Beauty is in baskets lying all over the world a tumbler of goodwill a shot glass of decency lined along the bar of distant scars the marathon jubilee pounds the ribbon strips gray across bridges and country lanes laced with the structure of Big Brother Nostradamus and Orwellian patriots rolling pool balls across the lawn whilst Beethoven wails to the sky life is but a red rubber concerto kick your ball to the stars feel the pressure of toe on geometry and you wonder about the girl living in the cube the colorful cube before your eyes and you know she is ocean beautiful you know she is fun in the sun Morrison dialogue falling from her lips Kerouac’s beautiful dynamite stripped raw from the bumper of your guts and you envision ancient Mexican sunsets in her arms her peeling back the clock and making you feel alive again not a fool, but a partner of comfort turning counter-clockwise in the twine of a misshaped reality and you try to cradle every tombstone in your aching arms pulsing with sweat but you’d carry every burden for her just to make her life a bit more comfortable when all she wants to do is cry so when I’m coughing up all the pain I feel the beaches of my angel’s city call to me and say come join us again for another red rubber concerto witness life witness love witness the fall of my American dream come wear your name badge the golden flask pinned to your chest the prick that draws blood the tag that identifies you as the big log we drink oceans of breath but do we swallow the meaning of life or do we just spit it to the shore and watch it be pulled away by the wet arms of a burdened destiny full of secrets and closet lies and I want to be lead away not on a leash but on a touch to sincere eyes and a head of hair that smells like some dreamy garden and the click click of this oily phantasm draws sand paintings on my tongue and I spit the dryness the emptiness into a dirty space of asphalt always looking toward the sketches in the sky with the hope for new hope with the setting of the sun dial the bright hot eye in the sky beckoning at me to arise and live another day even when God’s spinning wish list is torn in a storm.
I am an anonymous donor spreading my seed of grief across the world and I might as well be blind for all I see is black, the rubber room menace rotating on some wobbly wheel and my gifts have all been opened by other people and I sit and watch in a pile of gold paper remembering the uncle who shot himself the cousin who shot himself the brother, who someday may shoot himself And all the bleeds will flow like thick wine and pool into an ocean where God Neptune will pierce me with a sharpened shovel and all the angels will laugh at God’s biggest mistake.
And this all a malenky bit sad, isn’t it? But what is joy without sadness? It does not exist. What is love without loneliness? The deeper the isolation the brighter the kiss … but still, time stretches out like a river vastly flowing over the rocks and the limbs crushing flowers with a wet fist, numbing hot legs braving a dive and where will I be tomorrow? In a treehouse with a shotgun or in a bar with 11 empty shot glasses before me or on a dancefloor with a whore or alone in felt-like desolation sipping at the tears in my wrist or clapping for the might of the clouds or then again nothing at all. Bear with me bears of the forest for I cannot get a grip on yesterday or tomorrow or even right now stone sober and burning and while someone is making wishes I am losing my mind Another red another notch in the bed another twist of cold morality, but then, things could always be worse and so, I’m not positive, I don’t need to be today I am bleak and writhing in the fuel the dirty fuel casting spells of the tepid hemorrhage and I ache relentlessly for my heart is an inferno download me into the electric sea and you will see who I am meant to be.
I met Edward Abbey at the sand dunes, but he was already blown away I met Miller at a French cafe, but he was already blown away I met Kerouac on a railroad car, but he was already blown away and I met me at yet another airport, but I was already blown away. The bleed pile of my grace is wiped away with a red rag and the doctors can’t patch me together anymore so many holes have I, so many disturbing dreams and polarized realities, my only sanctuary is to drown in paper and words pictures and photographs and electric men pumping bullets into nameless enemies. Today has been fried bologna on burnt toast, water and pills, ashes on my eyes and the sound of her bellowing in the background and the weird upstairs guy snoring through the ceiling. What new ache will tomorrow bring? What will I be forced to swallow into the hollow grave of my soul?
