The Stink

So it was my birthday.
Whoopity Poop.
It was just another day, in another year, in a calendar that marked off the solstices from an arbitrary date that nobody agrees on.
I was here, but I was just a speck on some bigger speck that was circling around some other speck in a sea of specks.
It didn’t seem to matter much.
But it was my day, so I decided to get drunk.
I put on a sombrero because getting drunk is always more fun if you are wearing a hat. I still had my clothes on for now, but that could change. The poncho and the cowboy boots were just for effect. The rest of me was just a vehicle for the stupidity that was to come.
I grabbed the bottle of Old Weller off the coffee table and flopped down into the couch. The bottle monumented itself between my legs and I stared down into its mouth. My thumbs caressed its lips, I raised it up and then we kissed. I sucked in a mouthful and choked it down.
The burn made me smile.
I drank down another gulp and then another. The poison snaked out across my body and seeped into my brain. It found my happy spot and fogged out all the pain. I was once again that happy kid riding a Big Wheel at Grandma Boyles house. I was a child.
I was Happy and free.
I pedaled out into the fog.
Everything seemed so blissful at first, but as I pedaled on, things seemed to change. A chilly wind started swirling around me and the clouds crept closer and closer. Soon all the colors faded away and I was left in black and white. The world tunneled around me and memories flickered everywhere like angry old movies.
I saw that first play I was in when I drew the part of a skunk. Yeah, I was part of a pack of animals that helped save Christmas, but I was the stinky part.
I saw my self getting teased at Central Elementary because I was the new kid and I wore the same clothes everyday for three weeks because my Dad didn’t bring any others when we moved. I was the stinky kid.
I saw myself fumbling anxiously around in the backseat with Becky until I took my shoes off and brought everything to a screeching halt with the stench. I was the stink foot.
I was reliving my life…
And I was The Stink.
This would not do.
I stumbled up straight and pointed a finger towards a direction I thought was important.
“I got something to say!” I blurted out with drunken authority to precisely five people who didn’t give a pickled goddamn about what I had to say and who weren’t paying the least bit of attention to me.
“I DO NOT STINK!”
I looked around and straightened my sombrero. Nobody moved, but I knew they heard me.
I sank back down into the couch.
I grabbed another pull from the whiskey bottle then let a little silent one slip out.
Just for old times sake

White Knuckles

I felt sorry for The Boy.
I really did.
You could tell he wanted to get it out but he just couldn’t.
It was all Struggle and Strife.
Strain and Pain.
I just wanted to scream “Just let it go you Stupid Mother Fucker! It will feel so much better when you do!”
But I couldn’t.
“Stupid Mother Fucker” is a term that is pretty much frowned upon when referring to your toddler and reason is pretty much a thing that is frowned upon by your toddler.
All I could do was just watch in helpless horror and spout hollow platitudes like “We all do it.” or “Everybody poops!” and other things grown ups say that don’t mean anything to a two and a half year old. I kept talking, trying to find the right words.
But I didn’t have the words that The Boy wanted to hear. In fact he didn’t want to hear any words at all. He wanted action, satisfaction. He wanted it all to go away.
The Boy arched his feet and danced on his toes.
He spun around and did The Poopy Dance.
“I’m cold!” he said and danced into the dining room. I took a couple of steps then reached out and captured him. I bounded down the hall to the bathroom, opened the door and flopped The Boy down. His little wang was all hard and aimed right at my face. As soon as I slammed him down he unloaded and pelted my face with a stream of urine. I closed my eyes and shut my mouth, but he had a whole day of piss in him and that urine hit me with a purpose. It got all up in my mouth and in my eyes. When it shot up my nose I shrieked like a little girl. I got my composure and remembered that I was the Dad.
“Stop!”
He didn’t.
I got a bunch more across my chest and down around my ankles.
He giggled.
I tried to be mad, but it was kind of funny.
But seriously, let’s get down to business.
“I don’t want to!!” he screamed
“You have to.” I tried to charm him
“Come on!”
He gripped down hard on the handles of his potty seat and his tiny knuckles went from pink to white. His eyes were crazy wide and full of pain. The veins on his neck bulged out thick and blue with strain.
“No, No Daddy!” he cried
“You can do it!”
His whole body convulsed, veins rippled like angry octopus arms around his neck.
He looked me in the eye.
A brief hesitation, then a tear trickled down his cheek.
“I can do this.” he choked out.
He straight armed himself four inches over the bowl gripping the potty handles like an Olympic gymnast. There was a grunt, some snot flew out of his nose, and then he shoved out a softball sized turd that had twice the density of lead. The concrete crap rock hit the bottom of the bowl with a thud.
The Boy relaxed and let out a long sigh of relief.
“I did it!” he said with a triumphant smile.
"Yes you did." I said with pride.
“Yes you did.”

13

Most memories never fade from consciousness unless they are cleaned with the wet sponge of new experience. You think you’ve erased them but still, the dust of memories long passed cloud the blackboard of your mind, a haunting backdrop that lingers almost unnoticed. Nothing wipes the slate clean like immersing yourself in the alien, the bizarre, the totally not you.
Nothing wipes the slate clean like Five Hairs.
This was too good, way too good.
It was starting to freak her out.
Sapphire could feel the red heat rushing to her high forehead. It caused her to wiggle beneath the seat belt. Nervousness took over the control panel and she started to fidget. She flipped the visor a couple of times and her right index finger flickered back and forth opening and closing the passenger window.
She glanced over at Five Hairs. He kind of looked like a monkey wanna be, like a Homo Sapien that regretted moving up the evolutionary ladder. His Mount Rushmore brow reached biblical proportions and almost obscured her view out of the driver’s side window. She looked at his hands gripping the steering wheel and even though his knuckles were bare, she surmised that it was from scraping the sidewalks of his home town as he wondered around looking for bananas.
She was freaking.
No man ever, ever did anything nice to her. They were always groping. Fat sweaty old arms forcing her to come closer, they flipped out twenty dollar bills thinking it would make everything OK. They let their warm man chowder splatter over her cheeks and let her off at the next exit. She hated them.
But Sapphire had a soft spot.
It usually was reserved for animals. Real animals, not animal like people.
She loved kittens, stray dogs and of course, the Puffin.
She decided that it was wrong to hold anything against the Homo Sapiens challenged. Five Hairs needed love and she needed to open the flood gates.
Besides, he was such a good kisser.
Her mind wondered back to some Discovery Channel show she watched where she saw chimpanzees kissing. They seemed pretty good at it and she wondered if was in his genetic makeup. Is good kissing passed down from generation to generation? From species to species?
She looked over at noticed that Five Hairs was looking back at her. His eyes held a softness that took Sapphire by surprise.
“Just three more hours and we’ll be there.”
Sapphire tucked the monkey thoughts deep into her cerebral cortex. No need to dance on anyone’s ego just yet.
“I can’t wait.” She sighed as she opened up the glove compartment and noodled its contents.

