Half-light

She moves in half-light.  Spins in the swirl of noise and strobe.  The laughter seems tarnished.  The smiles, a sticky camouflage.  She beams around the confusion.

She moves in rapid glances.  In missed caresses.  In the feeling that remains when a loved one leaves, planning never to come back. 

What tangible nothing?  What deception?  What?  Is it love?  Hogwash.  Or is it merely forgiveness?  Equally absurd.

Does it come in a bottle?

She lives a half-day...like me, but what would Sartre have done?  When simple self-loathing fails.  When self-punishment is not enough.  When self-destruction only gets you halfway there...

Happiness lives in the shadows, but I can see it sometimes from my apartment.  She is elusive.  Lost in tall groves and backwood thickets. 

She becomes lost in the cross-light.  My memory implodes for the third time.  My mind is frightening to me.

Licking lips, feeling strong.  It’s all just the same old con.  Selling something you don’t have.  She sells dreams and sadness.  She sells everything but what we really need.  Is this a mother?  Is this a friend?  No more or less than anyone else.

Forced to face the frontier.  Bright lights to armageddon.  Dim lights to self-delusion.  Gas makes my car run.  Whiskey makes me run.  But what makes the whiskey run?  Who breathes the life into every rye and corn flow desecration?

Quick, look confused.  Is it the guy in the hat?  With the dirty t-shirt?  Is he hurting?  Is he lonely?  Aren’t we all?

She slinks through half-death.  I live in hell already.

Who will sing the songs of my childhood when I have forgotten the words?  When time has suffocated the sentiment.  When will these words fail me?  It’s just a matter of time.  A matter of brain cell assassination.  When the bottle is dry.  When the books are gone.

She swings by with a sideways glance.  Selling the private dance.  She says, “so, are you smart and poor?”  I tell her I’m poorer than I am smart.

What greater selfish rush than the written word?  I live as king and queen.  I bleed for myself while Christ begs for bandages.  Do we all despise me as much as I do?  Listen to how silent it is in here.  Listen, maybe, to the implied deception.

She dances in the contempt I hold for myself.

Among men, I sicken me.  I choke and gag on self-awareness.

Can I speak to you?  Or overpower you with the smell of cheap perfume?  A scent that takes you back to all those pre-pubescent Playboys.  If even I disgust myself, and pity the others?

Tap into the realm of repression.  Love yourself through the hatred others feel for you. Find a place. Or a shady spot to turn to death.

Money talks more profanity.  I prove myself to quantify a cash reduction.

She hides her beauty in obscurity.  She sluts away the easy fix.  One would hope that this means salvation.  The game is over but for the blind optimism that tempts a mortal to call the goddess down.

You are impressed by these shiny recollections.  You like to watch me drink.  To see me choke the bourbon past sobriety.  You love the weakness, but fear the beast.  We all become prostitutes or repressed.  We try to let life fill in the blanks.  But the blanks are emotion.  The loss is communion.  The love is ultraviolet.

Can you buy my love?  Can I sell it to you?  Let’s take guy #7.  Wants a woman who will reach for love and settle for the status quo.  I’m sad, but I don’t know how to tell anyone. Maybe if I pour enough whiskey down my throat they will think to ask.

Is there a damsel in distress?  A Madame lost among the dunes of hapless wandering.  Over the hill and fuck the dale.  Do you love me, or will I love the way you ignore me?

Do you want me?  Do you pretend to care?  Do you love beyond your means?  Or will you force caring to be redemption?  Wishing you could love anything, or anyone, or anywhere more than me, here and now.

Spinning in the shallows of half-remembrance.  Hunting the crayfish of horror.  Inside yourself are you uglier than outside?

Is it better to be free, while the rich drive past in gleaming German cars?  Crying for an orphanistic rabble rouse.  It’s lonely in the noose, with the conveniences that are prerequisites.

We crave the freedom, all of us, to be the round peg that fits into the round hole.  We are waiting for the scale-tipper.  Driven mad by the bet-hedgers.

