Pierre has a nosebridge like the hump of a camel. His nostrils, attractive cylinders which give the organ an aquatic aesthetic, would look large on any other face. On his they only accentuate the massiveness of the rest of the nose.
He sits on a high-backed, velvet-cushioned chair without armrests. It is a small room, and the chair is the only piece of furniture. A yellow paisley pattern covers the walls and there are no windows. He is dressed sharply and his chest swells slightly as he breathes.
A door is opened and the scientist pushes a simple steel cart laden with rows of corked test tubes. The tubes contain liquids in a variety of shades, mostly amber.
He pulls a notepad from the pocket of his lab coat and hands it to the well-dressed man, who has his own pen.
Silently, the scientist lifts one of the vials and, uncorking it, hands it to Pierre. Pierre draws the object to his heroic nose and sniffs it, just once.
He takes a moment to scribble some thoughts on the notepad, then sniffs the potion again.
He holds his breath almost a full minute, wearing the expression of someone starting to remember something. Then, exhaling, he writes some more. He returns the test tube to the scientist, who sets it aside and begins to uncork another.
“Passion,” says Pierre suddenly, “is the perfume of life.”
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Fernando the Fry Cook
Fernando sticks two fingers into the slit he’s made with the serrated knife and scoops out the pink meat in clumps which stick to his fingers.
“What? This is good meat here. You can taste, see---it won’t hurt you...” he sucks a grape-sized piece of raw pork sausage onto his broad lips, and with a lick of his tongue like a coral eel zipping out of its hole and then quickly back in, the morsel disappears.
“Listen, if you’re gonna stand there with your Little-Miss-Shits-Roses attitude, I’d just as soon you get lost. I’ve got to brown these sausage crumbles and stick them in the freezer before I can clock out. 6:30 a.m., people want their eggs & sausage.”
Dollops of the gristly meat sizzle madly when Fernando drops them into the warmed oil. As he pushes them around the griddle they transform into sweaty, grayish-brown clumps.
“Ya see, I believe people should be at peace with their food, their bodies, their bodily functions, yaknowhatImean? Like this pig I’m cookin’ here, he’s not so different from me. When he was alive, he ate and shat and slept just like I do. And then somebody killed him, and all his shitting and eating days were over.”
As Fernando orates he makes chopping motions with his spatula, as if he were holding an extension of the knife that bled the animal, the cleaver that butchered it, the grinder that sausaged it.
“Now I just ate some of this pig. Later I’m going to shit him out. Rinse, lather, repeat...and then eventually I die. After that they can throw me in the pig trough for all I care. Ha!”
Sealing the last of the crumbles in its Tupperware, Fernando pulls a hairy forearm across his sweaty forehead.
“There’s one thing I’ll tell ya. Whatever ya do, you gotta be at peace with yourself.”
“What? This is good meat here. You can taste, see---it won’t hurt you...” he sucks a grape-sized piece of raw pork sausage onto his broad lips, and with a lick of his tongue like a coral eel zipping out of its hole and then quickly back in, the morsel disappears.
“Listen, if you’re gonna stand there with your Little-Miss-Shits-Roses attitude, I’d just as soon you get lost. I’ve got to brown these sausage crumbles and stick them in the freezer before I can clock out. 6:30 a.m., people want their eggs & sausage.”
Dollops of the gristly meat sizzle madly when Fernando drops them into the warmed oil. As he pushes them around the griddle they transform into sweaty, grayish-brown clumps.
“Ya see, I believe people should be at peace with their food, their bodies, their bodily functions, yaknowhatImean? Like this pig I’m cookin’ here, he’s not so different from me. When he was alive, he ate and shat and slept just like I do. And then somebody killed him, and all his shitting and eating days were over.”
As Fernando orates he makes chopping motions with his spatula, as if he were holding an extension of the knife that bled the animal, the cleaver that butchered it, the grinder that sausaged it.
“Now I just ate some of this pig. Later I’m going to shit him out. Rinse, lather, repeat...and then eventually I die. After that they can throw me in the pig trough for all I care. Ha!”
Sealing the last of the crumbles in its Tupperware, Fernando pulls a hairy forearm across his sweaty forehead.
“There’s one thing I’ll tell ya. Whatever ya do, you gotta be at peace with yourself.”
Sunday, November 21, 2010
The Atomic Man Pt. 7
Regaining consciousness only a few seconds later Charlie found himself slumped in his seat, car drifting on momentum down a darkened residential street. His lips and nose ached where they had hit the steering wheel. He braked and the slight change in velocity made his head spin.
For three shaky breaths he thought of nothing as the world stopped squirming in front of his eyes. The truck was nowhere in sight. Through his windshield he could see that the hood of his poor Tercel had crumpled like wet paper.
He pulled to the curb and parked. Then he realized where he was: the 1600 block of First Street, by Bethany's place. He checked himself out in the rearview: not too bad, just a thin trickle of blood from his nose.
Reaching in the glove compartment, he tore off a corner of a partially used Taco Bell napkin and stuffed it into his nostril. It didn't hurt at all, which he chalked up to a lingering drunk. Actually now that he thought about it, he wasn't angry any more either---he felt kinda good. Better than good. He felt warm, like the summer sun emerging from behind a raincloud. His luck was definitely turning around. For sure.
He saw a shadow moving behind the curtains in the window of the house he had parked in front of. "Sure I'm crazy," he hummed as he stepped out of the car and walked towards the door.
"Hey there Bethany."
With big curious doe eyes Charlie's old classmate regarded him from inside her carpeted foyer. She wore an oversize Cleveland Browns T-shirt and denim shorts. Charlie remembers her from high school as a shy girl with pimples and a flat chest; they were neighbors and usually walked home together. He could remember one dark November night when she had been late at school meeting with Debate Team, and she had pretended to be angry at her mom for making him escort her home, but then had laughed at some joke he made and in that moment Charlie realized he had a crush.
"Hi Charlie." Oh wow, thought Charlie, she has grown up. It was the voice of a woman, a wiser woman who was wary of childhood friends showing up unannounced late in the night. No more acne either. Now if only that Browns shirt weren't so loose...
"Are you alright?"
"Oh this? Don't worry, it's just the dry air. What're you up to?" He silently congratulated himself on his quickly improvised explanation.
The pretty doe eyes studied him for a long moment. "Making Hamburger Helper. You hungry?"
Charlie stepped inside and was careful to shut the screen door behind him.
For three shaky breaths he thought of nothing as the world stopped squirming in front of his eyes. The truck was nowhere in sight. Through his windshield he could see that the hood of his poor Tercel had crumpled like wet paper.
He pulled to the curb and parked. Then he realized where he was: the 1600 block of First Street, by Bethany's place. He checked himself out in the rearview: not too bad, just a thin trickle of blood from his nose.
Reaching in the glove compartment, he tore off a corner of a partially used Taco Bell napkin and stuffed it into his nostril. It didn't hurt at all, which he chalked up to a lingering drunk. Actually now that he thought about it, he wasn't angry any more either---he felt kinda good. Better than good. He felt warm, like the summer sun emerging from behind a raincloud. His luck was definitely turning around. For sure.
He saw a shadow moving behind the curtains in the window of the house he had parked in front of. "Sure I'm crazy," he hummed as he stepped out of the car and walked towards the door.
"Hey there Bethany."
With big curious doe eyes Charlie's old classmate regarded him from inside her carpeted foyer. She wore an oversize Cleveland Browns T-shirt and denim shorts. Charlie remembers her from high school as a shy girl with pimples and a flat chest; they were neighbors and usually walked home together. He could remember one dark November night when she had been late at school meeting with Debate Team, and she had pretended to be angry at her mom for making him escort her home, but then had laughed at some joke he made and in that moment Charlie realized he had a crush.
"Hi Charlie." Oh wow, thought Charlie, she has grown up. It was the voice of a woman, a wiser woman who was wary of childhood friends showing up unannounced late in the night. No more acne either. Now if only that Browns shirt weren't so loose...
"Are you alright?"
"Oh this? Don't worry, it's just the dry air. What're you up to?" He silently congratulated himself on his quickly improvised explanation.
The pretty doe eyes studied him for a long moment. "Making Hamburger Helper. You hungry?"
Charlie stepped inside and was careful to shut the screen door behind him.
The Atomic Man Pt. 6
"Sure I'm crazy," crooned Billie Holiday on Charlie's car radio, "crazy in love, I say."
If confronted, Charlie might have claimed he was only too tired to bother changing the station, but actually he was enjoying the schmaltzy tune, drumming the thick tempo on his steering wheel as he cruised home on a deep moonless night. He felt peaceful as a lullaby; the three or four drinks he'd had at the bar went down smooth and easy as sweat down a working man's back. He felt as if he had just emerged from a hot bath.
Putting the '93 Toyota Tercel into second gear, he started to climb what one old-timer had told him was the "third steepest hill in Ohiuh." You could tell the old-timers from the way they pronounced Ohio. An "uh" on the end like an exhausted sigh, like they were too beat to finish the long vowel and just gave up.
It was like some club you only gained membership in once you had pissed away most of your life doing crap work for crap pay in Appalachia, and instead of a ring or a lapel pin you got a twang and a gap in your teeth.
Had Charlie been less immersed in musings on his own unpromising future, he might have noticed the glow dawning atop the crest of the hill ahead of him. Instead he was unprepared for the pickup truck which, barreling toward him from the opposite slope, smashed into his right headlight hard enough to spin him rudely a full 90 degrees.
The impact was so great that he was momentarily unable to see through open eyes. When vision returned, he was looking through the vertical wrought-iron bars of a cemetery and a small, hysterical part of his brain was sure he had joined its population.
His second hormonal response, after shock, was rage.