Censor me still-life take my Tomah Graph swimming in the Hollywood Holiday Inn pool now drowning in a pool of my own painful frustrations and jitters uninvited guests in the gray of night this brain hurts like cinema for Alex have another stick of chewing gum another stick of dynamite to ease the grief you so gallantly feel at this moment these white office lights bleaching me pale invading my blood and neuropathic welly wells the gondolas paddle through my veins of Venice churning up all the nicotine clots and bad vibes where is my slice of American apple pie I must of dropped it in Vietnam when the grenade went off and all was nonsense
Cradling three bags of light in my coat pockets as I walked along the Lake Marion Passage Trail some 30 years later I noticed the sky was still the same deep blue the leaves of the trees still fell in perfect rhythm every year the dissection of Autumn Saroyan and Whitman staring down Jack passed out in a beached aluminum fishing boat the narrow, quiet roads lined with the dangling limbs of tall, skinny trees the Spanish moss hanging there like the fallen locks of a stoned Medusa the quiet so soothing, the calm so intoxicating, the wet so disheartening but a woodsy wander it shall be in the rural confines, gloriously gorgeous confines, of the southern Carolina place
Until… Put my fist through the timber lodge paneling the boiling inside again asking for it again just asking for it again, the other side of the coin.
An anguished chill hurts the night king the moans of traffic dissect the interstate lonely bellows of travelers of midnight passage and me, well me I don’t really even know where I am, who I am, why I am some windy, flattened palace of stone and glass and flickering neon and I a statue filled with blood and pain rolling through my nightmares in dirty sheets waking to another day of heat and wind I crawled away, from one hole to the next this one deeper and meaner my crazed mind begging for bandages as I shake and crash my car in the parking lot of a miniature KFC this fast-food world these strips of seductive shopping we work, work, work to buy, buy, buy the oppressed chained to numbing desks chained to numbing machines and boredom the boredom of it all bored out of my skull and being human is slowly, no quickly losing its meaning in this Dropolis and I shudder at the thought of bringing breath to dawn a heart attack, no stroke on the precipice of another day of hopeless struggle and I wonder what is a smile? what is laughter?
The dining of the great meal took place casually in chairs and on a soft sofa in the living room at the home of Veronica Eyes in Berlin, Wyoming. Plates and beverages rested on a coffee table; some people stood while they ate and drank. There was the murmur of blended conversations. There was light laughing.
Steel Brandenburg III sat in a chair in a corner beneath a tall reading lamp with a red velvet shade. He was quiet. He was alone among the people. He watched the others eat, trying to decipher if they liked the store-bought gravy. He braced himself for bitter reactions. Everyone acted as if he wasn’t even there as he raised fork to mouth repetitively. He was a ghost, someone looking in from the other side. He had to break the barrier.
“Are you all enjoying the gravy!?” Steel suddenly blurted out. The others stopped talking for a moment and looked at him. One guy named Craig, who was a real jerk, said, “What’s with the gravy, man? Why are you always about the gravy?”
Steel cleared his throat and looked around at everyone as they awaited his answer. “I… I just want everyone to get the most out of their meal. Gravy’s wonderful for that. It adds flavor and richness to our food.”
Craig the jerk busted out laughing. The others followed suit, even Veronica Eyes.
“Whaaat!?” Craig said with a disbelieving laugh. “That’s like the gayest thing I ever heard anyone say.”
He moved closer to Steel and looked down at him. Craig Nusmerg was a tall buffoon with an odd-shaped body, something resembling a bosc pear. People say the heavy drinking has caused his body to morph and turn him into the strange being he now was.
Craig Nusmerg had been a high school basketball star and nothing much more since. He worked the presses of the local newspaper for the last ten years and always smelled of ink and grease. He was divorced and lived alone in a rectangular can at the local trailer park. Now he was towering over Steel like an over-ripened Godzilla.