She moves in halfway-there.  Dizzy from the spin.  Brain fried after all.  Ketchup covering disillusion.  I would love revenge on the stupid monkey.  I can grab a stick and bash skulls.  While you oggle and give life to disrepair.

Once upon a nightmare, bleeding.  Left to casual hatred.  Right to heaven.  Do I want to die?  Or will I hunt God down and force him to ante-up.  Don’t forget to not remember any of this.  Once upon a hogwash.

The light refracted makes less sense.  The loss of feeling, body set to purge.  Yank the rug out from my heels.  Fake left to increase the sprawl.

Put all your eggs in one basket.  Give the basket to a child.  And watch him spin toward yoked oblivion.  Paint the colors of lying.  Shade and glitter deception.  Salt my wounds and cauterize.

If there is dialogue and prophesy...  Even between a man and his notebook.

On knee, shortened--pre-shortened in slavery and servitude.  Money falls to the bottom, where we will fight and scrape and bite and betray.  Kill your fellow man.  Drink deep while the weak are falling.  Don’t pity unless you pity yourself for looking backward.

Out of all the monkeys, why us?  Why settle for the large brain?  Why pervert God’s harvest?

Why antelope?  Why tiger?  Why rapt attention and hidden resurrection?  Why pretense?  Why music?  Why beat?

Why death not insurrection?  Why life, this bland confection?  Sugary escape.  And why always disappearing into withdrawal and hangover?

Am I still hiding from a school marm that never existed?  Someone’s got to write the bad songs.

The colored lights swirl like nausea.  Left behind, awkward girl.  Always running, awkward girl.  Do I smell your corpse burning?

We all fear our desires.  And I fear life.  Wanting instead...what?  Despair and suicide?  No, to sleep forever. Or to live like God, in fiction, as water flows through trembling hands.

Small Hours

It is in the small hours when I am roused from sleep. Sometimes there is a clarity to the waking. A restlessness. I want to GO. To do something. To take a ride, to eat a bowl of cereal, to read a book. The shadows don't make sense in the clash between the kitchen light, the streetlight, and ambient night. I look towards the bookshelf. I take down a photo album and, once I get past being pissed about the pics where I am fifteen pounds high, I am lost in it. I am back in time and remembering that time has passed. A lot of it. Like a steady drip that becomes a roar until the drywall rots and crumbles.

Sometimes my cat will find me, confused that I am in his time. But he is happy to see me. Always ready to sit on a warm lap. I try not to turn on the computer. I think of all the people who write in the small hours and I feel guilty, but I don't want to write. That's not the way I do it. I wonder how much of my life I wasted trying to do things the way other people did them and failing. I won't let that happen to my girls.

I'm silly about it really. When my oldest was just learning to use scissors she would hold them upside down and get corrected until finally I couldn't take it. "Let her hold the goddamn scissors any way she wants!" And then I realize the anger is out of proportion and it's not about scissors anyway, and never was. It's about me.

But the small hours give me a kind of magic sight. I sit and watch the girls sleep, so limp and free of worry. Tiny little people with sweet breath that sits on the night air and makes you feel like laughing out loud. I look into four tiny brown eyes, and the love I feel in the small hours is almost crippling. I want to wrap it around myself. I want to throw it as far as I can, scared of its power. I want to keep it in my pocket forever.

My wife is sleeping and this makes me happy. She doesn't get enough sleep. She doesn't complain. I look out the window. I used to live in a city that was never quiet. There was always something. The small hours where I live now are silent and empty. I stare out the window at the moisture collecting on the tops of jolly rancher cars and I wonder.

Years from now, I will be an old man. I will have written more words than most people, but that will be all I contribute to the world. I hope my girls will want to hang out with their old man. I hope my wife will get more sleep.

In the small hours, my brain is slow and sensible...

I sit on the edge of the bed for what seems like ages. I pet the cat and listen to the breathing apartment and wonder what fate holds in store. Because there is so much to lose and so much to win. And I don't deserve it. But I hope to hell things keep going my way. I lay back on my pillow and think about time and money and all the things I don't have enough of. It all seems pretty stupid in the small hours when the house is filled with love and bemused shadows.