Charlie completed the spin he had started with such speed that he nearly did enter the graveyard, spotted his prey's taillights near the bottom of the hill, and gave chase. Righteous images of revenge bloomed in his mind like blood through a clean white bandage. He could see his quarry was driving a sparkly silver Ford F-150. Probably some well-off contractor from Columbus or Cleveland. He should go back to his happy bungalow in the suburbs and stop taking honest work from real men, like Charlie, gritting his teeth and cutting his fingers on old rusted tools and drinking cheap piss beer and playing pool on a warped table with no 14 just two 12's and the bartender Brittany never remembers his name and---
His pursuit was overzealous or perhaps his reaction time was slowed by the recent head trauma. Either way, he failed to realize that the truck had slowed down upon reaching the bottom of the third steepest hill in Ohio. Charlie's second impact was too much for his already battered brain stem and he lost consciousness.
If confronted, Charlie might have claimed he was only too tired to bother changing the station, but actually he was enjoying the schmaltzy tune, drumming the thick tempo on his steering wheel as he cruised home on a deep moonless night. He felt peaceful as a lullaby; the three or four drinks he'd had at the bar went down smooth and easy as sweat down a working man's back. He felt as if he had just emerged from a hot bath.
Putting the '93 Toyota Tercel into second gear, he started to climb what one old-timer had told him was the "third steepest hill in Ohiuh." You could tell the old-timers from the way they pronounced Ohio. An "uh" on the end like an exhausted sigh, like they were too beat to finish the long vowel and just gave up.
It was like some club you only gained membership in once you had pissed away most of your life doing crap work for crap pay in Appalachia, and instead of a ring or a lapel pin you got a twang and a gap in your teeth.
Had Charlie been less immersed in musings on his own unpromising future, he might have noticed the glow dawning atop the crest of the hill ahead of him. Instead he was unprepared for the pickup truck which, barreling toward him from the opposite slope, smashed into his right headlight hard enough to spin him rudely a full 90 degrees.
The impact was so great that he was momentarily unable to see through open eyes. When vision returned, he was looking through the vertical wrought-iron bars of a cemetery and a small, hysterical part of his brain was sure he had joined its population.
His second hormonal response, after shock, was rage.
Charlie completed the spin he had started with such speed that he nearly did enter the graveyard, spotted his prey's taillights near the bottom of the hill, and gave chase. Righteous images of revenge bloomed in his mind like blood through a clean white bandage. He could see his quarry was driving a sparkly silver Ford F-150. Probably some well-off contractor from Columbus or Cleveland. He should go back to his happy bungalow in the suburbs and stop taking honest work from real men, like Charlie, gritting his teeth and cutting his fingers on old rusted tools and drinking cheap piss beer and playing pool on a warped table with no 14 just two 12's and the bartender Brittany never remembers his name and---
His pursuit was overzealous or perhaps his reaction time was slowed by the recent head trauma. Either way, he failed to realize that the truck had slowed down upon reaching the bottom of the third steepest hill in Ohio. Charlie's second impact was too much for his already battered brain stem and he lost consciousness.
Monday, October 25, 2010
The Atomic Man Part 5: The Third Egg
He cracks the third egg rudely on the side of the pan, noticing a small flake of shell fall in, promising an unappetizing moment later on. Charlie isn't worried about moments, only the ruling hunger in the pit of his stomach. He grows more impatient for the eggs to cook, turning up the flame.
The condom is held between two fingers as the rest are busy unclasping her bra. He can feel the ribs in her back with the sensitive parts of his wrists and it's slightly unnerving. He feels he's playing an instrument. It doesn't want him. It's only performing a function.
He starts to resent her, this mysterious woman who turns off the lights and who is such a quick draw on the prophylactics. She's just---he can't remember her name. Becky? Katie?
Probably not her real name anyway. Probably a fake name she uses on the weekends when she's looking for a fuck. A fake name for a fake woman.
The unopened condom is crushed under her chill bony back as she falls receptively onto the bed with sheets too dark to see but probably filthy.
The eggs sit dry and overcooked in the hot skillet. Turning off the heat, Charlie scrapes the turgid lump onto a not-entirely-clean plastic plate. A brown and grey remainder sticks to the pan like moss.
"Fuck it," he thinks as he puts the pan under the faucet, filling it with water to let it soak and be cleaned tomorrow, or the day after.
Plate in one hand and coffee in the other, he returns to the sweat-damp sofa where his day began to shovel down breakfast in front of the Saturday morning cartoons. Finished, he scratches his scrotum through the flap in his boxers, stupefied.
"Christ, I needed that."
The condom is held between two fingers as the rest are busy unclasping her bra. He can feel the ribs in her back with the sensitive parts of his wrists and it's slightly unnerving. He feels he's playing an instrument. It doesn't want him. It's only performing a function.
He starts to resent her, this mysterious woman who turns off the lights and who is such a quick draw on the prophylactics. She's just---he can't remember her name. Becky? Katie?
Probably not her real name anyway. Probably a fake name she uses on the weekends when she's looking for a fuck. A fake name for a fake woman.
The unopened condom is crushed under her chill bony back as she falls receptively onto the bed with sheets too dark to see but probably filthy.
The eggs sit dry and overcooked in the hot skillet. Turning off the heat, Charlie scrapes the turgid lump onto a not-entirely-clean plastic plate. A brown and grey remainder sticks to the pan like moss.
"Fuck it," he thinks as he puts the pan under the faucet, filling it with water to let it soak and be cleaned tomorrow, or the day after.
Plate in one hand and coffee in the other, he returns to the sweat-damp sofa where his day began to shovel down breakfast in front of the Saturday morning cartoons. Finished, he scratches his scrotum through the flap in his boxers, stupefied.
"Christ, I needed that."
Friday, October 15, 2010
The Atomic Man Pt. 4: The Second Egg
Searching for the light switch, they find it and reveal the drab severity of their furtively adopted surroundings. She tells him to turn it off.
Just like that. It's not a request. No endearing "dear" or "babe" attached to the end, because he wasn't any of these things to her. He was the tall guy in a striped shirt who outside the bar in between sets had offered her a cigarette, making a flat joke about British slang, calling it a "fag." She had seemed sweet to him then, laughing softly.
She pushes a condom into his hand, not even asking if he'd brought his own. He thinks then that she must be used to situations such as this. The etiquette of strangers meeting in strange rooms. He wonders whether she's into it as much as he is, whether she's putting on a well-rehearsed show whose intermission they had just reached.
Two yellows sit in a viscous pool of translucent liquid which has begun to congeal around the edges. Charlie's stomach churns but anyway he thinks maybe that's hunger and decides to pluck another egg from the carton, thinking "Christ, I need it."
Just like that. It's not a request. No endearing "dear" or "babe" attached to the end, because he wasn't any of these things to her. He was the tall guy in a striped shirt who outside the bar in between sets had offered her a cigarette, making a flat joke about British slang, calling it a "fag." She had seemed sweet to him then, laughing softly.
She pushes a condom into his hand, not even asking if he'd brought his own. He thinks then that she must be used to situations such as this. The etiquette of strangers meeting in strange rooms. He wonders whether she's into it as much as he is, whether she's putting on a well-rehearsed show whose intermission they had just reached.
Two yellows sit in a viscous pool of translucent liquid which has begun to congeal around the edges. Charlie's stomach churns but anyway he thinks maybe that's hunger and decides to pluck another egg from the carton, thinking "Christ, I need it."
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
The Atomic Man Pt. 3: The First Egg
A familiar rotten taste in his throat and an uncomfortable humidity in his crotch tells Charlie immediately upon waking that he has slept in his clothes. The fierce midday sun glowers at him through his living room window where he is sprawled on the couch. Rising, he attends to his first drugs of the day. A tall glass of water, cigarettes, coffee's on the brew. Stronger coffee than the last time because each time he makes it these days he decides to put more grounds in, thinking, "Christ, do I need it."
The first egg feels soft and malleable, like muddy water in his palm. The tips of his fingers caress its shell as he moves it between his thumb and index finger, and cracks it against the lip of the skillet.
The neon lights revealing chipping plaster on the walls of a motel that charges by the hour, a consignment for hormonal burdens. Passions in faded rouge and teal walk drunkenly down a dingy hallway. The lights in their room are off and they stay that way as the door shuts.
The first egg feels soft and malleable, like muddy water in his palm. The tips of his fingers caress its shell as he moves it between his thumb and index finger, and cracks it against the lip of the skillet.
The neon lights revealing chipping plaster on the walls of a motel that charges by the hour, a consignment for hormonal burdens. Passions in faded rouge and teal walk drunkenly down a dingy hallway. The lights in their room are off and they stay that way as the door shuts.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
The Atomic Man Pt. 2: Charlie In Love
Charlie remembers how the wan fluorescent lights in his kitchen struck her face and revealed acne scars like moon-craters. He'd never been so turned on by someone's forehead. It was explosive.
The powdered ecstasy prickled the back of Charlie's nostrils and he felt his toes lift off the ground. He wanted to grab her just then, dig his fingertips into the small of her back, and draw their bodies together tightly, like blood between glass slides. He'd observe her closely and magnify everything.
Without touching her, he felt their erogenous zones light up like Operation. Her breast in the hollow of his chest, his thigh against her crotch. His lips scraping the thin tendons in her neck.
He remembers as he sits, naked, on the end of his lonely mattress that night. His lust for the alabaster-skinned girl whose name he has already forgotten is grown cold and stale as the pepperoni pizza, three days old, which he prepares to eat. The bone-dry cheese peels from the crust like burnt skin and he looks out his window at a quietly smug moon.
"Sooner or later," he thinks, "I'll lose my mind."
The powdered ecstasy prickled the back of Charlie's nostrils and he felt his toes lift off the ground. He wanted to grab her just then, dig his fingertips into the small of her back, and draw their bodies together tightly, like blood between glass slides. He'd observe her closely and magnify everything.
Without touching her, he felt their erogenous zones light up like Operation. Her breast in the hollow of his chest, his thigh against her crotch. His lips scraping the thin tendons in her neck.
