A New Yorker Melting in LA

Thanks for helping me move

2012-01-23T12:51:00.000-08:00

These things, these fucking things...they can't be found anywhere. Gentlemen, men of gentle nature and things so ripe and delicious that their personalities blend together into an irridescent ooze similar to that of the Ghostbusters film where you touch the stuff and you're literally fucking Gisele, Marisa Smith and Miranda Kerr at the same time with some hydra three-headed cock. Thats the type of feeling the group creates when together. It's this aura that floats around the room and if you breathe it, you're done. Off you cruise into the subconscious cacophonous audio stream of sarcastic innuendo, a web of mussels in a seabed with their black mouths open, chattering about shit only hilarious motherfuckers love to cackle and bubble. These things, these fucking things...they can't be found anywhere.

We are the ultimate coffee klatch, showing up like writers to one big table, the philosphers of olde to discuss nothing more than pussy, because it all comes down to such a fickle sensitive bald beast of a locker. Our waitress will fill out her white doily blouse like she's ready to go in the back and pump. She'll bounce over to our hearth with hot capuccinos as our caps of Chivas and Jameson emerge from tin flasks inside our wool houndstooth overcoats. Toasting one another for shared nights rued with delight and fancy and Sharpies and wigs and miniature skateboards and rubber masks and broken rubbers and shattered bottles on road signs timed to diamond-cut precision-tossing or just luck of the retarded yet wicked double-bounce jump killer shatter blam who's your daddy mother fucking yea! That feeling is impossible to find, I'm telling you....like the ends of double rainbows and girls that love anal. We as a group are the most mesmerizing of personalities and ridiculous of humor and satire. I know if we were one fertilized egg there isn't a woman in the world who could give birth to us. Although she'd be the luckiest bitch alive to have done so, she must die in our honor while pushing us out. And out we would burst, a medusa whose face is so pure that it blinds only the nicest doctors and nurses forever. Each snake-like hair has its own Kevin, Chris, Mike, Tim, Noah, Joe and Justin head that spurts out dialogue harmonious and collaborative to all other tendril-yapping heads yipping words delivered rapid like raving lunatics with tourrets whom each just slammed three adderall apiece. These things, these fucking things...they can't be found anywhere.

My gentlemen, so gentlemanly in your ways, I wanted to thank you...to thank you in ways most original and awkward and fantasmagorical and fresh-to-the-taint like a models panties pulled straight off after hours on a tennis court, and ultimately for your efforts in my move. The help lingers long and the love runs deep, unlike the light switch chris swears Im hung by. And so I do hope each of you, my minions, equals, brothers and fellow comrades for the verbal beatings we do impose, call on me when you need an extra set of paws to rape a task too big for just one. No matter what the errand might be, if it surrounds itself with the wolf pack we are, then I'm in. I'm in for the memories, the sweat, the beers, the smiles, the stares, the laughs, the drives, the outfits, the jealous glares....the girls, the guys, the games, the dares, the golf, the cab rides, the guys trips and pregnancy scares....these things, these wonderful fucking things...they can't be found anywhere.

The Regular

2012-01-12T10:43:00.000-08:00

The guy’s flat broke. He hits the same pizza place for lunch on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays because they offer a lunch special. You buy two plain slices of pizza, and choose any can of soda you would like, for $2.75. It’s a steal compared to the $7 soups at Hale & Hearty, or $10 salads at Amish. They have everything, from Dr. Pepper, to Coke Zero, to Stewart’s cream. There are fresh condiments and shakers next to the register. The pizza is cooked in traditional pizza ovens and the cheese tastes real. The best part about it though is that you can eat inside. There’s standing room against a green marble ledge that’s 5 inches off the wall and just barely fits a doubled-up paper plate. Picture a row of guys standing at a urinal. That's what it looks like. The heat gets a bit intense because of the ovens, but it sure beats standing in the cold.

Monday:

Reading his Esquire magazine, our regular can’t understand why this writer, Cal Fussman, gets to interview everyone. Every single page has "interviewed by Cal Fussman" at the top of it. Why should one man get to speak with all these talented celebrities and record their lives? What’s he done that someone else hasn’t?

The Regular: “Why this line” he whispers to himself while reading an interview by Cal. It’s an answers-only article that lists answers of random questions that Cal must've asked.

“Fuck em. Shortest prayer in the world” was one of the answers Cal wrote in the article.

“I don’t get it. It doesn’t lead up to anything but yet it’s taken out of context, and I don’t know what it’s there for” the regular says. “What am I supposed to like Gary Oldman now just because he curses? Who gives a shit.”

A discussion ensues next to him between a heated couple. A column in the wall separates them by a foot, maybe a foot and a half.

Guy: “I told ya bitch, git yo stawies straight. You go cawlin awl yall bitches to git dere opinion yet you and I bofe know, day be trippin on dere mans and don’t trust em fa shit.”

Girl: “So that means day dumb or sumpin? Day know’s dere men like I know mine, and day say all dere mens cheatin” she waves her hands in his face in small circles.

The regular sifts through the article for some cohesive sentiment and finds that he can relate to Gary’s mention of his children. He says they are his greatest achievement in life, but that parenting takes the act of “civilizing” scenarios that would never happen as an adult.

He reads Cal’s quotes that Gary gave him. “There’s no handbook to parenting. Kids will tip the coffee over and then finger paint on the table. At some point you must say, we’re gonna have to clean that up, after all, you can’t paint with coffee on the table.”

He laughs at the raw compromise of allowing for change and accepting that there can’t be none. The kids must play and where they choose is part of their creative outlet. It comes down to it being their life now, and not really yours.

Guy: “So then I’m cheatin? Just caws dese dumb mawfuckers don’t know how to keep day women in check, and treat em right, I fall into dere category? Dat shit’s fucked up bee…fuck you….straight up like, fuck youuuuu.”

Girl: “I aint sayin you’s cheatin without caws. Dis aint jus outta mid air, I heard through da grapevine you’s creepin and that I best be’s watchin my back” she turns her back towards him.

Guy: “Yea you best be’s watchin yo back because I’m bout to end dis shit. What good is ma word if you aint gone listen?”

Girl: “Oh I listen…you damn well know my ass is listenin.”

The regular begins laughing. Cal wrote a line he enjoyed and begins to reflect on some great personal memories that make the statement he read, oh so true.

Guy: “What da fuck you laughin at nigga” the guy says to the regular reading the article.

The regular knew right away that the guy was talking to him. At times like these the regular used to feel his heart drop and his lips go dry. He would freeze up and his heart would race, but not this time. For so many reasons, not this time. He turns and answers with a smirk.

The Regular: “It’s a great line.”

He holds his voice low and slow, and leans his head to the right.

Guy: “Fuck’s a great line? You smiley mawfucka, why don’t you mind yo bidness and keep yo mowff shut.

The Regular points down at his magazine but keeps his eyes thin and holds his stare toward the guy. His stare bore an expression like “who gives a shit about your fucking conversation.” He wore the stare like a mold; like a man with nothing to lose.

The Regular: “No. I said, it’s a great line.”

The guy looks down at the words of the best interviewer of all time. Cal Fussman’s puzzle, taken apart and re-assembled, with all lines like pieces splayed out in a box labeled “taken out of context, my apologies, my masterpiece.” He subconsciously beats you into submission, into loving Gary Oldman. The guy reads the line next to the regular's finger.

Guy: “A beautiful ass is a joy forever” he says lowly.

The regular smiles, and the guy re-reads the line again to be sure.

Guy: "A Beee-youuutiful ass is a joy foreva."

The guy howls when he's done and jumps back from his forward fighting lean.

Guy: “Holla!! Boy’s got it done right there! Nuttin betta kid.”

He steps back and looks at the regular and puts a clenched fist out now smiling. The regular winks and pounds fists with the guy.

Girl: “What? What’s it say?”

Guy: “Nuttin baby….nuttin” he says as a calm comes over him. “Less go.”

The guy puts his arm around his girl and walks toward the door as she looks back over her shoulder at the regular. He's reading again. A chill clears the air as the door shuts behind them.

Occupy My STreet

2011-10-26T05:13:00.000-07:00

I think I should take a stroll down to Zuccotti Park, or wherever the hell these Phish lovers are squatting and tell them what type of commando guerillas they need to become if they're ever going to help their cause. You can't raise your hands to buildings and shout. Yes, I give them credit for what they're doing, or at least those that know what they're fighting for. Every party has a few assholes that show up, the key is to kick them out before the cool kids, or in this case the intelligent and informed ones, leave. These buildings that lease space on so called "Wall Street" consist of regular workers for companies having nothing to do with finance. The stock exchange is a ghost town; picture torn tickets blowing up and around a dead end street like that damn plastic bag in American Beauty. Banking has moved to the burbs. Ride your Vespa on over the GW Bridge and fill up for gas where the money rests....places like Greenwich, Alpine and Rye. Hit up the Hamptons, Aspen, Bel Air and Malibu for other players that rule the wary world of billions. There is practically no one walking around "Wall Street." That's why there's no restaurants, clubs or businesses there and you frankfurters can setup shop and somehow encamp without too much trouble. They're happy you're there. "Here, take your reservation...it's arid land, terrible for production and far from everyone so good, luck....setup a casino if you'd like." There's no way we can possibly make a difference when we're targeting a mass - you must target the individual. Hide in the fucking woods and ambush these guys. If you have a couple thousand of you, I don't care what their security looks like, you're going to have them by the balls. Do a quick search of those top hedge fund managers, check out Magnetar, research the CEO's of Blackstone, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman, Merrill, Morgan Stanley - all onshore firms, and see where they live. Type it into your google earth and pick up your sleeping bag, broom, hacky sack and ramen noodles, and walk briskly to their home. There's nothing these people want more than their privacy, and you can take that away by being adamant protesting paparazzi. You can instill such fear that it will sway them to enforce change for the detriment to their lifestyle and personal family's discomfort. They know they will be able to make money another way, and that comfort of theirs will have them leaning more towards some sort of concession, which at this point, you should be dying for. Make them miserable, and they'll change.

Our government will not be able to change the financial system drastically and I say that because it's the Atlas Shrugged scenario. If you regulate the industry too stringently, all the smart people in banking will just go where they can make money without Big Brother telling them what they can and can't do. Hedge funds and private equity firms are unregulated and every intelligent banker is going to tip his hat to the bureaucracy of federal government and bid them adieu if they start dabbling in their business. This isn't to say that they have many places to go where they too wouldn't be restricted, monitored or taxed. If they did decide to up and leave their country for their disinterest in paying into the economy where they enjoy all their success, then exile them. Exile them, scare the shit out of them to the point where they can't come back. We should not be afraid of losing big businesses, or banks or brainiacs. People are born every day in this country; there will be many more to help us along and the best damn schools in the world to assist in the matter. If big steel left us, they would lose a massive market share that would be made up by new companies sprouting here in the states; accessing mining zones herein and as well as allied countries worldwide. Limit foreign companies sales of goods to our citizens. Make it a mandatory requirement that at least 50% of the goods sold in America or to Americans from that company are made in-America. Have them invest in our country by having to build a factory or manufacturing plant to make the goods here. As long as their profit margin is high enough, of course companies would come. If not, we'd build it ourselves.

These Occupy Wall STreet Eeyore's, moping around with their donkey tails pinned, and their woe is me attitude isn't what the recent events of public political takeovers was like. No, I wasn't in Egypt or Libya when these protests were taking place, but I sure as hell saw the brutal coverage and take no prisoners heat in their eyes. Those people were fighting to disrobe and poke naked at the breast of dictators, the sores that they well earned and would love to transfer to men responsible for such distraught social division. And how did they achieve success? Those dictators feared for their fucking lives. It was a lynch mob of hundreds of thousands coming for your head. You're giving up when that's the thought you go to sleep with at night. Here in the states, we can turn in circles and point feverishly at anyone who has ever took in unemployment wages and say you're part of the problem, and someone who took a student loan and didn't pay it back. Any person purchasing a home who didn't read their mortgage and got knocked on the head when their fixed rate became variable after the fifth year. Or anyone who has ever earned a pension, anyone who has ever trusted someone in finance that got lied too, because even though they lost their money, they fed the flame of greed themselves and got taken. SOme of it is out of our hands, yes. We don't get to vote on stimulus nor would we know though how the hell to solve the issues of the banking world. I'd say let any business fail that's doomed to do so. If you cannot operate for a profit, then do not do it. Take away those companies receiving subsidies to operate, even the big transportation firms that are massive debtors. If you have to get to work, figure it out. Drive, ride your bike, I don't care - if the train is too expensive because we take away government subsidizing (which, by the way, is a root of socialism where government steps in to control big business in their country) then let them fail because no one shows up to take the train. Yes, a lot people that hold that company's debt or equity will then lose out, but the pain is a band-aid removal, quick and sharp - unlike the steady decline we're crawling toward which will make our rise too difficult to traverse. Once that train company goes bankrupt, good-bye, good luck. A firm will come in and buy the rails, the train cars, parts and find a way to operate the system efficiently without massive overhead or lifelong pensions and high ticket costs. If you can't afford the train, don't take it. It'll be a luxury of the rich or else disappear like every bad company until a new one can replace it or our tax money can replenish it.

Take away bankruptcy protection laws - all you're doing is having the back of some asshole that got too far in over his head, and those that followed the words of the preacher or nut-job that led the company, such as creditors, will have to suffer too. If I invest in a stock and it tanks, that's my fault for investing in it.

Tax everyone at the same rate. Get your actuaries together, formulate a plan on a good rate for everyone, and tax us all the same. We want fair, give everyone the same headache. Why do we offer tax write-offs? Pay your taxes and end of story. If you decide to donate, that's your prerogative, don't start asking for sympathy when you freely chose to give it away. If you're putting money back into your business, good for you...business must be good. No one asked you to do it, but you decided it will grow your business, well fantastic, go right ahead and invest in your own company...but don't think you're writing off your entire revenue stream for three years because you decided to grow your business to make more money. I would take away these incentives and the people will have to make due with what their own lifestyle, earning potential and financial comfort is.

Outside of my wild ideas and my sort of Darwinian fuck everyone attitude, for these campers, these rucksack nature dwelling Zuccotti spirits, they must target 6 individuals and make their lives a nightmare. Change the tides of our public view on someone by exposing them with grandeur, and you watch, whomever that wealthy baron typically donates to every 4 years during their campaigns, will be charging ahead with new ideas on how to solve this issue. It won't be easy, but it's a jog towards the finish, not a philosophical circle jerk between potheads and the unintelligible offspring of Wiley Coyote.

Art: Commercial, Accepted or Just Plain Ugly

2011-10-21T03:54:00.000-07:00

So I'm watching this show the other day, "Next Best Artist" and I'm sitting thinking to myself, "I could be on this shit." They show a few really interesting, beautiful pieces and then some worthless trash you couldn't even find scouring a freeway flea market in the middle of Kansas. I must admit though, that distaste right there, is why some things artists make achieve the distinction of being effective. I on the other hand just don't like to think I'm being duped by some guy who pretends his clay-mation wizard the size of a Mr. Peanuts can, is a work of art worthy of national attention.

Let me divert for a second here because points will be made my friends. My disgruntled behavior towards work that's less deserving of praise than a soiled square of Puffs softest toilet tissue stapled to a canvas, all began when I first went to the Art Institute of Chicago. I walked up to my mother staring at a 60"x60" canvas of Cy Twombly's that had pencil scribblings dancing about, and then a stray crayon smudge or two, and I asked "is this a fucking joke?" I assumed he must have some disability and for him to have created this piece, it must have been a labor of love and a feat beyond my own comprehension. Instead of my mother telling me to keep it to myself or to accept that differences in opinion exist, she says "do they think I'm stupid or something?"

Of course I looked up Cy Twombly the next day with hatred for the fact that he'd been displayed so prominently in a national museum, only to truly appreciate his work and value those pieces he's made (not the one in particular though at the museum...still, no love). Funny how the tables turn even in your own perception just by reading a bio. That may actually be the reason why I am writing this. Your perception is what makes or breaks your love for the work; 95% of which is based on your respect for the artist.

Somewhere in the non-existent yet truly impenetrable laws of good art and bad art is the acceptance of the existence of subjectivity. Screw all of you that just said there is no such thing as bad art...get over your hippie self. Art is writing, composing, performing, speaking, creating, photographing....and within each of those lie bad versions. "Wow, that guy is a bad actor...." - well wouldn't that be subjective? When watching that show the other day, one of the judges said that this little clay-mation-looking wizard thing "spoke to her", whereas the other judges asked "well what does it say"? They too were upset that the work was a third grader's homework assignment they'd create with their eyes closed during a heated match of Cranium. Did the man get eliminated? Nope, and the reason being....someone sorta liked what he had done. The guy that did go was an artist whose work I would hang on my wall. He was sent home when the judges deemed him far too similar to another artist, and ultimately "commercial." Sooo...keep the clay-mation Gandolf puppeteer but not the artist that would resonate with the masses? Not having to assume anything, we the audience already know why this is. Clay-groping donkey douche who calls himself "The Sucklord," more like Suckload, had already earned the respect of the main host of the show. We were made aware of his successful art sales during the 1st episode of the show by our judge Mr. Simon De Pury. To believe that the respect he had already earned did not somehow play a role in the judge's belief that the piece "spoke to her", I find hard to swallow. Of course it's possible, but when the critique comes right down to "hey buddy, your art looks like something made to go on my wall...it's too commercial...it looks similar to a dead artist we have also come to respect (Keith Haring)...we've gotta let you go." I would say the likes of Willy Nelson's wife who said the lifeless sorcerer spoke to her should have kept her mouth shut just like she did throughout her cameos in Paranormal Activity's 1, 2, 21 and 87.

Yes, it's TV....they need good ratings, they need Suckload, I shouldn't take it so seriously.....well, I wouldn't I suppose if I too weren't trying to carve my own path into the art world. Something like this makes me shudder a bit because art has gone so far off in one direction that it's circling back around to the raw talent of Fine Art painters. That's at least what I believe because we're going to get so sick of trying to pretend some things are beautiful when they really might take zero talent whatsoever, and it's a good thing. It's tough to find traditional talent in art like it's impossible to see the beautiful difficulty of making a movie in the 1940's with a cast of 1000 extras and set designs beyond a decorator's wildest orgasm. You just don't see that type of effort and dedication anymore. We want results much quicker. At one point last year I read that the new art is digital art, and that if you're not using technology, you're going to be left behind. I nearly vomited at the thought. There's me hanging up a piece of art purely done through software and an inkjet printer, and I hurl down my velvet wallpaper. Why don't we start making clothes with materials like brown paper bags? Mmmmm, that wouldn't be cheap or effortless....I could just feel the soft paper cuts along my ankles.

The Gates

2011-04-19T17:05:00.000-07:00

Trying to stay coherent, I find myself racing through gates of questions. Lapping around and around in circles til I reach the next steel cage. We have just trotted up to another. I could smell my breath, dancing in short hiccupy bursts like a pearl diver before submersion. Our hearts raced in anticipation; mine in my chest and hers, deep within my thighs. The green steel bars stand in front of us like subway exit turnstyles, steaming to gray with each breath. She licks away the small strands of hay clamoring to the bars like scattered mulch. I just realized she is not as anxious as I am; who can eat at a time like this? If we don’t answer this question right, we’ll be left behind. After all, that’s the key to unlocking our cell. We have to answer a question and the doors ding open. It makes perfect sense. I’ve pictured game shows like this my entire life.

“Pop, how was Vegas, you haven’t told us!?” Someone brimming with excitement shouts.

“What was your favorite game in Vegas?!”

Ah yes, I forgot. I have guests. It’s nice to have guests. I really can’t complain. I’m just not in the mood I guess. I’d rather rest but what am I going to do, ignore them?

Thinking first about the question, I process my response quicker than I can say it, and my lips squirm like a fish. Before I can push out the words….another question.

“Are you a blackjack guy?”

I know that voice but I haven’t put two and two together.

“Oh how about Poker Dad? Don’t you love poker, or whatever they call it these days, Texas Hold’Em?”

Now that voice I know is my daughter. And no, I don’t like poker, too much strategy. Too much thinking. Gambling should be fun, quick, exciting. Sitting there for hours and hours, I just don’t trust people. I try and voice my distaste for such five card shenanigans, but I can’t keep my lips away from each other. I lift my arm towards the ceiling and pull down. Up then down, up then down, and man does it feel good. I could feel the ball in my palm like a cue. The tick of the arm as it comes down….tick, tick, tick, tick, tick…..tick, ching. I love that sound. The reels are off and spinning as fast as my heart can run. I need to pull that lever. I’m most alive when I do. I guess it’s the possibility or the fantasy that winning actually could happen. Your dream could actually happen by taking a chance and pulling that lever. And you, and only you have paid for that right to pull it at that moment, no one else. You have a claim to whatever sum of money spits out. I love it. Not to mention, throwing my arm in the air is far easier then finding the air to speak. My skin flaps and tingles as new air cools the underside of my arm. I guess I had it resting in one spot for a while right on my chest. I can actually breathe a bit better now.

“Slots! Haha, that’s right!” yells a woman.

“You see, he’s doing the slot pull thingy” whispers my grandson. That must be my grandson.

“The one arm bandits?! Yea pop? That’s your favorite?”

I know this man speaking, it’s Alan, my niece’s husband. He’s a loud jovial man with a lumberjack look about him. He would make the perfect Santa Claus if he dressed up like him. I hope he does because he has three great children and a booming voice.

“Oh he’s always loved the slots. He could sit and have two machines going at the same time and be hitting on the lady next to him” says my daughter.

“No way! Pop, is that right? You’re pulling double handles and macking it to the ladies?”

“Macking it?” I think to myself. I want to tell Alan I have no idea what “macking it” means but I figure it’s like flirting when put into context. I dismiss the idea with a fling of my arm as if to say “get outta hear with that nonsense, I’m a one gal man.” They know what I’m thinking already. My action is fleeting enough to qualify their que to laugh, so I smile. After all, this arm gesturing thing is getting pretty easy.

“Oh we’re just busting your chops Bob.”

A woman’s speaking but I’m yet to place the words with a body. She bends down and kisses me on the forehead. I can feel her hair along my cheekbone and then inside my ear. An endearing gift but one I’m not so sure the reason. She’s never done that before.

“We know Elyse was and always will be your sweetheart.”

Got it, it’s my niece’s girlfriend. Her name is Lisa, no wait, Linda. Lisa is my niece. I reach out with my hand and she grabs it. I’ve always been aware of their relationship. I’m not stupid. I know what goes on out there in this crazy world, but as long as they’re happy who am I to say anything. It’s none of my business. Let them be if they’re not hurting anyone.

I begin to claw at both my arms simultaneously. They’re folded but scratching furiously because it feels too good. They’re so damn itchy. They’ve been like this now for the past few days. Once the yellow went away, this started happening. One thing goes and another shows up. This itching though, it’s like Athlete’s Foot all over my arms. You can scratch for hours and satisfy nothing but a deeper gash. I’d take the tan any day over this. I should put oven mitts on my hands and duck tape them at the wrists til it passes. My daughter just sat down next to me; I can smell her. She always wears the same scent. A tube squirts like an empty ketchup bottle; it must be that gel that lubricates my arms. She trims my nails first and gives me the same scratching speech since my skin is too sensitive to handle it. Like I need another friggin speech. She then puts the cool gel all over my forearms up to the tops of my shoulders. My daughter hangs around so much more often than she’s needed; I can rub lotion on myself, thank you. One stinking setback after the next, and she feels she’s gotta be here at all times. I can’t wait, in a few days I can get back out there and hit my routine. Say hi to my girlfriend Rose at Stop & Shop by the deli counter. Slip down the aisle with the wooden barrels and plastic covers. Raid a couple olives with those sun-dried tomatoes in the center; by God those are heaven. The sour twinge they squirt in the back of my mouth makes my cheeks clench and rise as my eyes water. Then I’m off to catch my senior special at McDonald’s and say hello to Ozzie. He probably misses me; I could imagine him people-watching and commenting to an empty table beside him. Then over to Ikea for those Swedish meatballs. Mmmm my name, just the thought of them is getting my taste buds puckered. Luckily I have a friend over there. Her name’s Margaret. Margaret always charges me for the kid portion but knows my addiction can’t manage only four of those little jobbys. She piles em on…. “shush…keep it quiet Bobby, between you and me”, and gives me a wink. She could be fired for something like that. I have a lot of respect for her. Then off to my usual post office parody….ughhh that friggin post office. I’d love to shoot the breeze with Ethyl and Harry, see what’s new with their families, who’s dropping out of school or getting a new tattoo, but I hate that place now. Ever since I had to be helped up off the concrete like some drunken invalid; it’s the site of my most recent malfunction. Who slips, falls and breaks their hip right after a massive surgery? In broad day light, no less….how embarrassing. At least I’m still able to ride her. I don’t notice any pain at all as she gallops, so that’s good. With her I cruise, light and fast like nothing exists in the world but us. I just hate to feel that breeze tempering in my ears; I would rather it whip so loud that it silences the world around me like sprinting through a desert at sunset. If we’re slowing down I know we must be approaching another gate. It’s like arriving at your destination when you would so much rather keep looking out the window to contemplate the many what if’s your life reveals in hindsight. Motion does that, it gives you a blank canvas to project yourself, no matter what way you wish; just for speculation of course.

“Grandpa, did you get to see any shows while you were there?” my grandson yells.

“Yea, did you check out Wayne Newton or any of those Cirque de Soleil shows? I hear they are great.”

“They are great, I must’ve seen three or four of them by now…” says my niece to her cousin.

Someone whispered about trying to keep the conversation going. Old must mean deaf. We did see a show actually, but the man’s name escapes me. I open my mouth to talk but I need to sit up and gather my breath. I push my back up off the sheets to adjust myself. This damn bed seeps so deep I’m like meat in a soft tortilla.

“Oh, help him up.”

