It wasn't more than 500 feet to my house and usually only took a minute to get there, but that day I took very small steps, almost heel to toe, as I waddled with my head hung down. As I approached the house my mom was outside alone sitting on the porch. This was unusual as she usually only sat out there when she had her friends over or with my step-dad after he got off work. The late afternoon sun was approaching the tops of the still snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains, which towered over the valley floor, and a vibrant orange light, as bright as the Tiger Lilly flowers in our front yard, bathed the sky and the air itself.
As I approached I could see that she was drinking a Tecate beer mixed with tomato juice in a frosted glass. I could also tell she had something to say to me. I didn't want to talk to her though. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to talk to anyone. I was trying my hardest not to think about anything. Not to talk about anything. I tried to walk by her and go inside but as I got close she said,
“You know... I talked to Billy's parents today?”
I stopped and slowly lifted my head to meet her intense green eyes staring at me from under her fiery red hair. She sat with her legs crossed, with one hand around her drink on the table, and the other across her lap. In a blunt tone and while slightly squinting her eyes she continued,
“They think it is your fault, and you know... it kind of is.”
Chapter 2
This is what you wanted. I just wish I wouldn't have that taken that last hit at the trailhead. I think there was an air bubble in there, or maybe even worst, some dirt. You were afraid of not being able to make it far enough in. That you would get the itch and turn back. Turn back down the trail, back down the highway, back down the street to dude-man's door.
You don't have to worry about that now do you? 17 miles in now. Only 17 miles out, but after hiking in for 3 days it has been snowing for the last 5 days, so it must have been 8 days now. When I look at the map, at the little “X” I scribbled on there 6 days ago, I think, I am at about 7,100 ft elevation. That would make sense because it is very cold. I only packed 10 days worth of food, but luckily I haven't eaten in 4 days. My gut and every other part of me has hurt to much to move let alone eat. And I am so very cold.
I think I can move today. I need to eat. I need to get out of here... I am going to try. I extend my left arm out from my sleeping bag and try to lift myself up, when it feels like a knife rips down the inside length of my forearm from my fingertips to my elbow, and I collapse back to the ground. I tenderly pull my sleeve back from my arm and take the ripped glove off of my hand. The tips of my fingers are black. I look to the crook of my elbow and there is a hole the size of a dime that resembles a little asteroid crater. Blood and puss flows out of it with black streaks extending away from the infected wound radially down my veins and arteries. I put my sleeve down and glove back on. I try my other arm. No pain. I am finally able to lift myself up to an upright position, so I will not look at that arm. My pack is still open and I reach inside and pull out a bag of jerky. It is frozen, but I gnaw into like I was chewing fibrous ice and finish off the bag.
Still hungry, I reach in to my backpack again to pull out the trail mix I know is in there, and as I pull it out a folded piece of paper falls out with it. I stare at it sitting on the tent floor, the paper getting wet from the smatter of snow that made it through the door previously. Tears well to my eyes and run down my face freezing to my cheeks. I reach over to the zipper on my tent and open it up. A blinding light blast through. It has stopped snowing. The foot or so of October snow reflects brightly against the all blue sky. I pick up the letter and unfold it revealing my chicken-scratch handwriting scrawled upon several pages:
Dear Mia,
I am sure it is a surprise receiving this letter from me. Joe gave me your address. Please don't be mad at him. I know you made it clear you never wanted to see or talk to me again and for whatever it is worth ...I am sorry. I know that probably means nothing to you. But, I do not want to talk about us or what happened and do not think I am trying to see you again. In fact, quite the opposite. If you haven't already thrown away this letter, I just want to tell you where I have been the last 7 years and I want you to know where I am at. Please, I don't know who else to send this to.
I think you know that after... everything.... I moved up to the city. I went up there because the hotel I was working at offered to transfer for a management position. It was the darnedest thing, because you know how much I was drinking before and that has only increased exponentially since. Yet, somehow, I did it! It was a great paying job and it was my life. Well, rather it competed with alcohol for the what-runs-my-life contest, and eventually there wasn't enough room for the both of them. The job lost out.
I always thought I was a good boss. I felt like got along with everyone. Well... almost everyone, and I felt like I had a lot of good friends there. But as “Zee Bozz,” I couldn't be friends with my underlings. Hell, I might have to fire them tomorrow. So, when I got fired I thought I would have lots of friends to hang out with now I wasn't their boss. That was folly. It was about then I remembered my McDonald's manager Jesus. You couldn't wack the smile off that guys face with the hard swing of a baseball bat, and his relentless, phony, positive, can-do attitude did, in fact, make you want to hit him in the face with a baseball bat. But, he thought everybody loved him, and despite being an annoying prick he did love his employees. The fact was, as my many outgoing texts to my former employees that remain answered attest to, if he had asked me me to hang out with him outside of work I would have smiled and said yes to his face, then never showed up and mock him relentlessly with my co-workers. But, he was smarter than that and would have never made himself so vulnerable.
That was six months ago. I got unemployment, but that ran out a couple weeks ago. I never tried to get another job and have fallen back into bad habits. Yeah... those bad habits. And, I know I said I wouldn't ever do it... but I started using needles. I can't make rent and I haven't made a car payment in a couple months. I decided to move out during the night. Run before the eviction notice is posted and my car is repossessed. I feel bad screwing over my roommates, and I am not looking forward to having a warrant, but, as you know, I have done it before... and here I am doing it again. This is the last time though. I can't go on like this. I decided to I have to change or die trying.
Thee days ago I packed up what little I hadn't already thrown away, left the city, and drove to the Strawberry Mountains. I parked and abandoned my car at the trailhead near John Day off highway 26. The trailhead is in a pretty remote area and I do not think my car will be found for a while. My plan is to hike from here to the nearest city south, Seneca, about 50 miles away. I figure it it will take a couple weeks, but don't worry, I have, like, over a month worth of food. And I am going to stay in these mountains, for weeks if I have to, and when I come out I will be clean. I promise.
Because the last two days have been nothing short of beautiful. After leaving the trailhead I took my time, enjoying nothing other than the sun, the sights, and the sound of nature. I walked slowly with a smile so glad that I was truly away from my problems. Yesterday, I woke up to another gorgeous day and made it to Strawberry Lake. Beautiful. But, today! Today, this morning when I woke up the sky was overcast yet dry and the clouds low yet bright white in color. A low lake fog had formed and there was just enough of a breeze to cause the fog to gently sway and swirl across the still glass surface of the water. It was hypnotic. Then, out of the low clouds came a diving bald eagle! Its wings blasting away the fog, it hit the lake at speed causing the whole lake to erupt in ripples, and scooped up a large fish with its talons. Rising up right over my head it exited the lake basin back to its cliff-side roost within the clouds.
I knew then I was going to be OK. And even though I don't feel great today and it is definitely a little colder, I am about to climb up and over the big ridge today and I am ready. I am ready for the hardest journey of my life. When I get to Seneca I will mail this letter to you and after that I plan to start hitch-hiking east. I am going to start a new life. Somewhere. Somehow. So, I hope you get this, and if you don't I won't know, so I am just going imagine in a perfect world you did get this letter and are still reading this sentence. And if you are still reading this sentence, maybe someday, someway, we will meet again. Maybe not now, maybe in another seven years, but I will wait. My true, one, and only friend.
Chapter 3
My dirt bike ran out of fuel in the middle of the scrub brush. Luckily, it had stopped right in front of a train station. It was the hottest heat of the summer, and I was miles away from anything familiar, so I though I would go in and ask for some petrol. As I walked up the splintered pine wood steps to the barely standing wooden shack of a ticket ticket office, an engraved granite sign stood above the handrail that said “NO PETROLEUM PRODUCTS AVAILABLE.” Being stranded and having no where else to go I figured I would inquire about a train ticket. As I walked up the ticket window I found it was closed, but on the outside counter lied a ticket with my name printed in seven languages. The destination had been torn off other than the word “MONUMENTS.” I took the ticket, assuming it was mine, and proceeded to the loading docks.
The train arriving at the station was a curious thing, as the locomotive and all of its cars in tow had no wheels. Yet, the train kept moving. With axles glowing red, shooting sparks in all directions, and a terrible metal on metal grinding shriek that slowly subsided as the train came to a stop inside the station. Even with the train stopped the wheel-less axles glowed lava red until a crew of men, all with bowler hats, mustaches, and suspenders, emerged from somewhere behind me, throwing buckets of water until the metal cooled and steam enveloped the air.
Above the conductor's windshield a sign with the train's destination read, “MONUMENTS THAT ARE ALWAYS THERE AND NEVER LEAVING.” This must be my train. I do not remember getting on, but I remember finding a window seat and looking out at the station before the train pulled away. I saw out the window my mom, sitting in a lawn chair with her legs crossed, a red drink in one hand, and the other had resting across her lap. Next to her was Chris. He's laughing maniacally, playing Taps with two hands, and flipping me the bird with the other. Next to him was Tommy G. Tommy was dressed in the navy blue uniform of the Union Army from the Civil War. He wore captain stripes and stood at attention. As the train pulled away the metallic squeal slowly grew into a maddening howl. The train picked up speed and the sparks once again started to fly off the where the wheels should be obscuring my view out the window. However, before my view was consumed my flying fire, through the iron sparks, I saw Tommy raise his arm to his head in a soldier's salute. As he did, his eyes watered, and tears flowed, evaporating into steam as they ran down his cheeks.
A Brief and Sincere History
Chapter 1
Home Street Middle School was pinkish in color and had a huge decommissioned smoke stack jutting up from its roof. The stack was the tallest structure in town and remained from the building's past life as a sawmill. It sat just a couple blocks west from the intersection of Line Street and Main Street, an intersection that was indisputably the center of Bishop. The building was shaped like a capital letter “E” with each branch of the letter-shaped building being a hallway with a different grade of the the school (6th, 7th, and 8th) in each of the three wings. The ends of the hallways all pointed towards the main schoolyard where we had recess and ate lunch. When the bell rang at 3:05 PM class was dismissed. Each individual grade would file out of their respective hall and reorganize into lines for the school buses to take us home. I exited out of the 7th grade hallway which was in the middle of the other two. The school buses, after picking up the elementary school kids, but before picking up the high school kids, would one by one swing into the parking lot, then back up into their parking spaces, lining up in order from left to right by bus number.
The buses where numbered 1 though 27. Buses 1 through 4 were the oldest buses. They where shaped like Twinkies and had dark green, thinly padded seats, which had short backrests framed by metal tubes, that even on us kids only came up to our shoulder blades when sitting down. The seats were uncomfortable. They were only made even more uncomfortable by the extremely bumpy ride and the tremendous noise of the engine, which all the kids would scream over in a deafening roar. These buses would go to the east part of town, the oldest and most crowded part of Bishop. The houses had no yards or very small ones and a lot of people lived in apartments. All the kids it seemed wear clothes from K-Mart and generally had bad haircuts.
Buses 5 through 9 were still the same snack shape as the others but were also considerably newer. The seat backs were tall, above my head, and somewhat comfortable. Also, the engine was not so loud and the ride not so rough. Bus 7 was my bus. It would go through parts of the Paiute Reservation and on up into unincorporated North Bishop, which is where I lived.
The buses then suddenly skipped numbers 10-24 for some reason. The next buses where numbers 25-29 and these buses were the newest and nicest buses. They were shaped like rectangles and would lower to the ground when parked to make getting in easier. Their engines made just a soft hum and unlike the other buses with manual transmissions, which the drivers constantly wrestled with as they drove, the square buses were automatic and glided over the road like riding on a hovercraft. These buses would go the to West Bishop and the secluded community of Starlight. These where the nicest parts of town. We always would drive through them at Christmas time because they had the biggest, most beautiful lights on their large houses and endless lawns.
It was late spring and it was very warm outside. You could feel that summer was coming soon. Most of us were in tee-shirts for the first time since last year and everyone was full of energy. I remember Chris had just gotten out of band practice and while we waited for the bus he was playing Taps on his Tri-Tom drums. He was walking up to groups of girls having conversations and following them around while playing the drums loudly to their great irritation. He was always a jackass, but that was part of his charm and he could be fun to be around. I hadn't been hanging out with Chris for that long and usually wouldn't be standing over by is bus, number twenty-six, but I did not want to wait in my bus line that day.
I had always rode bus seven home. As a child I really did not have a lot of friends that live by me and those who did got picked up from school by their parents. So, usually when I rode the bus I would just try to find an empty seat and would look quietly out the window. Sometimes, when the middle and high school kids would get on there would be no open seats left, so somebody would have to sit next to me. But they usually just talked to their friends and left me alone. But one day when I was in third grade a middle school boy sat next to me. I remember it because that day the bus was not full and there were plenty of available seats in the back. I wondered why he had sat next to me? He was a skinny pale guy with straight, greasy, black hair that extended down over past his ears and eyes. He had his headphones on with his head hung down looking towards the floor. Looking over at him all I could see through his hair was a long pointy nose above a wispy mustache and an acne covered chin. He never looked at me or said a word and got off at the stop just before mine. Everyday after that he would always sit next me. I do not know his name, we never talked, and I never saw him ever even look at me, but for the next couple years he would be my silent companion accompanying me home everyday. It was in 5th grade I joined the pee-wee football team and soon met some friends that rode the same bus as me. I would sit with them and soon lost track of my silent friend over the next few years.
I said goodbye to Chris, got on my bus, found an empty seat, and looked quietly out the window. When we got to the high school one of the fist students that got the bus on sat next to me. It was my old quiet companion. He looked at me this time, and gave a slight upward nod as if to say, “hey, I remember you.” Just then another high school boy wearing a letterman jacket walked by and gave my seatmate a hard wack on is head, which knocked his headphones off. He did not look at the person who hit him, whom continued to walk down the isle chuckling with his friends, but just put his headphones back on, hung his head down, and did not look up or say anything the entire ride home.