He remembers as he sits, naked, on the end of his lonely mattress that night. His lust for the alabaster-skinned girl whose name he has already forgotten is grown cold and stale as the pepperoni pizza, three days old, which he prepares to eat. The bone-dry cheese peels from the crust like burnt skin and he looks out his window at a quietly smug moon.
"Sooner or later," he thinks, "I'll lose my mind."
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Bones of Macchu Picchu Pt. 1
Jorge de Castenada chewed a hanging bit of flesh on his chapped lower lip idly. Having ridden since the now-setting sun was only a promising glow on the horizon, Senor de Castenada had succumbed to shallow contemplation. He was unconcerned with the unsure mountain path ahead. His thoughts lingered, like the hanging strips of dead skin on his lips, on the cacophonous trampling below him; the sauntering listlessness shared with his fellow riders like a jug of intoxicating wine passed wordlessly.
****
Manuel's shin bulged obscenely near his ankle, the shattered bone which he had tried to straighten with vines lashed around a tree branch flexed outward with every torturous step he took. He gasped in agony, and fought the urge to lie on his stomach and crawl the rest of the way up the rough shale. The open sores which wrapped around his bare torso like a torn shawl were a constant encouragement to stay on his feet. As he labored, he grabbed at exposed roots and resilient shrubs, drew comfort from them, feeding his own stoicism with theirs. The air was thick with tropical humidity and he sucked it into his lungs with difficulty; breathing warm syrup. The limestone dust hanging around him seemed to collect in his wounds and weigh him down.
In the suffocating tranquility a Rudyard Kipling fable intruded upon Manuel's thoughts. It involved a rhinoceros, a fearsome armored beast he had never seen. The rhinoceros, an arrogant and vain beast, removed his skin once to take a swim. A man put cake crumbs inside the rhino's hide so that when he re-donned it, the itching was maddening. In his efforts to scratch at them, he rubbed off the buttons which would have allowed him to remove his hide. So the beast was doomed to a life of wrinkles and irritation, which is why, Kipling wrote, rhinoceroses are such violent and cruel creatures.
The thought of a world where such fantasies took place uplifted Manuel. A blithe, saccharine land where pains such as his would only irritate and no one, animal nor human, knew to fear death. As a heron flew overhead Manuel amused himself by calling out to it:
"Hola! Fellow creature of the mountain, might you be so kind as to lighten my load a bit? My pack is heavy with firewood, and I would abandon it were it not for my fear of the coming night which even now creeps up behind the sun with murderous intent. Surely, if any of your relatives are nearby, you could carry a log between the two of you? I will meet you at the top, where we can share the succulent berries which I have gone to such pains to gather, and tell legends around the fire!"
****
Manuel's shin bulged obscenely near his ankle, the shattered bone which he had tried to straighten with vines lashed around a tree branch flexed outward with every torturous step he took. He gasped in agony, and fought the urge to lie on his stomach and crawl the rest of the way up the rough shale. The open sores which wrapped around his bare torso like a torn shawl were a constant encouragement to stay on his feet. As he labored, he grabbed at exposed roots and resilient shrubs, drew comfort from them, feeding his own stoicism with theirs. The air was thick with tropical humidity and he sucked it into his lungs with difficulty; breathing warm syrup. The limestone dust hanging around him seemed to collect in his wounds and weigh him down.
In the suffocating tranquility a Rudyard Kipling fable intruded upon Manuel's thoughts. It involved a rhinoceros, a fearsome armored beast he had never seen. The rhinoceros, an arrogant and vain beast, removed his skin once to take a swim. A man put cake crumbs inside the rhino's hide so that when he re-donned it, the itching was maddening. In his efforts to scratch at them, he rubbed off the buttons which would have allowed him to remove his hide. So the beast was doomed to a life of wrinkles and irritation, which is why, Kipling wrote, rhinoceroses are such violent and cruel creatures.
The thought of a world where such fantasies took place uplifted Manuel. A blithe, saccharine land where pains such as his would only irritate and no one, animal nor human, knew to fear death. As a heron flew overhead Manuel amused himself by calling out to it:
"Hola! Fellow creature of the mountain, might you be so kind as to lighten my load a bit? My pack is heavy with firewood, and I would abandon it were it not for my fear of the coming night which even now creeps up behind the sun with murderous intent. Surely, if any of your relatives are nearby, you could carry a log between the two of you? I will meet you at the top, where we can share the succulent berries which I have gone to such pains to gather, and tell legends around the fire!"
Saturday, July 31, 2010
The Atomic Man Pt. 1
(The other day sitting in class I thought I overheard someone say "atomic nights." This is the beginning of a story built from that phrase.)
Charlie couldn't get his bowl lit. He sat on the bare mattress in his bedroom, holding a purple lighter nearly out of fluid, trying to smoke the little bit of dope he picked up from his cousin last weekend. It would have been hard enough with the piece of shit lighter, but the ceiling fan was on, dousing every feeble flame he managed to coax from the sputtering lighter.
Charlie was getting angrier. Like idling at a green light. Nettles and stinging sweat.
He was tired of fugue days and atomic nights, blazed into fecklessness, nuked to sleep only to rise and face another inscrutable morning.
"Ahh, fuck!" said Charlie the Atomic Man, the housing contractor aging at quantum speed, 28 going on 40. He flung the lighter across the room.
Charlie couldn't get his bowl lit. He sat on the bare mattress in his bedroom, holding a purple lighter nearly out of fluid, trying to smoke the little bit of dope he picked up from his cousin last weekend. It would have been hard enough with the piece of shit lighter, but the ceiling fan was on, dousing every feeble flame he managed to coax from the sputtering lighter.
Charlie was getting angrier. Like idling at a green light. Nettles and stinging sweat.
He was tired of fugue days and atomic nights, blazed into fecklessness, nuked to sleep only to rise and face another inscrutable morning.
"Ahh, fuck!" said Charlie the Atomic Man, the housing contractor aging at quantum speed, 28 going on 40. He flung the lighter across the room.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
An Abridged List
Must remember to stretch when I wake up.
Must remember to say "Bless You" when strangers sneeze.
Must remember to keep practicing my whistle.
Must remember to shave that weird hair on my nipple.
Must remember that it's all so funny.
Must remember to be grateful for misery.
Must remember the way the stars looked when I was drunk, like falling tears.
Must remember how happy that woman was when she found five dollars on the street.
Must remember: Mountains.
Must remember to say "Bless You" when strangers sneeze.
Must remember to keep practicing my whistle.
Must remember to shave that weird hair on my nipple.
Must remember that it's all so funny.
Must remember to be grateful for misery.
Must remember the way the stars looked when I was drunk, like falling tears.
Must remember how happy that woman was when she found five dollars on the street.
Must remember: Mountains.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
On a neighbor's front porch during a thunderstorm
"I know this black guy." Jason stood as he began to relate his story, eager for my undivided attention.
"He's a gangbanger, he used to hang a blue rag out of his left pocket, because he's a Crip. He could walk around all day and nobody would want to look him in the eyes." The tale picked up pace.
"I have this other friend, big fucking swastika right here." Jason slapped the spot on his bare chest, three times.
"We went to the beach in LA. He had his shirt off, he's a big guy." He knotted his shoulders to emphasize, looking like someone pushing a wheelbarrow.
"People would come up to him, ask him about it, make conversation. He talked to them, he's actually a nice guy. But it goes to show you, in this country, people are more afraid of a black gangbanger than a white guy with a fucking swastika tattooed on his chest."
"He's a gangbanger, he used to hang a blue rag out of his left pocket, because he's a Crip. He could walk around all day and nobody would want to look him in the eyes." The tale picked up pace.
"I have this other friend, big fucking swastika right here." Jason slapped the spot on his bare chest, three times.
"We went to the beach in LA. He had his shirt off, he's a big guy." He knotted his shoulders to emphasize, looking like someone pushing a wheelbarrow.
"People would come up to him, ask him about it, make conversation. He talked to them, he's actually a nice guy. But it goes to show you, in this country, people are more afraid of a black gangbanger than a white guy with a fucking swastika tattooed on his chest."
Thursday, July 1, 2010
A combination of driving through New Jersey, half-remembered dreams and frantic words scrawled in a notebook at 4 a.m. (Part One)
I awoke this morning stuck between sky and earth. As I began to squirm free, I realized I must have rolled over in my sleep and wedged myself into the horizon. For a moment, I stopped struggling and as I considered whether to go back to sleep I took a moment to appreciate the intimacy of the situation. My bed had been empty for some months, and the closeness of the eternal, inscrutable blue above me was comforting, though my back itched from the dirt. Half-imagined fantasies, like time-lapse videos of flowers, blossomed and withered in my sleep-drugged consciousness.
Several hours later I woke again. I was still ensconced, but the cool serenity of summer's dawn had given way to imperious noon: a bone-bleaching Sun had ascended to its throne and forbade a return to sleep. Licking parched lips, I propped myself onto my elbows and started to shimmy free. Scraping my knee against a sharp rock on the ground, I managed to escape, and set off in search of a cup of water.
Descending into a bowl-shaped valley, I saw a sprawling industrial town. Heralds of acrid smoke, burning plastic, rushed up the hillside to greet me. Great steam towers like ram's horns boring vertically into the earth emitted a drone which reverberated mightily throughout the town. Cathedral steeples in the distance roiled in the heat of the factories, like a reflection in dirty water. The whole scene was like an overexposed photograph, I could feel the dirt under my fingernails as I held it in my hands.
Several hours later I woke again. I was still ensconced, but the cool serenity of summer's dawn had given way to imperious noon: a bone-bleaching Sun had ascended to its throne and forbade a return to sleep. Licking parched lips, I propped myself onto my elbows and started to shimmy free. Scraping my knee against a sharp rock on the ground, I managed to escape, and set off in search of a cup of water.