Trains

His grandfather loved trains. He had a shelf of books about them. He had a model train set in the cellar that rivaled any you could find in a museum or fair. He often started stories about bulls and campfires that trailed off, circled around the room, and landed with a rough calloused hand through his hair. "Someday, I'll tell you all about that."

His grandfather died before he got a chance to tell the story, but there were a million stories hidden in the cellar. There was a giant wooden box full of hundreds of night-crawlers. There were old things that he would find poking around when his grandfather was making the rounds, sharing a beer with his friends. There were tools he spent hours trying to decipher. There was a sap, although he didn't know what it was called at the time - he knew what it was for. Woven leather around a lead ball. He tried to imagine his grandfather hitting someone and he couldn't. He held it in his hand and heard train whistles through the corridors of time. Wheels rattling the tracks.

It was a small house, but it was full of treasures. There was a perfect replica of a sabre, but tiny, used to open letters. The plumbing was iffy and the cellar flooded in the rain. He could barely tolerate the non-fat dry milk with ice cubes that he drank to be polite. The wonder outweighed the sagging mattresses and blue milk.

His father's room had been maintained because of the death. Going inside his father's room was like discovering King Tut's tomb. Old toys and pocket knives and books - god, the books. There was a series called "The Book of Knowledge". Volumes designed for children. They taught everything from how to tie knots, to how to survive in the wild, to how to cross-stitch. And they were filled with stories.

There were other books, too. Tom Swift and the Hardy Boys and Chip Hilton. He read them all and he read 'Wyatt Earp' over and over again. He broke some of the toys, but no one criticized him. There were still clothes hanging in the closet. A few pairs of pants and a stack of shirts. The whole house was spartan, but the things that were there were precious. He spent hours going through the drawers in the kitchen. Old matchbooks and souvenirs from all over the northeast.

Most of all, he liked to look through the tackle boxes. His grandfather was a simple fisherman, but he was not immune to the angler's obsession. There were lures and flies and many of them were homemade. Some, the shiny ones still in the boxes, were like trophies. His grandfather never used them and never would.

In hindsight, it is astounding that they could still live in the house. That they weren't always looking for phantom bloodstains. His grandmother never went upstairs. Into the 'boys' room'. It was a house filled with joy and the lingering smell of pipe tobacco. There was nothing in the house that was less than ten years old. It would never change, and there was something about that. A warm feeling.

But the years passed and the stairs to the cellar creaked louder...his grandmother fell once, and before he knew it the house had been sold. The nonsense treasures he had found vanished. His grandparents moved into an apartment across from the High School and later a home. The trains were given to friends and fellow enthusiasts.

He still drives by the house, but it brings, alternately, a sense of sadness and a sense of betrayal. He is just beginning to understand that time betrays us all.

The Basement

The darkness was total and immense. A presence. It was a hand clamped onto the shoulder of his soul. He sat in the cage and tried to ignore the small tickling legs of things that ran over his skin in the night. When the light came, it came in stabs and small incisions. Stabs to bring food or to bring pain. Needles of light just to check on him. To say 'goodnight, you little faggot'.

His mother had died. That was the last thing that had made any sense. She was sick for a long time, and then she died, prune-skinned and grey. And then his father started to drink and smoke and, suddenly, he was a different man. The first beating was incomprehensible. He could hear the whistle of the belt louder than he could hear his own screams.

The cage was small. Made for inside dogs so they could shit outside without supervision. He could not stand in the cage, so it was almost with relief that he greeted the beatings. He could stand, and the belt brought feeling back into his legs. He had lost his relationship with physical pain. It did not register as pain anymore. He hoped to god the man would kill him.

He tried in the beginning.

"Dad, this is not you. You need help...please...I know..."

"Fuck you, you faggot piece of shit."

"Dad, Mom died. You did everything you could."

"That whore? I'm glad she's dead. That dirty backstabbing bitch. I'd kill her myself if she was here now."

"That's wrong...Dad. You loved her. She loved you. You love ME!"

