I was sipping nihilistic karma from a chipped cup on a hillside overlooking a rainy funeral dirge, the silver trumpets blared, the dead one stared from out of the center of the box with locks that held his corpse in nice and tight
The rain washed over me, soaked me as the gloomy troop marched through the slop and the joy boys lowered the casket with clumsy speed. My finger slipped directly against the chip, a moment of clumsy stirring the blood mingled with the nihilistic karma my blood mingled with the rain and I ran to the nearest club for a warm wet towel and a cascade of hermit vibes
I sat at the bar, and it was like Saturn, rings of smoke swirling and twirling with the rhythm of the chocolate clocks Gender-fluid barflies drowning in warm wet circles dialing up centrifugal force against the grain, and the rain came down like rubber sheets spilled in through a shadowy doorway, a stranger stepped through shook like a dog coughed out a fog and motioned to the nearest conflagration
I turned away and sang a song to the barfly maidens, a song I had heard a while ago where they buried the man so far below, they laughed and pawed tore the coat from my back and I ducked away to the nearest coma, a dirty carnival rambling rough a hidden room way off from here a place of stone idols bathed in the grasp of spindly limbs blindly grasping beneath a wet canopy of gold and green scattered across the stratosphere
And when the midnight shook through the glass hallways of this dream all my hopes and desires became breathless and tight I wanted her below me creamy and shocking bellyaching in the limelight of this nightmare life, flicking ashes on a wet lawn hours before another stifling dawn, the moon cradled in such a tilt as I screamed out the agony of my loving guilt.
Gracelyn Polk sat at her desk in the middle of her world history classroom at Cabbage Junction Primary School. She was fidgety and nervous and chewing on her nails like she knew she shouldn’t. But she couldn’t help it. She hated giving speeches. Hated it so much. She softly sighed. “I’d rather eat tree bark if I had the choice,” she quietly said to herself. The thought bounced around in her head like a pinball, echoing like a steel drum off the sides of her inner skull. She took a deep breath and exhaled. She tapped her papers on the desk to align them neatly, and then got up and walked to the front of the classroom.
She nervously shifted as she stood there, eyes cast downward, which she knew wasn’t the right thing to do when giving a speech. The papers were rattling in her hands. A large green blackboard behind her displayed the words Avoid the Dream in powdery white chalk. She cleared her throat and pushed her hair back away from her face. She glanced toward the windows to quickly see what it was like outside — wishing she was there. Leaves danced in an invisible breeze. The sky looked like aluminum rubbed raw by the hard-working hands of God. The papers containing her speech suddenly slipped from her hands and floated down to the floor in a scrambled mess. She quickly bent down to retrieve them, struggling to get them back in order. Her stomach was sick with embarrassment. She composed herself and tried to stand tall. Her lips trembled as she finally began to speak, but her head was down, and she was simply reading what she had written on the sheets of paper.
“In my quest to make the world a better place, my important invention would be a soda pop aqueduct. To help me with this all-important project, I would conjure up the spirits of Roman engineers as my historic guides.
Roman engineers were very smart and created some of the greatest engineering feats in history — many of which remain to this day. Examples of this would be The Colosseum in Rome, which is in Italy, and one of my favorite places to travel to… Not only for the history, but the cute boys and delicious gelato as well.”
Gracelyn’s laugh that followed was awkward and insincere. It was supposed to be a funny little joke, she thought, but no one was laughing. Inserting a bit of humor into an otherwise tedious speech was supposed to be a good thing, she debated in her seasick head. Wasn’t it? She cleared her throat and quickly bent her head down to continue reading.
“The Imperial Baths of Trier in Germany are another fine example of Roman ingenuity and architectural prowess. They are believed to have been built in the 4th century and are a testament to how important bathing was to the ancient Romans. The site is said to have been capable of hosting thousands of bathers. Eww. I don’t think I’d want that many people with me in my bathtub.”
Again, Gracelyn’s attempt at interjecting humor into her speech was unsuccessful. Her nervousness grew. Her voice became shakier.
“Moving on. My favorite ancient Roman site and the inspiration for my idea for an important invention, is the Pont du Gard in France. The Pont du Gard is a huge three-tiered aqueduct bridge that was used to help transport water in the olden days from the town of Uzès to Nîmes — a distance of about 30 miles to us. The aqueduct dates back to around 19AD. If you’re ever in France, check it out.