Descending into a bowl-shaped valley, I saw a sprawling industrial town. Heralds of acrid smoke, burning plastic, rushed up the hillside to greet me. Great steam towers like ram's horns boring vertically into the earth emitted a drone which reverberated mightily throughout the town. Cathedral steeples in the distance roiled in the heat of the factories, like a reflection in dirty water. The whole scene was like an overexposed photograph, I could feel the dirt under my fingernails as I held it in my hands.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
The American Museum of Natural History
Hunted
Shot
Bled
Disemboweled
Stuffed
Preserved
Put on display
With the descriptor:
"Savage."
Shot
Bled
Disemboweled
Stuffed
Preserved
Put on display
With the descriptor:
"Savage."
Monday, May 17, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
No Evil Part 2
Part 1
Stepping inside the tent, Andrei has the sensation of crawling inside an enormous kaleidoscope. Glittering butterfly-acrobats drift to and fro carrying colorful streamers; throngs of disfigured mortals rummage through gilded oaken chests like fevered hallucinations. Exotic monsters from alien shores mingle with man and man-beast alike in a spectacle of glamored biology.
"Theo told me you've got a bone to pick with Popa," said a startlingly corpulent mustachioed man wearing muddy slacks, suspenders but no shirt. Andrei had not noticed him a moment earlier. "Makes no difference to me, long as you've got the money. Better hand it over now, too, bub. Once Popa gets a hand on you you'll be out like that deadbeat Zoltan."
That deadbeat Zoltan rests blissfully, enjoying one of the long periods of heedless tranquility which are so frequent in his life. From an early age, Zoltan learned to live in brief sprints, interspersed with heroic naps. Growing up in the Ukraine he spent most of his time searching for comfortable places in which to lie down and rest, a difficult task in the small wooden farmhouse shared with his mother, grandfather, four brothers, two sisters, and six cousins. He developed a virtuosic ability to wake at a moment's notice: to bolt to his feet and grab a broom in feigned obeisance to his mother's shrieking orders or evade a salvo of rotting oranges launched by rivalrous kin. So exhausting are these snap reflexes that Zoltan spends almost all of his unsupervised time conserving energy with sloth-like efficiency.
Which is how he has spent the better part of this particular warm summer morning, snoring behind a stack of powder kegs in full costume, leather goggles strapped over his eyes. Zoltan the Human Cannonball is primed for action.
Popa is bored. And hungry. Hungry, warm in tent. Itchy-sticky.
"Sir I must say I am glad for the challenge," Andrei said confidently as he removed his hat. "Where is the unfortunate creature?"
"I'm looking at him. Waheee!" The fat man laughs like a donkey whines. "But if you're meanin' the monkey, he's back in wardrobe, getting ready. Wa-waheee!"
The jeers are like waves crashing against stalwart Andrei's mountainous ego. For he is not a fool. He knows well that the arm of human ingenuity is longer than the arm of bestial violence.
Andrei traces his intellectual lineage back to the great minds of the Enlightenment: Descartes and Locke. A train of thought which began with those geniuses who dared to claim, "God wants us to think" continued to the Galapagos where Darwin dared to say, "God weeds out the unfit" and made its final stop, by Andrei's reckoning, in the steam engines which carried him across the Atlantic to the steel mill in Pennsylvania where every day he goes to pray, in his own fashion, to the God-given human intellect which makes Man master of the elements.
Andrei melts and molds steel into the implements of ascendancy. His sweat and labor is a testament to God and to Mankind that he is fit; that of the natural world, his race is exalted. Sometimes Andrei offers this testament in other ways as well. At 19 he became a celebrity in his village for killing a wolf. The people of the town wanted the wolf dead because it had been taking goats in the night. Andrei wanted it dead to prove a point.
Stepping inside the tent, Andrei has the sensation of crawling inside an enormous kaleidoscope. Glittering butterfly-acrobats drift to and fro carrying colorful streamers; throngs of disfigured mortals rummage through gilded oaken chests like fevered hallucinations. Exotic monsters from alien shores mingle with man and man-beast alike in a spectacle of glamored biology.
"Theo told me you've got a bone to pick with Popa," said a startlingly corpulent mustachioed man wearing muddy slacks, suspenders but no shirt. Andrei had not noticed him a moment earlier. "Makes no difference to me, long as you've got the money. Better hand it over now, too, bub. Once Popa gets a hand on you you'll be out like that deadbeat Zoltan."
That deadbeat Zoltan rests blissfully, enjoying one of the long periods of heedless tranquility which are so frequent in his life. From an early age, Zoltan learned to live in brief sprints, interspersed with heroic naps. Growing up in the Ukraine he spent most of his time searching for comfortable places in which to lie down and rest, a difficult task in the small wooden farmhouse shared with his mother, grandfather, four brothers, two sisters, and six cousins. He developed a virtuosic ability to wake at a moment's notice: to bolt to his feet and grab a broom in feigned obeisance to his mother's shrieking orders or evade a salvo of rotting oranges launched by rivalrous kin. So exhausting are these snap reflexes that Zoltan spends almost all of his unsupervised time conserving energy with sloth-like efficiency.
Which is how he has spent the better part of this particular warm summer morning, snoring behind a stack of powder kegs in full costume, leather goggles strapped over his eyes. Zoltan the Human Cannonball is primed for action.
Popa is bored. And hungry. Hungry, warm in tent. Itchy-sticky.
"Sir I must say I am glad for the challenge," Andrei said confidently as he removed his hat. "Where is the unfortunate creature?"
"I'm looking at him. Waheee!" The fat man laughs like a donkey whines. "But if you're meanin' the monkey, he's back in wardrobe, getting ready. Wa-waheee!"
The jeers are like waves crashing against stalwart Andrei's mountainous ego. For he is not a fool. He knows well that the arm of human ingenuity is longer than the arm of bestial violence.
Andrei traces his intellectual lineage back to the great minds of the Enlightenment: Descartes and Locke. A train of thought which began with those geniuses who dared to claim, "God wants us to think" continued to the Galapagos where Darwin dared to say, "God weeds out the unfit" and made its final stop, by Andrei's reckoning, in the steam engines which carried him across the Atlantic to the steel mill in Pennsylvania where every day he goes to pray, in his own fashion, to the God-given human intellect which makes Man master of the elements.
Andrei melts and molds steel into the implements of ascendancy. His sweat and labor is a testament to God and to Mankind that he is fit; that of the natural world, his race is exalted. Sometimes Andrei offers this testament in other ways as well. At 19 he became a celebrity in his village for killing a wolf. The people of the town wanted the wolf dead because it had been taking goats in the night. Andrei wanted it dead to prove a point.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
No Evil, Part 1
Eyes with too much white in them stare out from under a vast brow, on which brown tufts of hair grow like a treeline on a frozen mountain. Not a handsome man but he has a strong back and a ready will. No enemies and few friends. He's learned to eat sour lemons. Not unhappy but never satisfied, he is a tired soul who wakes before dawn without knowing why.
Andrei Ilyko is his name, and he stands under a noontime sun in conversation with a dwarf. The dwarf lounges in a tiny chair made of tin, while a toucan perched on his shoulder pecks at almonds balanced around the brim of his dusty top hat.
"What's your problem, fella?" implores the dwarf. "I can't get you. You got an education, I can tell by the way you talk. You got a good job, too, down there at the steel mill. I bet you got an old lady sweet as mince pie waiting for ya in a house with apple trees in the backyard. Now what in the hell do you want to go and fight that monkey for? Why do you want to risk your life? He's just gonna clobber ya."
A cool breeze blows a cowlick free of the top of Andrei's carefully coiffed scalp.
"The beast's very presence is an insult. It is an aberration, an anachronism. His odor and his appearance offend me."
"Why? What did he ever do to you?"
Nostrils flaring, "If you have to ask, sir, then you would not understand even if the skies were to open and the Almighty himself descend to inscribe my sentiments in clay tablets," cheeks flushing, "with lightning bolts cast from his fingertips! If you'll excuse me."
Andrei pulls his coat in around him and strides past the miffed dwarf, dropping a nickel in his lap. As he parts the gaudy green and yellow flaps of the main circus tent, the dwarf makes this remark to the toucan:
"He's nuttier than a fruitcake."
But through the wind Andrei hears,
"Reminds me of Don Quixote."
and his heart is bolstered by the compliment.
Andrei Ilyko is his name, and he stands under a noontime sun in conversation with a dwarf. The dwarf lounges in a tiny chair made of tin, while a toucan perched on his shoulder pecks at almonds balanced around the brim of his dusty top hat.
"What's your problem, fella?" implores the dwarf. "I can't get you. You got an education, I can tell by the way you talk. You got a good job, too, down there at the steel mill. I bet you got an old lady sweet as mince pie waiting for ya in a house with apple trees in the backyard. Now what in the hell do you want to go and fight that monkey for? Why do you want to risk your life? He's just gonna clobber ya."
A cool breeze blows a cowlick free of the top of Andrei's carefully coiffed scalp.
"The beast's very presence is an insult. It is an aberration, an anachronism. His odor and his appearance offend me."
"Why? What did he ever do to you?"
Nostrils flaring, "If you have to ask, sir, then you would not understand even if the skies were to open and the Almighty himself descend to inscribe my sentiments in clay tablets," cheeks flushing, "with lightning bolts cast from his fingertips! If you'll excuse me."
Andrei pulls his coat in around him and strides past the miffed dwarf, dropping a nickel in his lap. As he parts the gaudy green and yellow flaps of the main circus tent, the dwarf makes this remark to the toucan:
"He's nuttier than a fruitcake."
But through the wind Andrei hears,
"Reminds me of Don Quixote."
and his heart is bolstered by the compliment.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
A Dance You Should Know When The Lights Are Down Low
Today I walked for 10 minutes under a noontime sun thinking Nothing. My life flash photography; each moment.
Once I saw a toilet with this inscription around the seat:
"NO SHIT. NO PISS."
Thoughts cast to the ground like a bucket full of child's toys. The pornographic odor of too many blossoming flowers in too little space.
Later with cigarettes and wine we take turns telling dark secrets but I can't think of any. Singing along without knowing any of the words.