12

There was no air.
There was a lot of heat, but no ventilation.
The atmosphere in the car stiffened around her and stagnated into an unbreathable soup. She gulped against the empty, hoping to choke down a breath, but her lungs remained paralyzed and unfilled.
Panic set in and she started to flail her arms in a last ditch effort to open up her airway.
She couldn’t find any air and she tried to open the passenger window.
There was no button to make the window go down. There was just some handle that she cranked in a circle, but the window still didn’t go down.
It was so hot.
Five hairs seemed to pick up on her panic and rolled his window down. A rush of highway air swirled around the cabin and released her.
The bare skin spreading out under her skirt, from her thong across her thighs and down to her ankles, started to burn painfully and she regretted the skirt she was wearing. The cootchie cutting hem line got her the lift, but a ride might not be worth all the skin.
There she was.
The dichotomy tickled her ears slightly as it breezed by her, and she wondered if her face was shiny and flipped down the visor so she could use the little mirror.
The ride may be going in the wrong direction, but at least she was moving.
Sapphire flipped down the visor and studied the rectangular reflection tossed back at her from the tiny mirror. She hated her high forehead. It reminded her of her dad. Not that she could remember him or even pull out an old photograph to cuss at. It just wasn’t her mom’s forehead and it was the one thing she could definitely blame on him.
Her mom gave up the sad tale one day over some toasted Leggo’s and told Sapphire the story between syrupy bites and vodka sips. Sapphire got the gist of it, but the ending was a bit slurred and somewhat vague.
But it went something like this;
her dad had worked the midget wrestling circuit because he could never catch a break in Hollywood. He was too tall, according to all the casting agents, to play the traditional little people roles. But at four foot six, he couldn’t land any other part. He starved on The Strip for a bit then hooked up with this cat name Big Al.
Big Al bought him some drinks one night and told him he could make a fortune wrestling. He would be the biggest little guy East, West and North of the Pecos (He couldn’t guarantee South, because that was out of his licensed area).
Sapphire’s dad jumped at the chance and signed his name to a contract written on a cocktail napkin. He squirmed into some spandex, donned a cape and called himself The Jumbo Shrimp. A legend was born.
Not quite.
Jumbo Shrimp got his ass kicked on a nightly basis. Night after night he was swung around by his ankles and pile driven onto the mat, his face clenched against two testes and a veined sausage by the muscular thighs of a guy twice his size. Three years of this found him at the end of his rope when the tour pulled into the Hartford Civic Center.
That night he wasn’t going to take any more.
That night, when the script called for him to be scrotum squashed and hammer headed into hell, he lashed out and bit off the left nut of Kyro The Giant. Kyro grasped at his bleeding groin and fell to the canvas. Jumbo spit out the man egg, flipped off all four corners of the stadium and made a short legged dash to the eastside exit. Everyone witnessing the event was too stunned to even notice the four and a half feet off flesh and bones running away. They just wondered who won the match.
Jumbo was twenty blocks away before he stopped to catch his breath.
He stumble through a 7-11 parking lot and there was a red Honda civic with the keys in it and still running. Jumbo jumped in and sped away.
That’s when he met Sapphire’s mom.
She was on the side street next to the Dada Mart, freaking out because she had just shoplifted her first bag of Fritos. All of a sudden, this car slows down and pulls up next to her. Like from a bad dream, this midget wearing a cape opened up the passenger door and offered her a ride. Withou thinking, she hopped into the front passenger seat.
“Come with me to Vegas and I’ll make you rich!” he screamed.
Sapphire’s mom, all high from the Frito heist, acted on impulse and giggled when the midget hit the gas pedal. They sped down the side streets like they were in the chase scene from The French Connection. Not a soul was following them but he drove the car as fast as it would go onto the freeway. They must have gone a hundred miles west on Interstate 84 before she even realized what was going on.
“What the fuck!” she suddenly panicked.
She looked over at the spandex wrapped midget breathing heavily next to her.
Anxiety softened and she felt pity.
He looked so harmless, even with the cape and mask. His little legs stuck out straight over the edge of the seat.
They made it to Vegas in three days, only stopping one night in some mangy mom and pop motel off of Intestate 80, somewhere out the most desolate backwoods of Nebraska.
When they got to Vegas, Jumbo made her drive around town for a while until he finally barked at her to pull into some creepy motel that was clinging onto a fading philandering salesman clientele, far from the jingling slots and electric neon sunshine. He said he would be right back and climbed over the wooden fence behind the car. Sapphire’s mom waited for almost three hours before she gave up and made the long lonely haul back to Connecticut.
It was even lonelier when she gave birth to a baby girl and her parents not only refused to come but made it clear they would hate anyone that did.
Mormons suck that way.
Mom married the man she always knew as her dad because her parents made her.
Sapphire hated her mom for making her put up with that touchy creep just because she thought he was her father.
She hated her fake dad for being a loser creep.
Sapphire had to get away.
She just had to.
That’s why she did.
Sapphire hated her high forehead.
She hated her real dad.
She hated the fact that she had been conceived in Nebraska.
She wondered if she had any midget in her.

35 years

Thirty Five Years

Another night of the same old same old, just rolling on down a well grooved rut. Sure, I was bored as hell, but I was comfortable. Isn’t that what every man really wants? Stop fighting the world and find a little peace and quiet, a small corner where you don’t have to slip into your bravado and pretend to be a giant. I was out of the mainstream, content to sit on the bank and watch other men, younger and more foolish than me, swim against the current. Yes, I missed that entire hullabaloo now and then, but those pangs softened as I wiggled comfortably into my wrinkles. Life was slowing down to an old mans pace, but time wasn’t. I could see the end of the road. I didn’t mind any delay in the inevitable.

I had led a good life.

I was a good man, for the most part, or at least I hoped so. I fathered four children and three of them lived to have families of their own. My eldest has four kids and he even named one after me. My daughter married the right guy on her second try and has a girl. Liam, my youngest, adopted a girl from Vietnam with his partner Andrew. It took them almost five years, but we were all there at the airport when she arrived. My second son, Johnny, don’t ask me why he got my name and even my eldest didn’t, Johnny died in the Middle East when a roadside bomb blew up under the Humvee he was in. He lived almost two days after that and I still cry over the pain he went through, but he was proud to be a soldier and I guess that makes it O.K. in some peoples book. I don’t know about that. He died a hero and was willing to make the sacrifice he did, but that didn’t make it O.K.

His death was cataclysmic, like a meteor crashing down and ushering in a whole new era on my personal planet.

The entire thing beat me down pretty hard. I lost my faith in God and stopped going to church every Sunday with my wife. I hated everything and everyone. I hated my country for sending my boy over to some war we should have never have been in, in the first place. I wanted answers to questions that had no answers. I hated the politicians that tried to fill up the hole in my life with clichés and sound bites. I hated the well wishers that kept coming up to me saying how sorry they were and that they knew how bad I must feel. I hated all of it. The whole world just made me angry. I wrapped myself in that anger and never noticed how that anger shoved everyone out of my life, everyone, my friends, my children and even my wife.

Yes, even my wife.

My wife had always been a saint. She was smarter than Einstein, could always make me laugh and she was more beautiful than a sunset in paradise. The kicker was. She had a heart big enough to love a loser stiff like me.

We had a great marriage. Sure, we hit a couple of bumps along the way, but we always were partners. She was my best friend from the day I met her and I shared all the highlights of my life with her. I loved her more than anything and she loved me. We were the missing pieces to each others puzzle. We made it work.

Neither of us saw it coming.

Thirty five years of love crumbled under six months of my anger. She listened when I ranted over dinner and embarrassed her at parties. She brought the hundreds of angry letters I wrote to the post office. She even packed me a lunch when I went to my first demonstration. But, when I started leaving for weeks on end to march in every protest around the country she put her foot down. She asked me to stop.

“Let it go,” she begged me, “HE would never have wanted this. I don’t want this.”

I didn’t listen. I quit my job two years before retirement and I spent almost a year screaming at every anti-war gathering around the country. I used up almost every penny my wife and I had saved over the years. I was hell bent on doing something, anything. I was just so mad and wanted the whole world to know about it.

Then one day I wasn’t mad any more and I went home.

My wife was still there but we weren’t best friends anymore. We barely even spoke. I moved into the den and settled in with all my books and a fold out couch. She still made me dinner every night and we made pleasantries about the grandchildren and the weather but we never talked about anything real. At least we didn’t until tonight.

Tonight, as she handed me a platter of asparagus, she nonchalantly announced, “While you were off on your rampage I slept with Keith Miller. I did it for two months. It’s over. I just thought you should know.”

The air around me stiffened like cement. I was frozen in befuddled anger. Keith was another teacher at the college she taught at. Years ago, I was so jealous of his good looks and Irish accent, not to mention how much he had in common with my wife and the amount of time he spent with her. It took a long time and quite a few fights, but I ended up being secure in their relationship and had even become friends with Keith. He was even the Godfather of my son Johnny.

