#9 Ben Getting Pushed and a Moose 8.13.09

Ben’s face was again puckered and angry. His cheeks were garnished by the salaal leaves that had shimmied themselves loose from the hedge he was now dislodging his cabbage patch little face from.

“Jon, seriously, god damnit!”

Jon was laughing his ass off, but only on the inside. On the out, he had a smile that, from the past experience, I knew it was a sneer. His v-neck was stretched beyond sexy at this point. His face was a little dirty. It recalls in some sort of mind’s eye montage many’a’nights where, as a team we forgot ourselves: decaying trash, Jaeggermiester and a birthday; dead flounder, beer and fourth of July, Pamplona, god knows what and Pamplona, one night stands in a Bestwestern in Munich; fireworks from the mouth in close vicinity to three mile island; Beer bongs and summerfests; Vegas. Lest I deteriorate this ledger to a nostalgia-inside joke ridden mess, I digress.

“Welcome to Ben,” an inside joke, meaning simply, your fucked, something akin to welcome to hell. Little did I know that I was muttering a mantra that would evoke what I inevitably evoked. I say inevitable, because we were in Manitoba. I’d wanted to visit there since the three of the four pilots had attended flight school there. Tales of handles of Vodka, strippers and ping pong balls and permafrost both below your feet and betwixt your nostrils called me, even after we’d migrated thousands of miles and 50 degrees further away. So we’re in Manitoba. Here’s my face going quickly from something between drunk laughter and drunken hoity toity disdain to fear and anxiety. Ben’s pucker turned floppy, his mouth grouper-wide. Jon, continued to sneer, though looked slightly confused. There, out of the hedge which had bore an angry Ben, came a bull moose. The beast was grizzled, rather, it being spring, it was shedding. As it lumbered nearer patches of fur, looking like diseased mushrooms sprouting from back, haunches and dulap, flopped back and forth, side to side, as if beckoning. Now, the moose is not a majestic creature per see, it’s nothing to bat your eyes at, but it’s pretty gaunt and awkward, but patchy, discolored and rackless, it’s pretty ugly. It’s eyes wide, its jaw slowing to a slight taffy pull in slow motion, the thing snorted in our direction, as if to say I’m here, you shouldn’t be. Oddly, we all inhaled quickly as if to snort to our chi I’m here, I shouldn’t be.

The horns had recently dislodged and dropped to the ground, some birdwatchers future bookend, the moose a few months from scraping the flesh and fur from the new antlers on an old oak, we were still intimidated. For you see all our minds, though we didn’t know it, flashed segments from words wildest animals or some such as awkward winter town dwellers or mentally ill equipped hunters were slowly bludgeoned to death by a creature whose lips resemble labia majora stuffed into acid washed mom jeans and whose legs resemble a clown who should be falling on stilts in a half assed small town parade, somewhere behind the drill team and just in front of the mayor. So our minds are hooving people to death and the moose is, really just minding its own business.

“Should we back away?” No reply, but we back away. So, backing away, we think don’t stumble. We think of the drinks sloshing in our bellies and rotting our livers. And I think of a cigarette. I wish I could say, when I am sputtering my last words, light a cigarette and put it in my mouth, I want to die like a hero from the 40’s. But I don’t. I just continue rewinding all my steps. My belly is ready to rewind all the beer drinking. Jon turns and begins to sprint, not to be outdone or the first brained by 1200 pounds of moss slurping, wobble having, vagina lips, Ben and I turn toe and run.

Looking over my shoulder I notice the moose hasn’t really given a shit, it spread its long legs bowing at bulbous knees and asserts its dominance over the grass, raking through it blade by blade. Moments before, our ankles had been caressed by the furry seed pods residing there. Hiding behind a fallen tree, we watch until we become bored.

Turning to one another, we nod and begin trekking back to wherever we had parked the car. Jon’s smirk was back, as if he’d planted the moose and had somehow trumped the glory of pushing us into a hedge.

“Fuck you Jon!” Ben must have noticed it too

“Seriously.”

We chortled, then giggled then lost it and laughed, looking over our shoulders to be sure the woodland version of Shawn Bradley was still content in its gnawing and the distance between us had not waned. Laughing, we felt the ground begin to shake. Earthquake? Suddenly, from the mist and fog that surrounded us that morning as we walked home from a Manitoba bar, fell into a patch of shrubs resembling a hedge, ran from a moose and further cemented our drinking buddy bonds, came a ship. Or what I deduced was a ship. It hummed so violently we felt our hungover hearts unhinge from the muscle and rib surrounding them. Its metal dull and dark as gun metal. Its thrusters or whatever they were despite burning cold and blowing in our face like a yeti or a spearmint gum commercial, burned with an intense shade which could only be described as bright magenta, stupid I know, but really, that’s what it was, the brightest magenta you can imagine, white at a glance, but if you stared the white seemed to peel back like the skin of a grape to reveal this bright fleshy neon. It sounded like we were in a digeree-doo but it felt like we were tumbling through a rain stick. Its thrusters pulled rather than pushed, we followed it, over the log, through the grass, like a divining rod, back to the moose.