The reason I’d want to build a soda pop aqueduct would be so that everyone has equal access to soda pop. I think soda pop is delicious and I’m sure many other people do as well. Soda pop makes me happy, especially in troubled times of personal struggle when I sometimes feel that I just want to throw myself off a cliff… Or the Pont du Gard for that matter. The bottom line is, my invention would bring happiness to all people — regardless of race, sex, age, religion, ethnicity, gender identity or who we love… And isn’t that what we should all be striving for?”
Gracelyn looked up from her papers and her muddied golden eyes slowly scanned the rows of empty desks in the silent classroom. She suddenly felt horribly sick to her stomach, dropped her speech, and dashed out of the room.
Gracelyn ran down the empty, polished hallway lined by orange lockers and bloodied bulletin boards until she reached the girls restroom. She slammed through the doorway and quickly made her way into one of the stalls where she dramatically threw up.
She steadied herself with her hands against the sides of the cold stall, her head bent over the toilet, her mouth dripping. She was breathing so hard, almost like a dog on a sweltering summer day. Tears began to roll down her face as she tried to tamp down the sick feeling inside her. She shakily reached for the flush handle and pushed it down. There was a loud swirling swoosh.
She went out of the stall and to the line of sinks. She turned on the discolored water, filled her hands and splashed it over her face. She forced some into her mouth, rinsed, spit. Gracelyn looked at herself in the cracked mirror and it made her look distorted… “But I am distorted. In so many ways,” she mumbled to herself.
It was silent for a moment, and then someone said from one of the other stalls, “I thought your speech was wonderful.”
Gracelyn Polk sat in the Cabbage Junction Public Library reading about the Napoleonic Wars from an old, oversized book.
She sat at a large table by herself surrounded by high shelves filled with thick and important volumes, just like the one spread open wide before her. Her muddied golden eyes intensely scanned the large pages, and then she licked at a fingertip and turned to the next ones.
“I see. How interesting,” she said aloud to herself.
Sunlight streamed in through long, narrow windows situated at the top of the outside walls. The beams bathed Gracelyn in a yellow, angelic glow as if she were dead and doing her homework in Heaven.
But Gracelyn Polk was very much alive, and had been for 413 years now, even though at the moment, she was really just a girl of 11 and the smartest sixth grader at Cabbage Junction Primary School.
She looked up at the ceiling and smiled to herself as she thoughtfully spoke to the air. “I just love history. It’s just so fascinating – especially when you’ve lived through so much of it as I have.”
When the girl decided she had had enough of the Napoleonic Wars, she closed the big book, clumsily lifted it, and returned it to its waiting space on a nearby shelf. She slapped her hands together as if knocking off dirt. “My, my. Books are so heavy and take up so much space… And so much paper.”
She suddenly felt very small surrounded by all the high shelves of books. It was very quiet in the library as it should be. She glanced up toward the windows and could tell the light of day was beginning to fade. A red wasp angrily danced against the glass. She retrieved her cell phone from a deep pocket in her pink sweats and pulled it out. She held it up before her face, smiled, and took a selfie. “I don’t know why I do that,” she said to no one. “I’m such a hot mess.” She looked at her phone again – no messages, no calls, no energy. Gracelyn sighed, snatched up her backpack from the large table, strapped it on and walked toward the exit.
As Gracelyn approached the circulation desk near the front doors, she smiled, waved, and cheerfully called out, “See you later, Mrs. Costilla,” and walked out with a bounce.
Mrs. Costilla didn’t reply. Her bones remained still and silent, gathering the gently falling dust from the comfort of an office chair, just as they have done for a very long time now.
Gracelyn pulled her bike out of the bike rack, got on it, and started to ride down the middle of Main Street. There wasn’t any traffic – only silence and wind. Her burnt-sienna hair flapped and flowed behind her like a torn flag on a motorboat as she passed by the husky downtown buildings of red brick and large windows. A horribly dressed and bald mannequin slept dead on a bed of broken glass in front of the Cabbage Junction Thrift and Antiques store.
When Gracelyn came to the intersection of Main Street and White Chocolate Road, she turned left. The neighborhood there, called Vinegar Village, was cluttered with old houses, most in shambles, yards overgrown, streets empty, odd smells in the air. Her legs pumped faster because she didn’t like the area. It scared her. “Avoid the dream,” she said to herself. “Avoid the dream.”
