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.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
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
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
I dropped the phone and raised the revolver to my head.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
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
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.
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.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
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
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
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
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.
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.
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