Five people practically dive on me, digging their hands under my back to lift. I can’t imagine their help actually helping. Fingers pinching and pulling my damp t-shirt, applying pressure quickly to thin skin so they can get their fingers further under. If they all lifted at the same time, maybe, just maybe it would’ve worked but instead I’m wincing and bouncing around. I hold back from yowling and thank them; what good would complaining do, especially when everyone’s involved. Now that I’m propped up on a few more pillows, I burp. It’s a disgusting, empty burp; one of those throw-up gurgles, and it friggin lingers of aspirin and water. Ugh, that was disturbing, I could use some water. I’m always taking some kind of pill since the surgery and my daughter keeps trying to feed me some crap that I don’t want upsetting my stomach. I’ve told her I’m not hungry thirty times. I know what I want, what do you want from me? If she wasn’t so annoying, I might try to eat. Hocking up mucus and congestion in every breath, my daughter’s handing tissues constantly. The bed looks like a woman just got finished watching Ghost. If she wants to help she can stop wiping my scratchy face and friggin shave me for chrissake. I can’t wait to shave again. I don’t think I’ve ever missed a day but now I can feel the stubble press into the pillow when I sleep. It’s so weird that facial hair just keeps growing. What is hair? This weird strand of god knows what just starts forming under your skin, and then pops out? Where does it go once it doesn’t come back?

“Dad?” my daughter announces.

I shift my head towards her direction. I don’t think I’ve opened my eyes yet, but I can see everyone just fine. You know how you feel when you fall asleep at the wheel, you project the road in front of you as if you’re still driving but your eyes in the meantime have drooped closed? You don’t even notice the real world from a dream. I can hear all their voices and where they’re coming from, so I’ve painted my own visual. That’s the easy part, now if I could only separate these damn lips.

“Oh, he opened his eyes.”

“Hey Pop!”

“Shhh, he’s gonna say something.”

I find it odd that they’re so eager and attentive. I lower my eyebrows and I can see them become worried that I’m mad.

“We saw…”

“Yea pop, who’d you see?”

I’m trying to friggin tell you for chrissake, I think to myself, gathering breath.

“An illusion…”

“What’d he say?”

“I don’t know, we’ve really gotta listen.”

“Shhh…what’s that dad, you saw a what?”

“The rabbit….”

I breathe and try using my hands again as I gather some friggin oxygen in such a stuffy overcrowded bedroom.

“A rabbit?”

“I don’t know what a rabbit means.”

“I can’t believe how bad he’s gotten, so fast.”

A concentrated look comes over my grandson and I can tell he almost knows what I mean. Frustrated, I could feel my body wriggling and my lips munching cornbread without milk. I begin to pull a long-eared bunny out of a hat and open my arms.

’wwahh lahhh”, a frog says.

“Oh!!!”

Maybe not a frog, but my voice sounds like a bad Dracula impersonation. It’s on the tip of Alan’s tongue.

“Haha, he saw a magic show” says my grandson.

“An illusionist! I get it now…who’d you see? Seigfried & Roy?” says Linda.

“Thank you” I say and shake my head no.

“Oh, who’d you see then?” asks my daughter.

“Wait, who’s that guy that used to be married to Claudia Schiffer?” asks Linda.

“David Copperfield?”

I throw my hand up and point to my niece.

“No way, you saw David Copperfield!?”

I nod. My words just don’t sound clear without my dentures.

“Wow Dad, you didn’t tell me that and I’ve been here for four days.”

I throw my hands up like I’m supposed to know she’s unaware of what Brian and I did in Vegas.

“don’t have to tell you every…”

“Yes you do!” she responds with a big smile.

I grab her by the chin and give her a bothered shake. My hand slips off pretty quickly. My hands are bone dry as usual. I don’t know if I grew up like this or when it started happening, but I’m the guy spilling soda all over the dinner table. I’d actually rather have butter fingers than mine. Always carrying around that damned pocket-sized container of hand lotion; talk about a ridiculous condition. God forbid I meet someone and they go in for a handshake; chalk. They usually rise to their tippy toes and suck in til my grip is released. Their smiles stiffen and jaws juice; I can actually hear it. I never did the whole vice grip thing though, that I can attest too. I hate those guys. One time Elyse and I were out at a corporate Christmas party for Metropolitan Life. Elyse was wearing her new sea foam colored dress, and I specifically remember it because she had just come back from Sears & Roebuck and was trying it on when she boasted how festive she looked. I looked at her hair clips to see if they had silver bells or turtle doves with red bow-ties…embroidered holly or jolly santas on her stockings, nothing. I just didn’t get it. I hadn’t even said anything and she read my eyes. “My dress dumbie.” I said, “what about it? It looks nice.” “It’s green, for Christmas!” Once we got to the party, we sat down at our assigned table, grabbed some egg nog from the crystal bowl in the center of our table, and one of my assistant’s sat down. Right next to her was her husband, which she promptly introduced to Elyse and I. And I tell ya, this guy took my hand and tried to suffocate a bird. “You’ve got a lot to prove with a grip like that” I said. He didn’t seem to like me but for all I knew, his wife was coming home everyday with stories of office discontent. Instead of blaming her, I went in for another quick shot during his silence. “You a military man? You shatter any lady’s hand helping her out of a car?” I kept sipping my egg nog as Elyse gave me a kick. I hated that macho, holier-than-thou crap. I sit up straight and breathe in. Jostling a bit, I grab the iron at my right and stand up in the stirrups to shift my pants from riding up. She is so strong, I can just feel it as she doesn’t even budge at my adjustment. Sitting back down, I practice my crouch and pat her on the neck. Her hair is so course but shines like velvet. I wipe my smooth face of any drool that flew out uncontrollably and prepare for the next sprint. We go so unbelievably fast I don’t even remember the question; I must’ve got it right.

Someone’s hollerin…“Pop, did he make something huge disappear, or what?”

He actually did and I’m surprised Alan guessed that. That must be something all magicians do.

“A sports car” I say.

“Oh yeah? A Ferrari I bet!” booms Alan.

“Yea, it’s gotta be something like that. I saw a show, maybe it was Cribs or whatever, and they had this panoramic view of his house and all these gorgeous cars lined his driveway. He’s such a showboat” says Lisa.

“The guy’s a multi-millionaire magician. Of course he’s a showboat. These guys get off on attention. They’re attention whores.”

I can sense a bit of jealousy in my grandson’s voice when he says it, but he’s right. Modesty is a great quality. I’ve been in this house my whole life. My kids get whatever they want and I denied my wife nothing of course. It’s not like she wanted a sports car or anything. Kenny and Robby, now those are two guys that love their cars. Robby has that beautiful Corvette; purple-paint, tan top. That thing shines like my shoes. You can barely hear the engine start-up; it’s unbelievable. The thing sits 6 inches off the ground. Not that I know how he gets in and out of it, being 6’4”, 245 and 61. Wait, 61 or 62? Karen is…well, hmm….they’re all five years different, that I know. Elyse and I were married in 1949 and had Robby right away so…..well, 9 months or so later, that’d be…well, that might’ve been 1950 since we were married in July, so, well then yes, he’s 61. If he’s 61, then Karen is 56, Brian 51 and Kenny 46. Got it.

“A Rolls Royce?! How about that pop? Was it a Rolls Royce?”

Nah, it wasn’t a Rolls Royce, Kenny could never afford something like that. He has that racing car…..oh darnit, this is going to bother me…what’s the name…it was yellow with black racing stripes. SuperCharger? Nah, something with an animal on the side of it, a little insect towards the tail. It kind of looked like that bee from Honey Nut Cheerios. Oh, SuperBee, haha. That’s right, the SuperBee, thank god. I would have thought I was losing it. That’s gotta be an antique at this point. Made out of real steel, not that fiberglass plastic nonsense. Back into a fire hydrant and it folds like cardboard. That bee’s a car from back when men fought for their jobs, back when they had a trade and rode it through their entire lives. Families were better for that. Not that I wouldn’t love to sit in Robby’s Corvette because it’d be a real smooth ride, I just think I’d like to feel that engine rumbling my rear, giving me confidence like a weapon in battle. That’s old-time muscle right there. Cars would roar down the streets and cops would give you a break if they caught you doing something you shouldn’t. They were all veterans. They knew that what these kids were doing was miniscule compared to what they’d done or seen overseas. There was no reason to penalize their own or drag them down. We would look out for our own. Lead them in a direction with a few less hills to conquer. I remember they’d brought Robby home that one night. They just kept knocking on the door until I flicked on the porch light, all foggy headed, standing in my skivvies. The officer took his hat off and introduced himself. Robby’s head was down. He knew he’d screwed up, but to be honest I was glad it wasn’t something far worse. They’d just said they’d stopped him after he was swerving around town and figured it’d be better to let his old man handle him before he hurt anyone. I wonder if Robby remembers that? Where is Robby? And where’s Kenny? I feel like I just saw them, today, yesterday….who knows. What is today? The weekend maybe; too many people to be otherwise.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Hey Dad!”

I open my eyes to such an exuberant response. I’d thought my eyes were open; I must be dozing.

“Umm, it’s 730” says Linda.

“Not too late” I respond, forgetting why I asked.

“Nah, not too late for a Wednesday.”

I looked over at my daughter to see if she was trying to trick me. When I saw her face, I could tell she wasn’t. I pretend to act like I know. I don’t want to question it or act overly surprised because I despise being made a fool of. No one visits on weekdays; there’s no point in it.

“Pop, who do you think’s gonna win the world series this year. You a Yankees fan?” Alan asks.

I readjust the sheets for a second and scratch my arm. I can see splotchy bursts of dark red below the skin so I stop.

“Baseball is a great sport…”

“Of course it is. America’s pastime! My kids and I adore….”

I raise my hand to pause Alan; holding one finger high. A roar of laughter ensues. I glare a toothless grin and raise one eyebrow. I repeat…

“Baseball is a great sport….”

“however….”

Everyone laughs as Alan smirks and crosses his arms, blushing. I guess I couldn’t have cut the thought off at any better a moment.

“I have never really been a fan,…

those jibonies get paid way too much…

to hit some friggin ball…

the size of my fist.”

I look at my grandson.

“Get a job like that…

I’m telling ya.”

My grandson smiles with an “alright buddy, sure” but I’m not buying it.

”You don’t like baseball?” I ask him.

“Not so much grandpa, plus I’m a little late in starting now, don’t ya think?

“Forget school and go…

hit a million golf balls….

See…forget baseball…

you can play that…

til you’re my age.”

I stare at my grandson still lacking intent while the others cheer me on. He’s such a good looking young man, I just wish….oh I remember now…. I’ve told him over and over.

“Didn’t I tell you….”

“Yes Grandpa.” He already knows where I’m going with this.

“Then go do it!”

“What are you waiting..?”

“I will Grandpa, I just gotta take some acting classes. You can’t just show up…”

“Of course you can!”

He laughs and smiles, but what he doesn’t know is my generation had to make things happen. You couldn’t just sit around and hope it comes. Just go do the bloody thing and see what happens.

“Alan?” I point at him.

“Yea pop?”

“I’m a ponies guy.”

“Oh yeah!”

Alan smacks his forehead. He’d long known this but I’m not surprised it’d skipped his mind.

“Well Pop, let me ask you this? What track you recommend visiting? You must’ve been to all the tops?”

It’s funny but what his question reminded me of wasn’t the memories of track visits or famous races, women in their finest hats and feathered dresses. What I heard the most in his sentence was the way he prefaced the question with a question. It’s something a salesman does. He’s prepping the audience to gather themselves in a position of answering a question that may or may not be intrusive or personal. It’s a technique. Someone who’s less then receptive in-person or on the phone, will automatically be more so when you do this. Alan is a salesman, and I know that. I just hadn’t thought how noticeable it was until I heard one of the same lines I used to deliver back when I sold life insurance. Every important sentence would begin with “let me ask you this.” The person on the other end of the line would so blatantly adjust themselves in their seat that you could hear it. It’s like that comfortable feeling that comes over you when you sit down in an airplane. You submit yourself to a world that will be out of your control for a specific period of time; relinquishing the platform to a new speaker as it’s no longer your turn. It was easier to sell back then. People didn’t have much in the sense of advertisements, TV shows, competing products, differing opinions and analyses on every little detail. People trusted people who were more knowledgeable. Life insurance was an easy sell. Who wouldn’t want to protect their family if they died? We loved our wives like no other. We know what it was like to not have them in our lives for years. We weren’t letting them out of our sight, unless we were dead. And if we died, we sure as hell weren’t going to leave them empty handed. Now, you probably couldn’t sell life insurance to a clairvoyant. In fact, he’d probably apply for every credit card he could, start spending like a banshee and then off himself before the interest kicks in. Kicks in….kicks…in…..kickin….kick. My beautiful girl let’s out a loud, disgruntling breath as she shakes her head hard up and down. I’m an idiot, I haven’t looked up. We haven’t moved yet. The gate is still closed. “Sorry about that”, I tell her, leaning low and close. I graze my hand in the opposite direction of her hair just to feel it pierce through my clammy hand. The color changes slightly like rubbing suede or petting a schnauzer or dragging your feet through a new rug. “I thought we were running babe, haven’t we answered them all?”

“Dad?!”

“Hey pop, is it Belmont pop?”

Apologizing, I wave him off because I really haven’t been to many tracks yet.

“There’s three I’m yet to see…”

“Oh?” Alan nods.

“Which ones you wanna get to see Uncle Bob?”

“Did you hear me?” I asked.

“Oh no, what’d you say Pop, did you say something?”

“I said…”

“…I’ve been to Belmont.”

“He lives at OTB” says my daughter.

“I don’t live there!” I growl. I don’t like it when kids say something, and they don’t know what they’re talking about. I’m only there for hellos and a few nickels and dimes. The minimum bet is a dime. Francis and the cats give me a “Hey Bobby” salute, and I usually curtsy a “gentlemen.” It’s my fraternity of TV addicts. No one mentions their actual bets to anyone unless they win, but Lenny could have six races going at once, but only talk to you about one, which is his golden goose. Even geese, to replace a more masculine word, poop the bed. I like to place one bet at Churchill Downs, Belmont, Dover, Freehold, Oaktree and Goldengate. I’ve had a lot of luck with Goldengate. It’s just one of those things. When you’re hot at a place, it doesn’t even matter if you lose 20 or 30 races, you’ll always remember the big wins and share those stories with everyone. Who wants to hear about losing? Not me. I’ve never done well at Turf Paradise. I don’t even like the name of the place. Sounds like some desolate desert putt-putt golf course off route 66 or something. I can just imagine it, dusty wind blowing off the hard crackled sand, cactuses as tall as palm trees acting as markers to remember where you parked your Caddy, 45 degrees in the early morning, 112 by mid afternoon, the grass outside the field-stand is bleached, short and flattened from relentless tires pursuing their fix. Anything with the word “turf” in it doesn’t sit well with me; that’s all. Name is everything in this sport. Same flies for the horse; if it ain’t named good, it affects your heart. You place your heart in every bet. I don’t care how low the payout is. We’re in it for the thrill of being involved. We love having a stake. It’s funny how we always say that. We all know what that means because it’s supposed to be a sort of tongue twister, or play on words. We have a “stake…..in the stakes.” “Hey Franny! You staking out your stake in the stakes?!” We’d yell it out over the benches when he’s reading his odds up at the counter. Everyone in the room laughs and someone usually throws in a dumb line about buying everyone steaks for dinner with the winnings, but it’s not the same word so I don’t like it. I’ll never say I don’t like it to whomever it is, but that’s the truth. Francis always likes to hand his money to Glenda at the counter. I shouldn’t say it’s just him; we all really like entering our bets with Glenda; we all have a crush on her. We only go to her though when we’re betting a decent amount. We wouldn’t want to look like cheapskates with our dimes and quarters, so we only stand there when our intentions are too the moon. We’ll use the machines for the really small ones. Those damn machines are so impersonal. They just take your money and lock it away. I like making eye contact. I always liked that. I always like the ponies I can see. They’ll look right at you, like you’re right there with them. You can see the fire in their eyes. Young and wild, that’s it, you’re indebted. I always wanted to ride one, hard and tight. Pinching em between my legs but hovering all the same to manage each galloping impact in my knees and hips. You’ve gotta manage it. Not like I’m light enough to really race but I always imagined it like being in a falling elevator. Right before impact, you somehow push off, curl, duck and roll to support yourself. I’d have my chin so low I would just bury it in her mane for aerodynamics. There’s no more powerful a smell I’d bet. Not even a woman’s perfume. I’d have her take me as far and as fast as she can go. Passing my friends as we would all get to challenge each other in one big race of course, and during that race I would just peer on over and yell “manage your jealousy boys, it’s my turn!” “Thwack, thwack….” the leather would land in rhythm with her leaps and I’d holler to the wind “gaw head baby, we’ve got it….open her up…I want to fly so fast that the ride won’t ever seem to stop.” In that same wind she did too whisper, and not through sound nor whistling breeze did her words travel, but through the hair that brushed against my face. And from face, the words trickled into my ear, and reassured me that she could handle this. “We’ve got it Pop, we’ve always had it” she said. And so I say in a whisper on back “let’s go get em sweetie….this is our chance…don’t you dare stop until you see that next gate.”

Correcting Unfair Neighborhood Tyranny

2010-09-14T20:21:00.001-07:00

“Correcting Unfair Neighborhood Tyranny” - A Not so Short Story but a good movie idea by JP

Jane sits with the lights off in the TV room, waiting for his car. She mutes the TV. A big-rig cruises down the hill only minutes from their house. She can hear the driver tapping the brakes to slow down, as if tapping them makes up for the fact that he’s driving too fast to begin with.

“They’re always in such a rush….drive like normal human beings for chrissake,” she says to herself.

The hill is pretty far away but Jane can hear every little squeak, horn honking, accelerating motorcycle and siren. Three blocks and a schoolyard separate them. And it isn’t one of those puny schoolyards. There are three soccer fields and three baseball fields, all combined. Two of the soccer fields are a bit smaller than normal size, with proportionately smaller white goal posts. Two of the baseball outfields share each other’s space, where the centerfielders from opposite games can have a discussion mid-inning, or run headfirst into the other tracking a fly ball. The schoolyard doesn’t distance her home from the hill; it offers sound a space to spread its wings and fly faster and further straight to her back door.

"It's amazing how things travel at night," she thinks to herself while biting her thumb.

She’s thought about this before, quite possibly a hundred times and probably in the same exact position. Life for her and her family has come down to nickel and dime-ing. It’s not what she thought it would be. Not how she'd pictured it, steadily getting worse rather than better. She's been working nights tutoring 8th graders in Sequential I math. Two of her clients are steady work on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4 to 7pm. One little boy, his name is Thomas, has an obsession with rolling his eyes and blinking uncomfortably hard. He’s a nice little boy, and not a bit short of intelligent.

“It feels good,” he says in response to her admonishing stares.

When she asks to see the lessons the teacher had done that day, he has nothing but skateboard companies listed down the sides of his neon green marbleized notebook. He keeps his head down in embarrassment and writes two more names as she starts her lesson. His pen begins to draw a flame with a little face on it. She continues to speak as his lip buries under his top teeth, his eyes roll counterclockwise and his left shoulder jumps up then down slowly. “Spitfire” is scribbled next to the flame.

Her other client is a timid little girl with short dusty hair, thick dark red reading glasses and zero self confidence. She has a very large butt for a 7th grader, but Jane knows this isn't something that's the poor girl’s fault. Her mouth too was a fixation when concentrating. It curled around her pen before she'd suck the blue cap for whatever warm saliva still sat there seconds before. At least in this case, she did this when solving a problem, not drawing aimlessly in her notebook. This is a girl that wants to love her life but really has no shot until this stage passes. At least that’s what Jane believes considering the stories she hears about kids these days in middle school. Oral sex on school buses, tv shows about being 16 and pregnant, peer pressure to smoke weed and act dumber than they really are. Looking down at her again, Jane resolves to believe this isn't a stage that will ever pass. Life is just cruel, to some.

Jane used to be a 7^th grade teacher, full-time. That went well for the first two years before her husband Dave came down with a massive headache and felt so sick that they needed to bring him to a hospital. When she arrived they asked her for her insurance before they could admit him. He after all was working in Wal-Mart part-time and was awarded no such benefits. Benefits were only for Full-Time employees. He had told Jane that he pleaded with his managers for extra days and volunteered for overtime shifts, but they would never grant them. They'd promised him a management position but upon consideration during his annual review, the notes read "he seems more interested in leaving early to be at his son's snoopy soccer games then here preparing for his future." He laid spread long and naked all-said but for a thin hospital smock, on a steel flat bed as a cat-scan and MRI hovered inches above his head. A “dominant growth” was found covering 28% of his Parietal Lobe. A “dominant growth” were the exact two horribly vague words the doctor used to describe the results before ushering them into another room so their son could be left to question what that exactly means.

"This tumor cannot successfully be removed. We can run chemotherapy and work to prolong your life however nothing is guaranteed except the fact that you have limited time. How you choose to spend that time and whether you would like it to be on a couch, completely zapped of all energy and watching your hair fall out, or out enjoying this world and what's truly left of it, is completely up to you. I personally, would get out, travel and enjoy as much as possible over these next few weeks because that could be the least amount of time you have left, but let's hope much more."

Jane remembers the pat on Dave’s shoulder that the doctor gave him before he left the room. That was all he could do for us after years of schooling, reading, studying and achieving; all he could give was a pat, Jane thought.

Dave lasted 27 days before he fell asleep and rolled out of a golf cart. His friend was laying up just before the green when he heard a bocce ball hit the lawn.

“It was such an eerie sound,” he described as the ambulance rushed a dead body to the hospital.

They continued to hold out shreds of hope like everyone does when someone young wasn't meant to die. Jane felt it wasn't fair to an 8-year old child to have a parent pass away. It was tough enough for her and she was 42, how would an 8 year old take it? She thought about when she was his age and what she would do.

“I’d kill myself,” she thought. “But that always seems to be my response, no matter how ridiculous it sounds.”

Dave was little Jake's idol. He'd taught him everything he knew besides the kids games he'd learned outside playing with friends. He was a good father and would have to remain one until Jane could think straight and come up with a way to tell him. The family would have to keep their mouths shut “or else”, she swore. They all agreed to stick to it since they had no say in the matter.

At night she would stay up and pretend he was coming home. She'd sit in the tv room with the volume down and just the light of the tv illuminating her face. She felt nothing but the rods and cones in her eyes adjusting to the brightness of each new commercial. The brightest was Cars.com. All the cars on the screen would disappear as the excited young actor would enter more criteria for their perfect car. In the end, the screen would be entirely white except for the car, and she’d squint just to keep her stare. Little Jake would fall asleep with his door wide open in hopes to be awakened by dad returning home late. Work had never extended past nightly bedtime before, but now it was constant. He hadn't seen his father for several months thanks to business trips, a vacation with his traveling buddies and a mandatory corporate retreat upstate for two months thanks to training. She kept saying he was hoping for a big promotion so he had to work extra hard and that she was sorry.

The school called. With all the absences Jane incurred during her husband's final weeks, she would no longer be eligible, nor considered for tenure. She’d begun tutoring immediately but she was unable to cover the medical and funeral costs associated with Dave's passing. Within the week, her insurance too ran out, and deductibles were exhausted beyond extension. Bills flowed in from Mid-Island hospital for the tests they'd run on Dave.

“Test after test, hour after hour and nothing but a dead frickin body” she’d muttered softly on the couch.

She couldn't understand how her husband had never taken out a life insurance policy for them. She hated him for it. Laughing up towards the ceiling she whispers.

"Wal-Mart can take a plan out on you, but you couldn’t…schmuck." Wal-mart had purchased a life insurance policy on her husband Dave, just as they do with all their employees of continued interest. They do it to protect themselves from the health of a worker and the financial loss the company might incur when replacing them. Wal-Mart made $82, 743.00 when Dave died. The fact that he died young and wasn't high risk, led to a big payoff. None of which is given to Jane or deserved by her in their mind.

There is no way to pay her bills as they keep piling higher. The first from the hospital was $42,795.00. The second came only days later, along with a flyer on bereavement. That bill was for $8,622.42. These two mountains, on top of her normal costs of living were impossible to navigate. Her phone, electric, basic cable, oil to heat her home, gas for her car, mortgage, taxes, clothes and food for Jake; it was all impossible. They had been coaxed into certain choices by those with great intentions but antiquated notions. Their parents always said:

"Buy a house, why waste your money on rent...build equity...houses never lose value."

Dave and Jane bought the first house they could find near Dave's family. It was the cheapest and the smallest in their neighborhood, but at least the school district had a good reputation. Dave was making around $22,000 a year, and Jane was up to about $37,000 in her second year. They bought their tiny ranch home for $331,000. They'd gotten a loan from the bank during a time when rates were pretty low, right around 5% and getting lower. They could put less money down now, choose a variable rate mortgage that inflates only if rates were to change, but that didn't seem likely with the fed lowering rates back to back each month. Plus, they could refinance their home shortly after buying it. If rates were only going to trend lower, they’ll payoff the balance with the capital earned in refinancing. The mortgage payments were only $2200 a month, and taxes $5000 a year. That's a $2500 nut to crack every 30 days, and not to mention, just shy of the even worse decision to have taken student loans out for college.

College was something else her parents had always told her was the most important thing she should do.

"Get that degree sweetie, and you'll be aces. You can't do nothing in this here world if you ain'ts got that piece of paper, I shush you not."

Dave's parents said the same thing. They'd grown up knowing their world to be full of shut doors and turned heads. What they never really figured was the average potential of their truly average kids. They were both mediocre students choosing expensive schools. They'd thought they'd make more than enough money to pay off their debt as they got into the real world. What's $120,000 when you're making over $100,000 a year anyway.

“You get wealthier as you get older, right Dad? You made more as you progressed in your career?" Jane would ask.

"Aww little blue eyes, of course you do….it wouldn’t be the American Dream if you didn’t.”