Realizing it was not a government experiment or a joke, collectively, our mouths, again slack, screamed. They screamed from depths never beckoned, not at karaoke, not angry, not when we saw our first ghosts. These primitive calls to fear tangoed with a lost cause came from somewhere between the voice box and all eternity. When it had stationed itself directly above the spring moose the thrusters misfired, forcing our chests against the permofrosted grass like a giant foot, our sternums ready pop in a gory snap, crackle and pop like rib spreaders or a horror movie, it let up. The engine or power plant or giant lungs whatever it was, grew slack and the lead ridden hull simply floated there as if it were nothing, a fleck, dead skin in a sun beam. If it wasn’t already enough, the odd calm after the close shredding power of merely seconds before threw my head into an ethereal lack of pulse, as if I were floating, all there was latching me to the earth was a white noise and sensation on my arm which was Bens hand. Unable to move my muscles, I turned my eyes to him. In my periphery he looked still as if bronzed, but his face worn expression as if the wind had been knocked out of him, his eyes, like mine darting back and forth. In a different moment, if my mind hadn’t been thrown into this unearthly coma, I’d have said he resembled a painting whose characters eyes have been removed to allow a clever spy to watch you as you walked past from the safety from behind a wall.

From our vantage point, pinned to the ground, the moose was hard to see. But I watched as some unknown force lifted the moose up onto its hind quarters like a giant marionette. The moose, just as confused as us, eyes jumping hither and thither, a look of fear on his face, again snorting, strings and pearls of drool hanging from its cleft lips, stood there, unmoved, unwobbled, straight and strong, as if it’d stood upright since it dropped, covered in afterbirth, from its mother’s womb. All of us, prone, one standing, three supine and stretched in the dirt, waited for what was next.

Hearing something that sounded like the gears in a truck with a dying clutch engage, I again looked to the ship, from which began a deep guttural noise sounding like the chants of a chorus of Tibetan monks. From the center of the ship came two mechanized drills moving like snakes toward the moose’s long skull. When they entered their target, the moose, screamed, loud, high pitched like a hoard of zebras in heat, unmoved. The drills bored into the skull with minimal vibration throwing clouds of bone dust and vaporized bodily fluids into the atmosphere around the moose. An orange light shown down through the gray mist from the dark ship lighting the two orbiting clouds like halos. The moose’s screaming ceased as the drills were absorbed again by the ship. Blood began to seep down the matted fur along the animal’s thick neck. Again I looked to the ship, where two antlers, covered in fur and sparkling gold were expelled from the beak of this conglomerate of metal and light. The antlers found there place on the open bulbs left by the drills, after the howl of a pneumatic wrench, the antlers stood straight and stiff.

The moose was dropped, the ground reverberating through its joints, its head low under the new weight of the antlers. Ben, Jon and I, felt our bodies dropped and again under only the pull of gravity. Afraid to move, chests heaving, we all lay still. The engine engaged once again, the vibrations resumed and we were all lifted slightly toward the torrid motions of the bright magenta force. As soon as it had appeared, with a momentary vibration unrivalled by nothing else this world could conjure, it rocketed itself into the sky and out of our atmosphere, a shooting star in daylight. The moose, shook its head, snorted three times and ran off into the wood. We looked at one another and didn’t speak. We turned away from one another, with our thoughts, we waited, for what we couldn’t really remember.

After what may have been a minute or a half hour. We heard footsteps and a familiar voice. Dazed, we looked up to see Ashton, his face lit with excitement. “You guys missed it. It was crazy. The biggest moose just ran out in front of me. The 4Runner screeched a bit, but I didn’t hit it. Majestic creature. Beautiful. Beautiful. Not everyday you see something like that boys. What’s up with you guys, drunk as shit?”

#8 7.17.09: Ghosts and Whiskey continued

So there we were, about to take our first real gulps. We weren afraid of them Ghosts at all. Hell, ol’ Ralphie been hopin’ he see himself a ghost since his uncle been done taken by one a them ghosts when he ‘bout 4 an been keepin’ his eyes out for one every day since. He ain’t never scared a them, I was a smidge scared a them ghosts, I knew they hang round, and they been killin’ men an stealin’ souls ‘round Jasper for decades. But my mommas been tellin’ me that those ghosts don’ want nothin’ to do with me, long as I don’ drink no whiskey, I even think I saw’em every now and then, in them dark hallways, perched in the trees and they ain’ botherin’ me, you know, so I weren that scared.

We knew the spot to start summonin’ the ghosts was behind the livery and tack, in the alley back of Stump’s garage, that was kinda our spot where no one’d bother us bout nothing, old man Stump to busy with the Hooch himself to pay any attention and the folks at the livery were gone ‘sept for Silas Booker who was a little slow and tended to things in the night time. When we started it was ‘round 6 or 7 in the evenin’, we probly look like we’d been rolled in flour on account of tha humidity and the dust that day, it were some time in August. We hunkered down b’hind a few big barrels and amongst some scraps from the Stump’s garage across that alley way. I remember it like yellow, everything were yellow, the ole livery buildin’s wood, gray usually, the piles of car parts we been sittin’ on, usually be rusty, the dirt on the ground and my face and Ralphie’s, which’d be tanned brown round that deep in summer, even the whiskey, Jasper made whiskey is like bourbon which usually look like maple syrup, but that day it done been yellow. I can tell you, a little bit nervous is how I feelin, ’ but ya’ll who isn’t when they takin’ their first big drinks, you know takin’ that plunge. We’d seen ‘nough to know it wasn’t always fun. Hell, we’d seen some old boys been punch drunk all wobbles and vomit after a runnins with them ghosts. We didn’ know better then. We’d only picked up bits an pieces of them bad bad ghost stories when jus’ kids, usually we be sneakin’ outa bed an catchin’ our daddies rantin’ bout it, or runnin round our momma’s ankles when they in the kitchen gossippin ‘bout something or the other. Ralphie was all ready when I mustered the courage ta take the bottle, he’d done poured half the pint in a ladle he’d stolen from the water barrel out back’a Thompson’s on the way out. He lookin’ at me and me lookin’ at him he says, “Ya ready?” an I look back at him, says, “You sure ‘bout…” and he says, “We gonna see ghosts buddy, bottom up!”