The bus went west on Line Street a short distance before turning north on Barlow Lane through the reservation. After a few stops there, the bus would continue into North Bishop. The bus was still mostly full and there was only two stops after that. The first stop was the “back gate” of Highlands Mobile Home Park, which is where almost all the kids got off. This gate into park was pedestrian only, so a mob of kids would walk off the bus and stream into the park, eventually dispersing to their homes. After that stop I sat alone and usually there where only a few of us at most left on the bus for the last stop. The bus would continue north on Barlow until reaching Dixon Lane, which was the last paved street on the north side of town. Turing east onto Dixon there was my neighborhood to the right. Most of the people considered it the “redneck” part of town as there were no sidewalks, dirt driveways, and most of the the houses were small on big overgrown lots which always had a stack of firewood somewhere on it. To the left was nothing but miles of fragrant Sage Brush and bright yellow Rabbit Brush that rolled over the valley floor punctuated by canals and cattle pastures.
I got off alone at the last bus stop, which let us off at a large dirt parking lot of a plastics company called Cal-Tron. It was at the corner of Dixon and Valley View Drive - the street I lived on. The parking lot was a place I spent a lot of time at. It was just across the street from Billy's house and we would always be out there building dirt jumps to ride our bikes over. Every once in a while, Billy's step brother would bring his motorcycle out and let us ride it and that lot is where I learned to ride a dirt bike.
That day I tried to walk as fast as I could through that parking lot and kept my eyes fixed away from Billy's house. As soon as I had past by his house, and I was sure no one could see me, I slowed my walk. It wasn't more than 500 feet to my house and usually only took a minute to get there, but that day I took very small steps, almost heel to toe, as I waddled with my head hung down. As I approached the house my mom was outside alone sitting on the porch. This was unusual as she usually only sat out there when she had her friends over or with my step-dad after he got off work. The late afternoon sun was approaching the tops of the still snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains, which towered over the valley floor, and a vibrant orange light, as bright as the Tiger Lilly flowers in our front yard, bathed the sky and the air itself.
As I approached I could see that she was drinking a Tecate beer mixed with tomato juice in a frosted glass. I could also tell she had something to say to me. I didn't want to talk to her though. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to talk to anyone. I was trying my hardest not to think about anything. Not to talk about anything. I tried to walk by her and go inside but as I got close she said,
“You know... I talked to Billy's parents today?”
I stopped and slowly lifted my head to meet her intense green eyes staring at me from under her fiery red hair. She sat with her legs crossed, with one hand around her drink on the table, and the other across her lap. In a blunt tone and while slightly squinting her eyes she continued,
“They think it is your fault, and you know... it kind of is.”
Chapter 2
This is what you wanted. I just wish I wouldn't have that taken that last hit at the trailhead. I think there was an air bubble in there, or maybe even worst, some dirt. You were afraid of not being able to make it far enough in. That you would get the itch and turn back. Turn back down the trail, back down the highway, back down the street to dude-man's door.
You don't have to worry about that now do you? 17 miles in now. Only 17 miles out, but after hiking in for 3 days it has been snowing for the last 5 days, so it must have been 8 days now. When I look at the map, at the little “X” I scribbled on there 6 days ago, I think, I am at about 7,100 ft elevation. That would make sense because it is very cold. I only packed 10 days worth of food, but luckily I haven't eaten in 4 days. My gut and every other part of me has hurt to much to move let alone eat. And I am so very cold.
I think I can move today. I need to eat. I need to get out of here... I am going to try. I extend my left arm out from my sleeping bag and try to lift myself up, when it feels like a knife rips down the inside length of my forearm from my fingertips to my elbow, and I collapse back to the ground. I tenderly pull my sleeve back from my arm and take the ripped glove off of my hand. The tips of my fingers are black. I look to the crook of my elbow and there is a hole the size of a dime that resembles a little asteroid crater. Blood and puss flows out of it with black streaks extending away from the infected wound radially down my veins and arteries. I put my sleeve down and glove back on. I try my other arm. No pain. I am finally able to lift myself up to an upright position, so I will not look at that arm. My pack is still open and I reach inside and pull out a bag of jerky. It is frozen, but I gnaw into like I was chewing fibrous ice and finish off the bag.
Still hungry, I reach in to my backpack again to pull out the trail mix I know is in there, and as I pull it out a folded piece of paper falls out with it. I stare at it sitting on the tent floor, the paper getting wet from the smatter of snow that made it through the door previously. Tears well to my eyes and run down my face freezing to my cheeks. I reach over to the zipper on my tent and open it up. A blinding light blast through. It has stopped snowing. The foot or so of October snow reflects brightly against the all blue sky. I pick up the letter and unfold it revealing my chicken-scratch handwriting scrawled upon several pages:
Dear Mia,
I am sure it is a surprise receiving this letter from me. Joe gave me your address. Please don't be mad at him. I know you made it clear you never wanted to see or talk to me again and for whatever it is worth ...I am sorry. I know that probably means nothing to you. But, I do not want to talk about us or what happened and do not think I am trying to see you again. In fact, quite the opposite. If you haven't already thrown away this letter, I just want to tell you where I have been the last 7 years and I want you to know where I am at. Please, I don't know who else to send this to.
I think you know that after... everything.... I moved up to the city. I went up there because the hotel I was working at offered to transfer for a management position. It was the darnedest thing, because you know how much I was drinking before and that has only increased exponentially since. Yet, somehow, I did it! It was a great paying job and it was my life. Well, rather it competed with alcohol for the what-runs-my-life contest, and eventually there wasn't enough room for the both of them. The job lost out.
I always thought I was a good boss. I felt like got along with everyone. Well... almost everyone, and I felt like I had a lot of good friends there. But as “Zee Bozz,” I couldn't be friends with my underlings. Hell, I might have to fire them tomorrow. So, when I got fired I thought I would have lots of friends to hang out with now I wasn't their boss. That was folly. It was about then I remembered my McDonald's manager Jesus. You couldn't wack the smile off that guys face with the hard swing of a baseball bat, and his relentless, phony, positive, can-do attitude did, in fact, make you want to hit him in the face with a baseball bat. But, he thought everybody loved him, and despite being an annoying prick he did love his employees. The fact was, as my many outgoing texts to my former employees that remain answered attest to, if he had asked me me to hang out with him outside of work I would have smiled and said yes to his face, then never showed up and mock him relentlessly with my co-workers. But, he was smarter than that and would have never made himself so vulnerable.
That was six months ago. I got unemployment, but that ran out a couple weeks ago. I never tried to get another job and have fallen back into bad habits. Yeah... those bad habits. And, I know I said I wouldn't ever do it... but I started using needles. I can't make rent and I haven't made a car payment in a couple months. I decided to move out during the night. Run before the eviction notice is posted and my car is repossessed. I feel bad screwing over my roommates, and I am not looking forward to having a warrant, but, as you know, I have done it before... and here I am doing it again. This is the last time though. I can't go on like this. I decided to I have to change or die trying.
Thee days ago I packed up what little I hadn't already thrown away, left the city, and drove to the Strawberry Mountains. I parked and abandoned my car at the trailhead near John Day off highway 26. The trailhead is in a pretty remote area and I do not think my car will be found for a while. My plan is to hike from here to the nearest city south, Seneca, about 50 miles away. I figure it it will take a couple weeks, but don't worry, I have, like, over a month worth of food. And I am going to stay in these mountains, for weeks if I have to, and when I come out I will be clean. I promise.
Because the last two days have been nothing short of beautiful. After leaving the trailhead I took my time, enjoying nothing other than the sun, the sights, and the sound of nature. I walked slowly with a smile so glad that I was truly away from my problems. Yesterday, I woke up to another gorgeous day and made it to Strawberry Lake. Beautiful. But, today! Today, this morning when I woke up the sky was overcast yet dry and the clouds low yet bright white in color. A low lake fog had formed and there was just enough of a breeze to cause the fog to gently sway and swirl across the still glass surface of the water. It was hypnotic. Then, out of the low clouds came a diving bald eagle! Its wings blasting away the fog, it hit the lake at speed causing the whole lake to erupt in ripples, and scooped up a large fish with its talons. Rising up right over my head it exited the lake basin back to its cliff-side roost within the clouds.
I knew then I was going to be OK. And even though I don't feel great today and it is definitely a little colder, I am about to climb up and over the big ridge today and I am ready. I am ready for the hardest journey of my life. When I get to Seneca I will mail this letter to you and after that I plan to start hitch-hiking east. I am going to start a new life. Somewhere. Somehow. So, I hope you get this, and if you don't I won't know, so I am just going imagine in a perfect world you did get this letter and are still reading this sentence. And if you are still reading this sentence, maybe someday, someway, we will meet again. Maybe not now, maybe in another seven years, but I will wait. My true, one, and only friend.
Chapter 3
My dirt bike ran out of fuel in the middle of the scrub brush. Luckily, it had stopped right in front of a train station. It was the hottest heat of the summer, and I was miles away from anything familiar, so I though I would go in and ask for some petrol. As I walked up the splintered pine wood steps to the barely standing wooden shack of a ticket ticket office, an engraved granite sign stood above the handrail that said “NO PETROLEUM PRODUCTS AVAILABLE.” Being stranded and having no where else to go I figured I would inquire about a train ticket. As I walked up the ticket window I found it was closed, but on the outside counter lied a ticket with my name printed in seven languages. The destination had been torn off other than the word “MONUMENTS.” I took the ticket, assuming it was mine, and proceeded to the loading docks.
The train arriving at the station was a curious thing, as the locomotive and all of its cars in tow had no wheels. Yet, the train kept moving. With axles glowing red, shooting sparks in all directions, and a terrible metal on metal grinding shriek that slowly subsided as the train came to a stop inside the station. Even with the train stopped the wheel-less axles glowed lava red until a crew of men, all with bowler hats, mustaches, and suspenders, emerged from somewhere behind me, throwing buckets of water until the metal cooled and steam enveloped the air.
Above the conductor's windshield a sign with the train's destination read, “MONUMENTS THAT ARE ALWAYS THERE AND NEVER LEAVING.” This must be my train. I do not remember getting on, but I remember finding a window seat and looking out at the station before the train pulled away. I saw out the window my mom, sitting in a lawn chair with her legs crossed, a red drink in one hand, and the other had resting across her lap. Next to her was Chris. He's laughing maniacally, playing Taps with two hands, and flipping me the bird with the other. Next to him was Tommy G. Tommy was dressed in the navy blue uniform of the Union Army from the Civil War. He wore captain stripes and stood at attention. As the train pulled away the metallic squeal slowly grew into a maddening howl. The train picked up speed and the sparks once again started to fly off the where the wheels should be obscuring my view out the window. However, before my view was consumed my flying fire, through the iron sparks, I saw Tommy raise his arm to his head in a soldier's salute. As he did, his eyes watered, and tears flowed, evaporating into steam as they ran down his cheeks.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Defer it
Sublimate sex
don't get irate
turn passion to hobby,
collecting sensual stamps
playing pleasure bingo
be free to live abstinently
because relationships
trap and
smother and
We won't Be
'cause
You don't know Me
So I'll tend to my garden
and grow my sexual other
don't get irate
turn passion to hobby,
collecting sensual stamps
playing pleasure bingo
be free to live abstinently
because relationships
trap and
smother and
We won't Be
'cause
You don't know Me
So I'll tend to my garden
and grow my sexual other
A Great Generation
He had been hacked and forgotten about like the tumble weeds scraping by he was nothing of importance in the snake eyes of these shadowy strangers that loiter around. He had nothing to offer these selfish serpents that make the town so sick. A hospital ward of kinds, surrounded by people yet left alone to your own struggles.
In the middle of the dusty street that ran through the desert boomtown sat a harpsichord. Its existence was inexplicable not only in this strange stetting but by its obsolescence in modern music. None of the drifters of the town paid much attention to the instrument as it slowly decayed and fell apart. He liked to play it though. He enjoyed sitting in the middle of town as all the people watched suspiciously. Some made scared small talk but only one other person played the harpsichord as well—the Tavern Keeper. She sauntered across the street in the bright light of the mid-day sun. The years serving brutes at the tavern had been hard on her as she had grown older. He loved her as everyone in the town did. She constantly served the sinners and the liars and gave it to them with a smile; always giving. She looked beautiful as she walked over to him.
"Why sit here all alone and play this sad instrument?"
"I like it" he said with a smile "and besides you play too. Why do you stick around such a depressing instrument?"
"Well, just because it's sad doesn't mean it doesn't need friends. Are you sad?" She asked
"No. Not really."
"Because you know its true misery loves company. I come and play when I feel sad. Harpsichord and I share our sadness. That's why I ask. And your face looks so pale! Why don't you come inside for some warm strudel?"
"Thank you but I am fine."
"You should stop playing." She told him.
"Well then I would like to hear you play. You are so good."
"That is because I have had much practice." He stood up to allow her to sit when both their ears were caught by the sound of a motorcycle rolling towards town. The folks on the street heard it too. The town stopped, turned, and stared at the new arrival. Atop sat a dashing young man in a leather flyboy jacket and knee-high aviator boots, dark sunglasses, and smooth hair. The Tavern Keepers eyes lit up and running toward the man she screamed "My love!" The two embraced and you could see they were happy. Together they walked towards the tavern as the numerous town folk on the street closed in around them and stalked them into the building.
He followed inside the familiar tavern. On the walls hung numerous knick-knacks, letters, and pictures mostly of a young couple. With them in the photos were a growing family,friends, and favorite patrons as each item was a monument in the Tavern Keeper's life. The young motorcyclist was nowhere to be seen inside; just the local's familiar shifting glances that are best avoided. Except there sat an old man wearing suspenders with wiry grey hair and reading glasses smiling benevolently at the Tavern Keeper as she worked. She often looked over at him to return his smile. Not only she looked at him but the crowd that had followed the biker in stared at the old man unflinching steadily sipping their drinks.