She’d smile and listen, comforted by what her parents said. Most people do look up to their parents, and Jane was the same. She knew damn well that if she needed wisdom and advice, who it was going to come from. Her father continued.

“As you near retirement, you're making the most you've ever made. That's how you're able to retire. You're constantly building something that could sustain you and your family until the end," finishing by waving his hand in circles, with reading glasses dangling from his fingertips.

Jane chose Boston University to get a teaching degree. Eight years of marriage, the same wages and all she could think about was the cost of a box of cereal and how it's doubled from when Jake was three. Opening the fridge, she stares at a loaf of bread, cold cuts, and some condiments that she’ll use to pack Jake’s lunch. She used to pack both Dave and Jake’s lunches but now half the pack practically spoils because they can’t come close to finishing it all. She’d rather let it spoil than answer the possible question at the food store as to why she's cutting back. Doris, the wrinkled sweet lady with the lipstick clawing its way through the cracks of her skin always knows her order. There’s an excitement that Doris has about memorizing Jane’s order. Jane’s not interested in ruining that for an old lady that may not remember much anymore, and already spends the majority of her time below the face of boar. Nonetheless, to bother telling the story of her husband's death for the millionth time is unbearable and downright unnecessary. Everyone dies at some point. Nothing great ever comes out of a conversation like that and she sure as hell wasn't looking for any sympathy from the woman who slices her meat.

She has little in her life that she looks forward too. Her parents are long gone and she's never been particularly close with her husband's. She has a brother that's still alive that she doesn't see too often since he lives a couple hours away and works weird hours for the highway construction union. Her friend Angela is her only rock left, besides for Little Jake. Angela calls her every other day to see how she is; to make sure her mind’s in the right place. It’s been months now since her husband passed. Too many nights sitting in the dark playing her life over in her mind, trying to pinpoint where she went wrong and how she’s to blame. The night was the toughest part of the day. She fell apart when the sun went down. Just as fast as the sun would descend, her thoughts would cyclically depress. The husband she chose, the speed at which it all went, what she realized she’d never done, and now, no doubt, would ever get to do. It all weighed terribly on her ability to function.

“Let’s go out and have a cocktail, dance a little bit…we haven’t done that in forever sweetie,” Angela says.

Amidst Jane’s slow response, Angela jumps in “come on, it’ll be good, we’re doing it. I’m coming to get you in a couple hours, start to get ready, k?”

“Fine…..let me call the sitter and see first if she’s available …this is so last minute ya know,” Jane sullies.

“So what! Get off your ass and live a little…you could be dead tomorrow too ya know?!”

“Thanks” says Jane.

“Oh stop, you know what I mean.”

Going out was something they'd do a lot before Dave died. They’d get all gussied up and flirt with whatever men came up and danced with them. It was innocent; it’s not like they were going home with them. Well, Angela could of course, but the men usually liked Jane. She was pretty, 5 foot 4, managed pumps like slippers and danced her tiny curves into any angle. She was the unattainable blonde with a sweet name. Any single guy looking for the best and seeking a challenge, she was it.

They pulled into “Stiletto’s & Stags” and Angela chose valet. She liked flirting with the guys who ran valet, and they knew her by first name. She'd been divorced almost 6 years and had fallen into “cougar” status. She knew it and she embraced it. Jane had thrown on a black skimpy dress that she'd had since her college formal. The last time she'd worn it she'd spilt Odesse Vodka all over the chest and spaghetti straps. Those same straps still snugly secured the sides of her collarbone, and it felt good to be the same size. She hadn't put much time into her hair, but the dress looked great.

"Sweetie, you look like you just crawled out of the Thriller video."

Angela handed her some makeup while they waited in the valet line. Angela’s a full-hipped girl, and by full, you’re obliged to stand for her when passing through a movie aisle. Her hair is dyed dark red to her milky Italian shoulders. The tips rest right at the crest of her scar that she’d gotten as a kid for immigrant polio immunizations. Jane loved Angela for telling it like it was, even if it hurt because no matter what, Angela never wanted to hurt anyone. She’d learned enough hate and disdain as a married woman herself. Her husband admitted to cheating on her after she’d just had their second daughter and left them with nothing but the dream of a family she’d thought they had. Men were pigs to her but she’d say “a woman’s got needs hunnie,” and laugh for everyone. They bellied up to the bar and Jane called the bartender over.

“Two Café Patron shots and I’ll have a French Martini to chase. Angie, what are you having?”

Angela responded, “umm, I’ll take a beer, Michelob Ultra, and those shots sound pretty good.”

Angela looked around at the prospects. Men in suits, men with rings, single men with style, taller men who just might be a good lay…..she’s long been over the crap-in-common requirement.

“I give you credit girl, you’ve got your head in the game and one thing in mind….I love it,” says Jane.

“Of course sweetie, I needed to come out just as bad as you.”

“You’re a hawk!”

“You know me hunnie, I sure ain’t focused on politics or religion. I could care less if he has some interesting job or if he’s got kids and is separated. You’ve got baggage? So does everybody baby…haha” she laughs and bobs her head in self-acknowledgement. “I ain’t marrying the friggin guy. That love, fate and timing crap is for high school. We’re not here for more than just our little life, you know that hunnie…..come on.”

Jane downed her shots while listening. Angela turned around to their drinks.

“Jeez, I guess I’ll play catch-up, cheers” Angela said loudly over the music.

Jane nodded without understanding and eyed a guy in a blue button down shirt with jeans the same exact color. Their eyes met and he came right over. Men moved faster than she’d remembered. She felt sexy. The alcohol had barely set in, but mentally, it had already revealed what she’d known for a long time; she’d been married too early. Not that she knew what time would’ve been the right time, but nonetheless, this new anticipation was arousing. Angela saw them locked on each other and took a lap. Halfway around the other side of the bar, near some cheesy stained glass window that said “Dons”, Angela found a nice looking black man. Black men loved Angela, and she had more than fond interest in their showering compliments. Peering across the bar, Jane sneaks her mouth below the ear of her wrangler.

“He kind of looks like the guy from the Allstate commercials,” she whispers laughingly without staring at Angela.

“That’s Allstate’s stand” the man growls into her dandelion hair.

They laughed together and her hand went naturally to his back. He eased her head onto the small pocket between his chest and shoulder, and the contact equaled surrender. She whispered into his musty jacket.

“Do you wanna go somewhere?”

Knowing no man has ever denied such a question she turned and yelled.

“Angie! We’re getting outta here…don’t worry, call you tomorrow!”

Knowing what’s best for her girlfriend, Angela yelled back.

“Ok hunnie, I won’t worry, call you tomorrow!”

Angela liked to repeat what people would say right back to them as if to confirm the statement in a deeper truth. Just like writing something down, it would help her remember it better.

Jane was monkey-armed around the tan man’s neck as they jostled out the door. They jumped into his Dodge Pick-Up and she smiled. This was a real man, she told herself. She’d never even thought about buying a truck, but she liked the masculinity of a man who drove it. The car gave her confidence. She felt it immediately as they zoomed off into the night listening to John Mellencamp. No worry about tomorrow or her life back home, she was alive again. Pulling up to a house with gray aluminum siding and tiny red shutters, she reveled in the quaintness but didn’t put the design next to his rugged style. He opens the car door for her and scoops her out.

“Let me get these paws under ya, don’t want you slipping and falling,” he says.

She’s reminded of her wedding night, being carried over the threshold and dumped on the bed in her wedding dress. She hadn’t even wanted to take it off as she bubbled with anticipation. Young, in-love, she remembered just ripping her stockings open and telling Dave to feel. Now, looking up at this hefting lumberjack, she couldn’t wait to get inside. They crept down the staircase at the side of the house. He opened the door with keys in one hand and her in the other. The apartment was nothing to write home about, but her anxiousness rebuilt as she laid on his bed while he took a piss with the door open. She thought it was sexy; a macho, confident gesture. He sounded strong too; could mean he’s well endowed. She positioned herself on the bed so he could see up her dress when he came out. He left the light on, walked over to her, grabbed both legs and pulled her to him. Being handled and teased, there’d been nothing comparable for years. Foreplay had seemed pointless when married…they’d both known what they liked and just wanted it done so they could collapse. His palms didn’t just touch her, they massaged everywhere they went. He’d grab her back just below the shoulder bone and she’d uncontrollably arch her chest. He knew what to do and she countered by pushing him onto his back. She wasted no time and pushed herself down. Staying there with her eyes closed, she exhaled before moving slowly within a square inch, like an eraser correcting a permanent mistake. She straightened her body upright and put her hands low in front of her. Her mouth open and lax, she shivered and then couldn’t move her body. She covered half his body with hers when she fell towards him. When he asked for confirmation, the voice she heard wasn’t Dave’s. Two seconds passed and she pounded her fists on the pillows beside his head.

“What?!” he exclaimed.

“Nothing, it’s my husband….I’m sorry.”

“Oh, umm, I didn’t know you were married, I didn’t see a ring,” he said.

Perturbed and losing her patience to manage the situation, she asked him to take her home. Instead of immediately responding, he puts his hands on her ass and pushed it down. She lifted up and instead, slid away.

“No, I really can’t, it’s too soon.”

Without any questions, he handed her the dress and underwear splayed out on the floor and he brought her back. They didn’t talk as he drove. The guy behind the wheel wasn’t this masculine cowboy she’d built him up to be, he was just another guy at a bar with a dick. She felt annoyed with herself. She couldn’t even be a woman anymore….Dave had ruined that too. She felt like she couldn’t enjoy anything without being reminded of him. The stoplight turned red at the bottom of the big hill as they made a right. A flash shot through the car like a spark and they both tried to understand what happened. It was the first time they’d acknowledged each other during the ride. Looking around, they saw nothing. No street lamps or cars in sight, no soul seen standing on the street corner, no way to confirm they’re not delirious. They drove on as she directed him to her house. He pulled up and she walked out, closed the door behind her and entered her house. She spoke not a word, for there wasn’t much to say. She hadn’t even known his name. When inside she quietly nudged the babysitter awake.

“Here Evrin, I hope that’s enough…there’s a bit extra in there since I’m late,” Jane says.

“Oh no problem Mrs D., thanks.” Evrin begins re-capping the night and she’s interrupted.

“You ready to go home, I’ll take you…Jake’ll be fine here for five minutes,” says Jane.

“Yea sure.”

Evrin gathers her things while Jane looks down the dark hallway at her son’s open door.

“He’s still frickin waiting for his father to come home…”

“What’s that Mrs. D?”

“Nothing, let’s go before he wakes up.”

The two of them jump into Jane’s jalopy; a Ford Focus with 82,217 miles on it. The car barely turns over since it needs a new starter. She’d just put $2,200 into it 2 months ago for new struts and a bent axle she’d achieved in a Home Depot parking lot when catching her back left tire on a cement island separating the entrance and exit lanes. She didn’t tell little Jake that his years of gifted savings bonds were the only way she could afford it. He wouldn’t miss them or know any better after all, or so she tried to justify it. Evrin lived across the main highway that separated their neighborhoods. It’s a two minute drive that crosses over at the bottom of the hill. Jane’s patience was decomposing like a tissue in the rain and she just wanted to get back home and forget about this damn night. As she cruised around the bend that led them towards the light, it remained green and she decided to gun it. The light turned yellow just as she’d stepped down hard. There’s no way she’s sitting at a stoplight at 3am without a car in sight and her son back home alone. Cameras flash as she blows through a red.

“What the fuck is that?!” Jane vehemently asks the night.

Evrin rubs her eyes to get rid of the blue circles.

“I don’t know Mrs. D., my mother mentioned that the town was putting in these cameras now where they photograph you if you do something illegal. I think it’s only for driving” Evrin said.

“You’re kidding me?” says Jane.

“I never knew where or how they were doing it, but that had to be it, no? No one’s out there taking pictures and it sure ain’t lightning outside….it looks clear, well, pretty clear” says Evrin looking out the dark window.

“Un-believable….” Jane starts to fume.

“Yea..” Evrin chimes in and is again interrupted.

“What is this frickin place coming too, I tell ya…these people, these frickin greedy frickin people. They think they’re better than us in their blue frickin monkey suits with their badges and their shiny frickin boots. Why don’t they shove those useless frickin guns up their you-know-whats. And these frickin doctors in their blue frickin pajamas, walking around pretending they’re frickin saving people when they ain’t doing shit but charging people their life savings for something that aint doing nothing. These frickin men in their navy frickin blue suits, all ties up to here, and their mother-frickin insurance policies that people are supposed to pay for but never frickin know if they’re gonna use…they don’t mean nothing these people….all big frickin phonies, pretending to be better, believing they’re better. I tell ya, I’ve had enough of this place….I really mean it, just frickin enough.”

Evrin sits quietly and puts her hands together between her legs. Moments pass as Jane surveys the dark streets in fury. She looks over at Evrin and her intimidated little frame and realizes her rant could be better addressed or saved for someone older who understands; she apologizes.

The next morning Jane called Evrin’s mother to apologize again and explain herself. Evrin’s mother Lynn said she hadn’t mentioned anything about it so don’t worry.

“’Kids are rubber, you say things and it bounces right off them…” says Lynn.

“Oh good, thanks Lynn, you made me feel better about it,” says Jane.

“No problem dearie….but those tickets, my god, you know they’re upwards of some 300 bucks, right?!”

“What?!” yells Jane.

“Oh yea!! They said it in the paper. Gave us a forewarning as if to justify themselves in putting them up on street corners. To me, it’s a goddam rip-off and another way for the system to make money off people who ain’t got none,” says Lynn.

“Exactly!!! That’s exactly how I feel, are you kidding me, you think I can afford a $300 ticket right now? I could barely afford my groceries!” says Jane.

“Listen dearie, if it was us that was benefiting from it, I’d say hell yea, let’s do it, but this money goes to who knows what, and yet we’re paying taxes to put these things up? We’re paying taxes to screw ourselves with more tickets?!” yells Lynn.

“I just don’t get it, isn’t that what we pay cops for…isn’t that why these no-neck pea-brain gorillas get paid over a hundred grand a year…to give out tickets?? How many are getting fired because of these machines they’re putting up?” asks Jane.

“NONE!!” yells Lynn.

“Guaranteed, none!” Jane responds.

“I can’t take it” says Lynn.

“I cant even discuss it without getting upset, and I’m sorry you might’ve got one of these things coming to ya” says Lynn.

“Yea, me too,” says Jane.

“I probably would’ve never known about em if I wasn’t caught in the act I guess.”

“So what though sweetie, people break the law everyday and get away with it. You drove through a yellow light and it turned red on ya. You didn’t rob a bank for chrissake. I drive over the speed limit every single day of my life…you think I should get a ticket for driving 5 miles over the speed limit?” asks Lynn.

“Of course not,” says Jane.

“Of course not, but it’s still breaking the law” says Lynn.

“Of course not,” repeats Jane.

Every Wednesday after school Jake stays for a program called “Physical Sports.” Jane likes the idea considering it keeps the kids outside and active rather than home playing video games or on the computer. He expresses interest in Lacrosse and this is a program that teaches young kids the basics of each sport and gives them the opportunity to play it without needing to join an established team. Luckily they provide all the necessary equipment and all little Jake needs to pack is an extra set of shorts and a t-shirt. The only inconvenience is having to pick him up at 6pm since the busses don’t run that late. The phone rings; it’s Angela.

“Hey sweetie, how’d you make out last night? You have fun?” Angela asked.

“Ahh, I blew it as usual,” says Jane.

“What do you mean you blew it, how could you blow it, you guys looked like you were hot and heavy? At least I thought you were hot and heavy. Weren’t you?” asks Ange.

“Well yea, we were and everything was great until Dave blew it.” Says Jane.

“Oh, uh huh…Dave blew it…..” Angela loudly readjusts the phone to her ear. “Listen sweetie, Dave isn’t here anymore, he isn’t holding you back and I guess I need to be the good friend and remind you that he left you with nothing but some financial troubles and memories that keep you from moving forward. Now don’t get me wrong, this is all seemingly easy for me to say but I guess in time you’ll see what I mean. Did you have a good time? Was it good at least, or did you not even get to the good stuff?” Angela asked.

“Yea, we got to the good stuff, and yes, it was very good.” Jane replies.

“Ok, good, I’m glad. As long as you had fun” said Ange.

“Yes, I had fun.”

“Ok sweetie, well I’m off to run errands, just wanted to check in.”

“Yea I’m off to pick up Jake at the after school program,” says Jane.

“Sounds good, you go pick up Jake and I’ll catch up with you tomorrow,” says Angela.

Jake jumps into the car and he’s all wet and muddy. It’s been drizzling but the smile on his face keeps her from scolding him for not knocking his shoes together outside before hopping in.

“Today was awesome!” he beams.

Before Jane could ask why, he continued on.

“They asked me to play lacrosse goalie where they ripped shots at my head!”

“Oh really? And that’s fun?” asked Jane.

“It’s scary, but you’re wearing a helmet so it doesn’t hurt. It’s kind of like getting kicked in a shin guard, but with a ball. You barely feel it…”

“How nice. How did you do, you save any shots?”

“Totally! Everyone was saying I was the best they’d seen! I must’ve saved at least 40 shots, and for my first time, that’s not bad…..I don’t think.”

“Sounds great to me.”

“I’m thinking, maybe I can ask for a goalie stick for Christmas!”

“I don’t see why not,” says Jane.

Anything that wasn’t a bill or concern today, wasn’t enough of a priority to worry about.

“Maybe we’ve got a scholarship coming out of you for a lacrosse huh?!”

“Haha, yea maybe!” Jake laughed and smiled.

Driving down Jane’s favorite hill, she contemplates dinner.

“You’re in a great mood, and you’re putting me in an even better one, why don’t you pick what you want for dinner tonight and we’ll stop and get it.”

Jakes eyes light up and unconsciously he licks his lips. Jane’s noticing this endearing behavior and relishes the power she just put in a young boy as she imagines the options flying through his head. She peers at his eyes and attributes their innocent glistening and moistness to youth itself. She wishes she had that sparkle. Hers can’t possibly look that tender, they’re probably these dried up rippled pits from an eaten peach. She doesn’t want to compare hers but does in the rear view she pulled toward herself. “Nah, not the same hope, that’s for sure” she says to herself as she looks back at him. A little reflection in his eyes flicks to yellow, and she finds it curiously odd. Looking forward, he’s smiling because nothing’s out of the ordinary. He still revels in his options as her own smile drastically straightens to a stick. Her eyes magnify as an alarm has just gone off in her head and her body jams down onto the brakes with ten stiff toes. They’re sliding into a yellow light as Little Jake’s body shifts forward against the seatbelt and all of Jane’s muscles tighten. Screeching to a halt, the flash of light bursts through their tiny Ford.

“No fucking way!” she screams out in protest.

“They better see that we completely stopped god dammit,” she repeats to the windshield while looking up toward her progress beyond the light above.

Blinded still, the loud, obnoxious sound of hard-halting brakes still echoed in their ears just as it had a hundred other times in the night. Their car had stopped just beyond the sensor before getting pummeled by a massive tractor-trailer. The rig came from behind them never anticipating stopping so short while at a speed above 55mph. The roads were wet and like a rear bike wheel skidding out, the truck’s rig ran parallel to its cabin. The container fell forward upon impact with their car. It lifted up off its wheels, rolled onto its side and landed flat on their roof. The car was compacted; pancaked and pinned to the cement. In and out of consciousness, Jane had horrifying images of Jake beside her, disfigured and shaped into the area where his little legs would kick his cleats off after a game. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. She vomited on her gearshift and whacked her head on the metal roof that was now level with her steering wheel. She continued to smash her head back, screaming.

“Come on! Move you piece of shit!”

If she could just move a bit, she could get to Jake. Blood matted her golden scalp and began dripping down her neck. She began to panic and started breathing quick short breaths; anything her collapsed and contorted frame could gather. As she struggled and stopped slamming her tiny head into the roof she started to hyperventilate and soon passed out.

In the hospital, she awoke to Dave’s parents and her brother. It was a day later and she realized when she saw where she was what had happened. All three of them started crying before she could even ask. Her stomach dropped out of her and she threw her head back in a fit of tears. She winced at her action, not realizing. Pain pulsed through her head as she pounded the sheets at her sides over and over and over. Shifting hysterically toward the window she saw a tray with juice, cereal and yogurt. She took the plastic spoon and started jabbing it through the sheets into her stomach. When it didn’t hurt, she drove it towards her neck. The spoon bent and scraped jagged marks into her skin before her brother could restrain her.

Weeks had passed as she sat back on the same couch she’d contemplated so many worthless nights. She spoke to no one for weeks. Angela had temporarily moved into the house to make sure Jane ate, showered, and didn’t try anything irrational. Jane was sitting on the couch listening to the night as Angela read a magazine she’d peeked through four times already. Jane decided to speak.

“Why would I want to keep living?”

Angela looked up but didn’t respond.

“What do I honestly have to live for? To see another show? To travel to a new place? Buy some ridiculously expensive bag and make like I’m someone whose flashy and rich? Have sex with some stranger who I never will love? I can’t love,” she looks at Angela and continues. “I never will again, I promise you that. It’s selfish for me to even think of me, ever again. How could I sit here and believe this was all meant to be? That this absolute worst-case scenario in life happened to me for a reason. How can I sit and force myself to believe that? It’s an absolute lie. I don’t think they’re just sitting up there staring down at me saying “Oh Janie…stop being soooo serious, you should be happy to be alive.” Happy?! Fuck life, if this is it! I don’t need it. You think they’d wish a predicament like this on anyone? I sure as hell wouldn’t, and they’re me……I am them!” she points to the ceiling. “If I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, neither would they! There’s nothing to learn from this. Nothing to learn from this shitty fucking place. We are becoming less and less alive every day. Our lives are stripped, restricted and regulated for nothing other than more money, more money, more money. That’s it. I’ve had enough of it, and god dammit, I’m gonna do something about it.”

Jane stands up and heads to the coat rack and yanks a jacket off.

“That’s what I’m going to do.”

“What “something” are you going to do?” Angela asks. “Where’s my camera?” Jane asks while fidgeting with her zipper.

“Where are you going? Don’t you think you should at least calm down a bit before driving?” asks Angela.

“Thanks but I know how to drive” she says.

Finding her camera and a warm wool hat, Jane storms out the door without a word. Before jumping into Angela’s car, Jane stops at her garage and pulls an extension pole that Dave used to rely on for painting his parents’ two-story Tudor-style house. Jumping in the car, she takes off towards the hill but pulls off to a side street and turns the engine off. She pulled a pair of stockings out of her purse. She always had an extra pair just in case they’d rip when working. Since they were black it made it tougher to see as she stuck her head inside one of the legs. She pulled her wool hat over her head and looked completely inconspicuous. Grabbing the extension pole and camera, she walked around the corner using the pole as a cane, pretending to hobble a bit. Rounding the corner, a couple of cars were at the light waiting for it to turn. The pole with the camera is separate from the flash she notices. This pole held two cameras, a smaller one on top and a bigger one on bottom. She figures one must be zoomed in while the other is a broad panoramic shot of the victim. She looks in the distance far across the main road and sees the same setup for oncoming traffic. Two sneaky little cameras staring at the bumpers of cars, waiting to take advantage of what could have been a tough situation to manage for anyone. Each side has one filing cabinet of electrical wiring below it; must be the controls for the cameras. This doesn’t concern her, considering she knows the cost of cameras versus tin armoires. Walking forward to the metal post with the cameras she waits until the light changes and the cars take off. She sets her camera up on a guard rail across the street and puts it on video mode to record. She presses play and feels a rush of excitement and fury before whispering in a deepened, possessed voice.

“We don’t deserve this type of treatment, so someone’s gotta put a stop to it.”

Walking out into the street with her cane she looks both ways. The streets are still dark and there’s no headlights in sight. She takes her cane, twists the knob to loosen its core and swings it like a baseball bat. 15 extra feet of steel rod lunges forward and she becomes a real life Jedi. Flipping the rod around to swing with the slimmer side, she plans to drive as much force upon her target as she can possibly muster. The thicker the steel, the better. Again she checks the road as she stands now on the sidewalk five feet from the pole and she takes her first mighty swing. Awkward and off balance, she misses horribly. The pole comes down hard on the street pavement, reverberating through her hands like a shock wave. She lifts it back up again and just barely misses a power line. She realizes she has to be careful with electrical wires because she’s damn close to becoming a light show. Taking a deep breath and focusing on the first camera at the lowest point, only 10 feet or so off the ground, she whacks it daintily and dents the top metal casing and moves it out of position. She moves around the pole to swing perfectly at the lens like an overhand badminton shot. With two hands she whacks it over and over again until little pieces of glass come trickling down. She starts to breathe heavily and squint her eyes from trickling debris. She sees a car heading for her. Collecting herself, she lays the pole down in the gutter of the curb and starts strolling slowly along the pavement in any direction. The light turned as the car pulled up and it continued on. She ran back over to her pole, lifted it off the ground and started beating the crap out of the second camera until it barely resembled a splash guard on the back of a bicycle. Pieces of metal and plastic littered the sidewalk, but nothing that would be noticeable at night. She was amazed that the destruction was not loud or cumbersome. Thrilled that she had come up with such a rebellious idea that will help save her fellow neighbors thousands of dollars in unnecessary fees, she flashed back to the real reason this all made sense; this was the light that killed her son. If something like that could be avoided, if that fear did not exist and you had the control to manipulate your surroundings when necessary, for the better of all, than this was something she could not stop doing until the effects were felt and the people celebrate in their ability to revolt.

Walking back to her camera, she picks it up and whispers again in a deep, growly voice.

“Now that’s how it’s done.”

