A willow chancellor in concrete gloves walks the path that meanders from the school, through the forest, and finally reaches the shores of a lake that very few people know about. He sits down in a place of soft grass and unfurls his lunch pail. He withdraws a sandwich and removes it from its plastic wrap. He sniffs at it. Liverwurst on dry bread. He takes a bite. His mouth smacks at it. He retrieves a bottle of raspberry flavored sparkling water from the lunch pail, uncaps it, and takes a drink. He stops and moans with emotional pain.
How will I ever be able to go on with my life with any sense of normalcy after what I’ve done, he thinks.
It was her smell that drove him mad.
But I am only a ceremonial figurehead, he thinks. Nothing I do really counts. I should be deemed untouchable.
But it was touching that got him into trouble.
Her melons were right there. Well, she practically shoved them in my face. He digs for an excuse for his behavior. That’s right. I’ll blame her as is often done. This is all her fault! She forced them upon me. She wanted me to take a squeeze. She begged for it, really. What was I supposed to do? I’m the true victim here.
He finished his lunch and threw the plastic wrap and bottle on the ground.
There. Not only am I a fondler, but I’m also a litterbug, too. And I don’t think I care.
A police helicopter flew overhead. His heartbeat quickened.
They’re looking for me. I’m scared. I don’t want to go to jail.
His cell phone started to ring. It was his wife. He hesitated for a moment.
Hello.
Abbott. The police are here looking for you. They said a young woman is accusing you of touching her breasts! That’s sexual assault, Abbott. Sexual assault!
Honey. Calm down. It’s not my fault. I did nothing wrong. She’s the one that heaved her chest at me. She wanted me to touch those intelligent breasts. She’s the one that assaulted me!
Where are you?
I’m by the lake having my lunch break.
You need to come home right now and face the consequences of your actions.
I’m afraid I can’t do that.
His wife pleaded. But you must!
You won’t even try to understand, will you.
No!
Abbott ended the call and threw his phone into the lake.
He stood up and kicked his lunch pail. He pounded his own head with his fists.
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I should turn myself in. No. I can’t. I’ll never survive jail. I’d rather be… Dead.
He looked at the lake and thought about it. Drowning himself would be a suitable option.He walked toward the water, and once in it, realized it was very cold. He kept walking until his feet could no longer touch the bottom. He was now covered in liquid, and water filled his mouth and nose.
So, he thought. This is what it is like to die. He tried to swallow the lake.
But then a fish swam up to his face, looked at him, and began to talk.
You’ll never get into Heaven this way, the fish said.
I don’t care about Heaven, Abbott said. I just want to be in blackness. It’s all I deserve.
The fish shook his head. Why’d you have to do it? Why did you have to touch that poor girl’s breasts?
It wasn’t my fault, Abbott protested. You should have seen the way she was dressed. They were barely covered. She invited it. I’m innocent. I’m the victim.
The fish scoffed.
You really are a ding-a-ling.
Why don’t you just go away and let me drown in peace.
Fine. I will. Enjoy burning in hell.
The fish swam away, and Abbott closed his eyes and died.
A spiritual anthropologist sat in a diner in the city on a rainy Thursday morning. He looked out the large picture window where he sat and studied the gray sky and thought about human sin. He brought a coffee cup to his mouth and sipped it. Then there was a loud crash that startled him. A waitress had lost an entire tray of food. She started to cry and yelled out “Fuck this job!” and stormed out of the place.
The spiritual anthropologist watched her as she stood at the bus stop where she proceeded to light up a cigarette and start pacing around. She got out her phone and called someone and then started acting like she was mad. “Fuck this phone!” she cried out, and she threw it to the sidewalk as hard as she could and it busted. Her hands went to her face and she started bawling. A man stopped to talk to her and she slapped him. The bus arrived and she kicked it.
Another waitress came to the spiritual anthropologist’s table, and he pointed out the window and said to her, “Your co-worker is really losing it.”
“Oh yeah. That’s Marcie. She does this kind of shit every day.”
“What? Every day?”