I glared at my wife. She just looked back at me steadily and soft. I could see the passionate plea for understanding in her eyes and almost opened up. I slammed my vision shut with fire and pushed away from the table in disgust. Tossing my napkin behind me, I stomped off into the exile of my den. I splashed into my leather easy boy with an angry thud.

I stewed in silence; occasionally wriggling in disgust as I thought about another mans fingers caressing my wife as she moaned in ecstasy. I even punched at the air once or twice in a vain effort to stop what had already happened. I was sick to the core of my being and sank into a deep sulk. The steady tick from the grandfather clock behind me lulled me into a groggy stupor.

Time floated over me unnoticed and I drifted out of my body, unaware of my moment.

I could hear her footsteps tracing my earlier stomp down the hall. She paused in the doorway then made her way over to what used to be her chair, before I stopped recognizing her as my wife.

“I think we should talk some more.” She said and sat down. “We need to work this out.”

I stared down into my book. I had lost myself in the blur of words swirling around the page in magnified print an hour ago. If she had come in and quizzed me, I couldn’t even have told her the author or title of the book I was reading, let alone the plot. It was like all the others I had pulled off the shelves for the past ten years. The books, the den, they were just an escape. Now there was no escape. My worst nightmare was sitting calmly in the chair in front of me, reciting the story of how she ripped my heart out and left it to rot with all the maggoty real life shit she helped me to forget over all these years.

“I was lonely.” She started to explain “You were changing into a different person. You became someone I didn’t know, a person I didn’t like.”

I looked at her face and it softened with an overture of forgiveness.

For a moment I saw the beautiful young girl that grabbed hold of my heart so many years ago. I reached out and cupped her face in my hands. I remembered how we swirled around in joyous circles of love to our favorite song on our wedding day. I remembered holding her hand and the painful joy of her smile after she gave birth to all our children. I felt the comfort of so many years being with the other half of my soul.

Then I felt the black of all that disappearing. I felt the desperation of loneliness and the emptiness of hate. I felt a lifetime of love slipping away from my infuriated grasp.

I leaned forward and kissed her.

She was startled by the tenderness. Her blue eyes looked up into mine, sparkling at first, then faded pale as she saw the man she once loved was lost forever.

She smiled one last time.

I slid my hand down around her throat and pushed my thumb against her larynx until it snapped. She kicked her legs out straight in a helpless struggle but put up almost no resistance at all, like she was accepting her fate. She let go of her life and her body slackened into the chair. I pushed harder, like my anger commanded it. I didn’t relax until I felt her skin grow cold against my face.

I pushed my self up and looked down on her lifeless frame.

Her eyes were still staring back at me with gaping black pupils and filling me with shame. I reached out and pushed her eyelids down.

I pulled a hankie out of my pocket to mop the sweat off my forehead. Swirling around like a child on a playground, I tried desperately to find the person that killed my wife, but found no one but the demons calling me to Hell. I screamed into nothing and wasted my prayers for forgiveness.

I made my way out to the corridor, grabbed the phone and dialed a familiar number.

“Hello.” The voice answered on the other end

“It’s over you bastard. Now neither of us can have her.” I spit into the receiver.

“John? Is that you? Oh God! What have you done? Karen just wanted to get your attention. Oh Jesus! Tell me you didn’t do anything stupid. John? John”

I clicked down on the phone.

I went back into the den and opened up the drawer to my desk. I reached inside then went back out into the corridor and picked up the phone to make one more call.

“Hello, Police” was the answer on the other end.

“Come to 133 C_____ Boulevard. There has been a murder suicide,”

I dropped the phone and raised the revolver to my head.

Oh The Wonder

Oh The Wonder

Verse GBC:] (DCG in between lines)

Chorus CGCDCGCGCGD G

Molly woke me up with kisses

And made the morning so delicious

She makes living in this city

Like a pocket full of dreams

And she shows me all that life brings

Drown myself in her eyes

She’s so beautiful she make me cry

Sunlight drive by, flower pretty

The wonder never ends

She is my lover and my best friend

Oh the wonder

She is the lighting to my thunder

Makes love to me in the morning

And a once again in the afternoon

Maybe twice if she’d like too

Maybe three times …

if I can

Providence in the morning

Overwhelms you without warning

I love waking up in this city

With the girl from my dreams

She is the song that life sings

Get some breakfast at the corner

Let the morning last a little longer

This is the minute, I am in it

The world slows down around me

I’m so gland she found me

Oh the wonder

She is the lighting to my thunder

Makes love to me in the morning

And a once again in the afternoon

Maybe twice if she’d like too

Maybe three times…

if I can

11

Mike Honey never regretted the change.
It made him free.
There was no parade to celebrate his freedom, no celebration, not even a small collection of friends and well wishers. It was just him, his partner and a reassuringly unnoticed medical staff that day. The world kept spinning, but life stopped and silently applauded the real Mike.
Personal liberation gets devalued in this age of reality TV and American irresponsibility. Everyone is so inundated with narcissisms and self-promotion that nobody believes in the inward journey anymore.
It’s all a load of shit
The mouth breathers soak up the spin fed diatribe that shits out of the Idiot Box every night, lapping it up like suckling pigs.
The next day at work, they all validate themselves around the water cooler as everyone regurgitates what they were spoon fed last night from the broadcast. Sips of coffee all around, an awkward pause, then everyone realizes they have nothing more to say. They slink back to their designated cubes, the death-holes where they pretend to be busy and choke down eight hours of denying that people they spend more than half of their waking life with are not people they particularly like.
Fuck them.
Mike got his. Four and a half inches of flesh that validated what he was born to be.
He was a man.
He was real.
Modern Science fixed Natures hiccup. The mind and the body finally matched in philosophy. Jeans looked good low slung off his hips and his soul patch rocked.
Not to mention he owned the best Bed and Breakfast in Maine. Torbins Shore had eight rooms and four bathrooms. It overlooked a rocky beach that was saddled between two large outcroppings and it had the best chef this side of everywhere. Its rooms were filled from April till November.
Usually Mike spent the winter cleaning and repainting the empty rooms. Not this winter, the rooms were filled with rich Liberals. Not the Liberals he identified with, but the Money Liberals that were really Conservatives with a conscious. They were taking a break from their $900-a-plate dinners for the homeless and drove their SUV’s up to Easter Egg Rock to save the puffin.
Mike didn’t mind the business, but these jerk offs irritated him. Snooty mother fuckers always kick started his bad side. Silver haired fifty somethings honeymooning on their Do-Over Weddings always made better clientele. He didn’t even mind the young Affected Artist couples, even though they tipped lousy.
These people just sucked.
His life partner agreed late night in whispers, but during the day she never let her smile fade. No want went overlooked and no need wasn’t anticipated. She always knew how to make everybody comfortable.
Mike had never seen her falter.
He was surprised to see her body almost slump after the phone call from her nephew.
Mike guessed that he was coming to visit.