He decided to sit with this old man and see what he was about. "Mind if I take this seat?" he asked the old man.
"If you really want to you can." He did sit and soon heard someone spitting and felt his back get wet. He turned around and saw a figure staring despicably at him. He ignored it and return to the old man. "I have never seen you around here before."
"I have always been here."
"Really? Why have I not seen you?"
"Sometimes it best not to be seen." As the old man's gaze uneasily swept the encroaching crowd.
"Why are you here now?"
"I have always been here. I guess you were too busy to notice me. And why I am here now is for my love." Raising his hand towardsthe Tavern Keeper who was walking towards him brimming with a smile, but she was stopped short by a make-up caked woman demanding vodka, and soon a crowd gathered around the bar demanding alcohol. She looked uneasily at the old man as she rushed to finish serving the ceaseless hoard of rude patrons.
"So, you know the Tavern Keeper? She is a good friend of mine I think she would have said something about you."
"A good friend?" the old man inquired "how do you know my wife?"
"Your wife...? Well, often we both play tha tharpsichord that is sitting out in the street."
"Oh, so you're that boy."
"She has mentioned me?"
"Yes, you've taken up playing the harpsichord as your little hobby. It's your little thing that makes you special. Just got to be different, everybody has got to be different, which makes you all the same."
"Are you saying I'm just like all these people?"Just then a grizzled man shouted from the adjoining table "Hey! I play the banjo asshole! What makes you so fucking special?" The grizzled man sat back in his chair as his compatriots sneered and nodded approvingly. The tension settled and he turned back to the old man who answered him,
"I think you're exactly like these people. Your selfish and self absorbed and don't have any idea what you are doing."
"Oh yeah and you gather all this because I play the harpsichord? Where the hell do you get off saying that old man? You don't have any hobbies?"
"Actually I do" The old man reached into a bag and pulled out a series of models. All handcrafted and painted painstakingly to perfection. "This here is the U.S.S Missouri. The battleship I served on in the war." A terrible hiss started to rise from the surrounding tables. The people were staring with furrowed brows, gaping mouths, all hissing at them. Over the heads of the mob he caught the eyes of the Tavern Keeper stricken with worry and panic.
On the deck of the battleship were little men with numbers on them. The old man explained, "Each number corresponds with a name onthis list" which he held in his had "they where my friends, my comrades, my brothers. We were a great generation and I will never forget them." The crowd's hisses escalated to a roar of shouting and insults. The dregs stood from their seats and began to circle the old man's table.
"Stop it! Stop it! What is wrong with all of you! What more do you need!" The Tavern Keeper screamed and ran of the tavern into the street and sat at the old harpsichord weeping.
"After the war we all worked together and we built great things. We built this nation. We built a better tomorrow. If we hadn'thave done it who would have? Like this..." pointing to a vastly complicated model of an oil refinery. Like the battleship numbers were found all over it, but instead of corresponding names was a list of towns and businesses where all the parts of thel refinery came from and who built them. This seemed to anger the crowd even more than the battleship and the taunts grew louder and they began to spit on him. "I just do know what happened to people. I don't know any of them. I almost feel responsible for this sorry generation, having brought it a world it doesn't deserve. Everybody is so selfish they let the world rot around them." The surrounding mob flew into a rage. A beer bottle was thrown and cracked upon the old mans head. Blood streamed down his face. He looked stunned then sullen and sighed remorsefully, "We all did whatwe though was right..." A brute of a man then stormed up and grabbed him by the neck and dragged him into the mob.
Then a frenzied shriek tore through the room, "The Tavern Keeper is dead! Dead on her dead husband's old harpsichord! She's dead!"The people in the tavern quickly ran out the door or just checked the windows to confirm this report then began to tear everything off the walls and steal the liquor. Walking out the doors of the tavern he stood on the porch and looked at the harpsichord with the Tavern Keeper's body strewn over it as a group of thieves stripped off her jewelry and clothing. Coming out the tavern the young motorcyclist stepped beside him and lit a cigarette. He asked the motorcyclist,
"Why did you come here?"
"Had to go somewhere. No place better. No place worse. Looking for a different time I guess"
"Are you staying?"
"No. Not this time. I'm just gonna keep on going."
"Why are you always moving? Why not stay somewhere if it's all the same." Looking over at the Tavern Keeper's body as they tore her apart limb by limb he replied,
"If I have to be alone, I'd rather be all alone."Walking to the motorcycle he saw what was left of the old man being thrown atop the harpsichord now set aflame for a pyre. Kick-starting engine on with a roar he departed on a desert road and was never seen again.
In the middle of the dusty street that ran through the desert boomtown sat a harpsichord. Its existence was inexplicable not only in this strange stetting but by its obsolescence in modern music. None of the drifters of the town paid much attention to the instrument as it slowly decayed and fell apart. He liked to play it though. He enjoyed sitting in the middle of town as all the people watched suspiciously. Some made scared small talk but only one other person played the harpsichord as well—the Tavern Keeper. She sauntered across the street in the bright light of the mid-day sun. The years serving brutes at the tavern had been hard on her as she had grown older. He loved her as everyone in the town did. She constantly served the sinners and the liars and gave it to them with a smile; always giving. She looked beautiful as she walked over to him.
"Why sit here all alone and play this sad instrument?"
"I like it" he said with a smile "and besides you play too. Why do you stick around such a depressing instrument?"
"Well, just because it's sad doesn't mean it doesn't need friends. Are you sad?" She asked
"No. Not really."
"Because you know its true misery loves company. I come and play when I feel sad. Harpsichord and I share our sadness. That's why I ask. And your face looks so pale! Why don't you come inside for some warm strudel?"
"Thank you but I am fine."
"You should stop playing." She told him.
"Well then I would like to hear you play. You are so good."
"That is because I have had much practice." He stood up to allow her to sit when both their ears were caught by the sound of a motorcycle rolling towards town. The folks on the street heard it too. The town stopped, turned, and stared at the new arrival. Atop sat a dashing young man in a leather flyboy jacket and knee-high aviator boots, dark sunglasses, and smooth hair. The Tavern Keepers eyes lit up and running toward the man she screamed "My love!" The two embraced and you could see they were happy. Together they walked towards the tavern as the numerous town folk on the street closed in around them and stalked them into the building.
He followed inside the familiar tavern. On the walls hung numerous knick-knacks, letters, and pictures mostly of a young couple. With them in the photos were a growing family,friends, and favorite patrons as each item was a monument in the Tavern Keeper's life. The young motorcyclist was nowhere to be seen inside; just the local's familiar shifting glances that are best avoided. Except there sat an old man wearing suspenders with wiry grey hair and reading glasses smiling benevolently at the Tavern Keeper as she worked. She often looked over at him to return his smile. Not only she looked at him but the crowd that had followed the biker in stared at the old man unflinching steadily sipping their drinks.
He decided to sit with this old man and see what he was about. "Mind if I take this seat?" he asked the old man.
"If you really want to you can." He did sit and soon heard someone spitting and felt his back get wet. He turned around and saw a figure staring despicably at him. He ignored it and return to the old man. "I have never seen you around here before."
"I have always been here."
"Really? Why have I not seen you?"
"Sometimes it best not to be seen." As the old man's gaze uneasily swept the encroaching crowd.
"Why are you here now?"
"I have always been here. I guess you were too busy to notice me. And why I am here now is for my love." Raising his hand towardsthe Tavern Keeper who was walking towards him brimming with a smile, but she was stopped short by a make-up caked woman demanding vodka, and soon a crowd gathered around the bar demanding alcohol. She looked uneasily at the old man as she rushed to finish serving the ceaseless hoard of rude patrons.
"So, you know the Tavern Keeper? She is a good friend of mine I think she would have said something about you."
"A good friend?" the old man inquired "how do you know my wife?"
"Your wife...? Well, often we both play tha tharpsichord that is sitting out in the street."
"Oh, so you're that boy."
"She has mentioned me?"
"Yes, you've taken up playing the harpsichord as your little hobby. It's your little thing that makes you special. Just got to be different, everybody has got to be different, which makes you all the same."
"Are you saying I'm just like all these people?"Just then a grizzled man shouted from the adjoining table "Hey! I play the banjo asshole! What makes you so fucking special?" The grizzled man sat back in his chair as his compatriots sneered and nodded approvingly. The tension settled and he turned back to the old man who answered him,
"I think you're exactly like these people. Your selfish and self absorbed and don't have any idea what you are doing."
"Oh yeah and you gather all this because I play the harpsichord? Where the hell do you get off saying that old man? You don't have any hobbies?"
"Actually I do" The old man reached into a bag and pulled out a series of models. All handcrafted and painted painstakingly to perfection. "This here is the U.S.S Missouri. The battleship I served on in the war." A terrible hiss started to rise from the surrounding tables. The people were staring with furrowed brows, gaping mouths, all hissing at them. Over the heads of the mob he caught the eyes of the Tavern Keeper stricken with worry and panic.
On the deck of the battleship were little men with numbers on them. The old man explained, "Each number corresponds with a name onthis list" which he held in his had "they where my friends, my comrades, my brothers. We were a great generation and I will never forget them." The crowd's hisses escalated to a roar of shouting and insults. The dregs stood from their seats and began to circle the old man's table.
"Stop it! Stop it! What is wrong with all of you! What more do you need!" The Tavern Keeper screamed and ran of the tavern into the street and sat at the old harpsichord weeping.
"After the war we all worked together and we built great things. We built this nation. We built a better tomorrow. If we hadn'thave done it who would have? Like this..." pointing to a vastly complicated model of an oil refinery. Like the battleship numbers were found all over it, but instead of corresponding names was a list of towns and businesses where all the parts of thel refinery came from and who built them. This seemed to anger the crowd even more than the battleship and the taunts grew louder and they began to spit on him. "I just do know what happened to people. I don't know any of them. I almost feel responsible for this sorry generation, having brought it a world it doesn't deserve. Everybody is so selfish they let the world rot around them." The surrounding mob flew into a rage. A beer bottle was thrown and cracked upon the old mans head. Blood streamed down his face. He looked stunned then sullen and sighed remorsefully, "We all did whatwe though was right..." A brute of a man then stormed up and grabbed him by the neck and dragged him into the mob.
Then a frenzied shriek tore through the room, "The Tavern Keeper is dead! Dead on her dead husband's old harpsichord! She's dead!"The people in the tavern quickly ran out the door or just checked the windows to confirm this report then began to tear everything off the walls and steal the liquor. Walking out the doors of the tavern he stood on the porch and looked at the harpsichord with the Tavern Keeper's body strewn over it as a group of thieves stripped off her jewelry and clothing. Coming out the tavern the young motorcyclist stepped beside him and lit a cigarette. He asked the motorcyclist,
"Why did you come here?"
"Had to go somewhere. No place better. No place worse. Looking for a different time I guess"
"Are you staying?"
"No. Not this time. I'm just gonna keep on going."
"Why are you always moving? Why not stay somewhere if it's all the same." Looking over at the Tavern Keeper's body as they tore her apart limb by limb he replied,
"If I have to be alone, I'd rather be all alone."Walking to the motorcycle he saw what was left of the old man being thrown atop the harpsichord now set aflame for a pyre. Kick-starting engine on with a roar he departed on a desert road and was never seen again.
Poem Trois
Growing old is a lonely thing
Long gone song Smells like Teen Bing Crosby Spirit
A denial
or a Creedence Clearwater Revival?
‘Cause I’m Stuck in Lodi
Again
Party, Escape, lust and hommies
Again
Netflix, beer, $ and casual acquaintances
Again
Is a life not so close to mine
A denial that means to an end?
And in the lost spaces
And when we, you and me,
Are gone
Croon a Cobain Christmas for me
Even if irrelevant
Even if it’s a denial
Just don’t be gone too long
‘Cause growing old is a lonely thing
Long gone song Smells like Teen Bing Crosby Spirit
A denial
or a Creedence Clearwater Revival?
‘Cause I’m Stuck in Lodi
Again
Party, Escape, lust and hommies
Again
Netflix, beer, $ and casual acquaintances
Again
Is a life not so close to mine
A denial that means to an end?
And in the lost spaces
And when we, you and me,
Are gone
Croon a Cobain Christmas for me
Even if irrelevant
Even if it’s a denial
Just don’t be gone too long
‘Cause growing old is a lonely thing
Down the Kern
When you get arrested in town and nobody posts bail you go to the Kern County Jail in Bakersfield. It’s a one and a half our drive out of the High Desert up to the Sierra Nevada mountains and into the Kern River Valley. In this mountain valley sits Lake Isabella which releases the lower half of the Kern River Down a dangerous and narrow canyon into Bakersfield where the river is used to water the Central Valley crops.
The road to the county jail runs down this steep canyon and, besides being a long and unnecessary trip, is an exceeding dangerous one as the single lane road twists and turns edging beside the powerful river. The river at this time is at full swell. A raging torrent that crashes down ten thousand feet in a few hundred miles. Nothing can stop the flow to the valley bottom, not even the withering dams of Isabella can hold it back.I’m going to the jail again to pick up a friend I know. My car pulls up at release time, the gates open, the car door shuts and we head back home to the desert.
“How are you?” I ask.
“Oh, just visiting my room again.”
“You're getting to know it pretty well?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Why do you keep going back there?”
“Where else am I going to go?”
“Stay at home. Its gotta be better than being there.”
“Well you have never been there.”
“Well you got to do something. You can just keep going back there.”
“All I ever wanted to do is create. Make my mark on the world. You know, remember your grandpa?”
I do remember the last time I saw him in the hospital. Not the house in the desert. Not in his home where he lived for fifty years surrounded in the by the art of his life. He was surrounded by whitewalls, nurses, tubes and death and dying.