Ralph, musta been watchin’ his pop pretty closely, his dad been known for his drinkin’ in town, cause he finished it all in a few straight gulps, eyes’a’squintin’n’tearin’ the whole time. Me though, I had’a take my time, between each mouthful, fannin’ my gullet and tryin’ not to breath cause made it hurt some more. After waitin’ a few minutes we started up laughin’ and hollerin’ and some such, but we knew we weren gonna see no ghosts since it’d be a while till the sun was settin’ down over that big Jasper horizon we got here. We decided we go out for a walk round near the outskirts when it really got dark, head up on over to the ole gnarled tree over on the West’s property, thinkin’ there can’t be no better place to see a ghost. Ta kill we just laid our heads down in the dirt like we’d always do and just shoot the shit, mostly talkin’ bout the ghosts, a little about Eagan’s Model T ford, a little about the terrer Tiffany Moffet who had the hots for Ralphie. But soon ‘nough our heads started spinnin’ like we’d spinnin’ round in circles. We got up and tried walkin’ a bit, but that wouldn’ take, so we just leaned against the walls a the town sorta scootin’ toward the outskirts goin’ back and forth laughin’ and frownin’ laughin’ and frounin.’ By the time we’d made it to the outskirts that big ol’ sun’d dropped outa sight and it was fit to be a dark moon on accoun’ a there bein’ a small moon that night. The wobbles had slowed a bit to a hum when we made it to the tree and the two of us just slumped down tagether spine ta spine and waited. I’d almost forgotten ‘bout the ghosts, till Ralphie reminded me I’d need to load up my sling shot. I had a helluva time lookin’ for rocks, but Ralphie remembered part way through he’d prepared a little and had some in his pocket. So, we slumped down again, both holdin’ onto the knots and crags a the big tree for balance and we started waitin’ again. Then, wouldn’t ya know, all ready to see some ghosts and we both just passed on out, right then and there leanin’ on one another.

I woke with a start with Ralphie shakin’ my shoulder an makin’ a little whimpering noise. I was darn groggy and my head felt like it was filled with flies and manure so it took me some to come to.

#7 07.16.09: Ghosts and Whiskey

Poor ol’ Ralph Sterling, never knew what hit’em. No one, not a one don’t dodge ghost bullets. Many men try, but none succeed. This is the history of our town. Ghost bullets, that and maybe whiskey.

I don’t really know why I am relatin’ this tale to ya’ll. I guess I just feel, for ol’ Ralhpie’s sake, it may be necessary. For if you trace back time, he’s been talkin’ about a ghost bullet confrontation since he had his first slurp’a’whiskey behind the Smith’s tack. Ya’ see I know this ‘cause we were, somehow, tied together by God me and Ralphie. You see our mommas had birthed us on the same dark night way back in August of aught six. Ya see the way they tell it, there was a tornado brewin’ and they says we entered this god forsaken whiskey filled world round about the same time, round about the sixth lightnin’ strike. My momma said it were an omen from the lord, whether good or bad, she never said. Hell, it’s hard to believe in a good omen in this town bein’ all them hauntins’ and all the whiskey that done flow through here, I guess I’ve always assumed omens been sent down here to Jasper from the big man and that torn purple skies he resides in is a bad one.

But, you know, Ralphie didn’t think like that. He thunk it a good omen, but ya know, for him there weren’t never anything a bad anything, especially an omen. That man, my brethren, my blood brother too, was probably the only god-forsaken human been born in this county an optimist. Ya know, I think he shoulda received a medal or somethin’ bein’ that he ain’t never bringin’ one down, he only thinks in the way of up. In fact he’s the only one ever workin’ against the sullen momentum of this town. I guess maybe, before the ghosts, in them infant days of Jasper. They dinnint have no ghosts till the tornado in ’67, but that’s way before me an Ralphie and I ain’t gonna go elaboratin’ about that cause I don’t know nothin’ about it, and I don’t think it’s a man’s place to be sayin’ nothin’ about nothin’ he know about. Maybe that’s why I may be tellin’ you about Ralphie; I know a good deal about that man, him bein’ my brethren and all. The other thing I know is ‘bout ghost’s, ghost bullets and whiskey. I don’t know nothin’ about women or pigs, which is what folk raise ‘round here, or cars or, well, that’s all beside the point. Well, maybe I might know something ‘bout cleanin’ shit up, cause that’s what I do, clean shit up. Well anyway, I’m gettin’ carried away on a tangen’ or whatever they say. I am here to pay tribute to dear ol’ Ralphie and that’s what I inten’ to do.