None of it registered. All of it made things worse. The night he had tried to really get through, his father beat him until he could barely see. His eyes swam in a white half-conscious haze.

He was bent over a table and his old man was beating him with a golf club. He was numb from the waist down. Naked from the waist down. He squinted and saw a pen near the edge of the table. He reached for it. The whistle preceding the explosion in his hand was exquisite. His flesh opened and his bones cracked. The hits kept coming and he drifted in and out of darkness. In his mind, he was in the past. He was in the backyard with his parents and they were cooking out. Everything was so achingly normal.

He sat up through the blinding tracers and saw his father slumped in a chair sucking from a bottle of whiskey. He looked scared. Then, Ben looked at the floor around him. So much blood. Too much. He felt his head lighten and swallowed hard. He could feel the warm ooze of blood out of his head and nose, creeping toward his chest.

He laughed. He laughed until he was on his side coughing up thick, red blood.

"You did it, you know? You goddamn son of a bitch."

"..."

"I'm going to die. Tonight."

"Fuck you."

"No, fuck you. I loved her, too. Fuck you. She was my fucking mom."

"You shut your goddamn..."

His head fell to his chest, and Ben felt himself slipping into a dream so dense and thick that he knew he would never leave it. He wanted to live...so, he could explain what had happened. So his dad would get better again. But he knew he wouldn't. Some things stay broken. By dawn, he was dead, and flies swarmed over the smell of blood and whiskey breath.

Jimmy

Jimmy sat like a small Buddha. His hands were clasped tightly together. His shirt had a predominant green stripe that matched his green corduroy pants. His hair was brown and sprouted from an expanse of freckles. Jimmy was scared. Down in the very deepest part of himself, he was terrified - they wanted to take it away from him, he knew it.

The rest of the kids were fascinated. No one had ever said 'no' to Ms. Griffin. And none of them knew Jimmy. Like really knew the things that went on in his mind. The things that mattered too him. They did not know that he was quite funny. He was good with voices. He could draw.

There was almost complete silence as the kids stared and Ms. Griffin glared - the tick, tick, tick of metal on metal from the tetherball - they were stuck in the silence, the glint of the sun. Horror. Surely. This was something. This was different. The kids savored it slowly like a caramel, letting the flavor of it slither down inside them.

Principal Crow was like an old country preacher. He was famous for his slightly bemused demeanor. He was loved. His glasses made him look like an owl, but he was not wearing them now. He was frustrated. Angry. The kids unconsciously moved forward with the smug Ms. Griffin.

"Jimmy, I understand that you disobeyed your teacher."

Jimmy didn't answer. He tried to shut his eyes and to concentrate on the tether ball.

"Jimmy. Open your hands."

There was a hurricane in Jimmy's brain. He was suddenly on fire with a kind of irrational panic. He couldn't move. Couldn't think of what would come next. That anything possibly could come next. His eyes were shut but he opened them when he smelled sweat and aftershave. Principal Crow was very close to him. He smiled. Then he grabbed Jimmy's hands and began to twist them apart. Jimmy held on for a few seconds. The kids edged closer.

And then it was gone. They had taken it, and Jimmy was sitting in the sun, surrounded by his bewildered classmates.

They had taken it, after all. Jimmy did not cry. Not until many years later.

How it be.

I'd be scared, too. What with your mediocrity, and that sly self awareness. Shit's gonna get hectic with these words we spew. When we see what we can make these letters do. Skitter and splash through the elastic understanding of a few? True. You want to eat the leaves off the bottom of the tree, go ahead. There's lots more of them, but the ones at the top are sweet and I'll eat til I've had my fill, til there's no more blood to spill. Cause you fucking stepped in it now, and you smeared it all over the walls. You cry out from a silent blank expanse and hope that someone hears you, but you hide behind the walls of the fortress. I'm not hiding. I'm right here, and I always will be. And I know people are gonna trip and people are gonna fall, but I got the long view. I don't aim to be around for just a few. I'm in this for the whole shebang, when you're hauling ass afraid you've fallen, second class. That's a real fear...a legitimate gripe. Above and beyond who's wrong or right. The truth will out, and it's wearing thin. I didn't bring us here, but that's the state we're in.

