

THE SON CAN DREAM

By Mike Cruz

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2005 Mike Cruz

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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{-us, God No!!!! Move!! Come on, baby, be alive.... ..Be alive."

The sun scrapes away the heat, burning hate into the skin lying across his neck. Sticky sweat loosens the seams in his head. This convulsion he's been fighting back unravels a whisper, "..she's already dead."

"Come on!!!!" The thinning skin stretches over the bones beneath his face. Eyes are bagged and bleeding. Out of a blood shot, the guilt for all of this seems to come out from within, drowning him line by line with the dialogue never given him; what can't be said, scene's in read, dripping sideways down his throbbing temple - no longer giving sanctum to the vivid scenes playing out inside his head. The punishing wind whales his wounding lines, word by word, out towards the open sky.

A semi tries to pass another semi, blocking both of the lanes he's passing by rolling his sweaty palms down the bony shoulder of the highway. The spinning wheels throw up bits of rock behind him. Fists full of beating veins wrap tightly around their wet bars, as he swerves to barely feel him roll over a torn piece of tire. She's everything. He's got to get there now. "Please, Jesus! God. Fuck!!"

Every pour is running over with what can't be cried. While he turns off of the highway, he can feel their love fading, crumbling, ripping into pieces as it crawls up red and cold out of his soul to dribble down his trembling lip. Bits of it blends with a drip of puke that slides across his cold cheek. They fly a short journey into his brown hair; whatever's remaining melts a maroon crust into his chin. "Oh God! Please, baby. Don't you fuckin' die."

A nervous twitching wraps lightly around the fury in his face. It screams a yell at the tires to spin him faster as he turns onto her street. "Not much farther. Not much farther. Hold on, baby." Under the clouds tearing beautifully all along the sky-blue sky, he rides into an elastic reflection. He rides for her life.}
1.0

The sun has an itch to become the Moon scratches its first Stars shed skin to reveal the bone-bare wishes that rain stoned, staring bitches into the empty seats of a small café. Our character sits in his stool as folded over as any scene within - rewritten into a near oblivion.

A paper sleeping bag, cuddling carbon monoxide, burns over the "but", which mildly shakes between his fingers as most of his meal: 1. eating unfiltered coffee, 2. downing black cigarettes. His stomach's a rotted out rot hole, coated with an elastic lining, weaved out of the guts of many strong insects. Nicotine flavorings leak between the rubbing legs, secreting all of the telling things of him behind a tightened mouth closed to all but the butt slipping back into him; a nausea that just won't go his way.

Scratching his thumb, he looks within to finally drag a nail into that sin. Seeing no one outside within, he bows his head and unfolds the skin, opening a redness which shines himself out to him.

###

### 1.1

Past presents its surprise: the boy who loves to hate is riding his old bike. Pulling down the kurt-long hair, he roles himself back into the teen (our bearer of all these things), who's grinding his rubbers as he once did over a gravel road on this: a stereotypical, rainy morn. A closing curtain of mud and dirt continuously disintegrates under the spinning wheels, flipping its shrapnel of torn curtain up into the back of his violet leather coat, barring the blunt of its burnings, and down into the split ends of his knotted brown hairs.

As the gravel reaches the street, coming to a T, our fool to be pitied looks both ways in a very, paranoid manner. A bus driver's bus, carrying rows of empty, elementary seats, sails on bye - spreading the waves of water and mud into two walls, like the boys from the girls in a gymnasium too young and pure for the Charleston. Our bout of paranoia waits for its curtain calls to end, just in case the driver happens to know he's a senior at the high school ditching for his eighth time this quarter. Coming to a close, the pedals fall and bloom beneath him in the fastest cycles seen all down the long, crooked street.

Hardly any life to be seen all along the trees and flattened greens, his ride is still no ride in the park but to, as his head for the glare could be seen but in passing hair, revolving like the horse on a merry-go, hearing the siren and trying to run from the torn ticket that's never leaving its feet.

Braking in to Dogwood park, he chains her up to the rack and race-walks to the back, where a pair of picnic tables await him next to an old, abandoned obstacle course.

Under the rough barks of the roof, he sits in soaks of mud at his breakfast table, waiting for the quarter to pass the only thing: eight (a crazed, empty minute-hand, vowed with this ring for his splitting head to gather what's left and head back home or back to a part meant for him).

Stepping into a role like that means he'll have to watch tv as if under no scholastic supervision, or steal his brother's car for the day (without even a permit) and take an unused allowance to the mall, or of course make past homework up (or at least what's due today) like he knows he will! Demon: Thy name is lazy. But before he'd partake in all of that preparation, he'd have to perform his old role of the Father calling the school; that is.. if he doesn't get caught first.

Sitting alone at the picnic table in the back of the park on the early morn of this weekday, his eyes leave the park to follow a white car (well down the way) as it slowly (for the distance) heads down the long, crooked street..........-tension-......This could be a teacher who's running late and happens to recognize him from the dirty side window at a hundred yards away,................or.. it could simply be a teacher that left her class after the roll call and took it upon herself to find him (by ANY means necessary!)....Maybe his dad saw him pedaling away from the school, when he decided to take the trash out (the son's only chore),..........or it could highly be that this white car heading down the way is a cop car looking for seniors who are cutting their last year of school short.... Coming into his view, the car with a missing light bar, that's more of a 70's Lincoln than a 90's Caprice, passes the entrance to the park.

Taking a good mouth breath, he thinks about what his English teacher must be thinking (of him) in first hour right now (as if she could think of anyone else). For the next absence he might have to cough up an entire lung like another former mid-westerner had to, only our faker's popularity is about as full as an empty, paper cup. He's not a nerd, mind you, or a jock (no sports since the 4th grade); like his very skin, he's one of those mixes of about everything, which makes him a little shy and more of the time just plain quiet.

He's one of those few kids at school that looks slightly nervous and hangs his head to correlate with the crooks and crannies of his curvy spine. He's one of those people you have in a class or see walking down the hall who is so quiet it's eerie, and there's just something about them (something tragic) that you feel sorry for; then, later in the school year or slightly past, you find out they've just died in a car accident. Yeah, it's sad, but you also somehow have been waiting to hear that for so long that it's really not as surprising as it should be.

The butterflies whisper silence as they sit in the quiet corners of his weak stomach. Amidst these hollowed halls is a sweet, gentle rumble that hug and cuddle violent, suicidal screams. They roar a whisper for him to leave the phone on a dead ringer and swallow down his fate.

Looking nervously at a golfer walking up into the day, he turns the thin parts a jean-hooded engine and steers himself the other way.

1.2

Home (Apartment 1A): Almost six feet entirely beneath the earth. Only slivers of glass for windows overlook the grass and maybe a pair of feet up from that. There's a bedroom for his brother and one for himself, a one person bathroom to bruise their elbows with every turn, and a slightly bigger kitchen, where some rock hard burritos are still stuck to the freezer from when he was a sophomore.

The front door opens to the living room, where his dad's fold-out, love seat remains unfolded to reveal where his bed has been since he moved there. The coast clear, our little buddy/skipper anchors down onto the closed mouth of the tiger throw well made over his dad's bed.

In a breath, he looks from the ceiling down the cream-colored walls to his pitch gray shoes. He scratches a shoe with the other shoe, where the white cotton wrapped over his wiggling toes shines through. Breathing through the breather holes, diseasing his sole, yet beaming out from their dirty bottoms, is all the off-white held in a dimly lit lamp. Those shoes.. Ran ragged, they remind him of an old favorite: a favorite, little tramp.
2.0

"No." Years away from a ravaged mind in a somehow more modern time, his junior high eyes looked away from the shoes standing in a wall among the line, "But you need some dress shoes." "I don't like them." Instead of putting her foot down, his mom actually persisted and pleaded, which was something pretty foreign to him. She was the second in command, behind his father. Growing up, she only grounded their son to give him spankings; but so few or many that he almost always listened to her after opening a younger pre-aged bottle of whine.

That next Sunday morning, he stepped those new shoes up into the family Lumina. She drove her pair of sons through the town that they moved to just three or two or four years ago; the drive that took them from their Cleaver blue and white family house.

House: winding road of yard by yard suburbia of a different color (Author's note: although called "suburbia", this house is not located adjacent to or anywhere near a major city). Theirs had a decent back yard, four rooms, two bathrooms, a nice kitchen, and all of the standard amenities provided for the middle class family. Who, when touring the house belonging to someone's darker descendents, their junior high son secretly lifted up a red veil on a bookcase to see an idol in need of great attention for it had many broken arms in need of being set; but as it stared back at him, it appeared to be stiffening with what might already have been the golden stages of rigor mortis.

Upon the wings of a mighty escrow, his religious (in-their-own-rite) parents walked back through the house, waving to every part of it and chanting in languages certainly more foreign than the previous owners. According to his eleven, ten, or twelve year experience, this is done in order to show Cultural & Religious Superiority.

She backed them into the tiniest, gravel lot, fitting three cars if parked just right, with their back ends hanging onto the bricks in the alley. Then they walked from the church office, across the street, to the church (or the nice basement of a realty office).

Now when I say "basement", yeah it technically still had the cement floors of the parking garage it used to be, but it was really fixed up nice since then. Making up the house of their lord was a full-on erection of white dry walls, a small stage, enclosed rooms to the sides for classes, and finally came the cream-white carpeting, which was laid throughout. Long halls to the sides of these classrooms led to doors that opened into the "back area".

Separated from the auditorium, this back area was already finished and being used by the realtors for their kitchen and restroom facilities. The church (or its staff) just erected some small rooms for the toddlers and nursery and left what became a main room, which would be for junior high classes held during the day, Sundays, and during the nights of Sundays and Wednesdays. In these nights is when it held the alternatively titled "(youth) groups," which always held a fuller room (because that's when parents and adults were no longer the majority).

This being a Sunday day though, their twelve, fourteen, or thirteen year old son was in the auditorium stuffing bulletins. Other early jobs were for him to unlock all of the doors in the back, move the heavy church sign outside for the vehicles to see, pumping the blood of Welchs into thimble-like, plastic cups for the people to drink, unstacking and/or straightening the chairs in the auditorium, and things like these, not necessarily every time or in that order, were just some of the wants\needs in opening up a church before the sheep.

Their older son ran the soundboard. And he must've been very good since not many mistakes happened on the sound front, unless the subs were in; they were an unkempt married couple who both happened to be deaf in one ear. Anyway, his brother also ran it for concerts that occasionally came and went through town. Probably the biggest performer to perform at the church was Johnny Cash's sister. She kept calling him "Jethro". No one knew why....

It was a very laid back church. For instance some people wore blue jeans and some tee shirts and smells. It had its fair share of the less privileged. The church's motto was "Come as you are; You'll be loved." No. Don't confuse it with the lyrics of their son's later late hero. This is a year to a couple before all of that.

Their son would stand as he did stuffing those bulletins with the song lyrics he never sang (as there were no hymn books or pews), while anxiously waiting to see which one of his friends would head down those stairs first. His best friends were the offspring of parents who had a role in the church. Makes sense, since these were the ones who would be there before opening and after closing. The ones he spent the most time with was the song leader's son and a song singer's son. Both singer parents were the fathers in this case. Other friends belonged solely to the (youth) group, which met when? ________________ Answer: Sunday and Wednesday nights (and Sunday day is also acceptable).

Where was I?.................Sunday nights at this time were sometimes tough to take at first; for the junior-highers didn't always meet there/then. It took a little time for the church to grow, and it didn't begin but a year or so ago. There had to be a youth pastor and enough kids roaming around to where the topic of rounding them up on the nights would have to be brought up. Once this was done, the real reasons for the invention of the VCR came into being: to tape his True Colors, Parker Lewis Can't Lose, The Simpsons, and In Living Color (or the Sunday night line up for that new station, called Fox).

But with the dropping of nads and the lifting of girls' fun bags, it was there that their son was destined to become a star. For he had been there longer than anyone and had developed a tribe of friends. And these were the nights it would be all about them, because there was no family presence. They were dropped off for a whole couple of hours, steaming with hormones and adrenaline; and without all of the nagging and watchful eyes, this would be the one time of the entire week that they could be who they really were/or wanted to be.

As the morning progressed, his friends' dads finally began to sing. The song leader prayed and strummed, keeping his eyes at a slant and his head tilted high. The song singer would always start to sing but then would stop, look around as if he had just found out he had been shot, and blow his large, red nose into the capturing mikes that surrounded the stage – certain allergies that came with the basement, I guess.

Anyway, the son of the blowing singer customarily had to sit with his mom and sisters in the front, so the remaining pair of friends would sit in the back row that was saved for them by our bulletin stuffer; it consisted of three chairs next to his brother's soundboard. Seated there, in front of the ushers he also knew, their son would turn the bulletin on its backside and draw about fifteen lines from top to bottom. Then he drew an' drew about eight lines from side to side, making a huge tic-tac-toe board. By nearly every song's end, the game pretty much belonged to the cats.

Before the offering, as was custom, our o's dad stood from where he was seated at and walked up onto the stage. There, in front of around two hundred people, he would pray for their family's finances to appear in wicker baskets. Everyone bowed their heads to this and then actually gave what they did.

A prayer for the children, and they were dismissed to their classes; and while the adults "greeted" their "neighbors", the pair in the back row greeted themselves outside.

Sometimes they'd take care of the toddlers or go to their junior high class when it was held. But most of the time it was hanging out in the back or they'd go outside and walk around downtown. Once and awhile, they'd see a friend in the parking lot who hadn't left from the first service yet. Ohh, that's right! There were two services every Sunday. First ones to leave; last ones to leave.

In the parking lot, they'd toss a football around or catch each other up on their thoughts for the week. The church parking lot belonged to the realtors, the tanning place, the hairdressers, and pet store (at least when they were there). So it was pretty big ..for a small town.

If there was no lot action, they could then hit the town. They never went far. There was a 31 Flavors close to the west and a 711 in the far east – maybe it was a quarter of a mile. But that was it. They were too young to be whipped but not bad enough to unleash what was wrapped tightly around their necks. Frothing and stifling, this was the most enjoyable day of the week. It was what they looked forward to. They could see their friends and get the attention they didn't get at school and home. This was the way he grew up: a pastor's kid.

Their son was very much a leader; always included the snotty-nosed kid in the corner. Maybe he was a good kid. Maybe he saw who they were from himself. He would be them five days of the week and then some. But here, this was his element. This was his place. These were his friends. And his friends would be theirs too, even if they didn't want to.

The group and its retreats were some of the best times of his whole bit, middle school-aged life. Examples: like the time he arm-wrestled the singer (who always blew his nose)'s son for literally a half an hour and lost by taking the top off of an Oreo cookie; feeling the vibration go through everyone's holding hands after one of them touched an electric fence; playing a muddy game of rug-beat in a thunderstorm; taping the "cool", new kids' underwear to the cabin ceiling; all of the near girl experiences; the elevator straight to hell; the huge Capture the Flag games with other groups at Camp Tocumisa; playing sticker tag at the mall; putting a kid's fingers in warm water while he slept, and then watching him scratch in the morning; staying up late in a hotel room to watch The Creature from the Black Lagoon; all the games: the sock wars, water fights, cowboy caroling, a midnight kick the can game (he hid in the freezing pool), and all the etcs.

Be there hints of corn or cheese, these were his memories, his corn ..his cheese. They were the memories he knew and cherished, making him relish this time.

And the things like those found in this typical Sunday was the way he grew up. Going to eat out with the new families of the church, having others come to their house, helping plan the games for group, being the center of attention to the youth his age on those nights, unlocking the doors and turning on the lights/turning off the lights and locking the doors.. It was all in the way he grew up: A pastor's kid. The way he knew life.

2.1

His mother's voice fell from her lips, down the stairway, and through the cracks around his bedroom door, spilling into the holes of his ears. It cuddled the name that his world of family and friends knew him by, followed by ", can you come up here for a minute?" He tucked away the bore in his eyes and after a great hesitation jumped out of his top bunk bed. His brother's bottom was in his own room.

Brown flames pollute the whiteness of his eyes. Her making him walk all the way upstairs into her little study is probably some kind of child crime. The "study" consisted of a little fold-out love seat, books on their shelves, pictures on the desk and walls, a plaque or two sharing those walls, and the little space heater in the corner under the desk. Room for about two or three thin people standing straight up even in her "study".

Stair-stair-stair-stair-stair-stair-stair-floor by door -stair-stair-stair-stair-stair-stair-stair-stair-step-step-step-step-step-step-step-door open-stare. "Yeah," their son responded lazily. "......., your dad talked to you right?" "About what?"

She shut the door behind them, as if to keep this mother-to-son conversation from the other members of The Family, who may be lurking somewhere amongst their house - even as they speak. "Well, .... . .your father and I.. ..have had some difficulties . ."

An itch burned all over his body, trying to sweat through his flaky, clogged, dry skin for a scratch. The words went from sitting cross-legged and indian style to lying down face-first making angels without wings slowly sink into full-fledged falls through his tight skin. And when they finally sunk in, they would have to wander for years after to gather enough feathers to fly out of that hell hole, which unbeknownst to him would be becoming a home for them.

After the conversation, he went downstairs, walked into his room, locked the door (for once), and then just simply stood there. His room was around him, but the strange thing about it was that it was the same. How could it be the same? How could it look the same after this? Everything else is different. Everything else feels different, yet this looks exactly the same. Is he really here right now? This one place of previous solice is the last place in the world he ever thought he would feel out of place in. The stranger feeling ever stranger in a familiar land continues to stand there staring at nothing. \--------------------------

Then to pretend like he was doing something other than thinking about the things that were just given him, he walked out of his room – his feet unsure of his direction, until he heard his mother coming down the stairs. He stepped from the living room into the open workout room, where he planned to blend into the walls just long enough for her to pass him by.

As she carried a load of laundry by the room and saw him standing frozen and staring at nothing, she asked "Are you okay?" But she asked it in a tone like she didn't just ask if he would choose to live with her over his dad someday. She asked it like it was just a normal night some days ago. (Oh weren't those precious days!)

Somehow found within the open and well-dusted room, her "dear" in the lights relaxed his posture enough to quiet himself and find the closest response. What do you say to something like that? So his mouth carried the voice, cuddling the words, past his trembling lips to bring forth "Sure" (in a very sure-why-not-?-way). And as she continued to walk by, her eyes watched his face very carefully as if trying to measure it for a mask (fitting), then they left with the rest of her, stepping back behind the brown, cardboard wood walls.

Beginning to take in the vaporous smell of lemon from the stacks of rubber weights next to the unused Soloflex, he found his feet to be taking him back into his room, where he locked the door once again. Without looking at anything this time, he jumped up onto his lonely, part-bunk and just sat there.

Faded colors of the spots he's now in dimly lit up his mattress. It was the same mattress he had since their first house. When looking at it, you could kind of see some of the springs but not now. Now, he's lying on it, not shifting from the wild springs poking at his backside. Anything is furthest from his mind. Between his ears there was a blankness for the first time of his thirteen year life. There wasn't a thing he could think. Not a damn thing. Not a thing he could see or hear outside of his head or in. Everything was just....... .. . .nothing.

As though a soul and his insides could be numb. Maybe it was shock. Maybe there were some things that some people just can't comprehend. Shouldn't comprehend. At least not like this. Not this quickly.

He leapt down from the bed, his bare feet smacking the hard, blue, carpetless, cold-covered floor. He shrunk down into the corner of his room by the closet and the door, where he could've sworn he'd seen the stars shrink down before when they were upset. And there, ceilings fell from the corners of his mouth to reveal a quivering chin.

Through the mocking mouth of the wall, a yellowish moving blur about the size of a faraway half dollar seemed to be looking toward him at a downwards glance and to its side with a look of horrorish pity or guilt-torn empathy. Behind it the sky dressed in black. Then these moving images stopped, rolled slowly yet softly down his cheek, hung at the corner of his mouth, then spilled over his chin, paused ..... and fell face first to the ground.

They were uncontrollable. A need to release complete and utter grief. It was hard, bitter weeping ..sobbing. The soul trying to accept for him what the mind couldn't yet comprehend. It was as if everything he knew that was known was torn from his head. No preparation. No bandages. Drips fell out of the un-tickled tip of his nose. They rolled across the skin, shriveling over the bones in his face, making thuds as their bodies broke by his knees on the cold, hard floor.

The son lied on the ground shivering, carefully cursing God and his family; damning everything he's ever seen. Praying to nothing for something to make this end by someone turning around to say "Gottcha!" or for an overweight camera crew to finally come down the stairs with the smiles of his friends and family. But, so far as it seemed, no piece of this burning, brand new memory was a dream.

Resting his head against the floor above his knees, his eyelashes sank into the puddles. He sat there folded over, gently falling apart. Abandoned, Abused, Bitter, Confused.
3.0

........everything was bright. Nothing dark was too bright. Smiles lied in neatly folded piles under his bunk bed. Emotions failed upon use. There was a taste in his mouth he never noticed before. The taste was bland yet everything tasted the same as this. ..this....

This was his fault. He knew it. Just a couple weeks ago, he prayed to God for some excitement in his life. As happy as he seemed, the days were the same. One monotonous week after week came and came and came. He prayed for something to happen - anything. Now, something did. And if a God did grant this upon any twelve or thirteen year old, he should be stripped of his robe and damned to our damnations. Something I've got a feeling that's maybe happened once before.

In a night, everything was changing before his mind had the chance to grasp at what was different. It would be a long, long time before he'd finally realize that he would never be able to take his kids to their grandparents'. Not on his side. His side would be the hazy, dark side. The parental pastors patiently paused the paving of their pawned poxes. Paying would be he, strangely for their crime, every time he says "We're going to Grandpa's" or "You ready to see Grandma?!" He, the child of his parents, would pay; and they, the children of him, would bare the endings of the blow by having to understand the difference between Grandmas and Grandpas and family at an earlier age than he did. It would never leave him.

And the stink of it would be that he would be the one who would have to explain it to them, why grandma and grandpa doesn't live together. Either that or he would have to go through the pain of overhearing Grandma tell his daughter before her bedtime or in front of everyone, including his in-laws, at dinner why Grandpa doesn't live with her anymore. And Grandma would probably undress her face to show off her scars in a pan and scan, weeping format, if not in front of his kid then later.

Yes, this is depressing, but this is what was happening. Like you, he didn't ask for this. Not this. It was just handed to him last night. Everyone has to have difficulties; you're just never prepared for when you'll be ushered in to the hells you will burn through (especially this young, when you think you know how it's all going to end). No, now that you've seen your monster, it's not going to come when you're older; you will feel this now. There were no apologies so far. This was the way it was. There wasn't enough dirt in the world to bury something like this. This would soon begin to rot and decompose – the stench blinding him from his optimism and dispersing the warrior spirit into a mere fog to settle down within. This was going to be very bad. And for the first time, there wasn't any fire-breathing dragon he could slay and walk through in his head; he was going to assume the worst.

He breathed a little slower. The millions of thoughts were pushing past each other, stomping, throwing themselves into a froth, while the weaker ones were violently swung into red deaths when taken over the dangerous curves of his eyes. He saw them, as they fell from him. The dead formed lines down the edges of the dirty brown holes they crawled up from, unable to recognize the place he's now in. Splashing water over his face from the bathroom sink, only makes them thicker.

He wants to stop thinking; for everything to stop, so he can catch up to it before it gets a head of him. He just wants everything to stop. Everything. He's about to go upstairs, so he's got to wash those faces off and find the bottom one, the one of Normalcy.

Last night was so surreal, he wasn't sure if he should ask his mom if it really happened. I mean, what's the odds? Dreams seem very real sometimes. Don't they?

He dried a face off and headed upstairs, where he heard things snapping and popping. His mom was in the kitchen making breakfast. It was the first day of his spring break: Saturday. He walked over to the kitchen table. She was standing in the kitchen and rolling some crackling doughnuts. She wasn't singing Rise and Shine "and Give God the Glory, Glory!" She seemed to be asking him about the feeding of the fish. Fish? What are those? "Oh. Sure." Like that'll solve everything.

He walked back towards the stairway and took the hard right. One pinch or two? How big or how few? He wasn't sure. {The fish. Are you kidding me?} He wasn't sure if he should ask her about the conversation. Or how. "Did I leave something in the study when we t-," didn't really work. How about "... .... ....?" Oh, well.

The food seemed to sleep with the fishes. The flakes slowly got caught up in the stream and separated out toward their separate corners just above the sleeping fish. He knocked on the plastic lid above them, but they didn't respond. They were in their own little worlds. Not his problem. Delaying the next great mother/son sit-down, he decides to go the long way into the kitchen. No reason but boredom really - a different path, which happens to take him by the study (the scene of the crime).

He brushed his red hand against his jeans, as he began to follow the wall. "Mom, did I lea-" The son stops as his dirty browns have seemed to have found something through the crack of the "study's" door. There, between the arms of the love seat, were three bedroom blankets and a pillow, complete with head indention. "What, sweetie?" "......never-mind."
4.0

"Ann Smith." "André Caserblahe." -lah- "Beca Fruse." –blah- "Dot Delio." -b- "Mr. Eeeps." -lah- You could see her legs through the holes in her blue jeans. An American flag wrapped around her top in the form of a tee. Beneath that flag, two fistfuls of everything this country stood for pushed some stars and stripes into his view, which made him stand in full salute, feeling overly ..patriotic. Sandals had been slipped onto her feet. A pair of sky-blue eyes had turned beneath her short blond curls. Alas, she was not a knock out, so he had fallen for her.

She was a girl who wasn't the model of their time, as much as he might have lovingly built her in his mind. She had something more to her; something to her that made the world pull away from her like a pair of dirty curtains. Showing to him through all the darkness of a Wednesday night was the girl who was meant for him. It was as if they always have been, and they both already knew it. There wasn't any second-guessing. He could take her hand and walk them out of there with no open stares. They were. Simply put. Nothing could feel more simply.

She lived with her Grandma as a product of her parent's divorce. Her little sister was in and out of the hospital from a rather serious illness. He was not only attracted but saw her sorrow, as he would soon feel his and as she would later feel for him.

She was new in the group, and it took him weeks before he finally walked up to his girl. They had been falling for each other only through open stares. In fact, he didn't even have his first good conversation with her until the retreat in March (or in a couple of days) for this eye-secreting sight was maybe a long pair of lean months before. He would swallow the guts to speak every time. But it didn't matter. They already were.

She lived downtown. He lived uptown. Some white pages later, he and the song leader's son would ride their bikes by her house (or along her street) and see if they'd see her. Maybe she'd be seductively sunbathing outside in the grass. Maybe she'd just be taking a walk or see them through her window and come strutting out. Never.

They rode their bikes by the hospital at a time she mentioned that she'd be there. Her worse half then went to daring his friend to dare him to go in. Then, like a wet tongue to an icy pole, he crossed through the separating doors, looked at the main desk, didn't see her, and walked right back out to push his pedals home. All he wanted was to be with her so badly, but apparently he was plenty pussy for himself. She was his thoughts in the morning/she was in his little man screams at night.

He just wanted to be near her, hold her. She was funny, honest, and as real as he was when he was around her. They were honest laughs too; there was nothing fake about them. And when they were talking, people for the most part left them to themselves. They knew. When they were together there was real chemistry. But unfortunately, the son never bothered with chemistry. He could never understand the answer for the equations.

This retreat in two days was when he had planned for her. She said she would be there. He had wanted nothing more than to be with her. To tell her how he felt. But now, ..everything had changed.

He felt like he was behind himself. Like when a little kid is scolded very badly and then is released out into his friends for play, but the scolder is still watching; and the kid knows this. It's hard to jump right back into screaming and running around with your friends. There's that thing at first that's holding you back. You see your friends, and you're out of the moment but slowly coming back in. He's out of the moment, and no one even knows it. Does he sit to the side and wait for it to pass or does he slowly come back in?
5.0

Eyes peer over the legendary upside down hill. It's where the son goes when it gets to be too much. A place to be by himself and stare out towards the hill but only in the reflections of the waters below. This is not where he expected to be. The camp has been closed due to power outages. Funny, huh? Now, every group that was going there for the great retreat was coming here, to his church. Great way to get away! Can't do anything romantic with Ann. There's no trails or tether ball; no kitchen duty or campfire stories. There's no place to get lost in – by himself or with her.

He doesn't know if he even wants to be with her. Sometimes it gets hard to talk. There's a secret in him deeper than anyone could have ever guessed. A secret anyone would want to know (anyone from his church). Sucks enough that they're grounded to their own church after the weeks of anticipation (they can't even walk around their own town unless their parents come for them), but they have to be stuck in there with literally three to four hundred strangers.

He wants to tell his closer friends, but he's got this "not" now in his throat; been there since he got there. {They're starting to suspect something's wrong} he suspects. But this is something they could never guess. His parents? His?

He just needs to relax. His parents are conservatives; they could very easily work things through (to keep what they have). It is possible. Highly possible. With God, all things are possible. So, relax. {Relax the muscles in your face. Rub your temples with your thumbs. Relax.}

The son looks toward the still waters. The smooth, grassless, upside down hill has only a patch of weeds along its crevice. Two lovers could lie against those weeds and make out along that crevice if it weren't for that hole near the bottom of it. Still romantic to look at, it always manages to put him at ease. The upside-down hill separates, showing him what it's famous for. A batch of un-grown trees pushes through the surface of that deadly, yet intellectually, enriching hole. The trees fall like logs into the undrinkable, almost shadowy waters below.

He grabs a fist full of papers, made not from those trees, and reaches his hand out toward the hill that's still reflecting in the waters below. Then like an earth-conscious painter, he slowly and meticulously wipes away the part of the wet bark that's stuck to the weeds and smearing along the surface (for as to prevent the surface from eroding and the weeds from tearing and breaking off from their already naturally, beautiful state of order. Dangerous berries can also grow and knot along them, if these previous precautions are not met.)