Once I saw a toilet with this inscription around the seat:
"NO SHIT. NO PISS."
Thoughts cast to the ground like a bucket full of child's toys. The pornographic odor of too many blossoming flowers in too little space.
Later with cigarettes and wine we take turns telling dark secrets but I can't think of any. Singing along without knowing any of the words.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Atop a Mossy Rock in Unfamiliar Wilderness
Thinking quickly I write before it is too dark; even now the tip of my pen vanishes into infinity and the words appear on the page through sheer force of imagination. A cardinal on her polyester sweater, jeans hugging tiny legs like bent twigs ready to snap. The single scarlet phantom of a tree on a hillside painted dead brown. It is too dark. I follow the memory of my own profane passing back to my bicycle's hiding spot.
The moon's magical 'cause it's the sun we can look at without going blind.
The moon's magical 'cause it's the sun we can look at without going blind.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
The Canary and the Coal Miner
(Feature piece written for the Athens News Monday)
As we stepped off the bus the sun was at our backs; we encountered a sea of squinting eyes.
"What are they doing here?" the eyes asked silently. "Why can't they mind their own business?"
It was a valid question. I had spent the last two and a half hours pondering the answer, as myself and roughly a dozen other members of the Sierra Club rode a Greyhound from Athens to St. Clairsville, in Belmont County. Our goal: convince the EPA at a public hearing to deny the Ohio Valley Coal Company (OVCC) a permit to build a new coal slurry pond for its two mines in that area.
Some background: The two mines, Powhatan No. 6 in Belmont County and Century in Monroe County, produce 60 percent of the state's coal. They employ 1,300 workers locally and 10 times that number indirectly. If the company's permit is denied, the head of the corporation which owns the mine, Murray Energy, has stated he will close both mines.
Which explains the cold reception. But there were serious issues with the proposed expansion, I earnestly told myself. Coal slurry, a byproduct from the washing process of coal extraction, is a notoriously toxic substance and has been known to seep into groundwater or spill into local drinking water. One may recall the Buffalo Creek Disaster of 1972 in Logan County, W.Va, in which a slurry spill left 125 dead and 1,100 injured out of a population of 5,000.
The most recent spill at the OVCC mines occurred in 2008 and blackened 10 miles of Captina Creek. Before that there was one in 2005. So accidents are not a remote possibility.
The line of people waiting to speak their mind on the issue stretched out the door of the James Carnes Center and down the road. Judging from the looks we were getting, around 90 percent of them were coal miners, forced to choose between their jobs and water quality.
"Coal Miners Never Die, They Just Keep Digging Their Graves Deeper" read the backs of the shirts of the broad-shouldered men ahead of us.
"It gets colder the closer we get to the door," commented one of my companions, and I knew what she meant as we shuffled past metal detectors into the main auditorium.
Sitting near the front, I took a moment to survey the audience. Businessmen with folded legs and workers with folded arms wore similar stern expressions as we waited for the fireworks to start. I noticed one man in an expensive-looking suit staring at me with a look of exasperation.
"When will you learn?" he seemed to be asking.
Eventually four men seated themselves on the stage in front of us, two representing the Ohio EPA and two the Army Corps of Engineers. Jed Thorp of the former group was the first to take the mic. A squeaky voice asked the attendees in the back row if they could hear him.
"Passions run high on both sides of this issue," he observed. "Everybody here has a right to be heard."
After a fairly dry description of the issue, the panel heard questions from the audience, which would not be recorded as public comments. The first question regarded the 2008 spill.
"We don't have that information here tonight," Thorp weakly explained.
One person misunderstood the meeting format and took the opportunity to make a comment in defense of the mines.
"I dirty more streams fishing than these coal companies do."
"What's he fishing with?" I heard someone whisper behind me.
Lights flicked on as the sun sank beneath the horizon ominously: it was time for public comment, the reason we were all there.
For the next two hours a surprisingly diverse procession of concerns were heard.
The businessman I noticed earlier was the first to step up. Revealing himself to be John R. Forrelli, vice president of Engineering and Planning for Murray Energy, he carefully explained his company's commitment to improving the Captina's water quality, though there was "no cost-effective alternative" to the plan being debated.
The loudest response from the audience was earned by John Conway, a resident of Belmont County "for about 100 years."
"I want to point to an endangered species." He gestured dramatically toward those seated behind him. "These coal miners."
Sierra Club representative Nachy Kanfer acknowledged that coal keeps the lights on, but stressed that it wouldn't always be so. "We call on the governor to start working on clean energy jobs in coal country."
When my turn came I didn't use half of my allotted three minutes. My heart pounding in my ears, I tried to argue that miners didn't have to choose between their jobs and the environment, that the company could dispose of the slurry in safer ways. My words sounded more like pleas than promises.
Fellow OU student Stephen Swabek spoke more eloquently about the unsustainable nature of coal power. "In 25, 35 years, when it's all gone, what's going to happen here?"
Perhaps the most poignant comment was offered by a young woman in a pink tee-shirt which read "Wife of a Coal Miner."
"No one is here to say, 'if the coal mine shuts down, we're here for you.'"
By the time the last comment was heard there was a distinctly different atmosphere in the room. Tensions had eased, while the worry remained like a sore thumb. Panelists lauded the audience for their civility and attentiveness.
Col. Michael Crall of the Army Corps called it "a testament to the character of the citizens of Belmont County." The miner's slogan came to mind.
Looking up at a clear starry sky as we filed out of the Center, the words that resounded in my ears more than any other were those offered by an elderly miner, Christoper Rogers, near the hearing's close:
Whatever you decide, he said, "Be smart. Be smart and do it right."
As we stepped off the bus the sun was at our backs; we encountered a sea of squinting eyes.
"What are they doing here?" the eyes asked silently. "Why can't they mind their own business?"
It was a valid question. I had spent the last two and a half hours pondering the answer, as myself and roughly a dozen other members of the Sierra Club rode a Greyhound from Athens to St. Clairsville, in Belmont County. Our goal: convince the EPA at a public hearing to deny the Ohio Valley Coal Company (OVCC) a permit to build a new coal slurry pond for its two mines in that area.
Some background: The two mines, Powhatan No. 6 in Belmont County and Century in Monroe County, produce 60 percent of the state's coal. They employ 1,300 workers locally and 10 times that number indirectly. If the company's permit is denied, the head of the corporation which owns the mine, Murray Energy, has stated he will close both mines.
Which explains the cold reception. But there were serious issues with the proposed expansion, I earnestly told myself. Coal slurry, a byproduct from the washing process of coal extraction, is a notoriously toxic substance and has been known to seep into groundwater or spill into local drinking water. One may recall the Buffalo Creek Disaster of 1972 in Logan County, W.Va, in which a slurry spill left 125 dead and 1,100 injured out of a population of 5,000.
The most recent spill at the OVCC mines occurred in 2008 and blackened 10 miles of Captina Creek. Before that there was one in 2005. So accidents are not a remote possibility.
The line of people waiting to speak their mind on the issue stretched out the door of the James Carnes Center and down the road. Judging from the looks we were getting, around 90 percent of them were coal miners, forced to choose between their jobs and water quality.
"Coal Miners Never Die, They Just Keep Digging Their Graves Deeper" read the backs of the shirts of the broad-shouldered men ahead of us.
"It gets colder the closer we get to the door," commented one of my companions, and I knew what she meant as we shuffled past metal detectors into the main auditorium.
Sitting near the front, I took a moment to survey the audience. Businessmen with folded legs and workers with folded arms wore similar stern expressions as we waited for the fireworks to start. I noticed one man in an expensive-looking suit staring at me with a look of exasperation.
"When will you learn?" he seemed to be asking.
Eventually four men seated themselves on the stage in front of us, two representing the Ohio EPA and two the Army Corps of Engineers. Jed Thorp of the former group was the first to take the mic. A squeaky voice asked the attendees in the back row if they could hear him.
"Passions run high on both sides of this issue," he observed. "Everybody here has a right to be heard."
After a fairly dry description of the issue, the panel heard questions from the audience, which would not be recorded as public comments. The first question regarded the 2008 spill.
"We don't have that information here tonight," Thorp weakly explained.
One person misunderstood the meeting format and took the opportunity to make a comment in defense of the mines.
"I dirty more streams fishing than these coal companies do."
"What's he fishing with?" I heard someone whisper behind me.
Lights flicked on as the sun sank beneath the horizon ominously: it was time for public comment, the reason we were all there.
For the next two hours a surprisingly diverse procession of concerns were heard.
The businessman I noticed earlier was the first to step up. Revealing himself to be John R. Forrelli, vice president of Engineering and Planning for Murray Energy, he carefully explained his company's commitment to improving the Captina's water quality, though there was "no cost-effective alternative" to the plan being debated.
The loudest response from the audience was earned by John Conway, a resident of Belmont County "for about 100 years."
"I want to point to an endangered species." He gestured dramatically toward those seated behind him. "These coal miners."
Sierra Club representative Nachy Kanfer acknowledged that coal keeps the lights on, but stressed that it wouldn't always be so. "We call on the governor to start working on clean energy jobs in coal country."
When my turn came I didn't use half of my allotted three minutes. My heart pounding in my ears, I tried to argue that miners didn't have to choose between their jobs and the environment, that the company could dispose of the slurry in safer ways. My words sounded more like pleas than promises.
Fellow OU student Stephen Swabek spoke more eloquently about the unsustainable nature of coal power. "In 25, 35 years, when it's all gone, what's going to happen here?"
Perhaps the most poignant comment was offered by a young woman in a pink tee-shirt which read "Wife of a Coal Miner."
"No one is here to say, 'if the coal mine shuts down, we're here for you.'"
By the time the last comment was heard there was a distinctly different atmosphere in the room. Tensions had eased, while the worry remained like a sore thumb. Panelists lauded the audience for their civility and attentiveness.
Col. Michael Crall of the Army Corps called it "a testament to the character of the citizens of Belmont County." The miner's slogan came to mind.