Getting back into her car, she drives to the other side of the main road and parks on a side street again. She pulls the same stunt but almost 3 minutes faster than the last time. After getting back in the car and driving away, she pulled off her hat and panty-hose mask and headed to a nearby grocery store. While walking the aisles, she found a woman whose cart was halfway full. The woman had her back to Jane, reading the label on a DelMonte can of tomato paste. The time was right to walk by. The woman’s purse was open and resting where little kids’ legs would dangle. Jane swiftly scampered past the cart, dug her hand in and pulled out a thick red wallet with fake leathery scales. Walking quickly, Jane didn’t look back. She figured the woman wouldn’t notice until she was unloading her cart and looking to pay. This would buy her some time to get to Kinkos and upload her video to youtube. Everything felt cerebral. The ideas came to her without thinking. She knew she had to protect her identity and avoid being caught because this wasn’t some one-shot-deal; this is going to be her life.

At one of the computer rentals in Kinkos, she slips the woman’s credit card into the computer and pulls up youtube.com. She doesn’t have an account so she sets up a fake yahoo email account first, approves it, and then proceeds with the youtube account. It asks her for a username and she types “CommunityOutlaw.” She uploads her video, and names it “Correcting Unfair Neighborhood Tyranny.” As she’s sitting there watching her minutes tick higher and the costs piling onto the woman’s credit card, she decides to look up all the local tv stations and their neighborhood watch columnists. She grabs a piece of paper from the printer and starts writing down names, emails and addresses. She buys a 50 pack of cd/dvd-writeable disks, padded envelopes, post-it notes and a marker from right there in the store. She starts to burn the video onto as many cd’s as she can and begins to make a huge mailer for all local stations. On each CD she writes “Correcting Unfair Neighborhood Tyranny – 1-9-2010” and includes a post-it note on top. “Watch this now, you’ll thank me later.” Leaving any identity off her work, no one could know who this superhero was. Once she was done, she left Kinkos and headed towards the post office. Tuning the knobs of an unknown car radio, she tries to place a soundtrack on the most perfect night. Angela’s speakers weren’t exactly crisp, but then again, Bob Dylan’s voice never resembled satin. Her ears heard what she needed as “Visions of Johanna” strummed lowly over the burgundy upholstered seats and grayed windshield. Kicking back, she started to smile for the first time since that night. A portion of her heart felt a stitch of redemption, but she knew there was a long road ahead. Peeling off her course she figures she can protect her cover a bit better by dropping her mailing somewhere a bit less local.

Twenty-seven minutes later, she pulls off the freeway at an exit she’d seen a million times. She glides into her old neighborhood. Gliding so slowly that Angela’s car slinks down the block, passing old friend’s houses like a burglar surveying a hit. Her memories of youth, friends, love, and mischief come flowing back. The Jelly Bean sign is dark and barely legible. That’s where Tom asked her to go steady and gave her some family ring to wear on a necklace. They were too young for class rings at that point but he must’v learned it from his older brothers. That was her first real relationship; three whole weeks. “Right there on that curb” she thought to herself. Next came the abandoned warehouse where they would sneak late at night with just a flashlight that they’d whack against their knee to illuminate. They’d play hide and go seek, tell scary stories, and anticipate the nerves before seven minutes in heaven. The boys would throw rocks at the small windows aligned across the top of the building, making sure that every single pane had a perforation. It reminded her of cellophane that covered the glue jar her father kept in his workshop. She would fiddle with the top, constantly unscrewing and re-capping the bottle to sniff the contact cement. She loved the smell and it made her dizzy. Each time she opened it, the piece of cellophane her dad had covered it with would have new tiny tears. When held up to the light, it was the same erratic designs of the cracked glass, kind of like a spider web.

“Don’t let any of those little holes lay over the top” her father would tell her.

“I know” she’d recover adamantly.

“They could let air in and it will harden.”

“I know, you’ve told me a thousand times,” Jane would counter.

That scary warehous gave them all a reason to get close to a boy, holding each other tight as the walls had eerie anti-Semitic spray paint messages and small tinder left behind from fires. “Costco” now blared bright and red over the space. The building was different and nothing remained that could be pointed out as original. The post office looked no different as she pulled up to it. Still a red brick building that looked like a Cape Cod home with an aluminum white panel covering the top third. She stuck the packages into the mailbox and let the drawer close. Re-opening it, she closed it once more before walking back to her car.

There’s no one on the road and it took her this long just to realize it. Remembering how good it felt to get a license when she was young, she’d loved driving her car and having no responsibilities. No curfew, no job, just school and friends. All the green lights just last longer at night and the dark sky is a sheet of mystical opportunity. She just has to pick her point on the map and stream towards it. Night could very well be her parallel universe to the world of dreams; a time when she can piece together conscious action with the forefront of life’s impossibility. Maybe it’s just her body in motion that’s provided such elation. As more memories flicker by, she wonders if having a direction and the action of forging forward, even if nowhere specific, is in fact life itself. The end goal has always changed for her no matter how she willed it to stay, so it couldn’t be the destination. For a second she’d wondered if she’d been missing night’s beauty all along. She debated and immediately changed her mind as the couch, her living room and her hours spent staring at the TV were always her worst. When the sun would go down she’d worry about Jake asking her again about daddy. Her heart dropped as she remembered she still hadn’t told Jake that his father was gone….and she feared having to come up with a way to break the news. The happiness then drained out her face like blood from a black eye. She slammed her foot to the floor and pushed the odometer to 80mph. She’d promised herself in that moment that she wouldn’t take her foot off the floor until God dared to give her a high-speed collision. A massacre so glorious that Angela’s car would flip and tumble for a mile with every inch of the metal separating itself from the frame before coming to a stop. She wanted it to be as terrible as you could imagine with fire-bursting from the gas tank and headfirst windshield projection; she wouldn’t even have time to stop smiling. She leaned forward into the wheel, unbuckling her seatbelt and gritting her teeth to the night. She started to scream and curse God.

“You don’t even exist you worthless piece of shit….and if you do, then fucking show me already…..show me by taking me, show me by performing the sheer atrocity I can inflict on another so that their family too can doubt your bullshit existence…I fucking dare…...”

A blinding flash bursts through the car as she’s screaming, and she is silent. Her face burst into shock and her crying flicked off like a light switch to immediate delirious laughter. She slammed on the brakes and pulled into a King Kullen parking lot. Whipping Angela’s squealing car over marked spaces and an empty lot, she slams the car prematurely into park and lurches forward.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?!” she screams up to the light.

She rips the back door open.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?!”

Pulling out her walking cane, she begins to unscrew the catch.

“Killing innocent people, like you have the right! You’re breaking up families and ruining lives!”

She whips the cane into it a saber and re-tightens her grip.

“Don’t you know that?! NO! How could you? You’re a goddam lifeless machine.”

She leans hard back to sling the rod and falls completely off balance by the weight of the rod. Recovering, she yells.

“You don’t know love! You don’t know a goddam thing!”

She steadies her gaze on the camera and notices it’s way too low for her ridiculous javelin.

“God dammit!!!”

She walks up to the camera and leans the pole against the camera to lower it to the right height. Backing up and widening her legs.

“Watcha gonna do now?” she yells to the pole.

She looks up and down the road and still, no one. She chokes up and cocks back, and huge vibrations ring through her hands as she connects. The camera shifts erratically off its perch and dangles on the side of the stand.

“Haha! What now?!” she screams to the pole before breaking into a celebratory spin dance.

In seconds she’s interrupted by headlights in the distance. Cool and confident she whacks the butt of the pole into the ground and the extension retracts into the pole in a millisecond. She walks calmly over to her car with her cane, tosses it in the backseat and enters without panic. The car drove right on by. As she put her hands on the steering wheel she’d thought she might’ve fractured her wrist from holding the bar so tight. She figured she’d better head home and come up with some new ideas on how to be a bit safer.

Angela was waiting in the living room for her like a post-curfew parent.

“I hope you know sweetie, it’s been over 5 hours since you disappeared. I don’t think you have any idea what it took to not call those cops you love so much.”

“Oh, well they would’ve loved to have found me” snickers Jane.

“You should’ve called me,” says Angela.

“You know I gave up cell phones…I don’t need…”

“Yes, I know, but at least a payphone…something…I thought you were dead for chrissake” says Ange.

“Well Im not.”

“Yea, I can see that. To be honest, you look oddly better.”

“Do I?!” Jane smiles.

Angela sees her guilty happiness and gets frantic.

“Oh my god, what’d you do? Did you kill a cop?! I saw you go in that friggin garage of yours, did you have a gun in there?”

Angela runs over to the tv to flip on the local news.

“Oh stop! No I didn’t kill a cop!”

“Well, what’d you do then…I sure as hell know there isn’t any midnight spa treatments around the block.”

“No there aren’t, but I did have a run in with one of those cameras.”

“What do you mean, you were on tv?” she asks still paying attention to the news.

“No, not those cameras, the traffic lights.”

“Oh those cameras….so, you mean you got me a ticket?” asks Angela.

“Well, maybe, I’m not sure exactly. If I did then I’ll work to pay it off, but it might not have registered.”

“What do you mean, how could it not? Those things have like videotape, or email or god knows what…but I sure know it got you, if you saw it flash.”

Well maybe, but it ain’t getting anyone else.”

Jane gives her smile again.

“I don’t get it, how can you be so sure?”

“I smashed it.”

“You what?!”

“I smashed it with a pole.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“You wouldn’t have?!”

“Well listen sweetie, maybe if what happened to you…..then yea, I probably would.”

“Thank you.”

“Wow”, Angela shakes her head. “How the hell did you do it?”

“I just brought a pole long enough to reach it and started beating the crap out of it.”

“Just like that?”

“Yup. The thing just dangled there.”

“Haha! Really? I actually like that” says Angela.

“Me too!” Jane agreed.

“In fact, I plan on doing it a lot more, but I think I hurt my hand.”

“Well I’m not surprised…your swinging some rod 4 times the size of you into a metal object that isn’t meant to move.”

“Yea, well it wasn’t exactly planned, but I have thought of how I’m going to do the next one tomorrow.”

“Hunnie, I don’t know if you should be running vigilante all over town by yourself.”

“Well this is my life now…this is what I want and it’s made me unbelievably happy. Plus, I’m not hurting anyone, and I’m helping people keep their money,” says Jane.

“I can keep watch if you’d like? I would rather know where you are than assume the worst every time you leave the house.”

“Well I already have a job for you, if you want it?” says Jane.

“Count me in sweetie, I’m all for helping my girl…and screw it….as I see it, we are helping people keep their money” Ange said.

Jane smiled.

At 10pm the following day, Jane is lining the back seat of Angela’s car with a drop cloth while Angela drives past the stoplight Jane accidentally visited the night prior.

“Are you ready yet?” Angela asks impatiently as she’s circled the light several times already. You only have one camera to hit.”

Jane responds, “I don’t want to ruin your car!”

Jane is wearing her signature black wool hat and panty hose over her face.

“Oh please” Angela comes back. “It already stinks to high heavens.”

“I’m sorry! You agreed to this!” Jane says.

“I know, and I’m fine with it, let’s just get going here….you know how many cameras we can find to hit in one night?”

“Fine, fine! I’m ready!” says Jane.

“Alright, hold your horses, we’re on the other side now, let me get back over there just when the light turns red so you have enough time before we make the right.”

As they pull up to the red light, Jane rolls down her window, pushes the front passenger seat down and as far forward as possible before leaning the nose of her sons massive SuperSoaker out the window. Angela turns to Jane and pushes the camera into video mode, hits record and asks “you good?”

“Yes, shush….let me concentrate,” says Jane as she’s pumping the gun to build pressure.

Angela keeps her foot on the brake, leans down low over the passenger seat and focuses on both the back of Jane’s tiny head and the stoplight camera. Peering out the window, Jane takes aim and let’s loose a stream that starts blotting the tan metal, the shiny silver pole and the sidewalk below. Angela keeps the camera steady and turns away to keep her eye out for any cars.

“Are you getting it?” she asks.

“Yes, just move up a bit so I can hit more of the lens,” says Jane.

As Angela creeps forward, the gun’s stream starts caking the front of the camera like caulk. Watching it slowly drip and bubble, Jane mumbles

“that looks amazing.”

Angela smiles “I told you hunnie, black oil-base paint, nothing like it, and nothing could see through it.”

They both laugh happily and the gun starts to lose its pressure, spraying spurts of mist.

“OK!”

“Good to go?”

“Now that’s how ya do it!” yells Jane.

The light turns green as the women zoom off into the night. They’ve brought 15 gallons of paint and a gallon of gasoline to rinse the gun’s container.

The girls found 12 more cameras that night. Dousing the sidewalk in black below each victim and by the fourth light Jane had just decided to jump out of the car and drench the whole system. Not once were they seen or even close to caught. When they woke up the next afternoon, Angela’s back passenger door had black speckled paint all down the outside, but nothing anyone would find particularly suspicious. Angela was cooking some breakfast for the both of them. The tv blared in the background, something about soaring unemployment rates as Angela chimed in.

“Damn right it’s soaring, ain’t no friggin jobs!”

Jane just sat relaxed, not commenting. Angela had been out of work too. She was laid off from the retail store she’d been a manager at for nearly 20 years. One day, the executives just sold the business off and that was it. Everyone was given two weeks severance and three months of additional health coverage. Jane yelled out.

“Holy shit!”

“What?”

“Holy shit!” Jane repeats.

“What is it?!”

“I’m on TV!”

The TV reporter begins narrating the story as the video of Jane beating up the camera that first night, is on tv.

TV Reporter: “It seems county residents, or one acting on their own behalf, is outraged at the vast number of cameras that seem to be multiplying at major traffic intersections. This person took matters into their own hands just two nights ago as you can see in the video behind me. Slamming what seems to be a stick used for pole vaulting into the cameras at Mooney Pond Rd and N. Ocean. This was sent to us by an anonymous source and we sent field reporter, Emma Singer out to the site to check it out, Emma? “Hey Jennifer, Scott…a chilly night out here, I’ve been watching cars speed through this light for the last 30 minutes as we survey the damage but only two cars set the camera flash off. One had pulled up a little too far into the pedestrian walkway while the light was red, and the other car was clearly not going to slam on its brakes only 25 feet from the light while doing over 55mph. That by the way is the speed limit on this road, and might I add this is while coming down what seems to be a massive hill. That woman will definitely get a ticket at any light with these types of monitoring systems, and tickets like these can vary by state, some as high as $350 in California. Now, I caution our viewers when I say “any other” light because there’s no way that citizen is going to be receiving a tiny little ticket in the mail because both cameras here have been obliterated by our masked friend. And that there is the question I pose to our viewers….what would you consider this person to be? A community watchmen of sorts that some might hold in high regard for finding a small way to get back at state and local governments, or is it a derelict, a town nuisance that deserves to be put in a juvenile hall for the hot tempered and possibly dangerous acts you see here on the video? That Jennifer, Scott and viewers back home, I will leave up to you to decide.

Scott chimes in: “I don’t know Emma, I’m on the fence with this one…I just got one of those tickets and I was completely unaware that it even existed. Did you know it existed Jennifer?”

Jennifer: “Well, I can’t say I knew right away but recently my daughter had gotten one and the girl barely has a job coming out of high school, so my husband and I got stuck paying for it. From what I hear, it doesn’t affect your insurance though and maybe it keeps people from blowing through red lights, but I often think that can’t be avoided if you panic or the weather’s bad….I don’t know…you just never know I guess,” Jennifer finishes with a smile.

“Well you can see our local pole attacker’s hissy fit on our website and post it to your twitter or facebook account. Or you can tell us what you think on our website, we always love our viewers’ feedback, and I think this one will raise a few good arguments. You’ll be able to find it under the heading “Correcting Unfair Neighborhood Tyranny.” We can’t take credit for such a title. That is exactly what the title of the video is being called on youtube as well.”

“Well good God hunnie, you’re a local celebrity,” giggles Ange.

“I can’t believe it,” says Jane.

“We didn’t even post last night’s yet,” says Ange.

“I know….but we have to load it onto a computer from a public area under someone else’s information.”

“So what, that’s fine. Why don’t you use that women’s purse?” asks Ange.

“I don’t want to use it more than once,” says Jane.

“Well didn’t she have a library card in there or a license? It’s not like you can’t go to her library and sign up for a card and rent a computer for a couple bucks.” says Angela.

“Hmmm, I guess that could work,” says Jane.

“Oh yea, Lizzy does it all the time. You know I can’t afford a computer for the girls” continues Ange.

Jane starts mumbling to herself.

“If there is a library card, there’s no way she’d cancel the friggin thing, and it’s not like I’m taking out any books with it.”

Sifting through the purse she finds it.

“Middle Country Public Library, Patricia Miller…….sorry Patricia.”

“It doesn’t even have a picture on it” says Angela.

“Perfect.”

Together they load the video onto Youtube under the same account that Jane used last. Surprisingly it wasn’t restricted or deleted.

“Janie, take a look at that!” Ange whispers loudly. 461,267 hits!”

“Where….where does it say that?!” asks Jane.

“Right there, under the title, by your username” Angela points.

“Oh my friggin God. That can’t be right” Jane continues.

“Oh it’s right hunnie, and that’s all from one night!” Ange exclaims.

Jane’s heart drops for a second. She’s noticeably silent.

“Are you getting nervous?” Ange asks.

Jane swallows without responding.

“Because if you’re getting all nervous I’ll slap some sense into you.”

Jane steadies her eyes on the screen.

“Let me remind you sweetie that those freakin cameras……..(she pauses and lowers her voice before her checking her neighbors in the library)…Little Jake would be here right now if it wasn’t for those goddam things, so you cut it out” says Ange.

“I’m cutting it out” says Jane.

“Good, now load that other video up and let’s get out of here.”

Jane looks around and no one’s paying attention to them. There must’ve been 10 computers there and with muted volume, the video played on the screen to no audience other than themselves. They laughed as a person wearing a stocking and a black winter hat was shooting a child’s plastic watergun at a lightpost and the lightpost was growing hair. The location then changed, showing what definitely could be described as a woman. The boots were so tiny, with black fur liner escaping the fluffy tops, the black sweat pants hugged too closely to a cute little ass, even the wool hat was worn too high on the forehead to be a man, but truly the most definitive factor was the way this person held the big plastic gun….it was so similar to that of a woman reaching high to water hanging plants. It was effeminate, endearing and uncoordinated. There was such an innocence to her fury and that it was impossible not to relate. This was something we all wished we could do, and as incapable of doing something like this, as this person looked, she was doing it anyway. They called the video “Correcting Unfair Neighborhood Tyranny – Again” and clicked “submit post.”

Jane’s brother worked for the highway maintenance and repair union upstate and although they barely talked, with all the recent events in Jane’s life, they’d become a bit closer. Well, we can say they were becoming close but really, he would check in with her, and she would never answer the phone. She reached out to him that day when Ange and her got back home from the library. He was so surprised and happy to hear from her that if any way in the world he could help, he would. Jane described to him that she wanted to build a coy pond in her backyard as a stress-relieving project. Instead of digging out the entire backyard foundation, she wanted some assistance in the name of explosives.

“Sure we’ve got plenty of that stuff lying around…half the time, we’re blowing mountains further back from the roads so we can expand a couple lanes,” he’d said.

“Oh, that sounds like fun,” Jane egged him on.

“Yea, it’s pretty cool for sure…so how much do you think you would need…I mean, you’ve gotta be pretty careful with this stuff ya know.”

“Yes, I know…can’t I extend the fuse as far as I want by adding more…what’s it called, like, wick or whatever it’s called?”

“Haha, umm yea, I know what you mean, and yes, you can extend it. Half the time we’re dropping it down 30 foot chutes that we burrow into the rock and we’re able to light the fuse from the top.”

“Well, what’s the best way for me to get it….I wouldn’t think you could mail it?”

“Nah, probably not the smartest thing to do, but you know what? I can shove off from work tomorrow early, since it’s Friday and drive it on down to ya…it’s only an hour or so.”

“Could you? That would be amazing, this way I can start on the pond this weekend.”

“Sure J, not a problem. How’s everything else going?”

“Hanging in there…Angela’s taking care of me, keeping me company.”

“Great, tell her I said hi and I’ll thank her for everything when I get there…should be around 6pm or so.”

“Not a problem, and will do…you’re the best!” says Jane.

“Ha! Please, I’ve barely been able to do anything….see you soon,” he said.

“So now we’re blowing things up?” asked Angela after listening to the conversation.

“Yes,” replied Jane without hesitation. “I don’t know if the paint is enough or if people are getting tickets. The only way I could know for sure is if I blow up those system control boxes that are attached to the poles or sitting on the sidewalk,” says Jane.

“Well, why don’t we just start killing the people setting the cameras up, and maybe even their families too?” jokes Angela.

“Oh stop, we’ll just lay the dynamite on top of the box, light it and drive away…easy as that,” says Jane.

“Easy as that?” says Ange. “Who the hell knows what kind of damage can be done with that. Correct me if I’m wrong here but didn’t I hear your brother say he blows away the sides of mountains for a living?”

“Yes, but that’s because the thing is buried in between two tiny inches of rock.” “I don’t care if it’s buried 200 feet from me, I still want nothing that powerful so damn close.”

“Let’s just try it….we don’t know what it will do unless we try.”

“Fine. As long as we’re far as hell away before you light that thing. I don’t need some friggin traffic light flying toward us as we’re driving away,” says Ange.

“It won’t,” says Jane.

Later that evening, unknown to the ladies, a late nite talk show host named Conan O’Brien picked on the viral video and made a parody of the newest scene. While playing the video on a screen behind him, he comes out in a white painter’s outfit with a Wagner household paint sprayer, and in front of him at the edge of the stage are clamoring paparazzi. As they begin to snap flash photos of him, he covers his eyes and at first gets annoyed, but as the flashes continue without mercy, his eyes and demeanor changes, he starts to snarl and attacks them by spraying water out of his Wagner paint sprayer. The crowd roared as he wore a shirt under his overalls that copied the acronym of the consistent title by which our assailant had been posting her videos. Since it’s a word that cannot be said or viewed on public television, the station blurred it out even though Conan had replaced the vowel with a discontented matronly silhouette. The monologue followed:

“If anyone sees, what I have to believe is a woman, running around their neighborhood with a bucket of paint and a stocking over her face, please……do me a favor, ask her how much she charges for a 2-bedroom…..(the crowd chimes). No really, ask her. I mean….this chick gets shit done! Imagine if women like this worked at the DMV? I’m telling ya…..no but really, if you do see her, give her a hug for me. Tell her thanks so much for bringing back the SuperSoaker……my neighbors called me cheap when I gave it to their kid for Hanukkah. I thought it was a great present…I later found out they weren’t Jewish…..and secondly, I want to thank this sweet Mother Theresa for giving us the best possible name for a crime fighter we could have never gotten away with....ahn ahhn (pointing to his shirt and raising his eyebrows in excitement). Everyone roared and started cheering the word over and over until the tv station had to just play a steady long bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep over the dialogue before Conan could calm them down with his long gangly arms and his flawless one-liner “be cool my babies.” He then pointed back to his shirt again “ahn, ahn” raising his eyebrows again and getting a brand new roar out of the crowd before posing and flexing his scrawny frame.

The video’s popularity flew through high school laptops, smartphones, emails and eventually to yahoo news’ top articles, which offered an editorial write-up pinned next to the youtube video of Jane’s Rambo-style slaughter. The article mentioned no name or ID for the perpetrator but a disclaimer that the news station is in no way condoning or introducing the behavior of the law-breaker but rather revealing what is already accessible to the public as a discredited, irrational act by a citizen. Below the news story were thousands of comments by readers, almost split evenly by supporters and haters. Often the argument was about the name given to her rather than the ethics behind the act itself. Unbeknownst still to Angela or Jane, this video circulated the globe in a matter of 24 hours and has become the most watched clip ever, just above “Charlie Bit Me.”

Jane’s brother pulls into the driveway at 6:45 and pulls a wooden box from his trunk. Ambling up the walkway, Jane opens the door before he’s halfway there and they meet each other’s smiling glances. Her brother is ecstatic to see her so happy.

“Look at you! You look great!”

“Aww thanks…come in, how was the drive?”

“Oh not too bad, I know I’m a little late but that traffic is ridiculous as always.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Oh no, are you kidding? I’m glad I can help…it’s the first thing you’ve let me do for you in who knows how long.”

“Oh you do too much as it is, please….and thanks so much for bringing it….whatever it is,” says Jane nonchalantly.

“Oh, they’re called “Half-Sticks”. I didn’t want you blowing the foundation of your house off the map so these should do the trick. Half the power, but more than enough to blast a great hole by sectioning off the area in quadrants…you know what I mean by quadrants?”

“Oh, of course….I plan on having four holes in areas that I can just drop one into, then drag the fuse to my back door and light it from there.”

“Exactly….and if I were you, I’d just let the neighbors know you’ll be doing this for a short amount of time so they’re not alarmed.”

“Yup, will do.”

“Oh, and maybe put a plastic tarp over the back of the house so no rocks shatter windows.”

“Great idea!” exclaims Jane.

Saying hi to Angela and giving her a big hello hug, he breaks the following silence with an offer for dinner. The two are excited to get away from this conversation, the house and anything that could offer more revealing interpretations to Jane’s ideas.

At dinner her brother reminisces about the times they fought when they were younger and how different they are now compared to then. He brings up the time they were on a road trip with their parents; him and her in the backseat and their parents in the front. Somehow they had found a pack of matches to play with, and he had sat there and tried to light one match at least fifteen times. He’d stick the match between the folded back of the book and the flint stripe, pinching the two paper flaps together so tightly that when he pulled, he’d ripped the match head right off the stem. When he finally did get it, they watched the match burn together until it extinguished before their fragile eyes. He was three years younger than her. It was summertime and Jane was wearing tiny shorts that exposed her pale legs while sitting Indian style in the backseat. He’d pondered whether the match was still hot even after watching it burn completely out. He placed it on Jane’s translucent leg and she began to scream in pain. As he told this story again at the table, here and now, he began to cry. Apologizing for stealing the moment’s innocence, and destroying whatever trust she’d had in him; he will always regret doing it. He said over and over to her that he should’ve tested it on himself. If he was such a big shot, then why not his leg? He should have been protecting her, not hurting her, and yet, at that moment, sitting in the backseat with his best friend and guardian, his mind said to do it to her. As Angela tried to console him and Jane grabbed at every word to relegate his breakdown, he looked right through the both of them.