He stands and pulls the bottom half of him up; for the minutes upon minutes of sitting and gazing, his legs tucked underneath him had been falling asleep. The scene, the hill, the waters, the secluding, the relaxing, all of it stirs and stirs into strengthening spirals down, down, down into the hole of his gaze.

Bar doors swing behind him as his drying hand turns the knob. Slowly, he opens the door, reminding himself to blend in. These are his friends. They don't need to know anything that he doesn't want to know. This is their retreat too. Why should he ruin it for everyone by making it about him? He just needs them to be them.

The pastor's son heads into the back room where they're all standing around one of the church's long but lean tables. There's no arm-wrestling or paper football going on here. "What's going on?" He asks his group, while standing outside of the semi-circle. No one answers quickly; quickly for it being his own damn group. "What're you tryin' to do," he asks a friend who hops down from the table. It must have finally happened. He couldn't save his parents' marriage through the time machine, and now his meager existence has faded into oblivion.

The song leader's son finally answers back, "Tryin' to step onto the table without using your hands." Others: "I don't think you can do it." "The table's too freakin' skinny." "I can do it." A familiar voice speaks from the back of them. Their forgotten leader steps up to the table, lifts his leg high into the air, and steps up. His body shoots through the air, landing both of his feet atop of the table and his forehead into the sharp edges of the sprinkler above. "Ahh!" He shrinks down into their laughs. "See!" Holding his head, he leaps back down into them.

"Let me see." Someone says. "Am I cut?" He takes his hand away with a streak of red on his finger. "You cut yourself." "Oh, that's not bad." "Could've been worse." "That's funny." "Yeah, but hey, I did it. You couldn't do it." "I didn't want to cut my head off!" They got a good laugh off of it, but it appears he was back in.

Walking into the parking lot at day's end, he's finally about to leave the premises – if but briefly. The band needs extension cords, so he's headed to the new Walmart with a friend of his, who happens to be a college student and a group leader (not to be confused with the youth pastor).

They weave through all of the souls his age who are in a completely different state than him, as he shuts himself into the car. Silence.

"You've been acting pretty withdrawn. Everything going okay?" This man was one of those child prodigies who always knew more than those who could teach him. He also had a heart bigger than most, and the car he drove was a Mercury modeled after his last name (coincidence?). "No. ..I just found out something that...." Unable to finish, he can only turn away, as his face curls into his head for solice. "Hey. What's going on?" "............." "What? Is it your family?" "....(a nod).." "Yeah. Well, is there something I can do?" "....pray." And he actually prayed. He meant it as a figure of speech.

Here, in the fuzzy interior of a Mercury, the model name was the first to know and would probably be the last for quite a while. It was a big step to say it out loud for the first time, something that scared him to the roots. He gave support and sensitivity to the small son on their trip back from Walmart. That place was huge. (It would later expand even more to be the super store it would be.)

The group leader pulled into one of the few parking spaces left in the church parking lot. There were more people than cars, but there were more vans than cars too. So there was maybe a hundred people or so his age in the parking lot alone just hanging out, smoking, or getting air. "Wow. There's a lot of people here." They walked through the masses and made their way to the main door.

Downstairs: The lights were out. Blue lights and strobe lights lit their way down the staircase. He wanted to find his friends; but in a way, he would be happy to lose himself in this. Be just another person for once, and maybe forget some of the demons rolling over themselves within. The model name put the cords to use by the stage-front, as our light feet kept to the back wall of the church.

The chairs were set up everywhere but along the front (for a mosh pit-like atmosphere for the soft rock Christian band). In the back were where the remains were stacked; the chairs that were being used were being used by regions. The group from Wisconsin was sitting in their spot towards the middle; a group from Minnesota was along the far left-hand side; the Michigan group sat with their Canadian friends in the front; and his group was along the far right corner towards the back. The chairs in front of them were unused – as were the few rows in the back. Their youth pastor probably told them to scoot up, being where they're at.

He walked on past them, still following that back wall, past the door to the unused Sunday school class and on his way out of the auditorium. He was still a little choked up and was trying not to make eye contact, lest someone see his bloodshot eyes in the flash of a well-placed, strobe light.

Walking by them with his head down, he looked up a pair of walking legs to see Ann seeing him, as she walked on by into the auditorium that he was leaving. She was smiling. He was not.

He walked through the open door out of the auditorium, by the back staircase, and into the short hallway leading into the open back room. There, he walked by all of the people standing around, infesting the kitchen and other areas no longer considered his, and went straight into the bathroom, where no one was for once.

The son stood in front of the mirror above the sink. A thin layer of tears soaked through the red bars that were lodged between the lids in highly decorative ways, bending this way and that. Just as he's beginning to calm down and find some of himself somewhere within, the door opens. Quickly, he bends over, turns the sink on, and washes his face off with the water already overflowing the flesh-colored cup of his hands.

"Oh, hey Joe," he's lackadaisically addressed by the song leader's son. "....hey." Of all the people in that rat hole, his best friend had to walk in, catching him with his guard down. (Actually, there were a couple of best friends, and his name isn't Joe either. It's just what he calls his friend and what his friend calls him. You see, they both had a crush on the same girl a couple of years ago, and they wanted to disguise her name in conversation so no one would know that they were talking about her. She became "Doe" from "John Doe"; and since there were too many real Johns, they each became "Joe".

"Didn't see you come back." "Yeah, we just got here." His friend uses the stall next to him, while he washes his face. The door opens yet again. A big foreigner heads in and immediately takes notice of the smallest public restroom of the state: their In. "Toilet's in there." A drying face nods up to the saloon doors that swing behind the grateful stranger; after all, he is still the pastor's son here. "See you in there." His oblivious friend leaves him to a mere sink. {He didn't wash his hands.}

The son wipes his face off with his sleeve – the paper towels being the rough, brown kind. Shaking his head at the surrealism of it all, he hears the loud music of the band, the Violet Burning, getting into his ears and underway. The walls vibrate around him. The kid out of state remains stinking silently in his stall, perhaps waiting for the pastor's son to leave before unleashing all Hell. It wasn't supposed to happen like this.

The heavy door slams slowly back into its silver lock behind him. The back room is nearly cleared out. The thieves of his land have filed into the mainland for the band. Tan skin slowly follows the son back down the short hallway and through the door.

Standing at the foot of the back staircase, he looks to the darkened door that leads to the auditorium. Strikes of light, colored and bright, flash themselves over the door, perverting his eyes from the darkness.

There was a time, not long ago (or enough as it seems), when everything seemed so clear. It was as if there was a yellow glow just above him hanging off focus and in flight with its ever-stretching wings, making everything so bright and easy to see. Or maybe it was that bar of circular light that hung above his head amazingly with no strings attached, ..or so it seemed.

Now, what once was found was lost in the pollution of these darker things found only in the colors of blindness. They're surrounding him. They're in his clothes – in his very mind. These colors swish against the skins of demons, as they roll violently against each other, fucking themselves into the farthest corners of him, lubricated with the life yet to be seen as read but nevertheless flows through his changing body like polluted water that's as thick and dark as ink. Only there is no fine line. There's just the wide, cream-colored carpeting that reaches him from wall to wall, trapping him in his own breath of fresh air – like a preacher man's fun house, where everything is not as it seems. Mirrors reflect bending images of himself: the thinner kid in his element, who seems unable to speak. He appears as his friends would pretend to be: leaving their House For God and walking free.

The last stages of the winter wind blows the door into him, making him push harder in front of the pretty pair, sitting on their stares. Feeling their loss of appeal, he quickly walks out, ashamed at their estimation of him (although they're already entering the auditorium).

He is weak. He has a damn right to be weak. He sees himself on a world away from his friends. Sure through weakening transmissions they can learn to acknowledge him, but he is not their leader today. And that part feels.. great. Usually they'd cling to him closer than his clothes would four years from here. But here, he is outside. Where not a soul should creep upon him ..but maybe Ann's.

The Ann thing is like a spirit out of sync. He's perfectly happy to be walking outside by himself; but if she were to find him, it could involve some sort of melancholic bliss – if that makes sense. Strolling alongside the place he's known longer than anyone here, they look at him like he's the stranger amongst the norm. He – who doesn't recognize any of them. Maybe he is the stranger. He seems stranger. Everything is stranger. Who are they? Who is he? This isn't his place.

He is their stranger growing ever stranger, as he walks over the sidewalk towards the main door. There's too much here. Too many feelings to feel in a night. It's a bit too chilly out here to think; trying to think why nothing's right – in a familiar place where nothing's right. Passing the storefronts of the closed stores, he heads down towards the main door. His hand to the handle, he's completed a half circle for all of those outside of him, who wouldn't notice to care. But just in case a pointed finger should rise, he walks back in without a stutter step, as if going from back to front was his original intention.

Too many strangers; too much awkwardness to act out his subtle fights. The soft music's loud enough to shout over himself if he wants to, but his mind is blank anyway. His ears begin to adjust as if submerged into a new wave of loud nonsensical beats, stings, and a voice, which shakes the very walls with its other worldly loud echoes. He takes the downward turn and heads down the darkened stairway. No lights are needed; the son knows these stairs by memory. The music's getting softer as he gets closer.

At the bottom, he steps out from the small hall. There, before the stage, people his age are on their knees. They're lying face-first on the floor, sitting down in tears, standing in different places of the auditorium with their hands in the air, surrounded by others praying for them with the laying on of hands. What did he miss? Were they waiting for him to leave? This place has turned into something he's never seen with people this fragile coming of age. Group leaders are walking around slowly in great concentration; their mouths seem to be speaking in tongues, as their unfocused eyes scan over the shadows that rise and fall over the cream-colored carpeting.

He follows the back wall over towards the far side of the church again. The lead singer steps back up to the mike, as the band continues to give background music to the cries of people his age who are hurting. It's something you would never believe unless you've seen it; it's like a stage in reverse. Then, in a soft dialogue, he tells them that no one will be hurt and everyone will be okay if they just give everything they have to God.

Stepping out from the end of the wall, he comes upon the only group still sitting as a group. He wished they weren't there. But they were. He sat along the side of some girls he didn't know that well, instead of beside his friends. A night of the rare and oddity.

This whole room was warm and filled with emotions. People were sobbing as loudly as he had been wanting to. It was a very powerful scene for anyone that believes in anything or nothing. These were girls without parents or who went through a secret rape; boys with bruises or had someone close to them die. These were strangers who had some deep, deep pains; and it was hard not to cry for them alone, if you didn't have anything to tear over yourself. Only he did. No one knew. But he did. And he was feeling this room.

After awhile of this, he suavely put a hand up to his head so no one could see his eyes shutting for prayer or at least some kind of internal investigation. Candles lit and hands on hold, all listened as the lead singer summoned a ghost to rise up from beyond them. "Come, Holy Spirit." Bold step by bold step, the front of the room began to fill with more of them getting on their knees and giving everything to God.

Finding himself guilty of being completely different now from everyone around him, he decided to end the long night of many short hesitations and stood up in front of his group to walk up to the front. Some gasps and a friend saying a word or so in the form of a gasp was heard behind him. But that was behind him. He no longer cared about them; them – who used to be the soul of him. His pain was too much to bare. This would be a way they would know and a way to see ..if any of them cared. Only he didn't care to know. This was for him. Dry-eyed and on his own, the son got onto his quivering knees. And he wept.

His arm-wrestlers, card players, and girls baring sexual tensions all watched aghast. They watched his back shifting up and down with each bitter s.o.b. Then, like the leader before them, one by one they slowly came to the row behind him. Some knelt like him, some knelt beside him, some sat, some sat with their hands on his back. Some he heard praying; some he might have heard snickering embarrassingly, like junior-highers unsure of what to do. But this touched him greatly, especially the surprising ones who put their hand on him or even knelt down beside him.

He sat there on his skinny legs with his head into the cream-colored carpet and resting between his arms for no one to see his tears. He sat there hour upon hour releasing everything he knew and felt, right down to the very bottom of his being. Strange enough, this being the time they had to skip his camp, but to skip it for a time of healing and reflecting in his own better residence? It was exactly what he needed – in the place he needed it. In his home away from home. The very place he came to for years of fun with his friends became a place of ..religious becoming.

He found God there. Whether it be by willful-blindness or actual sincerity is of no matter, because now he was at peace. The good feelings he was feeling, nothing compares. And all it took was the rocky marriage of his parents to provide it; still the providers. That would still be a problem, but something he could work through (with a knew little Somethin' helping him along the way).

He peeled his head from off of the floor and held it only inches above to let the temporary carpet tattoo dissolve from his forehead. Then he held his head up the rest of the way and walked back to a seat to relax, exhausted; every stored tear spent.

Sitting there, he saw some friends kneeling and getting prayed for. Some people were laughing and crying at the same time from pure joy or disillusionment. And there in a corner below a speaker, he saw Ann leaning against the wall with her head in her hands.

Building the guts, he walked over to some of his friends and others he didn't know and laid a hand on them and prayed. Then he made his way towards that corner speaker. Once there, he laid his sweaty palm on her and prayed ..to himself.
6.0

The sun would rise and shine and set and fall. Every week was a month for how shy he was around her. On a great Wednesday, they'd talk to each other after group or pick on each other during the games or be the only ones with opinions during the group discussions.

One Sunday after beating two guys at arm-wrestling in the church kitchen, she took him on. "Oh, when he's gone.. (body English) takin' on five people," his best friend and referee rang in to his favor. She used both hands, and he won. But they were both smiling and laughing and having fun.

They never exchanged phone numbers, I don't think. I'm sure they thought about it. Even though she was slightly outgoing (when comfortable), he was just too, too shy. Did it change his fate? Or isn't fate what's going to happen anyway? Who knows. He didn't. He didn't care about fate. She was his fate, and they would happen. {Things will fall in your lap.} You just have to acknowledge them.

Off of his walking lap and into the cornfield, he saw her. She stood there amongst the crop of a whole new group staring at him; a bandanna in her hair, a tie dye on her back. A vision of pure coincidence or chance of fates?

He walked up to her then ignored her for the boss' opening speech. She would be corn detassling with him over the next few weeks! What were the odds that she'd be there? What were the odds by the end of it, she'd be looking at her boyfriend? What were the odds it wouldn't be him? Where's the fate??

They chose the rows across from each other, so they could talk till the end of each row. They talked and talked under the sun. That burning sun. Everything gets gilliam in those fields within that heat: waking up early every day - seven days by seven days by seven days till the end. The only breaks were for sleep, water, and food. And when he went home, there'd be stacks of papers sitting in his driveway. He would have to get on his bike and deliver those damn newspapers up and down those winding streets. A shower and a pillow with the aching muscles were sent to the springs, poking through the material of his mattress. You can already hear the early echoes of "Why, when I was young...."

With all that said he enjoyed every morning he woke, because he'd get a chance to be with her. Sure it was a Hades-man's Heaven, but he would be with her. She'd be talking to him. They'd be getting closer and closer; until out of the blue, a week or two into it, she was holding hands with a bigger version of him. It was a sweaty guy, who always walked with his shirt off, wore glasses, and was tan just like him. Only this guy was just yapping about her chest right in front of him. The son never said anything but maybe "Hey, hey," but the bigger him probably took him for a clown doing standup at an open mike in Springfield.

In the back of an over-crowded, detassler's pickup truck, she laid against his muscles, while the bones of him were sitting in a pile across from them. She asked if he was okay. He nodded and looked away, but there wasn't anywhere to go since the truck was moving and that was the way they were sitting. Fighting the tears, he was forced to look at her in some other guy's sweaty arms, until they reached the next location. She looked at him almost as sad as he did. He was looking worse and worse.

I forgot to tell you that he did have one chance for her before she was going out with his super evil twin. In the middle of doing some rows, some guy asked if they were going out. They looked at each other and said "no". They were "just good friends". But a little further down that row, he was telling her about how a bunch of friends and him got their money rejected to a movie, because it was rated R; so they asked some guy to buy their tickets for them, and he did.

"What movie was it?" "Terminator II." "OH! I've been wanting to see that! Was it good?" "It was great!" "Wow. I wish I could have seen it. Would you want to see it with me?" {!} "..Sure." Although seemingly hesitant at first, it's only out of sheer nerves; and now he begins to grow excited by the proposition. Finally, this could really happen. "I live right by the theater. If we could get you to my house, we could probably just walk to it." "I'd love that. I'll have to talk to my Grandma, and she'd have to talk to your mom. But that'd be great!" {?} "What do ya mean?" When you grow up under a sexual repression, like Carrie in Carrie or a pair of pastor's sons persay, all things sexual are ironically tied down till they can't be restrained no more. He's 13/14, and his brother's older than that; yet no known girlfriends or attractions to be heard of. Girls? They don't exist – only in the movies. And even they can go, as it seems.

I don't remember exactly how he blew it, but I do remember "You just don't want your mom" either "to know" or "to talk to my grandma". "It just sounds too complicated." "..That's okay. We don't have to. I just thought it'd be fun." "Yeah, ..it would."

In the not too distant future, she was going out with that newer model of him. He kept asking her to come to group. She'd ask "why" but would end up showing up, and he wouldn't say more than a sentence or so to her (out of nerves). And there he was with his friends thinking of her every second; thinking of what to say or an appropriate time and way to ask her out before it ended. His hands physically shaking, he'd say a couple of times "we still gotta see that movie", but that'd be the extent of it.

When the detassling job was done, he'd see her at group off and on or in his band hallway at school later in the fall. But she wasn't in band or any of his classes, and there came the day that he thanked his God for this.
7.0

School was no flame shy of Hell and hellfire. Being the son of the incredible, traveling preacher man meant he'd be weaved in and out of schools all up and down the short-top half of In. His school season that year had ended his three year tenure at a small, Christian school. His family was having their moments and no longer had the doe to pony; besides, not too many colleges are going to look at a school, years behind in curriculum, and accept you whole-heartedly.

In the private school, they had just broke the creases to an orange Algebra book at the end of his 8th grade year; in the public school system, they had closed the worn out cover of that exact same book at the end of their sixth grade year. In (literally) a trailer of the private school (oh, the irony), the principal was the permanent sub of the last science teacher they scared into an early grinning-penniless retirement. The christian school accepted all, including those diseased who were expelled from the public for bad behavior.

Not just math and science but every grade was extremely more advanced than his old school room of four boys and six girls. He had just ended eighth grade and was ready to swim up the stream of one of the state's top rated schools, next door to a high-priced university.

Top that off with the family problems and being the new face in a new place (the christian school was twenty-four minutes away), this would probably be the hardest thing he had ever done. His brother would be at the school, but he'd be a senior; this particular son was a brand spankin' new freshman. And with the red-rimmed glasses, a three year loss of fashion flaws, and introduction to the Holy Ghost, he would be coffins below himself.

But first of all, understand the town. Rich. Proud. Everyone was crosses above Jesus. ..Okay, so you know the town. Kids would drive to school in their Spiders and Bugs, which were issued with each's drivers license. The photos for each of them were actually taken as they were sitting in their new cars, which would be parked and revving before a long, red curtain. The picture was then laminated into yet another plastic to slide into their thickening wallets. The whole parking lot was full of their rich cars and all the spit, spick 'n span coins that slid into them.

Everyone, and I mean every one, was a prep. Snobs. Even the punks were too prissy for him. Everyone had their cocks so far into themselves they thought they were standing taller than they actually were. Anyone who was wrong on an answer was made to be the fool. Even the teacher would pick on their fools just to fit in with his or her class. They wanted to be the cool teacher. If you know how childish that sounds then you might be able to fathom how childish this whole town was: with their things, with their book smarts, with their vanities. A town of pretty people, far away from any oceans or any place the world would ever find relevant: Pretty lil' Val Town.

But here he was: a deformity shy of slitting a way to breathe in their Avion-sparkling, clear as a crystal lake. The hallways were swimming with these people he seemed to be sinking into. One row of lockers were more than the students' combined at his old school, and his old school was K-12! Here the world was spinning much faster than he ever had fathomed it had been.

Once, when naively thinking himself blended in to them, two red pussies ran up from behind and knocked his books out from him; his mind was left drifting in mid-air, trying to accept that the books he was just holding were the ones now sliding across the floor. They left the son melting in their snickers, as they kept running. There, a girl, who had eye-contacted him before in different classes and appeared to be shy in her unsaid feelings for him, would be laughing with the rest of them - still making the eye contact! But below those batting eyes were now the jackassing jaws of a ..girl, just like the rest of them.

Those, who you thought you had a feeling about, were as ruthless and ego-tall as that beautiful girl the others so vainly tried to climb towards: the girl out of reach. He stood below everyone. He just needed the right shoes.

In the locker room after a gym class, he couldn't find the expensive shoes he paid for with his hard-earned route money. He had put them in his locker, before they hit the showers. They were David Robinson pumps. The best shoe made by the hands of man at the time – or possibly little foreign children. Turned out the ring leader of that class, a fat fucker, who everyone liked because he was the only black kid there and everyone was overly anxious to let everyone else know they didn't think any differently of people of another color (the positive ads of MTV in the early 90's), ..had stolen them. And after this only one from the hood, the whole clan began to call the son "Twig". (Apparently, the anti anti-thin people ads weren't as slick and stylish.) Even when the girls had to talk to him, they addressed him by that name, as if it could be any other. He'd hear the name pop up in their casual conversations, as he warmed up. It was pathetic.

He was skinny, had the red frames on his face, and new sky blue David Robinson pumps on his narrow feet. If he knew better, it didn't matter. That paper route didn't make enough to change his wardrobe. His dad gone, there wasn't much of an income. The outcome was that he was that one who never had a partner.

School was a marathon of pure nightmares, no additives needed. On top of the mocking and ego defecations, there was the school work. Everything was a second language with the exception of Spanish, which was more like a fifth.

In Algebra, he had stayed after and after. To raise your hand during class was to accept the ridicule and satisfying snickers of the entire class. He hadn't the slightest clue of where they were at in the lesson of the week before; and if you didn't understand that, then you didn't understand the problems for today and for Thursday and Friday and for the test on Monday and the subsequent days of chapters and tests to follow. It all piled and compiled until the bad papers slipped from his grip, slow-dancing into the murky waters below.

In English, formerly his best subject, he was signed down for Honors. There was a huge project due at the end of the quarter for a national contest called the IIHS. Everyone could come up with their own projects. For his, he wanted to experiment with a guitar he had just bought (from exact detassling money). He had written lyrics for a few songs not so long ago and had no idea why, ..until this contest.

He did the music, sang the lyrics, recorded it, and gave it to the teacher. Days later, he had to ask about it in a brimming anticipation. She said that she didn't "know about him" and that she would have been too embarrassed to enter it into the great contest. His was the only project returned to sender. This greatly troubled him.

But where trouble had reared its ugly head, on Sundays he could finally draw a beard and crown of thorns over it. He had finally turned fully to what everyone his whole life was telling him: Religion, Christianity, Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, the hole Shebang.

His group was forever different since that retreat in March. He prayed for people with the laying on of hands. He spoke in tongues, as everyone else had done his whole life; and Ann, his friends, and the rest all followed his lead. The girls, the boys, they all ate the chips on their shoulders and every pride was satisfied.

And when people prayed for the son with the laying on of hands, his eyelids and hands would shake. It was the Holy Spirit, ..at least it was to him. And that was all he needed. With his parents at fall, he needed some security. And what/who better than the King of Kings?

He was happier. Everything had a point. There was someone in his head he could talk to (without mouthing the words), and it wouldn't make him crazy. After all, his parents and their friends and congregation did the same, and they weren't schizophrenic. They always steered him straight. Now, Someone was always there for him, with him, in him. But sadly enough, what once was found ..was turned into a competition.

Who did God love the most? The girls only wanted men of God/The boys only wanted to impress the girls. Everyone outdid each other.

Different Bible translations were brought to group (complete with names personalized into the cover); so that when they were read, they could say what theirs said - theirs being the only one to have the latest/oldest version. Tee-shirts from the local christian store were purchased; they had clever logos like "At the rapture, there will be only one Terminator," wherein a huge robotic Jesus in sunglasses could be seen holding a Bible that's shooting flames down their backs (thus the real reason they couldn't kill Him?). People wore different crosses around their necks, and in their ears, coming out of their asses. All of this, mind you, disappeared during the school week (unless you were a senior).

Everyone had the last prayer, could magically speak in tongues, and prayed at the end of the night with the (ever built-up) laying on of hands. Under the latter, they prayed to the Spirit above for their eyelids to tremble and palms to sweat, while they took turns asking others to hear their great prayer for Aubry's arm to feel a little better. And sometimes suddenly a tremendous amount of heat would come as the fifteen of them remained huddled over the person for over twenty minutes during the driest part of the summer. (These were things that could not be explained with any normal science). Everything was God.

Bought an ice cream cone and have been holding it in the summer heat for a couple of minutes, while you wait for your friends; and when you're ready to partake, one of the flavors hasn't melted over your hand yet? It was God. Being late to a movie and the commercials hadn't even started yet? God. Singing a song in your head and then turning on the radio and hearing that song?! Well hell yeah, that's God. I mean it. Everything was God. Having a personal relationship with who you believe is your maker is one thing, but this wasn't that. This wasn't even a religion, or was it? And it was getting worse.

"Let's all close our eyes........Does anyone see anything?" The youth pastor seemed to antagonize it. "I saw a man riding an ostrich into the forest, and it was having trouble walking in the mud. And written in the mud was the word "betrayal". It was like it was stuck in it ..or something. Then faces began to float up to the surface. And I could have sworn.... I don't know." "No, go ahead." "Well, ..that some of the faces were of people in this room." "Hum. Does anyone feel like they've betrayed or been betrayed by someone here tonight?"

No one faked gifts from the Holy Spirit better than the pastor's son. No one snickered behind his back that he was faking; truth be told, I don't think any of them thought they were faking.

Near the end of summer, he was holding a weeknight meeting of four or five at his house and even had his own little sermon during the day Sunday. He was the one everyone looked up to. Guys told him things that they never told anyone else; deep dark fears arm in arm with some previous nightmares. Girls passed notes or were caught simply staring at him, like they wanted to say something but couldn't for all the god-damning, suffocating sex air.

He helped everyone he included. And he included everyone. No one accused him of faking. No, sir. But deep down, beneath the surface of his new friend, he was feeling a little something ...guilty. But he couldn't even think about it, because then he'd be guilty for even thinking about it. God knows everything. So he did what he did and tucked it in with the rest of his Sunday shirt.

7.1

"Now, you've got the kids doing it!" And family night was over. Over because she wanted to see the Sound of Music and he didn't; neither did the children for that matter, as they just so rudely let her know.

She showed how distraught over this simple difference in taste she was, then she left them to her set table – still sharing two lit angels and the scraps to a nicely eaten meal. Their naked bodies shiver, as they hold the candles upright and watch the wax collect into a huge drip just above their faces. Maybe she's not feeling well. Maybe she had been looking forward to the dinner and a movie – the slaving hour to pay off by their facing the Sound of Music.

The remote son flipped the channels through the silent house. Everyone was home, although his dad probably wasn't. There's not a lot of room to regroup when the rooms belong to a half owner.

He walks alone through the empty stations, channeling everything he doesn't know to keep his mind from unfolding. Situations fix themselves is what he learnt over time. They always did. But there were so many things he didn't know. Fears wrapping around his soul, darkening the light of him from bleeding through.

Alone, wandering in the dark from station to station, he saw nothing. No one was there that he could see. It was just him on a power craze, being able to go through station to station without anyone able to stop him. No teachers - none a parent. This was his time to tell his feet where to go, where to stop. Dead in his tracks, he sees a family trying to make a train; a train waiting for "Hey, mom. That movie's on." Silence, as she finishes coming down the stairs.

"..I didn't know it was on tv. I thought you wanted to rent it; otherw-" " It's okay." She walks on by, carrying a load of laundry; the dirty smelling laundry of her family.

8.0

Fake green grass, like that of a cheap miniature golf course, cushioned his ass while covering down the few steps that lead up to an unused bridal shop. There are no marriages here - at least not apparently. Sitting on the last step before the walkway, he sits as he's skipping church again, but this time on his own ..all alone.

On the last step before the bridal store, he sits shot and desperate, empty-handed in his skipping thoughts. This little shop sat just outside the great white walls of the multi-tenant building, which contained the reality place, hairdressers, and such; it was on Five-Dollar Way around the corner from those store entrances. The church was beneath all of those businesses.

Around the corner from all of that, he sat on the steps before the most used street in town. These cars, these people wouldn't bother him. Everyone who knows hymns in church. They all think situations are the same, so the people must be the same as they were in the same situations. They're constipated on ego. Everyone thinks themselves as heroes, or worst yet as friends. They've all been through the worst of it too. "So if you need anything.." Don't you know? Everyone's been a martyr. It's the human way. And when that way comes to the admiration of peers or the hoisting up of onto a pedestal, God help the ones they choose to carry that load off.

To our friend, names had no meaning now. Emotions failed upon use. Laughs came as timely as chewing on a mouthful of mold. Around that corner during the retreat, there was a change in him. A change that changed his whole life out-look. It allowed him to be bolder. To have the courage or lunacy to give himself completely to something. No looking back. He found a god there. Now, if we're quiet, we're about to see him talk to Him. Actually, he's thinking half of the words and barely pushing breath past his lips for the rest. The busy road watches him more vigilant than vultures circling their pray to mock at what they're about to pick on.

"I don't care what the truth is....... ..This not knowing and hoping everyday is killing me....I know you don't owe me anything. Anything at all. Just please....please.. If you never do anything else for me, please do this. Answer me when I ask, .. '.....Are my parents going to get a divorce'?"