Looking up at a clear starry sky as we filed out of the Center, the words that resounded in my ears more than any other were those offered by an elderly miner, Christoper Rogers, near the hearing's close:
Whatever you decide, he said, "Be smart. Be smart and do it right."
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Patty Revere Pt. 7
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Alex barely makes it to the door handle. The tall man is on him with the righteous zeal of someone whose privileges are endangered.
Patty screams for no reason she can articulate.
A cheetah and a man do battle before her. The man is armed with technology but the cheetah is wild: scratching, biting, hissing.
The man prevails. Patty remains at her door, wailing like a kettle.
Alex spits and cries from the chemicals in his eyes. The tall man rises to his feet, his quarry subdued and restrained. He lingers there, his legs astride the beast.
"Ma'am, I'm going to ask you to calm down. Please calm down ma'am."
Patty will not calm down. She watches the tall man standing over her cat, sees the scratches on his arms and face from the recent struggle. Alex is lying on his side sobbing, pulling his knees towards his chin with his hands still cuffed behind his back.
Patty can not hear the tall man because she is no longer standing on her front porch. She is standing in the woods with her father. At her father's feet is a bleeding doe, in his hands a rifle. The doe lies on its back in a perfectly inert state, its haunches splayed open frankly, the tendons in its legs having lost their ability to constrict.
Alex is lifted rudely to his feet. Blinded, he's led to the special car. The tall man pushes his head down.
With a large knife Jay begins to slash the doe near its hind legs. Sticking his fingers into the gashes he tugs and like an onion the beast loses its skin. Underneath it is red and purple. Patty screams and she will not calm down. Dead leaves crumble under her boots as she turns and runs. Jay calls after her and she hears him but she will not respond.
The tall man is about to turn to tell Patty that if she doesn't calm down, he'll have to put her in his car too. He doesn't get the chance. The impact in his lower back makes his arms flail out at his sides and his knees buckle. As he falls his forehead slams into the car in the same spot where Alex's would have if he hadn't pushed it down.
Alex makes a yipping noise more reminiscent of a hyena than a cat. Blinking, he rolls out of the special car and joins the rag doll on the ground. Patty has stopped screaming, her massive chest heaving. She is slowly coming out of the woods.
After frantically fidgeting with the keys attached to the tall man's shiny belt, Alex rises to his feet, his hands unbound. He runs to the front of the car and jumps in, gesturing wildly to his friend Patty, who, after hesitating for only a moment, steps over the tall man and into the passenger's seat.
The inside of the car is clean and smells like nothing. Alex smiles at Patty and brings the car humming to life. He leans over to press a button in the center console. Patty gasps and then giggles as the car lights up and plays a song. Alex drums his fingers on the steering wheel and squints into the sun.
END
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Alex barely makes it to the door handle. The tall man is on him with the righteous zeal of someone whose privileges are endangered.
Patty screams for no reason she can articulate.
A cheetah and a man do battle before her. The man is armed with technology but the cheetah is wild: scratching, biting, hissing.
The man prevails. Patty remains at her door, wailing like a kettle.
Alex spits and cries from the chemicals in his eyes. The tall man rises to his feet, his quarry subdued and restrained. He lingers there, his legs astride the beast.
"Ma'am, I'm going to ask you to calm down. Please calm down ma'am."
Patty will not calm down. She watches the tall man standing over her cat, sees the scratches on his arms and face from the recent struggle. Alex is lying on his side sobbing, pulling his knees towards his chin with his hands still cuffed behind his back.
Patty can not hear the tall man because she is no longer standing on her front porch. She is standing in the woods with her father. At her father's feet is a bleeding doe, in his hands a rifle. The doe lies on its back in a perfectly inert state, its haunches splayed open frankly, the tendons in its legs having lost their ability to constrict.
Alex is lifted rudely to his feet. Blinded, he's led to the special car. The tall man pushes his head down.
With a large knife Jay begins to slash the doe near its hind legs. Sticking his fingers into the gashes he tugs and like an onion the beast loses its skin. Underneath it is red and purple. Patty screams and she will not calm down. Dead leaves crumble under her boots as she turns and runs. Jay calls after her and she hears him but she will not respond.
The tall man is about to turn to tell Patty that if she doesn't calm down, he'll have to put her in his car too. He doesn't get the chance. The impact in his lower back makes his arms flail out at his sides and his knees buckle. As he falls his forehead slams into the car in the same spot where Alex's would have if he hadn't pushed it down.
Alex makes a yipping noise more reminiscent of a hyena than a cat. Blinking, he rolls out of the special car and joins the rag doll on the ground. Patty has stopped screaming, her massive chest heaving. She is slowly coming out of the woods.
After frantically fidgeting with the keys attached to the tall man's shiny belt, Alex rises to his feet, his hands unbound. He runs to the front of the car and jumps in, gesturing wildly to his friend Patty, who, after hesitating for only a moment, steps over the tall man and into the passenger's seat.
The inside of the car is clean and smells like nothing. Alex smiles at Patty and brings the car humming to life. He leans over to press a button in the center console. Patty gasps and then giggles as the car lights up and plays a song. Alex drums his fingers on the steering wheel and squints into the sun.
END
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Patty Revere Pt. 6
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
A tall man with a shiny belt is driving a car. The car is painted in special colors and gives him special powers. The radio is playing. It's a commercial for a hardware store.
"Young's Hardware, where you can find just what you'd expect to find at a hardware store."
The tall man's fingers drum on the steering wheel. Signaling, he turns left and squints into the sun.
He likes this commercial. He also likes the hardware store. He's met the owner of the hardware store, and he likes him.
The tall man drives his special car through the town all day, and he looks at the houses and the people who live in them and he thinks, "This is alright."
The tall man is very dangerous.
A crackling noise announces the arrival of a coded message on his radio. He interprets the message and presses a button on the center console. Incredible lights and a very loud noise erupt from the special car as it accelerates through traffic.
Moments later, the shiny car rolls into an empty space in front of Patty Revere's squat aluminum-sided house. The sunlight reflects off its hood fiercely, making it glow like a tanning bed.
The tall man approaches the yellow door. He knocks.
Then again.
"Pittsburgh police! Open up!"
The paint on the door is fading. The tall man waits.
The noise of latches coming undone is the same noise vermin make when they've infiltrated the walls of a house, scurrying and scratching. The door opens and reveals Patty looming tall in her blue nightshirt.
"Ma'am we've had calls about a man trying to force entry into your neighbors' house. White, five foot nine, blond hair. A cut on his forehead."
He ended the sentence by bending the pitch of his voice upward, as if he were asking a question. But it wasn't a question. Patty was confused.
"Nothing to worry about, we're acquainted with the perp, just a local pill-popper. Someone thought they saw him on your front doorstep."
Patty continues to stare implacably at the tall man. His words are complete nonsense to her. But she lets him prattle on because she's struck by the way his clothes are so clean and crisp. His belt is very shiny in the noontime sun.
A cheetah is pressed against the aluminum siding of Patty's home. His heart pounds blood through his head like someone was boxing his ears. He is staring at the special car.
Alex sees himself in the car, feels his foot against the gas pedal. He imagines drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and squinting into the sun. His vehicle rolling down wide suburban thoroughfares and potholed city streets. Through the window he sees the citizens of Pittsburgh wave at him and smile. They wave out of respect and smile because they admire him.
Alex waves back and as he does he can feel the starched epaulet of his shirt rub against his shoulder. Looking down he sees he is wearing the uniform of the tall man, shiny belt and all.
He presses a button on the center console and the car becomes a howling banshee, flashing its multicolored lights like a toy. Other cars submissively drop out of view as he accelerates onward, faster, faster, exploding fuel in his heart and a stampede in his gas tank.
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
A tall man with a shiny belt is driving a car. The car is painted in special colors and gives him special powers. The radio is playing. It's a commercial for a hardware store.
"Young's Hardware, where you can find just what you'd expect to find at a hardware store."
The tall man's fingers drum on the steering wheel. Signaling, he turns left and squints into the sun.
He likes this commercial. He also likes the hardware store. He's met the owner of the hardware store, and he likes him.
The tall man drives his special car through the town all day, and he looks at the houses and the people who live in them and he thinks, "This is alright."
The tall man is very dangerous.
A crackling noise announces the arrival of a coded message on his radio. He interprets the message and presses a button on the center console. Incredible lights and a very loud noise erupt from the special car as it accelerates through traffic.
Moments later, the shiny car rolls into an empty space in front of Patty Revere's squat aluminum-sided house. The sunlight reflects off its hood fiercely, making it glow like a tanning bed.
The tall man approaches the yellow door. He knocks.
Then again.
"Pittsburgh police! Open up!"
The paint on the door is fading. The tall man waits.
The noise of latches coming undone is the same noise vermin make when they've infiltrated the walls of a house, scurrying and scratching. The door opens and reveals Patty looming tall in her blue nightshirt.
"Ma'am we've had calls about a man trying to force entry into your neighbors' house. White, five foot nine, blond hair. A cut on his forehead."
He ended the sentence by bending the pitch of his voice upward, as if he were asking a question. But it wasn't a question. Patty was confused.
"Nothing to worry about, we're acquainted with the perp, just a local pill-popper. Someone thought they saw him on your front doorstep."
Patty continues to stare implacably at the tall man. His words are complete nonsense to her. But she lets him prattle on because she's struck by the way his clothes are so clean and crisp. His belt is very shiny in the noontime sun.
A cheetah is pressed against the aluminum siding of Patty's home. His heart pounds blood through his head like someone was boxing his ears. He is staring at the special car.
Alex sees himself in the car, feels his foot against the gas pedal. He imagines drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and squinting into the sun. His vehicle rolling down wide suburban thoroughfares and potholed city streets. Through the window he sees the citizens of Pittsburgh wave at him and smile. They wave out of respect and smile because they admire him.