“She has a lot of personal problems… Are you ready for your check?”
“Sure, sure. That would be fine.”
He grabbed her wrists and said to her, “Marcie, Marcie. Please calm down. I’m here to help you.”
Her yellow-green eyes were startled and swirling. “Who are you?”
“I’m a spiritual anthropologist. My name is Yurin Gatsby.”
“That sounds made up. No one has a name like that.”
“I do.”
“So. What do you want?”
“I want to help you.”
“How are you going to help me?”
“Come out to my lovely home in the forest and I’ll show you.”
“That sounds creepy.”
Her head turned in different directions, and she bit at her bottom lip, and a look of worry stretched across her face. “I appreciate the offer,” she said. “But I really need to get back inside and clean up that mess I made and be a waitress again.”
“You hate it, don’t you?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Yes. Yes, it is. But do what you need to do. I can wait.”
“But I don’t get off until 4… Unless I get fired again. My instability as a human being is really affecting my life. It makes me so irresponsible. Oh, and I need to stop at Verizon and get a new phone.”
“I’ll drink more coffee, read the newspaper, look out the window. Don’t worry about me. And I can take you by the phone store.”
Marcie sat at one end of the long, polished table and waited for him. She gazed out the cathedral windows. The forest and the hills rolled atop a green carpet. Wood smoke wafted from a single point on the horizon. The late-afternoon sky was pale blue with a stream of cloud work sailing along within it. The house was still and quiet except for the sound of him preparing two cups of coffee.
He brought the cups, set them down and took a seat near her.
“Your house is amazing,” she said.
“Thanks. I like it.”
“No family to share it with?”
“No. Just me. My work is too demanding and really doesn’t allow me the time for such luxuries as family.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I enjoy the solitude. No noise. No drama… Now, before we begin, I think it’s important that we kiss.”
Marcie shot up out of her chair and threw her arms in the air. “I knew it! I knew you were a creep. I’m leaving.”
“No, no. Please let me explain. If we kiss it will break down any emotional barriers between us. We’ll be much more comfortable with each other and therefore you’ll be much more open, and I’ll be able to really help you. Please. Sit down.”
Marcie slowly descended back into the chair. “Just one kiss?” she wanted to know.
“Just one,” Yurin answered.
“Like, now?”
“Yes.”
Their faces slowly came together, and they kissed. Their mouths mingled longer than they both expected. Then they separated and looked at each other.
“All done,” Yurin said with a smile. “How do you feel now?”
“Better.”
“Good.”
The sun was starting to set. They had moved to the living room and Marcie sat on the couch as Yurin settled into his favorite chair after clicking on a soft light lamp.
“So,” Yurin began. “Tell me about your brand of madness. Pick a random memory and talk about it.”
Marcie closed her eyes and flipped through her memory files.
“I once went to the desert in Arizona and got high. I started hiking through a canyon and I was surrounded by cliffs of red rock. There was merely a trickle of a stream and in some parts just the remnants of one. But like I said, I got high, very high, too high, and so everything was weird, and I felt like I was walking around on Mars, not Earth. Then I saw a figure standing on a rock above me looking down. He was dressed in all white and his hair and even his skin were white as if he had powdered himself with talc. He didn’t say anything, but I could still hear him talking, in my mind. He was going on and on about my destiny and how my life was merely a mirage and that I should look forward to death because I will return to my place of origin somewhere in the stars. And as I continued walking he went up into the air and hovered above me. He told me not to be afraid and that he was really my guardian angel but not like an angel in the Bible, he was from outer space and that is what angels really are anyways. I asked him if he wanted to get high and he smiled and descended to the path I was on. He was much taller than I realized, and his eyes were the brightest blue I had ever seen. I retrieved my pipe from my pocket and packed the bowl with a good amount of weed. I passed it to him along with a lighter. He looked at them as if he were confused and I took them back and showed him what to do. I exhaled into his face and he smiled again. His teeth were pure white, but his mouth had a purple tinge to it. I passed him back the pipe and the lighter and he did exactly as I had shown him, and he took a giant hit and then coughed it out. I laughed. He laughed. I told him to try it again and he did, but this time he didn’t cough. As I got higher, I was really tripping out and being with this space being gave me a whole new perspective on life. But then here I am today, a complete mess. So, I’ve concluded that I am living the wrong life. That’s why I am so sad and angry all the time. This isn’t what life was meant to be… For any of us. The white angel told me we got it all wrong. That we took the wrong path and that we are all now enslaved by our ultimate mistake.”