The house sat out in the desert plains. A place so scorched anything could find death if it choose to lie outside exposed in the empty span. As we drove past the scrub brush and rocks he sat next to me in his hospital gown with the oxygen tube under his nose and I asked my grandpa,
“How did you live such a long happy life?”
“Well, I just lived and as life goes on you build up a life and the things and places in that life make you happy. But, as I sit here in this hospital room with my house gone, family missing, my wife dead, and with all those things in my life absent in this hospital ward, I guess I regret never having something all my own to have when everything else is gone. I wish I had painted guitars.”
“Really? Paint guitars?”
“Yes, I always played them and I always thought to create one that looks as special as it sounds. Make it true. Make it everything you thought it could be.”
“Well grandpa I play guitar too, maybe I’ll have to paint one for you.”
“That would be great. Do you still know that painter? I think we are passing his house now.”
Rising out of the desert into the Sierras the view is spectacular. You can see for miles behind you going up the grade and just imagine all the things that were there. His house sat on the side of the road near the top. I remember spending days there getting high and playing video games. But, I really remember where I met him at work, in that dingy burger joint, hour after hour, working our sweat into those machines while getting minimum wage. The stainless steel, the fryer, the steam table, the makers of my livelihood and the reason for our association. We would small talk over the grill. He was older than me and painted guitars in his spare time. It was his passion and you would have never known it from looking at him in that burger shack. The car revs up as we leave the desert climbing over the peak into the valley.
“So how’s the guitar art going?” I asked him.
“Oh, I sold one a couple days ago to this high school kid. He though it was pretty rad. But, mostly just working at the big burger.”
“You still working there? You must be running that place.”
“Yeah, I am manager.”
“Well good for you man.”
“I guess.” He shrugged.
“What it doesn’t pay well enough?’
“No, its good pay. Its just I have been there for years. I paint all these exotic places and things and try to be all creative and shit. But, I realize that that shack is more me than anything, well, than anything else. Might as well paint fries on my Strat.”
“Your art is great man! You are doing great.”
“But it’s not me. I wish I had taken the time to develop myself and learn about my place in the world. You know, like how you did when you went to school.”
Going into the valley it is green. It is not usually green, usually the hills are a tan brown covered in dead grass with crags of granite jutting out intermittently. It is green now because Isabella is full. It’s a reservoir and the snow melt from the Kern has filled up behind the dams and pours over the spillways. The result is an artificial green in this mountain valley that will dissipate after flood stage has passed. Looking at the uncommon green hills feels like looking at someone else that you thought you knew.
Like when I would sit there in class looking up at the professor. Usually they were old, some were foreign, and none looked like me. They all fit well with the desks, fluorescence, and the whiteboards and looking at them you would think the students were one and everything else was the other. I never really saw the other students and I never really saw the teacher. What I did see was a different myself. Looking at myself on that podium I was studying myself to learn what I should be.
Sitting in the passenger seat looking out as road left the valley and entered the river gorge I asked myself, “How did those guitar and painting classes work out for you?” As I drove the question made me uncomfortable.
“I’m still painting guitars. Sometimes.” I said to myself.
“Still selling them to high school kids?”
“I sold one to a plumber the other day.”
“Wow, good for you. Is that your full time job then?”
“No I still work at the burger shack. I’m a manager.”
“Well I guess no demand for masterpiece instrumentation eh?”
“Someday they will be my livelihood.”
“No they won’t. Nobody needs a guitar with the fucking Mona Lisa on it. You play a guitar idiot. You just wanted to be special. You wanted people to look at you and say ‘that boy sure is something.’ But, they won’t remember your painted guitars; they won’t care about what you created. So resign your self to the things, people and places that make the art of your life. Or, I guess you can hold your guitar tight when you are alone on your death bed.”
A good teacher will tell you things you don’t want to hear. It’s at this moment facing such a stark reality that the classroom clears, the lights dim and only the sunlight shines in through blinds. I sit alone at my desk. And in a room full of people I see only one person sitting across the classroom. I see you.
The river pounds, it roars, it crushes anything in its path. The crags are coated in whitewater, the banks are loose and eroding quickly, and many uprooted things ride the torrent. The river is so full and powerful it hugs dangerously close to the canyon road and flows all the way down to the central valley’s bottom; right past the county jail.
“So why did you come get out again?” You ask.
“Because you needed me to” I said
“I don’t need you.”
“I just don’t want to see you going back there again and again.”
“Well you have never been there so what do you know?”
“I know one day you will never come back.”
“Well I always got you to come and get me.”
“I don’t know why I do.”
“Because you love me. Because you need me.”
“I don’t need you.”
“Then why did you come to Bakersfield? Why didn’t you just stay in your room?”
“Before I left my house today I was in my room. I looked at my brushes, my paint, my guitars and I saw nothing. The vanilla lotion, the fruity candles, the soft blue sheets and everything else smelled of you. I had been through so many rooms with so many people and never did I feel as alone as I did in my room today.”
Bakersfield Californian- Current Issue-Pg.8-Police Log:
939am: A single driver lost control of his vehicle on Hwy 178 south of Isabella and drove into the Kern River. The river was at such a high flow the vehicle was carried all the way down the canyon into downtown Bakersfield.
Last Retreat
Much like a stuffed deer
you hang
on the wall
Still climbing that limb we shook all night long
we were young free frolicking fucking in that forest
I never wanted to leave
So the axe cut and the hammer pounded
and made our forest home
The Sap still bleeds from the timber
and you stick your hand on it
then your calf
then your waist
and your face
until
you hang
I try to knock you down with a broomstick but you cry,
you cry doves that now nest on the ground
and if I could build a forest for you
I would
you hang
on the wall
Still climbing that limb we shook all night long
we were young free frolicking fucking in that forest
I never wanted to leave
So the axe cut and the hammer pounded
and made our forest home
The Sap still bleeds from the timber
and you stick your hand on it
then your calf
then your waist
and your face
until
you hang
I try to knock you down with a broomstick but you cry,
you cry doves that now nest on the ground
and if I could build a forest for you
I would
The Plunge
One of my forward right legs has been acting up for quite a while now. I fear it has something to do with the hydraulic cylinders, they have been bad before and I have been warned that they might be in need of fixing, but as long as my rig was moving fine I really paid no heed to this advice. Now I wish I had, I’m becoming a little scared. As I look down at the glowing red hot lava that boils and churns so far below me I am grateful for this great machine that keeps me high above it, so high the ocean of fire that surly exudes a blistering bellow of heat reaches me as an obscure breeze that always whiffs through my hair. With the innumerable spindly legs, that like a spider holds my platform above, my home above, the machine waddles its way through the vast seas of savage flame one prick at a time. For the machine is always moving, changing position, it must, for even though the sophistication of our technology is unparalleled, the strongest alloys cannot stand for long inside such heat, so therefore the machine must elegantly dance across the heated plains by keeping each leg inside the liquid for only a short span before removing it, cooling it, and moving elsewhere. Upon these complicated creations of our own design we each move on our own path through the landscape that varies only in its perception of cruelty, for each person their own craft carries them, always separated it would seem if not for our communication devices that connects us to one and all. These personal platforms also operate every device needed to support the life of a single human; just as the countless legs all converge to keep this single human afloat the many systems work together to keep one alive at such heights. I can’t understand what we would do, or what we used to do if there ever was a time, without this elaborate network of support that sustains my person.
Yes indeed the leg is not working properly, its acting very sluggish, oh—wait. Oh no. It has stopped! What disaster! What will I do? To my radio I go “help me! Can any one help me! Can anyone hear me? Hello!” “Yes we hear you” a voice responds, “we have many others to help, you will have to wait.” Wait I will for what else can I do? I am incapable of any action myself; I was never trained in mechanical hydraulic science. So I will wait for mercy with only hope by my side. Ahhh! What was that great jolt? Oh no, Oh no! The leg has broken! My rig is swaying! Oh the other legs are compensating but it causes them to bend in ways I have never seen them move before, and they are staying down longer in the fire. Oh how much they depended on that one leg, I hope they can do their duties without it. Look at that one—I have never seen a leg in that shape before. Ahhhhhh! I must grab hold on to some thing my machine tilts and I am slipping; the other leg must have broke! The wind grows stronger, why, the wind would get stronger only if I where going down. I am going down! Deathly fear strikes me, it initiates instinct, a frantic survival instinct that lies buried in the core of my human nature having never been called forth until these moments preceding a my inescapable death. I flee to the phone, “SAVE ME! SOMEBODY!” a voice speaks back, “how can we save you?” Then the greatest noise ever to reach my ears is sounded, my machine of life topples, and I am flung headlong into cremation.
Upon entering the sea the cool sensation that met me was to my dismay. I gently drifted down through ocean and open my eyes to undersurface of the liquid. Looking up through the green tranquility I could see other machines picking there way above with their metal legs piercing the surface, striking down through the liquid with great disturbance as if they were spears harming the pervading tranquility with there strikes. Looking up at the black shadows cast by the machines that fell ominously through the green water I have never seen a more sinister sight in my life. As I looked around elsewhere I saw life everywhere! I could not believe all the creatures that grew among the banks and cliffs of the underwater seascape and flew through the water with majestic ease. I then noticed first the phone I still held in my hand from the plunge was dissolving away, along with my ring, and all other metals that I had adorned on my person until I was bare, leaving my flesh unscathed. I could feel my decent slow as a current seized me and gently bore me off in its flow. I tried to direct myself but I couldn’t, I just tumbled about at the whim of the currents, never have I had to use such skill, never had I thought I would need to. Then as I drifted I could see a thing coming towards me, I soon recognized it to be a man, a man who could swim. As he approached the first thing I noticed was the savageness about him, a wild look that could only be refined by the chaos of nature, it startled me and I began to flounder in the water in efforts to propel myself away. Then he seized me, with nothing but tenderness though, and held me in front of his face so our eyes met each other. I looked into his eyes I saw sadness, they mourned for something, as the grief they expressed seem not to well up from inside but pour out unto that which they gazed. Holding both my shoulders he removed one hand traversed between them, then placed two fingers on my forehead, moving them down slowly with a light touch until he came to the center of my chest, at which he laid out his palm outspread upon and with a solemn nod gave me a gentle thrust into the abyss. Ever since I have been drifting.
Yes indeed the leg is not working properly, its acting very sluggish, oh—wait. Oh no. It has stopped! What disaster! What will I do? To my radio I go “help me! Can any one help me! Can anyone hear me? Hello!” “Yes we hear you” a voice responds, “we have many others to help, you will have to wait.” Wait I will for what else can I do? I am incapable of any action myself; I was never trained in mechanical hydraulic science. So I will wait for mercy with only hope by my side. Ahhh! What was that great jolt? Oh no, Oh no! The leg has broken! My rig is swaying! Oh the other legs are compensating but it causes them to bend in ways I have never seen them move before, and they are staying down longer in the fire. Oh how much they depended on that one leg, I hope they can do their duties without it. Look at that one—I have never seen a leg in that shape before. Ahhhhhh! I must grab hold on to some thing my machine tilts and I am slipping; the other leg must have broke! The wind grows stronger, why, the wind would get stronger only if I where going down. I am going down! Deathly fear strikes me, it initiates instinct, a frantic survival instinct that lies buried in the core of my human nature having never been called forth until these moments preceding a my inescapable death. I flee to the phone, “SAVE ME! SOMEBODY!” a voice speaks back, “how can we save you?” Then the greatest noise ever to reach my ears is sounded, my machine of life topples, and I am flung headlong into cremation.
Upon entering the sea the cool sensation that met me was to my dismay. I gently drifted down through ocean and open my eyes to undersurface of the liquid. Looking up through the green tranquility I could see other machines picking there way above with their metal legs piercing the surface, striking down through the liquid with great disturbance as if they were spears harming the pervading tranquility with there strikes. Looking up at the black shadows cast by the machines that fell ominously through the green water I have never seen a more sinister sight in my life. As I looked around elsewhere I saw life everywhere! I could not believe all the creatures that grew among the banks and cliffs of the underwater seascape and flew through the water with majestic ease. I then noticed first the phone I still held in my hand from the plunge was dissolving away, along with my ring, and all other metals that I had adorned on my person until I was bare, leaving my flesh unscathed. I could feel my decent slow as a current seized me and gently bore me off in its flow. I tried to direct myself but I couldn’t, I just tumbled about at the whim of the currents, never have I had to use such skill, never had I thought I would need to. Then as I drifted I could see a thing coming towards me, I soon recognized it to be a man, a man who could swim. As he approached the first thing I noticed was the savageness about him, a wild look that could only be refined by the chaos of nature, it startled me and I began to flounder in the water in efforts to propel myself away. Then he seized me, with nothing but tenderness though, and held me in front of his face so our eyes met each other. I looked into his eyes I saw sadness, they mourned for something, as the grief they expressed seem not to well up from inside but pour out unto that which they gazed. Holding both my shoulders he removed one hand traversed between them, then placed two fingers on my forehead, moving them down slowly with a light touch until he came to the center of my chest, at which he laid out his palm outspread upon and with a solemn nod gave me a gentle thrust into the abyss. Ever since I have been drifting.
Idle Local
Brick wall mortared
smooth built across
a path lined
on either side
with thorn thickets
sun dried to
brittle sharp spears
Casual Hiker sits,
shorts thorn slit
and with sneakers
that upon bricks
slip, there stopped
by a wall
Idle hands draw
fingers through the
dirt etching in
an X without
an O which
alone is unable
to play Tic-tac-toe
Trails bringing travelers,
whose khaki manicures
disagree with such
a harsh obstruction,
join in games
and carelessly play
waiting for the
mortar to crumble
and the wall
to fall away
smooth built across
a path lined
on either side
with thorn thickets
sun dried to
brittle sharp spears
Casual Hiker sits,
shorts thorn slit
and with sneakers
that upon bricks
slip, there stopped
by a wall
Idle hands draw
fingers through the
dirt etching in
an X without
an O which
alone is unable
to play Tic-tac-toe
Trails bringing travelers,
whose khaki manicures
disagree with such
a harsh obstruction,
join in games
and carelessly play
waiting for the
mortar to crumble
and the wall
to fall away
Disjointed Happenings
Calvin came home this morning disturbed. Things have been missing for quite a while now he was sure of it. Now it was the clock. He didn’t know when it was taken but now does not know when to sleep. He has been wandering for days it seems in search of his right hand which had gone missing before the clock. It was useful to him, he could drive his stick shift speedster like a racer, but without a right hand he sold his shifting sports car to buy one with automatic transmission.