I couldn't see if his eyes were closed or not. I'm positive his hands weren't folded. Yet, in his heart he didn't hear or see but now knew the answer. "Yes." It was louder and clearer than anything as long as he didn't deny it. He couldn't block it out or say that's he's crazy and it wasn't from God. He nobly accepted that that had been the answer. And everything was over. He now knew.

He felt somewhat better even though it was worse, because now he knew. Now he wept. And he wept. Alone on those stairs, the son wept. He didn't feel a hand on his shoulder or a world at his back. He felt alone, even after that.

Sitting with eyes under tears, the world creeps back in, when a car door shuts. The angels fly away. After his eyes dried he thanked Jesus for telling him, then sniffed up some loose snot and wiped the rest away.

8.1

Arguments ensued; subtleties of the new day were noticed. One such subtlety was that his mom would make huge salads with bacon for him anytime he asked. One such argument happened on a night not so late.

He and his brother were in bed but still had an hour or so before sleep. Their dad was watching television in the living room, which was outside their doors. The tv was well against the far side of the wall, but their dad always blared it, making sleep a little difficult in other homes along the way. Then stepping down the stairs to lightly stand above his ears there turned a voice. The volume, which could usually go as far as it wanted with the preacher man, was actually turned down.

Lying in the bunk, he feels the sway of the tightened blinds. Their voices were just voices till they raised. As the voices raised, he was able to make out the bottom curves of a word here and there; the curves turned into crosses. A word turned into words. Soon the words were audible enough to start making out bits of sentences. Then he understood what they were talking about, and the voices softened before a loud sentence of "I'm out of here!" He listened as he heard their father turn off the television and make his way up the stairs.

The middle of the stairway was a walkway, which is where the two of them stood when he heard what he did: ..A slap. It was sudden. He was in between thoughts. And it was loud, yet the whole house was now deadly silent. It was scary. It was horrific. It was something he could've gone his whole life without hearing.

Just some Sundays ago he used to sit in group and look at a stepling or a kid, who had a prayer request for his parents who were having problems, and he would think of them practically the same as he did a kid in a wheelchair or with a deformity. It was something odd to him; something foreign that he would never have to go through. His parents were pastors. They counseled couples through rocky marriages and saw them through. He was completely on the other side of the bridge to that lower ground; the damning ground that held the dirty bottoms of bare feet to those lower class of beings. They were the people that smoked and drank and lived in trailer parks. His parents never held an argument into bed as far as he heard. Your parents may fist fight for all I know (and if they do, get out of that situation -tell the person you know you should or people that can help and good luck!!), but their son had never even existed in the same world as a problem like this. He was in terror. It was something he could've gone his whole life without hearing.

"Don't you smack me!! Don't you ever smack me again!" For a brief second, everything stopped as he thought somewhere deep in the back of his mind that he might strike back. "Bam!!" The door slammed behind him. His mother stood on the stairway, probably staring at the door or even further down. A separate pair of bunks, beneath the down stare, held for their family an offering of silence.
9.0

The thumb and finger that used to play with his ears collapsed onto a knob and turned it the way of the counter. A singing voice was thrown down into a hum. His big brother was sitting in the back; the little one had won the shotgun. Rounding out the cast was their father, who was (as always) sitting in the driver's seat. Whenever he turns something down, it's either debilitating his patience and thoughts or it means they're going to have a talk.

Silence in the moving car.... .. . .... ..... ........ ......... .. .... ..... "Has your mother talked to you at all?" It had been about seven months since his mother told him about "their difficulties", so he answered the question with an "About what?" An incredulous face turns on a passenger. "She must've told you." He waits for his answer then picks up that fatherly tone. "About your mother and I having our problems./!" Unseen nod. "..I'm sure you both picked up as much." He looks to the nodding boy briefly.

"Well, ..this isn't easy for me to say." Once again, complete silence. Then all of a sudden, he began to make some loud, exasperated noises. If they were watching a family movie with Steve Martin or something, they would probably laugh at what they would assume to be his laugh, but there was no laughing. Laughs can only come through a smile; and to look at him, he was pretty far from smiling. No. These were sounds they had never heard before. These were the sounds of a grown man who hadn't wept in about twenty some years. It was like a little boy sobbing, telling his parents something awful he had done but through a grown man's vocal cords.

The old Conservative, who intimidated everyone with just his voice, was about to share something that actually broke him down. The sounds were of him, the runner, catching his breath up to an emotion that was apparently running wild. They were the sounds they had never heard in their lives and never thought they could. Their security, their wizard behind the curtain, their savior carrying the tree... .was nothing but a man.

Seeing this hurt. They say legends are suppose to grow with time; but here the man, who had carried them through life, had apparently come to a point where he had to set them down. Tears crawled up into the ducts of the younger son, but he held his face up without a cane or letting his lip or chin quiver. He couldn't let his dad know he was crying; it was hard enough on him.

Silence held their breaths, while letting the thick, tension-wetting air slowly slide down their throats. Everyone was trying to comprehend the situation in their own little minds. This would more than likely be the end of the crumble. The crumble would be the only fragments they'd have left of what once existed. ".....I.." More silence. "I'm going ..to be leaving.. soon. ..Moving out....of the house. Haugh." His father grieved the words he never practiced to say.

Tears now began to fall straight down the son's face. They barely touched his skin. He hardly blinked but never moved his hands up to wipe his eyes. When his nose dripped, he could taste the salt sneaking between the cracks of his mouth.

"Just for awhile.. at least. It might not be permanent. .. Don't know. ..If things get better..hu.... I might move. hu.. ..back in. Huussst. Huhh. But if it doesn't..... .I'm not goin' ta huaghhh.. lie to you."

He then looks back down to his smallest passenger, who's staring straight ahead. His prayer to Jesus stops, not wanting to give himself away to the preacher that he had been praying vehemently for him. He was praying hysterically and sincerely within, screaming as loud as a voice can behind tightening, quivering lips. But the answer had already been given, and his dear, departing dad was on his own.
10.0

{Move!} Long, wavy hair would fly into the wind if they weren't attached to his head. Under that hair you could catch glimpses of his neck, which no one had really seen since his longer hair finally grew in. This b- {Come on!} -ober, there's a few new changes to the boy, who's pretending an inner bitching will spin the wheels on his old, dirt bike faster than his feet can take it.

His newer, clean ten-speed is at the church with his new six string, which is on the verge of being late with him to one of his new lessons. He had written some songs and had gathered some familiar friends with whom he kind of had a "band". The friends were church friends, of course; the equipment, such as mikes, P.A., monitors, drums, synthesizer, stage, and such, were also gladly provided by the house of god (without Its people knowing).

They didn't really play though. You see, they sucked. Especially him. He knew it. The passion for guitar was not there. But he corn detassled a whole summer for that thing, and it made sense for him to be able to play, if he didn't want his very own members to disband him some day.

No rush though. He has yet to even find a singing voice; one that wouldn't hide from his friends, that is. These things sound so much better in the surroundings of one's own head. I bet some of the best bands of all time were defeated before they began. You wouldn't believe how difficult it is for some to sing in front of others, yet alone to the bare walls of their own home. What if someone heard him?

I suppose he had every right to be truckin' on that old bike. If he missed his teacher, it's a payment and a week of untaught lessons. (Not that he really retained the lessons from the week before). It's a building struggle to retain anything in a normally leaking head. Emotions > knowledge.

There was a car coming up on him. He saw it. Impossible for him not to, he looked every other revolution per M. There was a stop sign ahead. If he made it before the car did, he could blow through the stop sign and probably not have to get passed by the car. It's such a nervous pain to ride in the dirt (with the dirt bike) as a moving car rode inches from you.

His ass rose above the pedals; the tops of his legs pushing down and circling up, pushing down and turning up. His hands wrapped tightly around the handle bars. The car approached, the car approached, the car was coming! Almost there! The car slowed down for the red sign, and the kid on the bike flew by.

He smiled and looked back to see the stopped car. Then hearing what sounded like a nut in an empty coffee can, he looked forward to see his front wheel wobble.

A crescendo of voices spun from all directions. "Blihbleeohaa?!" He was seeing only night, and it was burning daylight. "I ble oblay?" He's not moving. "Bluhblablannd?!?" Opening his eyes, he noticed his face was in the street. "-hat blappened?" He was going to be late.

The sound of voices had surrounded him and was closing in. "Blheeblahiding a bhike." "Wehl, blare is bhit?" "Shohuld we bhurn him ound?" "I dohn't no. He waas knocked out before Ii got here." "Someoone call an ambulance or..?" "Nice neighbor here already did." Then the son, who has never had a stitch or a broken bone, started to turn around. I don't know if hands were helping him or not. It was pretty confusing down there.

A lightened blur with enclosing darker blurs indicated that it was daytime and that things were more than likely hovering around him. Then faces began to form on them. They were sideways and upside-down, shifting left to center, and bending towards him from the right, from the light.

"Don't move. Just stay as you are." "Yes." "Help's coming." They waited for him to say something. He had a white jacket on and imitation red lightening striking down the black puffy pants/pajamas that went with the Hammer style. Must've looked pretty f'n funny. Indeed, he did see one guy smiling.

"..Jesus." He tilted his head up to refer to the gothic cross hung around his neck. It was slightly bent towards the center. "You okay? Anything feel bent or broken?" A lady asked. "You took quite a fall." This reminded his mind to remind his body that it had nerves, and these nerves were now put to use. "Muy wips." He spoke to the people. His lips felt like they had been rug burned off and all that was left were the ends of muscles and tissues, baking under the sun over his numb front teeth. "Your lips, huh? Yeah, I could see how that would hurt." The man said as if indicating he had some worse wounds yet to feel.

"What time is it?" A man asked. The son slowly raised his hand to look at his watch. "No. Without looking at your watch." The road victim smiled painfully to pretend he was joking. "Uhm. Almost one." "Who's president?" "..Bush." "Where's your parents?" A lady chimed in good timing. Good question. "Uhhmm. My mom's ..at work." "Where does she work?" "....I don't remember." The faces turned to each other. "She just started working there," he explains and continues. "A clothing store. Right down the street." Small discussions. "Blythes!" A lady blurts before the buzzer. "Yeah.. That's it." "Someone ought to call over there." "What's her name?" "....." --Indistinct voices buzz in the background.--

"Where were you going in such a hurry?" Probably it was the guy from the car behind him, getting in his last laughs. Spoiled sport. "Guitar lesson." "Oh yeah? Where's your guitar?" Smart ass. "It's at the church with my bike." And if they don't know what that means, fo**e* 'em. He didn't feel like talking, yet alone explaining. His lips were in shreds.

"Is your teacher real mean? Make you be there right on time?" "Uhh, ..yeah," he answered just to get an answer out. The man straightened his bend and talked to another man. "I'm h.. .....er," the man mumbled and smiled with the other man.

The son, lying in a perfect daze, grabbed at the bent cross on his chest. With full belief he said aloud in a whisper, "Jesus,...help me." Breaking his promise for the third time (of never asking for another thing), he lied there waiting. He lied there believing. Nothing. Not a choir of angels; not a voice in his head. Nothing.

Did he expect a dove to come down or a strange "man" to heal his wounds and walk against the wind into nothing? Probably not. Was he hoping the new friend inside would at least make him feel comforted? Definitely. But there was nothing. He felt completely alone, until he looked up and saw their faces smiling down upon him with warm, empathetic nervousness.

Now, on top of all the pain he was feeling, there came an emotion that hurt him above it all: embarrassment. The son of a preacher man, who was really more into his religion than this book has told you, started to get this feeling that everything he had ever believed in... was just another bedtime story.

He began to wonder if God even knew him; and if It did, did It even care. Who leaves a wounded sheep kicking in the fence? Isn't it the agnostics who believed God created then left the world to its own makings? Maybe Adam and Eve were simply Its art; and we - we're just the art of Its art.

Had his whole LIFE been based only upon his parents' religious beliefs? Couldn't be. Once again, his parents had never been wrong before. They were his security, as God was theirs. Maybe he did something wrong. Maybe the Father took the thirteen year old to his word. Maybe the Devil wins sometimes. Maybe there's a time in your life where "maybes" are the only religion close to having any truth. Definitely, maybe, ..it's positive.. probably.

In the midst of his daze, he was finding it very strange that these people, who had stopped to help him, were so nice and caring, yet they weren't even from his church. It's possible they don't even belong to any church! They were normal people nice enough to stop and to care. Heathens! ..Normal people? They weren't smoking and drinking and cursing and fucking. In fact, a couple of them seemed to smile a bit as if embarrassed for him, asking his god to help him at the end of the street named after its very town.

10.1

Stitches were weaved in and out of the skin over his forehead. Lips were swollen beneath pink peelings. A small gash was below his nose, a bigger one was a chunk out of his knee, and others were decorating his fingers and wrist. They all glistened within the ointment that seemed spared at no expense. If one couldn't see the gashes, they would certainly be blinded by the shines of disfigurement coming from out of his face.

Students would be even more appalled when he returned to school. Revulsions and repulsions would be heard in glorious surround sound throughout his days; his mirror appearance would be covered in white heads and fingerprints. It's just something he can see right through. He knows exactly everything, from how he'll react to what they'll do. He is damned.

At home, he lies in a dark yellow sofa. The television plays nothing familiar to him. A tear swishes around lonely in his eye, but not from sadness; the big, red rims were thrown from his face during the accident and were found broken. Contacts burn about as much as his stomach does, when he thinks about the shit he's in. His stomach has never felt like this; not this long. It's late October. His report card has two f's and four f'n d's. He's now missed over ten days of school, which haven't even been reflected in those grades yet. Reports are due; homework he never understood from the previous weeks has been gathered and continues to stack against him. He hasn't gone to group or seen any of his friends in what feels like weeks. He wonders what was said and if Ann was there to hear it. She hadn't gone to group in the few weeks before these weeks, so it's just as well.

Might as well lie here, healing without miracles from his newly found maker. Is that even possible? It sure is taking longer than he had thought. His hammer pants were ruined in the ambulance ride, when a man cut them up to his thigh to feel his fine leg. Blue jeans will go well with his two new eyes and disfigured face.

Over to the workout machine he walks to work. He will be bigger, stronger. He will gather the respect of others if it takes him all day every day; and once he goes to school tomorrow, all night every night. They will all see a transformation of him at group. He will be cool, calm, and collect. No more blurting out his theories to any questions. No more visions ...or maybe .............Visions for everyone! They'd all be completely accurate to what everyone's dealing with. New kids would turn their lives to God! A girl being abused would take herself into a safe place! A man would become un-deformed! People in wheel chairs would walk! The kingdom would come back! Everything would be because he chose to be perfectly in sync with Jesus Christ, the Son of God! He would be the thirteenth disciple. The Moses of his generation!! Yes!!! It all makes sense now! He would have been the antichrist, but he fought it; and because he did, he is now the son of Jesus Christ Himself!!!!!

Thoughts like those come and go, even though something inside of him had been shaken loose with that fall. His face and skin wasn't the only thing scraped up and bruised from the hardened tar. No. Something inside of him had also been damaged. There was a hurt he knew he was feeling but couldn't accept that it might not be healing. A prodigal Father who left the son at a time when he fully believed He would come. "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?!"

All core belief systems aside, as far as family went, for the last month or two his mom had turned to substitute teaching. She's had jobs at the high school, as well as a middle school. With the nice house and their dad out of pastoring since the summer, they're running out of income. The possibilities for him soon might be to stay at his best friend's (family of the song leader), or at the warm home of the youth pastor and his loved ones, or stay with the family of four his dad's staying with, or just go to his Grandma's.

His Grandma and Grandpa, who had been together his whole mother's life, got a divorce a year or so before his parents had their problems. His Grandma was now living at a different house of the same town, The Green Isle, which was about four hours south.

Veins throb, as he works out this headache, growing larger with every stretch of the rubber weights. He thinks these things through and imagines the possibilities of what he could impossibly do.

11.0

November. Not too many people laughed at his face. Some of the guys even stared in awe of it. With his glasses gone, he felt and looked a little less dorky. The stitches had been out for some time and his gashes were scarring well, scaring well too. He was getting a little bigger from working out, which was helping him slightly in gym class; or maybe that was because of the different shoes and glassless face. He was quieter at group. His friends seemed to be having their own friends. He was maybe a dying leader and more of a watcher. In a sad way, this made him happy. Happy that his friends didn't depend on him and were finding friends of their own. Still the selfless boy. There's always the chance of them being friendless if he moved.

He tended to look at things a little more slowly, cherishing more of the little things. As he was learning, things can disappear over a single night. One second your head is full of plans and dreams, another second is the end of seconds.

Everything moves in changes. People. The fall into winter. Marriages. The Earth. Relationships. Growing old. Nothing ever grows young. Nothing gets younger. Age. Time. Dre- A hand pulls him into the doorway of the art room.

"Come here. I wanna talk to you." The corners of her mouth spread wildly into opposite directions. His confidence plays him well. He's ready for her. He will stay here with Ann and his friends till the end. They are his family now. He will tell her he loves her. They'll say they always have. The ceilings of her mouth fall, crumbling back down into their corners. "I'm moving." "Well, where to?" The dimly lit son thinks somewhere next door to where he'll be. "..Kansas City." {...................}. "I'm moving in with my dad." The possibilities of anything good happening this year have abruptly ended.

"Well, why? Why don't you stay with your Grandma?" He asks rather desperately, while running down the idea of his mom saying "yes" to her being taken in to his house. "I kind of want to be with my dad." She replied with sky-blue eyes staring through his brown spiraling deep down to the basements of his gagging, gasping soul.

"When?" "Not till Tuesday." She said as if in hopes to do something. To him there was no point. Everything was dulled down, deflating with his new ego down to flat. {But I love you! Stay!} were the useless sentiments of unseen chick-flicks. She would be leaving him. The only girl he could call a friend was leaving him. All of the moments they've already shared (the retreat), the thousands of ways he had been narrowing down to how they would have their first kiss, the daydream upon daydream upon daydream.. It was all for not. He never even got to tell her that she looks like Madonna.

Of all of the pretend people around him (pretending to know what it was like to be just like him), she was the real one who took him by the hand (..if in his head) and simply led him from the hells that were seeping up around him.

Her hand slipped from his sleeve, as she bent down to grab a bunch of bags. "Well, might as well. Looks like I'm going to move in with my Grandma." "Oh yeah?" She walked with him to the main doors, which was only a few stabs and a stagger away. "When's that?" "..In a couple of weeks. I wanna get there before the second semester bell rings."

She saw her car waiting and took a final look at him. Her face seemed to mirror how he imagined his face looked if he could see it about right now: crushed. "Maybe I'll see you at church before then?" .. Their eyes. It was in their last glance that they knew. They both finally knew. Didn't they? He did love her, and she was the one he let slip away.

She raised her hand and waved four fingers against her palm repeatedly, then she walked out of the door he held open for her.

The Divorce was final on Dec. 21. He moved two or three weeks before his mom and brother did. This way he'd be settled in before the second semester's bell would ring! ........

Ring!
12.0

Ring! Untangling his shoes, our love to reminisce scoots off of his father's bed, leaving a wrinkled tiger to reign the throw below. His heels reluctantly stomp onto the soles that follow. The rin- Ring! ..The ring unwraps, falling to the broken chimes that brush through the butterflies making a flutter; their wings scrape the skin that drape down the insides of the son's sore stomach. Scratched into loose shavings, they slowly fall in gentle waves, like pedals do from a slight breeze, to tuck caressingly into the bottom folds of his warm bread basket. There's consequences for not answering if it's the attendance office/consequences for answering if it's anyone who knows his father. Does he answer? Does he not? "Come on, people. This is drama!"

Before the click of a machine, he blows on his fingers and picks up the burning of his gut. "Hello?" A voice a bit deeper into his vocal range shouldn't hurt. There's a long pause .. ... then a click following surface noise. "Hello, is this the man or woman of the house?" "This is him," he says a bit deeper than the last but with more poorer grammar. "This is Scott of A.T-" (-beep-) A long sigh of relief rushes through the wings. "What a dumbass," he swears.

While in the kitchen, he grabs the phonebook and looks under "Schools". Never look under your school's first name, kids; it's one of the phone books' biggest traps. That will sometimes connect you straight to the superintendent's office, a slap from the major foe paw. Doing that will wring any confidence in you right the hell out. It's all about confidence. I am the Father. I am her Mother. "This is his father." "And what's wrong with him today," she says rather cheerfully. He's got this ring in the box. "He's got a fever and won't be coming in today." "What grade is he in?" "He's a senior." "One minute. ......" The pause they give isn't necessarily for computer input as much as it is to build the suspense.

"How long do you plan on him being absent?" "Probably just for today." "Okay. Thanks for calling." "Thanks .you." "Bye." "Bye." (-beep-) "Stupid." {You gotta work on your speech and ..slow down} goes through his head quickly but not as effectively as {I'm home today, baby!!}. He whispers a cheer, hushing through the walls of his apartment.

He calls his pal, who he knew from the church somewhat before he left for his Grandma's but who he really got to know when he moved into this apartment. The apartment is in the next town from Pretty lil' Val Town. He moved here just before his sophomore year.

His pal is his pal. And his pal is taller, bigger, and a few years his senior. He's one of those life-sized bears you could trust with all the sweet dirt of your life if you needed to, only they were more players than talkers.

The big and the thin of them would be joined by his old best friend or some scattered others to play Euchre, Hearts, and whatnot at the doughnut shop from seven p.m. until McDonald's opened for breakfast. Once and awhile, they'd even play during a school night. Our senior higher would get home, sleep for an hour or less, and then walk to school. His pal's schedule was open more than not, and he never really seemed to mind the 20 min. ride from the ass end of Pretty lil' Val to the next town from it to pick up the underachiever 17 yr. old without a license. In a way, the underachieving is a mirror image of each other, if at different stages of their lives.

Probably the friend he gets the most use of though at this time is that singer (who always blew)'s son. They're both in the same grade and have been in every English class together since that sophomore year; which is funny, because last year he had a schedule set up where it would be the first year he wasn't in English with him. But that schedule disassembled due to a class not being offered and other class' hours conflicting. He wisely got out of a Debate but was forced on the first day of school to take a class where there were enough chairs and where it would cooperate with his schedule. It would be either Ceramics, Foods, or crEATive wRITing. He took the latter, which put him into the same first hour English class as the singer (who always blew)'s son. Actually, the singer (who always blew) and his family is no longer going to their original spot of origin, the church, at this moment (of course neither is the x-pastor's son); so his friend is really now just his old church friend – to him.

Anyway, those are about the only friends he has, and even they have been fading out of priority. So far this year, this senior's been pretty secluded. He even spent the changing of the years alone in the apartment, ..on the toilet, while hearing the countdown to a new year, to a new day, flush away with the same old crap; wiping away the old to make way for the new.

Lying on his bed, staring at the walls is how he spent the month after that. But he's skipping school today, and he's going to have fun, damn it. So he tells one of his last friends, his pal, to bring over his Super Nintendo. And so the Noon is in Morning over another Day being shot; off to Hell, it blows the ending rays of another wasted sunshine.

12.1

And as this night sheds day, some plastic earrings roll through the thick, crunchy carpet and up the apartment's damp blankets of air, which are covering the son in thin, light stacks. There, the key ring begins to split, showing the jagged one sure to fit, that then begins to take its turn down into our underachiever's lazy, left ear. Ridges slip into their only groove.

Our uninvited tedium tosses the blankets to the lit Tube and walks through to the kitchen, where he's been called to answer to his portable lord of the rings. (-Beep-) "Is .... ..ere?" A female's voice intrigues. What?! {Woman!!} But Nonsense bit into parts of words and static dripped over the bottom lip of the single horned over-lord, which was caught breaking up with its love, Conversation, again. Yeah, that's a healthy couple.

"This is him," he hopes it's him. If a girl ever calls, it's because she never meant to speak to him. It's just that the number's so close to the one of him pictured in his daydreams. "You know who this is?" "No," the honest approach. "This is your dad's girlfriend's son's girlfriend's daughter." "..Oh yeah." He recollects his dad's girlfriend, and his girlfriend's son, and her son's girlfriend, and her son's girlfriend's daughter. Much easier off of paper.

"What's goin' on?" The female voice intrigues into his evening. His sperm sits up, stretches, and yawns a nasty breath of waking air into the cushy walls of the round homes. "I'm watching Pretty Woman." He answers to the high-pitched squeal of girls' laughter in the background. "Pretty Woman?" "Yeah. It's on tv." He replies with a bare minimum of embarrassment. "He's watching Pretty Woman," he overhears through the moving slits along the tops of her hand, covered over the receiver. "Yeah, I guess that is on tv.

"You said you wanted to go to the Fret Haus; you still want to go?" "Sure." "How's this Friday?" "Sounds great." "I'll pick you up around five thirty?" She asks a statement, which sounds good to him considering he doesn't even have a permit.

I believe it went, "Sure. You know how to get here?" "No." "You take that one highway.. I don't remember the name of it right now. It goes through this town." "Forty-nine?" As if the male didn't know the highway that not only goes through his town but is the only one that also leads down to his previous one of Pretty lil' Val Town, "Yyyyeah. And you turn at the light. There'll be a car dealership with a huge, blown up gorilla to the right. Actually, it'll be on your left. But you'll turn right. The road 'll dip down, but keep going straight. That's 1100n. You know the road I'm talking about?" "I have no clue," she laughs a response.

"It's the light ..second light after Jewel and Wendy's and all of that stuff." "I know where you're talking about. But how about your dad's girlfriend's son just give you a ride here? He'll be coming to my house anyway." That tone of hers sounded more like a declarative than an interrogative. "Yeah, that'll probably be best."

"Okay. Well, I'll let you get back to your movie." Yet another open pack of four-legged giggles can be heard behind her. The straight faced male doesn't want to say "Bye."

Now I don't know if I missed or forgot something in the conversation above, but somehow he knew she was going to bring a female friend. So the son invited his old church friend to come along. In fact, I don't think he even remembered to ask if she knew how to get to his house. Maybe it struck him and he called her a couple of days later. Then she would have asked if it was okay that she was bringing a friend, and he would've felt obligated to even things out by bringing one of his own. I don't know. The possibilities are endless.
13.0

Fact: Wishagin City is about twenty-five minutes away from his town. It's very cold on this February 4th, which is eerie because this is being typed for all to read on a February fourth. Anyway, as his dad's girlfriend's son pulls our first date and his old church friend up to the house, a couple of cars are already parked there.

"Whose car is that?" "Oh, that's probably her boyfriend's car. He's a real jerk," his dad's girlfriend's son states something towards that special effect: a stomach shifts and drops half a floor from the seated son. Scratch that "first date" from our favorite 12th grade virgin. Why the hell would she invite them then? Two guys? Oh well. {Oh hell. Should've known it would come to this.} Guess they'll just have to try the friend or awkward evening thing.

Her boyfriend, who is wrapped into an army coat that is quite possibly sutured into his puny frame, stands beneath some curling dirt taken for hair and a stone cold glance shooting towards the pair standing in the opened doorway, before he storms by them like a sloth put into overdrive. It looks as though they've come during a bad time.

The house sits quietly, as the two of them stand there in the doorway. One stands behind the other, as the one that's ours takes to wiping the mud off of his shoes onto a very small and portable rug just inside the doorway. The shoes were over-celebrated with too many helpings of mud, caked up to their soles, from the front yard's wet earth. "You don't have to do that." Everyone shares her stare down to the little rug.

The name game is the name of the game. They share their names/they share their names; now everyone should feel closer for having shared their names. "Really! You don't have to do that." Like an animal to the rough-toned "blah!", he stops to give her his full attention then steps aside to let his friend in through the doorway. Finding only the tied strings of his footwear within the dim light, of course his friend would then have to wipe his feet onto the little rug, making the tattered dress shoes once again take part; like two lost dogs, they wipe and grind, trying to cover the mounds of brown behind them with rug fibers.

"Would you please stop (!) and come in?" She looks down at their thoughtful brushing, grinding, stomping, and moon-walking all over the little mat. Secretly they yearn for no one to turn on another light; the little rug might have been six feet under their four.

"I don't think you want us to," was his friend's first said sentence. "Yeah, it's pretty bad," our under-matched social skills kick in. His old church friend has always been quite the smooth talker. Straight hair and good smiling can go a long way with an aggressive quick wit. Good grades, good hygiene, good personality, and well liked by those from the white collar-middle class social statures of the high school. If opposites can apply to the attraction of friends too, this might be why their friendship has lasted through the ends of the church. "Don't worry about it." "We're leaving soon anyways, right?" "Yeah, just let me get Polly." {"Oh, now there's someone else coming? ..Great. Maybe she's single.}

And with that, she went upstairs, leaving them the awkwardness of coming in during an obvious fight with her boyfriend (probably about them) to share with her friend. Her friend has a brow ring or six and multiple ear-piercings. She seems very nice, as they all stare at each other, giving their eyes a stretch from their skulls that seemingly nod around the room in the knowledge to know that they're in an awkward predicament. "Soooo," the only stud of them (being her) breaks the ice. They all smile to each other awkwardly, giving eyebrow shrugs and look away grins.

Tucking the awkwardness beneath a firm pillow, his dad's woman's son's girlfriend's daughter finally came down the stares if but slowly for the baby cradled in her arms. "Shh. She's still sleeping." The girl is about thirteen months. Maybe they're suppose to take her to that baby's mother on the way. {I wonder who that mother is? Maybe I know her?} Come to think of it, he does remember her at the restaurant holding a baby. The dysfunctional half of their families got together at a restaurant a week or so ago, and she did sit with someone's baby at the other end of the long table.