Alex waves back and as he does he can feel the starched epaulet of his shirt rub against his shoulder. Looking down he sees he is wearing the uniform of the tall man, shiny belt and all.
He presses a button on the center console and the car becomes a howling banshee, flashing its multicolored lights like a toy. Other cars submissively drop out of view as he accelerates onward, faster, faster, exploding fuel in his heart and a stampede in his gas tank.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Blue Skies Ahead
On Tuesday afternoon I climbed onto my roof and looked at the ivory sky and thought, "White is the worst color a sky could have. Even grey is better than white because it has shade, character. White is the absence of character. It's a heedless halogen light fixture over the world that lays bare all the flaws, all the flat listlessness. I miss the blue sky."
It's not until Friday evening with 200 miles of highway under my wheels and 300 more until I reach Chicago that I get to see it. I-70 curves west towards the coming night, and a timid Sun casts furtive glances at me from behind a veil made of violet-orange clouds. The license plate on the car ahead of me reads, "CUBS GO."
Lonely days are gone, I'm'a going home. Baby just wrote me a letter.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Dangerous Lifestyles
(Sorry for the long post. A short story.)
Lawrence stoically waits out a frigid gust, staring east down Granville Avenue towards the lake. He shifts his weight and feels the foot-warmer packets in his boots squish between his toes and he's reminded of the way the mud in the delta of the Mekong felt between his toes as he stood watch that night.
His company, the 83rd Airborne Division, "The Hirsute Eagles," had made camp under the jungle canopy and it was up to him, First Sergeant Lawrence, to watch for Charlie as they slept. A crunching sound in the dark; there it is again. VC boot? Or just the sound of some other poor creature getting his in this god-forsaken wilderness? A squawk and the noise of futilely flapping wings answers Lawrence's question. Suddenly, to his right, headlights!
Headlights? Lawrence is close enough to the oncoming Xterra to read the lips of its irate driver ("Motherfucker get out the street!") before he jumps out of the way. Picking himself up, he does his best to ignore the blaring car horns, the disparaging gazes, the tsk-tsks and head-shakes. Like a soldier at attention, he stands on the white painted dash line between two lanes of heedless westward Chicago traffic, and holds his cardboard in front of him."Vietnam Vet PLEASE HELP God bless you" reads his signal flare made out in Sharpie.
He hopes and prays for an airlift. Any second now a helo will emerge from that murky horizon over Lake Michigan: the cascading shades of blue where water meets sky will part like a theater curtain and Lieutenant Gumble will appear, grinning that stupid Gumble grin of his and riding that bird for all she's worth to come rescue his comrade-in-arms. Lawrence can see the eagle painted on the side of it, the symbol of the 83rd Airborne, a diving hirsute eagle: its proud beak pointing towards the earth, manly Robert Redford-like auburn hair flowing in the wind.
Traffic changes and Lawrence pivots. His back to the lake, he surveys the perimeter. West-southwest is the CVS where he buys liquor and shoplifts foot-warmer packets. West-northwest, the picture framing shop Lawrence has never had occasion to enter. Someone is crossing the street over there, but they don't have the light.
Upon closer examination, Lawrence realizes they aren't actually crossing at all. A dark figure, bundled in work wear and a black beanie, stands in the intersection of Broadway and Granville during evening rush hour, in the middle of January. Who else occupies this no-man's land? Who would risk life and limb so recklessly, but another soul with nothing left to lose?
The light turns and with the same mechanical fluidity so does Lawrence. His soldier's training doesn't allow him to peek at the mysterious person though it's all he can think of. As soon as the ranks of headlights shining in his face begin to slow he spins around, and finds himself almost face to face with a beautiful young woman.
She pulls up the collar on her coat and walks faster through the crosswalk, allowing Lawrence to see the short, plump lady in hunter camo behind her, gathering her surveyor's equipment and walking in his direction. Pretty Woman, walk my way, thinks Lawrence, and he forgets to lower his sign as she approaches with a rosy-cheeked smile on her face and matronly crow's feet around her eyes.
"Helluva cold one, ain't it?" she asks flirtatiously.
Lawrence's chapped lips crack in several places as he returns her schoolgirl grin.
"No worse than it's been," says a voice scorched by cheap cigarettes and lonely nights. "Don't you have kind of a dangerous job?" he asks, nodding at her bag full of calibrating devices.
"Someone's got to do it," she laughs, and reaching into her pocket, procures 55 cents in nickels, dimes and pennies. As she hands it to Lawrence, their fingers linger, wool momentarily caressing wool.
"Hey, uh, listen," says Lawrence lamely. Pretty Woman bats her eyelashes innocently.
"It is getting cold out here. How about we get some coffee at the Dunkin' down the street?"
Pretty Woman glances away, looks at her toes.
Thinking quickly, "Or Beam is seven bucks a handle at that CVS."
"Now you're speaking my language, stranger," says Pretty Woman with a twang of Appalachia in her voice.
Now Lawrence watches dawn start to creep across the sky as the two lounge underneath a dewy sleeping bag in the alley behind CVS, basking in the lingering warmth of liquor and each others' passion. He can tell by her breathing that his companion is awake also, only keeping her eyes closed to shut out the harsh rays.
"There's something I'd like to tell you, just so's were on the same page here."
"Mrhrm?"
"I've never been to Vietnam. I never even served in the military."
Pretty Woman didn't open her eyes, just pushed her face into Lawrence's ribs to stifle her giggling.
"Are you making fun of me?"
Still giggling, she only points to the black duffel bag at her feet. Puzzled, Lawrence reaches for it and pulls open the zipper. Then he starts to giggle as well.
A tough job but someone's got to do it. The surveyor's equipment that he thought he had seen, but of course it was dark and he only assumed that was her job. Empty aluminum cans, a greasy brush with most of its tines missing, broken Fisher-Price toys and junk food wrappers spill out of her bag.
Lawrence lays back, content in his lover's arms, and closes his eyes. There they remain as the morning rush crescendos around them, two soldiers making camp in no-man's land.
Lawrence stoically waits out a frigid gust, staring east down Granville Avenue towards the lake. He shifts his weight and feels the foot-warmer packets in his boots squish between his toes and he's reminded of the way the mud in the delta of the Mekong felt between his toes as he stood watch that night.
His company, the 83rd Airborne Division, "The Hirsute Eagles," had made camp under the jungle canopy and it was up to him, First Sergeant Lawrence, to watch for Charlie as they slept. A crunching sound in the dark; there it is again. VC boot? Or just the sound of some other poor creature getting his in this god-forsaken wilderness? A squawk and the noise of futilely flapping wings answers Lawrence's question. Suddenly, to his right, headlights!
Headlights? Lawrence is close enough to the oncoming Xterra to read the lips of its irate driver ("Motherfucker get out the street!") before he jumps out of the way. Picking himself up, he does his best to ignore the blaring car horns, the disparaging gazes, the tsk-tsks and head-shakes. Like a soldier at attention, he stands on the white painted dash line between two lanes of heedless westward Chicago traffic, and holds his cardboard in front of him."Vietnam Vet PLEASE HELP God bless you" reads his signal flare made out in Sharpie.
He hopes and prays for an airlift. Any second now a helo will emerge from that murky horizon over Lake Michigan: the cascading shades of blue where water meets sky will part like a theater curtain and Lieutenant Gumble will appear, grinning that stupid Gumble grin of his and riding that bird for all she's worth to come rescue his comrade-in-arms. Lawrence can see the eagle painted on the side of it, the symbol of the 83rd Airborne, a diving hirsute eagle: its proud beak pointing towards the earth, manly Robert Redford-like auburn hair flowing in the wind.
Traffic changes and Lawrence pivots. His back to the lake, he surveys the perimeter. West-southwest is the CVS where he buys liquor and shoplifts foot-warmer packets. West-northwest, the picture framing shop Lawrence has never had occasion to enter. Someone is crossing the street over there, but they don't have the light.
Upon closer examination, Lawrence realizes they aren't actually crossing at all. A dark figure, bundled in work wear and a black beanie, stands in the intersection of Broadway and Granville during evening rush hour, in the middle of January. Who else occupies this no-man's land? Who would risk life and limb so recklessly, but another soul with nothing left to lose?
The light turns and with the same mechanical fluidity so does Lawrence. His soldier's training doesn't allow him to peek at the mysterious person though it's all he can think of. As soon as the ranks of headlights shining in his face begin to slow he spins around, and finds himself almost face to face with a beautiful young woman.
She pulls up the collar on her coat and walks faster through the crosswalk, allowing Lawrence to see the short, plump lady in hunter camo behind her, gathering her surveyor's equipment and walking in his direction. Pretty Woman, walk my way, thinks Lawrence, and he forgets to lower his sign as she approaches with a rosy-cheeked smile on her face and matronly crow's feet around her eyes.
"Helluva cold one, ain't it?" she asks flirtatiously.
Lawrence's chapped lips crack in several places as he returns her schoolgirl grin.
"No worse than it's been," says a voice scorched by cheap cigarettes and lonely nights. "Don't you have kind of a dangerous job?" he asks, nodding at her bag full of calibrating devices.
"Someone's got to do it," she laughs, and reaching into her pocket, procures 55 cents in nickels, dimes and pennies. As she hands it to Lawrence, their fingers linger, wool momentarily caressing wool.
"Hey, uh, listen," says Lawrence lamely. Pretty Woman bats her eyelashes innocently.
"It is getting cold out here. How about we get some coffee at the Dunkin' down the street?"
Pretty Woman glances away, looks at her toes.
Thinking quickly, "Or Beam is seven bucks a handle at that CVS."
"Now you're speaking my language, stranger," says Pretty Woman with a twang of Appalachia in her voice.
Now Lawrence watches dawn start to creep across the sky as the two lounge underneath a dewy sleeping bag in the alley behind CVS, basking in the lingering warmth of liquor and each others' passion. He can tell by her breathing that his companion is awake also, only keeping her eyes closed to shut out the harsh rays.