So here we was, takin’ our first drinks of whiskey, well not really the first, we had a sip here an’ there from our pa’s cups, but this time, we had our gosh darn first beautiful pint a that good oak barrel moonshine, Ralphie an me, we’d run some errans’ for Mr. Thompson at the general store and when Mr. Thompson offered me and Ralphie our usual nickel, what’d good ol’ 9 year ol’ Ralphie do, I had my han’ extended ready for that little silver to pass over it, thinkin’ all the candy that was gonna be mine, maybe a sasparilla too, he jus’ slap my hand, gimme a wink, pull up his britches, pull his cap down a little and say, “nope, I don’t need a nickel Mr. Thompson, I need somethin’ else…” and Mr. Thompson says, “well then, boys what does you want?” an’ Ralphie looks’em straight in the eye and bold face just says, “…that.” And he stretches his lil’ chile hand out just like a floppy eared heeler and Mr. Thompson, his head follows Ralphie’s arm for what I thought was a decade until he begin’ ta careen at his floppy ol’ neck and it looked like the spark of the pint must’a caught his eye, cause his eyes god wide and his smile god what and he whipped back at us with a glow in his eyes and he says, “So you wanna put a little hair on those little chests, you gonna huff and puff like little accordians and you gonna get drunk huh?” And that really was all that happen’ he just laugh it off’a’shakin’ his head and he grabs the bottle down from the top shelf and he hands it to us and he says, “Good luck. If you get them hides tanned, if you be cuttin’ a switch, don’t damn my name by yellin’ it to the skies, specially now that it’s the ghostin’ season.”

So there we were, about to take our first real slurp.

#6 07.15.09: I dreamt a referee

He had lived this pinstriped dream since childhood. He had paid his dues and now he was finally on top. Beginning with pee-wee games when he was just five, doing high school games at the age of ten and finally moving to the NCAA when a sophomore in high school. But he had finally made it, he was in the bigs. He would be the next Ed Hocuouly, but ten times bigger and ten times flashier. He was a referee.

As his dreams grew exponentially so did his flare. As soon as he could, he upgraded from a Camry LE to the Camry XLE. He began to have his whistles specially minted; first gold and platinum plating, then came different shapes, initials, insignia, hollow mystical beings, chalices, the latest and greatest being a 20 whistle gold plated set shaped like.308 Caliber Ak47 bullets. He carried them in a black and white bandolier across his chest. When he made an amazing call, he tore the tip from the cartridge and tossed the shell into the crowd to perhaps not thunderous applause, but applause nonetheless.

Things started to get out of hand when, one day, he realized he was getting no fulfillment from this dream come true. He stopped caring. Though it tore him up inside he’d finish the night with two beers instead of his usual one. He began driving through yellow lights. For a while he was able to play the game, taking risks, but reconciling himself to wake up earlier to make up for it. But then his calls began to lose their whip crack. His hand signals once had the tight corners of a military bed sheet, of late they had just sort of been there, like him, floating. He was off kilter and off the wagon. He needed help. He, his Gods and Devils incarnate were what he wore on his chest, were his actions, were his possessions. He once lived by rules and rules alone but they no longer carried any bearing on his life path. He felt compelled to search for his true calling and it scared the shit out of him because he had thought it was officiating. He bought more beer, bought more things, amplified his antics, but to no avail. Someone remarked once that he should find try Buddhism. He knew not what he sought but he sought and, finding nothing, he continued to falter and would continue his search. He wandered up and down the court, day in and day out, looking for shelter, wishing something would just pop into existence, something real, something tangible as the diamond encrusted whistle he wore to bed; he wished he could fall asleep and the next day it would be lying there next to him huddled in his palm, glaring, shining and neon “the answer.”

On the morning of what he called, “The Ultimate Experience” he lay in bed wearing a notch in his pillow and loathing self. He watched his ceiling covered in stars that were the glitter reflected off the crags in the new fangled asbestos. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. It was zero hour. He had lost the will to live, but he didn’t even have the will to take is own life, but he wrenched himself from the rut in his pillow, showered, toweled off, shaved, brushed and slid his fresh striped jersey over his empty shell of a body. As usual he took the same route to the arena. As usual he went through the rituals of the day. The game started as usual, for thirty minutes it played as usual, the jump ball had become a memory that would be forgotten at any moment and his heart began to beat irregularly. He wondered the cause since he was rigid in hsi nutrition and workout regimen. Despite it all, he grew light headed, nauseous, his vision began to close around the center, the periphery filled with stars. He knew what was going to happen and he fought his bodies urged to faint. His last glimpse was a coach throwing a fit. Suddenly, aware of it only for a moment, he dropped to the court having convulsion.

He never woke up. But he persisted, in a vegetative state, none the wiser, happy enough. It wasn’t tangible, but he had attained absolute ecstasy.

           

            The young brave woke from his living nightmare laughing boisterously. Despite his laughter however, he found he had never been more frightened in his life. Both the small of his back and his brow were saturated with stale sweat—a telling detail which informed him the long duration of this living dream.