As the neighborhoods thinned, the landscape became more pastoral – farmland, fields, and wide pastures cradled by forest walls of dark green. The sky above, wide and bluish yellow. She turned right on a gravel road and toward the big white house that rested at the end of it.
She set the bike down in the grass near the front porch painted battleship gray on the floor and peeling wedding-gown white on the spindles and caps. She bounded up the few steps to the front door. She stood on a faded welcome mat as she fished for a key from her pocket. She inserted it and turned it, then her small hand grasped the doorknob and pushed forward.
The Creamsicle-colored cat, Moses, stared at Gracelyn with wide lemon-lime eyes as he squatted on the dining room table just a few feet from her as the girl did her homework. He resembled a wide loaf of bread. The girl was surrounded by jar candles for light, and she warned Moses of the danger. “Don’t come any closer, my dear kitty, or your fur is liable to catch fire, and that would be a terrible thing.”
Moses quickly turned, jumped down and trotted off into an unknown darkness in another room. Gracelyn shook her head and laughed. “What a smart kitty,” she said, and then she picked up half a peanut butter and mint jelly sandwich from a plate by her side and bit into it and chewed as she studied. “The Romans were amazing engineers,” she said aloud to the quiet house as her eyes danced across the words in the book. “I wish I could have been there to see it all. Perhaps someday.” She reached for her can of Elf brand grape soda and put it to her mouth and drank until it was completely drained. “Damn that’s good,” she said, and she threw the can over her shoulder, and it landed on a growing pile of other cans behind her.
Moses reappeared and rubbed himself against her legs below the table. “I know, dear kitty. I need to find more, or I may not have anything delicious to wash down my meals with. If only I could build a soda pop aqueduct, like the Romans.” She sighed. “But I’m afraid that would be nearly impossible without any help.” The cat purred loudly and uttered an instructive meow. “Yes, yes. I’ll get to the recycling as soon as I can. But I’m very busy, you know… With school and studying and everything else. It’s not easy being a young girl in a world such as this. Be patient, Moses kitty.”
I floated above the road from out of LipLock, Tejas earlier in the day and headed north, then east. I rumbled along with the roar of it all past that Tulia place again, into the belly of the Yellow City and then back out again like a screaming colon blow.
There was a place further down the road there that looked like some gleaming white Zionic temple minus Moroni but turned out to be some angelic rest stop – a sort of place for celestial evacuation I suppose. It was a high-tech joint with sliding doors, acid-high neon and brightly buffed tiles. The walls were decorated with all sorts of Americana logos and pop posters made to look like they sprang right out from the 1950s – they were going for the whole Route 66 celebratory theme, but an earth closet is still an earth closet and making pee is still making pee. I guess it was comforting enough for weary travelers and indeed kept very clean. I saw an immigrant from Nicaragua wildly mopping the floor with mad vigor and I sort of shook my head and laughed at the fact that Wild West rest stops are kept better looking than most of the towns and the cities – and I guess immigrants are fine in our country as long as they are cleaning up after our savage releases.
I stopped for the night in the town of El Torino, Oklahoma. Clint Eastwood was working the front desk of the glowing green hotel and he was kind of grumpy and called me a “punk.” There was a dirty steak place just down the road from where I was staying and I went there for some supper, as my lady friend Ms. Tinkachook says.
The hostess was a sad and desperate-looking white-skinned soul who didn’t smile much and merely mumbled. I followed her and she seated me in the section for all the lonely people who ate by themselves. The joint had been kicked around in the crotch a few times it seemed – a greasy sort of place with smudged windows and a smell more fit for a bowling alley than a restaurant. I felt the need for the animalistic Reverend Jim to be there with a big ol’ bottle of hand sanitizer to baptize me in, but like most men of Bog, he must have had his hands tied by other spiritual and cleansing emergencies.
The waitress chick was a spotted-owl kind of gal reeking of sad spirit and boredom. She strolled about the place with little sense of purpose and recited to all her tables the same rehearsed speech that lacked any sense of genuine care for her work, but I understood her malaise completely, even though I was convinced she hated me.
I ordered an 8 oz. top sirloin that looked pale and beaten but tasted good nonetheless when slathered with some sauce. I got fries too, a salad and some warm bread with cinnamon butter. The food was decent enough for what it was and anyways I was never one to complain in a restaurant. I never thought it wise to piss someone off who was handling my food. There was a table across the way from me with a couple of moms and their dirty kids plus a husband or boyfriend or two. They loudly bitched at the waitress about their steaks not being cooked as they wanted, and they passed their plates back to her and she humped off to the kitchen to turn them back in. I could imagine the cook growling and spitting on the meat or shoving it down his pants and jiggling around a bit to add some of his own spice and sizzle.