Silly Pleasantries

God damn your confusion
God damn your silly lies
You only see the world
As it appears in your own eyes
Spring is here and Summer is round the bend
Do you think that we could still be friends
After all this shit has gone down
After the sun has burned away the clouds
Burned away the clouds

I’m sick of all the turmoil
And my life’s hypocrisy
The past is dead now
Why don’t we let it be
Forget what we have lost
and give thanks for what we had
between the tears
we sure found some laughs
So come over once in a while
Share a beer, share a laugh, share a smile
Laura share a smile
Come on and share a smile

I know it’s gonna hurt
And sometimes I’ll feel lost
But sanity is a bargain
No matter what it costs
With a little kindness
And some silly pleasantries
I’m sure we both could agree
That it never really mattered much at all

No I never mattered much at all

No I never mattered much at all

The Rock on The Hill

The Rock On the Hill

The sky flared out endlessly overhead in a brilliant angel eye blue and dangled a few puffy white clouds over Guirmean, but he wasn’t much impressed. He was holding down the east side of Ferguson Hill with the prone weight of his body and that was plenty enough for him to be thinking about. He didn’t have the luxury to fuss about the color of the sky. It was always some shade of blue. The folly of ruminating about some water vapor collecting into a Rorschach overhead escaped his sensibilities. Fools and philosophers could spend their minutes, days and years contemplating the meaning of the miniscule but to Guirmean, time meant something different. In fact, he didn’t think much of time either. Except of course, all the time he had. All the time he had, laying on some little patch of moss on Ferguson Hill.
He had traded in all of his moments for minutes.
He swapped them for immortality.
It all started a month ago last night. Guirmean was at The Falcon’s Head, swapping his weeks wages for a couple of jars. Like always, he kept to himself bent up close to the bar, barely moving except to bring glass to lips. He tried to squeeze himself into the shadows and pretend nobody knew him, but it was just that, pretend.
It was the only pub in town, set a little way over the ridge of Teagan’s Bluff, on the road to Shrewsbury. The old cunts that gossiped on Sunday after worshipping the Lord, always made note of the husbands that walked up that hill and when they staggered back down. Those moldy hags made juicy bits of the chaps that didn’t wander out till after sunrise. It was assumed by those moth ridden busy bodies that the hung over husbands, rehearsing their apology as the stumbled home, had dipped their wanker into one of the sorry whores that plied their trade in that den of sin. In reality, they probably had gotten too drunk to unwrinkle their troublemakers and spent the night snoring in a puddle of piss on the floor.
Guirmean ended yesterday’s work by putting down his shovel and walking over to his boss, Chalmers, and making sure he got his money before the bastard slipped out of town. Chalmers and Guirmen had been mates all back in school, but Chalmers’ dad owned most of the town and Guirmean dad owed most of the town. When they both turned eighteen, Guirmean went to work and Chalmers went to university. Four years later, Chalmers came back with manicured fingernails and Guirmean started digging ditches for him. Guirmean felt bugs squirm under his skin every Friday when he had to humble himself to Chalmers just to get what he earned. Chalmers loved it, having grown men kowtow under him, especially his old schoolmates.
He often disappeared on Fridays afternoons just for sport. He loved the added humiliation he piled on everyone as they scurried around town looking for him, just to get their pay. Guirmean had confronted him early.
“Best you settle up wid' me fair for you wander off.” He demanded, smearing dirt across his forehead as he swiped at the sweat.
“You haven’t worked a full week yet.” Chalmers sneered back “I don’t pay on credit.”
“Fuck it Chalmers! Ye sorry fucking waste of space. You know I’m gonna finish the day. I just want to get what is due me before you wander off.”
“Did ye just swear at me?” Chalmers folded his arms across his chest indignantly. Guirmean tried to pull back a moment that was already gone. His tongue had always been quicker than his brain.
“Dat’s it.” Chalmers said, “Burst the road. You’re as good as sacked. I won’t take dat from da likes ay ye.”
“Aww fur fuck’s sakes. I didn’t pure mean it. I forgot myself fur a moment and thought we were back scuffling around at da yard loch when we were lads. Don’t take me job Chalmers. Me old lady will kill me an' I need da job. There ain’t no other jobs around here but working' fur ye.”
“We'll, right, ye should have thought it’ bit 'at fore yer opened your yap in disrespect. We ain’t lads no more an' yer ain’t me mucker, never were.” Chalmers pulled a roll of bills out of his front pocket and peeled off a few. “Here’s whit I owe ye an' a bit more tae send ye on year way.”
Guirmean kept his hands to his side. He knew once he took the money, it was over. He was out another job. He didn’t even want to look at it.
“Go’an on tik it.” Chalmers shouted “Tik it and piss off.”
Guirmean still didn’t reach out. He didn’t even look up. His skin bubbled pink with heat. Choking on a lifetime of rage, his throat swelled shut. He pushed hard against his emotions and stuffed them back into the empty black.
“Jesus Christ, fuck it.” Guirmean grabbed the bills. He tossed his shovel and spit, turned his back to the job he just lost and walked away. “No sense in worryin' abit it no. what’s dain is dain.” his mind rationalized, “fine for ye ta say, but whit am I gonna tell Da?”
There was no answer to that, at least none that Guirmean wanted to hear. He just followed his stumble all the way past the Campbell’s place at the edge of town and up into the hills. He was up was up near the big rock that’s split down the middle. The one they call Inverclyde Hideout. Up there the air is always damp and milky. The fog hovers thick around the top half of the hill. Generations of locals have speculated about the malicious portents and the ghastly lurkings that emanated from their indigenous Olympus of evil. Dark tales of what goes on up there in the fog made great excuses for things nobody wanted to explain and sparked nightmares in sleeping children. Men could move like shadows and shadows melanized into men betwixt the heavy fog.
Guirmean knew all that was a cart load of shite. He knew the demons weren’t on some soggy hillside, they were in his head.
He was out of breath. He flopped down and lay out on his back. The fog was so thick; it almost felt like rain across his face. Droplets collected on his forehead and trickled down whatever side gravity fancied. Guirmean pulled a rumpled pack of Kensitas Clubs from his front pocket and plucked out one of the lesser bent ciggies. He popped the fag between his lips.
“Fuck!” he thought, “I don have a fucking light.”
He plunged both hands into their respective pocket and fumbled for a lighter he knew wasn’t there. It was just another disappointment in a washout day of total failure. All the air emptied out of his lungs with a giant sigh and all his anger left him, leaving his muscles slack against the damp earth. He felt like a turd, abandoned by its maker to petrify on some mossy slope. Wisps of stream rose from his body, dancing in the air like kelp in the undertow. He just wanted to leave, leave this dead end town, leave his shitty job, leave his wasted life and just fucking forget it all. Life wasn’t worth the struggle.
Guirmean despised all the people that believed in the lie that life was a gift. If life was a gift, it was the worst present he ever got. It was worse than getting a pair of socks for Christmas. It was like God, just like Santa, never read his Christmas list and gave him whatever crappy gift was left in the bottom of his bag after handing out all of the cool shit.
“I never asked for this!” Guirmean shouted up to the stars. “I didn’t choose to be born.”
Guirmean chuckled at himself. Nobody chooses this shit. He thought about those Sunday school lessons that said all of us were up there in Heaven clamoring to be born. We were all just begging God to kick us out of Nirvana and spend a couple of years getting shit on by the other ones lucky enough to be born into privilege and oh yea, fight off Satan while we’re mucking about the entire pile of shit.
“What a fucking lark. A pile a shit I ain’t gonna swallow no more. Yaw hear me yaw bastard? I ain’t buying your shit no more.” German’s voice detonated into the night, “I don’t want what you’re selling. I just want some peace. I want to just lie here and watch time go by, nobody to bother me and nothing to do. I just want the whole world to let me be.”
He went rigid. Every muscle in his body flexed in acrimony then softened as his consciousness blurred under the strain. The world went swirled into a brilliant gray.
Guirmean was startled by the sound of footsteps coming up the hill. He tried to rise but gravity kept him pinned to the earth. He craned his neck, peering down the hill into the fog, but couldn’t see who was approaching. The stranger’s footsteps echoed louder as the got closer. Still, Guirmean could see nothing.
Suddenly, a shadow materialized out of the mist.
It was a man. A giant of a man, his outline stretched across the mist like a house. He was bigger than any man Guirmean had ever seen before. The atmosphere stagnated and putrefied. There was no noise as the shadow floated up to him in a velvety skate. For a second, Guirmean felt panic, then unclipped into calm. Time slowed to a crawl.
The shadow exploded into to a brilliant glare. Guirmean tried to shield his eyes with his left hand.
“Guirmean, I have heard your questions of doubt.” The specter pulsated as it spoke. “I can affirm your beliefs.”
“Piss off!” Guirmean extended his arm and gave the apparition the finger.
The spectacle fluttered rapidly. “I am the Eidelon of Numen. I have come to assuage your fears.”
Guirmen sat up. “Look you sparkling twat of whatever, unless you got £100,000 and a life supply of whiskey, you better just piss the fuck off. I don’t want your bullshit. I just want to be left alone. I just want to sit here forever. I never want to have to lift a finger again. I just want some bloody fucking peace. I want you and the whole fucking world to leave me alone and just let me sit here.”
There was no response. The sparkle just faded into a dot, then disappeared. Guirmean smiled. He was filled with a calm peace. He tried to roll over and go to sleep but couldn’t. He seemed stuck. He tried again but couldn’t move. Exhausted, he gave up and drifted off to sleep.
He woke in the morning with a cool mist splashing on his face. He knew that a good soaking rain was soon to come and that he better get home before it hit. He tried to stand but couldn’t. In fact, he couldn’t move at all, not even a wiggle. There was nothing he could do. He pushed and pushed against the constraint, but to no avail. Frustrated, he screamed for help but no sound came out. He screamed again. Again, there was nothing but silence.
Two weeks went by and still Guirmean found himself stuck in the ground. He had stopped screaming. Sooner or later, he figured somebody would come up here and find him. One day some people did wander up there. Two people, a young couple, went up Ferguson Hill to be alone and have a picnic above the mist.
The walked up and spread out a blanket right next to Guirmean. He tried to scream and get there attention but was frozen. The young lovers frolicked about for a while in the fog then collapsed with silly giggles on the blanket next Guirmean.
“Can’t you see me?” he tried to scream, “I’ right here.”
They heard nothing or ignored him. Without any shame the made love. At one point, the girl was even bent over Guirmean. They were oblivious to his plight. He was just part of the landscape, inanimate and disregarded. When the two were done, they packed up and went on their way. The never gave Guirmean any mind.
After they were gone, Guirmean realized his fate. He screamed that this isn’t what he meant, but nobody heard his pleas.
Everyone left him alone.