“And what is this ultimate mistake?”
“Money,” Marcie answered. “It forces us to divert from our true passions. Our true meaning.”
“But if no one worked, society would collapse.”
“It’s already collapsed.”
“I must say, Marcie,” Yurin said. “It all sounds like hippie bullshit to me.”
“What? That’s your conclusion. How is that helping me?”
“Sorry. It’s how I feel.”
“Well, then your feelings are stupid.” She started to get up. “I’m leaving.”
“No. Please don’t.”
“I want a ride back to the city.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“I’m tired.”
“Then I’m sending for an Uber.”
“They won’t come. They’re too afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“The woods, the darkness… Me.”
Yurin strangely grinned at her from his chair.
“Then I’ll walk,” she nervously said.
“It’s way too far.”
“Stop trying to ensnare me!”
“But you are ensnared. You’ve always been ensnared. You’ve said it yourself.”
Marcie stomped her feet and groaned. “I just want to go home!”
And suddenly she was in her apartment and the snap fish reality of it all hit her like a wasp sting. Her head swiveled on her neck and she steadied herself.
“What happened?” she said aloud to no one.
Yurin Gatsby appeared from the bathroom with a blue towel wrapped around his waist.
“Hi, hi, hi there,” he said in a cheerful tone. “I hope you don’t mind, but I took a shower.”
“What are you doing in my apartment!?” Marcie demanded to know.
Yurin ignored her question.
“It smells weird in here,” he said.
“You better get dressed and get out before I call the police.”
“The police are too busy rounding up the unholy.”
“Oh, shut up!” Marcie snapped. “It’s the unholy doing the rounding up.”
“You’re lucky your white or I’d report you… But you are a woman.”
“You’re a terrible fucking person,” she said, and retrieved her new phone. “I’m calling building security to escort you out.”
“All right, all right. I’ll get dressed and go, but we haven’t finished your therapy.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want therapy from the likes of you.”
After he left, Marcie stood in front of the bathroom mirror and looked at her weary face. Her sad eyes went to the cubby where she kept all her bottles of prescription medication—a dozen of them if not more. She sighed. How messed up I must be to have all that, she thought. She started to cry.
Yurin Gatsby tasted failure in his mouth as he sat on a bench in the park near a fountain. He watched all the people and wondered, who could be next?
Her or her or her. Maybe him? Maybe a dog or a crow.
Maybe himself.
A woman sat down on the bench next to him. She turned and smiled.
“Hello,” she said.
Yurin returned the smile and placed a hand on her knee. She didn’t react in a negative way.
“I sense you have a lot of personal problems,” Yurin said to her.
The woman sadly laughed. She pointed to two children, a boy and a girl, who were playing near the fountain.
“There are my personal problems,” she said. “I wish I could just walk away and leave them here.”
“I think that would be criminal,” Yurin said.
The woman sighed. “I don’t care. I think I’d rather be in jail. Hell, I am in jail. My life is jail.”
“My name is Yurin. I’m a spiritual anthropologist and I believe I could help you.”
“I’m Kathy Cooper. Look, they’re at the playground over there. They’re not paying any attention to us. We can ghost those annoying little brats.”
“I have a place out in the country in the woods. No one would ever find you,” Yurin told her. “You could take on a whole new identity.”
She took his hands in hers and squeezed. “Take me there. Please.”
“I will,” Yurin said. “But first, I think we should kiss.”