My steak was good, and I scarfed it down quickly. And that’s all I said: “It’s good. Thank you.” She smiled halfheartedly and I knew she had better problems than me.
But I had been there before too. I had my time – those days so completely overtaken by life’s strife that I could hardly move or utter a word. Those days of hurt – like a hatchet buried in my skull cap and someone cranking on the handle. There is a laundry list of agonies I have endured that I really don’t want to talk about now except to say it was all about busted up hearts and people dying in real bad ways and there were plenty of times I just wanted to snuff it as Alex DeLarge says. Lights out like a hammer to a lightbulb. No more pawing and panting at the stars like some broken bird who felt like he would never ever fly again. Hopefully I’ve come around to the other side of those ills and I will press on, for there is nothing left to do.
In a pink and salty green desert town in one of the new states, adobe Spanish churches thrust their steeples heavenward, the tips vaporously scraping against the cold blue veil and its cotton-ball clouds glued there like a childhood art project about life.
Down one of the hot, dry, and murderous streets named Olive, a man sits in a flat white house with a carport watching a movie about the Vietnam War. The police are across the way in the gutter drawing a chalk outline around a bent and defeated body.
A woman suddenly steps out of the shadows and into the room where the man is watching the movie and rudely wants to know, “What are we going to have for supper then…? Since you’re being so moody and antisocial.”
He pauses the war movie, sighs, and says to her without looking at her, “It’s called dinner.”
“Not where I come from.”
“Then go back to where you came from,” he snaps, and starts the movie again.
“I think we should go to the family cookout. It’s the 4th of July. Don’t you want to celebrate our wonderful country?”
Annoyed, he thrusts a thumb into the pause button on the remote. “It’s called a fry out.”
“What?” she mockingly laughs. “A fry out? You’re not frying anything. That’s just stupid.” She waits for a reaction.
“What the hell are you going to celebrate?” he wants to know.
“Um, America… The greatest country on the planet – our freedom, our liberty, our justice for all, our way of life that God has blessed us with.”
He scoffs, laughs for a moment. “I don’t want to be around people,” he says. “Especially those people.”
“My family!?”
“Yes. They’re annoying and fake.” He restarts the movie, and a jungle is carpet bombed in a blaze of orange overflowing balls of burning fire and light.
“Could you at least turn that crap off while I’m trying to talk to you!” she yells, hands on hips. There’s gunfire spewing from a dark green helicopter. Then the screen suddenly goes dark. “Thank you,” she says. “And my family is wonderful. They’re wonderful people.”
“They hate me.”
“Of course, they do. You’re a loser, and they don’t like losers.”
The man gets up out of his chair, goes to the large picture window, and pulls the curtain aside. “Did you see that someone else has been killed?”
She goes to the dining room table and rummages through her overstuffed purse looking for her car keys. “It’s no wonder, considering the neighborhood you force us to live in because of your inability to succeed in this world. When are you going to get a real job so that we can live somewhere better? That house next to my parents is still for sale. Wouldn’t that be wonderful if we could buy it?”
“There’s a dead guy lying in the street,” the man reminds her.
She scoffs. “I don’t care. It’s probably just another one of those damn immigrants that come here to strain the system, commit crimes, and steal our jobs… A job you should have!” She makes her way to the door. “This is America, not Mexico.”
“You’re leaving?” he asks her.
“I’m going to my parents’ house. We’ll celebrate our freedom without you.”
When the movie is over, the man removes the videotape from the VCR and replaces it in its box. He walks out of the house and locks the door. Across the street, a black body bag is being loaded into a white van. A cop turns to look at him. The man turns away and starts to walk. It’s late afternoon.
As he makes his way through the neighborhood of sad houses and old trees, people are in the street cheerfully hopping around exploding firecrackers, waving sparklers in the air, and sending bottle rockets into the sky. Someone has a round grill set out in their driveway. A man wearing a tee-shirt with the words BBQ, Beer, and Freedom emblazoned on the front is flipping burgers in a cloud of smoke. “Hey mister, you want a burger?” he asks the man clutching the videotape box.
“No thank you. I have to get to the video store.”
“Well, surely you have time for some delicious Freedom fries?”