            It began as it ended, in a cold sweat. Three moons elapsed since the beginning of his vision quest. The clouds had dropped and it had begun to drizzle. He had been subsisting only on dried venison, rutted water and meditative guttural chants until he was overwhelmed by the urge to follow the neon lichen and move north. He followed them until he saw a cave of salal and fern which beckoned for him to enter. There he dozed off and, in and out of consciousness, he felt repeatedly transported from one time to another and back again. Finally he could sleep no longer for it was dusk and he felt a presence in his fist, as if he blood had pooled and his hand had fallen asleep. Rolling his head, a pendulum within the rut he had created during his nap, he glanced at his hand, suddenly noticing there not a blood thirsty palm but a plant: completely foreign, completely alien. During his preparation for this journey in search of his manhood he had catalogued within his mind all that the elders had taught of flora and fauna his own spirit and that of the great ones which came before him. This was a true mystery. Even more mysterious was his tongue’s insistence on tasting it. Like a salmon to a gill net it was soon flopping around in his mouth and quickly finished with quick death blows. Its after taste was like a noxious root. He knew not what to expect as he lay watching the stars accumulate through the membranes and breakages in his cave’s ceiling. He waited until he felt the sky was its dark as the raven and crawled from his shelter and began to walk, east this time. As he did so the tree and sky and fern and creature and forest floor were all illuminated, all connected to the threads which weaved his flesh to them like a great buckskin. It was hard to explain, but simply put it was vivid, it was real for the first time, no longer was it just a setting and a background it had become the protagonist, the colors were the brightest and most beautiful things he had ever seen, the arrangement was unheard of in its genius. When it felt right, he sat down and collected himself.

            He knew he must collect himself, for now would be the time when his spirit animal would reveal itself to him. His focus however was not outside of himself, it had moved from universal to internal which had wrapped around one another, had become a tight braid and a basket. Soon he was able to discern maps and schematics of the universe and existence within his mind though neither he nor his people would know of maps or schematics for another quarter century. The colors were electric though his only knowledge of electric was lightening. He saw space ships but described them as the hooves of white tails in constant motion. He was elated. He was besiged by this elation and needed a break. He wanted to close his eyes, but they were already closed.

Then came the vision which would alter his life forever. His mind imbued this vision of great worth, though he did not know why. His body was consumed by another, very slowly he was assimilated by a foreign pale body. It wore oddly weaved clothing from neither hide nor bark. It was segmented, raven and sun, raven and sun. He ran with herds of other men and dictated their motion. There was much he could not explain, which had not been a problem to this point in his journey, on the contrary, he had enjoyed such things thus far, nevertheless, as he was compelled to walk north, to enter his leafy shelter, to look at his palm, to consume the plant, to again walk through the night he was compelled to panic, he was conscious of all motions which in real life simply happened independent of consciousness. Shaking, nausea, his mind wild, sickened, verging hysteria, calling forth these reactions from within moments before they were to happen, he then began to laugh and laughed through the rest of the night uncontrollably but consciously assuming the role of this pale human or god or devil until dawn was upon him and beauty and harmony were again aligned with physical reactions, that is to say, outside of himself.

            He promised himself never tell anyone of this part of his vision. His spirit he said was dear hooves, though he knew it was the one called ‘referee.’ He relegated this dream to the back of his mind and soon learned not to dwell on it, only thinking of it during restless nights or times of boredom which, also, was yet to be invented. When he was old, had fought in many battles, sired many children there appeared white men. They offered their hands and offerings of trinkets but despite being the elder he could not focus, for his his living dream had again come to him. His sweat again had come to him. His panic again had come to him. He again was conscious of things before they happened. His old ragged body could not handle it again. He had to warn his people, but he fell into a fit of laughter, convulsing and rolling on the ground until again he had created a rut in the ground. There he died. There he was consumed again by the pale being. And in that pale being wearing a striped garment he would remain till the rest of eternity.

 

            It was at this moment he felt compelled to finish the song. At this same moment he was compelled, sensing this predestination seconds before this moment was to happen, that is to say a few moments ago, to fall to the floor in convulsions. Leaning back as if falling into nothing, he let himself drop. For infinitesimal moment he floated, nothing belonging to him touched the matte black floor; the guitar strap a halo, the guitar a conduit and Tesla coil he floated. He hit the ground solid, his wasted coils that were all that was left of the shoulder muscles once nourished and thick during a stint in the army hit as wet laundry on some distant river bank. Hitting the floor he began a fit, rolling, shaking enough to make one nauseous, it was orchestrated hysteria. The music dictated his movements, his thoughts dictated the music and his movements dictated his thoughts.  He could see the electricity flowing from thought to brain to nerves to fingers to strings through cord to pedals through the amplifier and into space. He thought in the tone and hue of the lichen growing on the northern faces of the trees which lined the forests seventy miles away. His spontaneous composition gave voice to spaceships as they might have mapped the universe. He knew this conduit to, as he put it, everything that ever was and will be had a catalyst; it was mold synthesized into drops he found in his dressing room with which he lased his bandana. He didn’t know if what was inside him was God, Human or Devil. He was himself, he was someone else, he was the universe. Tommorrow he would go on a bender, vomit in his sleep and die a legend.