Raising a stop hand, his unphased mind falls down the empty shafts of its Cloud City to land obliviously into its carbonate copy, just in fitting time for him to come to the chilling conclusion that she is and had always been that mother. "Let's go."
14.0

The Ride: Picture fog. Much fog. You-try-to-see-your-hand-in-front-of-you-and-instead-you-finally-have-to-come-to-grips-that-your-arm-has-been-cut-off fog. The awkward three are in the backseat of that mother's car from the latter 70's; the grungy hairline of a huge crack bends through her windshield, which is caught cracking up lightly at the backseat passengers, who are looking through all of this to find the only thing familiar in that crack: the moon.

Her lights are barely lit for 3 pieces of shit. They three sit on a seat for two, which is surrounded by rust clinging to the metallic crust looking half-eaten away from the tires moving them faster than fifty miles an hour down the boom-booms (!) of back-seated speakers lined along both sides of a stereotypical residential street that's just narrow enough to fit a vehicle and a half down its plugged up two-way.

His old church friend looks at him as if he were a virgin lying naked beneath him. He puts his seat belt on while pointing the full whites of his eyes down to the seat belt beside his old pastor's son then back at him, then to the belt, then at him, then to the belt, then at him as if the words "Come on! Put it on, you fool!!" pleading from him were physically oozing from his cemented lips.

Our oblivious death wish sits in smiles, plotting his thinly laid grave. Maybe they'll die/maybe they won't. Either way he'd be fine. That's the way he feels, feeling the winter breeze rush into him through the thin side of the passenger window that's split just off-center, as if someone had gone axe happy.

As he remains pinned into the holy material of the torn interior and seems happily stuck watching the dark houses go by, one has to stop and wonder why he's suicidal. The reasons could be found in his past. Could be to avoid any future. Could be related to evil music. Could be because a hero of his blew his head apart with a shotgun ten months ago. Could be that that was a bad influence for such a weak-minded boy, who was trying to find himself ever since The Green Isle.

He stayed with his Grandma in The Green Isle from January till July following his parent's divorce. That summer his dad got an apartment in the neighboring town of his last one. And taking the words "always welcome to live with me" to heart, he physically leaped at the chance.

The Green Isle, as exciting as it sounds, was brutally murdering him. Nice people, except for the bitter wrinkled ones. There was a hole lot of nothing there, but that's what he was looking for at the time. Reflection. He needed to see himself. To see how badly he looked from all of this, and to see how he wanted to look at himself after all of it - if for the cold-blooded brutality of mental violence felt in his remaining months of Pretty lil' Val Town.

As far as spending the last half of his freshman year in the school that was substantially smaller than the last, things had gotten back to normal. He was no longer lost. The southern curriculum was like his previous school's special classes. The green folk were extremely nice to him, right down to the scar in his face. Where in the last school, he had the haunting images of a beautiful girl's shrinking face at the sight of his split lip in band. Here: For every scar he had, someone in the room could match it.

A week or so before he got there, they beat a black boy to hell, hospitalizing him in his first and last week of school there. The most reckless dreamer of the Green Isle fought alongside him in his head every time he thought of it. Thank goodness he moved there a week after the incident, of which the guilty parties were driven to suspensions, light smacks on the asses, and some extra chew to cover the smells from the spreading of their sister-eatin' jaws. He could count his stars that his skin wasn't any darker than it was, part Puerto Rican/Brazilian, Indian, and some of the offsetting Mayflowerian as found in every one of their next door neighbors.

No longer the son of a preacher man, the son was free to buy all of the secular music he never did before. And he did. He shook his paper route money maker for The Black Crows, the new Use Your Illusions by Guns and Roses {"Oooooooooo!" "Did he really?! I can't believe he bought that!"}, Too Legit To Quit (in memory of his old group, who had anointed the worldly gospel of Hammer), and Slippery When Wet. He couldn't believe that Living on a Prayer, Wanted Dead or Alive, and You Give Love A Bad Name were all on the same tape.

The model name, who was rebuked from the church shortly after the son had left because of his alternative views (of whom he would've gladly fought beside if they had had the guts to throw up w- ect.), had taped for him a few things on his new "C.D. player" before he left for The Green Isle: C&C Music Factory "-full of jams that has to be-", Pretty Hate Machine, and ..what was it? Oh, Nevermind. The high middle one he listened to repetitiously, like a baby craving the same nipple it depends upon for food only to forget it in fits of repression; yet when older still perks up and shivers with excitement at the familiar sight of a chilly girl in a tightly knit shirt, seeming to remind him that everything's going to be all right.

He listened to that hate machine in the backseat of his mom's car and while walking downtown on his paper route, sporting the cool new headless headphones he had gotten up north. He was such a trendsetter while down there; there's probably still some people talking about his blue Cavariches and purple sunglasses. It was such a change for him from his big, red-framed glasses and Jesus tee-shirts at the other school.

But when he moved in with his dad, he left all of those tapes in The Green Isle on purpose, for one last stitch at a perfect Christianity. And after living with his Dad for a few months without any TV or music, he asked his brother to give him some tapes the next time he came up. Water for the musical draught of loneliness. The three tapes that came tucked in his satchel were (the next Trinity): The Immaculate Collection, a collection of rare Beatles, and ..Nevermind, which was still huge at the time.

The first few months of living there he'd eat frozen burritos at the kitchen table after school, maybe work out, maybe write, and usually go to bed. Some nights belonged to practices for his marching band. His old church friend's family would pick him up for that. Twice after eating Sprite and drinking one of those burritos, he had to walk briskly from marching practice in the parking lot of the elementary school to the little boy's room and throw up. Not a good mix with knee raising, pivots, and blowing, I suppose.

His Grandmother on his dad's side, whom he had just met in fourth grade, died that tenth grade year at his new school. Her funeral took place in New York during a band trip to West Virginia. Being as he never really got to know her and a flag girl had recently been flirting with him, he skipped the funeral and went on the trip.

The school hired a huge double decker bus for the event. This senior, the sophomore was getting on with, walked up to him in her pajamas and pulled him downstairs, where he sat with her and her friend behind the driver. On that long trip was where he experienced his first kiss.

It was nighttime, and she had been sleeping in his arms. Then suddenly she sat up and just stared at him (like she was giving an inner monologue to a bunch of horny housewives over the nation of what she was going to do with him) as if in a Days. The son looked into her eyes, and so help him they were pitch black (blacker than that Changeling's eyes in Krull). Those eyes, black hair, and his first pair of wet lips belonged to a very short senior, named Jenny F.ed.in. or .red.i.e or something. It was around this time he got really bad with names.

He used to be great with names; but after his ninth time moving, the names of everyone he met finally began to run together. A guy in Earth Science might have well have been this Aaron, who went to his Baptist school in third grade; when he tried to picture a girl in his Keyboarding for whacking, the only mental photo that developed after shaken was of this college student, who went to his parent's 2nd church when he was six. He didn't even know that first kiss' last name till the big band photo at the end of the year. Her name was her face.

They went out on that single trip, but her Umpa-light weight had thrown a crush on him. And why not. She was his first kiss, and she had chosen him out of the many others. He held her, feeling how fragile she was, protecting her from the hard stops and seeing her breathe as she slept in his arms. He held her in his arms for hours upon hours till the bus' next stop.

The stops weren't too frequent because the bus had a bathroom, which was on his first floor. He had to use it once during the long trip back. It was at that time of dusk when everyone was sleeping, and those who were awake were quiet for the sleepers. Being ever paranoid at the loss of his unknown bad boy social stature, he didn't want those awake, including his woman, to hear the sounds of his dirty urine striking down against the low-watered bowl. So he decided to line paper along the curved seat, and it took him a minute to do this; to quietly undo his pants, push the eyes out, and go.

When he sat up thinking he was finished, a spurt of pee fell out from the grinning hose onto his fingers, that caught the gist of it, but a little bit went into his pants. I say "into" because his pants was still down as he was trying to stand up from the seat, when the geyser gusheth its last hurrah. "Ohhhh, no." There was no sink; there were wet naps.

While the son was still crouching, he shook his manhood over the bowl, tore a wet nap, wiped his hands, dotted his underwear and jeans where needed, and pulled up his pants quickly. All of this, mind you, took a time of about ten minutes, so everyone would assume he had been pinching.

He unhinged the lock and walked suavely up to the front, where his woman was waiting for him. "Everything okay?" "Well, yeah. Why wouldn't it be?"

A nerdy band *a* (as people call them) then went in there after him, taking a shorter amount of time. (Damn you quick shitters to Hell on a shutter!) Shortly after he came out, there was a smell they were smelling all the way up in the front, soon going up to the top floor and around the whole double-decker bus.

He looked at her looking at him. In her look, it looked to him like she thought the smell came from him. Soon the people were heard to be laughing in their disgust. Later reports announced that the toilet was broke, and they were blaming it on the guy that went in there after him. So with them, he was in the clear; but with her, she was quiet and wasn't looking at him quite the same way as she had.

During the rest of the trip, she didn't eat with him; she had her own friends, the flag twirlers. And as the bus was gearing up for the last ride back, he was stopped in mid-aisle by one of the twirlers, preventing him from getting back to her and the front seat. "She need-" -ed "-rest".

In front of everyone, he was forced to go back upstairs and kick the kid out of what was his seat at the beginning of the trip. The kid didn't want to leave, but he knew this unknown bad boy would beat the shit out of him; maybe it was the way he could growl in his sax or twirl the instrument into his case, but somehow he had the unsaid reputation of being the bad ass of the band (semi-long hair/scars out and in). Quite a role reversal from the "twig" of Pretty lil' Val Town.

He sat up there quietly and angrily, earning back his rep. Everyone stayed away from him. Gossip, of course, spread from seat to seat as if carried by the legs of a hooker who finds a bulge in every jerk's pocket.

On the early morn of their arrival, he didn't see the last of her. Alone, in a darkened hallway, he shut his locker door to find her standing there with her bags at her side. She asked him if he wanted to come to her house. Feeling tired, rejected, confused, and not realizing the sexual implication there (God bless the son), our favorite sophomore said he'd rather go home, take a shower, and sleep. She left, and that was that.

The next Monday, he was actually shocked when she completely ignored him; this includes a time he tried talking to her all the way up a series of hallways. She just looked straight ahead the whole time, unable to acknowledge his existence, as if dead tired of the bad boys and looking for someone with brains. That made him mad. They shared a moment, didn't they? What the hell did he do to her? Was it the clogged toilet? Was it too many forced frenches? Was it the accidental denial? What the hell was it about him she no longer cared for?

From about then on, everyone began to tell him that she was evil, but he would tell them "no" or ignore them. If she was the red pussy of Satan, then one of his best friends, his old church friend, would have told him. He knew as everyone did during that trip that he was with her. In fact, he even told him on the trip during an unintentional surfacing for a gulp of air between frenching. But there was someone else who found love during that long bus trip: his old church friend. And love can make a best friend blind to all but that certain shine that comes from between a pair of crossed legs.

Weeks later, when his disdain for her had been well documented by the band's stenographer, his old church friend filled him in on what everyone else already knew: that she had a boyfriend before, after, and during the band trip. She had lots of boyfriends, had done lots of screwing; and in fact, when she was a sophomore, she even had an abortion due to an egg being caught in her fallopian tube ..or so the stories went.

He couldn't believe that his only friend in the entire school didn't warn him. He told him about her during the trip. Why didn't he tell him? There was no warning. None.

He was upset with him for awhile after, but that didn't matter, because his old church friend was now in love with some prissy ass snob of a bible girl of whom he selfishly spent our heart wrenching seconds with. Due to this turn of unfortunate events, the pastor turned insurance agent would have to take him to band practices, if they weren't held at the school; this being October, the only worries would be for performances. But most performances were at the school anyway; so he would walk during the night all the way there, do his gig, and walk in what seemed like total darkness all the way home. He didn't really mind. It was peaceful. It made him look cool leaving. Made him look independent and the shit. The Luke Perry to the Priestly (his old church friend); instead of a motorcycle, he had a mountain bike.

Then one day, as would be inevitably, he had to see her making out with some guy against the lockers. The guy had a thick leather coat just like him, only it wasn't purple. Although, he knew she was bad; there was something in the back of his mind. Some kind of loyalty and trust that comes with every man's first kiss. Something inside of him that said "no matter what she does, she'll eventually come back for more." Only she never came back. And according to this eye shitting sight, she didn't want to. So the crush he once had on her had finally crushed him.

That month he threw his bike in the dumpster, with no Miagee throwbacks. She was everywhere he looked inside. From the pitch black eyes of their first kiss to her birthday actually being on Halloween (no joke), she was completely evil. And now he had finally seen this. Evil incarnate. He should have known better. There should have been a warning. But he knew no one but one, until this. But those new few who just saw him begin to open up, now saw him completely close up, cracking at the seams.

Parents. Heroes. A looked-up to friend, who now sits on the same seat beside him. No matter. My point is is that the son is not frightened by her reckless driving. In fact, if anything, he's actually turned on by this.....this.. ..naughtiness.

He imagines himself pulling the man in the leather coat off of his badly beaten first kiss, when they pull into a small, gravel driveway behind the backdoor of a home. "One minute. Let me drop her off."

She walks around to the passenger side, unstraps her baby, and carries it (child included) over to the back door. A tall man with a goatee or beard answers the door and invites the pre-maddona-with-child in, sitting the three of them in another uncomfortable silence.

"..What happened to your windshield," his friend looks to the face of sharpened metal. "Ohhhh," she kind of laughs out of her grin. "Okay, we were all tee-peeing some weird guy's house, who was a major asshole and totally deserved it, and the guy heard us and came running out with an ax." Hate to call it. They look at her while trying not to stretch their faces into any kind of emotion. She smiles at this and continues.

"So everyone ran, except me and her. Stupid right? We ran to the car cause Polly was in there. But before that mother could start the car, the guy was standing right there. This guy was real freaky, less you guys couldn't tell. Some guy running out of his house in his underwear chasing some tee-peeers with an ax? I mean, little extreme. But we locked the doors, as he was going for the handle to mine. He punched out the window there then ran over to the front; and as she was starting it, he swung the ax down into the windshield."

There was a mutual feel of indigestion and "what the hell are we doing here" jitters going between the son and his friend, who previously only shared the shock of an electric fence between them.

"But he knocked out the little side one there. That's why it's so f'n cold in here," she splits her hairs in a shiver. "Damn," says our fellow curser - waiting for the last grains of sand to fall from the hourglass before finally opening up some more words in the works - "That must've been pretty scary." "Yeah, it was. It just happened last weekend. No.. Two weekends ago.

"Polly was in the car too. She was screamin'. It w-" -screech of car door- "-retty scary." That mother gets in with a "What was?" "Last weekend. Or two weekends ago. I don't remember. At Chris'." "No shit. That bastard knocked out my window back there. That's why it's so fuckin' cold in here. You guys must be freezing." "Actually, it's not that bad," his old church friend says to his surprise.

Opening the door, smoke rises from the warm indentations made by the child chair, as the metal one slips her buns into the velvet interior of the shotgun.
15.0

The Fret Haus was in The Port, which was anywhere from forty minutes to an hour and fifteen away, considering how fast one drives. The insignificant scrap of shit a license branch called an operator's vehicle was going between eighty and 85 miles per hour or forty miles per thirty minutes. I think it was literally flying in hover formation over the highway. "Roads? Where we're going we don't need ..roads."

They were probably in the slow lane as much as they were the fast. And they only knew they were on the road when they heard themselves reaching the divots of the shoulder. The fog was in the intended wide-screen format, being that the top and bottom of the windshield was only the dark sky and the hood. I know it sounds like exaggeration, but you literally couldn't see but maybe a pair of feet in front of the car; and all you saw in the feet was fog brightened by the high-beams of her headlights.

The son sat back comfortably on the upper cushions of his ass. He did manage to find the little waist over seat belt for his friend's sake. No matter how sick his friend had ever been in his whole life (and he was sick nearly every time they jogged by the lake), I bet he was not as yellow and green as he was right then (or his jeans in threat of brown and yellow). She pulls over to a gas station.

The piercing takes a stab at the station, as that mother pumps the vehicle. The two friends, who previous to this night of hellacious demonizing felt like they've been through a lot, finally look to one another sharing faces that resemble the ones they wore at the end of Rosemary's Baby or the beginning of Twilight Zone – The Movie.

"Damn. That's.. that was fast," the son of their former preacher man throws a pre-emptive strike at breaking the shared silence towards the moment (just assuaging the fears read in the face worn by his straight-haired friend). "You ain't messin'," replies his friend. "You ain't messin'." His friend was a prep in the way he dressed, in his preparation for school, in his hanging with the good crowd; but he was a prep with an odd side. They both enjoyed weird things and were extremely extroverted when it came to things most people wouldn't do, whether it be jumping off the highest dunes of Mt. Baldy or watching classic sci-fi pictures about living brains and giant ants or making promises to go across Europe on mountain bikes at the end of their senior year.

"That was nuts. I almost said 'why don't you pull over and let me drive'," his friend divulges. "Yeah." "I'm still thinking about it. But the fog's clearin' up the further south we go, and I think we're almost there." "Got to be. It's been forever." [Just to get something out of the way that I should've explained earlier: if their dialogue doesn't seem quite so punched up, it's because this is how teens from the mid-west actually spoke. It'd be awhile before the kids from Dawson's Creek would speak into their visions, bringing with them all of the linguistics and little, black barbarisms an obsessed fan of Webster would crave.] "I figure let's just get to where we're going and maybe she'll relax." His long-time friend hardly ever got upset; it just wasn't in his temperament. The pump stopped as the holes of patted down metal got back into the car.

Moonlight drips through the sky, dressed in the foggiest of ideas. It spills along the crack in the windshield, through the dissipating fog, as a ball of light behind the thickest snowflakes falling with a painter's comfort, glistening in "Fuck!" She pauses by the tank then marches toward the station to pay the damages.

The old church friend looks to his x-pastor's son. "Oh yeaaaah," seems to be written over his closed lips, tightened in an apparently over-pleasant emotion, balancing the two of them out into a mere yawn. She was what he was looking for. Courtney to Kurt.

She gets into her piece of shit and sits there fuming quietly for a few seconds. ..................... "Brake a nail?" He asks in a calm voice. She nods her head and starts the car. The gleaming metal turns around, "How did you know that?" She smiles in surprise. "I saw her closing the door to the gas tank and put two and two together." {All right. Now, she knows you're paying close attention to her.} A face of buried metal continues to smile a bit. {Maybe it's meant to be.}

While sitting on a chair, surrounded by open-holes of rust, the son's daydreams swerve over the tires, rolling him through the heavens fallen for clouds of dust.

Seventeen minutes later, there isn't any worry about a bad parking job, because there's no parking spots for blocks. Cars are in illegal places, parked long ways and in slant. There's no spots for the first ten minutes of driving. Finally, she finds a tight parking space atop of the snow and ice that had been collecting confidently during their journey to this city. While sliding the rust between the two metals, Chomp!

"Did I just hit that car?" The three remain fasted to their thoughts. Then.. "Umm, yeah." "Damn it! What do I do?" "Well, back up," our level head tells her. His friend is pretty silent, which is very silent for him. They look around to see what appears to be a ghost town for as many cars are piled throughout the streets. She looks at the only store open (by way of lights), and it's a bar. "He's probably in there."

Different people of your choice are saying things like "Is it dented?" "Did you scratch it?" "Oh shit, there's a bit of a dent." The insurance agent's son firmly puts down his assessment, "Back up and get the hell out of here." Heads begin to turn on their driver; their sealed lips showing the limits of their own liability. "There's no one around! They'll never know who it was if you hurry!" Exactly the words everyone was concentrating on how to say, but our backseat driver said it pretty well.

She backs up, and they drive in silence to find a parking spot in the outer reaches of a space that's far, far away.
16.0

The Fret Haus consisted of two rooms combined into one. The first was the stage for the loud audience to hear the lame, lame ass bands playing Green Day cover tunes; the second was made up of pool tables, a couple of vintage arcade games, and a few booths that were all somewhere within a haze of smoke that was somehow thicker and deadlier than the fog they were recently driving through.

Somewhere in a booth, where tickets had been torn and friends introduced, a brown folder, containing the pieces of the son, was taken down from the table and set between the side of his ass and a hole in the wall. The girls and their friends pleaded for him to sign up to read him to them (thus the reason for coming), but he refused.

In their conversations, which were next to nil, that mother's Gi in the army coat simply appears from within the haze and doesn't stop walking past them until his twitching hands reach the hard knobs of a machine in the back. His stiffened face doesn't even acknowledge their existence; it's as if that flying death on wheels had exploded into streaks of blue light and actually taken them to a time where that Gi hadn't met any of them.

This is the time of the night where she tells them he's possessive and partially abusive. He tells her what to wear, and they do everything he wants to do. "Why don't you leave him then?" "Yeah, I know. I probably will," she subtly speaks in a doubt, while looking over the dark green coat of her Gi in the back. Disappearing in the cover of Bush, he steps out for a kill while standing perfectly still, playing his visibly deteriorated game. Apparently, he thought the camouflage would help him blend into the hazy room, where he'd wait pinned up against the wall to catch them in the ripping of their clothes and sixty-nining on a pool table.

He played for over an hour (something they laughed at) before finally beginning his strut to the front. While the son, his friend, and the fits of metal are realizing that two of them aren't wearing matching socks, that mother leaves the booth seemingly disgusted before jumping open-mouthed and smiling onto her "asshole's" back as he's heading out. Our latent confusion takes a big swig of his first cup of coffee. {If she hates him, then why does she humor him with false affection? ..I'm lost. No you're not. They're going out. Leave it alone.} When she comes back to their booth, pant legs are lifted to reveal the true prep among them: his old church friend, as he's the only one there with matching socks. Pretty Ironic: Three nuts to the cookie-cutter.

The night's stretched a bit longer, before it wraps around them and slings the pieces of him to the stage. All of the bands have finished. No one has ever read a piece on that stage, but it was lately encouraged for people to. A haus favorite called Jew, whom he met at their booth, was introducing him. So for the stage, up steps history.

The Haus is full of people talking loudly, laughing, leaving. A couple of strangers, the people from the axed car, and this new Jew all try to listen. "I didn't write this on the toilet like Jim here (he meant Jew), so I don't know how good this'll be (he's referring to something Jew said before he played). But I'll try. This is called Memoirs.

"Memoirs. ..Don't turn down my tears. I cried them just for you. Don't erase my fears - that's all I know to do. I need love not compassion. Everybo- ("Ha!") -ts to be m- ("-eally? Cause I-") -ith the fashion. ("-at's wha-") I'm flowing ag- ("-igh-") -t the current, passing many beautiful fish of the sea. Cut around my shadow - paste it underneath my scars. She can't be far. ("Alri-" "-eah!" Door opening and closing. "-on a bl-"). I'm flowing against the current passing ma.. Shit. I already read that......Ican'tstopth- {Shiiiiiiiiit! What the fuck?! What am I doing?! I should've never done this.} -tch my contemplation into gear. My mind is in construction - to be ma- {Am I still reading this?} -ting the shadows breathe. Imported resurre- {Don't look at them-don'tlookatthem!} I sit on a stoo- {You'll just lose your place again.} -my face. I gotta get out of this place. Sell me your conscience. It must be worth gold. We're the same age, but you loo- {Shit. Well don't look again.} A flat on the cross road. Decisions nailed apa- {I don't even know what the hell this means.} -ll give m- {This sucks. This reeeeeally sucks.} -oroneseasonoflove. Thanks."

He race-walks down the stage; his head hung to a snap. Congratulations are in order from that mother down to Jew. "That was good, man. Really good." Then Jew got on stage and said the exact same thing but in the mike. "Thanks. That's it for tonight."

Outside, the sidewalks seem longer and with more curls than in the tail end of the yellow brick road; only no one's arm in arm, and they've skipped the singing. The brains behind his courage lies beaten by a heart breathing bubbles of blood, sprinkling over the splintery boards of his dream home.

Feeling tired and shat on, he holds his dark brown folder behind everyone else. He holds it tightly between his arm and moving leg, wondering why he thought he should have read that piece. This was the first time he ever read a piece of his aloud; maybe he did once during creative writing class last year or maybe he happened to have some words of a piece whispered for the audience drawn to his board apartment walls. But you get the gist. Reading something highly personal and for people not to like your emotions simply for the words in which you chose to express them, can be embarrassing, even down right more depressing than the emotion you were trying so hard to capture.

I don't know what he was expecting anyway. It's not like the crowd would pick him up and carry him off into the fog, or some hot girls would ask him out due to the out-pouring of his heart, or someone watching would give him a book deal on the spot, or that a certain vehicular felon on the run would fall in love with him.

"Well, ..of the parts I could hear. You need to speak up. But you have nothing to be upset about." "Yeah," his old, church friend echos her sentiments, as they're walking him further into the passing of his curfew. His parents aren't that strict, especially when he's out with their x-pastor's son, but he doesn't want to hear about it.

The four pile back into the blue, plus one more: Jew. I guess they're dropping him off somewhere. Now when I say "Jew", that's really his name; and it's spelled the same way, as he said earlier in a conversation at the Fret Haus. I don't think he really is Jewish or at all confident in that's what his parents really named him. But that mother states that it's not that late, and the three Wishagin Cityers want to go somewhere for coffee. "Why don't you come with us?" An imperative screaming within an interrogative deafens the ears of a declarative's question.

"I would, but he really needs to get home." "Yeah, you ain't kiddin'," his friend interrupts. "I got parents, and I got to get up early for band practice." The practice is for the marching guard (this being February), which our favorite underachiever dropped two years ago and is now only in Jazz band. "Well, we can drop him off, go somewhere, and then drop you off," she simply states. Echoes of a Judgment Day and the rejections of a dark-haired Umpa escape him, as he runs down the practicalities of what is solidified into reality.

"I would if I had a car, but it just sounds too complicated. I don't want to be an inconvenience." "What inconvenience?! It's not a problem. Really. I'm perfectly wide awake. I usually am at this time." "..Well let me see how tired I am when we get there." -They get there.-

"All right," our great reluctance says reluctantly. "But let me drop off my stuff." He refers to his big, brown "Adjustable Life" bank folder. His mom gave it to him to hold the lyrics for his "band" a long time ago.

Unlocked and ajar, the door unhinges its squeaky squeal into the apartment, the lights are off. It's late. His dad must be at his woman's for the night. Good - makes it easier to leave. No one to hear him come in at the wee hours of the night or morning. His friend fishes something off of the aquarium; the son drops the scratched off "Ad" and "Able" folder onto the kitchen table. A randyless darkness lies behind the door he locks.

Picked out of a pocket, keys are played with in his friend's fingers, as they walk up the short steps, step through the way, and stand on the windy front of the complex steps. They stare at each other, his old church friend raising his eyebrows. "So what do you think?" He asks his friend for advice, again. "It's your call." "You gotta stop leaving these things up to me," he smiles. The son steps over the railing and falls back into the blue - back into the warm indentations next to Jew.

16.1

It's a shaken off piss into midnight, and they're all talking about where to go. "Well, there's no place to eat in this town this late," points out her needle-faced friend. "Stake N Shake," :Jew. Our hesitation, "That's in Wishagin City." "That sounds so good though, doesn't it?" "Yeah, but you'd have to drive all the way to Wishagin City, back out here, and then back to Wishagin. Why don't you just go back and drop me off at my place?" He asks a statement.

"No! That's okay. I don't mind," states a rather frustrated younger mother. {"But my shoes are filthy. You don't want me to walk in here,"} seems to be recalled from oblivion just before the last time she raised her voice. "..Okay." {Damn, do I feel annoying.} Ode to the Dense.

The restaurant was pretty boring. Jew came back from the restroom with toilet paper stuck to his shoe. That was pretty funny. But they seemed to laugh more when the "twig" came back from the bathless bathroom. He immediately looks to his shoes and then his fly, then for what he'd have to call "brown sugar" on the collar. He brushes his hand over the top of his shirt nonchalantly and pulls his collar down in the same move like it had been choking him, when he sits down and asks "What?"

"We were tracking time to see when you'd go to the restroom again." I guess he used it a few times at the Fret Haus. He wasn't a big coffee drinker and already had his glass of ice water on the table. "I had a lot of coffee." "I know. 'We were watching'," her sharper friend joins that mother in a laugh. No, it's not funny; but remember that these are teenage girls with hormones, and it's late.

After dropping off Jew and her holiness, he gets into the front seat. For the first time in the long night he's made it to the shotgun, ..and they are alone. "I had fun tonight." "Did you? It didn't look like you and your friend were having much fun. You looked really out of place." "Well, we didn't know anyone." "You knew us." "Yeah, but.. not really. We just met." "Well, not you and me." {.....}

"I've seen you a couple of times before." "Really? When? I thought we just met at the restaurant." "Well, I saw you at your Dad's Woman's house for the New Year's Eve thing." "You were there? That's right. I think I do remember seeing you there." {..That's right.} That was just over a year ago; he left his dad's woman's party early to watch his favorite band on Letterman and another on MTV, before he missed the Chicago countdown on the crapper. Best new years ever.

"I'm really tired," he changes the subject. "Yeah, me too," she yawns. "I don't know if I can make it to your town and back." A very uncomfortable pause lingers here, at least for him. "You mind if you just stay at my house, and I'll take you back in the morning? It's almost morning anyway." {..bed..} "You can sleep on the couch downstairs, or you can sleep in my bed and I'll sleep on the couch. Whatever you want. Is that cool?" "Sure."

He wants to go home - probably because she's already taken. Or maybe he doesn't want to think of her like that because then nothing will happen. He's kind of superstitious; and out of sheer fear, he respects the Jinx in a way. A small part of him (but not too small) somewhere shriveled between his legs wouldn't mind staying at her house the night though. She isn't the prettiest girl, but she certainly isn't rancor. And she actually talks to him like a friend would. Maybe they might be friends.