Pull up a chair beside a tall window overlooking a city bathed in the bruised light of neon midnight and smoke a bowl. Be out of orbit and swim in senseless gravity. Go into the kitchen naked, open the refrigerator, and be in deep thought. Let the glow inside the icebox be your mantra. Pick up a pen and a blowtorch and spray the walls with your novel. Figure out how to be happy. What does it take? A smile, a swimming pool, a Christmas tree, a chicken sandwich, a chainsaw.
There was a time when I had a different mindset. It was a time when I suffered more. When love was a constant combustion chamber and money was scarce, and I was always out and about getting messed up and savage. Now I am older and I have fewer friends and a better wife and a cleaner way of living. I don’t miss the way I lived, but I miss the rawness of my writing. Looking back on some old words and I can see a great difference. It’s like I used to just let all that raw emotion go. Now, I have to dig deeper, cut a little further down. It used to be I could bleed at the simple prick of a pin. Am I more guarded or tame? Am I simply boring now? I hope not. I suppose one’s creativity matures as well and perhaps I just have to work a little harder or allow myself to just feel free. It’s a Sunday in November and the sun is shining harshly and it’s going to be warm outside today which means the bugs of autumn will come alive once again. I’m sitting at my desk in my corner space in the bedroom drinking coffee as two box fans whir behind me to give me some peaceful noise. Dead silence is dangerous and delusional. The ringing in my ears will turn to voices that call my name.
I stock fruits and vegetables at a grocery store for a living. All day, most days. A big fat sweet potato had a face the other day and it told me to do a better job, move faster, work harder, that I should strip my hands to the bone. I work my ass off because laziness is just not in my genes. I don’t get paid enough. Not nearly enough. But who does? A lot of people get paid way too much. Football players come to mind. CEOs come to mind. I could spend an entire day making the list. It’s the rest of us, the seemingly less of us, that break our backs to make someone else rich. It’s all backward. Priorities are askew. It will never change in my lifetime. The no talent ass clowns get all the rewards. The rest of us get 15 cent raises, pizza, and $10 gift cards. But yet, I fight life every day. I take the punches, the scowls, the screams, the idiocy. I’m just trying to pay off some debt. My own fault. But I miss the peace and quiet of a life without the mad world standing on my neck. I just do what I do to try to get ahead… But we’ll never truly get ahead, will we? Next week the car will break down, or the roof will spring a leak, or the water heater will go out. And yet I work myself to near death. Like working any harder will get me more. I can be mediocre and still get a paycheck. So many do. In the end, it is what it is. I can’t let it kill me. It’s bananas and nothing more.
Addendum: And three and a half hours after I wrote this, our clothes dryer broke down. Go figure.
There’s a horse who stands in a field out in the country by where I live. A place surrounded by fields of comatose sugar beets and hard earth; a permafrost, an Icelandic bandage holding back the blood, keeping check on the broken hearted, keeping them cold and unsafe when the locks break and that world comes crashing the gates… And the horse just stands there. A white horse, a sort of mangy horse with tears in his eyes and an unkempt tail that flickers in the wind. And as I pass him on my daily exodus to death, I wonder how he can stand it, just standing there in the bitter cold staring off into nothing; and I wonder what he’s thinking, and I wonder if he’s cursing it all just like me. “There’s a barn there,” I say to him. And there is. Right behind him. A small red one next to the old house where the windows frame pale light and unused chairs and an idiot box flashing mad like a pornographic Vicar Street show. “Why don’t you go inside? Lay in some hay and crawl under a warm blanket?” But he doesn’t move. He just stands there and then I wonder if he’s just merely frozen to death. Dead in his tracks. A block of ice. A heart attack perhaps? I look down at the digital thermometer on the dashboard, and it reads 9 degrees… And the wind is kicking ass and the girl in the convenience store doesn’t even know I’m there; too busy scrubbing the loo until I appear in the mirror and she sells me cigarettes and a smile as my car purrs outside the door… I leave the city behind and head back out to the rural environs through the blowing snow and airstrip landing lighthouse blues piercing the night and when I pass the fenced-in field the horse is still there, still in the same exact position he was when I had left him earlier and I felt sorry for him, as I feel sorry for all those that suffer; but then I get to thinking about something I read, about how stock animals are pretty hardy and they can take the cold and some even prefer it and I think of wolves and I think of huskies and I think of the summer heat of days gone by that I loathed so dearly… And now, which do I prefer? Really neither I suppose. Give me a warm rain and cool nights lying next to someone and loved. But that is gone like vapor or never was. And as I look around through these magical spectacles at the peeps and the unholy world, I find little to intrigue me; so I’ll start a new religion and our god will be a nomadic white space horse who lives in the mountains of Idaho and grants wishes if one simply closes their eyes, folds their arms and talks to him. Perhaps someone will pray for a lover to keep the winter chill at bay. But where do lovers dwell? In the bar? In the grave? In a hookah lounge? In jail? Are they waiting? Crying? Laughing? Happy? Sad? Cursing? Spitting? Throwing furniture out the window? And I think that’s why the horse just stands there, oblivious to the pain of the cold, because he is a manifestation of the horse lord in the flesh. He will forgive us all our sins and grant us everlasting peace.