#5 07.14.09: Picking up Cigarette Butts

I am clearing a flower which bloomed when an elbow bumped a ceramic pot from a front porch. The pistil and stamen are the cracked and randomly sorted shards of an empty ceramic pot. The petals are composed of the lip fodder of a thousand breaths strained in search of bliss. And the factory perfected shells of Phillip Morris and co. The germs, conversations and dried saliva coat these spent shells like aphids, bumblebee toes and life codified in pollen. The fragrance caressing my fingers is that of spent tobacco leaves and miniscule doses of noxious and addictive chemicals. Lying in wait of the elbow which sowed these seeds these fragrances basted in the fumes left by their demise and the mouths that were their undoing. As I harvest this bouquet, raking with left hand then right as I shift my balance, I break to intake the loaded olfactory enigma that is left there. I breath in the machines and fingers which sorted these assorted white and brown-bespeckled cylinders, the enchanting boxes, cellophanes and foils, the momentary lapses in the mantra like daily motions and motives of those who partook in this constant ritual; these things they rise from my fingers like ghosts imitating incense and sparklers. The rise to my nostrils in smoke rings, languid like fox tails and every now and then jumping like sparks. It is unseen and unnoticed but the thick presence is pervasive, clings to me like a bowling alley or speak easy might after a long whiskey tinged and tangled evening.

As I cleave the grass for those which remain, some stained with age others bleached with freshness I want to cleave those leaves which begat these toxic rolls which engender tiny nirvanas. I am transported to a field thick with leafy tufts and rich aromas. I am at these fields when no one is around, perhaps a few pickers somewhere around dusk. They bend in unison and a breeze pitches them slightly to and slightly fro and they are wind chimes. They are wind chimes echoing the subtle crunch beneath fingers and rolling paper, they are echoing the tongues released and wanting which trace the glue, they are echoing the match on the grit of the match book and the initial burst which will ignite the bulbous, sulfurous tips, they are echoing the release built into the inhalation and the microscopic blood born engagement around the time of the exhale, they echo the char and crackle of soft membranes that will signal my demise, they echo the elbow which jolted the pot that woke the disjunctive petal arrangement echoing my journey back which echoes that of the spent shells, lying on the ground and waiting to be collected. It is the earth and I am the earth and we are all flowers waiting to be collected.

#4 7.10.09; Barstow Love Letter

Somehow, through blasphemy or the grace of God we were able to move the world around us, in shockwaves. We became hard river rock and the desert barn our pond rippling around us. A dusky owl watched, feathers rattling on a scale so minuscule it was assimilated in soft tufts and ruffles. The salted rafters creaked in slow vibration and the ground beneath us shook as it all came to an end.

The night had passed over monotone and monochrome as the day. We passed the night through, together, our dreams are polychrome and mystical. In them we transcend our sullen desert existence and desert surroundings.

Silently I pull particles of desert sand and dry grass from your hair, aged, gray, tired. You laid still, new, fresh, covered in lace, dust and the dawn. Through the slats that were once flush boards now bowed, faded, cracked I see the white glow of the unimpeded sun. The dire prospect of leaving seers all that is inside me, the thoughts, the soul and bloody mush. I must summon the wherewithal to leave you. You fresh bride.

The tendons of my knees, brittle as the morning and its chapped lips, crack, as I rise to stand. I realize that my spine too is bowed, faded, cracked. I can see them, hanging by twine in a bulbous mason jar filled with the green of fromaldehyde. In the east hear of an oddity, passed off as a museum of the human anatomical and skeletal sciences. All I imagine may be a grotesque arrangement, catalogued and bleached. What was meant to lie fallow and random until it once again had rejoined the universal purpose having served a specific earthly cog for a time. I will end, fallow and random.

 I breathe you in with the dust and dirt. It carries softly, slowly, silently into the vibrant swirls cast by the sun’s rays which deign to compete with our presence in this abandoned barn. If I were to stay we’d hang around like empty nooses in this empty graying barn, side by side, waiting for the knots tied in us to cinch, waiting for death. I, bearing only flesh to the gray earth and bitters left by dawns rays, stretch all that has been bound within me through the night. I light a cigarette and such begins the countdown to my departure. I shall leave you sleeping. I shall leave you the pale horse. And I shall leave you all that has been scrounged from my toil and gamble.  When the gray goes white, I shall be over the horizon and g one.

Wait for me in Barstow. I will return when I won’t leave you.

#2, 7/8/09 Theme: Nautical+Darwin Fleunder

5000 thousand leagues. Here is where our swashbucklers found themselves. They had been bamboozled and were prepared to tear their gold earrings from their lobes–gold earrings being the only failsafe guarantee for a proper burial. Tim James was the first to break the silence which seemed to be the only thing sustaining the shape of the submersible.

“I hope my wife will be wearing lace.”

“Don’t think like that Tim, we’re gonna make it…you yella little pussywillow.”

“They will drop roses onto my casket, when they should throw petals, for why pay homage to a incomplete body with a complete offering. The walls are bending.”

“The walls of this gad damned vessel is 80 inches thick my friend. They will hold. Hell or high water and we’re nearing hells bubbles just fine.”

“I wonder what the bludgeon will feel like? A mallet to the skull or a slow boa constrictor?”

“Tim my boy I’m tired of yer shit. Hear me, tired of yer shit. Now don’t make me bludgeon you goddammit.”