16.2

Huge flakes of snow lightly fall onto their shoulders and into their hair, as they walk up to her door. Quietly, he stamps the feet within his shoes onto the familiar rug inside; it feels crinkled up and hardened in mud. What's taken for granted is the quietness in how they move in the dark home, for that mother's mother's asleep upstairs.

Bending over and raising a foot, he takes a shoe off and then the other; slides an unmatching sock off and then the other. He hates socks. Rare occasion when he wears them. Makes him feel a tad claustrophobic, like everything is surrounding him - suffhoicatimng. But this is a rare occasion. Not only is he at this girl's house past midnight, but he's at a girl's house.

Stuffing the socks deep into one of his collapsing shoes, he wiggles his toes (possibly subconsciously thinking of how his darkened toes have at last reached their freedom). The thickness of the air is thinning. He's almost allowed to acknowledge himself.

She takes off her coat and boots and comes back from the closet with a pillow and blanket. "Are you still tired? Did you want to sleep just yet?" She asks in front of her forced yawn. "I wasn't planning on it," he surprises himself. "Good; me neither." She immediately fixes a pillow for him on the sofa and takes a seat on her feet. "We can stay up and talk until we're tired.. or watch TV or whatever."

Her legs take up two-3rds of the sofa, as our stick figure sits on the last quarter. She smiles to his smile, then their eyebrows raise in unison to salute all of the awkward moments that passed through the evening.

"(humming something) I really gotta get up and brush my teeth. I brush 'em like three or four times a day. It just bugs me if I don't. Sometimes I wake up in the night and get up just to brush my teeth. I'm a freak like that. I'll be right back."

She comes right back with a huge, plastic bottle of grapefruit juice. That mother puts the huge, oval mouth to her lips and gulps down the juice right in front of him. Streams of grapefruit juice pours their way to freedom along the sides of her cheeks. {I feel sick.} He looks away and tries to come up with a way how this could be sexy. {It's not. This is disg-} "Oh, I'm sorry. That must've looked pretty nasty." She wipes her cheeks and neck. "You want some!" "Um, no. That's.. no."

She opens her mouth, and they talk. Talk consists of school, previous boyfriends/girlfriends. She talks about Polly's father and of the ending of their brief engagement because of some lie her dad had viciously spread about her. Her fiancé cheated on, then her dad moved out of the house. He could be abusive if by nothing else than verbally. Then she openly digs into a bit about her x-fiancé, father of Polly.

{Sitting in the car parked behind her x-fiancé's house, he drifts out of the conversations with his straight-haired friend and the head like a hole. She's been in there forever. She's just suppose to drop off Polly. He might be a little late to his reading in The Port. Should he go to the door? It has been awhile. He sits up to do just that when something moving catches his eye. Something by the house. (.......looking..........) That mother's bloody face smashes into a window! Leaping out of the car, he runs to the back door.

The little windows are in diamond form, spread out along the top half of the door, being separated only by the hard, wooden frame which makes it impossible to dive through. He kicks one of the diamonds out and reaches his hand inside the house to unlock the door. His face against the glass, the struggling two are only feet away from him. The man is strangling her against the refrigerator, as her hero feels down for the lock.

The bad man sees her reaching out towards him and throws her against the back door. The weight of her pushes against his reaching arm, shoving his forearm into the broken shards that decorate themselves inside the broken frame. The tiny needles of glass brake off into his bending arm, as his fingers turn the lock. The son screams a man's scream, as veins and tendons move with his fingers, gripping over the turning knob.

Her x-fiancé dives his fingers into the top lock. He's got the knob turned right, but the door doesn't budge for the newly locked top lock. While he secures the lock, she runs to the counter and grabs a knife. Her attacker raises the very hand she stabs through, the tip of the knife nicking at his face. He rips his hand out of her grip, the knife hanging tough in the mitten of his meatly seen fist.

She tackles him into the door. His arm, reaching back for support, goes through the same hole her hero had his arm through. Her hero grabs the man's hand, the knife still attached, and throws it through another diamond. The knife hits her x, sinking into the red within his head. Her x-fiancé hangs there, his arm out of one window and into another; the knife hanging with a dead head.

She looks at her hero through the blood-stained glass and s} "I'm going to brush my teeth again. You mind?" "Nnno!" He says softly but with embarrassing expression. "I don't mind."

{You gotta be kidding me.} He turns back in for the daydream already in progress. {A moving painting pictures him walking up to her front door. All of a sudden, he hears "Slut!" Her dad's mouth is still open in scream, when he pushes her onto the couch.

Walking through the doorway, the son taps the "father's" shoulder. As he turns his fuzzy face it's met by her hero's fist, turning a head the other direction along with its body toppling to the carpet. "That's your fucking DauGHter!!" He points his finger down to him.

The retired pastor's son gives the greatest speech given since Christ on the Mount, making everyone cry and giving a father and daughter a new relationship. They all have only the thin ass of her hero's to kiss - of which you wouldn't need two full, pouting lips}, when the pipes start tapping. {The ocean found in certain seashells crescendos into the rolling credits, showing its only viewer its only credit: ..his own.}

Looking for a delayed applause, hinges scream a yell driven by pure agony, as the door presses hard against their skin and rolls over their metal bones, rubbing some of the skin and muscle off of their bodies. The one they curse as much as they fear walks through the very doorway that he looks to with external eyes.

External eyes follow the chubbed thighs up the under plus-sized frame of the girl host, as she struts through the last breaths of a "vendetta" being sworn up more as a collective boast, thundering lightly above the broken-up curses of these metallic shavings. A girl cursed as much as himself - only she has different parts than he, parts that normally don't show his way. That makes her beautiful. A girl who understands what it's like to be the one under the cloud. Damp and sick, he sees her for the match she could be – the warmth found in each other. She takes her place next to him on the sofa. Conversation by talk.

"I know I ain't perty," to adlib the dialogue taken to heart from a previously seen Romance. "Actually," she interrupts his playback to life. "I invited you cause I thought you were gorgeous." He measures the face of his player. "You are." She insists, stabbing his head and carving herself a crooked smile in it. "You're not so bad yourself," he implies. "In fact, ....I really want to kiss you right now, but.. you have a boyfriend and," he mumbles unintelligibly beneath his bowed head.

Sitting as perfectly still as a black cat before its Xanadu, she stares into the whites of his eyes - the snow packed around the rolls of brown, dipped down to her grapefruit juice. Watching him walk blindly into the shade, the feline snaps from her crouch on the couch and leaps down (if by verbiage) to pounce on that notion before it ends. "Oh, him? Ppppshh! Don't let him get in the way." She hints as gigantically as someone can without taking their top off and shaking their jughjughbas against someone's cheeks.

Critters dog paddle into each other, as they fight for domination to get a clean breath of air somewhere above the nauseous pit, bubbling over with wings and feet between the walls of his poor, sick stomach. Just like the retreat, where he finally stood up in front of everyone he knew and walked up to the stage to speak into the mike to tell them all of his parents' problems and of their stepping down from the church, he couldn't comprehend what he was doing, but his mouth was now covering hers.
17.0

As the night slid down into a differently dressed day, the white cracks of his shivering figure tucks the paranoia of her Gi watching them from the bushes outside, deeply behind the balding ridges of his dry, contacted eyes. Her x returns Polly to her just as the sun rises and sets her onto a coffee table as if for some moving decoration.

Into morning, she holds the hand of her fresh meet and calls up the no good, rotten plate of ol' to end it. "No, I didn't have sex with him!!" That's the only line I remember over-hearing. Setting down the number, there was a (-click-) and a turn upon him, "I'm all yours now." She hugs what's now hers. For the first time in forever, it feels as if he's finally holding something. Something real. Something he can call his. Something he can care for. Much better than a dog, she can actually show just as much mutual affection to go with a sub-par attraction.

Into his torn to hell jeans, she sticks a beaded safety pin that was on her shoe. "Don't ever take that off." He looks down at it in protective wonderment. This will be his. Guys always wear stuff their girlfriends give them at school, but this is cool. This will be his.

"As I said earlier, I gotta work at eight. You wanna come? If not, I'm sure your Dad's Woman's Son can drop you off. But please come! Please!" "All right," he sort of would rather go home, chill out, take a shower, and get some sleep in his bed, then jump up and down and scream to everyone around (or at least in his head). But this is his woman now; they do need the new time. And he wants every tick of time to tock for her - in theory.

"Wait a second." She gets off of the sofa and backs away from him with her eyes still glocing him - the corners of her lips spreading wildly into opposite directions. Thirty-nine steps later, she comes back into his view with the same lips in the same expression over the lower half of her face, dropping to tell him, "Let's get some things for breakfast."

They drive out into the cold with neither one of their bodies feeling any sort of chill. They see each other shaking but don't process the foot and a half of snow, surrounding them like a frozen ocean, that must have poured in through the night. Their noses run in unison. Flying over melted flowers, the flocks of clear flem's flowing at will.

Windshield wipers scratch over the barely scraped ice. "Cccccrrrre!" She can barely see out of her window. The defroster takes a trip, before it works. So she squints through the dimes of iceless, yet still frosty, glass. Around the peek holes, the windshield is one huge sheet of ice. Not the kind you can scrape that come off in sections, mind you; but the type of ice that's so cold it has to bundle up from itself, making it an inch thick when it's all said and done: snow on the outside/tough, thickened ice on this inside that doesn't just stick to a windshield but was somehow cold enough to melt the glass and refreeze it to where its icy claws are now dug into the very fibers of the windshield. You'd think they'd care, but they don't care to notice. Mid-westerners are made so that even the thick of winter can melt when wrapped around the love heating through a freshly working heart.

They walk down the aisles holding hands, picking out eggs and bacon and rolls and o.j. Everything feels weird to them, if not to her then to him. The world's a little bigger; people are a little nicer; smiles are okay to return; every song coming from the store's speakers is tolerable; second chances are decent to give. People seem to smile back at them, as their animated selves could probably be seen skipping down the aisles, while holding hands and spinning 'round and round.

Trails of slime and grime slide further down their esophagi from a wave of orange waving bye without hands. A pre-born chicken's thrown into his pit to appease the monsters from growling. They tear and tear, no longer able to tell the wings from the beak that burn down into the nauseated rot holes of his fiery stomach.

17.1

A mother and younger lover pretend that they're a family as much as they pretend that they're talking, but they're not talking. They're listening in, while the girlfriend's daughter and whoever he is to her are whispering serious grins of conversation.

"So what are we?" He asks her in the laundry room - a couple of steps from the used plates, drifting over the kitchen table. "So I know what to tell other people." He surprises himself by his directness away from shyness. "Are we going steady or something?" He instigates further into his investigation by investing a second question of insinuation. "I don't know what we're doing." "Are we dating or are we doing the girlfriend/boyfriend thing?" "Well, ..what do you want to do?" "The girlfriend/boyfriend thing," he has no problem saying for some reason. "Good. Me too." They both almost giggle with enjoyment for the idea.

Sparklers are amiss as the skin over their lips collide and fall. He knows they're laughing at him and his knew lost love, but he doesn't care. He's happy. For the first time since the divorce, he is really happy. He's found a piece of long-haired wickedness that fits right in if you rub it in bullshit and push it into that small, jagged groove near the bottom of his heart.

Folding and separating, their lips follow their heads from a washer and dryer to the laundry mat, where she works. Within the few hours of staying there with her, they managed to convince a stoner that it was recently reported that Alice Cooper was charged with the murder of Kurt Cobain. "No way." And with the entrance of his dad's woman's son, they were finally separated.

17.2

Happily shaken from the mat, her boyfriend then wipes his wet shoes all over his dad's woman's son's wet floor mat. Going down the highway, he smiles in his front seat. Everything is different. The world's a better place. The sun shines brighter than ever for him, who's finally been caught dead without his sunglasses; but that's all good. He can see the earth and its surroundings for what it is; the way it was meant to be seen: in fabulous Earth Tones.

Everything is glorious. His dad's woman's son is driving dangerously fast for him, and that is stupendous! Shows more of his character, even if character's over-rated to the story. Birds are forming a 9.0 V in the sky. The sky is in his favorite c- "So how was it?" Everything stops: the good feelings - breathing patterns. {What the hell?!} His dad's woman's son's usually pretty cool. He's shocked at this direct form of insubordination.

"What?" "How was it last night?" This guy won't stop. What the hell did he do wrong? Presumptuous little.. "Wha- What do you mean?" He asks, knowing exactly what he means and the connotation to which he's referring. He looks to the driver.

"The Fret Haus. Didn't you go last night?" The blood slows down from its reckless flow in his veins; he smiles rather big, trying hard not to die laughing. His dad's woman's son seems to understand, showing him a facsimile of his forced back grin and widened eyes.

"Ohhhh. It was terrible." "Terrible?" He laughs mildly, now probably thinking somewhere else that he didn't go. "Yeah. Everyone was leaving." "They were leaving?" "Well, all of the bands were over. And I was the first one to ever read a piece up there. It was late. They probably just wanted to go home and didn't even realize there was one more act." "Those communists!" "Most of them can't even read I bet ..or hear for all the loud cover band crap." The conversation makes our brief bit of anger feel a little better even though he's still in the clouds. It's been a long night. He's looking forward to comprehending all of this over a shower and a nap (if he can sleep).

"So you and that mother are an item now, eh? Ehh?!" The older man, of some mid-twenties, elbows some jeers against his passenger's arm. "Yeah. You could say that," he speaks proudly while never faltering the hardening brush between his teeth, as he stares straight ahead at the epic in making. There's a preemptive picture of her inside being painted on the walls of him. The ideas in his thoughts bubble over the words, "Damn straight; ..damn straight."
18.0

Up, the people woke. Watching the moon go down on the sky, the sun got a rise. Spewing its sticky, gooey rays into the people's eyes births the infamous, twenty second lives evolving from baby to adult to the elderly blue stars, scene to seemingly twinkle and soar from any direct focus into a final fading implosion. Pulled up blankets cut off their life supply, as the people shuffle up the piles of themselves from off of their warm mattresses to perform some traditions well forced in the rearing. Tradition has them making themselves up into the very fucks they'd prey to die away. A way for them to leave the world already made up for them to turn within to one of the many private spins that's been ingesting unknowingly into a fine froth of Them.

Screening the uncharted tear-i-tor-e, he leaps down upon a Miss Shaky Frown, not feeling the ground beneath his feet. Mistaking gas for air? Captured breaths dissipate in front of the worn empty-headed grin. An antennae raises as the only inhabitant of this patched up planet patches in a number sequence and unrolls a wring.

Situation: they've been going out for three days, seen each other two out of three of them, I believe. He brushes a blackened bird off of his shoe by using the other and continues skipping atop the clouds. You could make him a sandwich of peanut butter, gristle, mayonnaise, the fluid above old pudding, the fatty pieces of chicken, topped off with pre-chewed moldy bread soaked in chunky milk left out in the sun for a week, and he would find some beauty in it. If you say it's from his girl, he might even eat it and say "It tasted a little different at first, but I think it just might be for me!"

For a scholastic first, he actually goes to school happy (with his "dad's" note), because now he can talk about his girlfriend (or his social life if you won't). He can say "we were really bored last night, so we watched tv" or "I don't understand women at all" and actually mean some of it, because now he has a woman. He is now in with the crowd; so in, he's on the in-crowd.

Girls will now see that he's not gay (not that there's anything wrong with that); they'll see he's not a future serial killer or rapist or molester. Guys will look envious if their girl's on the rag after he just announced he had pink six times last night. Some girls will actually be attracted to him and his new happiness, as they overhear him talk allllll about her. And he can say anything he wants about her; she lives thirty minutes away! She can have huge tits, a tight figure, and a cooch that tastes like his momma's lovely lazy day pie. How would they ever know that she's flat, barely fat, and he's never tasted a piece of p?

"No, I don't think I should. I don't even have a present." "Neither do my brother and me. We haven't given her a present in years! Our present's just being there. My brother's always at this lady's house, who is like our other mother, and I'm always working or out." "You sure she won't mind if I'm there?" "Positive! Besides, I really want to see you tonight. And if you don't come, I can't guarantee I'll be able to drive out."

He thinks about a piece he's writing for her that says he'd do anything to be near her. {Better live up to it.} "All right." "So you're coming?" "Yeah, yeah." "YeAeAeAeA! Your dad's woman's son will pick you up around six. Okay?" "Okay." "Okay. Byye," she flirts off a slow salutation.

18.1

Leading the older mother's younger lover and holding the birthday cake, he slow marches through the doorway (heel-toe), over the familiar mat, into the dimly lit home of a cricket's solo. The only light is coming from the kitchen down the hallway; it's lighting up the silhouette of a birthday mother, who appears frozen in a forced smile, perhaps piecing together the last of every face she's ever known that's still not seeming to find a match. There's no words or sounds of any kind to be made, as the boy of her daughter stands holding her cake; the smashing lid slowly sliding over the top of it. He straightens the lid back into the circular grooves; hanging like stalactites, the colored icing points down from the clear lid to the cake that no longer has any name.

After the meal, embarrassment befat downright betrayal, as that mother's mother opened up the siblings' gift. Perfume. "Oh ..great." After a great job of looking over-joyed and separating the noisy wrapping from the present, it seems naturally destined for her to look to him and ask, "So where's your gift?"

18.2

Unlearned lessons of Humiliation are being ridden and taken by that rat mother and her brother to the house of that woman, who's like an other mother. Winter leaves them yet stays within the cracks of them, as they walk up a few creaky steps up to a darkened living room. There was no preparation for the room with dirty, orange carpeting and the smells of stacking dust.

He stood in the way, while they made themselves at their second home. A slightly large, unkempt woman stood in the dimly lit light; her face extenuated by the wearing of her tangled, auburnish-red hair (the epitome of a possible involvement in the grave robbing of Rita Hayworth).

"So, this is your knight in shining armor?" She slays. "H-" "What's your sign?" The red dead head interrupts, speeding through her own green for the second question. Standing there with those questions marking his face, "Umm, I don't know." "You don't know your own sign?" The big redness bellowed above his open-mouthed girl.

"What's your birthday?" His sweet 17 clears the air, as she pulls out a huge book from the bookcase beside the television. "Oh, it's Cancer, I think. But it's J-" {What the hell?} His thoughts are sharp enough to cut his own voice off from him. "-at's cancer," he hears a faint echo in the distance. {Pay attention.} A certain mind shoots a little persuasion left and right through the veins connecting to his ears.

"Okay. Your girl over there's a Scorpio. Let's – look – this- up." Their other mother speaks over the words in an already open book. "Ut, ohh. Well, .." "They're not a good match, are they?" His girl actually seems disappointed. "No. (still reading) Noo." "Here. Let me see." Their other mother hands her the big, hard-bound book and says "But you never know. Sometimes opposites truly are, you know, ..do attract."

The closed doors to the rooms of actual sleeping children are to each side of the centered television. For this reason, they try to keep things on the down low. There's a ratty couch facing the television that no one's sitting on; actually, it doesn't look like anyone has sat on it since the latter 80's. I don't remember if I know why. Anyway, they're popping Dazed and Confused into their VCR, and his girl's un-subtly slap happy about this.

The boyfriend slams his back against the couch and opens his legs. "Come on," he tells her, while slapping his inner thighs. I guess he figured he was giving her a break, letting her cuddle close to him; he's seen couples do that since the beginning of his time. But the way she stares at him reminds him of the way some attractive girls did at group one night, when he curled up into a ball on the floor and was expecting the song leader's son to spin him into a break-dancing move like Dan Aykroyd in the Ghostbuster's video. Only he never spun him into a break-dancing move.

Looking up at her, he sits there in an open-legged vulnerability; the cracked, dry skin of his sweaty hands resting on his knees. "And just what do you think I'm suppose to do?" She raises her eyebrows to bitch level. He sits there in a souring smile, silent from the mouthful of a bad tasting Eagle spread. He's had a girl in his arms before but never one between his legs; this was a move for him. Their eyes remain locked. The boy's "well, come on" sets to stun. "....No, I'm just kidding," she smiles, as she crawls back-first between his open, loving legs.

Opening Credits. Everyone looks within the looking box and gawks at a young hot teen in her flower vest and tightened jeans. The deep voice of the other mother rises in their theatrical silence, "Oh, she's soo hot." He lets the words sit with him as they then begin to twist his conservative vision of her turn-ons in his mind. "Hell, yeah!" The boyfriend's chest vibrates. Looking down, his girlfriend's widened eyes remain locked into the flashes of light.

In shock and looking for any "normal" person to alleviate him with some empathy, he turns to her brother, who is smiling wickedly and, like the rest of them, still staring at the small screen. It's about this time he notices the woman's grinning husband, who had been sitting across the room, laid back in a recliner the whole time. "I like Joey better." His chest continues to vibrate. And then a rather bold whisper up to him, "She's the blond with the weird voice."

"Yeah. Well (who's her name) seems much more vibrant. Look at her, ..all full of life. She'd be great in bed." "That's true," his girl has to agree. "But they're both gorgeous. I'd take any of them. What do you think?" That mother's other mother addresses her husband, who would first need to be unpeeled from his recliner for any signs of sexuality or even signs of life. "The blond one."

{Okay, so.. ..she's bi.} He tries to imagine the kind of color that would be needed to blend this into his ever-changing pre-emptive v(i/er)sion of them.

Before: a few months after he moved from The Green Isle into the apartment, he was told over the phone by the model name that he was gay. He went on to tell him that he was more than gay, he was bi. And even more than bi, he was tri ..or quadri or penti or septi. "There are many attractions a person can feel, towards men or women or even towards certain types of leather." Keep in mind, this was something an X-group leader had told him.

He handled the hole conversation as a so-what situation; and then with a (-beep-), he preceded to swipe his dad's White Zinfandel from off the top of the fridge and drank (for his first time) the situation away, staining the remains into the faded sheets of his off-white pillow. Lucky for him he sleeps in the fetal position.

But before you judge as he did, you got to realize something that is very important in life: you must know where people are coming from before you judge, in order to understand their thought process. He grew up his whole life "This is wrong/That's right." Yes "most" kids are brought up that way, but he was taught that homosexuality was apart of what was wrong. It was immoral; the very reasons why Sodom and Gomorrah burnt to cinders and why some poor lady was turned into salt (as the caption indicated to the little fingers that grazed over the smoke ridden sky - an art captured and flattened into the scroll-like pages of an illustrated Bible. Hey, a Good Book's a good book).

For his friend, he eventually accepted it, grew quite used to it, and loved his friend no less (as should be). But tonight, this is his fucking girlfriend. It would be nice to have known her sexual preferences during the talk on the sofa their first night. For those that need to tell their special someone something, this would be a bad way to find out. They'd both be checking out the same gal at the mall one day, and he grew up way too conservative to possibly deal with the situations that came with that: competition, jealousy, incompleteness, abandonment.

He looks down to see his "made for me" giggling up almost devilishly to him. As her brother and other mother convene at the bookshelf, the lesbian-in-training says up to him in a low voice, "I'm not really bi. I just like to play around with her." Butterflies hold legs, and a smile is born.

They bash the movie to a mute and strike up some Rage Against the Machine. She crawls out from between his legs. An up-to-no-good grin splits her face, as she pulls him away from the couch and plants him into a huge rug, of which she seats herself caddie corner from him. He watches as the remaining caddies come out from their corner to complete the sitting circle. The married man remains wired into the circuitries of his chair.

In the hands of her younger brother is what looks like brass and metal pipes welded together. Wrapping his lips around the smaller of the two brass holes, he sucks in – this is done the same way the senior would do in school to get rid of some of the spit in his saxophone. Only this was no saxophone, and he wasn't trying to get rid of any rustling sounds.

He sucked in again and again, quick, little sucks, provoking a great smoke to rise up from the brown hole of the pipe. A thin line of smoke led like a trail of fog away from his lips, discretely disguising the ceiling as apparently what it had always been: a becoming haze.

"Oh good," says his girl, of whom he has yet to know inside and out. He looks over to the male adult, smiling in his far away throne of tattered fabric. Her brother passes it over to the lady of the house, who's asking "Have you ever done this before?" The faces of them turn on him. "No." The very same faces turn to each other. "You wanna try it?" His demon grins to the delight of them before crawling down his conscience to mark yet another territory. "Well, let's not pressure him. Maybe he should watch and see how we do it first." He's starting to like that mother's other mother. "Yeah, I'll just watch for now." {Once you do this-} Steam rises from the tip, as the burning yellow {-you're in.} is temporarily forced back in.

That mother puts her red pair inside the tiny hole and breathes in. A wetness glistens off her lips. Somewhere above the lips of his second kiss are a widened pair of eyes that appear to be staring at him. They look like they're looking just a bit beside him (as if they're nearly special), but they can't be because she's talking to him. "-ure you don't wanna try it?" "I'm good for now."

As it goes around the circle, he nearly drowns himself right beneath the kicking feet of his own peer pressure. {You can't be with her if you don't experience everything she does.} The drums of an evil empire continue their death roll. These are the cutters, the children of broken homes, the bad ones. These are the ones he's supposed to be like. Let me put it like this: when you align all of the statistics, this is his column. These are the categories he falls into and how people probably see him anyway when they see things like the number of his absences or see how many times he's moved. He should be at home in a place like this, especially with his woman.

"Okay. I wanna try, now." (As if he could help it; it's in his very sign.) "Oh gooood," his woman stays where she's at, unable to break the circle. "You sure?" An ignored outlet is provided by the other mother, as they pass the smoking pipe to him.

"What now?" The faces begin to take their turn again. "Have you ever smoked a cigarette?" "Umm ..no." "No shit?" seems to be sitting flush in every face, facing the bad ass of a high school band. "Never even a cigarette?" He must be publicly embarrassed for his prior refusals to welcome Death. "Well, maybe we should try a blow kiss here." They all seem to get excited by this.

"What does that mean?" He turns to his woman. "That means someone takes a hit and blows it into your mouth." "Now, you just want to breathe in, kind of like it's a straw, and hold it in. But you don't want to breath in too deeply. ..It's sort of li-" Her brother leans into him, a line of smoke extenuating the crack between his lips. Their lips about an inch apart, he blows slowly yet forcefully into the boyfriend's open and inhaling mouth; not a strand of smoke leaving the steady and long line of connected breaths. "-ke.. Yeahhhh."

He holds it all in with the pristine expansion of his band lungs. Unfolding like wings, he then releases it as per all the action stars he's ever seen through the screen with their action-packed cigars and cigarettes; only no smoke seems to show. They stare at him like he's just gone head over wheels and is lying nearly decapitated in the street. "Did you get anything?" "You feel anything at all?" To be honest, he shakes his head. "No, I don't really feel anything." "..Huh."

"Maybe they didn't do it right," his woman betrays. "I took it in!" The other mother casually, yet somehow studiously, breaks up his rare show of emotion, "No, they did it right." She continues to study him for a second, possibly looking for a piece of glass in his eye. "Sometimes you don't get anything the first time. We'll keep going around. Maybe you'll get something tonight." Her brother passes it to the other mother.

"I didn't get anything my first time," his girlfriend admits. "Sometimes it takes a couple weeks of use." "It burns a little bit, but that's about it." "Yeah, it'll do that. Especially smoking anything for your first time," the other mother reiterates his so far total lack of self-loathing to the point of drug use.

Thoughts of {what the hell am I doing} is played down to the feedback seeming to scream up {if I was in my bed right now}, as he watches some hot girls light up in the flashing box.

Beginning to get unusually laid back for being in the strange surroundings, he begins to realize how great Rage is and how comfortable he is sitting in the carpeting and begins to wonder why he doesn't always just sit in the carpeting at his house and why people even have furniture at all and how long of a wait it'll be till he gets his fingers on that damn bong again. He's starting to taste the smell of it. The smell of it's in the smoke that collects to his haze and into the very fibers of clothes, adding layers to the collected cloud that's made up of what was once swirling down through their insides.

Through the steams of brown glass, he mistakes the strangers as best of friends; the friends seem to mirror the reflection of him, that same universal emotion everyone shared at the end of one of his old church retreats. God is love is drugs? The other mother invites him to their Friday night hash club, and he thanks her in part by nodding his head. Somehow it seems a great possibility even though he's miles away (no homonym necessarily intended).

"Kuugh! Kuugh!" He tried not to but accidentally coughed up one of the biggest hits they've ever seen. They hold their mouths open in a laugh that doesn't seem to come. Hit after hit he draws up the largest portions of the shit, yet he sits there on folded knees before the green leaf not really feeling a thing.

The night over, he stands up to stretch. "Woooooooooh. I'm feeling it ..now." The room wasn't spinning like it had from the warm alcohol applied directly to the open hatch after his group leader's homoerotic confessions; the room was breathing. When he stops breathing, the room just slowly jitters; but when he breathes, the room breathes. The walls fall toward him\\_/then fall back into their places between the ceiling and the floor.

The room's turned to pictures that huge creatures have taken the ends of and bent them this way and that, making the moving people surreal and the room come alive. Everything is fake. Nothing seems real in these moving pictures till a serious voice stabs through: "Take care of him."
19.0

Days were treated like an ignorant bliss, blistering over a sweet puss which someday was bound to be unbound to make it through to the other side. A side without repression and restrictions and suppression; a side where it can drip into its own fate; a side where no skin could ever hold it back. And when it does, it's bound to hurt and be extremely sore. But it'll be free. Able to look upon the burst barrier with a fond damnation and swell up with self-admiration. But for now, it almost makes him sweat to scratch its sensitive sensations. It doesn't hurt now, it tickles him when touched and is a genuinely strange feeling for him. Everything is strange for him. Anything new is bound to be.

Speaking of new, he's at the park early in his school morn (which is nothing new, but in that now he's) thinking about what he should do for his girlfriend for tonight. It's Valentine's Day. He's never had a girlfriend on Valentine's Day. Tonight should be something special. Now, he's got a full day of plans to make. School scratches around an itch that he skips to spend the day with his love.