"There's something I'd like to tell you, just so's were on the same page here."
"Mrhrm?"
"I've never been to Vietnam. I never even served in the military."
Pretty Woman didn't open her eyes, just pushed her face into Lawrence's ribs to stifle her giggling.
"Are you making fun of me?"
Still giggling, she only points to the black duffel bag at her feet. Puzzled, Lawrence reaches for it and pulls open the zipper. Then he starts to giggle as well.
A tough job but someone's got to do it. The surveyor's equipment that he thought he had seen, but of course it was dark and he only assumed that was her job. Empty aluminum cans, a greasy brush with most of its tines missing, broken Fisher-Price toys and junk food wrappers spill out of her bag.
Lawrence lays back, content in his lover's arms, and closes his eyes. There they remain as the morning rush crescendos around them, two soldiers making camp in no-man's land.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Coffee
Hours I spent standing at the end of a pier on Lake Michigan. I set my back against a concrete wall so that I was invisible to the humans on the shore, and stared out straight ahead so that all I could see was blue horizon. Waves and clouds were perpetually unfurling toward me but never quite reaching. I felt like I could stand there forever, weathering the frigid winds like a carved face on a totem pole.
At the base of the wall behind me was srawled this message:
"you can put out the fire that started at the
I realized that the numbness in my toes had crept up the length of my legs. I decided to walk.
"Do you have coffee?"
"Yes."
Her simple response meant so much more to me than she could know. To her I was just another New Year's day hangover. To me she was my first reconnection with the community of humans in some 36 hours.
The simple phenomenon of being able to slap my lips, tongue, and teeth together, while exhaling, in a way so as to perfectly communicate my desire for a very specific object. A verbal magic trick, like pulling a dime from behind her ear.
She arrived at my table and she served me the object. I could see the coffee; my eyes vouched for its existence. My nose was useless, the odor of the cup cast adrift on a background sea of scent: an ebb and flow of eggs, beans, sweat, pork, farts, halitosis; pumped through the cramped diner with every breath of its patrons, like a galley full of steadily rowing slaves.
I picked up the cup and I felt its warmth radiate through Styrofoam and skin and hair and tissue and it warmed my bones.
I tried to thank her but I couldn't express it. So I drank my cup and when it was empty I went up to the counter and asked quietly, humbly, for another cup of coffee.
"What?"
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Patty Revere Pt. 5
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Patty thinks first of Dr. Sanjay Gupta, but then she thinks of Rebecca, the woman who stops by to visit Patty every once in a while, and to bring her a plastic CVS bag. Inside the CVS bag are orange tubes with words written on the side, but Patty can't read, so she has to remember exactly what Rebecca tells her.
"This is medicine for you Patty. It make you feel better so remember to take them, okay? Is okay? You take your medicine Patty?" Rebecca would say.
Rebecca is very funny. The way she talks is funny, like the people on Channel 4 but slower and using words Patty can understand. The way she is so small but moves so fast around Patty's apartment, nimbly stepping over mounds of dirty laundry and VHS tapes, is funny. Patty can never do anything but nod when Rebecca talks to her because if she opens her mouth she knows she'll laugh and she doesn't want to hurt Rebecca's feelings. In the winter Rebecca wears a lime green coat and this is Patty's favorite, because with it on she looks just like one of those tiny green bugs, the kind you forget about until one day you look at a rock very closely and you see one scurrying across the surface.
"You can have some of my medicine. Rebecca tells me I have to take it to feel better, but she's just a silly little bug."
Laboriously, wheezing, Patty rises from her seat. The CVS bag is stashed under the bathroom sink, along with many others full of orange tubes from other visits.
"Rebecca's just a silly little bug. You can have all my medicine. I don't need any."
Alex claws through the bags, their contents spilling out at Patty's feet like the entrails of a fresh kill. Patty begins to laugh.
Alex looks up momentarily, the expired Prolixin capsules he was studying momentarily forgotten. Patty's laugh is harsh and raspy and doesn't decrescendo the way most people's laughs do, but instead repeats itself in a loop, like a broken laugh track. He pops a handful of multicolored pills into his mouth like they were Skittles. He starts to laugh too.
-----
The Magic Bullet sits in the middle of a long marble counter top. Myriad glass bowls, each filled with a measured amount of ingredient, form constellations around it.
Patty and Alex sit at rapt attention as one by one eggs, sugar and cream cheese are poured into the device and subsequently pulverized. An ecstatic young woman in a salmon-colored cardigan pours the homogenized substance into a pie plate, a wan moon set among the stars.
Patty leans forward to flick an inch of ash off her cigarette onto the carpet and it vanishes immediately, whisked away to an invisible realm of forgotten detritus; kept company by gum wrappers and lint. Alex is cleaning himself in the manner of a cat, pharmacopoeia vibrating through his veins like a subway train on a loose track.
The camera cuts to an old woman. Upon seeing a cheesecake made in just five minutes, she raises her eyebrows disapprovingly.
Patty hears it first. "Ooh, another cat come to visit?"
Alex hears the second knock. "Pittsburgh police! Open up!"
Deer may freeze in headlights but not cheetahs. Alex is halfway to the back door when Patty starts to unlock the front.
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Patty thinks first of Dr. Sanjay Gupta, but then she thinks of Rebecca, the woman who stops by to visit Patty every once in a while, and to bring her a plastic CVS bag. Inside the CVS bag are orange tubes with words written on the side, but Patty can't read, so she has to remember exactly what Rebecca tells her.
"This is medicine for you Patty. It make you feel better so remember to take them, okay? Is okay? You take your medicine Patty?" Rebecca would say.
Rebecca is very funny. The way she talks is funny, like the people on Channel 4 but slower and using words Patty can understand. The way she is so small but moves so fast around Patty's apartment, nimbly stepping over mounds of dirty laundry and VHS tapes, is funny. Patty can never do anything but nod when Rebecca talks to her because if she opens her mouth she knows she'll laugh and she doesn't want to hurt Rebecca's feelings. In the winter Rebecca wears a lime green coat and this is Patty's favorite, because with it on she looks just like one of those tiny green bugs, the kind you forget about until one day you look at a rock very closely and you see one scurrying across the surface.
"You can have some of my medicine. Rebecca tells me I have to take it to feel better, but she's just a silly little bug."
Laboriously, wheezing, Patty rises from her seat. The CVS bag is stashed under the bathroom sink, along with many others full of orange tubes from other visits.
"Rebecca's just a silly little bug. You can have all my medicine. I don't need any."
Alex claws through the bags, their contents spilling out at Patty's feet like the entrails of a fresh kill. Patty begins to laugh.
Alex looks up momentarily, the expired Prolixin capsules he was studying momentarily forgotten. Patty's laugh is harsh and raspy and doesn't decrescendo the way most people's laughs do, but instead repeats itself in a loop, like a broken laugh track. He pops a handful of multicolored pills into his mouth like they were Skittles. He starts to laugh too.
-----
The Magic Bullet sits in the middle of a long marble counter top. Myriad glass bowls, each filled with a measured amount of ingredient, form constellations around it.
Patty and Alex sit at rapt attention as one by one eggs, sugar and cream cheese are poured into the device and subsequently pulverized. An ecstatic young woman in a salmon-colored cardigan pours the homogenized substance into a pie plate, a wan moon set among the stars.
Patty leans forward to flick an inch of ash off her cigarette onto the carpet and it vanishes immediately, whisked away to an invisible realm of forgotten detritus; kept company by gum wrappers and lint. Alex is cleaning himself in the manner of a cat, pharmacopoeia vibrating through his veins like a subway train on a loose track.
The camera cuts to an old woman. Upon seeing a cheesecake made in just five minutes, she raises her eyebrows disapprovingly.
Patty hears it first. "Ooh, another cat come to visit?"
Alex hears the second knock. "Pittsburgh police! Open up!"
Deer may freeze in headlights but not cheetahs. Alex is halfway to the back door when Patty starts to unlock the front.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Patty Revere Pt. 4
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Patty has a clock. It stopped ticking at 3:27 p.m. years ago and she never took it off the wall. It still hangs over her kitchen sink and now she misses its steady rhythm for the way it seemed to fill the silence.
Silence is an uncomfortable rarity in Patty's life, but she felt she should turn the TV off when entertaining a guest. When there is silence just before Final Jeopardy, music starts playing to pass the time.
Alex looks across the small, sticky aluminum table at his hostess. Before him is a fruity-smelling bowl of creamer. His stomach growls and he thinks that perhaps he is hungry. Patty starts singing.
The cheetah, invited into the den of the antelope, is momentarily paralyzed with confusion.
Alex is tempted but wary. The singing only serves to put him more on edge.
Abruptly the singing stops.
"Are you hurt?" asks Patty.
The bowl of spoiled creamer is a pale pink hue. Another drop of red falls in as Alex looks down. The scab on his forehead is pinched between two fingers in his right hand. He hadn't noticed.
"Do you have medicine?" asks Alex.
Part 2
Part 3
Patty has a clock. It stopped ticking at 3:27 p.m. years ago and she never took it off the wall. It still hangs over her kitchen sink and now she misses its steady rhythm for the way it seemed to fill the silence.
Silence is an uncomfortable rarity in Patty's life, but she felt she should turn the TV off when entertaining a guest. When there is silence just before Final Jeopardy, music starts playing to pass the time.
Alex looks across the small, sticky aluminum table at his hostess. Before him is a fruity-smelling bowl of creamer. His stomach growls and he thinks that perhaps he is hungry. Patty starts singing.
The cheetah, invited into the den of the antelope, is momentarily paralyzed with confusion.
Alex is tempted but wary. The singing only serves to put him more on edge.
Abruptly the singing stops.
"Are you hurt?" asks Patty.
The bowl of spoiled creamer is a pale pink hue. Another drop of red falls in as Alex looks down. The scab on his forehead is pinched between two fingers in his right hand. He hadn't noticed.
"Do you have medicine?" asks Alex.
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