“There must be something in all of us that makes us do what we do…. and I’ve tried to find it, I’ve tried to reason with it, to understand what balance, what mixture of immaturity, youth, jealousy and love added up to that moment….and still now, and for the rest of my life, I’ll never really know. It is truly beyond my own comprehension, and yet I’m me.”

Jane wanted to get right down to business when Ange and her got home. She started twisting fuse extensions onto the explosives so they could be lit from afar. She tested a length of fuse about ten feet long and timed its disintegration from beginning to end; 6 seconds. She figured they would need at the least 15 seconds to drive away and not worry about flying debris. Angela agreed that should be fine especially if there were stores along the corner of a turn that could block the car as she made a right. The beauty about having a long extended fuse is that she could actually let Jane out and have her jump back into the car so she could pull up to the light without looking suspiciously far back from the traffic signal. They’d always waited until no one was around to see them anyway, but this was another way of justifying their safety to herself. Once the light turned green, she could light the fuse, and they would be off. They had no idea which light they would do since they really hadn’t driven around to seek out more. Little did they know, the whole country was taking part in this underground exercise. All other disgruntled families, young high schoolers and street artists were doing their part. Some were caught climbing the poles and putting little transparent stickers with the stencil of the middle finger directly over the lens. Any photo taken was a big flip of the bird to the authorities. Others climbed the poles and had a friend throw a rock up to them to start bashing the metal encased eye right into itself. People wouldn’t stand for another reason to pay a ticket, and more and more videos were put on youtube of kids wearing masks with handpainted t-shirts that said “We Love C.*.N.T.”, “God Bless C.*.N.T., I AM C.*.N.T.” The commonality of the exercise led the authorities to be on high alert; staking out possible spots, especially local to where the practice began. As Jane and Angela jumped in the car and started off to survey a great spot, they brought with them a car full of half-sticks of dynamite, two barbecue grill lighters, a video camera, pantyhose and black wool hats. Jane was amped up and directing Angela to Route 25. It wasn’t too far away but it was a main road for sure. In all, Jane had only really been doing this for about 5 days so it wasn’t odd for them to have not checked certain areas. They’d barely even canvassed 1/20^th of the county. They passed several small strip malls, a Ruby Tuesday, Petco, Radio Shack, AutoZone and a Lucille Roberts before seeing a little yellow sign that said “Photo Enforced.” The up-turned square sign had its typical traffic light on it and a tiny sign below it. It’s the type of sign you only notice when you’re looking for it. Just like a person trying to park, they’re going to be forced to read the signs. Now all drivers must take their eyes off the road before every stoplight to see if they need to slam on the brakes or not. Angela drives by it.

“What do you think? This is a main road and it’s a bit early,” Angela said.

“I don’t see many cars though, a couple in the parking lot but those stores aren’t open so no one’s going in and out,” Jane said.

“You want me to circle around?”

“Yea, let’s see where you should let me out.”

They pull a U-turn and Jane decides about ten feet before the breaker box, she’ll jump out and start to unravel the fuse as she walks up to the box. The fuse was like a cord wrapped around a hair dryer.

“Why don’t you unravel those things before you get out?” Angela asked.

“Because they’re sitting back there all together in a box, I didn’t want them getting tangled…plus I don’t know how much I’m gonna need,” said Jane.

“Yes you do, you measured each fuse the same length. You aint got any other option. We have fifteen seconds from when you light it.”

“Yea, yea, stop bantering me, you’re getting me all nervous” says Jane.

Making her second U-turn, Angela pulls up to the curb and Jane gingerly jumps out unraveling the cord in a counterclockwise motion of her hand. She’s walking with her head down and her hat and pantyhose on. Angela begins filming with her passenger window down. She creeps beside Jane at the pace of her steps. Getting within feet of the box, Jane stops to unwrap the fragile string, like letting out a kite. She leans up to put the stick on the metal cabinet.

“Janie!”

Jane looks up and over at Angela, and then to the parking lot. Two men are running towards her. Their hands drawn at their sides, they’re gaining in distance but hunching like scampering gorillas.

“Stop what you’re doing?!” Jane says nothing.

“I said put it down lady!”

“No thanks” Jane yells.

“It’s not worth it lady, just put it down.”

“You’re not worth it!” she yells.

The officer begins to talk loudly but is given no forum.

“People like you are the reason my kid’s dead so you can go fuck yourself,” Jane voices adamantly.

Angela continues filming.

“Lady, you keep this up….”

She interrupts and yells over them again.

“If someone’s responsible for your kid’s death, you wouldn’t do something about it?! This is your fucking laziness, your need for higher paychecks so you can sit on your fucking asses and have machines do the work for you.”

“Lady, if you don’t put that fucking thing down, we’re gonna put you down!” the aggravated officer yells.

Out of the silent breaths between them came a taunting, fearless cackle. Angela’s hand started to shake.

“Are you kidding?! Is that a threat you fat piece of shit?”

The officers stood prepared and quiet.

“I’ve never hurt anyone with what I’ve done, and the first thing you do is threaten my life? I pay your fucking salary. You hear me?”

The other officer responds.

“Yes, we hear you.”

Jane talks to her hands, “it’s amazing what people can do. It’s amazing what we can accomplish when there’s nothing to lose.”

She lights the fuse. The cops tuck lower in shock.

“God dammit lady!”

“This all needs to be done,” she looks up and yells. “And it will be…over, and over, and over.”

“Shut the fuck up lady!”

Angela yells “come on Janie, get in!”

Jane starts pacing towards the car.

“Stay where you are!” the officers scream.

She dismisses them and literally starts to skip back to the car, smiling and fearless. The fuse is halfway burnt down as the first shot rang out. Angela’s body jolted at the bang that sent her friend’s body flailing to the floor. She was still 10 feet from the car. The cops started screaming as if to cause a commotion that would subdue the extent of their action. Angela just stared in shock at Jane lying there. She couldn’t tell if she was hit in the head or the back, but Jane didn’t even move. Like she was there in an instant, and gone in the next. The cops yelled to Angela.

“Are you gonna listen now?!”

Angela didn’t hear a word.

“You’re an accomplice! If you move…”

A huge explosion brightens Angela’s face and her milky white skin. The control locker burst into flames as the outer shell flew 30 feet through the parking lot. It rolled to a stop as smoothly as a metal shoebox. Smoke billowed from the sidewalk as the cops lay flat looking up; shielding their eyes. Angela sat deaf as she looked forward at the road and back at Jane. She mouthed one last goodbye as she let her foot off the brake. The car moved forward as men’s voices yelled lowly in the background. She rolled up the window and drove over the sensor under the red light. No gunshots rang out, no flash burst through the car. She would feel no fear of ever being discovered. She knows exactly what she must do. She turns off the camera.

An Attempt at Short Fiction - "The 3-Day Rule"

2010-03-12T05:45:00.000-08:00

Scratching his head, a stray hair lands on his phone. He's been staring at it. Not at the hair, but the phone. He’s debating whether or not to pick it up and call her.

“It's only been a day,” he mumbles to himself. Stretching his arms way up as he looks in the mirror.

"Meeting someone at a nightclub is an automatic disaster.”

He begins to yawn and speak simultaneously.

“It yawlways yidge….”

Pacing his room, he peeks at the clock next to his bed.

"7:05. The perfect time.”

He smiles at the mirror with his arms wide open, shrugging and talking at it.

”There’s some irony there….you’ve gotta admit. You looked at the clock at the perfect time, no? Everyone’s home on a Sunday night at seven.”

He points at himself and bounces his finger in a confirming gesture. His gut says to call, but lately his instincts are far from helpful. He remembers a conversation he had with a girl five weeks ago, right before they stopped seeing each other.

"You come on a bit strong," she said.

"I come on strong?” he exclaimed. “I text you, and then I don't hear anything back for like three hours?"

"Yea so...."

"So ok, well maybe that’s not huge but one of your responses was like - "busy in the dark room."

"Well I was!"

"Well a response like that doesn't warrant a response on my part. It's sort of a smack in the face."

"How?!"

"Because you're taking the time to text me, yet it's a meaningless status text that has no emotion. A text like that should come a little over a year-in, and yet we've only gone on three dates."

"Oh please...I'm the one that contacted you."

"Yea, after a week of me not calling......and that's when you finally texted me "where ya been stranger?" That to me is the "oh no, I'm losing him" text. I'd better touch base, show him I care, but fault him for not reaching out."

"You're nuts."

"Nooo......I just think we have major communication issues...which definitely isn't good this early in the game."

"Well, I don't play games?!"

"My nutsack you don’t…."

Shaking off the memory, he decides to ask some of his friends their opinion. His friend John's been doing well......dating more than just one girl for like five months now. He's his first call.

"Wait, so when did you meet her?"

"Last night."

"No way."

"Why?"

"I would wait until Wednesday, maybe even Thursday, depending how she acted."

"How she acted?"

"How you both acted...towards each other."

John asks, "were you two making out?"

"No, nothing like that."

"Was she excited, laughing a lot, touchy feely......any electricity?"

"Well........"

"Forget it...you're waiting til Wednesday. If you were making out, I'd say call her today. Since you weren't; automatic 3-day rule."

"Yea but Wednesday is four days. "Doesn’t that just look like I'm being obnoxious."

"I'm telling you, Wednesday it is. That's what I'd do. It's not like the girl was sitting there grabbing your junk at the bar.”

"No, definitely not."

"Cause you know that shit happens??"

"Yea, of course….but she wasn't like that."

"How'd you say goodbye? What happened....give me details."

"Well, first off I was with Paul and Kevin....we were meeting Paul's chick at some bar loungy concoction....a real shithole if you ask me. Couldn't hear or see a goddam thing in there."

"Who picked the place?"

"The birthday girl...no one we knew. She wanted to go there specifically, and we found out why pretty quickly."

"What do you mean?"

" Well, we were the only white people in the place, and she was the only one out of the girls, grinding up on some black dude."

"You guys were in an all black club?!"

"Something like that......we had no idea, we'd met these girls in-line outside. Two of them, well-dressed, about our age....white.....and we got to asking if they were there for a party also. And of course, they were...it turns out, it was the same one as us."

"Jesus....that was easy."

"Exactly...which I found so ironic...with the timing and all. I mean, out of the hundreds of minutes she could've strolled up to the place, there we were, standing right behind them.

"What's her name?"

"Who? The girl I met?

"(he pauses)….Wow, you really like her…..”

“What? Why?”

“Because you’re making like you don’t know what girl we’re talking about when I ask you a simple question like “whats her name? By re-asking the question, you’re taking time to draw a mental picture of her and replay your memories from the night. It’s obvious.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Ah ha! Even aggression….you love this girl.”

“Easy does it psychiatrist…..you’re blowing this way out of proportion.”

“Sure, sure, whatever you say my man.”

"Well, her name's Sara. By far the hottest girl in there."

"You two, like, dance or anything? How'd you get to talking?"

"Since the place was so crowded, I had nowhere really to stand without getting bumped. All the girls were tucked into this circular booth, and we were just hovering at their feet.”

“Uh huh.”

“A spot on the corner of the booth opened when some chick had to use the bathroom, or get a drink or whatever, and I just went and sat down. She was right next to me.

“What’d you say?”

“I don’t know, something like “you pick this place?”

"Ha! Perfect.....did she laugh?"

"Yea, thank god.”

"So she's got a sense of humor..."

"Absolutely. And you know me, the first question I ask.... "what do you do in your spare time."

“Yup, that’s your fave.”

“And listen to this..... I just so happened to throw her name in at the end.”

"Re-stating her name to show you're paying attention...perfectly played."

"And from that, I got some great information out of her...she's a runner....

"Nice..."

"She's in finance..."

"....double nice."

"She's blonde."

"What?@!!”

“Yup! I know…”

“Hold the phone....you? Mr. I only date chicks with a tan, Mediterranean look about em’ found a blonde that tickles his Newt Gingrichie?"

"Yup. And could you believe!?! A finance chick who loves to run?!"

"No, honestly I can't....you with a blonde?!"

"Oh come on!"

"It's always been straight dark hair, just past the shoulder....tan skin, dash 'a sexy...and you're off."

"Ahh whatevs...you never knew me in high school."

"True."

"Well, she wasn't what I was looking for but exceeded expectations, a hundred-fold."

"You tell her you do triathlons?"

"I hadn't even mentioned it until she asked me what I liked to do....I was still stunned she'd finished two half marathons last year."

"Very impressive, this could be the girl for you bro."

"I know, I thought the same thing."

"I'm not going back on the Wednesday telephone call though."

"Really?! It just seems so weird to me, or sly...... How long did you wait with Ranelle?"

"Let me think…….I met Ranelle with you on a Thursday, right?"

"Yea, either a Thursday or a Friday."

"Right, so...I waited to call her the following Thursday."

"A week?!!"

"Absolutely."

"That's not even the 3-day rule."

"Yea, well she seemed like one of those girls that thinks she's the shit, so I had to let her stew a bit."

"But you really liked her the night you met?"

"Hell yea, instant connection."

"And with an instant connection, you waited a week...."

"Yup..."

"And there you two are, banging away, five nights a’plenty...havin a fucking ball."

"Yesssss sir.”

“You’re a dick.”

“But remember dude, it takes a while. She didn't call me back for two days after I'd left her a voicemail...so don't get upset if you don't hear from her right away."

"No, I won't, but I'm also not taking one doctor's recommendation without a second opinion."

"Oh yea....who you calling?"

"Tommy boy...."

"He's been snagging a couple here and there so he knows what he’s doing...see what he says and let me know."

"Will do my man...thanks"

"No problemo."

Excited as to the progress he's making, he's no longer nervous about calling tonight because he doesn't suspect he will. It's 7:42 and any window of opportunity to make such a call would have to happen before 9:00, otherwise it's just plain rude to call any later on your first attempt. He sets these rules in stone and relaxes. Lying in bed, he starts to dial Tom when he hears a voice yelling through his door.

"I think you guys are nuts!!"

It's his father.

"And your mother thinks the same."

"And why would she think that?"

"Because I'm on the phone with her."

" These walls have any fucking insulation?!"

"He’s complaining about insulation" his dad relays.

"Tell her my life story while you're at it."

"Like you won't?! If you like someone, you should just call them she says!"

"Yea, I agree but it might seem a bit desperate if I'm calling someone the day after I meet them!"

"I dont think so...what if she wants you to call her?"

"I think if she wants me to call her, she'll only build me up more in her mind as someone who's busy and independent, and not overly eager."

"So now you're playing games?"

"I haven't had too much success the last two times so I'm seeking consultation."

"Don't you think you're being a bit hard on yourself...you've only been out of a serious relationship for 6 months."

"I've been outta the game for nearly eight whole years with those two girls....things have changed I guess."

"For that amount of time, you've earned some tactical understanding of women, yet you're doubting your ability to reel em in."

"Please….Dr. Phil."

"You're mother wants to talk to you."

"Oh jesus....where's the phone?"

"Where do you think? The only other one’s in the basement."

He opens his door and walks out in the living room. The walls are ivory-colored and it makes for a much brighter spectacle than his eyes were prepared to handle. He could taste the conversation they'd finished, lingering in the air. Walking through it like a cloud of knowledge and experience, he holds his breath. His father's wearing the velvet robe he's had since 1976. Mom had gotten it for him as a Christmas gift right after they were married. He still wears it even after their cordial divorce. Grabbing the phone, he clears his throat and swallows what's left. His mother's an all-consuming addict for details far beyond the likes of John who just got a hint beyond the short-and-sweet version.

"Hi hunny!" mom exclaims.

"Hey babe, how's things?"

"So what's this I hear, you met someone and you're already applying the 3-day rule?"

"What do you mean..."already"?

"Well, you just met the girl!"

"The best and only time you use the rule is in the beginning, mom."

"I know what it is……what I meant to say is, why ya gonna wait to call her? You've always said you hate girls that play games. They’re the ones that fall for the idiot guy because deep down he really doesn't like or respect them…or something like that."

“Yes, that’s true. I just figure I’ll take a carefree approach. Ya know, the less you act like you care, the more they think you don’t need them.”

“That’s games!”

“WELL! Maybe I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore. I figure I’ll try someone else’s advice since I ain't batting a thousand.”

“Oh stop….it can’t always work out.”

“Yea but it was probably me scaring em off.”

“How do you know?!”

“Both of them told me, actually. The first one told it to my face and the other made up some crap about dating a pancake connoisseur.”

“Ha! Pancakes….you’re crazy….you’re being too hard on yourself….pancakes, seriously?

“I don’t know.”

“Jeez…well yea baby, maybe you should listen to your friends then.”

“I know!! That’s what I’m saying!”

“Nah, nah…. I’m just kidding. Stop it. You just need to be yourself.”

“I have been. That’s exactly what I’ve been. Problem is, it’s me being the product of a four year relationship. I’m used to being one way and now that’s too much. Seeing a mirage of potential and becoming excited about it is the worst thing you can do."

“Your imagination can play tricks…you should know that!”

“You know me, I’m all serious and analytical. I just want to make sure she’s smart. That she thinks the goal of life is to discover as much as possible but leave something behind.”

“Come on….you can’t go into it like this…so methodical and deliberate. Have fun! You’re young, you’re handsome….stop thinking so negative. No one’s gonna like the guy standing in the corner with a puss on his face.”

“I’d like a puss on my face.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

“Forget it. “

“Why?”

"Nothing…you didn’t catch what I meant…it was a joke.”

“Oh…hunnie, you need to stop stressing yourself out…these things come naturally. You can’t force them.”

“I know, I’ve been there before.”

“Exactly……see, you’re so smart. You’ve always been so smart. I’m so proud of you.”

“Alright, alright….”

“Well!! You are! Whaddayu want me to say.”

“No, I know, don’t get me wrong, I love your praises…you’re always the best at picking me up. I just know your biased, and let’s be honest, what do I really have going for me where I’m such a catch?”

“Are you kidding?!”

“Don’t answer that, don’t answer that, please I’m begging, it was rhetorical, I apologize. What I meant to say is, this is what parents do….and I figure you’re supposed too. I guess I would if I was a parent. No matter what I do or say you’re going to have my back and tell me I’m the best thing in the world, that my you know what doesn’t stink, that I can do no wrong, yada yada…..and maybe that’s a bit of the problem.”

“What’s the problem?”

“What do you mean, what’s the problem?”

“I lost you there hunnnie, I’m sorry, you said you’re shit doesn’t stink or something and all I could think about was when you guys were little babies, and yes, of course, you get used to it but man, when you first change a diaper…..”

“I got it, I got it….thanks.”

“Well!! It’s the truth sweetie….”

“Yup, for the first time, you’ve told me the truth…and in regards to shit smelling like itself; appreciate it.”

“Oh stop…what were you asking? Tell me again. I’m listening, I promise.”

“Aww you promised, ok then, I re-tell (belittling her in his worst Russian accent).

“Oh shush and just tell me already.”

“I was just saying, part of the problem might be that we’re babied too much, or that we believe we’re god’s gift because we were brought up to believe we’re god’s gift. That we each aren’t just an insignificant drop of rain in a massive ocean that’s been building for billions of years. Like the world revolves around me, like we’re always young and can't make mistakes, and that love is this thing that happens to everyone and that we should never settle because the right one is just around the corner, or because our worth is far more than the worth of the one seeking us, and I don’t mean financial.”

“Well you are worth it hunnie.”

“That’s it right there….if I am, than why do I know deep down that when I call her, it’ll be too soon, too desperate, too stalker?”

“It won’t be! She’s your age, or damn close to it, right?”

“Yes.”

“These girls don’t play games anymore. They’re looking to settle down once they’re past 26 or so. For a guy that knows numbers so well, I figure you should know this.”

“Know this? I am a numbers guy, but understanding the psychology behind a girl’s wacko thought processes has nothing to do with numbers.”

“In a way it does. If she’s too young, it’s not gonna work. If she’s too old, you almost wonder what’s going on and you need to find out some more details. This girl’s right in between right?" Age is numbers.”

“Yea, yea…..however retarded that just seemed, you actually made a shred of sense.”

“That’s a lot for me.”

“I know!!”

She laughs and he follows because she knows she has her moments of excess air just gathering in her brain.

“So just call her already and quit being a baby.”

“Fine! But let me call Tom first.”

“Why?!”

“Love you, gotta go, you’re the best!!!…muah”

“Fine….(she exhales in a monotone gesture) love you too, good luck.”

“Oh stop….you were very helpful.”

“Yea yea, I know, alright. Fill me in when you hear something.”

“Will do.”

“K, byyye”

Dialing Tom, he looks at the clock and it’s almost 8:28pm. He thinks to himself there’s still just enough time to figure it out, it’s not 9 yet. Tom picks up.

“Duder, how’s it heezlin?”

“Decent bro, decent….listen, I’ve got a question for you.”

(Silence)

“Hello?”

“Yea, I’m here” Tom says. “Go ahead.”

“Jesus, Walter Hudson, am I bothering you during a late night snack?”

“No ya douche…I just didn’t think I had to say “Yes Frank, how can I help answer your question my dear troubled boy.”

“Ok, ok, fine…so, here goes, the other night Kevin and I went out with Paul and his chick and we met these girls right.”

“Yea I heard, you met some blondie….I never pegged you for a blonde.”

“Yup, heard it already…I know…it was weird. I never expected it either, but yea so anyway, here’s the question. Can I call her tonight, or is that too soon?”

“When did you guys go out?”

“Saturday night.”

Saturday, Saturdayyyy…..when was Saturday?”

“Yesterday.”

“Jesus Christ…the next day?”

“Shit!”

“You were thinking of calling her the next day?!”

“Yea so, what the fuck’s wrong with that?”

“Come on dude, you know the cardinal rule….it’s gotta be at least 3 days….and ya know what, I even think that’s too quick.”

“Fuck me, both you and John say the same thing.”

“And he’s doing pretty well for himself.”

“How is that too quick?! Like my life’s so goddam busy that picking up the phone to call someone’s impossible. Guaranteed she knows it ain’t imposssssssible. I’m not the fucking President. You don’t think that’s a dick move?”

“Not at all. That is the move, otherwise you’re jumping down her throat. You’re a single white male putting an ad in the Classifieds section “in dire need of female reproductive parts…anything warm place to drop my seed is preferable.”

“Wait, is that with the terrible grammar, or am I just a robot with a dick that works like a human?”

“Shut up.”

“Well, you’re off your ass. Like I give a fuck about fucking her….I barely even know the girl….”

“Crazier things have happened my friend.”

“Right?”

“Right.”

“Crazier things have happened meaning, a guy can call the next day and it can work out?”, I ask Tom.

“No, I meant crazier things have happened where people do sleep with each other in one night, they’re all not just looking to get into a relationship, be married and live happily ever after.”

“Wow, straight from the Charlie Sheen playbook. Like you’re some fucking Don Juan out to fuck anything that walks the streets. Did John call you within milliseconds of me calling and speak like the micro-machines guy to fill you in on everything he said? Because you two fucking geniuses are dopplegangers sitting on my shoulders, reading the same newspaper, shitting down my neck.”

“No, we did not speak, and no, I am not always just out to find sex.”

“Exactly, so the point is, what’s gonna go wrong if I call? She won’t think I’m the mature guy that sees what he likes and goes for it without playing games?”

“Everyone likes games.”

“I fucking hate games!”

“You like games, you just don’t know it.”

“No, I do know them, I don’t like them, but I have to play them if someone is playing them against me.”

“Ah ha!”

“What?! You can’t be Captain Desperate with a girl that’s playing hard to get…what the fuck’s that gonna achieve?”

“Nothing.”

“Exactly!”

(Tom’s silent)

“God dammit, would you cut it out with the silent treatment?”

“What?”

“How can I tell if this girl’s playing games, I haven’t talked with her for more than ten minutes?”

“What’d she seem like?”

“She seems like a great girl that wasn’t playing hard to get, has her shit together…a good job, a recently ended relationship…and it was a long one…and I felt a nice vibe going.”

“Eye contact?”

“Yup.”

“Any physical contact?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“What? That’s an important question.”

“Nothing.........there must’ve been a focus group you guys went too on dating that I missed. No, there was no contact.”

“Hmm….”

“But there was body language!” I desperately exclaimed.

“How so?”

“Ummm, I don’t know, kinda facing me when in conversation with others?”

“Are you asking me, or telling me?”

“Yea, there was body language…definitely, and oh, her friend said “absolutely go for it, she’s single.”

“So her friend liked you.”

“Yea, for sure.”

“Well that’s a good thing, because they’ll talk about the night as they head home and you’ll come up somewhere.”

“Well, they did take two different cabs home.”

“Whatever, I doubt that’s the last time they’ll ever talk about that night. Girls do AIM each other at work and shit…that’s like all this girl does everyday at her desk next to me….just random fucking giggling every twenty minutes.”

“Oh my god that’s so annoying…”

“Tell me about it….so I throw her like three glances a day trying to signal the fact that she’s getting on my nerves and she just says “sorry, my boyfriend’s hilarious.”

“Oh Jesus. Why don’t you rub it in there sweetheart….where’d you go to din din last night, did he open the door for you…..how’s he in bed...”

“Wow, you do a good gay voice.”

“I didn’t even realize, and don’t fucking compliment me!”

“Hey, here’s my most recent example….I’m kinda with Carissa now and I waited 5 days to call her.”

“Fucking A, really?”

“Yup.”

“And what’d you say?”

“I just left her a voicemail.”

“That seems to be the easiest way.”

“It’s the only way. You’re not gonna hang up the phone, she'll see the missed call. You’ll look more scared than before if you don’t leave a voicemail.”

“True.””

“You actually think this girl’s gonna pick up the phone?”

“I don’t know, I guess not…John said the same fucking thing.”