The remote in hand.
…and tonight in south central a man with*//zz//*the flavor of nutmeg goes with just about*//zz//*you Ricardo! I’m leaving you*//zz//*with 30ft left on the green he strokes and
misses*//zz//*the amazing power of Zam! its just unbelievable! and if it doesn’t work for you we’ll give you your*//zz//*forecast for this week is looking sun—*//zz//*god, gives us hope, pray for us lord, give us*//zz//*a new power-stroke V8 that combines power and*//zz//*the 1930’s for $1000…on Jackal Island in 1913 this group of*//zz//*crocodiles! Look at the size of them! They could tear a man to pieces…
Opening the refrigerator door unleashes a light that cuts through the dim glow darkness emitted by the television. It also reflects off the water pooled on his floor. When did the sink go missing? He had just washed his hands. However the hose coming through the kitchen window must be there as a result of the sinks absence. Inside the fridge a limited selection:
bologna
whipped cream
cheese—American variety
carbonated beverages
lettuce gone rotten
milk
condiments
funjions
He would need to go shopping.
…paper or plastic bags*//zz//*the number one or the number*//zz//*five fifty five is your total*//zz//*large or small*//zz//*available in 4 varieties that*//zz//*WALK/DONTWALK *//zz//*to our valued customers*//zz//*and customization is included*//zz//*for here or to go*//zz//* and on sale for a limited time only*//zz//*your total comes to*//zz//*new diet cola option*//zz//*that will be plus tax*//zz//*gratuity included…
Calvin is walking home with his purchases in his arms. Through the park he decides to stop and rest on a bench. The park is slow, he likes that, he likes slow. He remembers when the leaves where green and yellow, golden, and brazen orange lying now a flaky brown. Some ruffians appear on the path passing the bench. Calvin notices they are missing their ears. He is startled, stands awkwardly and walks away. A group of transients without ears? What are they up to? His turtle wax is missing! They must have taken it! He runs back in the other direction to catch the earless thieves and comes to a street. His turtle wax is nowhere to be seen, he turns to ask a man talking on the phone if he had seen the bums—but he has no ears either! Why would you have a phone if you had no ears? Things don’t make sense, Calvin wants things fixed, to be put together, he needs help.
The doctor looms in the door. An old gray white man with a court room smile and a congressional handshake greets Calvin. The doctor reminds him of his high school government teacher, or maybe it was his manager at the burger shack he worked at.
“I’m falling apart doc”
…your getting old*//zz//*have these, it will help*//zz//*we’ll take care of you*//zz//*come back in a week*//zz//*feeling better? no? *//zz//*we’ll run some test*//zz//*we’ll start the regiment tomorrow*//zz//*any side effects?*//zz//*here these will help you*//zz//*no progress*//zz//*x-rays revealed a*//zz//*we’ll have to remove it from you*//zz//*it shouldn’t hurt and you wont need it*//zz//*still broken you say?*//zz//*we have done all we can for you*//zz//*must be psychological*//zz//*maybe you should take a trip, get out of here*//zz//*anyplace you want to go?*//zz//*how about Washington*//zz//*you can see all the monuments…
He sits on a train eastbound to the capital. The wheels are missing but it seems to keep moving and doesn’t concern him. He’s going to see monuments in Washington. Arrival is anticipated, he wants the ride to stop. It keeps going and going and going and he wonders if it will ever come to an
The remote in hand.
…and tonight in south central a man with*//zz//*the flavor of nutmeg goes with just about*//zz//*you Ricardo! I’m leaving you*//zz//*with 30ft left on the green he strokes and
misses*//zz//*the amazing power of Zam! its just unbelievable! and if it doesn’t work for you we’ll give you your*//zz//*forecast for this week is looking sun—*//zz//*god, gives us hope, pray for us lord, give us*//zz//*a new power-stroke V8 that combines power and*//zz//*the 1930’s for $1000…on Jackal Island in 1913 this group of*//zz//*crocodiles! Look at the size of them! They could tear a man to pieces…
Opening the refrigerator door unleashes a light that cuts through the dim glow darkness emitted by the television. It also reflects off the water pooled on his floor. When did the sink go missing? He had just washed his hands. However the hose coming through the kitchen window must be there as a result of the sinks absence. Inside the fridge a limited selection:
bologna
whipped cream
cheese—American variety
carbonated beverages
lettuce gone rotten
milk
condiments
funjions
He would need to go shopping.
…paper or plastic bags*//zz//*the number one or the number*//zz//*five fifty five is your total*//zz//*large or small*//zz//*available in 4 varieties that*//zz//*WALK/DONTWALK *//zz//*to our valued customers*//zz//*and customization is included*//zz//*for here or to go*//zz//* and on sale for a limited time only*//zz//*your total comes to*//zz//*new diet cola option*//zz//*that will be plus tax*//zz//*gratuity included…
Calvin is walking home with his purchases in his arms. Through the park he decides to stop and rest on a bench. The park is slow, he likes that, he likes slow. He remembers when the leaves where green and yellow, golden, and brazen orange lying now a flaky brown. Some ruffians appear on the path passing the bench. Calvin notices they are missing their ears. He is startled, stands awkwardly and walks away. A group of transients without ears? What are they up to? His turtle wax is missing! They must have taken it! He runs back in the other direction to catch the earless thieves and comes to a street. His turtle wax is nowhere to be seen, he turns to ask a man talking on the phone if he had seen the bums—but he has no ears either! Why would you have a phone if you had no ears? Things don’t make sense, Calvin wants things fixed, to be put together, he needs help.
The doctor looms in the door. An old gray white man with a court room smile and a congressional handshake greets Calvin. The doctor reminds him of his high school government teacher, or maybe it was his manager at the burger shack he worked at.
“I’m falling apart doc”
…your getting old*//zz//*have these, it will help*//zz//*we’ll take care of you*//zz//*come back in a week*//zz//*feeling better? no? *//zz//*we’ll run some test*//zz//*we’ll start the regiment tomorrow*//zz//*any side effects?*//zz//*here these will help you*//zz//*no progress*//zz//*x-rays revealed a*//zz//*we’ll have to remove it from you*//zz//*it shouldn’t hurt and you wont need it*//zz//*still broken you say?*//zz//*we have done all we can for you*//zz//*must be psychological*//zz//*maybe you should take a trip, get out of here*//zz//*anyplace you want to go?*//zz//*how about Washington*//zz//*you can see all the monuments…
He sits on a train eastbound to the capital. The wheels are missing but it seems to keep moving and doesn’t concern him. He’s going to see monuments in Washington. Arrival is anticipated, he wants the ride to stop. It keeps going and going and going and he wonders if it will ever come to an
Holbach Hopscotch
Hallow man where can you be?
I’m the tree in the forest, lightning has stricken me.
You are so empty how can that be?
Great energies have coalesced and chosen this tree.
Why you while the rest stay green?
I was perhaps standing where I shouldn’t have been.
If rooted in spot how can one choose?
If I had never been created beauty I would never loose.
So better a stump of black and grey?
I have always been here I could not walk away.
But aren’t you a man, could you not leave?
To have choice where one stands? You’ve been deceived.
---The words of a lie an owl once told me.
I’m the tree in the forest, lightning has stricken me.
You are so empty how can that be?
Great energies have coalesced and chosen this tree.
Why you while the rest stay green?
I was perhaps standing where I shouldn’t have been.
If rooted in spot how can one choose?
If I had never been created beauty I would never loose.
So better a stump of black and grey?
I have always been here I could not walk away.
But aren’t you a man, could you not leave?
To have choice where one stands? You’ve been deceived.
---The words of a lie an owl once told me.
The Freak-out
Today was the freak-out. I ate my head and asked for seconds, it was so delicious how the flavor of intellect lingered on my tongue. My friend found a parade on his kitchen floor, there were balloons a thousand feet tall and a marching band from Michigan playing a Yankee Doodle dandy. There were the Shriners in there little cars, a fire-truck with spotted Dalmatian and all, with a beauty queen bringing up the rear, they all died in a flood when my friend spilt his beer. All and all I think everyone got a little something from the freak-out though I don’t know how much they liked it, but I had a blast. I tell you, I hope they do it again.
I woke up on Saturday with a stark raving lunatic at my door, it was Burt—that nutcase, neighbor for two plus years, a record for my block. Oh yeah, forgot to mention I am A. Fig Newton, the “A” stands for Alabaster and the block I live in is quite mechanical, and to tell some of the secrets I know I believe there is a robot family due east ten doors down the hall.
So, Burt comes to my metal door and with a clank of his fist sounds the alarm for me to wake about twenty –three minutes before my clock was to do the same. “Open up you old freak, you jelly bean! Open! Open open! Open! Open open open, …OPEN!!! Come on lassie I got me something to show-show, ho, a ho, a ho ho ho a ho ho! You will like, a guarantee on that my lazy lummox. Now do be a dear and retract this barrier from your causeway…” he would have kept going into the night had I not opened the door for him, that nutcase. “There doing a freak-out today, isn’t that great!?”
“What is a freak-out?” I asked.
“I don’t now but it sounds like a blast, I’m going, aren’t you? Everyone’s going to be there, I’m sure, a freak-out I mean, who wouldn’t?”
“What is a freak-out?” I asked again.
“Ah shit! Gimme a break! Just read this Mr. Travec.”
He handed me a flier that looked, as lemans may say ‘awesome.’ I was dazzled by the swirling kaleidoscope of texture infused upon the background of this psycadellically founded mind maze. I could see a drummer drumming on out into the air and penguin’s swimming about a luminescent border of lascivious green, while kites of fantastic giants of long gone myth swayed in the air above a picnic of furry hares and varmints enjoying crumpets, to say the least I was mystified. “Looks like a good-trip who is putting it on?” I asked.
“The Psychosupro Cool Corp. Some grand entrepreneur has taken it upon himself, to commit his life to guys like us, to ensure that we, can freak the fuck out-man it’s going to be so fuckin cool man you better be in man you and me man.”
“And what exactly is done at a freak out?” I asked—with curiosity.
“Oh man, oh man! I don’t know man but I’m pretty sure, don’t quote me, but I believe they are going to blow our minds man, isn’t that great! Look here on the ad, ‘A goodtime is to be had by all, see you on the other side.’ If that isn’t an invitation to a stoner picnic I don’t know what is man.”
“Is it legal?”
“I don’t know, and since when did you start to care? And plus if there putting up all these goomie posters every where my guess is that many fellow goomers are going to be attracted, and they can’t arrest all of us!”
“True, you want to get stoned before we head off?” I inquired.
“Most defiantly.” He affirmed.
My car is large, boat-like would describe it adequately, a blue behemoth of the eighties; a car I am quite fond of. This vehicle was to carry us to 411 Bluetooth Boulevard, were the freak-out was to commence. We had to walk up a block to the storefront because there was no parking around and when we arrived a line was found to extend far along the sidewalk, so we waited. Freaks of all types could be found in this queue, from the gritty and gruesome to the down right loopy, indeed it was a linear formation of freaks alike. One had a beard that nearly enveloped his body, another with piercings jutting out of every fold of her face, one with dogs, another with spots, all with sunglasses and strange hats. We looked the same alike with our retro clothing, retro in that Burt and I wore particularly old clothes that we had made old ourselves, I happened to wearing my old gym clothes from high-school and Burt was in fashion to embarrassing to mention. Seeing the freaks surrounding me, I felt secure and a little exited about this event Burt had stumbled upon, the anticipation was killing me.
“What’s it gonna be?” Burt asks.
“I don’t know.”
“Is it gonna be good, is it gonna be crazy, what do you think?”
“I dunno.”
“Come on, com’on! I’m asking, I’m just asking! I’m a just a wonderen what ya make of it.” That’s when the bulbous Star Trek fanatic to our front overheard Burt’s inquisition and crept into the conversation,
“You guys don’t know what is happening here? Didn’t you go to the website, it’s on the flyer there?” referring to the one in my hand.
“Uh, no.” I said.
“Well, it’s big news man, I hear there putting out some turbograde, a lot better than the suprograde which is the original formulation, and the fact it’s being held in the middle of the city, it’s going to be a trip.” He explained to us.
Confusedly I asked, “Has there been other freak-outs?”
“Oh wow, you guys are real newbies to the freak-out scene, this is going to blow your mind. Yeah, I was at the first one, it was way out in the boons in the mountains, a lot of people freaked out and got lost in the woods, and that wasn’t turbograde, it’s supposed to be a whole nother animal.”
“What do we do, man! What do we do when we get to the end of the line?” Burt blurted with child-like excitement.
“Oh yeah, they give us some heavy drugs and send us on our way, it’s given in vials that self-destruct in two-hours so you got to get were your goin’ quick, because you ain't goin’ anywhere once you start to freak.” The beauty of what he said.
“Oh oh oh oh, oooh. No. Really? Oh yeah, yeah! That’s great!” Burt almost buckled over into a seizure.
“Really? They give us drugs? What’s the hold up?” I asked.
“Paperwork man, you got a stack to finish before they’ll sell it to you, liability and stuff like that.”
“Is it worth the paperwork and the price?”
“Oh yeah, expensive but the suprograde sent me screamin’, and this turbograde, well, you know.” With that we began to shuffle through the line like excited children waiting to ride a thrill of the drug-induced kind.