So, take your shoes off. Make yourself comfortable. Everyone fetches their own drinks here. But you'll fit in and if you don't you'll fake it and God sure ain't done making rubes. So, you'll be cool. Grab your cube and hold on tight, it's gonna be a vicious fight. You'll lose. We'll all lose. But you'll lose more. And I'm gonna be the one laughing with one foot in hell, saying bitch leave the cleavers, we have new wares to sell.

The Jersey

The jersey was thin with wash and wear, threadbare in spots...worn. It had been his, but even that could not turn her against it. It was her battle armor. He hated when she wore it.

He was a secret misogynist. He believed himself to be de facto King by sex and birthright. He had small black eyes that darted to the corners, chilling with a kind of bloodstained brilliance when they held.

She let him fuck her, but she hated it. He was hirsute and smelled like a piece of rotting fruit. She could not help but imagine chimpanzees rattling cages, sending pulses of hatred out from behind the iron bars that held them. Throwing their shit around.

She kept a bottle of vodka hidden in the basement. He did not know about it.

He died easily. She had been a good nurse. The needle didn't even wake him up. And the inquiry was short. Terrible the habits that some people can't shake. The things people have to live with. Everyone was so sorry for her. She ate their lasagnas and shook her head.

*****

The jersey is orange with blue lettering.

Feel it, soft like ash against your skin.

7-11

Kyle was friends with the raver dipshit. Actually, he was a pretty nice guy, but he hung out with some real annoying K-hole A-holes. He sold K and acid and he'd give us the thin strips off the acid sheets he cut. Can't sell em, but they still work. We'd get him into shows and put him on our guest lists and shit. We were probably a nice break from the sacks of stupidity he was forced to deal with. We like to talk about books and music and...well, we like to talk.

So, we're at dude's house and all the rave-kids are looking at us funny. We pretty much associate with them because they have the best drugs. Sad, but true. In my rock and roll angst, they stand for pretty much everything I am against. I want to play my guitar loud and talk about important shit. They want to wear plush animal backpacks and use pacifiers. But they get good drugs.

So, Kyle, Jim, Mario and I are chewing strips like there is no tomorrow because, quite frankly, that is a very real possibility on any given day and the shit is FREE. Kyle disappears and we're trying to calculate how many strips equals one hit and we're overly conservative in our estimations which makes the calculations really fucking hard because we're tripping face. We figure Mario and Kyle and I are at about 7 or 8. Jim was hesitant then. Before coke and heroin and speed blew any hesitation he had out of the water.

We're talking about some shit and feeling out of place. We're in the backyard smoking, but the ravers are all inside watching The Shining now. Like that's what I want to see on acid. Weird kids. The ketamine kids are the weirdest. I want to be aware I am fucked up. They want to fall backwards into a velvet nothingness where the world can be safely viewed through a tiny hole of distortion. Whatever.

Finally, Kyle shows back up and we're fucked and we just want to leave. Kyle looks weird, and he is always pulling shady shit, so I take him aside. He just did some GHB. That's all. Smiles at me. Goofy. Fuck. GHB has been killing kids all over the county. See, it works by blocking your body's drug defenses so your 'natural' drugs can fuck you up. But if you take it with speed or a downer...well, you can't fight back and the heart doesn't like that. None of us have ever done it before. We've pretty much crossed everything else off the list, though.

But man. We're fucked up. Everything is bright and cartoony and I can't keep a thought in my head for more than three seconds. I keep lighting cigarettes.

"Alright, fuck, Kyle...we need to get some food in you. When's the last time you ate?"

We were a scrawny lot that lived on chemicals and alcohol, so it had probably been a few days.

Jim, of course, is freaking out. True colors.

"Man, fuck you guys. I'm leaving. Fuck this."

His pupils are like fucking planets and I momentarily consider breaking his face...he's pulled this shit before. Too often. Selfish fucker.

"Bullshit dude...you have the car...you are taking us to get food so Kyle doesn't fucking die, asshole!"