“Do you pick up the phone when you don’t know the number?”

“Not usually.”

“Well you didn’t give her your number right?”

“Nope.”

“Yea so, you’ll end up leaving her a voicemail and see if she calls you back.”

“Ok so I can do that then.”

“After four days.”

“Four days?! This is ridiculous! I would hate me if I was her.”

“Well, you do whatever you want to do, but I waited 5 days and here I am, happy as a pig in shit.”

“You know what shit smells like?”

“Shit?”

“Exactly.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s been a long night.”

“Then get some friggin sleep, and don’t fucking call her!”

“FINE!!”

He stands up from his bed and looks in the mirror. This tall standing mirror rests against his wall, just barely missing the ceiling. He turns to the side and sucks in a bit….”not bad” he says to himself while patting his stomach. Breathing several deep breaths, he looks at his phone. 9:01pm. He dials her number. The phone starts to ring. On the first ring he stares back at the mirror and loses concentration on the topics he’d prepared. The second ring blings by and he hopes she doesn’t pick up. He paces towards his hamper and on the third ring his mouth goes bone dry and he almost hangs up.

“Hello?”

“Yes, hello?”

“Yea who’s dis?”

“Umm, this is Frank, I was looking for Sara?”

“Sorry bro, wrong number.”

“Oh, (he pauses) …sorry about…”

“Yea no problem…(click).”

He exhales.......

Pushing out all he’d held in, he stares into the mirror with one hand halfway through his hair. He hadn’t even realized he’d pulled it tightly back while talking and still hadn’t let go. He lets go. Sitting down on his bed, the wooden headboard creaks and the mattress sounds like the thumbing of wet Styrofoam. He stares at his phone, her contact details fade to black. The memory of Sara Griffin disappears and anything he’d attached to it. He whispers to himself….”just a drop of rain.”

Several days later:

“So did you ever end up calling that girl we talked about?” his mom asks.

“Yup, I did.”

“You did?! And you didn’t tell me?!”

“Well..”

“Hold on a sec, let me get ready…(this is something his mother does, she runs to her couch to settle in for their nice long discussions)..”

“No need to get all comfy mom….”

“Oh damn, what happened…you waited too long?! She didn’t call you back? She was probably annoyed….I told you!”

“ Nah, nah no…..even worse.”

“Worse? What’s worse than no call back?”

“She gave me a fake number.”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“No!”

“Haha, yes…it’s not that big of a deal.”

“Oh you must’ve said something she didn’t like…did you say something? Can you recall what you said? Were you really drunk?”

“No mom, no, not at all. I’m not gonna be an asshole the first time I meet someone.”

“Well maybe you didn’t think you were coming off as one, but maybe you were being tough or macho…I don’t know…”

“I don’t know either…”

“Is it possible you just got the number wrong?”

“I doubt it ma….some girls just give out the wrong number to guys they’re not interested in.”

“Well why would she talk to you? That’s ridiculous, how could she not be interested….you must’ve screwed up the numbers.”

“Come on mom, me, numbers?”

“You’re right. You’re right, that’s right. You’ve always been so good with numbers.”

Honesty’s So Rare It Now Seems Misleading

2009-12-31T13:50:00.000-08:00

In motion, there’s the desire to do anything. To think about what could’ve been and what was…….what’s coming and where it ends……through passing cracks in the road below your pace, these things grow.

It’s winter. Lungs are filling with icy air every cold minute you spend moving. Shutters shoot through your legs as your arms reach out for whatever’s ahead. Whatever’s ahead is unknown, for nothing but the sun, tapping on your forehead through leafless passing trees, can know its course. You think back to your approach, who you’ve trusted, and why for some reason you’d thought they were normal; everyone thinks they’re normal. Your life’s going, but do you desperately need to know where?

A good catch, almost everyone around you is….and they’re right for thinking so. If you yourself don’t believe it, no one will. Just do what you feel is you, and some people will love you for it and others will fake it. And you watch, their own life’s chapters will play out like some Shakespearean tragedy. Their motives??? Welp, we know one thing…..they’re always burrowed in a foundation teaming with personal inadequacy…..a stew’s ingredients labeled two scolding parts selfish, one distilled part jealousy, and a curdled ladle of karma. An otherwise atrocious little meal, but something I’d devour with anyone who goes the opposite way towards logic. Let’s pick up the brush and reveal their story for it’s so easy to depict. Everything’s clear when clearing your head.

We’ll look at their actions, or lack thereof, and breakdown how they operate. They blatantly own an emptiness they can’t stomach admitting, nor believe is visible in the way they dress, speak or act. Each latches onto their persona as if completely different from the people they surround themselves with; inherently disregarding the reason they surround themselves with these people. Believing somehow that they’re better because their theory of independence means doing what they want, when really we know they’re doing what anyone they think is cooler’s doing. They’re too busy for anyone but themselves. Always starting the conversation, but never finishing it. Pointing out their accomplishments for reassurance, and evaporating nobility in humbleness. Brightening the light on others’ indiscretions without ever stepping out of the shadows. They’re kept up on the latest, the earliest. They’re friends with everyone, but no one’s really friends with them. They perform when trying to act nonchalant. The less attention they receive, the more they desire. The more they reveal, the less they’re willing to compromise. They think that someone else’s disinterest in them is actually a quality rather than a red flag; an aura of mystery and a challenge to conquer rather than noticing they’re staring at someone with little talent or personality. They put down your facts for they’ve not known the truth, and that can’t be. Disgust in their own ignorance is impossible and blame must fall on the warmest body. Commit til bored. Approve of mistakes when recyclable for leverage. Stare and judge, but accept no judgment. Always need and expect the best, but pack nothing but the ability to bring out their worst in you.

Whether posers, losers, fake or obnoxious, there's no doubt these people are in your way. I say, just fucking steamroll 'em. Be better and more valuable to this place. Offer more insight and thought to any conversation you can, and listen where you can’t. Add constructive advice where your experience has been similar, but don’t offer anything when it’s not your business at all. Find what you love doing and put its perfection at a close distance....if you do it long enough, you might become a guru, but if you don’t, you’ll still love doing it and never burn out the passion.

Don’t worry what other people around you are doing….you’ll drive yourself mad. You have no clue where their life’s headed. We all have 80 years at best….where are they gonna be at the end of those years that you won’t? All that’ll matter by then is health and family. If life should come down to one thing, it’s those you love right, and they unto you. Did you ever care that your grandparents weren’t millionaires? You loved them, and that’s it. Did you ever care that your parents weren’t millionaires? You loved them, and that’s what you knew. Will you, as a mother or father, be any different in anyone’s eyes to which these things matter? It’s within yourself that you must be comfortable with your position, your progress, your life …..and the many cracks you trot past. Like rings in trees, we wear these cracks like layers inside us…not on the outside. That’s for them; for anyone that still hasn’t thrown their sense of entitlement and ego out the door. But some day they will…..they’ll get it. They’ll grow up, shake off the façade they’ve held so close……and finally just start moving.

Holiday Wishes from a Non-Traditional Angle

2009-12-16T21:01:00.000-08:00

I think the holidays change for everyone, and by that I mean, the feeling about them. It all highly depends on the timing within one’s life. Its overall meaning as a tradition hasn’t changed, nor has the reasoning to stay consistent within such a pattern, but it comes down to what you’re expecting to get out of it, rather than what you’re putting into it. If heavily skewed towards the latter, you’ll definitely be peaches and cream, happy as a clam, (__Mad Lib joyful analogous cliché____). People should also be aware that there’s nothing wrong with a paradigm shift in the normally chipper clarity achieved through such holidays. In fact, life comes in cycles and those highs and lows will fluctuate just the same as everyday chapters reveal themselves within new grandchildren, children, marriage, jobs, goals, relationships and friends. Although there isn’t much low in this time of year, I’d wager there’s many that are trying to discover the uptick from the bottom of their cycle. As I say too many; life will go on. If you can grind on down to the essentials of this time, you might actually appreciate the strength in its foundation; roots you could never tear materially.

There’s obviously a transition we make; a day where our efforts become valiant, tacitly for the appreciation of youths, their impression of this time of year and why it should always be continued. So we should, and always will, continue it. For its personally fun to see their faces, and there’s an underlying beauty in being giddy for what you give someone. There’s nothing you can take away from this time that won’t be your companion to thought. We unconsciously work hard to remember the good and take positive aspects from our experience as lessons learned. In turn we grow, and in that expansion of ourselves…..the holidays, traditions, the days spent rising to the occasion and putting in the effort to make it the best you can, rather than expecting the world…….in those we then become our best….no matter where we are in our lives.

Have yourself an unbelievable time these next few weeks….whether its simple, creative, labored or invigorating….take it all in, for it’s been something that has made your life undoubtedly better, and shall forever, for those you will it.

A Soldier's Plight....of which I make assumptions

2009-11-19T13:48:00.000-08:00

The number of suicides amongst our armed forces is racking the public conscience; and it should. There’ve been over 140 active soldiers and something like 71 inactive ones, already this year (said the AP). As all statistics are, they’re better understood when compared to what’s common, perhaps what the numbers were in previous years, or not during wartime; but death no matter what, shouldn’t be a comparison. But that’s also not my point. The first number doesn’t bother me as much as the second.

A soldier’s sitting in the backyard at a barbecue. He’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt; blending back into society as we know it. Months earlier everyone feared for his life, respecting and missing him at the same time. They’re so glad the wait’s over cause he’s there now; sharing stares and a mutual drink. Mutual though, his happiness lingers beyond reach.

When you survive the denial of resources that make life easy, you learn you can live without them. You’re stronger, different, and less dependent because you did. How many people can say they fought exhaustion amongst starry nights to protect twenty sleeping men from an ambush? How many men can understand the scope of that task? Most of them never achieved such purpose in their lives, nor been given such massive responsibility back home. To ponder the idea of why some men survive, yet friends of theirs die....these things never leave. How many can come home to a life so simple, and not resent those around them; taking life for granted for the straight-and-narrow path has always just been.

Home isn’t so warm to someone without opportunity. Not every soldier’s jumping into a job on the Trading Desk at Goldman or spec'ing out blueprints as an Engineer for Boeing. Imagine the internal struggle when one day you’re holding a rifle, killing potential terrorists, saving lives and serving your country, and the next, you’re holding a spatula getting scolded by your more educated, younger boss.

I don’t know how many of us need motion in life. Craving direction or having a goal is important; monotony otherwise gets to be too much. In battle, you’re a hero. You’re the ultimate man; a survivor and a fighter. The distant comfort of family keeps you strong and mentally driven, for they need you back, and you’re doing this as much for them as yourself. As much as you yearn though, for that day back home, and fight to earn it, the minute you’re back, the fear of being regular, average and common.... the thought of never achieving such purpose or elevated respect again, is harder to handle than the drive to live.

What happens when a man’s most defining moment comes too early in life? I have to believe that struggle is what makes for the largest percent of the 71.

The Five Year Itch (Ladies, don't read this one, you won't like it...and it's mainly b/c I don't date guys)

2009-10-28T08:50:00.000-07:00

Some women get it out of their system in college, but that's because they didn’t have anyone. No guy to keep them from partying and hooking up so much that they eventually got over it. If it's in men, then I must've blew through it years ago. Even I was locked down during college but never felt this undying need for independence. And that was a relationship from second semester of Freshman year all the way through. Maybe I got a enough ass prior to college, to keep me happy. To me, p****, is p****, is P****...gorgeous thing, and I love it, but let's be honest...there's a million more things a girl needs to make herself appealing. It's amongst the search for these things that it all starts to get ugly.....nothing labial about it. The ugliness comes into play when a woman....I digress.....a girl.....doesn’t have enough time to herself. Time to herself...meaning....time to be single.....to go down on other guys...to experiment with girls, to drink their face off and dance on tables, to have any mother fucker with potent cologne and drenched wet hair grazing up against her just so she knows she's desired. Trust me....if you see a woman at 50 who's still craving it, it's because they got married too early, thought the grass was greener, and now look desperate trying to score a guy for superficial reasons, or just to prove they’ve still got game.

This does not pertain to older generations like our grandparents…that’s a whole other topic dealing more with women’s independence movements, social acceptance with divorce and society, separation during wartime…you name it….so this is relevant to our parents, ourselves, and generations to come. Girls in cities, hate to say it but, the itch is even worse and often longer in duration. The more options they have (i.e. people and entertainment), the more confusion and temptation combine to keep reality from setting in.

Love my mother to death, but she's the best example of having wished she'd seen more of a youthful life. She’d gotten married too early…hadn’t enjoyed being a woman in her twenties, had dated maybe three people before marriage, hadn’t experienced enough fun while young….and ultimately, it led to her obsession with getting divorced. What she did decide to end, now seems to be an overeager and premature decision in the aftermath. I don’t think people are all that different. And I would doubt chemically or emotionally that this wouldn’t need to happen to everyone, therefore, here’s a bit more about why I believe that "need" to be true.

I say it's 5 years because that's really just the length of the age bracket where it seems to happen the most. That does not mean they need 5 straight years of being single, or 5 total years to party and hook-up. From age 22 until about 27, these behaviors are most noticeable. So much change, so much lack of direction, it's by far the most prone time; especially for big city loves, and additionally for anyone who had a long relationship prior. I’m obviously biased. Eager to dissect the chosen paths of those I've loved; watching them firsthand, and analyzing their choices. I've had two serious relationships, each more than 3 years….both of which failed. In hindsight, I see myself unconsciously holding back the girls I was with….they'd proved this the minute they were free from my backyard tent (jk). After that first stint where the girl and I were shacked up in college, we broke up immediately after graduation. I guarantee you know three relationships that ended the exact same way...maybe even yours. In mine, I found out she moved in with two girls and lived for three years, just partying, enjoying herself in a fashion she'd damned to only losers, years prior. She'd point at those girls and despise their dancing on tables and screaming "Sweet Caroline", when really, they were just getting it out of their system earlier than her. There she was, two years later, living in a smaller sorority-style house in the city, enjoying her rightful and well-needed place.

The second relationship I had was different in the sense that you're older but she isn't. It's really the same stage as your previous girlfriend where she's mature when you begin dating but then a total mess with priorities and her own self come age 22. Although it lasted beyond that age, it shouldnt have. I was the circumstance holding back the bird that needed to fly. She’s now doing the exact same thing I mentioned of my previous ex....almost to a T (whatever that expression means). Having seen this already beforehand, it's not even odd to me anymore....in fact, the progression I now expect of anyone. Although a bird always returns to its home after it sees what the world has to offer, to be at home waiting, well you're just not a man. No one should do unfair....there's nothing too lose when you've lost yourself.

There's no way of taming the itch...no method by which to cull and abate what will rise and fall for the best reasons. So keep doing what we all tend to do when faced with sure failure...lose interest completely, remain desensitized and just flow.....for timing and fate does its thing, and there’s no hurt when you just don’t care anymore. What I’m really trying to convey is an awareness, not a bible to live by or a straight defamation of the female character…in fact I think it’s necessary for anyone to go through this, so they don’t end up like my mom, having regrets after 27 years of marriage. I also want people to understand that it’s not something they might’ve done. That it was never in their control to begin with and that they didn't lose it by turning a person off or unintentionally holding them back.....it's remaining cognizant that there's this weird time in one's life....for me, it always seems to be within the ages I've mentioned....but really, it's a time where, no matter what you might do, no matter what you might think, or what you might want and expect of someone else........it really just aint gonna happen.

The Grape

2009-10-07T07:23:00.001-07:00

An old wise philosopher once challenged a town when they professed luck of a young boy’s fate to avoid the draft, while his friend went off to fight. When comparing the circumstances, to most it would seem apparent, but to the old man and the luck of one over the other, he said “we’ll see.”

Disheveled sweats and bloodshot eyes she waited, not for a knight in shining armor but for a hint of comfort to walk through the hospital doors. Her hair was limp and lifeless along with her posture. The future couldn’t possibly hold happiness; no rainbow to follow the storm rolling in. Your body can only be so stressed. On any normal day, these are not her aesthetics. She is out of character and aloof, for her father’s fairing far worse than they’d expected.

She’d gone down to the lobby in a daze to meet her brother; to wait anywhere but that depressing room. The rubber slides through her hand as she waits atop the escalator…and she thinks of life as a cycle, constantly rotating and slipping by, so she tries to grip it tighter; to pause it…..if only for an instant.

Staring past everyone who enters, she notices a man carrying a big basket of fruit and she breathes disgust for she hadn’t thought of that. Following him with her eyes, he comes higher and closer and her head moves forward as if to sniff flowers. The cellophane doesn’t wrap completely around what’s overflowing the wicker, and one tiny grape tumbles out. To stop a man for something so insignificant; to speak for words have escaped her for hours now, it felt good not to care. Desensitized, she’d craved a little good. As the man disappears into the elevators she sighs and returns to pondering what her life will be like without dad.

Dreaming of her best memories of him, she’d agreed with herself; he’d lived a storybook life. A navy man, he’d found his heart in a woman at 19. His fingers like triggers, he’d handled weapons not of gun-smoke and steal, but correspondence. A man who could type when no one else could. The wealthiest family on the block, they had the first television. A flickering blue light dancing amongst the stars, their living room was always packed with anxious glowing faces and warm bodies strewn carefree on the carpet. For feelings never pounded harder through his chest on the day he lost her, they’d been married for 60 years. She now thought about life and how it finds its form in many shapes within this world, the more interesting part of a form being the direction it takes and the meaning it delivers to the lives of one or many; whether conscious or un. Her fresh tears are interrupted…

Crashing to the floor behind her, a body thuds with a subtle snap. Screaming in agony, a heavyset woman in her 60’s has just broken her arm in three places after visiting her daughter. Shocked by the incident, the disenchanted storms over to help. “Thank you so much dear…I don’t know what happened…I’m just not paying attention…I’m sorry.” In shock, she’s sobbing but holding her arm and repeating over and over, the fact that she must get to work. “Mam, you’re right here in a hospital, I think you should get it checked out, no?” “No, I really must go, I don’t have the time right now…dammit, it’s killing me.…..I just wanted to stop by, see my daughter and head out……..you’re an angel though…… thanks so much for helping….I can’t believe this…I’m such a freakin klutz.” As the woman scurries out in disbelief that something so simple could have led to this, she regrets her visit. As she lumbers forward in a hunch, her head lays flat in a grimace. As noticeable as a blue ink stain on a crisp white shirt, squished mercilessly against the back of her dress was the grape. Shocked, our otherwise heartbroken and gray figure grabs her mouth and literally turns cold white. Behind her, a streak continues to dry on the tan-tiled floor, and her conscience kicks in. Tearing apart her stomach for being so remiss, even as the woman walks back into the lobby deciding the pain was unbearable, she can’t say what she now knows. It just isn’t necessary and how could she possibly respond if asked why she did nothing. No matter what she’d come up with, it would never make a difference.

As the town looked on at the lives of those two gentlemen; one spared from the calamity of war, and one sent feasibly to death; defending his life with nothing but a gun......their paths were revealed. Less than a year before the cadet left home, a plague swept through the town. It took with it many of the youngest lives, including our pardoned fellow at the ripe age of 22. He’d coughed and bled from every direction, spending the last 3 months of his life in a sweaty piss-stained bed for those who’d cared for him had died or were forced to quit. Two summers later, our subject doomed to trek the countryside of every country he'd never cared to visit, he'd endured no famine, slept uncomfortably through nights with comrades by his side, and came back to a huge welcome home party. He was awarded the medal of honor for bravery. A hometown hero he began his own practice and went on to be the most educated, successful citizen their little village ever churned out.

Now leaning on the balcony ledge with pure disgust, she kicks internally at her previously lethargic whispers “who cares about a damn grape.” Deciding never to let something like that happen again….just shrugging off a complacent notion for its priority is too low for an otherwise fatigued body, she vows never to have an excuse; she continues to learn. No one knows why things happen until they’re able to look back and see the outcome. Although the fate of the injured woman is unknown, such an unbelievably difficult coincidence may this time lead to destruction, but in regards to her future…well, that……”we’ll see.”

Mom said I looked like a slut..so I had to change

2009-09-11T07:19:00.000-07:00

As buildings fly by and rain streams down the windows, it's midnight, and I cant help but watch her. She's been pleading with her mom to stop demeaning her, for who knows what....and she doesn't, without remorse. I had a previous relationship like this….her mom would ask if she could speak with her, “I’ll be brief” she says. The door closes, then re-opens two minutes later, and over walks her fat, guilty and elated mother to let me know she’ll be out in a minute. I’d think in my head…”you dirty fucking bitch, what’d you say now.”

Is there a reason why a woman wouldn’t be proud to say she has a beautiful daughter? She made her….you’d figure she’d hold this precious thing above all others, but obviously not herself. The self image of mothers within themselves and those poor babies of theirs that just might’ve turned out attractive don’t dare deserve the horrible sniveling comments made towards them just because a guy looked at them, or because of what they put on that they think is cute. It’s not the outfit, or the fact that you’ve probably started fucking up your daughter far earlier than this point, it’s the fact that the mother is stuck in a world that doesn’t hold a day in the spotlight for her any longer. Those days of blowing off the gentleman callers that actually mustered the confidence to say something are long since over…and we all know she settled for the guy that gave her the least attention anyway. Her only ace now is that her words will sting, and so she lets them fly.

Your daughter looks up to you, no matter how white trash you are. You will always be her mother, and you will always instill your judgment, your reasoning and your opinion within her, no matter how illogical….so please, hold her tight, kiss her on the forehead, and tell her how ridiculously beautiful she is…if she is.

Adolescent Confessions: Some Tiny, Some Dumb...but all, Never as Cool as I Thought

2009-08-08T07:40:00.000-07:00

The Smart Indian Kid (and I don't mean Native American):

A talented kid with brains unmatched but for a few hermits his age with half the personality. Not only that, but he was a star athlete with a great family that drove a silver Mercedes to soccer practice everyday during the fall. I knew Shobin Uralil was already taking the classes I was because he'd sit right next to me; and yet he was a year younger. It was in Miss Shotsky's Chemistry class that we took advantage of the young guy. Miss Shotsky was overweight by about 80-pounds, wore mu-mu flowery near-see-through dresses, thick prescription light-pink glasses and had stark white hair that just shot to the ceiling like an electric current had passed through her. She truly wasn't altogether normal, or with it. Shobin was so brilliant that we formed a horseshoe around his desk and then each copied his answers off his scantron, and then copied each other. She would pass out our test papers after they were graded and everyone in this little section always had the same exact grades. She never suspected anything...again, because she really was out of it. One day we got back an exam and I think we all got an 88. I could tell he was surprised and really upset with himself so I let him stew a bit. Later, on the soccer field I asked him "why are you so down about the test, an 88 is great man? or is it something else?" He said "in my culture, you are a direct reflection on your parents, and if I do bad in school, then they are bad parents in the eyes of their peers...other families we know. That's the way it is and I pressure myself to never let them down." I said, "dude, you're so freaking smart, you've been acing all your classes your whole life, you're on Varsity soccer as a Freshman, everyone in school thinks you're awesome....just calm down a bit..you'll give yourself a heart attack." He responds, "you'll just never get it...you don't know what it's like. There are no excuses."

I look back on cheating off his hard work and how much effort he'd probably put in the night before as a sort of unconscious raping we'd given him that he never deserved, especially on top of what he already dealt with in his own mind. Don't get me wrong, this kid went on to become a huge success in banking....but I still feel like a loser not trying to just learn chemistry rather than cheat directly off a great guy. When it came time for my Regents exam there was no way to cheat, and my 98 average was capped off with a just passing 65 that I guarantee someone like Miss Shotsky helped me and many others illegally get....yes that's an assumption but there is no physical way I passed that thing. Maybe the shock of seeing 8 kids with A-averages get failing grades made her join the club.

Her Shirt was Seamless:

I was never a perfect guy in relationships. Often tempted to cheat, for new and exciting hook-ups is an ultimate weakness. This instance was the summer after my Freshman year in college where I was in a relationship for about 5 months which would last almost four years. My sister used to have this boyfriend who was in a fraternity. Every summer, his group of guys from Hofstra would rent out a house in the Hamptons that had some beach volleyball court and a built-in pool in the backyard. Like 20 people could stay there at a time. We'd bring everything to barbecue, drink, relax and hit the clubs late-night. It didn't matter to me if I slept on the floor, I was the youngest anyway since my sister will always have three years on me. Two girls that came were one year older, and one was with her boyfriend. The other had wavy Blonde hair and tiny red circles around her eyes like she was still tired from the two-hour ride. As always, these girls thought they were the shit. I don't know if that's just b/c they're from Long Island or if it's Hofstra and the sorority they were in...either way, they were just girls like anyone else. I was more interested in the one with the boyfriend but since him and his mid-buzzed poofed out dark hairline was impossible to surpass, I settled for the combination Kate Moss/Darryl Hannah hybrid. I think we started getting grabby at the club before we came home but I know we'd both taken a Mitsubishi, and felt obligated to touch things for the sensation of anything tactile and warm was overwhelming. When we got back to the mini-mansion I somehow found myself sitting on a metal folding chair directly in the middle of the kitchen. There was no island, just a large open space. Empty solo cups and beer cans exploded everywhere along the counter tops. She straddled me in sweatpants and an orange tank top that seemed ribbed. Somehow we got on the topic of what we were doing for the summer and I mentioned I painted. She almost came immediately in her sweats. Mistaking my gruntworthy job of painting retirement homes during the summer for some Lichtenstein talent; we made out immediately. My fingers started tracing up her back and under her shirt and it just felt smooth like spandex. She felt compelled to tell me about her shirt's new technology and the fact that she was in fashion design school(maybe only her friend went to Hofstra). Supposedly this was the first shirt released to ever have been seamless. Yes we were drunk, but this still meant nothing to me. I was more focused on the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra. Although the night amounted to little in terms of full-out base-running, the next morning was dreadful because we ignored each other and never spoke a word. Even as her and her better looking friend closed their car doors and drove off without a wave, there was not a mention of the bathroom, or the living room carpet where we'd slept...it all meant nothing. Some things are exciting in the moment but completely unnecessary years after when your memories are all clouded with infidelity.