We finally made it to the store after a long wait and steadily drifted inside. What we entered was a waiting room. We had to wait some more as we drudge through the red velvet ropes that held us contained single file. The whole scene reminded me of a bank, for at the end of the red velvet ropes were several teller windows, encased in bars and glass with only a little chute on the counter in which to exchange currency and product, which many people were doing. It was the longest time I had remembered standing up in recent memory, but at last Burt and I made it to a window of which behind a squat oriental lady sat.
“How much, how much!” Burt enthusiastically demanded.
“Fifty dollars, one dose per person, one-hundred for both of you.” She answered.
Burt pulled a bill out of his wallet and slid it under. “Well what’s the hold-up? Here’s a hundred piece, now gimme some turbograde!”
“Your total comes to one-hundred and seventy-eight dollars and ninety three cents.”
“What! What! You said one hundred, I heard you, I heard you say one hundred dollars for both of us, what is this shenanigan!” He seemed quite agitated, more than his usual state of continual agitation.
“That was the price before tax.”
“That’s one hell of a tax.” I put forth.
“We are under a special taxation bracket, I can’t do anything about it.”
“But we waited, we waited for so long, didn’t we Fig? And now this, this governmental preponderance has stop me, it cannot be, it cannot.” Despair could entirely explain Burt’s efforts; I could not let him suffer.
“I got the rest Burt, we are going to freak-out.” And he almost did so right there and then. I thought it to be a worthwhile purchase because of the sheer number of people there paying the same price for the same thing, and I hardly could imagine the spherical Trekie in line possessing more wealth than I. So, I paid the price, but not after filling out a stack of liability forms of every kind, being the most I had ever written in recent memory.
The stuff was given-out in little computerized vials, with little circuits and this and that all about it, I guess it was part of the self-destruct mechanism but I’m no scientist. Burt and I decided the best place to trip would be at the park; plenty open space and few people to be bothered by what may happen to us. I parked my car and in it we consumed the contents of the vial, which immediately there after, we left my vehicle to take a stroll around the park to wait for the effects to come in to play. We did not have to wait long.
“My crooked spine! It is so crooked and, and fuzzy, look at me I’m a damn hunchback, and I’m s-slipping tooo…” Burt’s words became unintelligible jargon of irritating sound as the symphony of nature surrounded me and blended into a single tone that penetrated my skull and vibrated my brain. Euphoria could defiantly describe the feeling from my shoulders down to my feet, while all that resting neck up was completely disconnected, eyes receding into my gray matter, words spoken in alien tongue, and smells of untold sources seeping into the blitzed mass of my brain, of which was a mess of irrationality—totally and completely. I had forgotten about Burt standing next to me yet his words had lingered in my mind, and when I turned to look at him I looked at a small decrepit Burt hunched and exuberated, the little man spoke, “Follow me! Follow me little bean, we are to wonder to those tree’s you see over there and who know, maybe we will find something there.”
“But what if somebody else had already found it, and then we will have walked for nothing.”
The little man spoke, “We are nothing, you and I, and over there everything that is to be found is for nothing. Just follow me jelly bean, you have a tendency for being wrong, while I shall never lead you astray from this way, ha ha!” With that the little hunchback took my hand and we frolicked over to the arboretum, into a ghastly sphere of green leaves and brown branches. Upon entering the cool shade my senses were given new life, I could feel my eyes dilate bigger and bigger in the dark mist of the trees as a fantasyland began to sprout before my eyes. Flowers of golden hue with ambrosial vines burst from the ground up far above my head into the dark teal of the leaves above setting them ablaze with radiance. The grass patch were I had stood with tree’s above had filled in completely with shrub, brush, grass, and leaves, vines, and flowers, contained by the standing massive trees. The beauty around me was too much to see, my eyes began to water and tears dribbled down off my chin and formed a sea, a place I had been before with marine air filling the sails of ships cruising the horizon. Everything I had seen there had became everything I loved, it pulled me in and left me breathless. That’s when I noticed Burt was gone, and not just him but the whole park, as the foliage had taken over the grassy fields and it continued to grow and became more and more until it had almost surrounded everything and slowly began closing in on me. The beautiful leaves wee too much to be seen and I feared that nature just might at that time and place swallow me up and consummate me to the dirt. So, I ran through the corridors of life, as vines and shrub manifested all about. There was no way out I could see, it was a maze of green, I just ran were plants were not hoping to find open spaces in front of me. Somewhere between the tennis courts that were over grown and the small creek beside, among the many plants and trees I found a little nook were a little old lady sat at a table looking in a book and doing so quite happily. She saw me as soon as I saw her and what a kind grandmotherly face she had, with dignified lines and sullen blue eyes.
“Hello there Fig, are you enjoying the trees and leaves, or how about that freak-out, is it worth what you paid? Come here, sit here and talk with me, I always enjoy the companionship of good company.” So I walked to her side, sat on the grass next to her chair and look up and stared.
“What are you looking at?” I asked.
“Oh, just some old memories of times gone by, would you care to see?” With that she handed an old photo album containing many pictures to me. I found among them a lady in a long skirt holding sax, the picture was black and white, she was among ensemble of musicians her being in the spotlight.
“What is this?” I asked of her.
“Oh, that was myself when I was young, playing the jazz back when jazz was the scene. Oh yes, how the big band set us to swing, playing that rhythm and blues down in New Orleans. I’ll never forget the swingin voodoo magic the place had.”
“And what of this?” Holding a picture of a small man sprinting at speed on a horse.
“That is my cousin Bob, and what a jockey he was, this is a picture of him crossing the winning line in the illustrious Kentucky Derby. My husband and I place one hundred for him to win, the pay-off was one to ten and netted us a grand! What a place to be, what a sight to see.”
A man in uniform was in view next, “what of this solider, who was he.”
“My son is who that would be and what a fine man he is. He went and fought in a forsaken war, dodged bullets and mortars, flying explosive and suicide cars. He live through it and with a story told, came back to his wife and kids and is living to be quite old. I was just glad he made it through having given him two decades of tender care and a life-time of support.”
Many pictures I viewed and she told me of what they were, I could not remember all she said having this stringently intoxicating substance flowing around in my head. As I looked and listen the wall to my left faded away, crumbled to pieces and all the wild vegetation began to recede. There behind it all a wild man stood, twisted, decrepit, a creature in fixation possessing a sort of demented demure. As soon as I caught site of it the kind lady did too, her kind blue eyes stared at him like a deer in distress, and a pale flat hue spread across her face. I looked away and she was gone but the engrossed creature that was Burt remained where he was on an open lawn in light of the sun. I walked up to him and the closer I got the more the vibration pulsing through my head began to fragment my vision, everything hummed and lacked definite contrast, the outlines of objects scribbled and fine details distorted and out of shape. I approached him and all I could see was a man out of place opened up and disassembled, wearing a red shirt that matched the color of his head glowing luminescent and crimson. Memory had not gone away from me and I could remember what the words on the shirt had said, “Slippery Dicks’ Halfway Inn.” Below two polar bears copulating in front of an igloo. What an idiot he appeared to be as I stared at him and looked how pathetic he seemed, all broken up and “tripping,” what a nutcase, how insane.
“What are you looking at?! Can you not see that your you and I am me!” He shouted and it thundered loud creating an earthquake in my head, shaking the world and leaving me near brain-dead.
“W…What, …what, stop!” I mumbled
“Oh, don’t play with me boy, take a step back and watch your self and look around, there is more here than there is to be seen, and sometimes it can get real mean.” I fell to my knees and held the ground to try and keep it still as all around the trees, the birds, the cars, the people were all descending upon me, contorting my reason and pressing my perception to a fanatical degree. I was locked up frozen unable to be, I fell backwards and what did I see? The great blue sky as blue as can be, not a cloud in the sky that could be seen as though a great azule dome had been placed over me. Nothing was blurred as I could now see a great span opaque and neutral, surrounding where my vision spanned, comforting me and leaving a resonating calm throughout the land. There I stayed until Burt walked over and said to me, “Fig you think we can leave? I’m so tired of talking to these trees, there such a fucking bore. Change! A Change we are in dire need of. Lets take flight.
Lets leave this place. Come on, your good to drive I can see it, or hell you can let me if you want. But now is time for action. Now is the time to leave!”
“Okay.” I stood up and all was calm, placid and tranquil. I had no problems moving off the ground and across the park, my head was focused as Burt led me on. We had trouble finding my car for we had wander quite a ways away, but finally were came upon my blue Chevrolet, a beast of a car, a monstrous mechanical sleigh that was to carry us somewhere. The drug had not gone away and in fact was in full affect but this did not prevent me from starting the car and driving dazed and confusedly, you could say my judgment was absent. Burt sat to my right and had a ridiculous grin on his face as though he was enjoying something to an immense degree.
“What is it that bring such pleasure to your face my friend.” I asked of him
“The wind! How crisp, how cool, how clear! And how it moves and how everything moves! Here one moment then gone, a constant fresh breeze is in front of my face.”
“This is why you wanted to drive.”
“No not at all, but what a wonderful side effect off going to a place we don’t know that we’re going to yet.”
“Were are we going anyway?” I asked
“Just drive my man and let this brutish vehicle lead us to where it may, enjoy the air and look around, everything is liquid and flows all around us.” I leaned back in my seat and sunk right in. I was not driving, the car just moved and the cool breeze that delighted Burt entranced me in a mellow haze, all around me things were streaming, leaving behind long colorful shadows as though everything had comets tails, creating a tunnel of emulsified color that I leisurely rolled through. Nothing could describe the serene feeling I had as we cruised about, and it made me think of Burt a bit wiser, how he knew how the exploit joy for all it worth in this world of ours. I could have stayed there forever rolling along city streets, it just didn’t matter to me, or to Burt either I supposed as were drove on for what seemed like hours, so languidly dazzled. Then all the sudden my car stopped, essentially in the middle of the street but not being a busy street I left it be, and just like that our magic carpet ride had ended underneath a “tow-away” parking sign. I determined the reason my car ceased to move was an acute shortage of gasoline of which I was supposed fill up on, had I not spent all my money on this drug that was coursing through my veins.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“I don’t know, don’t look at me I wasn’t driving.”
“You wanted to drive. But you never said where, where did you want to go?” I asked
“I wanted to go the same place you wanted to go.”
“Where did I want to go?”
“Oh, oh so your telling me that we drove around all this time and ran your car out of gas because you didn’t know were to go in the first place.”
“How was I supposed to know?”
“You’re driving!”
“But, you wanted…”
“Lets not just sit here like idiots now lets take some action here.” Burt then proceeded to exit the vehicle and I shortly thereafter followed him. As I stepped off the asphalt up on to the sidewalk the burly moans of a humpback whale could be heard.
“Ooouaaahhhh! Aaaaahhh! Oooauooohhh! Wooooo!” I turned around and from the curb spotted a man of gigantic proportion speeding excessively down the street in a square black Mercedes Benz convertible. “Hey be careful now, your car is in the middle of the street! Aaahhh haaa ha wooo!” As he yelled this to us he flashed at us his hand with four fingers split to form a fat Vulcan “V.” “I think I know that guy.” Burt informed me.
I turned away from the street. We had stopped in front of a store, a fashion store, and I peered up and viewed the bright red sign that hung above, “The Something Cool Clothing Company.” Burt noticed me starring and started to do the same, we both sat there for a while not knowing what to make about this store in front of us. “Let’s go in.” and with that Burt entered the store. I stood there a moment not sure to follow, I mean the store was upscale and fancy the type I would never go in, or need to, I knew it was not a store for guys like me, or Burt for that matter. But, the allure soon suckered me through the doors, I had to see what the store held inside and so I followed Burt. By the time I had entered Burt had already fixated himself on some clothing upon the racks. What had caught his eye was a flat black suit, sharp and sleek, the kind of suit a wealthy sophisto would dawn to an opera. At that time a sales attendant came up to us to offer us assistance, a lovely lady with a wonderful plastic smile stuck on her face.
“Can I, uh, help you gentlemen?”
Burt turned with slant eyes and informed the woman. “Not in the least. I can dress myself thank you very kindly, I will not be in need of your services. Carry on now.” The lady stood for a moment opened her mouth slightly and then proceeded to turn around and let us continue. Burt rushed off to the dressing room to dawn his new apparel while I meandered over to the morning wear, were I found the most luxurious flannel robe, with a blue and red plaid design on the outside and warm fluffy fleece on the inside. I lynched it around my waist and headed off to the shoe section. Once arrived I soon found to my pleasure that the shoe section was furnished with padded chairs, rather that those stools and benches they have at retail stores, no indeed these were sitting chairs that asked you kick off you shoes and slip on a pair of woolen slippers, which I did promptly. All I needed was a solid wood pipe to puff leisurely some sophisticated tobacco and one happened to be in my hand, lit and ready for smoking. At that time Burt came out of the dressing room and trotted over to where I sat. The suit made him look, not classy but something close to it, “Look at me! Don’t I look swank? Tonight I walk the town and hit the clubs, I’m rolling!” He then started dancing very obnoxiously providing his own music, I think it was the tango, it succeeded in making a scene.
“Excuse me sir, could you go easy on the suits? There very expensive and we don’t want wrinkles in them.” The smiling lady walked over and asked.
“Do not tell me what to do or how to do it.” Burt answered.
“Sir do you, uh, intend on purchasing anything?”
“Nothing of the sorts, but don’t I look swank?” Burt sardonic speech was wearing down on the clerk.
“No, and if you are not going to purchase anything I will have to ask you to leave. So please place the suit back, it doesn’t fit you anyways.”
