Untitled I

"This world...  Goddamn this world," he thought, his hands locked, thumbs pressing against his eyes.  "If i was on the other side, i might not think this."

Bored, he lit up the runt of a smoke he'd just moments ago stamped into extinguish.  It wouldn't do him any good.  But he was trying to thwart something--change, probably, he thought.  "The devil is laughing at me."

It was a week ago, but the notion still burned.  Some professional linguist, Steve's tart, had stated flatly that poetry was, "Just words".  He thought of his life, his efforts.  Surely, she was full of shit.  Surely words had a terrific power; some shattered lives could suture, some steady could come unhinged.

Or more! he surmised.  Think, think, think, think, think.... He said to himself as he rapped his forehead with his knuckles.  The room began to spin.  He could feel the thick darkness gyrating around him.  He was sinking.  He needed something; help, another smoke, some sleep.  He tried but he could not think.

Diet of the Rich

Sometimes i think the rich will survive beyond most of us.  In 30 years, it's very possible news will come concerning how awful our tap water was.  It will take the place of hormone-fed, preservative-ridden red meat.  Folks'll die and at the funeral they'll say, "Well, he drank tap water for 40 years."

Also, the rich can not only afford nutrient-rich diets, but can also afford to eat meat as a staple.  So not only are they healthier, they're also spoiled.  No one should ever say a vegan diet is expensive.  But it is, in its own way, a sacrifice rather than an indulgence.

those are my thoughts today.

My Time with Joe

My Time with Joe

I will tell you a story, one from ages ago.  It’s nothing heavy; there are no serious nor boundary-breaking themes.  It is simply something that happened to me ages ago when I was embarking on my final year of grade school in Omaha, NE.

Of the exact date, I am not sure—early 90’s probably, in the summer.  My parents had divorced the year before.  My mother felt helplessly sick—not in the medical sense, but in the psychological sense.  She says about the time that she finally understood what an abusive parent she’d been.  And to this day, she begs forgiveness through a stream of tears every time she thinks of the period just before her trip.  That is where I shall begin.

As I said, I was in the last year of my grade school education.  We had visited my mom in the institution in Tuscon, Arizona.  And before that we stayed at granny’s house in Manhattan, KS.  But neither of those tales will we resurrect here.  Instead, we head for the last stop on the trip, the P_____’s house back in Omaha, NE.

The P____’s were family friends.  In earlier days, we’d even play together with their kids.  We lived fairly close to each other which was reason enough to hang out.  There was one my brother’s age, and one a year older—a sister and a brother, respectively.  And there were twins—twin girls that were my sister’s age (3^rd grade, approx.).  The only of their kin anywhere close to my age was Joe—2 years my junior.  Inevitably, it was in his room I was to bunk.  We, my sister and I, had at least a week before my mother returned, and probably more like two.

This has little to do with this story, but for some reason my older brother went to stay with some other family with whom he was more familiar.  That left my sister and I alone at the P_____’s and at their mercy.

From day one I felt uneasy.  Apparently, Joe’s sexuality was just blossoming.  I’d been familiar with masturbation for about three years and knew how to keep it quiet.  I wasn’t interested in experimentation cuz that shit gets out and can ruin a kid’s rep.  Besides, we were all students at an all-white, sexually repressed Catholic school.  One time, a young fellow a year older than me admitted to everyone he masturbated the day before he moved with his family to another town.  The news rippled across 3 grade levels of students who were stupefied that someone touched himself like that and was okay with it.  I could only react shyly about the news.  Mostly speechless with secret shame, I could only utter aloud in wonder about what would make a kid admit such a risqué thing.  No one questioned my reaction cuz everyone felt guilty about the truth.

As I said, Joe’s sexuality was blossoming.  In other words, nothing so controlled his actions as the desire for sexual satisfaction—NOTHING.  As days went by, I noticed an increase in daring regarding Joe’s libido.  Let’s start with the horses behind their house.

I loved the horses.  I thought, “How cool to have your own stable—at the edge of the city of all places.”  I felt honored to be able to pet and brush the regal beasts, but Joe saw them for more—a lesson in anatomy.

It started in the stables, just two young kids observing, the one showing the other how they fed, where the water came from, etc.  It ended, however, in the middle of the pasture where Joe picked his favorite horse.  He had me take special notice of the horse’s cock, pointing first with a stick, then tapping it, then touching it with his bare hand.   A horse’s cock was a mystery to behold for young Joe P______.  For me it was awkward and left an anxious lump in my throat that kept me leery but speechless.