Bridging the Wrong Side of the Gap:

When a steering wheel's given to you in high school, for some reason, you're free. Free to tempt your life and those around you, and in this case, a complete stranger's. Coming home late from a party in South Huntington we were a bit wasted but quite aware of what we were doing. We'd driven this road a million times already, heading towards ROute 110 through the side streets that wound around our beloved St. Anthony's High School. One of my best friend's is in the passenger seat and we're blasting what was probably Blink-182 at the time. We had discussed a psychotic move about 10 seconds before we decided to do it. Northern State Parkway crosses below the bridge we were about to cross, so it was pretty damn lengthy. A metal barrier secured by old wooden posts, separates the single opposing lanes. As I veer hard off my line to cross the double yellows before the bridge begins, my skin turns to fire and my heart starts pounding. Harder and faster it bursts as we climbed up the first half of the blind bridge. "Holy shitttttt!!" Kevin starts screaming as reality sets in, but luckily we don't see any headlights peeking over the horizon line of the road. I start to feel calm as we come closer to the crest of the bridge and calm is never good. As the nose of my Camry crosses the threshold for what becomes the downhill portion of the bridge, we see headlights in our path. "Oh FUCK!!!!" Immediately I start flashing my brights and honking my horn before they too are committed by the divider. No doubt scared shitless, never believing the most ridiculous thing like a car coming over the bridge on the opposite side could be happening, they slam on their brakes and skid off the road to a halt with grass and dirt flying everywhere. They'd stopped right before the bridge began. Howling "woohooooooooo!!! oh my godd!!!" like fucking idiots, we literally skim his bumper as it sticks out onto the road. We looked through the dirt and burnt rubber cloud we'd caused to see a shadow with two eyes just shocked at the window....and for no apparent reason but the rush of risk, we couldve killed several people that night and affected many innocent lives unnecessarily.

Reflecting on the atrocious:

There are many things I look back on in my life with disgust and remorse because the reasons I did them make absolutely no sense. The ones that are the worst are those that are undeserving. Something like, calling a girl a name when she and you are just kids, but that name could absolutely ruin them and their self esteem. Or calling someone out on something indiscreet and completely unrelated to you, in order to embarrass them...to make yourself feel cooler. Viewing someone differently by perception and appearance before you even get to know them. I think all of us have done these things, and yes we truly learn by experiencing things, case in-point, my bringing them to your attention now, however, these are the actions I'll always regret, and forever call selfish, immature and unbelievably relevant to a day's worth of relieving confessions.

In Sweet Disposition and No Longer Melting

2009-07-31T12:47:00.000-07:00

500 days of summer, although I havent seen it yet, might be a great way to emotionally describe my life I leave behind in LA. A love, a job, a loss for words and a pre-ejaculatory future turned over like a bucket for suffocation and pounding by street urchins with drumsticks.

There's no denying our ability to draw from the hardest experiences in our lives to endure and muster courage. That's what this will be....a recollection of those great times of solidarity amongst my thoughts, breathing songs in lap-lanes, financial shadows reminiscent of beasts with exposed teeth on the wall but smiles in personal firm handshakes, tracing bladed lines amongst wooded dusty breezes, and long dried up tears with white knuckled handprints on Santa Monica sand. Im not sure there's room for relationships in this place; nor energy for anything but sleep and traffic.

This Angelic city has its beauty within the landscape and its burning lifeless peaks. Like black paper cutouts, they swim with the moon's liquid flashy spikes. Working relationships become labored efforts to understand whether or not the counterparty sees the benefit. Just being friends couldn't cut the smog we'd breathe together. Written words of thanks and hugs bared for hooded capsules we'd wrap ourselves in afterward; that unnecessary protection confuses me for individuality doesn't take that much effort. Everyone's time is important.

Somehow the red that creeped down the walls of glass strewn to the sky would make up for wasted heartbeats; it captured meaning beyond every single minute dreamt of her with someone else. Nightime sky's ablaze spoke my mind in frustration, screaming beauty at the night like "fuck you, I'm leaving this place like I came, with the brightest intentions."

Every city has its nooks of invite and clarity; like cherry lipstick and a short skirt on a pale passerby. Opportunities present themselves with ironic timing and only when in drastic need. Upon threat, moves shake themselves from pockets as only a convulsing dance could've summoned from what was supposedly sewn shut. I guess action sprouts via revived consciences and by feeling bad for the desperate. It'll be sometime before I can focus on the positive, like anything in life for us pessimists. Damn us for trying positivity when the negative happens and we're emotionally unprepared. What's the loss for expecting the worst?

It was sideways travel...chugging in place at the red light as if it's doing something before you begin again. Trust me, your heart can handle rhythmic adjustments as long as your head leads the way. For me, my head's finally leading me back to NY, and so I go......chugging, to a place where summer minds and their immature and material desires, do in fact end.

...........I'd beg reality to come find me, except it was never anything but.

Inside the Mind of a Killer

2009-05-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

“I know you better than you know yourself!”

she’d confidently laugh with those sexy ass eyes. Her long blonde hair leaning against the table as she slurped her strawberry lemonade through the ice at the bottom. She was young and innocent. Holding the glass with both hands as if still mouthing her sippy cup. She followed her heart through anyone’s usual transition. Leaving high school and going away to college; the ultimate revival of one’s independence….a maturation overnight, as we who have experienced it, already know. She may have thought because they’d had sex dozens of times, because they’d showered together, laughed in unison at movies or friends, met each other’s parents and sat through barbecues, days at the beach and even work, that she knew everything he was capable of. What he loved and what kept him happy was easy, but not something she could give unconditionally forever, not yet at least. And he knew that. He was 26, done with college, trying to make his way in the real world but still have-a-go at a social life with a new crew.

The type of guy he was, he’d admit to fault and blame himself no matter who’d committed the error. He’d gotten fired from his job like a martyr raising his hand for execution. Unnecessarily admitting to his relationship with her, the younger colleague he was supposed to manage, as suspicious higher-ups started questioning fraternizing amongst all the employees. As most did lie of their hook-ups and relations, properly securing their jobs as being fired for a hunch would surely cause a lawsuit anyway, for some reason he trusted that “honesty would be the best policy.” That’s what we were taught as children. Those executives deserved no such knowledge of one’s personal life to begin with, nor could any of them ever tolerate being asked who they were fucking.

At two very different times in their lives, he looks down at his plate and whispers to himself...

“you can’t imagine what floats around in my mind….what I would do if I lose you….I’ve told you subtly, but you get mad when I say it. When you go away, you’re gonna meet new people, and your life’s gonna change.”

“What are you thinking about sweetie?”

“Oh nothing babe, I’m so full, a bit tired too, wanna go?”

As they prance out of the restaurant to continue living what would be the unfathomable by any poor kid in a third world country, a fat couple who’ve barely spoken once since they’d arrived, sit across from each other at a table, watching them leave as if they’re celebrities. They both internalize that they’d wished their lives were different, that they too had that skip in their step, or their young tan and muscularly toned bodies, and what it would be like to live that life for a day.

When your mind is built to harp on the negative, to revert focus and jealousy onto what you don’t have, you're dooming what otherwise will be a bright future for a smart person. There’s a lot of sadness in the streets. Walking with your head down not seeing the faces in front of you …..there’s a lot to hate…and a lot to regret and overanalyze. It’s not unique to only one person, and there’s no way to see the future. For us, for what we have, yes, everything’s going to be ok. You can’t go taking the most positive elements of your life, the memories you’ve stored for unbelievable reason and the actions you’ve taken, as enjoyed equally by everyone. They’re not common, and you are a lucky bastard. If you sit back and think of the plight of others for comparison, you’ll see.

They did break up like any couple moving in different directions and playing the long-distance role. The times where people’s lives were private, where they weren’t documented every single day online and displayed, were much easier to cope. “Out of sight, out of mind,” another thing he was taught. Seeing a message of the person you loved left active on their profile about how they’re off to get wasted with their girls, and how it’s still the same message the next day at 5pm, you sit and wonder. Hundreds of miles away, you’re somehow now aware of what they’re watching on tv, when they’re showering and if they have a big test that week. Photographs plastered on everyone’s homepages are trophies encasing what you missed and had no part in bringing to them; that happiness. It enrages you and renders you unconscious to the life you thought you had, just the two of you. How much you believe you held them back and their uncanny ability to move on so quickly as some guy in the photo has their arm around her and their best friend left a comment saying “I wanted him you asshole.” A million games you can play with your mind and what it comes down to……they’re just games. Five years down the road, all relationships, nights of wasted binge drinking and one-night stands are finally over, and now they’re ready for the next 60 years together. You rekindle as if nothing ever changed and all you had to do was give up five years to make it become 60. No one really knows what could’ve happened, but we know what did.

The drastic and unexpected, is the irony of control at its purest. It’s not tragedy for the sake of someone else’s misfortune, but an internal choice temporarily better than the alternative. The shock, the tears and the effort to understand the motives behind why it happened will always linger, but trust me, that’s what they wanted…..to make an impact. If you don’t want to make a splash, you don’t jump in. Aside from mismanaging their own mind’s distaste for their choices, and the words they’d planted there unconsciously, blaming themselves with “its’ your fault, you’re a failure in life, you’ll never find love again,” there’s also lessons they want to teach by doing this. They want others to analyze the way they live, to appreciate life’s fragility, how they treat others, to make sure they never take another moment with someone for granted. Those who loved him will now internally analyze their own actions, how they affect others and the happiness of those lives they never want to lose as well.

Many toss the words “coward” and “selfish” into the mix when discussing it. And then they apologize because they might offend people, but that’s what they truly believe of people who do it. I think it depends on the individual and what they truly believe is harder…Living: the struggle, the deaths in your family, the lost loves that you long for, the financial hardships, the realization that we’re all never going to be millionaires and taking the fights with your partner as lessons to learn by, plus, respecting the sacrifice your parents made in their own lives to give you yours…….or Giving Up: ending every friendship they’ve ever made, every holiday they’ll never experience, any beautiful new country they’d get to visit, any sexual encounter with the one who may be their future wife and the opportunity to have innocent children and to see the hilarious ways they learn…………all, for what ultimately might just be blackness.

Life is cyclical. As time passes, there are always ups and downs. Every time you think your life is over, you’ve got to get back out there and overcome that which is bringing you down. A man finds out how man he is when he threatens his own life, whether it be enlisting for war, waking up in the middle of the night to defend a burglar or going against everything you've ever learned to become a true martyr, but I serenely suggest, no matter how forlorn, you ask a few loved ones for advice before ever believing the only way left to remain a man, is to go ahead and pull the trigger.

Dolce and Gabbana Shoes or a Doctor of Philosophy

2009-05-24T11:33:00.000-07:00

To unravel philosophy is impossible. Opinions encompass its entirety, and no facts can be taken from an airborne train of thought. Using brief fragments from one apology and then attaching our own vague generality to the end, is no more innovative then adding salt to a recipe.

I failed Intro to Philosophy, so I’m no Hobbes. Well, I shouldn’t say I failed. Studying what I thought would be the answers rather than giving my own, forced me to an “F” before I withdrew. These days though, I understand what’s expected when engaged in similar discussion. Poop in my hand, throw shit out there and see what sticks. Then, I was 18. Philosophy was a joke. Any answer you gave earned a brutal verbal beat-down…..because you should have known, there are no right answers.

In the documentary “Examined Life,” interviews with people whom I assume are profound intellects on human thought, were dumbed down to relate common philosophies with everyday streetwalking. Although it’s difficult to transform these planetary blowhards (who would likely trade one of their testicles for a signed Star Trek DVD) into a calm-talking Dr. Drew, subtly soothing the bubbly herpes outbreak of any club-grinding alpha-male, some truly relevant comparisons actually did rise to the surface.

Each individual seems to be asked the same questions, ultimately ending with “are we supposed to search for meaning in life?” Excellent, and each equally different, points of view arose such as experiencing as much as possible especially when those events lead to nowhere. At one point, two dogs playing tag could not be translated into anything but enjoying themselves; and I applauded such restraint.

One of the philosopher's revived an analogy he'd used 30 years prior when referencing the material things we purchase. A woman sees Dolce and Gabbana shoes in Bergdorf Goodman’s, and buys them for $1,000. He then puts her in a situation with the shoes on, “you’re walking by a knee-deep pond and you see a small child drowning, but no one’s around to help. No time to take off the shoes…what would you do?” As every woman normally proceeds “I’d save little Stewie Griffin, even though he’s always trying to kill his mother, and completely ruin my new pumps”…….he responds, “if you’re willing to destroy those shoes to save 1 kid’s life, you could save more than 20 by donating that $1,000 to Oxfam.” The lesson learned is that being a moral/ethical person is not chucking a balled up dollar at a homeless man and smiling because it’s now up to them how they use it. It’s what you could’ve done beyond the dollar; how much further you could’ve gone to better everyone and why you didn’t. Sitting eating my Goobers, sipping a mammoth Diet Coke and lounging with my feet on the chair in front of me, I began to feel real shitty about what I've spent my money on.

The next best thought provoking monologue came from a guy who looked like he’d dressed himself in tin cans, rotting banana peels and the pubic hair of a bison. Befittingly, his narrative revolved around the Department of Sanitation and our unconscious effort to block the whereabouts of our shit. To be taken as literally as possible, it disappears from our mind the minute it’s down the pipes (or in the garbage as they hovered around him at the local dump). To instead, learn about the amount of waste each of us commits a year to this earth and then work on adjusting it……even a subtle change by everyone would have an astronomically positive effect. However since he doesn’t suspect we will, we should then embrace our trash as an equivalent part of this world before it finally gets fed up with us. Upon its ultimate unhappiness, the world will again revert to catastrophe beyond our Hollywood imaginations, and place us all where our dinosaurs currently live….our gas tanks.

As aggressive as these dames and gents may seem, it’s no different than the drunken debates between you and your buddies about politics and religion. No one’s right and everyone disagrees regardless. None of them deserve to point the finger anywhere but at themselves for the amount of time they’ve squandered reading books about philosophy instead of guiding small burrowing worms out of young Namibian children’s feet. They could’ve nailed miles of boards and sheetrock up at the nearest Habitat for Humanity or dunked thousands of ladles into vats of chicken broth at downtown soup kitchens instead of listening to hundreds of hours of babbling lectures on their society’s disenchantment of reality. Forget about the lady and her D&G shoes, let’s turn the tables and put these hypocrite high-browed know-it-all’s knee deep in their own twisted analogies.

You have $175,000 in your hand and you’re walking a path that forks. One way leads down a little dirt path where there’s 6 villages on the verge of starvation, 4,000 people altogether. The other, solid cement and lit by halogens straight towards a marble building. Above the door there's a sign “Come on in, be a Doctor of Philosophy.”

Try and tell me now, why there’s no right answer to the question. Try and tell me now, how much further you could have gone to better everyone, and why you didn’t.

I'm So Artsy, Even Indie Wouldn't Know

2009-04-25T21:06:00.000-07:00

You know, I grew up with a group of kids quite unlike the guys they are today. Yes, I know, people change, but fuck that…. not sooo much that it’s cyclical puberty. I guess we could compare them to hippies. People that weren’t always free-wheeling drug tasting flower children, but innocent, fun-loving manhunt seeking yutes that relied on their older siblings’ behavior as the best example to follow. Then it was sex and LSD, now it’s Coked-Up croquet, Burt Bacharach and a pair of chinos.

Since high school, I’ve seen firsthand, a snobbish self-entitled change in the lot. Not my immediate cronies thank god, but the backup pack. Their obsession with the odd, is as fake as their childhood love for lima beans, downing them in one gulp not because mom’s cookin was good lookin…but ‘cause a home-run derby in the court was calling out loud “get your ass out here before its dark!” These guys were my jock friends that loved pop music, a case of beer with a football game and pool-hopping at midnight. As they went away to college, something very strange happened where they forgot who they were. Consistently subjected to rebellious individuals far cooler, it reminds me of when Bart Simpson goes to the school for the gifted. He’s mocked constantly for his stupidity and needs to leave to feel better about himself…….in this case, these guys scooted into pretty schools for their athletic talents and learned the ropes by conforming immediately to how geniuses do, or else perform a one-handed self-wedgie at the main lawn during lunch.

Back home, they were cooler-than-thou cult followers who could no longer relate. The guy who used to spike his hair like one of the Gotti boys now has a dry comb-over and dons a mustache that catches more milk than an udder bucket. I thought he’d forgot to remove his 80’s pornstar Halloween costume. They fight conspicuously hard to neglect these changes; morphing like butterflies in stages and taking off in erratic flight to mislead us, but always flying in whatever direction the season’s taking them. Now, the hardest whiskey ever produced is the only thing they order, and somehow it’s the only thing they ever drank, as they try to defend themselves when we point out that they used to swear by their father’s passed down middle name that Old Milwaukee’s Best was the shizzy. This mild Alzheimerish slip is not even the scary part….they believe they’re these far out artists that understand counter-culture, what’s on the brink of discovery, and what truly is worth regarding as cool or funny. The absolute driest form of anything creative has become their purest example of expression. If an old man shit his pants and dragged ass like a dog tickling an itch, they’d take a picture of it and call it art. They’re so far advanced for their time, that if confronted, they would outright deny the thought that they’d ever even had a transformation. Like one morning they’d stepped out of bed, threw all their Abercrombie and Fitch cargo’s into a fire and raided American Apparel for the ugliest fucking neon deep-U belly shirt that’d reveal their newly accepted happy trail before it disappeared below their thrift shop light-green corduroys. I wish I was exaggerating. At least then we’d have our friends back, and also feel less like we’ve been left out.

When I blame myself for being behind on the times, I look at what my true to life, everyday brodies are doing versus the guys that sit back and study what others do to gauge what’s cool…it just so turns out, the guys who've been made to feel idiotic have actually always been ahead of the steeping curve. The artists, the innovative ones, they continually create and leave something behind; those are the people that reveal their talents for all to see, instead of leaning hard on a crutch made of comebacks and chin-grabbing afterthoughts. If these guys were the writers, I’d say “fuck yeah! ……keep interviewing amazing people and drafting dynamic shit.” If they were creating music, jotting down lyrics or coming up with a new hot beat their families could thrive on, I’d say “that’s my friend’s band! Don’t they sound sick?!” They offer not even a shred of talent….having lost it after their 4th year of NCAA eligibility. They have no responsibilities even still, and they pretend their life flows in a different direction, when we've all been living. There’s no faking anymore who’s shit truly wreaks. I say to these temporarily lost souls, hate to break it to you….just like a hippie still is today, you too, will be tomorrow’s wannabees.

WATCHMEN – Sometimes You Just Like Raw

2009-03-06T10:48:00.001-08:00

At midnight mass last night we celebrated a naked blue god. One without the cheesy manhood car wash rag, as if God ever cared what someone thought of his junk. Watchmen was a killer flick with bone-grinding stabs and obscenely large red puddles, yet never did it try and hide behind the artificial flavorings of its comic book-turned movie predecessors. The music is a tribute to the late sixties and early seventies, quite a contrast to the technology used to make the movie, except since the film takes place during exaggerated instances within the Nixon administration, all the songs would have come out around that time, and fuck it, it worked in an Oliver Stone type-a way. “Wow, there was so much sex in that movie?” said two girls exiting alongside me at 3am. I said, where is Chris Brown when you need him?

When I was growing up I collected comic books; never read them, just collected them. I would stop in at the local 7-Eleven and whatever one had the coolest cover I’d grab; a worthless way to become an addict, but for some reason I just never liked to read. I came into Watchmen knowing nothing about the comic’s history, characters, anything….and I walked out feeling like a dedicated fan. That’s the way this movie is, legitimately hardcore, and you wish it was longer than 2 hours and 40 minutes. Although the story-line is fast-forwarded to cover years of history and loses some plot in translation, there's so much raw edge that you respect every corner never cut. Watchmen distances itself from the pack because they’ve embraced the R-Rating; staying true to the gore and fantasy that is action comics. Mastering this hurdle and understanding that audiences have literally seen it all, is why the chance they took to be daring was so successful. It’s not all sappy-romance and happy-endings. Good guys have to die too.

They Called Him "Chuckles"

2009-03-03T13:15:00.001-08:00

It was the fall. Besides the scent of fake leather and the foam we'd pull from the seat cushions, we could smell the fresh cut grass through the tiny cracks of our bus windows. As always, those plastic guards on the track stopped the window just short enough to keep the stench of unwashed uniforms. Trekking down the steps, we jumped to the concrete where our cleats left mounds of hardened mud on Holy Trinity's parking lot. They looked like tiny brown islands on a sea of pavement; each pummeled by a bad meteor shower. Going through our heads as we approached the field was our usual difficulty of beating these guys. They weren't talented, they offered no specific player to keep an eye on, nor any sign of a strategy they'd use to dominate a game.....overall, they were just dirty motherfuckers.

I played soccer throughout my entire childhood; from the day I was four until my senior year in college. To this day, I have never experienced a raping like that in October 2003; I was a Junior in High School. When you think of the word "rape", you might assume we got our asses handed to us, or sucked so badly that we lost by some ridonkulous score. I really wouldn't waste your time with a shitty story about getting our asses beat.

We all know that soccer, on top of its physical requirements, includes a thick layer of acting. There's diving, throwing up your hands to create the illusion of being held, purposely tripping yourself when tangled with an opponent, etc. The easiest and most unnoticeable, yet effective strategy, is the art of "shit-talking" (common in many sports). Holy Trinity was a team with talentless players and brutal attitudes. If they broke an opponent's leg, then that was better than a goal. My job as a striker was to create open space, find a way to receive the ball from the backfield and turn it towards the goal to score. Normally, the opposite team assigns a defender to a striker to never let them free. My lucky day, they'd assigned McCauley Culkin on growth hormones, only with longer hair covering his eyes. Now that I think of it, he didn't even have eyes. This guy was Home Alone on acid with a machete, pliers and a bottle of Old Grand Dad; I remember it like yesterday.

The minute I stood still he came up behind me and whispered some shit about fucking me in the ass.

douche whisperer: "Hey buddy, what's up...I'm marking you today and I'm gonna be all up on your shit."

As usual, I'd try and keep on the move and ignore him until he feels stupid hearing his own voice.

douche whisperer: "Aww what's wrong wittle guy, you can't speak...come over here...."

A bit worried he cared nothing about the game, and more about licking my shadow, I felt a handful of my ass in his.

"Ref!!! Keep an eye on this kid, he's grabbing my fucking ass for chrissake..."

the ref: "hey! watch your mouth!"

"Well........Everytime you turn your back, he's fondling me like one of his Barbies"

douche whisperer: "awww....you used to collect Barbies? how cute..."

douche teammate: "hey Chuckles, tell ur lil momma's boy, I had his motha over for dinner lass night"

"Wait a second.....Did your butt-buddy just call you Chuckles!?! What the fuck kinda name's that? Lemme guess...you have a flamingly high-pitched laugh and everytime a little boy walks by, you need to use the bathroom"

Chuckles: "I love little boys...you remind of one I played with lass night"

"Jesus, you're original.....you and your buddy with the mom-jokes"

Chuckles: "you wanna be my bitch? I'm gonna make you my..."

The ball's kicked and we're off again. Trying harder and harder to keep away from this scitzo-pediphile, he was literally flat-tiring my heels every step. As the Ref turned away, he one-upped himself and proved creative in the flagrant minds far beyond the walls of appropriate behavior. Good ol' Chuckles had scooped around and grabbed my dick (dead fucking serious).

"REF!!!!! He's fucking grabbing my dick, this is bullshit!!

the ref: (blowing his whistle) "Number 4! I told you to watch your mouth....consider this your last warning! (he holds up a Yellow card)

"This is ridiculous!!!! He's reachin around and touching my dick, I'm not lying!! You have to watch him!!"

the crowd: "Hey numba 4!! I'm kicking your fucking ass after the game...you better run like a little bitch to your bus."

(yelling in the general vicinity of the crowd with my hands raised and eyes focused on no one) "You like guys touching your dick??.............dumb question"

For some reason, none of this shook up the Ref. He didn't pay more attention and fucking Chuckles was relentless. Next, he whacked at my junk like when you rat-tail someone with a rolled up towel. My coach saw what was happening and yelled to the Ref, but still he must've just thought we were trying to deter his attention. Sprinting away, I faked to one side, turned, and threw an elbow hard into his chin. It felt amazing, but it only enraged his eyeless McCauley mask. He got even more physical. No, Im not talking penne-alla-vodka; he'd come up behind me and start lacing in short sharp knuckle punches to my back. Then he'd move side-to-side, making like he was about to run, and as his arms would go up in motion to propel away, he'd quickly smack the back of my head. I couldn't even concentrate on the game I was so lost. None of this made sense in soccer. He had pissed me off so badly that even if I got the ball I figured he'd stick his cleat up my ass, turn to the right and cheer "open sesame!" The ref would then blow the whistle and I'd get penalized for not wanting it there (no-pun on the penal). So I faked being tripped. As we were running, I made like he took out my legs and the fact that he was two inches from me, it looked damn real. The Ref finally gave him a yellow. Grabbing my sac, pinching my ass and practically checking my temperature were not worthy of a card, but me tripping myself, now that's what punished him....pathetic, but effective. In soccer, if you are the cause of another flagrant foul after you have a yellow card, it's quite common that you'll get a red card and be ejected from the game. Your team would then have to play a man down for the rest of the game, and the thought of this kept him at bay for the remaining minutes of the first half.