Kyle stops smiling.

"I'm not gonna die..."

"No, you're not gonna die, but you need to eat."

The car ride is a fucking nightmare.


I would have done just about anything rather than walk into that 7-11, but it had to be done. God, it was menacing. Everyone knew. I could feel all the eyes on us. And inside, I knew it would be a dayglo nightmare. But, fuck it. We pound in through the double doors.

We head over to the pre-made shit we can afford. I've known one  person who can even look at food on acid. It's not Kyle. I grab this big slab of week old turkey sandwich.

"I'm not eating that, dude."

"Fuck, Kyle, just eat some of it. Why did you take the GHB anyway?"

Dumb question. Kyle takes whatever is handed to him. Mario is quietly concerned. Jim is stalking around pissed off that he's inconvenienced. No one's surprised. So, it's me and Kyle. He's this charismatic dark-skinned kid and strong looking. He's never scared. That's part of his thing. But I can tell he's a little close to the edge.

"Dude, I'm not going to die."

"No. No way. Think about it, man. GHB kills you if it amplifies the effects of something else on your heart. Acid doesn't do shit to your heart. You might trip extra hard, but you're not dying."

"Cool, then put the fucking sandwich back."

I realize I'm holding the sandwich like it's a dead raccoon covered in shit.

"Kyle, please man. I know you don't want to do it and I don't think you're gonna die, but you haven't eaten in a while. It can't hurt, right?"

I really, really want Kyle to eat the sandwich.

"I'm not gonna die."

He's convincing himself. Trying to.

"I 100% agree with you. You will not die, dude. People don't die from acid and GHB. They just don't."

We look at each other and try to pretend we both believe what we're saying while the snack cakes throb and the walls breathe and the lights are so fucking bright. It's at this point that I pzaaaaaaaap snap back out of our world and back into the real one. Just for a second. Just long enough to realize that there are seven other people in the store, we're talking really loud and really fast, and Jim is stalking around with a cigarette like a crazed tweaker hornet. And it's a small store. Kyle sees me looking and then he sees it, too. You can tell he's calculating how many illegal things he has on him just like I am.

"Shit."

So, it's your standard 7-11 crowd, they're all the same. Paramedics and construction workers and I'm hoping to god no cops and that the guy behind the counter doesn't aspire to hero-dom. They are all literally backed against the walls, staring at us in complete horror. I look in the circular mirror thing and I see us. Punk rock and dirty. Two scrawny white kids, a quiet, soft eyed mexican kid, and this scared looking Samoan kid who looks like he could fucking do anything at any moment. And he could. For some reason I'm always the fucking PR guy. And what I say next makes perfect sense to me in the moment, while the cigarette packs are turning into doves.

"Alright folks. Sorry about that. We're gonna leave. Everything is cool. We were just fucking around. My friend's not gonna die. Sorry. Have a good day."

And we do leave. With a quickness.

I drop the sandwich on the counter and we leave. Jim bails. Mario and I stick with Kyle and give him cigarettes, and we spend the next six hours talking about how he's not going to die. He doesn't die. So we eat some of the strips he pocketed and run into Jim later. He's pissed we didn't share. The stars are tiny daggers of flame.

Sensitive Skin

He played with insects, small things. He collected miniatures and knick-knacks and raided his sister's doll house to hold the tiny chairs...to turn them in his hands...to close his fingers around them until their sharp edges were traced into his soft flesh. His hands were too soft. This was one of the things he hated about himself. Skin too pale. Skin too soft. The doctor said he had sensitive skin and wrote a note that turned into a special soap that morphed into the kind of ruthless self-loathing that makes sense only in hindsight.

He never wanted to hurt anyone. He got confused. Things got jumbled up. She was the catalyst. She made him look at himself differently. She imposed some kind of worthiness that jumbled the wires up...confused the circuitry.

He was content to absorb the sun and light and let it bounce off his pale, soft skin. He expected so little from himself. He was content to not make a mark in the world. He was happy, invisible, pale and blind like those worms at the Natural History Museum.