I didn’t see her standing there as I was pushing the apple cart. Then I heard her make a terrible noise. Something akin to a woman falling down the escalator at a mall in Nashville. It wasn’t really a scream; it was more like an exaggerated moan. Agghhhoooh, umph.
“Stop!” someone yelled. “You hit her!”
And there she was, sprawled out on the floor of the grocery store, groaning in pain. A crowd gathered. Fierce eyes crawled all over me. “You should be more careful,” someone snapped.
I panicked. I didn’t know what to do, so I ran to find a manager. “I hit someone with an apple cart,” I said.
“You did what?”
“She’s really hurt. She’s lying on the floor by the wine.”
“Is she whining?” the manager joked.
“This isn’t funny, sir. She could die.”
The ambulance came and they lifted her up onto a gurney and wheeled her out of the store. I followed them over to the hospital. I sat in the ER waiting area. A pharmacy tech doing med rec came over to me and said the woman wanted to see me.
“Me?”
“Yes. She seems pretty pissed off.”
I went into the small room and there she was lying on a bed with a forearm draped across her forehead.
“You wanted to see me, mam?”
She pointed a crooked finger at me and in a strained voice said, “You bastard. Look what you did to me with your apple cart. I’m going to be crippled now and it’s all your fault. Why couldn’t you have just watched where you were going? You shouldn’t have stacked your boxes so high.”
“I’m sorry, mam.”
“Sorry? You’ll be sorry when I sue your ass.”
“Well, I’d like to see you try,” I said to her. “And besides, you should have gotten out of my fucking way.”
“How dare you! Don’t blame me for your incompetence.”
I laughed. “And you’d make any man impotent. You’re so old and gross.”
“Nurse!” she screamed out.
“Shut up you old hag!”
“You’re a terrible, terrible person. You should be in prison.”
“And you should be in a funeral parlor.”
“Well, you almost saw to that, didn’t you,” she scolded.
“And maybe now I should finish the job.”
I grabbed a pillow and held it above her face. And as I was about to smother her, something suddenly hit me. What am I doing? I’m about to murder someone. That’s not cool.
I threw the pillow aside and walked out of the room. I wandered around the long shiny hallways of the hospital for a while. Then I smelled food and went to the cafeteria. I got a fish sandwich, coleslaw, and a chocolate milk. I sat at a table by the window. I looked out at the city rushing by. I took a deep breath and wondered, how did I get here?
Most of the time I regret having my lunch in the breakroom. My day is usually chaotic enough as it is. I should just go outside and sit in the cold, alone, and face the reality of 2025 life. Madness. Walking cuckoo clocks all set to high noon. Watching the neon sprays of capitalistic goading. People driving cars like the world is invisible. Moaning mornings and exhausted nights. Loud talking about nothing. Empty opinions. Slamming doors. Phone firing off. Customers whining about grapes… The endless endless. Serenity salad now!
CEREAL AFTER SEX 