A "father" hangs up the phone he picks up. New numbers stab his fatherly face with a pair of scissors and cuts the skin away from the muscle, unmasking a boyfriend's bloody head. Ring. Ring.. Ring.... Ring..... Ring...... Ring....... Ring........ Ring......... Ring. (-beep-)

"Hum," he says to himself aloud in the apartment. {I wonder wh} "ere she," {'s at.} When it comes to him talking to himself in a thinly walled apartment, it gets to be complicated (what with all the tones and timing rising and shoving; the self-opinions of madness). "She" {couldn't poss} "ibly be" {at} "school." {She} "never goes to school." He barely speaks to the ears groan out from within. She may be the only one in that state with more absences than he. Ring!

"Hello?" "Herohhhh!" "Herrroooooo," he echoes the Scooby greeting. "Come on down!" :His pal prices right. "I was just gonna call. I had a feeling you'd stay home today. What's a matter? You shick?" "Uhhhhhh." From here, they continue to converse in their jovial bullshit voices; a language of movies, television, songs, and a variety of pop culture, which is only erected and known between "pals" (-see Young Guns).

An hour later, "I got an extra hamburger for ya, massA!" "Cool. Thanks. I'm hungry." "Knew you'd be. So where's SIN(!), Con-trooooooool!" His friend turns his girlfriend into a beloved nails' song. (-see NiN – Sin single) They make fun of songs they like and don't. In their common language, anything can go and usually does. Makes greetings and salutations easier. Every thought and feeling has been heard and seen from the sounds from the speakers to the things of the screen, and they can be summoned up at a moment's notice quicker than anything in the English language to describe to each other anything at all to whatever's in between. This way there's no awkward conversation initiations or uncomfortable retorts or even salutations.

"She's really cool. She makes me happy," he convinces himself, as he finishes plugging in his pal's Super Nintendo and sits back to see their hockey game flash onto the small screen. "But friends come first, so I thought I'd give you a call." "Thatsright (!)," his pal quotes their favorite movie to show there's an understanding (-see The Crow).

"So where is she? It's Valentine's; I figured you'd be together." "Yeah, I know. Well, friends come first, but I've been calling her all day. So I don't know. She.. I don't know," he passes the puck to Roenick (or his pal) for the rare slap shot.

"Rented Natural Born Killers this morning. It being Valentine's day and all I figure I'll try to write a piece for her then roll the flick." "That's poetry, Mal." A grin and "She hasn't seen it yet and really wants to." "You've seen it right?" "Yeah." "Is that a good movie?" "I loved it. Saw it with that son of the blowing singer at Wishagin Shitty. Couple of people walked out on it too. I guess it was too offensive for them." "Yeah. That's what I've read from the reviews. Those types of movies usually don't appeal to me," the bigger of the two shakes his head. "Well, if they would've stayed for the rest of it, they would have found out that that's kind of what it's all about. It's making fun of people who like to see things like that. The type of senseless violence that society seems to be craving more and more of.. right down to the headlines of today. I thought they did a real good job of conveying that too." "Yeah. Well, 'you ain't seen nothin' yet'!" His pal shoots/he scores against Toronto. "Phschew!" They imitate a two-finger Fresh Prince greeting.

19.1

"-le?" Her voice rises up through the receiver, dancing out from the sweating holes, masquerading his "love" as if a great deceiver: "I gotta ask you something." "What's that?" "I'm with my friend, and she's been out all night and is going to get into like major trouble. I mean like BIG..trouble. So," she continues, "she wants me to go with her on a little road trip, so she can party a little bit before she gets grounded for the rest of her life." Makes sense.

"Where to?" "We don't know yet. Maybe Iowa." {Iowa!?} "Iowa? ..Huh. How long will you be gone?" "Just till the end of the week. We'll be back before the weekend." His wheels screech and turn back around: {We've only been going out a weekend or two. Better let her do what she wants.} Especially since she lives so far away, and he has no car to make wheels screech after her.

"Your mom's not gonna care?" "No!" She laughs. "I've done this before. She doesn't care as long as I'm back before the weekend and safe." "..Okay. That's cool." {What a crock of shit} is thought louder than he hears his own voice, which is the only thing she hears (and his mind finds that odd for less than the splitest of a second).

"Well, what about tonight?" He asks with every right to without feeling overtly effeminate. "I've got plans. It's Valentine's Day." "Oh, I'll be there tonight. Besides, I've got a gift for you. Well, I'm making it for you right now, actually." Batches of bitches are herd to be laughing, giggling, and talking loudly in the background.

"Oh yeah? I can't wait to see what it is." "It's nothing special. We'll be there around six though." "What do you mean? We? They're coming?" "Well, we're going to stop by on our way. I'm driving so.. Otherwise, I'd have to go all the way back and pick them all up. .... I'll do that if you want." His bending q. "No, that's okay." "K. Thanks. We'll be there around six then. We won't have a lot of time, maybe a half an hour. But at least we'll get to see each other." "Yeah."

"What plans did you have?" "Nothing special. I just rented that movie you said you wanted to see." "What movie?" "That Natural Born Killers. But we don't have to watch it. I can take it back." "Awwwwe. Maybe I can get them to wait for me here. We're at the house of the bending needles." "That'd be nice. You don't have to though." "No. I want to. I just.." "It's cool." "I'll see what I can do. Okay?" "All right." "I love you," her salutation comes across much as a nine hundred horny housewife's would, who works on straight commission. "You too." (-beep-)

When his leg opens right to scoot his butt off of the tiny kitchen counter, the bones along the inner part of his upper thigh cracks. "Ough." That hurts only out of shock anymore. Bubbles pop in his spit, he gets so excited about seeing the girl who said "i love you." A plan forms of how to get his pal to leave, so he can write his piece to her - being that now he's feeling it.

"She coming over?" His pal campaigns for a pre-emptive strike, getting the upper hand by smacking it with the bottom of his. "Around six, so I really need to get to work on this piece. I don't mean to shoe you out or anything." "No, I understand," his pal says, as he understands.

They disconnect the super NES, roll everything up together, and throw it all in the plastic bag that he brought with him. "Okay bye." "OkbY," he rattles off quickly. The door's shut and double-locked for his own personal, small town, paranoid protection. Real serial killers are the shy, nice boys down the street of the small town, you know.

There's no light bulb or light fixture for the light switches in the living room, so he uses the pioneer lighting system and opens the blinds that oversee the wet bottoms of the snowy landscape. He gets out a pen and stares at the paper. Hands fall, and there's still the paper. No scribbles or scratches or blotches of ink. Our perfectionist gathers the feelings in his mind and begins to turn them into the words that will make up the first line.

2-14-95

Someone put these feet back on the ground.

My heart is spinning rou and rou inside my chest.

dn dn

Directions: Unsmile by pushing down corners of mouth and closing jaw.

Having nothing turned into having it all.

Cupid bartered a tear of mine for a smile.

I don't know if you feel the same about me.

If you don't and you want, i'll wait forever and awhile.

If you're worried about commitment, you don't have to

worry or think it through.

i'd do anything for you.

Don't worry about the past.

I'll tear/hurt the pain.

I'll be beside you when

hell even burns the rain.

I won't treat you like dickless fucks

who think they're hard core.

I'll hold you

love you

please you

and nothing more.

To:

:From

{Man, this is re} "ally good," he thinks in a mid-mutter. {She'll cry at this} is something he keeps to himself and burns the edges around. He starts with the corners and watches as the disappearing corners curl into his beloved piece, blotting with a dusting rag when needed. He burns and blots / burns and blots. Blotting and burning times two x 14. The piece now looks like an absolute classic. Beauty surrounded by ashes of the flames that lived and died to try and devour what was special inside.

Now, he's got the piece and the movie, but it still seems as if something's missing for tonight. He meanders to his brother's room and walks out with having swiped something from off of his dresser. Contemplation over the possibility of consequences rehashes the classic words from the classic piece he's just written, reading "i'd do anything for you." Getting inspiration from his own new piece, he doesn't need to think it through. He locks up the apartment door and walks up out of the complex into the cold.

19.2

With two dollars of change, a quarter tank of gas, and wearing a pair of eight dollar sunglasses, our unlicensed driver pulls the straight stick of his brother's car down to six-thirty and begins to back away. Alongside his brother's car are two (expensive to him) below standard cars. He looks left; looks right! {Look left/!Look right!!}

He inches a centimeter out and takes it millimeter by foot out of the space. In this space, no one can hear him scream, as he turns the wheel and clints his eyes. People are opening their drapes, stopping on the sidewalks, peeking around from the pool in the back; they all know he can very well be arrested and that they should call the police immediately. He knows that that's exactly what they're thinking. All he needed to see was a drape move, and he knows what's going on behind there. Has to. Nothing happens around him, unless it has something to do with him. After all, he's been somewhere in every scene of his life.

For no reason, no one calls, as he makes his way to the street with big nerves, huge balboas, and a little sweat (which is a marathon for his cracked skin). He takes his vehicle by his legal self on this fine day seventy some feet away to the stop sign at the end of the street and puts his turn signal on. If anyone stops him or gives him a stare, then how dare them! He's perfectly in his right at age seventeen. Driver's license is in the glove (!), not that he'd show them (!) though.

Left arrow. He brakes too hard at first (left arrow blinks). He releases a little on the brake. Arrow sticks to blinking. Slow down, {slow down!!!!}. There's a car in front of him. "Ah, damn it! There just has to be damfuknpesammthfkr," he mutters, mumbling some ramble to himself, much as some red-haired cowboy from Yosemite would.

Left arrow blinks. Hard stop. The lady at the cross intersection looks at (blinks) him merely, as if "Fine, I'll go!" (blinks). She goes straight. (blinks). {Well, if you weren't there..!} The coast clear, he finally takes the car the way of the arrow. The wheel straightens in his grip, much as the wheels outside of his grip and below the car.

Down, down, down the street he scares himself up to a smaller four-way stop. Straight an' up a little bit, he clicks his arrow friend. A parade of vehicles that carries not a single one of his teachers (of which he'd know, because he looked in each one of them) goes straight, meaning he has to wait. A left arrow blinks out above the bumpers, as well as in his very dash, while he waits. Waits.

He turns left, finally extinguishing the life of the flamingly-lit green arrow. He always wondered how his parents clicked that off in the middle of turning and why the windshield wipers always returned to their origins after every use. I think he thought the drivers had the timing down so well that he was actually worried he'd never pass the test if for the wipers and signals.

Just a bit down the street is the destination: The Gas Station. He parks by the phones and makes his pilgrimage inside. People are purchasing items and grabbing gab for free from an unpaid, inattentive gas attendant. Standing by the coolers, he looks around embarrassingly and shivers at his b-acting attempt to study the many differences between Gatorade and soda, until the customers finally leave.

Stepping up to the counter, "Can I help you?" In a box beside the attendant, he finds just what he was opening his mouth to ask for. "One of these."

Pulling away from the phones, a connection is made between places of himself only heard from when in elated elevations and the corners of a hardened mouth rising in the mere reflections of the time it finally found itself in the face of him \- smiling in the rear view, it catches a police car pulling into the side of his grin.

Pulling into the red brick road, the cruiser stops at the entrance to the gas station. {.....What?! I put my turn signal on! I'm out of high school!} He mutters violently to himself, the last part very convincingly. Driving over the clay-red brick road, he looks in his brother's rear view to witness the cop finally pulling into the station.

Lowering his eyes from the rectangular view, he watches the hood of his car, as it appears to be taking him over the other side of the red-brick road. Jerking the wheel to the right, his heart flutters like the butterflies that beat and beat and gnaw and dig and claw at the inner lining of his stomach for freedom and for good ol' fashioned masochistic mayhem.

After carefully and time-consumingly parking the car in the same spot as it was, he makes a simple race-walk to the complex while peeling the wrapper down from the stem to reveal a thornless rose. Dumb and dense, he grins at what he's imagining she'll think, all the while fondly rubbing the two cents left in his thinly-laid pocket.

19.3

Slipping the key in, he glides through the apt. to his brother's room, where he throws the keys to the dresser; the bathroom, his brother's room, his room, and the living room all being a step away.

"Pitter Patter." Feet pitter-patter, as they make their way in two by two formations (to hide their numbers) down the stairs inside the complex. Holding his rose during the Door-Lock Jiggle, he quickly takes that step out of his brother's room and into his. Turning the knob, he shuts the door swiftly yet slowly, letting the door softly enter its way, then he carefully locks it.

Home free. He sets down the rose on top of the brittle piece. If I haven't described his room yet, just improvise. Small room; everything a toe stub away. The top half of an old bunk bed takes up the right side; a closet is in a wall; the only window is above the Soloflex and shows the feet of people up to the whole versions of them (if standing by the pool); a boom box sits, snuggling next to his throbbing toe. Thickened milk and pop cans lie in ambush within open areas. Once again, there's a light switch but no fixture. There's a couple of stand-up lights he can count on for when it gets dark.

Wanting to look good for his woman, he takes his coat off and pulls the long part of his hair back into one of those tight, rubber-band, hair-keeper-out-of-facer-thingies. The long, wavy hair probably throws off your picture of him, but it's not that long~little below the shoulders. He sets it for bench and sits up. Abs, butterfly, deltoids are all done, of which during these he puts a tank top on, juhu."HU".hust in case she knocks on his back window while his muscles are glistening (which no one's ever done - no less than a hundred times in his mind).

After stalling around, he throws some scraps on. Yeah, same pants. It's twenty after. No knocks. His dad's running as always after work, and his brother's watching TV.

He creaks open his door and walks into the living room. "I got Natural Born Killers." "Oh. Go ahead. Put it in," his brother thinks he wants to watch it. "No. Not now. I'm waiting for what's her name." (That's his name for his girlfriend when around family for some reason). "When's she suppose to come?" "She should've been here by now, so it shouldn't be much longer. She's always late."

Five minutes pass like thirteen. "You sure she's coming?" He can tell his brother wants to watch the movie. "Yeah! She should be here any minute." Cricket. Car lights sweep through the high windows. Waiting a few seconds as if it's no big deal, he then walks up to the window to find the exiting people walking to the complex beside theirs. - Six minutes more. -

He calls. No one answers. "No one's home, so she's on her way." They keep watching crap on television that nauseates him to the point of excrement, but he stuffs it back and holds it in. No way she's going to catch that crap, especially if she brings her friends over.

He's not sitting in his usual spot: on the love seat cushion at the foot of the forever folded-out bed; he'd use the cold, circular metal below the edge of the mattress as a headrest while sitting on the cushion, deposturizing his back. He's not sitting like that though, because his brother's there; because when his brother sits there, he doesn't sit up in repose like his dad, using the recliner headrest. That's because he thinks it's broken, but it's not. There's a way to kink it, so that i- What I mean is that he doesn't want his brother to see the top of his head; and blood or not, the homophobia that had been sweeping through the Mid-West at the time wouldn't allow him to lie next to him on the mattress. So he's simply sitting on the armrest of the bedded down sofa – waiting ..waiting. Calling. Not getting any answer. So he continues waiting, feeling the hard armrest iron down his low posterior to the splitting of ironies.

Finally, they hear someone coming down the steps. He sits up for a second only to watch, as the door is unlocked and their sweaty dad walks through. Their jogger father takes his jogger shower and leaves, as he's still sitting on the armrest. About four minutes later, there's no baby at the door, but there's a rattle that can be heard throughout the small apartment. If you listen carefully, you can still hear it; the sounds of his whipped dick flailing about the fist-ridden pants that's just been shook in his riding underwear: rattle, rattle. Rattle.

At some time during the same minute, his brother got up and went to his room for the night. After Letterman came on, her "hold you, love you, please you" took his contacts out and went to bed.
20.0

The next couple of days were worse. There were no calls. No messages. No way to contact her in any way, for this was before the great explosion and emergence of the vastly overpopulated cell phones. She was out there somewhere; somewhere in the busiest metropolis or smack dab in the middle of nowhere doing something; something he could do nothing but think about and only imagine of in every second for every minute of his already ending day.

He went to school that Thursday and walked straight to the main office, having forgotten the combination to his locker again. His eyes were bagging loads of darkened lines, sagging heavily down his cheeks. Reports that were given at the beginning of the quarter were almost due; back work was well past due. Within that sorry sack, there was a concert to practice for in Jazz band, and he had the lead solo in two songs. He couldn't even remember the name of the damn song for the life of that mother. The concert was Friday night at the school gym. Every class that had to do with music was there: choir, wind & ensemble, jazz band, strings, other music programs, even the middle school's local band was there.

The basketball nets were all stringed up, as hundreds of mothers and fathers and teachers and mediocre music lovers filed up into the wooden, fold-out stands. Looking through the crowd of yet another concert for the unfamiliar, he actually found some faces that could be recollected from some place within; there were five of them: they were the five faces of the remaining members of the X-Song Leader's Family. They were there to hear his solo (i suppose). Ever since the divorce, they felt like they were a substitute family for him, although he blacklisted himself from their place months ago. But there they were, the girls were in dresses and his friend had his blond hairs combed back to front. And just a few rows from them was his old church friend's family, who were there to support and sneeze on their son, like always. Small town. But above all of them, or seen sitting below all of them I should say, history was being made. For this was the first time since whole families and churches were together that an x-pastor showed up (with his woman) to hear the son play.

The forces combined.. Holy musical déjà vu! Now, he's the one on the center stage for them! It's as if the stage and seating were over a huge revolving floor, and now they can flip the program over and play long games of tic-tac-toe. This was all a shock for him. He's used to playing to people he wouldn't piss on if they were in flames, so why they all happened to come to this performance was beyond him ..for now.

After the choir sang, the jazz band walked up to their little stage in single file (again, to hide their numbers). The on-again senior picked up his tenor saxophone from a chair in the front row and took his seat. (There are no flutes in jazz band, making the front row the woodwinds'.) He took out the reed and sucked on it, secreting as much spit as humanly possible. After that he put the reed back into the mouthpiece, tightened it up, and breathed warm air through the instrument.

The big moment. I'm not sure what song it was, but it started out fast. He watched as if he were a mistaken bystander, as his fingers went up and down the keys to an un-vibrating instrument. For some reason, no noise was coming through his saxophone! So naturally he pushes it. There, throughout the whole pin-dropping silence of the gymnasium, echoes the loudest, high-pitched screech from an instrument that could possibly be made. Fingers freeze over the keys. Our earliest stage of rigor mortis looks up to the conductor, who squints and tilts his head as if he had just remembered that the entire bowl of chili he ate had weeks full of expired meat.

Unable/Unwilling to look down at the reed to see if it's cracked, he hides his immediate guilt by fingering the keys. He takes a breath at all the appropriate stops and continues on as long as the off-again senior will let him. Looking back up to the teacher whose hand continues to wave this curse over his muted instrument, he finally stops fingering the keys and admits his guilt to the world by sinking down to his case to find another reed. His shaky hands open the fuzzy compartment to finally find the green, double-reed holder. Pulling out his back-up reeds, true horror unfolds as he finds them both to be cracked. Looking back in the compartment, he finds the one or two others that had been in there since the first days of the year, but they are wedged in the cracks of it and are just as split as the others. {SHIT.} His solo's coming up!

He closes the case and breathes warm air through the instrument, as everyone else continues with the song. If he can just do the fucking solo, maybe he can salvage this nightmare from the pure hellish chin hairs of Satan, himself. Softly blowing into harder to find the force needed to make a note of it, the loud air being heard produces the sour notes once again pushed past their limit. "Screeeeee!!" "Reeeeeeee!!!!" There's a few laughs in the echoed halls of his hells. His solo's only a few bars away!

He desperately tries to warm it up, as he begins to tap his shivering foot to find the beat. He's played long enough to know that if he blows hard enough he can make notes out of this instrument of terror; they won't be in tune or have any sort of volume control, but he would get the notes out. Everyone quiets down for his solo. It's worth the try. Two taps. "Fffffffffscududapfffff Reeee! fffffffffdnenuffdnenunenenunuffffffffff."

The conductor, who looks so very calm for once, gives him some sort of a positive nod as if "Well, you got part of it, but not really." He did it with no crescendos or decrescendos; it was just loud notes with lots of hot air, but at least the notes he played were right (if not with the right speed). {Wait a second. .. It's back! It'll play!} "Reeee!! Ree!" {Shit on me. Fuckin' ass piece of shit! FUCK. Come on!!!! I don't believe this!!}

He goes back to fingering the keys, playing the audience with his playing, even taking breaths at all the appropriate stops. {At least she's not here to see this. And there's no way she'll ever find out. She doesn't know any of these fucks!} And with that line of thinking, the song's finally over. Another song or two and he's finally able to sit there in front all of the staring eyes, while they watch the rest of the groups come up to their spot on the floor to play and finish the night. In this mean time though, he's still sitting there in the front row of his band feeling the animosity drift into him – through him.

As the crowds stand, talk, and disperse, his dad (the actual model used by the inventor of the phrase "perfect timing") stops him to take his picture. "Oh Go*," he uncharacteristically damns himself aloud, when his eyes meet the conductor's.

20.1

He packs up the instrument, hopefully for the last time, and carries it towards the classroom at the far end of the school. Some people ask what that dreadful sound was. He tells the ones who already knew it was him that someone broke his reed and tells the rest that he was wondering that himself. Walking back down the darkened hallways, some people, mainly parents, gave him all the looks they would have given a leper - bits of surprise in their directed anger with hanging pieces of utter disgust.

He makes his case slide hard across the floor and walks up and out of the dimly lit band room. With his head held at an all time low (in this: the most embarrassing night of his entire life), he waits in the darkness by the double doors in the back of the school.

Bad dreams never even sank this low. He doesn't want to see anyone else. He'd die to throw that saxophone against the walls and up and down the halls of his own, personal hell: the high school; but instead, he leans as he waits for his old church friend to come by and take him home. His friend is kind of the life of the band, so he's sure to be in mid-talk about him right now with the others, as they take down the equipment in the gym.

This night..... {Damn.} And you know, people are going to say it's because he hasn't been at school to practice, which has absolutely nothing to do with it. People saying the comments above should be razor skinned, stove-encased, and buried in twitches for even thinking things as evil as this.

His reed, even though he really couldn't tell, must've been split or chipped or something. It might have been as simple as it needed more time to warm up. It had been sitting there in the mouthpiece for nearly an hour and a half, as the other groups were performing. Where's the sense in that? Some idiot must've kicked it. Maybe someone hates him for skipping so many days. There was this one kid who was trying to get him kicked out of Friday's practice, because he didn't buy his progressive absenteeism. Snobby band geek. Maybe God's against him. Maybe there is no such thing as a literal Hell and Heaven but the ones we make for ourselves on earth.....It's quiet. He can hear band people in the distance. He stands there in the dark, in the corner, ..waiting.

He's only a few months from graduation. His girlfriend's gone off to who knows where. It's just him. As always. Waiting. As he thinks of running all the way to the beach to awe and then drown in it, there's footsteps. They come from behind him and stop at the double doors. "Why so glim?" The Jazz band teacher asks in more of a weather statement. {Is he serious?}

"Oh come on. You've had to 've heard that." The teacher nods and sort of grins. "Yeah." "This is the most embarrassing night in my life," he hears water wringing in the corners of his eyes to the deepest part of his dry throat. "I pretty much ruined the whole performance. ..I don't know what the hell happened." "Yeah, well. You have good nights and bad nights. You're a good sax player, ..... Don't let this get you down."

With tears fought back but never fallen, our greatest embarrassment shakes his head while staring at his shoes. This man was well within his right to tear him a couple of new ones, but here he was actually comforting him. The failing student watched his teacher leave, waited a long minute, then walked out the same way.

20.2

Here, the night is dark. If only it was pitch dark, so no one could see him on his way home. Alas, the light poles ruin this, his only camouflage. People remain as seated as they were in the nightmare he'll soon have to call a memory; only now, they're surrounded by the long curls of moving metal, rolling as they pass him by.

The long and winding sidewalk takes him back down Fifth, as he's giving himself that dream that keeps him going of never going back. If only. But he has no say in his life, because he's never paid a bill. Life is made up for you, until you turn eighteen or are done with high school.

{The word that will spread around the school. Fuck!} The moon grows pale white turning blue, as it looks at the son in a downwards glance and to its side with that same face that's of mirror devastation; it can do nothing but give him space and watch from far away. {I just wish I was with her. She'd tell me none of this means shit. School is for suckers of society's big tits. Kurt would be proud of me, ruining a shitty school performance.} That's right. {That's what it is.} He did this on purpose - in revolt to the system! Right! {This is cool; that's what this is.} He is damn cool. .....{..Where the hell is she?}

Every car going by looks like hers. Every driver has long, dirty blond hair just like her. The pain of not knowing where "the Love he finally found" is is violently striping layers off from his torn stomach. Not to mention English essays are due Monday for 60 percent of his grade this ¼. Also, there are some seven to eleven assignments and back work in Accounting, Geometry, Business Law II, Word Perfuct, and the like. Good thing he quit Music Theory for Lounge. Who needs all this fucking stress? Must be the children just before they turn into adults. Because God knows, all that stress can't nearly compare with someone who's an age older.

Age is how you're looked upon. You can't have that many problems if you're not paying any bills. Problems come in the form of numbers, and numbers are provided below perforations; they count on you to fill in the number below and have the correct amount of flow to back the answer. Hell, he doesn't even have to lick an envelope, yet he's more than willing to pick up a gun and blow his brains into a wall to patch and clean than any bill payer known to him. That would end every problem he has. Yet no one notices his problems. He's just an aging kid in his senior year of high school. Everyone has problems during that time. Everyone's worried about college; it's only natural. Pain, depression is all natural. Natural is good. Makes you grow. Puts hair on your man boobs. Then you'll be stronger for the next problem that you'll have. It's the normal cycle that has gone through time. His parents had to do this, just as his teachers and their parents had to do this. Once he does and makes it through to the other side, he'll be just like one of them. Someone looking down on others. Someone able to be looked up upon by the students under him. He will be an add(-)ult finally able to pay bills and make his own way, live in his own place, able to continue with school or start a job as a high school grad. All he needs 2+ do is 2- make it 2+ spring break, then he can start from = scratch. And he can redo each and every flunked class in the summer. No one will know the difference. {There you go.} A car pulls over.

Casually, he walks up to the street ahead, where it's pulled over. The small size of the car gives it away, before he steps up to the downed passenger window. "Sorry, I was late. Did you want a ride," asks the life of the band. "Na. That's okay, man." "You sure?" He looks briefly into the tiny Omni at the three others crowding around one of his last friends - their long and sharp instruments pointing this way and that. "No, that's okay. Thanks though."

"Why don't you let me give you a ride?" "Ahhhh. It's a nice night. I just feel like walkin'." "It's twenty-two degrees," he says rather coarsely. "I'm wearin' lots of clothes," he smiles weakly. As if he blew his shot: "All right. Night." "Night." He waves a few stiffened fingers, as they u-turn back to Fifth.

Smoke goes in reverse, as the car goes into drive. Two beading, red lights fade away through the exhaust, blowing into his unfeeling, freezing face. The hum of a street light or a bad telephone wiring finds shelter in a cave of little waxy residue. Crawling over the broken stalactites, he brushes some away then curls up in a shrivel of silence. Waking, he sits up out of the wax, opens his stinging, smeared eyes, and sighs before walking the rest of the way home.

20.3

Lights flipped. "Is my girlfriend there?" Desperate an' Doubt trudge through his slough of despair, carrying his precious voice (encased in ice) through the dark lines that sway from city to city under the night sky. The thick, black lines read like half bars of music, consoling his sorrow with hugging snow yet recalling his pain with its dangling ice.

"No," a stiff voice penetrates through. "She's at JDC." Her mother appears to be so frustrated to talk to him, she's using acronyms. "What's that?" "The Juvenile Detention Center in The Port." She explains to all the snow white insides of our tan boy.

"What happened?" He asks in an I'm-on-your-side-and-am-as-disappointed-as-you sort of tone. "I don't know. I haven't been able to talk to her. All I know is that they found her and her friend in Missouri somewhere, now she's at JDC in The Port." {Well, at least she's close and safe.}

"When will she get out?" "I don't know. Maybe six to nine months. Look, I gotta go." "Okay, b-" "Bye." (-click-) "-ye. Bye," just in case she didn't catch it. (-beep-) No one likes him tonight. Not that any of that matters.. She's gone. Gone for who knows how long.

He drops the phone to his side. The wall takes its wooden scar for absorbing the hard hit of the portable phone thrown against it. "Erreeeeh!" A screw screams after the board of the bunk bed is smacked by the throbbing fist of our risen frustration. {I can show anger.} A voice deep inside of him questions that. This sad boy can't help thinking somewhere deeper than most (or maybe less than he thinks of some) that if only someone was watching this. If people could only see the bad ass things he does sometimes, he could be a star. Or .. {I already am one.}

Exploration: Remember that the son believed in God with his whole life until Its failure to appear for a certain accident. When you believe in God (meaning you grew up saying Its prayers before every meal and bedtime, and thousands of suches such as these), you were told and taught to believe that It sees everything. And when you've believed this since conception to 14/fifteen years and then tend not to believe in it anymore, what happens to that comforting view of being used to someone always watching over you? Easy.

At some point in your life, someone, who happened to be a producer, happened to notice your everyman flare and hired a team to "take him out." In studio terms, this means they crept into your house while you were sleeping and sedated you with blow darts, making you sleep for hours and days, while they put tiny cameras behind the vents in your room, in the odd corners of your house, in and out of your vehicle (when you get one), your work when you go to one, and to mention the most obvious place: you.