Unnoticed

I waded through my teenage years, struggling in the muck between being cool and being a loser. I was lost in the gooey middle of life known as mediocrity. Nobody picked me first when we divided up into teams and nobody picked on me when we commingled in the hallways between classes. I was nothing more than an also ran in every sport I played and valedictorian was just another word I couldn’t spell unless I looked it up. Most of my teachers needed to use their seating charts if they wanted to call me by name. Even the herd of kids that had walked past my face countless times over the last four years knew me only as “Oh yeah, that guy.”
I was unnoticed.
I was a ghost, an apparition.
I was an unheard whisper.
I was an unperceived particle of dust floating around in a world that kept expanding exponentially out away from me. Everything got bigger and bigger and life kept moving faster and faster. Nothing about life made any sense. Nothing I thought or did seemed to matter at all. Nobody even knew I was alive. Nobody knew who I was. I didn’t even know who I was.
I was lost in my own skin.
And I hated it.
I wanted to be noticed. I wanted to be heard. I wanted to be somebody and I wanted to do something that would make the entire world stand up and take notice. I wanted to scream out loud across the whole planet and make everyone listen.
But I didn’t know what to say.
I didn’t have any great words or giant ideas. There was nothing behind the bravado I wanted to display. I was pretty much the tiny speck of unimportant that life had labeled me.
So there I was, at a crossroad between accepting my fate or trying to be something that I could never become. I could slide into the meaningless role assigned to me or spend my life struggling to show the world how great I really was.
I refused to choose.
I said “Fuck it!” and took the easy way out.
I got all sorts of high and forgot all about it.
Shit was a lot better for a while.
Life wasn’t this giant puzzle I needed to solve anymore. It became a series of moments that only mattered for as long as they were there. I still was unnoticed but suddenly I noticed everything. The small corners of everything around me were lit up. I dove into the tiny parts of life I never knew were there and swam wide eyed into the vastness all around me.
I experienced all the clichés.
I heard the silence, smelt the colors and tasted the music. The sensation was boundless and even though I was still small I felt like I was part of something beyond immense. Sounds silly, but it is true.
It was all that and more.
But I was dancing with a duplicitous partner.
Soon the shiny parts dimmed and all the reality that I had been avoiding caught up with me and hammered me with a vengeance.
Being wasted wasn’t a diversion anymore it was my new reality. All those fun nights didn’t end with me passing out softly in my bed or on a friends couch. I found myself, more and more, trying to stay awake in some holding tank surrounded by all the other riff raff rounded up by the police that night.
I started doing things I never thought I would. Things I thought I couldn’t do. Not me. I wasn’t like that. Was I?
But I was.
That was me cooking up the shitty coke we got from the projects so we could smoke “the good stuff”.
That was me snorting smack and justifying it by saying “At least I wasn’t shooting it.”
That was me pawning some crappy camera I stole from my uncle to buy drugs.
That was me pinned under my jeep after I flipped it into a swamp.
That was me sitting in a New Haven jail for six months.
It was all me.
I remember the day I got out like it was yesterday. When I got arrested it was summer and I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. My buddy Chase was there when I walked out the front doors. Cool as he always was, he had a flannel shirt with him and he tossed it to me.
He drove me back to Cheshire but I had nowhere to go. He turned around and brought me back to the city. We smoked a bowl on the way. I hadn’t been high in such a long time. It felt good, but it wasn’t the same.
There weren’t any hidden corners for me to see anymore. Shit was just there and it all looked the same. I was in an easy fog and I let my head rest against the passenger door window. I watched the scenery blur past me as we sped down the Merritt Parkway. Chase didn’t say anything. He always was the best at just being there when you needed him and not fucking everything up with words.
He let me out somewhere that doesn’t matter.
“Are you sure?” he asked me, knowing I wasn’t going to answer. I just closed the door and watched him drive off.
So there I was, at the crossroad between accepting my fate of being who I had become or trying to be something that I knew I could be.
It was an easy choice.
I felt the chill air sting my bare legs and pulled the flannel shirt tighter around me.
I knew a guy that lived close by. Maybe I could crash at his place for a bit until I put my life back on track?
I was still unnoticed by the world around me.
At least now I was starting to see the real me.

The Boots

My dad brought home some work boots for me one night. He was pretty proud of them, I could tell by how anxious he was to show them to me. He was so anxious he forgot that he worked the third shift and had gotten home at 4 am. I always slept alert and felt his presence intrude my unconsciousness and sit on my bed. I snapped up into a sitting position, not knowing if I was going to get beat or hugged. I stabbed the folded knuckles of my index fingers into the corners of my eyes to brush away some crusted sleep and crumpled up my forehead, hoping to get a better view.

Dad was creepy.

Not all the time, but sometimes, especially when he woke me up in the middle of the night and tried to talk to me. He talked at me with words I didn't understand but looked at me like he wanted me to respond. Sometimes he got real mad when I didn't know what to say. I always froze in fear and lack of understanding, sort of how I imagine the Native Americans acted when they sat down to talk to the first Europeans that crashed their party. I wish I could go back as the grown up me and have those conversations, because I think my dad just wanted somebody to talk to.

He was all happy and his blurry silhouette wrapped around a gaping smile and wild eyes that were too white to be drunk. He dangled something over my eyebrows with his right hand. They were work boots. I guessed he had got them really cheap off of some truck that came by the shop he worked at. I tried to get a handle on the situation, but got fixated on all the saliva glistening on his lips as he told me he didn’t get them from some Mafia truck or a truck driven by a group of Holy Roller grandmothers trying to raise money for their Monkey Farm. At least that’s what I think he told me. I sighed out a thank you, then unbent myself into horizontal and pretended to fall asleep. I felt his weight leave the bed and waited until he was done stumbling around and had collapsed on his own bed, before I let my guard down. Even then, I didn’t relax much until I heard his rumbling snore. That’s when I knew it was safe and I let the darkness tuck me in.