Burt twitched is head sideways suddenly then back, “How dare you try to tell me what I am doing and how to go about it! And the nerve to criticize my fashion sense! Out! Out of my sight unkind wretch!” Burt’s volume had risen to levels slightly above the threshold for what is considered pleasant and I think it startled the lady, as she stepped back and then hurried to her counter and picked up the phone. Burt ran off the other direction and I picked up a newspaper that had suddenly appeared beside my chair. I turned to the travel and leisure section and read about a lovely little town somewhere in Europe that was the feature of the article. It turns out the place has many beautiful forests around it rich in flora and fauna, a beautiful northern sunset, and it showed a place were travelers could view whales from the shore. It sounded like a lovely place I thought maybe I would travel there sometime, I don’t know when. I then turned to the television listings to find my favorite show’s start time and as I scanned the pages Burt trotted out in decadent apparel. He had put on a lavish red overcoat, which underneath he wore some sort of frilly blouse that puffed out on his chest, and around his neck a mink fur scarf, and a crown was seen upon his head.
“I am the King and I am master of everything.” He then turned to address the other people in the store. “Hail me for I am the King, I am not daunted by anything! In here I rule!” Once again his voice had reached unpleasant decibels and took an almost threatening tone, but no employee in the store moved to address him but instead stared at him, with such strange eyes. Burt then felt free to start a kingly parade around the store, I sat quite merrily watching the whole scene realizing how much fun and adventure I had had on this trip and how the king’s leadership had been so key. Then the cops came in.
“What’s the problem here?” A burly black cop asked as soon as he walked through the door. All of the employees, in unison, lifted their arms and pointed to the man marching to the sound of his own band. “All right buddy get the heck out of here, and take off those clothes, you understand?”
“I am the King, do not tell me what to do or how to do it.”
“You damn freak-out fruit, you’re lucky you doped up today, or else I would have got authoritarian on your ass! Now you get out or I’ll get you out.”
Burt had not a trace of yellow on his back, “You’ll do right to call me sir when you address me.”
“All right! Lets go buddy!” and with that the cop proceeded to stomp up to Burt and grab him by his frilly blouse. Now, Burt is no fighter, he has nothing to put out other than the words from his mouth, once you have broke those he folds like a waffle. So the cop began removing Burt’s clothes with force as Burt wriggled out of them with determination,
“Stop! Stop you can’t …can’t do that! Me! I am the King, the master of everything!”
“Your nothing!” And Burt was muscled out of the store kicking and screaming triumphantly. The employees the came up to me and told me I had to also leave, which I found rather unnecessary but I didn’t care to make a scene, that was Burt’s thing, but I did ash my pipe on their carpet. I came out and saw Burt freaking-out at the back of the cop who was walking away after exiling him from the store; I also saw my car being towed away. The man was just getting into his truck after having lifted my car and I caught him at the door.
“Please sir stop! Please don’t take my car I’ll move it! Just stop!” He looked at me with mechanical eyes and shut the door, the truck’s engine clanked then hummed and rolled away with my blue Chevrolet. Burt’s rage was then turned towards the fleeing tow-truck having seen it being towed also, and we stood there alone in the street.
“Those damn crooks! You good for nothin brutes… and thieves! How dare they… and then towing away! The nerve, the… we shouldn’t be here Fig were not wanted in these parts.”
“Yeah.” I just stood there.
“Well what are we goin to do Fig? Just don’t stand there.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well come on, we can’t just be here.”
“Yeah.”
“Wait, this is our street! We just have to walk a few blocks that way and then were home.”
“Okay.”
“You alright Fig?”
“I think so.” We began walking back to our apartment block and it was a strait shot to it, as strait as could be. The sidewalk was a geometric path and my surrounding was marked with rigidity, everything defined, square, and streamline. The people who walk with us on the sidewalk walk in step and we are a locked configuration moving down the line. Everything is predictable and at the same time everything is known, for the first time that day I am not caught off guard, and a feel plugged in to my surroundings. We entered the dark stairwell to the building and headed up the cold corridors to our apartments. I think back on the day that has passed and only can remember it in brief absurdity, the things I’ve seen and thought flee from me in most part, there being so many things forgotten, so many things lost. I wonder of the things remembered, about what I had though, wondering what it meant, wondering why I would have such thoughts. I think I might have gained something from the trip today, by buying that hallucinogenic substitute for living made for deadbeats like me, but what I can’t really say. We reached our doors and bid each other a due, with a metal clank I entered through mine into my living room. The things I had seen and things I had done lingered on my tongue, and I couldn’t believe it had been legal—I couldn’t believe none of it was real. I then turned on the television and there I sat when I heard Burt yell through the wall,
“Fig! There’s a parade in my kitchen!”
I woke up on Saturday with a stark raving lunatic at my door, it was Burt—that nutcase, neighbor for two plus years, a record for my block. Oh yeah, forgot to mention I am A. Fig Newton, the “A” stands for Alabaster and the block I live in is quite mechanical, and to tell some of the secrets I know I believe there is a robot family due east ten doors down the hall.
So, Burt comes to my metal door and with a clank of his fist sounds the alarm for me to wake about twenty –three minutes before my clock was to do the same. “Open up you old freak, you jelly bean! Open! Open open! Open! Open open open, …OPEN!!! Come on lassie I got me something to show-show, ho, a ho, a ho ho ho a ho ho! You will like, a guarantee on that my lazy lummox. Now do be a dear and retract this barrier from your causeway…” he would have kept going into the night had I not opened the door for him, that nutcase. “There doing a freak-out today, isn’t that great!?”
“What is a freak-out?” I asked.
“I don’t now but it sounds like a blast, I’m going, aren’t you? Everyone’s going to be there, I’m sure, a freak-out I mean, who wouldn’t?”
“What is a freak-out?” I asked again.
“Ah shit! Gimme a break! Just read this Mr. Travec.”
He handed me a flier that looked, as lemans may say ‘awesome.’ I was dazzled by the swirling kaleidoscope of texture infused upon the background of this psycadellically founded mind maze. I could see a drummer drumming on out into the air and penguin’s swimming about a luminescent border of lascivious green, while kites of fantastic giants of long gone myth swayed in the air above a picnic of furry hares and varmints enjoying crumpets, to say the least I was mystified. “Looks like a good-trip who is putting it on?” I asked.
“The Psychosupro Cool Corp. Some grand entrepreneur has taken it upon himself, to commit his life to guys like us, to ensure that we, can freak the fuck out-man it’s going to be so fuckin cool man you better be in man you and me man.”
“And what exactly is done at a freak out?” I asked—with curiosity.
“Oh man, oh man! I don’t know man but I’m pretty sure, don’t quote me, but I believe they are going to blow our minds man, isn’t that great! Look here on the ad, ‘A goodtime is to be had by all, see you on the other side.’ If that isn’t an invitation to a stoner picnic I don’t know what is man.”
“Is it legal?”
“I don’t know, and since when did you start to care? And plus if there putting up all these goomie posters every where my guess is that many fellow goomers are going to be attracted, and they can’t arrest all of us!”
“True, you want to get stoned before we head off?” I inquired.
“Most defiantly.” He affirmed.
My car is large, boat-like would describe it adequately, a blue behemoth of the eighties; a car I am quite fond of. This vehicle was to carry us to 411 Bluetooth Boulevard, were the freak-out was to commence. We had to walk up a block to the storefront because there was no parking around and when we arrived a line was found to extend far along the sidewalk, so we waited. Freaks of all types could be found in this queue, from the gritty and gruesome to the down right loopy, indeed it was a linear formation of freaks alike. One had a beard that nearly enveloped his body, another with piercings jutting out of every fold of her face, one with dogs, another with spots, all with sunglasses and strange hats. We looked the same alike with our retro clothing, retro in that Burt and I wore particularly old clothes that we had made old ourselves, I happened to wearing my old gym clothes from high-school and Burt was in fashion to embarrassing to mention. Seeing the freaks surrounding me, I felt secure and a little exited about this event Burt had stumbled upon, the anticipation was killing me.
“What’s it gonna be?” Burt asks.
“I don’t know.”
“Is it gonna be good, is it gonna be crazy, what do you think?”
“I dunno.”
“Come on, com’on! I’m asking, I’m just asking! I’m a just a wonderen what ya make of it.” That’s when the bulbous Star Trek fanatic to our front overheard Burt’s inquisition and crept into the conversation,
“You guys don’t know what is happening here? Didn’t you go to the website, it’s on the flyer there?” referring to the one in my hand.
“Uh, no.” I said.
“Well, it’s big news man, I hear there putting out some turbograde, a lot better than the suprograde which is the original formulation, and the fact it’s being held in the middle of the city, it’s going to be a trip.” He explained to us.
Confusedly I asked, “Has there been other freak-outs?”
“Oh wow, you guys are real newbies to the freak-out scene, this is going to blow your mind. Yeah, I was at the first one, it was way out in the boons in the mountains, a lot of people freaked out and got lost in the woods, and that wasn’t turbograde, it’s supposed to be a whole nother animal.”
“What do we do, man! What do we do when we get to the end of the line?” Burt blurted with child-like excitement.
“Oh yeah, they give us some heavy drugs and send us on our way, it’s given in vials that self-destruct in two-hours so you got to get were your goin’ quick, because you ain't goin’ anywhere once you start to freak.” The beauty of what he said.
“Oh oh oh oh, oooh. No. Really? Oh yeah, yeah! That’s great!” Burt almost buckled over into a seizure.
“Really? They give us drugs? What’s the hold up?” I asked.
“Paperwork man, you got a stack to finish before they’ll sell it to you, liability and stuff like that.”
“Is it worth the paperwork and the price?”
“Oh yeah, expensive but the suprograde sent me screamin’, and this turbograde, well, you know.” With that we began to shuffle through the line like excited children waiting to ride a thrill of the drug-induced kind.
We finally made it to the store after a long wait and steadily drifted inside. What we entered was a waiting room. We had to wait some more as we drudge through the red velvet ropes that held us contained single file. The whole scene reminded me of a bank, for at the end of the red velvet ropes were several teller windows, encased in bars and glass with only a little chute on the counter in which to exchange currency and product, which many people were doing. It was the longest time I had remembered standing up in recent memory, but at last Burt and I made it to a window of which behind a squat oriental lady sat.
“How much, how much!” Burt enthusiastically demanded.
“Fifty dollars, one dose per person, one-hundred for both of you.” She answered.
Burt pulled a bill out of his wallet and slid it under. “Well what’s the hold-up? Here’s a hundred piece, now gimme some turbograde!”
“Your total comes to one-hundred and seventy-eight dollars and ninety three cents.”
“What! What! You said one hundred, I heard you, I heard you say one hundred dollars for both of us, what is this shenanigan!” He seemed quite agitated, more than his usual state of continual agitation.
“That was the price before tax.”
“That’s one hell of a tax.” I put forth.
“We are under a special taxation bracket, I can’t do anything about it.”
“But we waited, we waited for so long, didn’t we Fig? And now this, this governmental preponderance has stop me, it cannot be, it cannot.” Despair could entirely explain Burt’s efforts; I could not let him suffer.
“I got the rest Burt, we are going to freak-out.” And he almost did so right there and then. I thought it to be a worthwhile purchase because of the sheer number of people there paying the same price for the same thing, and I hardly could imagine the spherical Trekie in line possessing more wealth than I. So, I paid the price, but not after filling out a stack of liability forms of every kind, being the most I had ever written in recent memory.
The stuff was given-out in little computerized vials, with little circuits and this and that all about it, I guess it was part of the self-destruct mechanism but I’m no scientist. Burt and I decided the best place to trip would be at the park; plenty open space and few people to be bothered by what may happen to us. I parked my car and in it we consumed the contents of the vial, which immediately there after, we left my vehicle to take a stroll around the park to wait for the effects to come in to play. We did not have to wait long.
“My crooked spine! It is so crooked and, and fuzzy, look at me I’m a damn hunchback, and I’m s-slipping tooo…” Burt’s words became unintelligible jargon of irritating sound as the symphony of nature surrounded me and blended into a single tone that penetrated my skull and vibrated my brain. Euphoria could defiantly describe the feeling from my shoulders down to my feet, while all that resting neck up was completely disconnected, eyes receding into my gray matter, words spoken in alien tongue, and smells of untold sources seeping into the blitzed mass of my brain, of which was a mess of irrationality—totally and completely. I had forgotten about Burt standing next to me yet his words had lingered in my mind, and when I turned to look at him I looked at a small decrepit Burt hunched and exuberated, the little man spoke, “Follow me! Follow me little bean, we are to wonder to those tree’s you see over there and who know, maybe we will find something there.”
“But what if somebody else had already found it, and then we will have walked for nothing.”
The little man spoke, “We are nothing, you and I, and over there everything that is to be found is for nothing. Just follow me jelly bean, you have a tendency for being wrong, while I shall never lead you astray from this way, ha ha!” With that the little hunchback took my hand and we frolicked over to the arboretum, into a ghastly sphere of green leaves and brown branches. Upon entering the cool shade my senses were given new life, I could feel my eyes dilate bigger and bigger in the dark mist of the trees as a fantasyland began to sprout before my eyes. Flowers of golden hue with ambrosial vines burst from the ground up far above my head into the dark teal of the leaves above setting them ablaze with radiance. The grass patch were I had stood with tree’s above had filled in completely with shrub, brush, grass, and leaves, vines, and flowers, contained by the standing massive trees. The beauty around me was too much to see, my eyes began to water and tears dribbled down off my chin and formed a sea, a place I had been before with marine air filling the sails of ships cruising the horizon. Everything I had seen there had became everything I loved, it pulled me in and left me breathless. That’s when I noticed Burt was gone, and not just him but the whole park, as the foliage had taken over the grassy fields and it continued to grow and became more and more until it had almost surrounded everything and slowly began closing in on me. The beautiful leaves wee too much to be seen and I feared that nature just might at that time and place swallow me up and consummate me to the dirt. So, I ran through the corridors of life, as vines and shrub manifested all about. There was no way out I could see, it was a maze of green, I just ran were plants were not hoping to find open spaces in front of me. Somewhere between the tennis courts that were over grown and the small creek beside, among the many plants and trees I found a little nook were a little old lady sat at a table looking in a book and doing so quite happily. She saw me as soon as I saw her and what a kind grandmotherly face she had, with dignified lines and sullen blue eyes.