They hear what you hear and see what you see, except when you're on the toilet or jacking off; even then, some people give you weird smirks and an unnecessary amount of double takes the next morning. Everyone you know is in on it. It's a real popular show that's on every tv but yours. It's been on for years too. That's right. Everyone who watches knows your life. From some time during your freshman year (?) to now. The divorce episodes are some of the most award-winning and crowd favorites for re-runs and tapes (or dvds now), which are plentiful.

You live in a whole town, practically county, of b-actresses and be-actors counted upon to keep you going without suspecting. They know when you're going to go on vacation, which are the most hyped and therefore highly rated shows (usually reserved for sweeps). They know where you go and when. They know everything. And if anyone said or hinted anything to you about the show, which really never happens because everyone likes you and are aspiring actors hoping to get noticed, they'd tranquilize you again, erase that part of your memory (which is what makes you dizzy, forgetful, and have been what's behind your frequent headaches), and get that person out of there. This hardly ever happens because it would, of course, hurt their careers, as well as have the merciless scorn of an entire nation and the world (for that matter).

And the reason you haven't had any luck with girls is because the girls all know that everyone would be watching them. And if they hurt you, God knows they'd be hated more than Oswald just before his death and the many years after. The gal, with the born-on date of "Halloween", might have been ordered for the fling to boost the ratings and then appropriately left after her senior year, never again to see him until perhaps a guest appearance when apropos. And his dad's woman's son's girlfriend's daughter.. She was probably just reckless enough to try it. She saw the show, liked him, and went for it. Simple as that. But is she in it for the notoriety or because she genuinely has feelings for him from watching years of the show?

You've got the most popular show in the world and don't even know it. It's on almost all of the time, whether it be in syndication or on what could be your own channel. And it can be really obvious sometimes; such as on his way to work, later in life, there's words sprayed by some vandal against the onramp guard rail that reads "Hollywood's watchin' you." I mean come on. That's not the vernacular of skateboarders or street thugs. And if you feel guilty about watching some things late one Saturday night, the next morning your girlfriend would be distant for awhile but with "Nothing" wrong. Oh! And your mom doesn't know about the show either or else she'd know things you wouldn't want her to (like he doesn't go off and .. .. watch or smoke or say things.. and such), and your friendly producers more than understand that too.

It's seen all over the globe. He doesn't know any of this. And when it's over (meaning ratings go down or he eventually finds out or the show's going to retire on top), everyone comes out of the woodwork to tell you about the whole thing in one of the most watched series finales of all time. It'd beat M.A.S.H. Hell, it'd beat the Super Bowl. And the best part of everything would be that they'd present you with a check for all the episodes, movies, commercials, memorabilia, and whatever else you unknowingly participated in, and it would set you for life.

You'd have lifetimes of money and the notoriety to match it. Directors would covet you as a walk-in for their upcoming films; you'd be a presenter at award shows and have guest spots on television galore. Everyone would want a second of your time to hear what you think about the whole thing. "Are you upset? Do you wish it never happened, or are you just enjoying the rest of your life of being worry-free?"

He'd then set himself up in the baddest house money can buy. He could see his past unfold on videos (dvds) and even in re-runs shown on syndication still. He could catch up with himself at his leisure. Everyone would love him and already know that he's a nice guy. He'd be loved as much as he'd be adored....

You think he's crazy for even thinking this, don't you? Well, what about Evolution? People with skin, fingernails, tongues, immune systems, ribs, cells, and souls? Rain cycles, bunnies, and water just evolved out of things colliding in space? Religion? Agnosticism? Animism? Babism? Buddhism? "Life is suffering." Catholicism? Their paranoid traditions of worshipping humans and saving their souls only through saying particular lines written by themselves over and over and over again? Putting billions of dollars into building cathedrals instead of helping to feed and clothe their fellow man? "How vain man is to think he can build a place to house the Lord their God. The Heavens are His home, and the earth is His footstool." And lets not get into love, and the ways they showed it to anyone who didn't believe what they did back then. Christianity? Already discussed at nausea. Confucianism? (Branch) Davidians? "I am the way, the truth, and the light. Now do me." Deism? Druzism? Esotericism? Gnosticism? Henotheism? Hinduism? Because you were a bad bear, today you are a little person? Islamism? Judaism? Mandaeanism? Mormonism? A 14 year old was told by God that Jesus came to America in 600 AD to start His new church, whereupon the members were turned into savage Indians and were killed by the Christians? Mysticism? Paganism? Peyotism? Protestantism? Whatever the Hell kind of Heaven they think is up there, I guess there's no place like home. Rastafarianism? Restorationism? Sabbationism? Satanism? Scientology? "What is our spirit doing with our bodies?" Sufism? Tarzanism? Wiccans? Zen Buddhism? And let us not forget Atheism? "We don't believe in anything. We might be here; we might not. We have no comment at this time." Everyone believes in something, even if it's nothing; because believing that there's nothing is believing something; it's believing that there's nothing.

Are religions for people who can't handle fate and the fact that they will die? Do they need to believe that something will take care of them? That everything they've ever wanted, wished for, and more is awaiting them? Do they just need to believe that something out there sees the little things they do and that they actually care?

If whatever they believe in gets them through the week and they don't try to persuade you to leave yours for theirs, then who the hell gives a fuck? If you think he's crazy for having his little paranoid belief, then he's more than likely to think yours makes you an f'n whack job too.

After his rebellion against the galactic spaces in his head, he takes an imperial march to the kitchen, where his father has left a big bottle of white zinfandel atop the fridge. {"You're not my father!"}

His reflection turns into a cosmic spin, as a laser unloads its red beams into the indie-like grooves of Sebadoh's: Bubble and Scrape. Battling the truth for answers, he lies drinking a drink with more spit than drink in an array of sloppy sips atop his single bunk bed, that's used for more think than sleep.

Eyes in the ceiling, he can still be heard to be in lip-sync. "I think I love you, - though I don't know what that means. The girl of my dreams - or a friend that one day leaves? Could I trust this - when I've lied to myself before? Would I do it all again - to taste what I imagined we could be?" The ceiling spins a mild revolution slower than the song.

Taking a leap to what lies below, the room shifts from his vision and tilts down at a slow moving angle. He looks down to what surrounds his bare feet. Spotting his seasick pen and notebook, he bends down to pick them up and falls over. Bam! His head smashes against the seat of the Soloflex. "Ooooo....."

He picks up his stuff, after disciplining that damn seat with a hard parental punch, then hops up over the wooden plank and falls to the springs, which continue their push through the colored spots of his faded mattress.

He opens his notebook up to the page after the torn out one of 2-14-95. Grabbing his shaky pen, he pushes the tip into the flattened paper, which already has plenty of lines. With ink spreading itself thin within the tip of the pen, he disregards those pink lines and makes his into words.

Give

Give her a quarter to call the one who lies

behind a pillow under the beams of light.

Sow a sin into a living relationship.

Where has she been? What the hell lies within my girl's mind?

Someone tell me love can't fall behind.

My empty arms wrinkle and dry up.

The skin of my tears bleeds for your touch.

I wait by the phone awhile and ask "why?".

How can strangers flicker a reminiscence of my only intimateness?

Who stole the fingers that stroked my hands?

Stab my blood. They can't bleed my love.

Tears are stitched into puddles of memories that

weigh down the bottom of my heart.

I can't cry. sigh

My heart shedded its last layer.

Tears spin past consciousness to burn out the bottom of my heart.

Love screwed me again. But I swear to

everything I won't let this one leave.

I've got nothing but a promise in my fingers. I'll give.

"RrrrrEEEEEEEEEEEEng!!!!" "Daa!" - "REEEEEEEEEE" The phone, with the dried, white paint stuck to it and a new rattle, shakes him from his fetal position. (-beep-) "Hell- hellauw?!" He slurs under the throb of pain. "....!" The phone breaks up. "Is it you?! Where are you!?" "I'm home!"

Butterflies fall from the devastation they've created and crawl back into their corners. He is happy. "They let me go home! Oh, I can't wait to see you." "Yah, me tu either." "My mom won't let me go anywhere right now, but.." "I'll drive out there! Fuck that!" "Noooo," she replies in a tone of "you really shouldn't" but really means "you naughty, boy. Please do."

The story is that she was driving with her legs after so many hours of constant driving, and they flew into a ditch. The car was fine and so were they, but some cops saw that they were minors along the side of the road past midnight and took them to the station. Her mom and his dad's woman's son had to drive out there, states away, when it was well into the night. Her mom drove the girls home in her car, while her mom's boyfriend (or his dad's woman's son) drove all the rust home. Her mom drove them straight to JDC in The Port (to teach them a lesson, I guess). He wants to see her so badly, just to see if she's okay and to finally have their Valentine's.
21.0

A thick snot does its suicide runs down and touches the top of his peeling dry, upper lip. Within his blue leather coat, a black leather glove stiffs a finger that scrapes the thin mustache, nostril, and lip free of the liquidated booger. {I hope to God this plugs up} he thinks without any sort of formal prayer, as he wipes his glove off onto the back of his jeans.

He's on his way to a slumber party that her mom probably doesn't know about. It's the first time he's gotten to see her (with her mom's knowing) since before Valentine's Day. Her mom grounded her the night she got back from JDC. She supposedly isn't grounded anymore, even though she said she didn't tell her mom about the party.

The boyfriend and his girl are smiling like mad scientists in love, as they walk into each other. "Here's the present I said I had for you." He gave her the piece and fake rose, which "Actually, I like those much better cause you can keep them forever." His brain grinds some blush to his cheeks.

"Oh, wow." He reads into her present something she wrote (a note) but dotes over the trace of a decoration drawn from below the fretting neck of a departed Jimi. This decoration contains squiggly lines, birds, and hearts all within its felt tip. Then she straps a necklace made of violet-colored hearts and beads around his neck. Any tight collar, tie, or thing three inches from his neck is considered to be choking him for some reason. I've a feeling the feeling's related to the same restricted feeling he has when he consciously wears socks.

"Don't you like it?" She reflects his animated grin of "Naw, naw, naw, naw.." that red-haired vulture gives with a shy laugh in his head drawn down to his crossed feet. "Of course! It's great." "Well, good. I thought you would. I used darker colors to make it look a little more manly."

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22.0

While sitting in the cheap seats in the back of a theater, Legends of the Fall is acted out within the letterbox way in front of them. He covers her eyes with a grin, when Brad Pitt struts off his shiny shit. Spilling through the cracks of his fingers, an array of dismay is on wide display upon her instinctively and forcibly pushing his hand the hell away. "Oh come on!" Her eyes widen through his falling fingers, as he stops to witness the sex in her eyes and the legs of her lips spreading wildly.

She grabs the collars of his coat and pulls him up against her, pinning herself to a brick wall in an alley behind the theater. Lips smack. Naked tongues wrap perversely around themselves. Wicked, nasty scripts are daydreamed and have made their casting calls to the setting behind his reality. With funding short, the picture's not made (but the script is saved) as spotlights dare to glare over the walls above them. They run around to the front of the theater, where the headlights of a mother's car fill into the shadows of their grinning faces.

Standing atop his favorite mat, he watches as her mother marches silently up the stares, leaving spoken questions for the unlocked lips that just turned to ask them. Her mother is gone.

"Um, I need to go home." "Let me ask her if I can drive you home." Step, step, -stairs-, step, step, step, step, step, step.

Stairs- step, step. "Well my mom's in bed, and she says I can't take my car. I guess you're stuck here." She says this with a happy, is-that-okay-with-you glare.

"I don't blame her," is all his father said on the phone. During the late night pickup, there wasn't a single complaint in the order to his surprise, considering the price to pay, except "You need to get your license." A standard complaint rendered from his girlfriend, his pal, himself, and especially the father of the late, faint seventeen year old.

22.1

Ring!! "Hey." "..You're high aren't you?" The x-pastor's kid has developed a sixth sense. Chit and Chat, including concern and your favorite: "I almost dropped Polly on the table" bit. "Hold on." -Beep!!!! He races over the sunny day in his brother's car. The "races" can include our illegal teen going from 73 to 82 in the fifty-five.

Race-walking up to her house, he hears her mumbled voice coming from beyond the door. Stepping over the wadded up doormat, he quickly opens the door. His girl's simply sitting on the couch next to Polly, who's strapped into the car seat next to her. They both look up to him with widened eyes, as if startled by a coherent stranger in the doorway.

"Wow. What are you doing here? I just hung up the phone with you, and.. now you're here." She says this very slowly like a -high- schooler trying to give more than a subtle hint that she's been smoking the dope that she is.

"Everything okay?" "I'm .was mad about you. .for something." She shakes her finger lazily in the air. He looks to Polly, who's demonstrating an interrogative face while kicking her feet in the baby seat that's sitting on the sofa. "Yeaaaahh, Come here." She grabs his hand and pulls him upstairs.

Stepping into her room, she then lies down onto her bed. The confused boy sits down beside her. She lies there useless - vulnerable.

Salivation wets the insides of his cheeks, pouring out into his mouth. This is his girlfriend. She has obviously had lots of sex. She told him they "will" before she's through with him. (Not in those last words, but close enough to them.) He watches her lying there. . ..against her pink sheets....on her girl bed, ..his girlfriend.

He's frustrated. Limitations are stretching. He leans down into her, feeling the warmth of her surround him. When passion rears its ugly head, he kisses the lips of it. They kiss lustfully, her now into him. She seems completely cured during this make-out session. He brushes his hands along her sides and up against the back of her head. She's there for him. They could do this. He could finally do this. "..Hey. I can't do this. There's people coming over." Her wasted voice sneaks up wickedly as if "you're so bad."

"What people?" "My mom's friend needs someone to watch her kids. I told them I'd do it cause I need some extra money." A burn stretches itself an arm's length along the insides of his stomach. "W..what?" "They should be here any second." "You're joking./?" "No." She acts somewhat surprised but not without smiling.

"I told you on the phone." "No you didn't! You're in no condition to take care of one kid let alone.. How many are coming?" "Two." "Three?!! Y- You are fucking high! You almost dropped Polly!" "I did, but she's okay." "Are you crazy? What the hell did you light up for?! I can't help you! I gotta go home. My brother will be home around five-thirty." "It's okay. My friend's coming anyway. I called her right before you left."

He thinks {--} then speaks, "Well, ..I feel better." "Hellooooo," pours up from the downstairs. "Oh shit! Your mom's here!" A thousand thoughts brush through his standing hairs. "No, she's not. She's at work." "Well, she's home for lunch or something, you iget," he says to himself, as she walks out of the room.

Timidly, he places his light feet to the ground and sneaks over to the doorway to peek down the stairway. "It's just my friend. I told you she's coming over," she yells up. Her friend trips and falls, knocking her and the girlfriend into the stairs. They lie together on the stairs shaking in what appears to be laughter. "H" "H" "H" "H" "ah" "ah" "ha" "ha" "haw!" "Oh my go*." Frustrated, he mildly storms back into her room and stands by the window.

Literally as someone pulls up, she sheepishly begins to enter her room. "Who's that?" "I tohold you. We're babhehe sitting for thehem tohooday." That mother continues her childish laugh. Out from the long car, adults pull out two baby seats, complete with babies attached. "I don't believe this." "Haw!"

22.2

"I'd marry you." "Really?!" "..Sh.. sure." "Oh my gosh! I can't believe we're getting married!! I gotta call my pinhead friend, Mehbl blah blah, lbah blah blaj.." Somewhere near the damned front lines of our unlit mind is the one that reads {What the hell's going on here?!} "I'll call you right back. ..We're getting married! Oooooh my god!! Illcalyouihtack!" (-click-) "Ooooooooooooooooooo," the dial tone rings of matrimony slide over the long-nailed fingers of air between her fiancé's ears. Nails might not be just for the fingers and the ears; unpack some wood, we're going to be here till the end of your short-lived life. "How the Hell," he asks himself softly before finally pushing the word "phone". The living room is dead quiet.

The recklessness of him shoves its (wooden) case into the mouth of his better half. You can tell when a bad life goes too far, because vomit drools from the dry dream he almost knew as his own, and a sick mind is set on marriage.

1/2 hour to 45 minutes later: Ri- "Yeah." "I can't believe you said that. I can't believe you're going to marry me. You still wanna marry me, right?" All reason and practicality down the shoot, school in a rut, maybe this is his way out. "Let's just pack up, and we'll go to Vegas. I can find a job somewhere."

"Well, let's wait a little bit. I wanna wait until I'm at least eighteen. Plus, I really wanna be by Polly. So I don't wanna live too far." "All right. Yeah. That's a good idea." ".....married.."

22.3

"You know, you never officially asked me to marry you," she said shortly thereafter. So on a band trip, he alternatively bought a ring out of one of those gumball machines at an oasis. The next day, he went to her house and asked again, formally. "Ummmm, ..yes." She was actually thinking about it.

He gave her the plastic bubble. She popped the top and pulled out a ring, which happened to be attached to a long key chain. It was gold-colored, and in the middle of the chain was a thin, bendable metal-like thing that had the word "special" engrav- "That's not a ring!"............. "Yyyyeah it is. Here." He slides the key chain ring down her finger and connects the chain somehow. "You're so stupid." His heart spins round and round, as it sinks further down – down a drain of well-wrapped intestines. "But I love you anyway." He smiles to this.

"I'm not wearing that though." She takes it off. Smile retreats back to a forced grin. "I'll put it on my key chain."

22.4

"Are you ..(nodding down).. thinking with your thing," asks his old church friend. They're sitting on the lower level of Wendy's (level = step).

The fiancé swivels in his chair and grins evilly. "No. I could have her any time I want. I just want to get out of here. Go away. These small towns can drive you crazy. You know I haven't been happy for a long time. She makes me happy."

"Okay, but.. you think she's the one? Beyond a shadow of a doubt, you wanna spend every single moment for the rest of your life with her?" "Yes." "Doesn't she have a kid?" "I love Polly. She's really cool. I can handle them. Besides, it won't be for a few months anyways. I gotta finish school," he says what the prime candidate for Val Victorian wants to hear.

"So where are you going to get married?" "Vegas. Drive-through wedding," he nods, sporting a grin that looks as if it's one his friend should share in. "Veghhass?" His one and only sane friend laughs. "How you going to get there?" "I don't know. Drive?"

The long time friends look at each other, sharing a glance that's more telling than a half hour's worth of words. "I hope you know what you're doing." "Trust me."

22.5

Besides this single friend, no one was told of the engagement. It eventually became an "Oh, we're engaged, aren't we?" Futures were never discussed; everything was of the moment. All in all, he was beginning to wonder what she really thought of him and what she does without him while she's so far away. Thoughts like these, although thought, were held back in a deep suppression. She was his Courtney and he her Kurt. All in all, she was actually his first girlfriend - him the senior. She was the girl in the love songs he was never able to fully picture; the one in his little man screams at night, who had come to make everything all right. She - his girlfriend, his fiancé. The girl in the flesh who probably no longer cared for that dream or..

For him, the sand that sprinkled within had come out the ends, causing time to slowly slide out from under him. Homework went from {not yet} to "fuck that." Tardies got him into a Saturday class; whereas the absences were now steamrolling. He got into it over the phone with the head of the attendance office. "Well, I am his father!" Eventually, he received a steaming letter from the high school of which he thanked God that he got the mail from the box before his dad did that day. It said that he would need doctors' signatures for the following days and listed the some twenty-one days of absences with the reasons that he had given for each. The Friday he just skipped was the twenty-second or -third day he missed in that second semester, and he's just now in the first week of March.

Something was tearing his stomach out from the inside. Something evil. And it would never leave. It was always there, especially when he tried to think. There were no solutions to be made out For all the pain he had been causing himself had accumulated into something terrible. Something god-awful. Something that scared him to shivers every time he had a thought. A massive knot of nots, wroughting in his gut.

And this is how he looks this Sunday night: lying on his dad's bed, his eyes turned in, everything in front of him a blur; as those spinning brown eyes remain faced within his face, facing nothing but another wall - only this one's right above him.
23.0

From the window sill, Japanese beetles tune their wings to the pulverizing beat, splaying from the green veins hidden beneath the soft forehead of the fiancé. Themes from an historic divorce come out from the shadows to play in the background of what can only be described as a "moment".

You can hear the moment grin at the fingers of a family, as they're cracking yet being set into position. The corner of a girl's given smile is torn and slouching embarrassingly off the side of his mouth. A fingernail is hammered hard into (and hopefully soon to be through) the bit of tender skin that wraps along the side of his thumbnail. Just to make sure he's awake in this. – alone in this.

Nothing is the way he was told it would be. There will be no grandparents' house. No big graduation. No college to meet the wife. No job to shelter her and the kids he won't have, as his father had done for him and his father for him and father for him. Stomach acids are burning boils into the skin of these ideas, once given to him and explained in a way that they would one day be "facts".

In here, there are no facts. They're miles away from the house in which there were "facts". Miles - Days. He's been on these feet for a lifetime, but for a lifetime he couldn't describe as his. His life would never be like this. It couldn't. As a child he wanted nothing more than for time to fall forward to the day he would be an adult, now he wishes for nothing if not for time to fall back ..or to stop at all. There's no such thing as a second chance. He's in the position of an off-centered pivot, and his ankles have been shattered only swelling over time.

Not a drop of condensation drips down the seen-through box of gills breathing up what would seem like sure death to most within. The repeating squeak of a bed falls out from the vent, down through the room, and lays into his lazy, left ear. The squeal of the bed is followed only by an "ughn! ugh!"

He thinks about his mother (who's living in Virginia now), his brother (who's never home), and his father. His friends haven't called him since he heard his dad's woman's son's girlfriend even had a daughter, which is fine; he wouldn't want to see them anyway. His woman and him have a special bond, even if she lives far away.

She doesn't love him. It won't last {but a day further than forever.} "Ughnnnn!" {She loves me..} Who is he kidding? Everyone who loves him is far away; far enough away to where they can't see where he's at, even if they were only a "hey" away. They couldn't even fathom the smell of what was once behind but has now reared up to the brown hairs of his chinny chin chin again. They could never understand if he told them. No one loves him. ......... {........} .... {...........} ..... {.....no one ever will.}

There's a sweet, gentle rumble that's hugged and cuddled by violent, homicidal screams. "Ugh!!" They roar a whisper: death to the for-granted, those who complain from behind the white picket fence – death to any church set to dis-member one of their own and god-stamp it as a self-less act of self-defense - death to any god who would grant a child's prayer of projecting their friends' pain onto them. "Ughnnnn!!!!" Then the rumble drips a voice, which cuddles the ever familiar words, death to him.

He jumps off of the bed and race-walks over to his dad's briefcase. In this case, he has a way of pure vengeance. "Ugh! Ughhgh!!" A way to be rid of every pa- "Ughhhhh!" -n forever, like a lame horse or a yellow dog that's as good as dead. This would be no worse.........he's dying...........this would end the pain. From out of the case, he pulls a metal hole up to his shrinking face.

Keys roll over the ignition to his brother's car, which he drives ever far. He leaves the keys, grabs the gloc off of the seat, and runs down the sandy street toward the crashing waves and the freezing smell of the lake's turning wind. A shivering quarter is pushed into the slot. The tip of a fiancé's finger kisses a number of different partners. "Hello," she asks. {Who would've thought she'd finally answer when I need her?} He walks himself through the unstable thoughts. "Hello?.....Gi?" "..bye." He drops the phone off of the hook, just happy to hear her voice.

Uncontrollable tears wash over the quivering chin. A snot bubble is blown out and sucked in, as the underachiever walks against the wind through the thick sand barefoot and towards the shore. With cupped hands, he washes his face off crazily using the frigid water. ..... {"Who is that?" She points to the tattered cover. "Teencer bel!" He laughs. "No. It's Peter Pan." She explains holding the book, the boy, and a mother's grin.}

He turns and looks around desperately, like a crook escaping the jail of a silent movie, waiting for the circle of light to shine down. But yet again, there's no light.

{"Y s hee fhlyeeng?"} He looks up to the tower far in the distance and marches up the dunes towards it. {"He said that you and your brother are in God's lock box."} Feet lose their grip in the loosening sand.

Filling in the frames with a bit of imagination, he's able to run parts of {his dad handing him peanut butter candy during what he'll always remember as his first movie at the theater: The Extra Terrestrial.} The tower stands a little smaller than he remembers, still chipping away in fading blue. The father, the man who always took care of them, said {"I'm going to be leaving you."}

The son runs up the circle of stares. He lies in the perfect repose of a closed casket, being scene by all of the "loved" ones, as well as he can be through their streaming tears. Leaning over in a shortened breath at the top, the moon remembers him the way he was; beside itself, it can be seen reflecting in the waters below. A cool breeze wakes the little hairs over his arms and body. They sit up to find each other and wonder what the hell he's gotten them into this time, while goosebumps spread in waves of unstoppable contagion up from the very surface of him. But the sooner, the easier it'll be for them to forget and go on.

A fond farewell to the lake that was like water for him. The water waves good-bye. His only witnesses being some sand, seagulls, stars, and all of the shadows he ever casted casting once again an end to him somewhere in this staring black hole, his thumb turns away the safety and the other begins to pull. .........Blam!!!!

He falls against the metal floor with three quarters of his face remaining in relatively the same place. Feels as if huge clumps of skin are piling up to the side of his head. A cool wetness runs under his ear to soothe its sting. He can't breathe out of his nose. There's nothing to hear or see. He can't tell if his eyes are open are not; it feels like there's big globs of ointment in them. There's only darkness.

As if his hole body is asleep, he raises his hand only to have it crash down to the gun. He rolls his other arm over, thinking of nothing now but to give it all one more shot. With both of his arms shaking violently, he slides the gun over to his ribs and drags it up to have it fall to his chest.

Spinning the barrel toward his face with his forearm, he then pushes down on the handle with his forearm, making the barrel tip up towards his neck. Scratching his thumbs all to hell, he manages to fit the tips of them through yet another fake ring and onto the trigger. Flashes of a life fall through the cracks in the metal beside him, as his only focus is on controlling this piece atop of him. The piece quivers in his weak grip. This.. the only one to be read from him.

In the tower above the sand, bones with skin bend as hard as they can. ..Blam!!!!! It hits him. It's as clear as a living ghost. "Hey!" He screams carefully into the phone. "Yes?" "It just hit me." "What?" "Let's get outta here."
24.0

"Are you strong enough to be my man?" Sheryl Crow's voice surfs along the waves, down the steady antenna, splashing up through the sagging interior of his brother's car. {Yes, I am!} He reminds himself whole-heartedly. Everything seems perfectly rational but without an idea. It's like the tongue of his practical self has been cut and thrown over a hook in a meat locker; the tongue left shining from the frost; and as far as company, there ain't nothing but jack.

Flustering over the clusters of things he should be doing, no longer's needed for frustrating. Everything is nothing. And nothing's his skeleton key of a place that's anything but something. A place wear the only face is his own, so there's no facing anything anymore. He doesn't even need to face his own face; and if he did and didn't like it, he could make a different face and take it to some new place. Put that face by hers and they're golden.

That's what it's all about. Them. Him.. Who knows. He must leave this. It's his time. Problems are for molesters and rapists. He is a good person; he's never hurt anyone. Why should he have any problems? Not anymore. He's his now. He is his. He strokes his fingers through his hair well above his face. And with the window down slightly near the legally dead end of winter, he glides over the {bye}, pass the highway.

Trunked in the backseat, he's got summer clothes, winter clothes, swimming trunks, a boom box, and even a Nirvana calendar (in which the quote from Kurt for March is "tell them to fuck off".) He's got sixty dollars under him (a stolen hand-me-down from a wallet to his corner pocket) and nothing but the open road in front of him. And they all must go! Yes, he is iN--sane (!) and clearing out with these items to pick up his partner in crime and drive four hours to the southern portions of the greater land of In.

The plan: His Grandpa is in America's wang for the winter; so he'll secretly stay at his house, dump the car somewhere in the woods, and get a job; and once his grandpa comes back, he should have enough money to grab an apartment somewhere in that small town without his Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt and Uncle, cousins, or any of the above mentioned's bible thumpin'/straw chewin' friends or distant family knowing. And then once the money is out, he can always drive up to his dad's and steal more money; that way they'd at least know he's okay. The system works!

He could visit old friends! Like his old church friends! It'd be just like the television show he made with his GI Joes and Star Wars figures called Friends, which is in no way related to the show that later became popular on NBC. Do I smell plagiarism? I think I know exactly what happened. They were walking by his window one day, saw him playing with his figures, figured out the title by way of a sophisticated mind probe or a team of Japanese mouth-readers, and stole the idea. Or maybe they were just trying to bring his vision to the squared screen for the world to see? Although with his show, he was the main character (or Luke from Return of the Jedi) and lived by himself on the open road. You see, his parents died while he was in the 4th grade; and while on the run from social services, he'd eventually stop by the hangouts and houses of his friends, who'd help him out from time to time. He has adventures and a girlfriend (or Obie Wan), whose parents hate him but let him stay with them overnight sometimes.

Although for this show now brought out of the box, he'll have the woman with him. Even better. That will make him be more creative. They'll come back up; she'll see her kid; he'll see his friends and brother. The worst of the winter is over, so the weather shouldn't be that bad. It should be fine. Just fine. Or maybe they'll pick up and move someplace else if they reach hard times, wherever she wants to. Whatever they go through, the tramp went through worse and came out a great dictator.

If worst comes to worsen and the plan doesn't work, they'll just drive out to the city of the Sin Sea. Sin Sea has a church that he used to attend to when he and his brother lived in The Green Isle; it's a branch off of the same church his dad was affiliated with (so goes the grapevine). Anyway, his old youth pastor lives there now. With absolute no hesitation, he would let him stay with his family for a couple of weeks. "Family" - it's hard to get away from that word, no matter how far you go.