When I got up in the morning there was a pair of black work boots laughing at me from the end of my bed. Not really laughing, just sort of curling up a double stitched plastic polygrip sole around a fake steel toe.

“Come on Fonzie, everyone is wearing black.” The boots said to me in some weird Italian accent. “Put us on and feel the power of Black Plastic.”

I warbled like a frightened Yeti about to crap its fur, and kicked the ebony abominations to the floor. The plastic thud of the boots died quickly, but my warble hit my dads face and he snorted into semi-consciousness.

“Lunch money is on my dresser.” He mumbled. I looked at him and noticed that all the glistening spit from last night had crusted up and caked his lips with white. “Don’t touch anything else.”

I shook my brother awake. He pushed himself up and out from under the covers. He had no idea what was going on, nor would I ever want him to. He just put his feet on the floor and started telling me about the crazy dream he had. I widened my eyes, hoping the glare would flag him down. It did and he gasped, trying to suck back in the words that had already escaped. He knew not to wake the sleeping monster. We went through our entire morning regimen in silent tiptoe. We barely turned the water up past a trickle to brush our teeth and wash our faces. Experience made sure we quietly wiggled our dresser drawers over the spots we knew would squeak. I snapped on a long sleeve plaid shirt and pulled a pair of brown corduroys that had worn flat on both knees, up to my hips. I tucked everything in and slowly, quite deliberately, snaked my belt through every loop. There was nothing left to do but put on some shoes.

I looked over at my sneakers. I had tamed them the first day I got them. I scraped them across the kickball field and had scuffed all the newness out of them. I wasn’t intimidated by their shiny white leather or unfrayed laces. I dragged my foot sideways across every third sidewalk crack I came across on the way into school, made sure I rubbed some playground dirt into them at every recess and even had six of my friends plaster them with the biggest lugies they could hawk up. My Dad was pretty pissed when he saw his six dollar investment into me all ragged and lugie coated next to the front door when he came home from work that night. He fumed and ranted that weekend about how he was never going to buy me anything ever again. I remember how my childhood naiveté thought he never bought me anything anyway.

“I didn’t ask for your stupid sneakers,” I hissed in genuine hatred, “I wanted work boots.”

Of course I wanted work boots. All the kids my age were wearing work boots at the time. I failed to spit out with the rest of my venom, that all the other kids were wearing yellow Timberlines.

I guess I struck a chord somewhere in the man born with a heart three sizes too small. Two weeks later, when the machine shop he worked at, doled out his due, he cut his bar tab a couple of beers short and tried to make his son happy. He went out to Marshalls, and got his eldest kid some work boots. He hadn’t just stumbled across them one night like I thought he did. He had actually made a genuine stab at being a dad.

He tried, but those boots were just going to make my life worse.

The boots knew it too, I could hear them laughing as I slipped my heel down into the hard black plastic. I pulled the laces tight up through all the eyelets and tied them in a knot. I started to walk across to the bedroom door.

Suddenly, The Monster woke. He twisted his feet to the floor and scratched at his bald spot as he sat up. His bulging eyes, cracked red with bloodshot, were too dry too blink out last night’s sleep. He just stood up full prone naked and barked “What the Hell time is it?” He reached back and picked at his ass, “What the Hell are you kids doing?”

“We’re just getting ready for school.” I said.

“Well, don’t make so much fucking noise.” He did a straight leg zombie walk into the bathroom and slammed the door. I heard the seat go down and figured he would be in there for a while.

I pulled four quarters off the dresser, along with two blue tickets that resembled something the Jaycees give you for a dollar in a turkey raffle. The silver was our lunch money. The blue ticket meant we didn’t have to pay the whole buck fifty everyone else did. I looked back at my brother who was standing next to the bathroom door.

“Let’s go.” I yelled with a whisper.

“I can’t,” he said “I haven’t brushed my teeth.”

“Are you crazy?”

“I gotta brush them.”

“Fine, you can wait for him to come out. I’ll be down stairs.”

I closed the bedroom door behind me and made my way downstairs. I made sure to go through the living room and avoid my grandparents in the kitchen. They were just waiting to trap me into a sit down breakfast of cracked wheat cereal and baby talk. Heck, they are still trying to do that to the adult me.

I was out in the driveway, waiting for my brother, nonchalantly slamming my toes into the asphalt. Those damn black boots were impervious. After a bit, I realized that my brother hadn’t come down. I got worried and sped back upstairs, racing through the kitchen past grandparents that mumbled some indignant protests of whatever grandparents protest about. I steamed down the hall, but ever so gently pushed open the bedroom door.

I saw my brother doing The Pee Pee Dance and pointing and the bathroom. I walked up and looked in. There was my father sitting on the toilet, face resting on his knees and snoring away. I told my brother to go down the hall to the guest bathroom. I took one step in, thinking I should wake him up and put him to bed, like so many times before.

I paused for a second and the moment was etched indelibly into my memory. He actually looked sort of comfortable folded up and snoring on his porcelain bed. I glanced down at my feet and decided to let him stay there.

It was the least I could do to let him sleep. After all, he did bring me home a fine pair of work boots.

Thanks Maggy

Every now and then when I get melancholy, I write about the past.
I stumble through moments that have been bouncing around my head for years. I don’t even know where to begin, but I know I have to start somewhere.
Somewhere inside of me are stories I need to tell.
I don’t know if they are good stories.
I just know they are there, clamoring to get out.
The stories get jumbled up because they were jumbled as I lived them. The wishes that I reached for never quite lived up to what I wanted them to be. I got jaded early and didn’t think life was really worth it. Dreams never clouded up my expectations and life pretty much unfolded like it was scripted for an unsung collection of carbon and water like me.
I was just there.
The plot never thickened and the audience never roared with laughter. Nobody noticed when they missed an episode or cared about the story and I’m pretty sure that there isn’t a sequel in the works.
It was nothing but a montage of misplaced moments. Memories scattered and lost like specks of sand on an endless beach.
I was just there.
Nobody noticed and nobody cared.
And now I’m here.
I’m staring at the past and looking for words to type. I wanted to bitch about some shitty stuff that fucked up my youth, but something keeps distracting me. A shiny little spot sparkling in the puddle of my mind keeps diverting me from all the things I thought were shitty.
Someone did notice.
Someone took my hand.
All those milestones I took for granted like learning to read, or tying my shoes, realizing the dark isn’t that scary or finding the beauty behind every note. All those little things that the younger me learned came from my very first hero.
She didn’t know it or want it. Hell, she probably kind of thought of me as a pest. But somewhere in her hectic teenage life, her heart find enough time for me.
My aunt Margaret was a giant in my life.
I remember going to see her plays, I think she was in Our Town and Fiddler on the Roof, but I was really little. I remember wanting to see her so much when she came back from studying abroad in Russia that I went to the airport even though I was sick and was barfing everywhere.
The way she read stories made them come alive and she had the patience to teach me to read. She was my first piano teacher, but when I heard her sing, the world of music became the most beautiful thing.
There was one year I went to live with her out in Provo Utah. I hated everything. I didn’t know why I was there. Nobody wanted me. It was another year in a different place, another new school and another year of being the new kid. I was so sick of trying to fit in and tired of fighting all the kids that hated me just because I was new. Worst of all, all these kids in my new world were Mormon. That meant they did all they same stuff as other kids but lied about it and hated anyone that didn’t cover it up.
The whole year sucked.
It sucked for me and I’m sure it sucked for Margaret. I was a total prick. The world as I knew it was just a giant ball of shit. I was angry at everything and Margaret was collateral damage.
I was so happy to leave that hell and get back to the shit hole I was more familiar with. I’m pretty sure Margaret was happy to see me go too.
Not like she didn’t love me, I know she did, It was that I was such an asshole.
Thinking about it now, I’m kind of sad.
I was thirteen years old that year I spent in Provo. Thirteen years and that was the first time I felt what it was like to have a mother. I wish I could have been nicer, but I couldn’t.
Not then.
I’m not so angry anymore and life looks a lot different now than it did back then. I only hope that she can forgive me for what I was like as a boy and can smile at the man she helped me become.