Steel looked up at him and shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry. That’s how I feel.”
“Why are you here anyways?” Craig wanted to know. “Nobody gives two shits about the stupid gravy.”
Steel glared at him. “That’s not true. I’m sure plenty of people here are enjoying the gravy.”
Craig scoffed and shook his head. His eyes then caught the white gravy boat sitting on the coffee table and he went to pick it up. “You like gravy so much,” Craig said to Steel as he carried it toward him, “Here you go. Have some gravy.” He tipped the gravy boat, and a thick stream of warm brown gravy came pouring out right on top of Steel’s head. Craig kept pouring and pouring, snickering with delight, until the entire gravy boat was empty. Steel just sat there and let him do it. He let him do it all the way. He just stayed in the chair as the gravy dripped from his hair, down his face, and into his lap.
“God damn it, Craig!” Veronica cried out. “You got gravy all over my favorite chair!”
Craig just laughed, went to grab more beer from the refrigerator, and slipped out onto the back patio.
Veronica ran to get some towels. When she got back, she started mopping up as much of the gravy as she could. She handed a towel to Steel. “You better wipe your face off,” she said. “You look like some horrible creature.”
“Do you think I could use your shower,” Steel asked her with gravy spattering out of his mouth as he spoke.
Veronica was aghast by such a request. “My shower? Oh, no. No, no, no. Let’s just get you out into the yard and hose you off.”
Veronica led Steel out the front of the house and had him stand in the small yard of grass. She went to the water spigot and cranked it on as she leveled the hose. She aimed the nozzle at Steel and began to spray him off. “Close your eyes and your mouth, Steel,” she told him as she worked. “I don’t want to rupture your pupils or break your teeth.” But then again, maybe she did.
It wasn’t long before the real Steel emerged from beneath the slick of gravy. She had him turn around and hold his arms out to his sides. “That’s good,” she said. “I need to get you nice and clean before we send you home.”
“Home?” Steel asked without turning to look at her. “You want me to go home? Why don’t you send that fuck-off Craig Nusmerg home? He’s the jerk. He’s the one who started this whole thing.”
Veronica sighed as she sprayed. “You weren’t even supposed to be here.”
“Right. You lied to me. Why did you lie to me?”
“Because I just knew something weird like this would happen. Weird things always happen when you’re around, Steel. You’re a weird magnet. You’re… You’re just completely weird. I didn’t want you ruining my party.”
Steel turned and stepped back from the spray of water. “Sure. Sure. I get it. Sorry to trouble you.” He walked off, soaking wet, and moved down the street toward where his pickup was parked. He got in it and sped off.
The moon was full and bright, and the landscape illuminated. Steel Brandenburg III drove his white pickup like a cowboy even though he was nothing like a cowboy. He went out to a place called Silver Lake and parked within the bones of the trees near the shore. That same moon that had chased him from the city was still there in the sky, looking down, watching him.
He got out of the truck and went closer to the water. It looked like a mirror with the way the light was shining down on it. He craned his neck upward to look at the ivory disk in the sky and then he just started to scream like an animal. He screamed and screamed until his throat hurt. A herd of deer shuddered through the surrounding brush. He fell to his knees and bowed his head in irreverent prayer, mocking a God who never saw him or cared for him.
He got back up and stumbled to the truck to retrieve his phone. He pressed the button for Veronica Eyes. He breathed as he waited.
“Hello? What is it, Steel? Why are you calling?”
“I just wanted to know if you have ever heard of a symbolic revenge tale?”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“You should be aware that the silly little actions of you and your friends could have serious consequences.”
“What? Have you been drinking? Where are you?”
“Stop asking me questions, Veronica. Just stop. But be prepared.” He ended the call. He looked around at the wilds. The treetops suddenly bent in a gust of wind. Something snapped and fell nearby.
TO BE CONTINUED
By
Aaron Echoes August
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