She built him up and it was against everything he fucking believed. She was so goddamn cheerful. The first time he hit her it felt so fucking good. It hurt his soft hands, and it left her standing with an 'O' for a mouth, confused. She looked so fucking stupid. The dumb bitch. He spit on her and laughed. She cried and he slapped her so hard it spun the world around.

Then, he cried. She cried. She wrestled the knife out of his hand. It was going to open him up and allow the evil to pour out. It was supposed to be his fucking baptism and she stole it. His salvation. He was so sorry. She hid all the knives and matches and she watched him. He was grateful. He found a screwdriver at the bottom of a kitchen drawer and hid it on top of the heater where she would never see it.

She was going to save him, see? He started hitting her more often and she started thinking that maybe she had been put there to save him from himself. She went to work with bruises that were hard to explain. She withdrew. She had found her calling and that was all that mattered.

Sex confused him. He liked to hurt her while he fucked her. She didn't ever tell him to stop. Face shoved up against the wall, tears and blood. They both shook with the power of it. It was fucking undeniable.

She wanted to take him to meet her parents. She kept asking until he couldn't stand it. He punched her in the solar plexus and she dropped to her knees. She grabbed for him, and he smacked her down again. She was standing up when he returned from the hallway. The sun was creeping through the shades they always kept closed.

"I love you."

"I know you do...I know you didn't..."

The screwdriver went in so easily. Soft skin. Her eyes went wide as he pulled against the suction that held it to her neck. He turned his grip on the handle. He laughed at the blood. He stabbed until he could no longer hold the plastic grip. Until he was heaving, laying on the ground beside her. Blood everywhere.

The police car pulled up slowly and two men with guns got out. They saw him, scraping his hands on the sidewalk. He was covered in blood and his palms were shredded. He did not see them. He did not answer their questions. They stood and watched him and slowly, ruefully, he raised his eyes. He smiled at them. He raised his palms. Not a surrender...just so they could see...what he had done. They asked again, but he was not listening anymore. He spoke from somewhere far away.

"She's inside. I killed her."

"Why?"

It was a rookie question and his partner scowled at him over the chirping radio.

"Because I loved her."

The cuffs were like ice water. His vision came in and out. He felt like he couldn't breathe. They handled him roughly. Nothing sensitive about it. He smiled and thought about the scars that would finally bind his hands.

Courting Nancy Drew...

Your novels were adequate. You were soft when you should have been hard and wooden when you should have been real. I don't aim to be a 'Hardy Boys were better...' banner toter. I'll take Chip Hilton, loyal, honorable, and respectful to the end. Tom Swift.

When you can't do something, you got to keep flogging that slow horse. The slow horse will ride...for a few races...then to the glue factories. And the world will remained unchanged, chaste with white gloves to protect you from reality. Check it out...it's an interesting place we visit sometimes.

A dimebag is a dimebag is a dimebag and you keep buying them because you're poor. Inside. I know the score.

The Wait

He sat on the edge of the cigarette-pocked sofa, small pale fingers wrapped around the heavy, black weight of the gun. The gun he wasn't to touch until his father said it was OK. Until he was ten. No one knew that he could open the safe and had held the gun a thousand times.

From the back of the house, he could hear his mother on the phone. She was talking too loud. Too fast. Then too slow.

The house was nothing. It was vacant and generic. No pictures on the wall. Smell of old smoke and sadness.

His skin was peppered with gooseflesh and his mind was racing. A track race. Around and around the same circle. Hammering on one thought. His father would be home from work soon. He would come in and drop his tools and he would yell for his dinner and a drink. And then it would happen. He would never hit his mother again.

2 minutes. Go.

The heat waves penetrate my brain and I can't maintain. Tried to write, but I can't write shit. Like a egotistical half-wit. Look at all them fancy people walking around like they don't know I know their underwear is soaking wet and shoved up their ass cracks. I know. And I will sit in front of the air-conditioner and wish the fucking thing worked. And the world will slowly turn as it is wont to do while I try to figure out something productive to occupy my time. Something that does not involve moving. Sorry gunslingers, too hot to touch metal today.