“Hello there Fig, are you enjoying the trees and leaves, or how about that freak-out, is it worth what you paid? Come here, sit here and talk with me, I always enjoy the companionship of good company.” So I walked to her side, sat on the grass next to her chair and look up and stared.
“What are you looking at?” I asked.
“Oh, just some old memories of times gone by, would you care to see?” With that she handed an old photo album containing many pictures to me. I found among them a lady in a long skirt holding sax, the picture was black and white, she was among ensemble of musicians her being in the spotlight.
“What is this?” I asked of her.
“Oh, that was myself when I was young, playing the jazz back when jazz was the scene. Oh yes, how the big band set us to swing, playing that rhythm and blues down in New Orleans. I’ll never forget the swingin voodoo magic the place had.”
“And what of this?” Holding a picture of a small man sprinting at speed on a horse.
“That is my cousin Bob, and what a jockey he was, this is a picture of him crossing the winning line in the illustrious Kentucky Derby. My husband and I place one hundred for him to win, the pay-off was one to ten and netted us a grand! What a place to be, what a sight to see.”
A man in uniform was in view next, “what of this solider, who was he.”
“My son is who that would be and what a fine man he is. He went and fought in a forsaken war, dodged bullets and mortars, flying explosive and suicide cars. He live through it and with a story told, came back to his wife and kids and is living to be quite old. I was just glad he made it through having given him two decades of tender care and a life-time of support.”
Many pictures I viewed and she told me of what they were, I could not remember all she said having this stringently intoxicating substance flowing around in my head. As I looked and listen the wall to my left faded away, crumbled to pieces and all the wild vegetation began to recede. There behind it all a wild man stood, twisted, decrepit, a creature in fixation possessing a sort of demented demure. As soon as I caught site of it the kind lady did too, her kind blue eyes stared at him like a deer in distress, and a pale flat hue spread across her face. I looked away and she was gone but the engrossed creature that was Burt remained where he was on an open lawn in light of the sun. I walked up to him and the closer I got the more the vibration pulsing through my head began to fragment my vision, everything hummed and lacked definite contrast, the outlines of objects scribbled and fine details distorted and out of shape. I approached him and all I could see was a man out of place opened up and disassembled, wearing a red shirt that matched the color of his head glowing luminescent and crimson. Memory had not gone away from me and I could remember what the words on the shirt had said, “Slippery Dicks’ Halfway Inn.” Below two polar bears copulating in front of an igloo. What an idiot he appeared to be as I stared at him and looked how pathetic he seemed, all broken up and “tripping,” what a nutcase, how insane.
“What are you looking at?! Can you not see that your you and I am me!” He shouted and it thundered loud creating an earthquake in my head, shaking the world and leaving me near brain-dead.
“W…What, …what, stop!” I mumbled
“Oh, don’t play with me boy, take a step back and watch your self and look around, there is more here than there is to be seen, and sometimes it can get real mean.” I fell to my knees and held the ground to try and keep it still as all around the trees, the birds, the cars, the people were all descending upon me, contorting my reason and pressing my perception to a fanatical degree. I was locked up frozen unable to be, I fell backwards and what did I see? The great blue sky as blue as can be, not a cloud in the sky that could be seen as though a great azule dome had been placed over me. Nothing was blurred as I could now see a great span opaque and neutral, surrounding where my vision spanned, comforting me and leaving a resonating calm throughout the land. There I stayed until Burt walked over and said to me, “Fig you think we can leave? I’m so tired of talking to these trees, there such a fucking bore. Change! A Change we are in dire need of. Lets take flight.
Lets leave this place. Come on, your good to drive I can see it, or hell you can let me if you want. But now is time for action. Now is the time to leave!”
“Okay.” I stood up and all was calm, placid and tranquil. I had no problems moving off the ground and across the park, my head was focused as Burt led me on. We had trouble finding my car for we had wander quite a ways away, but finally were came upon my blue Chevrolet, a beast of a car, a monstrous mechanical sleigh that was to carry us somewhere. The drug had not gone away and in fact was in full affect but this did not prevent me from starting the car and driving dazed and confusedly, you could say my judgment was absent. Burt sat to my right and had a ridiculous grin on his face as though he was enjoying something to an immense degree.
“What is it that bring such pleasure to your face my friend.” I asked of him
“The wind! How crisp, how cool, how clear! And how it moves and how everything moves! Here one moment then gone, a constant fresh breeze is in front of my face.”
“This is why you wanted to drive.”
“No not at all, but what a wonderful side effect off going to a place we don’t know that we’re going to yet.”
“Were are we going anyway?” I asked
“Just drive my man and let this brutish vehicle lead us to where it may, enjoy the air and look around, everything is liquid and flows all around us.” I leaned back in my seat and sunk right in. I was not driving, the car just moved and the cool breeze that delighted Burt entranced me in a mellow haze, all around me things were streaming, leaving behind long colorful shadows as though everything had comets tails, creating a tunnel of emulsified color that I leisurely rolled through. Nothing could describe the serene feeling I had as we cruised about, and it made me think of Burt a bit wiser, how he knew how the exploit joy for all it worth in this world of ours. I could have stayed there forever rolling along city streets, it just didn’t matter to me, or to Burt either I supposed as were drove on for what seemed like hours, so languidly dazzled. Then all the sudden my car stopped, essentially in the middle of the street but not being a busy street I left it be, and just like that our magic carpet ride had ended underneath a “tow-away” parking sign. I determined the reason my car ceased to move was an acute shortage of gasoline of which I was supposed fill up on, had I not spent all my money on this drug that was coursing through my veins.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“I don’t know, don’t look at me I wasn’t driving.”
“You wanted to drive. But you never said where, where did you want to go?” I asked
“I wanted to go the same place you wanted to go.”
“Where did I want to go?”
“Oh, oh so your telling me that we drove around all this time and ran your car out of gas because you didn’t know were to go in the first place.”
“How was I supposed to know?”
“You’re driving!”
“But, you wanted…”
“Lets not just sit here like idiots now lets take some action here.” Burt then proceeded to exit the vehicle and I shortly thereafter followed him. As I stepped off the asphalt up on to the sidewalk the burly moans of a humpback whale could be heard.
“Ooouaaahhhh! Aaaaahhh! Oooauooohhh! Wooooo!” I turned around and from the curb spotted a man of gigantic proportion speeding excessively down the street in a square black Mercedes Benz convertible. “Hey be careful now, your car is in the middle of the street! Aaahhh haaa ha wooo!” As he yelled this to us he flashed at us his hand with four fingers split to form a fat Vulcan “V.” “I think I know that guy.” Burt informed me.
I turned away from the street. We had stopped in front of a store, a fashion store, and I peered up and viewed the bright red sign that hung above, “The Something Cool Clothing Company.” Burt noticed me starring and started to do the same, we both sat there for a while not knowing what to make about this store in front of us. “Let’s go in.” and with that Burt entered the store. I stood there a moment not sure to follow, I mean the store was upscale and fancy the type I would never go in, or need to, I knew it was not a store for guys like me, or Burt for that matter. But, the allure soon suckered me through the doors, I had to see what the store held inside and so I followed Burt. By the time I had entered Burt had already fixated himself on some clothing upon the racks. What had caught his eye was a flat black suit, sharp and sleek, the kind of suit a wealthy sophisto would dawn to an opera. At that time a sales attendant came up to us to offer us assistance, a lovely lady with a wonderful plastic smile stuck on her face.
“Can I, uh, help you gentlemen?”
Burt turned with slant eyes and informed the woman. “Not in the least. I can dress myself thank you very kindly, I will not be in need of your services. Carry on now.” The lady stood for a moment opened her mouth slightly and then proceeded to turn around and let us continue. Burt rushed off to the dressing room to dawn his new apparel while I meandered over to the morning wear, were I found the most luxurious flannel robe, with a blue and red plaid design on the outside and warm fluffy fleece on the inside. I lynched it around my waist and headed off to the shoe section. Once arrived I soon found to my pleasure that the shoe section was furnished with padded chairs, rather that those stools and benches they have at retail stores, no indeed these were sitting chairs that asked you kick off you shoes and slip on a pair of woolen slippers, which I did promptly. All I needed was a solid wood pipe to puff leisurely some sophisticated tobacco and one happened to be in my hand, lit and ready for smoking. At that time Burt came out of the dressing room and trotted over to where I sat. The suit made him look, not classy but something close to it, “Look at me! Don’t I look swank? Tonight I walk the town and hit the clubs, I’m rolling!” He then started dancing very obnoxiously providing his own music, I think it was the tango, it succeeded in making a scene.
“Excuse me sir, could you go easy on the suits? There very expensive and we don’t want wrinkles in them.” The smiling lady walked over and asked.
“Do not tell me what to do or how to do it.” Burt answered.
“Sir do you, uh, intend on purchasing anything?”
“Nothing of the sorts, but don’t I look swank?” Burt sardonic speech was wearing down on the clerk.
“No, and if you are not going to purchase anything I will have to ask you to leave. So please place the suit back, it doesn’t fit you anyways.”
Burt twitched is head sideways suddenly then back, “How dare you try to tell me what I am doing and how to go about it! And the nerve to criticize my fashion sense! Out! Out of my sight unkind wretch!” Burt’s volume had risen to levels slightly above the threshold for what is considered pleasant and I think it startled the lady, as she stepped back and then hurried to her counter and picked up the phone. Burt ran off the other direction and I picked up a newspaper that had suddenly appeared beside my chair. I turned to the travel and leisure section and read about a lovely little town somewhere in Europe that was the feature of the article. It turns out the place has many beautiful forests around it rich in flora and fauna, a beautiful northern sunset, and it showed a place were travelers could view whales from the shore. It sounded like a lovely place I thought maybe I would travel there sometime, I don’t know when. I then turned to the television listings to find my favorite show’s start time and as I scanned the pages Burt trotted out in decadent apparel. He had put on a lavish red overcoat, which underneath he wore some sort of frilly blouse that puffed out on his chest, and around his neck a mink fur scarf, and a crown was seen upon his head.
“I am the King and I am master of everything.” He then turned to address the other people in the store. “Hail me for I am the King, I am not daunted by anything! In here I rule!” Once again his voice had reached unpleasant decibels and took an almost threatening tone, but no employee in the store moved to address him but instead stared at him, with such strange eyes. Burt then felt free to start a kingly parade around the store, I sat quite merrily watching the whole scene realizing how much fun and adventure I had had on this trip and how the king’s leadership had been so key. Then the cops came in.
“What’s the problem here?” A burly black cop asked as soon as he walked through the door. All of the employees, in unison, lifted their arms and pointed to the man marching to the sound of his own band. “All right buddy get the heck out of here, and take off those clothes, you understand?”
“I am the King, do not tell me what to do or how to do it.”
“You damn freak-out fruit, you’re lucky you doped up today, or else I would have got authoritarian on your ass! Now you get out or I’ll get you out.”
Burt had not a trace of yellow on his back, “You’ll do right to call me sir when you address me.”
“All right! Lets go buddy!” and with that the cop proceeded to stomp up to Burt and grab him by his frilly blouse. Now, Burt is no fighter, he has nothing to put out other than the words from his mouth, once you have broke those he folds like a waffle. So the cop began removing Burt’s clothes with force as Burt wriggled out of them with determination,
“Stop! Stop you can’t …can’t do that! Me! I am the King, the master of everything!”
“Your nothing!” And Burt was muscled out of the store kicking and screaming triumphantly. The employees the came up to me and told me I had to also leave, which I found rather unnecessary but I didn’t care to make a scene, that was Burt’s thing, but I did ash my pipe on their carpet. I came out and saw Burt freaking-out at the back of the cop who was walking away after exiling him from the store; I also saw my car being towed away. The man was just getting into his truck after having lifted my car and I caught him at the door.
“Please sir stop! Please don’t take my car I’ll move it! Just stop!” He looked at me with mechanical eyes and shut the door, the truck’s engine clanked then hummed and rolled away with my blue Chevrolet. Burt’s rage was then turned towards the fleeing tow-truck having seen it being towed also, and we stood there alone in the street.
“Those damn crooks! You good for nothin brutes… and thieves! How dare they… and then towing away! The nerve, the… we shouldn’t be here Fig were not wanted in these parts.”
“Yeah.” I just stood there.
“Well what are we goin to do Fig? Just don’t stand there.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well come on, we can’t just be here.”
“Yeah.”
“Wait, this is our street! We just have to walk a few blocks that way and then were home.”
“Okay.”
“You alright Fig?”
“I think so.” We began walking back to our apartment block and it was a strait shot to it, as strait as could be. The sidewalk was a geometric path and my surrounding was marked with rigidity, everything defined, square, and streamline. The people who walk with us on the sidewalk walk in step and we are a locked configuration moving down the line. Everything is predictable and at the same time everything is known, for the first time that day I am not caught off guard, and a feel plugged in to my surroundings. We entered the dark stairwell to the building and headed up the cold corridors to our apartments. I think back on the day that has passed and only can remember it in brief absurdity, the things I’ve seen and thought flee from me in most part, there being so many things forgotten, so many things lost. I wonder of the things remembered, about what I had though, wondering what it meant, wondering why I would have such thoughts. I think I might have gained something from the trip today, by buying that hallucinogenic substitute for living made for deadbeats like me, but what I can’t really say. We reached our doors and bid each other a due, with a metal clank I entered through mine into my living room. The things I had seen and things I had done lingered on my tongue, and I couldn’t believe it had been legal—I couldn’t believe none of it was real. I then turned on the television and there I sat when I heard Burt yell through the wall,
“Fig! There’s a parade in my kitchen!”
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