Later on, I was upstairs in Joe’s room.  I already felt uneasy, as I’ve said.  The P______’s house was pretty huge as you can imagine having a stable and pasture in the backyard.  Every room had gigantic walk in closets.  That was where I would change my clothes, having always been modest or at the least, repressed.  Joe promised—I made him—that he wouldn’t burst in while I was changing clothes.  Well, he didn’t, at least not until I was stark naked.  The iron being hot, Joe struck.  I covered myself and pleaded with him to go away.  Joe, like most kids his age, was a pervert you couldn’t trust.

Finally, a day away from the return to school, I was casually covering my class books with cut out paper bag material as was required from everyone who would be attending classes for the upcoming year.  Suddenly, from the corner closet came a raging, nude Joe P______ waving his half-erect penis in my face, giggling between howls—“Hey Tom!  Look!  I got a boner!”  I was so flustered I couldn’t respond.  All I could do was wait for this tween to finish up with his cock-wagging dance and get out of my way.  He did and that was that.  I finished my book-covering in relative peace and imagined all the kids I’d rat out Joe to once we returned to school.

Of course I was eager for my mom to return.  I wanted so badly for our family to return to its casual dysfunction so I wouldn’t have to live in fairly unfamiliar houses with horny twelve year olds flashing their stuff at me. I wanted to return to my repressed wholesomeness and not feel beleaguered by penis fixation (my own excluded).   I guess I got my wish.  In another couple of years, my mom would move to St. Louis with my little sister leaving me at the mercy of my older brother and my impotent father—something heavier perhaps for another time.

My Friend Jim

I used to have a good friend, Jim.  He came from a wealthy family and was spoiled rotten.  I think his life began going downhill once he began smoking weed.  His parents allowed him endless cash for whatever he wanted, and inevitably he spent it on pot.  Jim smoked way more than I did.  He even rigged up a bong in his car in which a rubber hose was attached to a homemade water pipe he built into the space between the front seats.  He’d roam around, nothing to do, and puff at his leisure.

I lost contact with Jim around college.  I can’t remember the specific circumstance—I basically bailed on all of my friends after I, myself, became victim to drug abuse—specifically, a life-alteringly bad acid trip.  That is the only reason I can think of why we stopped hanging out.  Or maybe I was just too cool for him (During high school, many of us hung out with him for his food and video games and musical instruments).

Jim had an addictive personality.  His desire to get high knew no limits and none of us suggested he slow down, take a break.   You just don’t get between a man and his drugs.  Although I don’t know whether he ever tripped acid, I do know he dabbled in crystal meth.  That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  It was a rare moment when I revisited some mutual friends of ours that I heard what was happening with Jim:

The first that I heard of Jim going off the deep end began with tales of the meth he’d gotten into.  At some point, he’d broken into our friends’ apartment and stole a pound of weed.  No one pressed charges (no one could, really), but everyone knew it was Jim that did the dirty work.  He’d gotten away with some pot, but he’d lost some friends and seemed to be losing his mind.  I don’t think those mutual friends really had any sympathy for Jim’s condition.  I did and was worried.

Later, I learned he’d holed up in a motel near West Omaha and was generally avoiding everybody including his parents.  He was obviously paranoid someone would come after him for the pot he stole, but his paranoia had grown by leaps and bounds, stretching out to include family, friends and strangers. 

I visited Jim while he lived in this motel.  He had everything he needed to get by—electronics, video game consoles, a cd player, cable tv, and, I think, some meth.  When I met him he was drinking ice water and chatting rather wildly.

Jim’s parents continued to take care of him financially, figuring that he needed to be away from the house he grew up in, and that, inevitably, he would come home when he was ready.  That’s what the money they gave him said.  I think, internally, Jim’s parents were very worried and confused about what to do.  Jim was accepting the money, but avoiding his parents who he saw as a threat.

About a week later, things went from bad to worse.  While meeting with his parents at their house, Jim and his father, Jerome, got into an argument.  I can only presume that Jerome was worried and was trying to help his son, but what Jim understood by his father’s hysteria was that Jerome wanted him dead.

Jim rushed out to his car and threw it into reverse.  His father, obviously desperate to keep his son safe, leapt onto the hood of Jim’s car, holding on for nearly a block until he fell off into a tumble, landing at the edge of the street. Jerome found a brick and immediately chucked it at Jim’s car smashing his back window in a last ditch effort to get his son to stop the car and come to his senses.

Around the time all this was happening, I was going through my own mental anguish.  I’d smashed my car into a tree on purpose and ended up in the local Omaha mental asylum with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenic.  I’m uncertain as to how long I spent in the hospital, but I do remember being forced to go to this shitty outpatient program during my days while living at my dad’s apartment in North-West Omaha.  It was during that time I visited Jim, post-hospital.