Around the middle of the second half I finally had the ball in a position where I could do something. I took it hard up the line and towards the corner flag. With about a foot of space before being out of bounds, I crossed the ball and bent it in towards the ten yard line (an imaginary line). One of my teammates, Nick Karastinos, trapped the ball and buried it in the back of the net. For some reason I always would fall after making a hard bending cross at top speed, and as I got off the ground elated with joy, Chuckles threw me back down. He knew it was his fault that the ball was even crossed...I had gotten away from him. As Nick and my teammates celebrated towards mid-field, no one even saw it happen. Now that we were winning, I really didn't give a shit. I wound up hard and bitch-smacked his rosy fucking cheeks with a stiff open palm, hoping it would sting forever. As I jogged away, I heard him closing in to where he kicked hard at my ankles, chopping my legs out from under me. As I fell to the ground, the crowd started screaming and my coach was going ballistic. Everyone had seen it except the Ref who was writing the number of Nick's jersey in his pad to note who scored.

I've always been one to have a bit of congestion. Asking for paper napkins at every meal, or having my adnoids and tonsils removed because I couldn't breathe right......there couldnt have been a better time to be stuffed up. It just felt natural to suck in deep. As I gripped the grass and pushed my body up, I breathed in hard and long to the point of a gag reflex. You couldn't even imagine the collection.....I'm talking a mixed blend of good-god-almighty nastyness. And as I turned around to see his dusty mop-top and shiny fucking grin, I launched a wad.......... a solid fucking mass right onto that asshole's face.

my coach: Sub!!!!!!!! Ref!! Substitute!!

Before Chuckles could even squeegee off the muck, I had ran off the field and a new guy was in. For all the mishaps the Ref never saw, that was the most important.

As a man there's only so many degrading things you can endure, and I think I put Chuckles down a notch that day. The physical stuff seems so temporary whereas a "loog" tends to linger. Although his teammates wanted to kill me because they saw it happen, Chuckles didn't get the Ref involved. He took it. I don't know why, or what it was, he just did. For all I know the kid was so fucked up that he liked it. And as I didn't shake hands with Holy Trinity that day, for fear of losing my ability to reproduce, I got back on the bus thankful it was over. I looked up at the crack that my little window was fully open, and I closed it.

No One Knew What They Were Doing

2009-02-20T18:32:00.000-08:00

At 22 years old I slithered into the world of cash management through the thick brush that concealed it; and five years later, inched out wounded and with little dignity. Just as worms expose themselves to concrete the minute your lawn gets soggy, we too tried our hardest to keep from drowning. We lost many friends to the flood, and many thereafter in the blazing heat.

I don't know if it's a good thing when people say 90% of your job you'll learn on-site. It leaves way too much to the imagination of those with sneaky imaginations. Lately you see in the news different headlines like "idiot financier schemes investors out of $50 Billion." This isn't some mistake they made; take it from me. It's their ability to lie with blatant overconfidence while being completely uneducated to begin with. Not to mention the stiffening orgasmic power that the money injected into to them day after day. Every crispy new million they'd raise added another inch to that big swingin dick they'd imagined they had. Just as I knew little about the products we bought our clients, everyone around me only knew a Hershey squirt more.

There's a difference between Analysts and Salesmen. An Analyst is someone who combs the fine print of a prospectus and tests every possible scenario to litmus. A Salesman however, is a fundamentalist. They take two snippets of detail out of context and drive home those key elements; ponying up their children as collateral to prove it. The point is, that's the job of a salesman. To know how to close business and make friends with any type of asshole that farts an unclean one, and uses spare hundos to clean it up. The job of the analyst is the flag-raising, compliance policy-driven blowhard which Executives need at their hip to say "yay" or "nay" about the products they're willing to back. The Executive, we all know is just a figurehead powdering his nose and swaying his conductor's wand amongst his executive peers. There's no physical way he could be aware of the investments his 14,000 employees are suggesting their clients should buy. If you're the CEO during an economic upturn, you end up being a genius...during a downturn, it's all your fault....simple as that.

I say no one knew what they were doing because they would've been fired way before fully learning how to properly do it. When you're thrown into a pit of snakes you have to quickly figure out how to survive. The chance to read up on what snake is the deadliest, their territorial behavior, and/or the history of curing bites, is a chance you're never afforded. There's no time for fucking around. You either produce or you're gone. The guy next to me was someone brand new quite often.

We were bond managers, corporate cash managers, traders, investment advisors, whatever you want to call us...and our job was to invest excess cash for corporations. What they wanted was high interest rates in a short amount of time without a lot of risk. When we looked at a product named "The City of Miami Dade Development Project", do you actually think we called up the city department and asked how their budget and fiscal policy forecast was looking for the next 20 years? Do you think we worried that Miami-Dade might be the next place a massive hurricane would hit, and that we shouldn't put our client into this type of Municipal Bond because "anything can happen?" Who do you think we would've gotten at the city office if we'd called? I'm picturing someone worse than the talent at the DMV. Hell, they'd provided us with a 202-page prospectus to read over with a magnifying glass, so we could always reference that if we had ay questions. Our boss would've been real proud of the revenue we brought in if we'd spent the next 5 days reading that over. After all, we sold 300 types of these bonds every single day from different cities, water, power, and aviation authorities. Special housing, roadwork, transportation, sanitation, and stadium projects were all common players for good rates of interest as well. All we could go on was the credit-rating and whether or not the name sounded legit. In order for a corporation to invest in a bond, it normally needs to be AAA-rated because it's the safest quality out there. Considering they were so safe, the blanket we wrapped them in bedded totally different securities, such as CD's, Treasuries and anything else "guaranteed", where they have never slept.

The people that were structuring these bonds were also oblivious. They would pool together several hundred million dollars worth of outstanding mortgage loans, credit card receivables, or student loans, and structure it so that they would meet the standards for achieving a AAA-rating from the credit agencies. If the bond being issued was 500 million dollars, a bank would create a fund name which would consist of all the loans together as one offer. You could then buy a piece of that issue in increments of 25,000. First though, they'd pile 510 Million instead of just 500 Million of those student loans into the fund, expecting that the likelihood of 10 Million dollars extra being added to the 500 million dollar deal, would be enough over-collateralization to justify all future defaulted student loans from those idiots that never felt like paying them off. The same went for mortgage related funds completely backed by outstanding mortgages pooled together. The formula wasn't really made-up, it was given to them by the credit-rating agencies, where some schmuck actuary came up with the idea that only a small percentage on top of the fund-size was necessary to protect it from defaulting. And that it would still provide enough cushion for those investing in what were truly unstable packaged loans. I wish someone would've just told the actuary that everything in life isn't a formula, and that they're forgetting one major fucking insight (a.k.a. "oversight")...... the idea of "demand". What if someone doesn't want it? It seems the question was never contemplated. Sort of like...."oh well, we'll worry about that bridge when we come to it." The idea that these products would become obsolete, that they would become the burden of the banks underwriting them, in sizes up to hundreds of billions worth of shitty un-saleable assets where the banks themselves will have to sit on the debt and cover it with borrowed cash at an even higher rate than the municipality they struck the deal with, would ever have to pay them. "Snot possible; never happen."

When a bank is approached by a municipality wanting to issue debt(bonds) to the public, the bank pitches that city on why they should consider using their bank. The reason banks go so hard after winning the opportunity to issue the debt is because they charge astronomical fees to issue the debt. The problem though for the bank issuing the $500 million bond is that it becomes their burden to find buyers for the bond. The city no longer deals with anything. They just take the money they were loaned and spend those funds wherever they need it. If the bank doesn't find enough internal clients to buy the bonds, that's where we corporate cash managers come in. In order to entice us, we're given a selling concession, which is essentially a commission-style thank you from the bank for the temporary purchase. The reasons we wanted the bonds were because they paid great commissions, whereas the other products within our investment hemisphere were not paying squat. Obviously, a light bulb should be going off as to why these offer such great commissions; there must be some related risk. To understand the risk, you need to know the bonds.

They were 20-year maturities, meaning if you were to hold the bond for twenty years from the day you purchased it, you would get your principal back after those twenty years ended; all the while receiving your interest payments. In order to attract buyers, these bonds offered an "exit feature" where every 7, 28 or 35 days you could sell the bond back to the bank and receive your interest without penalty; so really, you never had to hold it for twenty years. The market had been around since the early-to-mid eighties, and there weren't really any significant instances where someone who wanted to sell back their bond wasn't able to. It was the bank's job to find those new buyers if someone wanted to sell it back, and if they couldn't find anyone to buy it, they would keep it on their books as "inventory" and work to re-sell it later. This "exit" or "liquidity" feature is what opened up the product to many corporations and wealthy individuals needing to keep their cash available weekly, or monthly, and since the interest rates were quite attractive, this was the product to buy.

In July 2007, banks were becoming strapped having to hold so much debt on their books since a lot of their clients were exiting the market and keeping their cash very liquid in overnight money market funds. Every night that went by where those bonds sat in-house at the bank, they would assume large carry-over or debit charges on their own accounts for having held securities that they couldn't cover with equal cash values, therefore the bank would have to virtually borrow money to cover them legally....and those charges outweighed the interest they'd receive from the municipality. Around the second week in July some managers in these underwriting banks had secret meetings to discuss their banks' disinterest in continuing the business. The best thing they could do was sell as much as possible from their inventory and never allow the bonds to be bought back again by their bank. They decided to come up with offers so attractive that it was tough for cash managers to not bite. Upwards of $40,000 commissions for buying a piece worth $1 Million were offered, where as the normal commission for a $1 Million piece was about $125. Unaware that the price for having bought the piece would be your client's illiquidity until the bond's final maturity date 20 years from then.

As this became front page news, every bank stopped buying back their bonds. Although that meant the end of credibility and the inability to ever sell anything they held on their books, cutting off their clients from selling would save them Billions in repurchased assets. Whoever held an issue was going to hold it until maturity, receive their interest and hope to god the loans or municipality underlying it didn't default and become bankrupt.

Our friends at these banks who we drank and ate fancy dinners with wouldn't take our calls. They weren't allowed too. If they'd said anything, they'd be fired. Anything they ever really said was, "I'm so sorry, we had no fucking idea." And I believe them. These were traders, moms and dads just selling bonds and managing their accounts like us....not the CFO's making decisions to stop taking on debt because the stock price had fallen the last two quarters. They knew 10 minutes before we did that morning that their business was done.

Our clients would call us up and ask for new news, and we had none. Nothing but threatening lawsuits, conference calls with CFO's and Treasurers calling us asshole morons that deserved to be hung by our suspenders. I know, that one really hurt. I tried to provide an analogy for all this, and here's the first I came up with. If you buy a brand new car from the salesman, and it turns out to be a lemon, do you run to the salesman and call him a fucking asshole because the manufacturers screwed up making it? There is only so much blame we could take for investing in AAA-rated securities alongside the agreement with our clients that this is what we were going to buy. The real idiots behind this whole shit-show is the credit rating agencies such as Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch who were the Analysts per se, giving these securities the highest credit marks possible. Although we could've sat and read every little nook and cranny about every little bond, or had Alan Greenspan next to us at our desk before we ever made a decision, either way we still would have been fired for never bringing in revenue.

The worst part was our clients getting fired by their executives because they had listened to us. Because they went to that baseball game, or that Bruce Springsteen concert with us and enjoyed themselves, and therefore wanted to reward us. Once they had to tell their CEO's that their money was locked up for twenty years and that they didn't know why, they never stood a chance. Corporations who had just gone public, raising close to 100 million dollars gave us their cash to manage for a few weeks until they stopped celebrating their amazing ability to raise cash in a market like this. After those three weeks were up and they'd figured out that they wanted to build a new manufacturing facility and push advertising expenditures to build their brand image, we had to tell them their cash wasn't available. In fact, we couldn't even put a price on their cash if they wanted to sell it at a discount to any buyer. It was worthless. We had ended up buying products that had no value for resale.

The days became dreadful. The phone never rang. There was no reason to call prospects, old leads or friends in the industry. There was no reason to ever believe or trust you since you'd pitched bird shit to them for months and months prior. The other products within the industry paid nothing so there was no money to really be made unless you managed assets under a fee-basis and not by commission. As the telephone numbers of friends didn't work anymore, and my colleagues would be sent back home to their families to seek out a whole new life within something they'd never known, I too was asked to exit the tall murky grass and hit the pavement to grind out whatever distance I had yet to travel.

The scariest thing I learned was that you truly never know if you can trust someone. I say that not so you can shit your pants about any relationship you've ever made, but to enlighten you that there's always a risk you undertake in any partnership. Even if the guy has billions of dollars and a reputation that outshines Mother Theresa, it's truly whether or not working with that person, and the joy you get out of it, is completely worth the risk......because they seriously, after years and years of adding inches to their johnson, still....might have no fucking idea what they're doing.

The Rocking Chair - a.k.a. The Night of the Neanderthals

2009-02-10T12:19:00.000-08:00

In the early summer of 1942, in rural Geneseo, New York, a father decided to make his daughter an icon for their family’s porch. He had been called to war and the person he’d miss the most was his little baby girl. She was only 6 years old; just brilliant enough to smile back at what he was about to say to her…..the last words they’d ever share. “My darling, I love you with all my heart…I always want you to remember that. Please…take special care of your mother for me. I’m going away for a while, and I’m not sure when I’ll be back.” Peeling away the faded burgundy striped sheet from the white wooden gift he’d built for her, he asked her to promise one thing….”until my return, I want you to sit out front each evening while the sun goes down and think of me. This here rocking chair is yours so take good care of it. It’s our little way of communicating….when you sit in it, make believe it’s me cradling you to sleep on those cold lonely nights. I promise you, if you watch straight clear out over those hills there, one clear day you’ll see me coming home to my baby.”

She promised as if it was a secret she’d been meant to carry to her grave. Years passed by; nearly forty to be exact. And like most things built in those days by the crafted hands of our worthiest generation, the chair still held in sturdy worn condition. Geneseo had become a college town. One where those hills she knew every curve, pine and boulder, soon became lost in the dorm rooms and precarious steel stadiums erected on property she’d long had to sell. Although that was supposed to be her father’s most direct path back to her stoop, she knew any traveling he’d be doing was by bits and pieces as he’d said in dreams they’d share.

Nearly that same 40th year down on Long Island a kid was born who would attend Geneseo. A person completely unrelated to the old woman whom by the time of his attendance she’d be near 70 years old. She had no relation, and for all she had known, he would be just another of the thousand to have walked her sidewalk while she rocked in her chair admiring the chill the wind never forgot to offer. After three years in attendance his friends came to visit. Those were nights where they escaped the watchful eye of their parents being 6 hours too far away from home. Any more reason to get drunk would be far beyond obvious. The boy was mocked constantly and rendered “the old man” by his peers as he retired to his apartment far earlier than his cronies. These guys were not troublemakers. Not to be known for fights or anything other than fantastic senses of humor mixed with male testosterone. As the night grew later and less and less ladies could be found amongst the establishments they’d loitered, frustration set in. More like Neanderthals, they wandered the streets hoping the night would never end. Creating action in whatever motion presented itself; devious laughs and exclamations like ”who gives a shit” meant open invitations to prove ones masculinity since, well, anything meant go. As the old woman lay in bed ignoring normal screams of obnoxious antics, she’d still appreciated her tiny home and the brittle wooden boards that laid snug in the floor of her front deck. As his friends made their way up the driveway to the apartments known as Courtside, they’d seen something as tempting and fulfilling in their need for destruction that they couldn’t pass it up. There was no one left to impress except themselves, yet the laugh they’d expect was far worth its demise. Snatching up 70 years of love and history off the deck, the biggest of the three took it by both arched legs and swung it hard round several times with his body like an Olympic discus practice. Assuming nothing of its sentimental value, these men, and I call them men because there’s no better way to demoralize their action then to parallel its childishness to their age; they went ahead and mistook this legacy as something made in Ikea for less than twenty dollars. As he released the chair they all fell silent. Careening through the air it was like a body ejected from a car, flailing uncontrollably before gravity ended its artistic form. You could hear them breathing with dumbfounded stares as if they had no idea what would happen. Just like the bones of a human the chair shattered without even a battle. There wasn’t even an extra piece big enough to pick up and break over their knees. It deserved no more abuse, and offered no other possible opportunity for it.

Throughout the night the pieces stayed scattered on the apartment building driveway as students drove over them. No one had any idea of the cause, the effect, the reason…..they really didn’t care. The following morning the old woman walked outside and picked up the lifeless remains that were nearly as important as her father. It’d all been far more different than she’d ever imagined because that’s what life is. The unexpected changes that one person we might never meet or know, has on others. She dragged a puke green wheel-less garbage pail with a hole at the bottom along her grass that butted up to the driveway to the apartment building. It seemed like she wanted to make it harder on herself rather than walk the same paved line those boys must’ve treaded hours earlier. Branches popped out of the top of the lid as she’d done yard work throughout the week. She piled her favorite chair in with the branches; each piece of wood still as much alive as the day it hit the ground.

When she finished, she turned back, tugging, flexing, breathing….tugging, flexing, breathing. Every bump in her lawn she’d fight the garbage pail over, and each automatic thud sprinkled little pieces of painted chips and branches out the crack in the bottom like natural fertilizer. When she turned around to get a better grip with both hands, she saw the light white streak she’d left trailing behind her over the grass. The path towards home that he promised she’d see him make. It wasn’t until then that she started to cry. She’d never thought she’d have the chance to help him fight his way out; to bring him back home to the place he loved, and to keep him there forever even after she’s gone. It wasn’t until the night of the Neanderthals that she finally thanked her father for every single day she’d stared eager at those vacant hills, as he’d given her the opportunity to finally bury him in his own backyard.

Selfless Reflection and Credit to Lives Forgone for Our Own Sake

2009-02-03T16:32:00.000-08:00

I’ve deeply settled into the thought of what our parents were before our lives. Before we harnessed them to couches and schedules they'd kinda chosen because sex was fun.

I’ve only known a man, never the boy. What he thought his life would be like. What he worried about, what embarrassed him the most about himself. To us he was always perfect because that’s what dad looked like….he looked like dad, but what did he think he looked like?

When he stared at a baseball card, did he wish for the majors? Did he want for anyone so bad his throat tasted it? Did he ever wonder who he’d marry…..and was she something of the storybook beauty, or a neighbor’s tom-boy crush? Did he know right away, or did it grow stronger with time? Hell, did it grow weaker with time? Running any race, what was he thinking about before the finish…who was he really doing it for? Holding his finger out for a ride to the beach, was there ever a worry it might be the end, or was the risk the excitement in living? In his life before this, what was his motivation? Was he lost and scared in the choices he’d make...... that they’d be right for everyone he loved, who he'd still never met... Had he chosen to work where he did, or was it a place he settled on because it was time to become a man? Canoeing the lake he’d done so many nights, no stroke ever the same, no moon shining the ink streaking glimpse he'd seen the year prior.....who he saw below the oar, I wonder if he loved them?

Brushing their hair and grasping the rings that dangled from the chain of those they’d agreed to go steady, our mothers were innocent dreamers. Staring in the mirror, they looked right through their eyes until forever. It was wherever they’d chosen to be swept. How fast it’d be and how their legs would dangle free over the threshold. The arms of the man they’d waited for would save them. No more changing younger siblings’ diapers, or sneaking later curfews under the nose of lenient veteran daddies. They knew they didn’t have to sneak, these were good girls and their parents trusted them…like a cigarette’s relief. But they wanted to be bad. They'd pull harder than any girl to fit their tight jeans. They died for a spark…. pushing lipstick harder and brighter because those nights, they lived for themselves. Something we’ve truly never seen. Their faces long since changed the first minute we cried. Oh what it must’ve been like to see them free. Fireflies at night, our mothers lit up rooms.....our mothers were the innocent unknown across the backyard that guys were too scared to try catching. The young women who learned lessons by experience rather than educational resource.....the breed stronger than the men they'd love. If you don’t believe me, ask him.

Do our parents catch themselves day-dreaming through the windows of their minivan, analyzing where they'd fallen short? Reminiscing of their chidhood and those comforting moments of confidence their parents breathed into their ears from bouncing knees. Do they hide those securities for their irrelevance to the present? For who they might hurt if revealed, and how they could never be taken back. Saving them for a long night's sleep where they choose when to open their eyes. I'd like to make as though they were just dumb kids in love, but these people were fearless. You're not supposed to know everything....and knowing that, they made the hardest decisions with their souls.

I can’t imagine something so unbelievable could ever make us become them. There's nothing that could touch them, not even the stars. How strong can they actually be, if at one point they were you and me….

I Refugee From Guantanamo Bay...Dance Around the Border Like I'm.....

2009-01-24T01:35:00.000-08:00

It must've been tenth grade....I'm at this bitch's house for a big ass pawty, excuse me....I have to pull my shawts lowuh past my crack to get into character. For brief shits, this'll be delivered in the upper-to-middle class white ebonics we spoke in 96'. This pawty was awff the chawts, I mean, shit had a fuckin full-size puttin green in the back yawd, shaved to the smoothest little surface it looked like a crop circle bic'ed onto a nice freshman's bald beautiful..........anyway. Back to the pawty...so yea, we're inside pumpin the ghetto shit in Alison's Muttontown mansion. Haha das funny, da bitch's name was Alison....could be a fantastic broad now, but back then...well, like I said... So anyway, the hip-hop's bangin, the bass is shaking a few B-Cups hea and thea and we're all excited ya know, because we're white and wantin to be black but happy because we know we'll always be white. On comes the hottest new song by The Fugees called 'Ready or Not.' Our hands are up in the air and shit, singin da lyrics of a woman who said she'd rather die than have a white man's baby....but we're psyched cause she's Lauryn Hill, and who are we....fuckin white asshole losers who have it easee fo sheezee. Lauryn said it, so it's gotta be! Word... so we're sophomores in high school, we know nothin. All I gotta know is what door to take when grazing my girl's pasture.....ohhhhh, high-fives from all of my boys...uppp, quiet down, here comes that dog Wyclef's part, I lud dis shit. He starts cacklin his jive, makin us all irie and cravin some Red Stripe......no Problem Mahn! Mmmmm antishipatin dat line we lud to recite like da pledge a' leeeshuns........"I refugee from Guantanamo Bay...." finishin it awff wit da rest of my slices, all JNCO Jeaned and White Structure Sweatered-Out....we don't give a fuck!! Shout-out, Sowth SHaw Strong Isle baby!

Present time:
(Speaking more like Dave Chapelle's impersonation of Tiger Woods during the nationality draft....)

Like most kids do, they memorize the lyrics of songs and sing them because they're catchy. I remember singing a Dead Kennedy's song about Pol Pot and knowing less than an excreted nugget of what the man did, but I skateboarded down my suburban block with a sandwich in my hand and headphones tucked into my ears, singing like mass killings were common and you could catch one down at the local sump whenever you felt like it.

“Gitmo”, as the savvy news reporters like to call it, became a topic of conversation amongst bigwigs the day after Obama’s inauguration. Barack said the place would be shut down within a year as offered explanations for its existence are cloudy and equivalent to a Cliffs Notes book report. Now, hating my ignorance of such topics and the flitting disregard of those lyrics I sung like I'd sat next to Wyclef helping him write them...it was about time to research what was being said to soon close down.

Originally the place housed Haitian and Cuban refugees and acted as an asylum before sending them back to their governments as dissidents. Far worse than the Principal’s office, these were not welcoming home parties; your balls on a platter and whenever you got hungry your food was available. Why in my gracious lord’s name we keep this steel labyrinth off in the country we despise second most, I’ll never know. We can’t buy cigars from them, but we can house our world’s most random with confidence in the hands of a dictator we haven’t agreed with since the day he jumped out of the woods. Because it's illegal for us to visit the country, it's smartest to keep it there? Then why even have maximum security prisons here where psycho killers sleep in the same state I do. Send those assholes to Cuba if you think it's safer.

This modern day Alcatraz our government keeps healthy by paying Halliburton (Dick Cheney’s company) 1 Billion dollars to build state of the art facilities. Talk about dipping the pen in company ink; a literal and architectural hell on earth, this thing was like rigging the lottery on Cheney's behalf. After 41 reported unsuccessful suicide attempts by prisoners, the Pentagon re-named the term “self inflicted injurious behaviors”. Way to make up for it guys....did you hold an elementary school competition on who could come up with the best synonym for suicide, and the winner got a shiny new computer lab for their fellow students? Could you imagine if they’re actually reporting 41 attempts, how many there's truly been? Everyday at lunch time...."shit, it's noon, there goes Benny smashing his doggy bowl over his head until he's unconscious...I betcha 20 push-ups he wakes in less than 5."

The problem with this place is that no one wants to be there but no country wants them back. Most of the criminals there now are those involved in terrorist groups, and since that's the case, no country wants to admit they harbor terrorists. Some men await trial and others are just waiting......waiting for the day they can pick up the Kur'an again and read some religious nonsense that got them there in the first place. And by the way, they don't let them have any holy books while in prison and this causes animosity. Personally, I think it's a catch-22. If these guys get out, they hate you and our country for denying them their opportunity to educate themselves in their faith and therefore they blow themselves up to kill Americans because that somehow is holy. On the other hand, you can give them their holy books, they become obsessed fundamentalists and take snipits of dialogue from the text, misconstrue it into something totally absurd like, 'kill kill da white man"(howard stern in "Private Parts").....and they go ahead and draft up a plan to fly airplanes through our tallest buildings. It's a Bush family choice that Obama's working to make obsolete.

What it all comes down to really is whether or not the release of these prisoners is in the best interest of our country and whether or not they are given a trial for whatever it is they're being detained for. If it's prison because the guy is religious and suspected of enjoying terrorism, I still don't believe you could hold someone prisoner on a hunch. If the guy willfully committed a crime then like any other jailbird, keep em locked up. If he was trying to escape his country illegally then ask him which he would rather do, go back to his country and hope not to get killed or stay in the jail. But seriously, you've gotta let those people go that you have no evidence on...unless somehow you prove they're insane and need constant medical attention......in this case, every chicken is labeled in the pen as inflicting self-injurious behaviors...therefore, they're all a bit crazy...we just have to find which pharmaceutical company Cheney owns so he can profit while drugging them up.

.........i've always wanted to say this...."fo shizzle'......