Love, The Hitman

It may be a gun

It may be a knife

But either way,

You’re gonna lose your life

Love,

The Hitman

Those are the words I scratched out in black ink on the torn out corner of some notebook paper. I wrote them southpaw so nobody could identify my handwriting. I even waited until a few more rounds of bells ushered in and out some other classes. I slipped in, unnoticed among the cattle call of eighth graders getting herded out to their next class. I tossed the folded piece of paper onto Mrs Bauers desk in a casual but calculated way and it landed crease down, leaning against a blue coffee mug that housed an assortment of pens. The note went unnoticed for a couple of hours, until Ruth, snacking on a wedge of green apple, reached down and picked up the scrap of paper. She almost threw it out without cause, but something stopped her.

Ruth brought down the hand that was attached to the apple wedge, uncrunched by her knobby smoke stained teeth. She flipped open the fold and read the words. The apple wedged fell from her mouth, richocheted of her desk and landed two inches from the wall, unedibly coated in chalk dust and hair.

Ruth didn’t know what to make of it.

Her eyes bounced around in their sockets, desperately hoping to focus on something.

Anything.

She was frightened by the empty classroom in front of her, but simultaneously relieved there weren’t any students watching her, especially any student that would write down such angry words. She pulled open the right top drawer of her desk, yanked out an envelope, tucked the note inside of it and dropped it back into the drawer. She slammed the drawer so hard, that the metallic crunch frightened her into a scream.

I had placed similar notes in a dissimilar pattern, sporadically over the last three weeks. I didn’t tell anyone about the notes. Well, almost. I did laugh about it with my buddy Tim, as we practiced Cross Country after school. I know that was stupid, but we both had Bauer for English and we ran several miles together everyday. We had to talk about something.

He got a kick out of it.

Besides, it wasn’t like I was the only one fucking with her. Well, maybe I started it, but like I said, nobody knew… at first.

It turns out the lady was a nut job and prebucent teens can be the evilest pieces of shit in the world.

I’m sure all of us that tormented that women just thought we were being funny.

I’m sure that woman didn’t think us tormenting her was funny at all.

She somehow let her personal diary get out into the school population. Her deathly fear of cats and dalliances with her personal Psychiatrist, Dr. Fishbine became the fodder for every atrocity a teenager could think of. Nightly crank calls, notices of her infidelities burned into her front lawn and the run of the mill TP’ing and egging plagued her the entire year.

Oddly enough, my little prank went on in the beginning of the year and ended before the New England trees even thought about changing color.

I had completely forgotten about the notes, four in total, that I had slipped onto Ruth Bauers desk. They were just a joke and I thought she would get it because one of the book she had us read was by Paul Zindel. That is why I was shocked to see my dad standing in the Main Office as I went to the Library. I knew I was in trouble…fucking duh…but I was trying to figure out what exactly I had been caught doing. I had skipped a few classes, my math teacher caught me smoking and had moved the librarians car down to the IGA when she gave me the keys to put some boxes in her trunk. All of those things could have been enough to bring Dad down to school.

I wasn’t surprised when I was called out over the schools PA to “Come on down to the Front Office.”

I was surprised, a little, that I didn’t have to park my butt for fifteen minutes in one of the green vynled chairs with metal arms that are riveted together agains the glass wall that shields all the administration staff from the populace. I was told to go right in.

Nothing sucks more than walking into a room full of cops.

They even had an F.B.I. agent and a handwriting expert.

They all admitted they couldn’t pin it on me but a bunch of people had said it was me.

I looked at my dad.

I didn’t give him that “Save Me Daddy!” look.

I just looked at him and saw his expression. He didn’t want to be there. He hates cops. I know he hates cops.

I looked at him and I knew he knew I did it.

That feeling was more punishment than any of those jarheads could bring on me.

I confessed.

I was then promptly handcuffed and led out the front doors to a squad car.

As I was escorted to the squad car, my buddy John Chase yelled out from his classroom window, “Hey Ferguson, How does it feel to get cuffed and stuffed.”

For a second it seemed pretty cool, then I wondered if it was really worth it.

The officer palmed the back of my head and pushed me into the backseat of his squad car. I heard the cackle from the radio under the dashboard. I looked out the window and saw a bunch of adults pretending that any of this will matter in a hundred years. It was just some words.

Placed in the right order, at the right place and at the right time, words can mean everything.

Was it worth it?

Yeah, it was.

The Song

The song

Oisin screamed himself awake and bent upright, his veins swollen hard with angry blood. Every muscle tensed with panic and his throat dried up. Sweat streamed from all his pores, glistening in the moonlit dark and pasting the sheet opaque across his chest.
His eyes flared crazy wide.
The white part watered up and then gave way to the tiny veins bleeding them into red. Both of his orbits expanded against his cheeks and forehead and his bright blue irises struggled to contain the exploding black of his pupils.
He stared out at the world.
It was dark and silent, but it was real. He almost got a glimpse of the fading dream he’d just left. Oisin's heart stalled then pushed out twice as much blood as normal, losing it's rhythm and his lungs forgot to inhale. The moment hung there, suspended in what he wanted life to be, then it crashed into what life really was.
He got it.
Oisin opened his lungs and sucked in a giant gasp of night air. Time crashed around him as his reality caught up with the world. He pushed open the bed sheet and flung himself out of bed. The cold of the floor stung his flesh when they met, but it felt good. It reassured him that he was awake.
He finally got it.
He'd always known he would.
Giddiness started to tickle his insides. Light as a feather at first, it circled around a spot just above his stomach and below his ribcage. It spiraled out and intensified. Now his whole body shook. He could not walk. He knew the room he was trapped in like the back of his hand, but he lumbered across it, almost incapacitated by anticipation. Each square of the checkered floor seem to drag under him unbearably slowly. Even the air thickened around him like drying plaster, slowing him down, pulling him back to bed. But Oisin was determined. He pushed on.
He had it.
He had been wrestling with it for so long now. It had become an obsession. Entire days were spent on it, maybe even months. It had been so long; that Oisin had even forgotten when he first started thinking about it.
Yea, he forgot when it began, imagine that, but he couldn't let it go.
It haunted him, like the ghosts of all the men he had seen die.
His mind swirled into a scrambled hash, serving up memories in rapid disjointed flashes. Screaming friends with their intestines spread out across the battlefield, begging him not to let them die , and dark-skinned strangers ripped lifeless by the bullets he had fired into them collided, and his dreams became nightmares. Through it all was a melody. A melody he heard snatches of, but could never finish. Oisin thought that if he could finish the song, the nightmares would stop. If he could just resolve that last melody, he could make it through the night without waking up in a sweaty scream. It seamed so easy, but the melody was so haunting that the resolution eluded him. He couldn't just end it any old way. It had to be the right way. It had to be those three perfect chords. Three chords that would masterfully vibrate down the fret board, swirl around briefly in the body of his guitar, then explode out the sound hole in a monumental conclusion to his masterpiece. Three chords he knew he would find, but had been eluding his fingertips.
Until now.
He had heard them in a dream. He saw them. He watched, amazed, as his own fingers spread across the rosewood neck of his guitar. Oisin knew what he needed to play.
It seemed like centuries since he woke from his dream, but he had finally struggled across the floor and into his chair. He picked up his guitar and strummed the strings to make sure they were in tune. He tightened up the G string because it was a little flat. Satisfied, Oisin strummed a couple of chords, then reached out to the music stand and grabbed a pencil. He scribbled in the conclusion of his song across the staffs of the sheet music in front of him. It looked good; it felt right. A smile curled up into his eyes.
Oisin started to play.
His hands floated up and down, dexterous fingers brilliantly pulling their assigned stings. It all came together. The puzzle was complete! Oisin played harder and louder. The music poured out from his guitar and melted all over him like a warm summer rain. He couldn't remember ever being this happy. All his life, since he first tried to wrap his tiny four year old fingers around the neck of a guitar, he had dreamed of writing his masterpiece. He had finally done it.
Oisin closed his eyes and played. He played and played. The sun came over the mountains to the east, but Oisin never noticed. He just kept on playing, joyously lost in the masterpiece he finally completed. He didn't here Jose come into his room and start yelling at him.
"Oisin, what the fuck are you doing?" Jose crossed the room and grabbed Oisin, hoisting him up by his waist, "How did you get over here?"
Oisin ignored him and kept playing.
"I don't know what you think you are trying to prove," Jose said as he flopped Oisin 's rebellious body back into the hospital bed. "But I swear, if you keep getting out of bed, you'll be the first guy with his arms and legs blown off that this VA hospital ever had to constrain."
Oisin ignored him and kept on playing.