Jim was living alone in an apartment at the time not far from where I was staying.  He looked fatter than I remembered and mentioned that they’d put him on a large dose of Depakote on a daily basis.  Around his apartment were the usual trappings—tv, video game systems, musical instruments, cd player.  His parents were again paying for everything.  I like to think he had a part time job that was helping occupy the time, but I was so fucked up in my own head then that I am not able to remember many specifics.  Due to my own anguish about the shit I was going through, I may have colored Jim’s situation a shade darker than was actual, but I couldn’t help but portend hopelessness in his situation.  Sure, he could talk.  He could sound normal.  But something wasn’t right.  Jim wasn’t right.  And I guess, if I couldn’t see my own hope, I certainly couldn’t see Jim’s.

Months passed without another visit to see Jim.  I ended up back in the hospital, this time for the long haul, a stint that only ended—5 months later—with a leave to visit my father.  It was then I escaped to Durango where I spent 3 years free of most symptoms until my most recent breakdown, which took place around the spring of ’05.  It was in the Denver hospital that I had a dream about Jim that horrified me:

Along a stale, grey road, I witnessed the trio of neighborhood friends I grew up with.  There was Mike and Dan and of course, Jim.  They were approaching me, but it wasn’t really them.  They were mere specters of their former selves, absent of joy, absent of possibility, absent of those bonds that friends who’ve known each other since the very seed of their youth share with each other.  They were, in a word, hopeless.  I was so shook by the dream I knew I’d never forget it.

As I’ve slowly recovered from my own prolonged disorder, I’ve often looked back over my shoulder at where Jim and I left off.  I’ve hoped—prayed—that Jim got better, that he’s back living with his family, that he’s had the courage and wherewithal to continue onward through life despite the harsh turn it took in his early twenties.  I’ve hoped, but I can’t help fearing the worst.

I’ve searched for Jim on Facebook and Myspace.  I’ve sought friends of friends and hoped he’d pop up in their friends’ list.  I’ve Googled Jim S_______ and Omaha World Herald.  The only thing I’ve stopped short of is Googling the words, “Jim S______ “ and “Suicide”.

Since my father died, I have no reason to go back to Omaha.  And even if he were alive, I don’t know that I’d have the courage to seek out the truth about Jim.  I’d probably just let it go, like smoke to the wind.  And I guess that would allow me to keep hoping.

Earth-Bird

I've thought of the Earth, it's cities emblazoned with street lights, it's country dotted with wisps of wheat and stalks of corn and cicadas; i've thought of the Earth and all it's visible and invisible elements as a great bird regurgitating its foods into our open, screeching maws.  It's just a matter of being hungry and needing to grow.  We don't, perhaps, magically end up in the nest.  Or perhaps we do.

Universe

I was thinking about darkness today and our obsession with it, obsessions with authors such as Bukowski and Burroughs.  I thought long and hard about this and wondered why all the hub-bub.  My theory is that the universe is childlike, yet people wish to feel adult.  To be adult is almost to be godlike.  I don't actually find there to be anything wrong with this ideology.  I, myself, being a writer, crave adulthood.  For some reason adulthood feels both more responsible and less.  We desire independence, i suppose.  And as far as parent-child relationships go, i guess that's healthy.  I just have the half-baked sense that the universe is childlike.  The actuality is probably somewhere in between.  Don't know.

oh poo

Man, there is almost nothing better than a night in Denver. I can't get over it and i can't explain it. All i can do is wallow in it. And believe me, i do.

I don't need a destination at this point. All i need is my feet, some headphones and a smoke or two for the road. It's as if i can sap the air of its nocturnal elements. It's as if the shadow were a boon. As if it nuzzled its way through cooling streets, spread wide, and passed out like a local drunk.

The next day i never see. I never see the sloppy monster come to his senses, stretching his dark legs and leave off the corridors and conjunctions to nurse his hangover on the other side of the globe.

Daylight is something different altogether. Daylight is docking boats and backing trucks. Beep beep beep seems to be the mating call of the day. Excited birds rise to play on the drum of the sun, circling and cooing, diving and flapping. Smog reigns supreme and little peace is paved. Kids chatter loudly like a crowd at a concert. Busses screech and pass air. the daylight is a dizzy delerium. It's a chaos. It's always too early. The day gods are boring. they'll never squeeze their crotch in public, smell their pits or pick their nose. Few farts escape, and those that do are met with frowns.

Boring boring morning, better smoked from a spliff than faced with wide-eyed sobriety. And of course our one remainder--a little gift--from the lone drunkard is the hitch we unlatch before we head off to work. That one, minute moment we release, we pass on from dark to light is our brief reprieve before forcing our way through another anxious era of awareness and action. It is a package of peace. It is a deep, dark remnant meant for the dead, that with which we've been and done.