“Will the both of you kindly calm your tongues and mandibles, I am trying to read?”

“How could you be reading right now?”

“Easy, it’s Moby Dick. There seems nothing less appropriate at a time like this. Am I right? If these infernal walls can hold a mere 20 more minutes, I should be just about to the inglorious end of it all.”

“You’re insane.”

“No, I’d be Ahab. Tim, you’re definitely an Ishmael. And there’s no question, or good friend Goldie here, no doubt the muscled enigma that is Queeqweg. Granted, he was a touch more soft spoken compared to our foul mouth sailor lipped gip friend Goldie here.”

“I’m with Ishmael. You’re a nut short of a silverware drawer there Fleunder.”

“Quite the contrary my good friend, quite the contrary. I’ve been awaiting death since childhood. I couldn’t bear passing in sleep, a geriatric, my family close. My struggle would be nothing without a wonderful crescendo to play me out. Where’s the romance? Anyway, who wants their last movement on earth to be a dull one? Who would have their last thought be one concocted by the subconscious? No that’s not for me. Tear my hearty flesh from my bones. Gouge my bespeckled eyes. Disjoint all that is jointed. Did I ever tell you I am rather fascinated by torture Tim.”

“No Shit?”

“You ain’t got an inch on ya that’s hearty boy. You’re like a whale bone corset, just bones an fabric squeezin’ all the fat out at the top. But in yer case it ain’t bulgin’ tits, it’s that fat noggin’ of yours.”

Then and there was had the first jovial laugh since they hit the jagged bottom depths of the Indian ocean three days before; after which, the uproar still resonating in the ship’s framework as in his ribs and as in his undeveloped tear ducts, Darwin Fleunder slid his cracked spectacles up his nose and sensuously, then ravenously wiped the corner of his mouth with a soiled kerchief. The three sat in silence. Perhaps lusting over what could have been their final chortle. Perhaps lusting over the women and men they had in their lives on the shores of wherever it was they had come from or those they never had—case in point, Darwin knew he must have Tim, inebriated, punch drunk or simply just confused, by the end of his little melodrama. As he neared the climax lodged comfortably here at the end of the second act he remembered the first time he had followed Tim into the musky-dark sailor speak easy, The Rum Gourd back in Jackarta. And perhaps simply they lusted over this rapture which was to be one of their final moments. Or so they thought.

The bilge was busted. The stern, where floated their four comrade from the engine room, was sealed. The fore carriage of the vessel held the lifeless bodies of their brave Captain Edward and his 1st mate Donaldson—the trio’s superiors long since dead of the mutiny which had brought them all to this moment of peril. Or so they thought.

Tim repeated a mantra in the hollows and echoes of that small brain that was surrounded by a pinhead covered in soft-towhead moss, “All is wrong…All is wrong…All is wrong…” Goldie sang a drinkin’ song, “Oh, let the grasses grow and the waters flow in a free and easy way…” Darwin could not keep up with his mind, never could, but his heart pumped, “All is well…All is well…All is well…”

The royal navy had never come for their dirty pirate hides. Giant squid and the rumored prehistoric menace of this, as dubbed by Goldie, Hindu land, had not ground their bones in their submarine like so much wasted chicken bones wrapped tinfoil. The mutiny had succeeded. Tim was toeing the edge of insanity. Goldie was despondent. The rest were dead. Fluender had done it. Or so he thought.

Contrived but beguiling was the guidance of Darwin Fleener. The success of his plan was hinged upon Tim’s fear and Goldie’s penchant for machismo heroics, not to mention the deaths of the rest of the crew, and it was going off without a hitch. Just as he had hatched just after puberty. The one exception being the crack in his round, gold rimmed tri-focals. 