Thinking of Grandma and Grandpa

This is a song I wrote for my grandparents a couple of years ago for their anniversary. I played it for them and they smiled politely. Grandma took my hand and said it was nice. I don't think they got it, but it felt good to sing it for them.
I've been thinking about my grandparents a lot the past couple of months. They are getting very old and I realize how much I will miss them when they are gone.
Anyway, I dug it up and been playing it a bunch lately. It's a simple song. I just walk the the chords all from a G position sort of using an alternate finger picking.
Verse G B C D
Chorus C B A G holding the A second time around with no G


We've been together so long my love
Much longer than I’m deserving of
I’m so happy to have you in my life
And the happiest day
Was the day that you were my bride
And we were husband and wife
The house that we have has become a home
And the children we raised well they all have grown
The years pass so quickly but I have no regrets
Because I know I haven’t seen
The best of it yet
The best of it yet

Dust may collect now
Under our shoes
But the things I see in you
Are still brand new

The moments, the memories, the happy, the sad
The angry, the crying, the good and the bad
I got no regrets and my troubles are few
It’s my song and my story
It’s my life spent with you
My life spent with you

Dust may collect now
Under our shoes
But the things I see in you
Are still brand new

Dust may collect now
Under our shoes
But the things I see in you
Are still brand new

They're shiny and new

It was just a shirt

It was just a shirt

I was wearing a black tee-shirt that let me advertise Jack Daniels to everyone I came in contact with. I was eight years shy of being able to drink legally, but the shirt was black and the giant Jack Daniels label made it wicked cool. Jack Daniels got a four foot nine billboard. I got a cool shirt. It was a win win situation.
The plastic white lettering adorning the front was cracked and starting to chip from multiple washings and a tree branch had stabbed a hole into the left shoulder. It was slightly ragged, but I loved it.
I had been swimming all day and the bottom sagged into a damp gray just below my waist where it clung to my still clammy bathing suit.
My bike was almost on auto pilot as I glided into my driveway. I pushed back on the right pedal and skidded sideways across the gravel. My fists let go of the handlebars and my bike slid flat against the ground. Hopping over the frame, I grabbed my mailbox to balance my body into a stop. Some older kids were driving by just then and screamed a bunch of unintelligible taunts at me. I folded my fist and flipped a bird high into the air.
"Fuck You!" I screamed like I didn't mean it and waited for the screech.
Waited.
Waited.
Nothing happened, just a fading hiss from bald tires.
The car kept on going.
I pulled my shirt over my head.
The wet part, cold and clingy, stiffened my tiny boy nipples into angry pimples and pointed both of my chest hairs out at right angles. I flapped my arms trying to shake off the goose bumps and then spread prostrate on the soggy ground, just past where the gravel met the grass. I reached down into the small metal tube that tunneled under the end of our driveway and pulled out a small plastic shopping bag. The bag contained a plain white tee shirt. I pulled the white tee shirt out and replaced it with the half damp cotton advertisement, then pushed the bag back into the tiny tunnel.
I had to do that just so I could keep the shirt. If I brought it home my grandmother would surely find it and confiscate it under the pretense of trying to save my soul.
Never mind that my father was an abusive alcoholic or that my mother was a heroin addicted prostitute down in New Haven. No, that shit wasn’t going to ruin me. Beer labeled cotton was going to lead me right into Satan’s arms.
I had given up trying to illuminate the outdated monolith that was my grandmother with my teenage wisdom. Her mind was closed tight around her ignorance. She paraphrased partial scriptures and misquoted anecdotes, trying to piece together a religion that would justify her crazy. I knew her religion better than she did. I actually read the books several times and could correct all the erroneous quotes she used to justify her psychosis. She was nothing more than a control freak.
But, she was the one making the rules. She had my father, my grandfather and all my uncles quivering under her egomaniacal regime. Any protest I spouted fell on deaf ears, so I did the only thing I could do.
I followed the letter of her law to a T, but exploited all the loopholes so I could still be me.
Well, the me that snuck around and changed his clothes at the end of the driveway at least.
I pushed my head out the neck hole and wiggled my arms out the sleeves. Just then, the postman pulled up to my mailbox and stuffed it full of mail. He glanced into my stare and we met briefly with our eyes. He gave me a two finger salute and a casual nod as he leaned out from his jeep to stuff a wedge of mail into our box.. I responded with a half-assed wave. Pulling back the pornstache from his corn nibblet smile, he offered out a cigarette yellow grin.
I must have looked like I just sniffed in a rancid fart..
He caught my reaction and slammed his mustache down around a fast formed frown. His right arm sailed out and grabbed the gear shift, grinding it around until it landed into first, then he floated out the clutch. He slolwly sped off at full mail jeep speed, down the road and around the corner, out of site.
It’s funny how that moment was more embarrassing for him than it was for me, but I’m the one who remembers it after all these years. He probably beat himself up for a bit then let the whole incident fade into the soft pickled fog of his middle aged mind. I can’t seem to keep that memory from popping up every now and then. It makes me giggle for a second and then pauses me with the wish that I could let him know I was....never mind I just giggle when ever I think about our mailman with that giant bushy pornstache.
I pulled out the chunk of mail and cradled it in my left arm as I pushed my bike up the driveway. I got to the top and leaned my bike up against the porch, making my way up the steps and through the side door to the kitchen. Flippin through the delivery pile and smudging all the corners with dirt from my play stained fingers, made me glad I wasn't an adult. It was mostly junk and stuff that looked like bills, but a cream colored business envelope had my name on it. I pulled that one out and tossed the rest of the pile onto the counter. I tore off one end and shook the folded contents out into my palm.
The paper was heavy and milled thick. Off white and important looking, the stationary seemed too fancy to be carrying words meant for a thirteen year old. The two pages were creased perfectly into thirds and I balked at opening them.
I knew what it was.
I even knew what it going to tell me.
I was glad the only one home. I didn’t need any of my self hating relatives rejoicing in the fact that I had been pushed back down into the puddle of failure they were content to wallow in.
I had tried to get out. Out of the crazy.
I applied for a scholarship to Oak Ridge, a military prep school in North Carolina. My dad couldn’t afford it, but they took one charity case every year on merit. Dad said I could go if I got the money. I applied thinking that I would get in easily. I was smart; got straight A’s and was in the program for gifted kids. I never expected the level of competition I ran into. My grades test scores and extra curricular activities got me into a final field of fifteen that were invited in for an interview. I went down there with my aunt and all the finalist were sent home with assignment of sending in a five page essay on why we should be chosen.
I thought my essay rocked.
I freaked a little when I sealed it up in an envelope put it in the mail. I thought that maybe I could have done better.
Big Breath.
I flattened out the pages and splashed down into the ink black words that were all well coifed and double spaced for clarity. A few pleasantries and a “Thank You for trying” trickled into the meat of the matter that let me know that I didn’t make it and that I could apply again next year.
Next year?
Next Year?
Yeah Right!
There was no way I was living with Grandma and all her crazy for another trip around the sun.
I was going to find a way out now.
That’s how I ended up in Utah.