“No thanks. I must be on my way.”
The man flipping the burgers is immediately offended. “Seriously? Don’t you want to celebrate America?”
“Not really.”
“Huh? Are you some kind of socialist asshole?”
“I think you mean communist.”
“What? It’s the same damn thing.”
“Actually… Never mind. I need to get to the video store before they close.”
“Do whatever the hell you want, traitor. I’m going to have myself a delicious burger and enjoy my freedom! Whoooo yeah! America!”
The man stood in line at Silver Screen video. The place was annoyingly crowded. When it finally came to his turn at the counter, the man set the videotape down and looked at the clerk. “I would like to return this video, and… Would you have any movies about the French Revolution?”
The clerk looked at him, puzzled and smacking gum. “The French Revolution?”
“Yes.”
The clerk scratched at his head and looked around the busy store. “Uh. I don’t think so… But hey, what about Days of Thunder? We just got it in.”
“Days of Thunder?”
“Hell yeah,” the clerk said. “It’s got Tom Cruise in it and there’s race cars and hot chicks and all kinds of cool shit. It’s really good, and a true celebration of the American spirit.”
“I don’t think so,” the man said.
“Why not?” the clerk wanted to know, hurt and suspicious. “You don’t believe in the spirit of America?”
“Not really.”
“Then get the hell out of my store and don’t come back!” the clerk yelled, and he pointed his big finger toward the door.
“What? Why?”
“Because you don’t believe in the spirit of America and that’s bullshit, man! Only true Americans are allowed to rent videos here. Now get out!”
When the man got back home, he walked across the street and looked at the asphalt. The chalk outline of the body was still fresh. There were splotches of blood within the lines. The cops were all gone. Everyone was gone. The street was hot and empty. He glanced across the way at the crappy house he lived in.
He unlocked the front door and went inside. It smelled musty. An air conditioner achingly whirred. He walked around the dark house, went into all the rooms. The place was a mess. Unopened boxes and piles of clothes and paper littered nearly every horizontal space. He went to the kitchen and began to work on cleaning up the mound of stinky, dirty dishes in the sink. Halfway through he stopped. He suddenly became seriously depressed about the state of his life and the world he lived in. It came on like a bolt of lightning and froze his bones and mind.
He made his way to the living room chair he called home within his home. He sat down in the silence and pointed the remote at the boxy TV. The screen filled with a snowy static. He tried to change the channel but every single one, all 57 of them, were the same – snowy static, and that low fuzzy buzz that went with it.
The man just sat there for a long time, falling into a catatonic daze, broken only by a sudden and frantic knock. His heart was pounding when he jumped up and went to the door. He pulled it open and there was a tall man with white hair dressed in a suit and a top hat, all resembling the American flag.
“Yes. Can I help you?”
The tall man with the white hair and dressed like the American flag spread his arms out in front of him in an imitation of fanfare, a gesture of ta-da. “It’s me!” the patriotic man exclaimed. “I’m Sam. Uncle Sam!”
“I thought you were just a made-up creature,” the man straightforwardly said. “Like Christopher Columbus.”
“Well, that’s just foolish,” Uncle Sam said. “I’m real!”
“What do you want?”
“Well, a little birdy told me you were being pretty glum about the 4th of July. I’ve come to cheer you up and help you realize what a wonderful day it is.”
“Don’t waste your time. It’s my least favorite holiday.”
Uncle Sam sighed in quick defeat, and then stepped inside the house without an invite. He took off his hat and held it in a headlock as he slowly studied the messy home. “You need a housekeeper,” he said. He moved closer to the man, looked around to make sure they were definitely alone, and then spoke to him in a secret whisper. “I’ve got a gal I can recommend. Don’t say anything to anybody… She’s kind of under the radar if you get my drift. See, she’s from Guatemala, but does a hell of a job for me. A hell of a job. And she’s cheap. Do you mind if I sit down?”
“No. You can take my wife’s chair. She probably won’t be back… Ever.”
The two sat there, quiet, and just thinking about life, dust dancing in the toasted beams of end-of-day light now fingering its way in through a slit in the curtains. They could hear fireworks popping outside in the neighborhood. Dogs were barking. Children were screaming with joy. Police sirens wailed in the distance.
The man glanced over at Uncle Sam. “I think your beard is scary,” he said.
Uncle Sam returned the glance and humbly smiled and nodded his head. “I know. I was made to be scary.”
CEREAL AFTER SEX 