#1, 7/7/09 Theme: Computers in the brain and Harriet

We searched the horizon for life. Together we noticed the majesty that was the form of a reindeer silhoutted by the sun. Superimposed, burned onto the face of the great torch of the sun. For a moment it owned not only the sun and the horizon but all that the eye could see. Somehow we arrived at this juncture of nature and computers. I really cannot not recall programming majesty into the program, nor nordic scenery for that matter. This is a frightening conundrum and or realization with which I am now confronted. Harriet really has no idea. She is transfixed. Her eyes are a testament to the moment. I watch her, unwary and unmoved by the glory. My mind however is bugging out. I am running through the program, through code that may have been misread or miswritten. I wish I could unwrite it. Nonetheless I keep my look constant in order not to frighten her. She is wearing goloshes and leiderhosen. Initially when we leaped into the program I couldn’t stop laughing at her bavarian and rain puddle muddle garb. That I did program. She decided to test the limits of the program, the sound of music attire being on a different spectrum alltogether than her usually tight jeans and low quality sailing shoes. She retained a loose fitting logo t-shirt. The logo is obsured by rediculous embroidery. Despite the fact that she looks like nothing of the brain image that is retained by my memory, the programming somehow still overpowers it. It’s an odd thing when your mind tries to fight the program. If you focus, I imgaine gray area going buck wild, you can superimpose a flicker of the real world on the image the program has composed for you. It looks somewhat like a broken halogram you’d see in science fiction, over saturated and and flickering. The layers are beginning to fuck with me, “help me obi-wan kenobe, you’re our only hope…flicker…help me obi-wan kenobe, you’re our only hope…” I am in danger. It’s like an acid trip. I need to get grounded, quick. If I am not grounded, I am libel to lose it. Unfortunately, unlike LSD, the programs effects won’t wear off in a nice chunk of hours. unfortunately I will go into an epileptic fit, hopefully not swallowing my tongue, until I get tech support. I can’t afford another trip to tech support. I guess all I can describe the experience as would be a concussion, not a lot of short term memory. Get grounded. Cigarette. Cigarette. Cigarette. As the cigarette twitters itself into this world with a flicker and the sound of a zippo, I begin to feel it between my fingers. I lift it to my mouth and pull. Tastes the same, buzzes the same. But my lungs don’t burn. This is something I miss. The burn. I am, again, grounded. But now I need to figure out where this nordic shit may be coming from. Where this tool of the Chris Kringel remains plastered over what should be by now a sunset. Harriet. I look at her. She’s unmoved. “Harriet?…Harriet!” So what I initially thought was rapture, is in fact, perhaps an epileptic fit. I begin running to the horizon. The hills adjust, grow exponentially as I run. It’s like I am running through a gun range at the carnival. It rotates as if on a conveyer belt, evermore, ever forward. I look at my feet. There is grass moving beneath me. And rocks. There’s some ground being made okay. If I can impose some motion on that antelope which was a raindeer, I can regain myself and hopefully her. I throw all my brain power at the problem. I begin seeing national geographic specials of antelope being run down by lions and cheetahs projected onto the horizon. I begin seeing hunting videos of antelope hearts pierced by razor tipped arrows projected on the horizon. The antlered shadow now emits phantoms of rudolph and bambi as if it shedding off parts of the many souls that in my minds eye compose all that is antlered and behooved. I behoove you to stop. i behoov you to come to life. I behoov you to stop pop culturing yourself into oblivion. They warned of lack of focus when I entered. I imagine that’s what I get for doing this in tijuana. shoddy fucking programming. My pockets are no doubt getting rifled. The program for harriet, meticulous and expensive, has probably been cut from my skull with a rusty blade and no care for any of the mother board lodged in my skull. My imagination has become the sunset. These caricatures of the assholes who offered me this digital deal on the side of the road, me a little randy and a little tossed. What was his name, Eduardo oor something. Sweating through his fruit of the loom t-shirt. I see his blade, the clouds, I see his face all the pink in the sky is now a brown man. Come back, come back. Okay. Horizon. Horizon.

#3, 7/9/09 Theme: PB and J and Helicopters

I sensed the peanut butter and jelly sandwich nestled, congealing in my rucksack behind the seat. I loathed the moment I would bite into it. I didn’t want to hope the moisture and sweetness of the preserves would somehow overtake the peanut butter. I didn’t want to see the bread looking like the mark left on a slapped face.

For a moment my mind wanders into a sandwich COPS episode. The PB and J’s are disheveled, stained and bruised. They live in a dilapidated lunch box from the 90’s, and reside in bad part of the weird kids back pack. Mrs. PB and J pleads with the officers, the rookie Black forest ham and cheddar looks for support in a surly old veteran grilled cheese, who is so jaded his char is beginning to flake off.

“Please, he didn’t mean it. I mean, he just don’t like it when I bring up his chunks, honestly, I swear it…I love him.”
“Ma’am we’ve seen this before, why don’t you just come down to the station and think it over for a while. You don’t have to press charges…”
“Am I under arrest if I come down?”
“No ma’am, you’ll just get some time to yourself. You know, you’re a sweet lady, you’ve got a few more class periods left in you, I just don’t want to see you fall into something you can’t handle. I mean look at your bottom slice, all the preserves coming out.”

All of a sudden guns blazing, shit drunk, 12 grain, chunky peanut butter apricot jam starts wobblin’ about the thermos, yelling some kind of gibberish about smelling a tuna fish sandwich and a white bread fuckin’ hooker.

I go back to the wheel. I’m really not paying attention to where I am going and I am beginning to hate the beige of my leather seats. I should be focus on the minute beauty of the interplay between the gravel and the long beach grass on the shoulder. I light up a cigarette, wonder if it would taste better after a PB and J. A helicoptor floats over and I ease off the brake. The car squirms forward only to be halted by more break lights. I’d turn on the AC, but that’d just waste gas.

I wish I could fly a helicopter. Not just fly it, I wish I could cut fucking cheese with it; wish I could threaten someone up against a the wall in a parking garage, the blades violently rotating just under their jugular. I’d hold a the CB to my mouth, there’d be a time delay, “Where are the fucking documents Rowly?”

I wonder if someone died or there is just traffic. Is traffic really news? I realize I usually know exactly when I will hit traffic and begin to loath my sandwhich, my hangover and my upholstery. I check my progress on the cigarette and realize I’ve been sucking, inhaling, exhaling, flicking, sucking, inhaling, exhaling, flicking for a good 2 minutes and I really have paid it no mind. Same goes for driving, braking, driving, braking, driving, braking. Traffic has somehow killed my ego. Perhaps nirvana is actually white lines and tar. Perhaps nirvana is luxurious shoulders, glimpses of the horizon, occasional wildlife and gas station stops for energy drinks. Perhaps nirvana is traffic jams and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.