He opens the car door towards her house. "Uhll!" The seat belt tightens into his neck and waist. In a click, an "L" is pulled and straightened into an "I", as he then walks up to the door she walks out of. She puts a finger to her lips. "Your dad's woman's son is sleeping. Do you have time to take me to Big R?" "Sh- sure." "I need to get Polly some things."

24.1

"So are you coming?" "....I don't know." She continues to look down the line of baby clothes. {!!} "Isn't this cute?" "What do you mean? Either you are or you aren't." "Then ..I'm not," she says now staring at him. "I'm sorry, but I'm on probation. If I screw up one more time, I won't be able to see Polly for a very long time." "You just gave her custody to her father." "I know. But I miss her. I'm thinking about asking to have custody of her again. If I go with you I may never be able to have custody of her again.

"And I don't think you'll follow through with what you're doing. It might work for a couple of weeks, but you'll get caught ..just like I did. I think it's a bad idea, and I really hope you don't go."

Instead of looking to her face, he stares at the tiny, baby pajamas in front of him. She looks at him look at them. "Yeah," he reciprocates her single, shining moment of practicality. She looks up in glee. "I mean I don't think that you should go. You have Polly to think about. Not me," he lowers his bruised brown pair from the 12-16 month pajamas to the tearing gray shoes wrapped around his feet. "I am seriously not happy where I'm at. I haven't been for a long time." He looks in the vicinity of her staring eyes. "I need to get away from everything ..and everyone for some time. Maybe a few months; maybe a few weeks. I really need to do this, or.. I'm not sure what's going to happen with me." Finally, his eyes must find hers; they don't share the stare he imagined.

"I just need time away from everything, ..every problem, every face,.....everything; so I can think. Take time to see what's happened and where the hell I'm at. ..I hope you understand." "Of anyone you know, I'm probably the only one."

After the silent drive back, he pulls up to her house. She kisses him and immediately opens the door. "I need to go," he says softly. She steps out of the car and bends over, staring at him for awhile. "Call me when you get there. I mean right when you get there! Call collect. I'll probably be at work. You have my number there, right?" "Yeah. Well, I know it." "Give me directions, and I'll visit you next weekend." "Okay."

For the first time since he's met her, he finds a troubled look on her face. "Are you sure you won't come?" His teary-tongued voice asks just once more. Desperation says she still might fulfill the Bonnie and Clyde/Sid and Nancy/Mickey and Mallory twisted romantic side of his so far singular duality. "Please don't ask me to." "You're right," he nods.

She leans in for the last kiss. "I can't believe you're doing this." She shakes her head at the junk packed up in the backseat then backs away and shuts the door. "Call me." "..I know." She slowly walks back from the door.

Under screaming tires, little pebbles lie scalped and gutted, spilling the remains of dust out of their shriveled chests. The curtain of dust rises as it thins toward the skies to unveil a gray car losing size in distance.
25.0

{...................} "................................................" {..!} "....." {........!} "..............................................woo," he finally crashes the whisper plane. Dying, he looks around nervously 'n red-faced, not from blood but from embarrassment, even though he's by himself out here. Why he's embarrassed of himself in front of no one but himself is possibly one of the great questions of life. And the shame of the embarrassment he puts on himself.. He just wants to feel free or pretend he's one of those natural hams having the time of their life. No worries. Liberation from the normal childhoods of repression. No one above him/No one beneath him. He's everyone else. Just like every single person way behind him or way ahead, who are out there for themselves, sitting within their moving wraps of metal like the mid-western crabs of the road that they are. The world is his oyster.

He curls his fingers around the top of the spinning wheel as he steers down the straight lane of the highway, like he's seen stars do before on the screen - always lit to be larger than life. He's got his sunglasses on and his stick of juicy chewing gum, but ..he's chewing it his way. Everything is wrong, which cancels itself out, making everything right.

He's driving his car, his now, to his Grandpa's by memory. He's never driven there before, only looked out of the windows as a backseat rider, peaking over the shoulders of the "adults" periodically along the way. He's still never even driven legally for that matter; it tells in his braking at every bridge and bypass, just in case there's a cop scoping out speeders. He gets pulled over, he goes to jail. That would just cause attention to those behind him, and that's not exactly what he wants here; so he's driving overly cautious in a paranoid, pissing-off-other-drivers sort of way. The crabs.. He's on his way to getting away. The further the towns get behind him, the more relaxed he'll feel; and the more relaxed he's feeling, the further down the highway he's getting.

He's seventeen, nearing the end of his academic life (of which he's missed 21 days within the past forty), driving a stolen car down to his vacationing grandpa's to live in hiding amongst his running business, and he just got engaged with a key-chain ring to a 17 yr. old stoner, who has a kid and has apparently been butt-fucked more times than he's actually been fucked. (-see the missing scene).

Some of you might say that that's life, but that's more life than some people were raised to handle, especially for such a short amount of time. From his freshman year, he was getting screwed down to this: the raw deal of it. He knows the facts of what happened and what led down to this, down to the southern portions of In. Somewhere inside, he knows what's going on. Instead of picking up each problem to figure it out one by one, his brain is telling his body to keep moving. This is one story problem you physically can't flip to the back of to find all of the answers. There's just too many problems for so little time. His head's full enough of divorces and loneliness to set himself aside and "apply" himself to makeup work and term papers. He knew there'd be a time and place to deal with all of this; it just so happens to be in his brother's car and a month or so ahead of expectations.

And yeah, some of you would say that everyone has problems and he should of stuck it out. Well, maybe his brain was smarter than all of us; not in book smarts, but in telling his body to run before what's in his head finally caught up with him. Running isn't dying. But maybe he should die; maybe it's the healthy alternative. After all, alternative appears to be the trend right now.

Maybe he just wants all of the others to stop and look and go "Hey! What's wrong with the guy over there?" But that would be strictly for attention, and that's not what he's after. Besides, they couldn't possibly help him. His daydreams are of suicides and funerals, while those others are of others. His indifference has come out from him in metal form; the stacks of everything piled against him now wrapped around him in a chipping gray; where within the aging color, eyes continue looking back, showing him some of the turns that may be coming up along the way.

25.1

Wheels spin under the sun, crooking up bits of rocks and things with wings from the bitter cold along the way. The runaway squints his eyes to the I behind his weak, cheap shades of eyewear. Miles fall by the numbers to the towns that are entered and passed through. Exasperated from imagining what his dad and brother will do when they come home from work, he puts in another tape. Tapes are essential; because if you were to hit scan on the radio out here, you'd get maybe five or six stations playing mullet music: country or the growling "Ye Ha's!" of Metallica that cuts more out than in.

Pee pushes against his small bladder, but pulling over is far from the range of possibility. One false move, and it's the cuffs. {Damn pigs} - not the state police, mind you, but the smells of the country are beginning to seep in. He checks the gas though. Doing good. He passes all of the old, wooden, city signs: Acton, Rushville, The Green Isle – Home of the World Famous Courthouse Tree. {Yee haw!!}

The grandson behind the spinning wheel rolls down the hill to see the familiar hotels and gas stations that look like they haven't been renovated since originally built in the '60's. Hardees is still there serving their curly fries, along with K-Mart {and a Wal-Mart now? Huh.} Everything has sprung up in that town since he was a kid. This is the biggest city, I believe, in the county. As the home of the world-famous courthouse tree should be. (It grows out of the roof somehow.)

He bypasses these things of the city and goes straight for the country, where his Grandpa's nursery sits in the heart of it. His Grandpa and uncle own the nursery and have such hired help as some Mexicans (straight off a battered truck), a various local or two (who seem to come and go with the seasons), and a worker who started about the same time this grandson learned how to hold a rattle.

As far as the house, it resides alongside the road. One gravel driveway leads straight to the back of the house and even around it, connecting into the other; the other is a long dirt/gravel driveway that runs along the front of the house, goes past the office of the nursery, past the greenhouses, and into the work area.

Once in awhile, his uncle will step inside the house to bring in the mail or grab a cold bottle of Pepsi from the fridge door; but for the most part, the house is unused. Usually, they're either on jobs or out in the fields. His aunt, of the uncle, runs the phones from their house, which is three or four miles down the road (I can't remember which) and not a foot shorter.

All of this is far from the city part of town, a good five to fifteen minutes of good ol', dirt-flyin' drivin'. In between those drives you've got your country air, your tire-tossed road pizzas (with multiple toppings), farm animals, city blocks of stalks galore, mud, dried mud, drying mud, dirt, dust, rotting fences, good distances between houses, hills, curvy roads, and more than occasional really bad, farm animal-related smells. These are all the things a good grandson truly cherishes.

His Grandpa owns two woods (or wooded areas for you city folk). There's the "little woods", which is just in sight of the house, and the "big woods", which he partially owns and is a decent hike away. A short walk from the house though is Grandpa's pond; a pond that has been there since well before his mom could remember. Gramps is also the proud owner of a "lake", which is really just a bigger pond. The lake has a bridge with a gazebo and a beach the size of a dorm room that's been under knee-deep water and algae since near its conception. The bridge ends at a sloping strip of land, and just over the smallest slope in the county is the old pond that he knew and loved as a kid.

When his brother and him were of the ripe old age, this nursery had all of the riches and animal whiffs of a Xanadu (minus all of the exotic ones). They brought their Swiss Army knives, survival knives, bee-bee guns, youthful exuberance, and yet never ended up shooting classmates or holding up a Circle K. This was the time to roll out your great imagination and an age when "role-playing" had no dragon-like backlash to it. They could both be like Rambo (or compromise and one be Commando) and hide from their little cousins, when they came to the house to visit. And the places to hide! There's a large field of young pine trees, across the dirt road in front of the house, that go all the way to the little woods. The pine trees had been growing since his early years and most typically were stomach to shoulder length; and the farther back you got, the more you reached the older ones, which had become huge, natural pine trees.

Other hiding spots were the greenhouses, the barns, the different rock piles, the area around the old pond, spots around the house itself, and if bold, possibly even the little woods (although their cousins never really made it that far). In between the "tzzt-tzzt-tzzt-tzzt" sound of the sprinklers, the ankles beneath the brown cuffs of their blue jeans would follow them through the hip-high to ankle-low weeds and grass, gravel, dirt, mud, rocks, and every other sort of terrain a boy could sink his feet into.

When he was in the single digits, there used to be a rolling field with long blades of grass they'd have to walk through on their way to the old pond (where the lake is now). In these fenced-in areas were the remaining animals of what was once their farm. By the time this grandson came along, they were down to just a small field of cattle. Of the cattle, all that can be said is that his brother and he would take aim and shoot the butt far behind a cow or two just to hear them "mooooo" and slowly stamp away. Once, his brother even hit the coveted blind bull. The bull was blinded on purpose, I believe, because of an ill-tempered incident: it tried to gore and trample his Grandma to death every time she went to feed it.

Their more primary targets were birds. A big bird house used to sit on top of a pole that had the height and distance of a light or telephone pole; it was right next to the office on the gravel lot. This always 'first target' was supposedly off limits by their Grandma, and of course it had to be told to them on every visit before the rule applied. (Well, she'd tell their mom, and their mom would tell them.) I think it was because she liked to see the birds from the kitchen window. There were blue jays, robins, cardinals (the state bird), hummingbirds, woodpeckers; and everything else they couldn't identify were labeled as sparrows. Their shooting list was eventually narrowed down to sparrows and finches only. But when the cats were alive, whatever they were they were the sour feathers in the stomach of the feline that followed.

When they were older, it was frog hunting. At night in the new lake, they'd very quietly follow the croak by row boat, floating along the shoreline. When the croak hit close to home, his brother would flick the flashlight over the area to find the frog. The light would paralyze it. It was then shot, scooped into a bucket by the barrel, taken home, skinned by Grandma, cooked, and eaten only by their brave hunter. Actually, they only brought them home once; but he said those legs had the tastiest meat he had ever done did eat.

This came to an end with an unfortunate incident. One evening, the brothers dragged the boat to shore to find a little frog sitting there within the low-lit beam of their flashlight. Striking out all night, their little hunter stepped up to finally take one home. But with every pull of the trigger, the little frog just sat there paralyzed. Nothing but the wind shot out from the barrel. But what was a hell of a lot more shocking than that, was when the frog quietly began to scream. "eeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!" It belched this high-pitched, heart wrench of a scream along the green scale of a continuing crescendo. It was louder than the screech a lobster makes when a cook dumps it into a pot of boiling water. "-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" It wouldn't stop.

The mighty hunter checked his gun; clearly, there was a bee-bee in there. He pumped it and shot; pumped and shot. For some weird reason, while his brother was yelling at him to give it up, he either wasn't hitting the baby point blank or it was somehow only shooting blanks. They left the horrified creature to its swamp and retreated quietly in an unmentionable silence back to their car. Our no longer itchy finger never even went fishing after that but maybe once.

Of course from birth till that time there was fishing at Grandma's, which was a family tradition back when. Their mom and Grandma would join them and maybe even Gramps if he was up and Hee Haw wasn't on yet. Lift up a heavy rock or the pot of a plant and grab that worm, before it slips up into the dirt that's clustered around the bottom of the hovering plant pot or hard rock. One season, they even used cicadas for bait when they had infested the whole town. They magically crawl up from beneath the surface of the earth every seventeen years or so; and that one year, they were everywhere. They generated this loud crescendo/decrescendo-ing sound, which sounded like wings rubbing together unbelievably fast or even demons humming their favorite note of the Satanic hymnbook. They destroyed crops and rotted the trees they all liked to cling to; it was the closest thing to having a plague from above.

From up there, the kids would shout and giggle, as the scoop raised and lowered and tilted up and slightly down. Tractor rides were a treasure for a boy or far away girl cousin given from the grinning grandfather behind. Other fun activities were hunting crawdads with pocket knives down by the creek, water gun fights, tag, hide 'n seek, capturing lightening bugs, and lighting fireworks on the dirt road outside.

And when everything on the outside was deemed out, in the insides of the home there were only a couple of TV stations (maybe four) that were beamed down from an antenna that was so large it was weak, as it grew out from the rooftop to give these grandchildren a thin array of boxable entertainment. Fat Albert and Picture Page came in bright and early in the morning. Mighty Mouse, Tom and Jerry (a classic), Mork n' Mindy, The People's Court, and Laverne and Shirley were all on in the afternoons. When they were older, it was Dukes of Hazard, Miami Vice, The Equalizer, A-Team, Airwolf, Wiseguy, and their rarely missed Sledge Hammer on during the evenings.

The only time the television was off limits was during the six to seven o' clock period, when his Grandpa's beloved Hee Haw was on. That show was next to his religion for that man. He'd wake up around 4:30 a.m., work very hard all day with the earth, then go home, take a shower, and sit through Hee Haw while he ate his meal and drank a glass of milk, then he'd march up to bed at 7 to repeat the whole process again.

The boys loved him. He'd bend down to look at you with worry filling his face and yell with a very loud crescendo, "Now boys, don't be havin' too much fun now!" Then he'd go into a paragraph of good natured barbing on how too much fun was bad for you. "That's right," he'd nod as if it were the God-honest truth then turn to go away (but never before they'd happen to capture the grin, spreading the truth of him throughout his lips).

While he was at work, they'd play guns, Monopoly, Old Maid, do puzzles, or play with their Star Wars and GI Joes (until an embarrassingly late age). Grandma would buy them a mini-pack of sugar breakfast cereals they loved; and God help you, she'd make the best elephant ears alive darn near every breakfast. Of course, lunch and dinners were only a dish or two away from being typecast as a full-fledged Thanksgiving day feast. What can you say, but that woman loved to feed her family. And leftovers were preferred anyway, as the boys loved to scrape them off into the dish outside for their favorite dog.

The dog they grew up with was a black collie with white hair going only from the paws to the tops of its legs; unbeknownst to the younger grandson, this was the reason she was named Boots. Did I mention their grandpa had a strange sense of humor?

The white, two-story house of course had a scary basement, which had all of the ingredients of pure white terror: the laundry, dead mice, and a shower nozzle that hung between a circular shower curtain above the drain in the cold, cement floor. The cement floor somehow got colder when it was wet, even with warm water.

No one really used the front door too much, but it was in the back of the living room. Everyone went in through the side door. Opening that, you'd walk through the breezeway and up a few stairs to the kitchen door. From the kitchen, you could go left or straight. Left led you to the only bathroom, which was quickly to your left, and down a fast hallway to Grandma's bedroom. Going straight from the kitchen, emptied you out into the living room. In the living room was the always aging 60's television, a couch, two ratty recliners, and a fireplace. Against the far wall was a desk his Grandpa used for work and bills: to the right of that desk was technically the front door/to the left was the staircase.

Little feet pitter-pattered up the carpeted steps, which led up to a wooden wall. A bedroom was to each side of the tiny landing. To the left was Grandpa's room/to the right was the boys' room. That was the room his mother and uncle and aunt stayed in when they were kids. It still had their pictures and some of their toys and gadgets from the fifties. When they came to visit, their mom would normally sleep with Grandma; and their dad, if he stayed the night, would sleep on the couch downstairs. So the bedroom upstairs was theirs.

They'd make shadow puppets and try to quote movies from start to finish quietly until they fell asleep. One of his first memories at his first house was when his brother took him halfway down the stairs to prove to him that mom and dad were Santa. In the bedroom up there at Grandma's, he told him that mom was also the Tooth Fairy. They stayed awake that night and sure enough, a familiar red robe floated in steps and bartered a tooth for a bag of quarters that was slid underneath the pillow of a giggling head. He tried to pretend he was sleeping, although he heard his mother holding back a laugh as well.

That room, that house, that nursery holds so many memories to him. Moving frames at a jerky pace, he shows himself the few remaining images remembered, spliced in with all of the self-made images that still try to connect them into something watchable. This butchered version still cuts out a grin. A ticketless admission.. Maybe the price is paid in age.
26.0

His brother's car pulls into the gravel driveway and is finally parked up to the door of the garage, where a large, black eagle reigns amongst the chipped paint. He gets out of the car and stretches his body into some cracks, while smelling the fresh country air (still consisting of dirt, manure, and the general smells of animals and nature still continuing their symbiotic churn in the ol' factory). Nothing's changed a bit.

Stopping to feel this old memory of a place, he pauses .... then walks around to the side of the house. The sweet whisperings of "shit!" fall through the cracks, as he spots some workers filling up the back of a truck with some plants wrapped in burlap. From the distance, one in particular waves to the boy who began life when he began the job; the boy who's thinking for a second of calling an audible and running for it, as they begin to close the distance. They look down to avoid embarrassing eye contact, until they're close enough to use normal voices.

"Hey, how's it goin'?" The aging worker asks with a bit of a grin to his smile. "Not too bad. Not too bad. Is my uncle here?" "No, he's at home." "Oh, okay. Yeah, I just drove down." "Oh yeah? Is your brother here?" "No, he couldn't make it. He's working. Ssspring break," he points to nothing behind him in complete windmill fashion. Luckily, it does happen to be March. "Just felt like stopping by Gramp's.

"Could you do me a favor? Don't tell him I'm here. I wanna surprise them." "Oh yeah? I'm going over there myself right now. Wanna come with us? We could surprise him now." Tension thickens, almost fogging up his mind again. {WhatamIdoingherehowoldamIAmIreallyaliveisthisrealcanIwakeupnowwakeupWAKEUP! He knows! He knows! Getthehelloutofhere!} Thoughts transpire as a cold drip of reality perspires out of the pit of his arm and slides down to be at his side. "No. That's okay. I had a long drive. Kinda wanna freshin' up. Relax. I'll probably stop by tonight or tomorrow. But please don't tell him I'm here. I wanna surprise them."

"Sure thing," replies the known worker in long johns, dirt, and certain smells. The aging worker and his foreign friend with the smile of gold close the gate of the truck, before they finally drive out of his way.

26.1

The frozen dirt gets the air knocked out of it, while pieces of shoes fall and collide one after the other, carrying him back to the garage again. Turning sideways, he brushes between the corner of the garage and the tall, green bushes that fence off a section of the house from the pickup swervin' sights of the road.

Through the bushes sits a little patio and a door that gets into the breezeway through the back way. Over the unsettling bricks of the patio, there sits the statue of a naked angel; a thin line of rust-colored water seeps out of a nearly plugged hole to drip once again into the cracks of its ovular surroundings. Surrounding this centerpiece is an array of plants and statues of small stature. He immediately goes to one of these smaller ones in the corner and tips it up; amidst the fungus, mud, grime, and living/shivering organisms, he scoops up the rusted spare key.

With a forceful jiggle, it fits right in. Turning the handle and giving it a decent push, the door creaks open. Too busy to be over-whelmed by the memory-provoking smell of the breezeway, he simply steps in.

Greeting him with a silent scream is the wild-eyed face of a boar; still frozen in the suspension of disbelief at its capture, it remains where it's always been: a fixture above the door to the garage. Faded colors of the sixties (green, yellow, and white) decorate the swivel sofa beside him. The bright green, fake grass thing, people usually putt over, is still glued down to those few wooden stairs that lead up to the house. It's got the cushiness of astro turf yet all the familiarity of a childhood home. Ignoring the memories for a measly present, he heads straight up those stairs.

Standing atop the grand green entrance, he looks over to see his favorite of the natural décor: the tightened lips of an ol' deer, wearing his Grandpa's faded sky-blue, fishing hat. It seems to be holding its questions till he's through. From wall to wall behind him, stitched grins of fairly new stuffed stuff remain star-stricken with the prodigal grandson's return. Unwritten plaques are held to their chests, as they remain caught in the wide open stares of which he stands above, glimmering in the blackness of their shiny eyes.

An underfed porcupine, still stuffed from head to toe, stands on a flattened rock that sits on the counter below the rail of the stairway. Scores of thick needles shoot up all over the beast that guards the door better than any gargoyle ever could. Feeling around under the railing, his hand just feet from its poised face, he finds the spare key.

The door speaks Creak. "Hello? Is anyone here?" No answer. He walks in. A cold chill finds its way in through the cracks of his clothing. In a wave, hairs all over his arms, legs, and body sit up in attention and watch the goosebumps as they begin to spill over his skin. His Grandpa keeps the heat off all winter in his Midwest home while basking in the soaking rays of the Sunshine state. "It's your grandson." His worn shoes carry on through the kitchen, if ever timidly aware of the shotgun lying beneath his grandfather's bed – perhaps awaiting the day it will explode in the ecstasy of finally taking a human head.

Heading through the living room, he finds a dead zebra and llama's head hanging on the walls above without a single fly or whiff of odor. This is the room where life has seemed to stop, if but abruptly, right down to catching the expressions on the face.

Standing by the staircase, a re-wounded face watches as the back door to what was once his Grandma's bedroom slowly opens back up to him. This is the room his Grandma caught him red-handed and drooling over the bra section of her huge J.C. Penney catalogue (the same catalogue they ordered their Christmas gifts from). That's the bed his cousins and he jumped on while laughing through his first Weird Al tape. His cousins, who were younger and more than a little deprived of such outside humor, laughed their laughs off at the belch in My Bologna. (God knows if they ever heard any of the originals, thus the reasons for the satire.) But this was her room, right down to the blue tint of her hanging chandelier.

Passing through the small room with large memories, he exits through its other door, passes by the basement, and slides a wooden door open. Once in the tiniest bathroom in In, he slides the door shut and clicks the little, white lock.

The nice soapy smell highlights through the nasal passages to meet a familiarity. He looks down at his only breakfast bowl to find about an 1"and a ½ of well water. The fly rolls down the separating strings of a brass cob web. The spider reaches its head out from the -illions of thin legs to peer down at what lies below. Venom burns the skin lying along the insides of its lips, as the poison pours over - polluting the tainted waters below. All of a sudden, be it from the toxins or not, his body goes into convulsions when the spider un-lays the last bits of its used kiss. More rusted water, meaning well, bubbles up to grab the venom and drag it down to some of the un/ob-scene places below.

His shaky hands stuff some of his stuff between the wooden legs of his Grandpa's bed, packs some of it into the unused spaces of an upstairs' closet, and even jimmies his Kurt calendar between the couch bottom and the living room carpet. As hallucinatory a state he may seem to be in, he's fully aware that his uncle will use the house during their mandatory "pop break".

Not wanting to go down (on) in the basement, he gets the last of his stuff off of his caliced hand and into a downstairs' closet, before he finally collapses into his Grandma's former bed – feeling safe. Staring at the ceiling, his blank mind won't stop running. {Am I really here? Is this even possible?} As if you could pick your favorite place in memory and have it nearly the way you remembered it for a hiding place - to hide from the whole world and those who put you into it.

Dead tired from pushing himself so hard into this hole mess he's put himself into and afraid of something spilling out and having everyone know, he grumbles to himself as he gives his girlfriend a call in regards to a promise of updating her about his sticky situation.

He releases his finger from the hole to watch it circle past every number under her last. "Hello," the old greeting of an unknown aged woman. (-click-) He breathes loudly for a breath then takes a stab at her home number.

Ring. {No! Stop. That's enough of that, you.} Ring. {I'm sure she's not cheating on you, fool!} Ring. .. {And she wants to get married.} Ring...... {You can be fifteen and go to a drive through wedding.} Ring........... {Of course, you couldn't drive.} -ing................ {....what an engagement.} Ring. ......................... Ri- (-click-)

"Shit. Where the fuck is she?" {bitch.} He dares. {That.. fucking bitch.} "Where the hell?" He lies back onto his Grandma's old bed, his legs hanging off - his gray soles barely brushing over the carpet.

{"Mom! He's not coming back! You're going to have to face it! He's dead." "No, he's not! No, he's nauauauught!" She falls to pieces in the arms of her remaining son. His funeral is well attended. His girl reads his last piece; the one he mailed her just before his self-made accident. Everyone cries hysterically through their weeps. Later, she makes a book out of all the pieces she found in his room and sells it. The hot topic's whether it should have been sold posthumously or not - without the consent of its author. But it goes nationwide; a number one bestseller. Stars all over Hollywood remark on what a tragedy his death was to the world and how he could've been the next really important writer of the century. Then one day when his brother is dropping roses against his tombstone, he walks up behind him and says something really cool that somehow gets captured on camera. Everyone finds out he's alive. The world rejoices. Wars cease. There was no crime in America the whole night that it was over the news. The world's favorite writer begins writing again to an earth's delight, and while kids are reading about him in 3rd grade history books..} Breeeeng!!!! (The alarm: buried places beneath the gravel driveway, loud enough to alert the workers in the field to come to the service of a customer). "Fuck!!"

He runs halfway up the staircase then runs back down. Stuttering feet stammer him into the kitchen by the breezeway, where he grabs a forgotten bag and runs back into Grandma's former bedroom to stuff the old bag in the closet. He does all of this while looking at the windows, mind you, like a thief in the searchlights not finding a shred of darkness for the daytime. Then, as if he were a burnt out assistant running from the dead life he helped create, he runs hunched over into the living room and looks through the side of the window. A white Cadillac, full of talking heads turning in different directions and a driver that faintly resembles his aunt, drives on by the front of the house. Looking back to the breezeway door across the way, he hears the horsepower at full gallop beneath the white-hooded engine that could .u.. .i. .p(.) Facing the window, his dark face finds only the rising dust lightly beginning to fall back over the driveway.

Leaving everything well hidden and locking the doors of the house as he leaves, he race-walks away from the closing screen door of the breezeway. Un-borrowed wheels tear the car away from that place.
27.0

"Shit." {They must've seen my brother's car.} "I can't stay here. I'll just live in the car and find a job or go to Sin Sea." He actually talks to himself this time (if by way of indirect mutters).

A red-tailed hawk circles high above his busy head. Somewhere, not so far, a younger brother is watching Tom and Jerry with his brother in their grandma's house. And while watching the cat's face flatten into a shovel, there's no way that poor child would ever dream of peeling away from there in his brother's car, beating its stolen steering wheel with his bare palm, cursing God and family with an uncensored version of profanity - again and again. Cursing everything and single one, even those who used to make the bad things, like this, go away.

Thoughts that entertain an inner child come and go; like if he closed his eyes and thought back hard enough, could he actually be that boy again and never come back to this side of him again? The wheel vibrates for the splittest of seconds - the reverberations shortening with each meaningless hit. The beautiful/blah wheel hardly ever gets hit on or even noticed for that matter. Maybe it's done up in too much leather. Maybe it's tired of turning from everything it thinks it's heading towards. Maybe it is impossible to turn from all the mileage turning down beneath it. All the use. Disparaging the days it would easily spin through people's fingers, it is completely in the dark to the reflected screams projecting into the hardened arms of the windshield. "I wanna die-I wanna die-I wanna die-I wanna die!" No longer caring if he hears, "Please Jesus,....kill me."

Miraculously, no death glides down from the heavens above, making him feel bitter towards something that could very well have given him the answer to the question he's been meaning to ask since well before he came down to this. This is the first time he's gotten onto his two feet to find it. It turns with the turns of the winding street and ends with him winding up somewhere in town.

27.1

"Coffee and a hamburger please." He asks this carefully in respects to not saying "booger" instead of "burger"; his mind sometimes tricks his mouth into saying things it knows he wants to avoid. Another brain to mouth flaw frequently occurs when he's chewing a mouthful of food and his brain knows that he's about to bite into his cheek, while he's chewing a mouthful of food; so it purposely sends the message to his jaws to bite down faster and harder. The jaws do it; not like they could stop it. ..The impulse. The green ropes hanging down from somewhere above. Not like any other part of him would mind.

His shifty eyes shift down to the hamburger he wants nothing more than to not eat. His stomach isn't hungry. It's not full or in need of excrement. It is swollen over and pushing his guts into the smothering walls of himself – pushing through the loss of feelings. The lost feeling's moving slowly up his body towards the guard-dropping barriers around his soul. He sits long enough for the scorching coffee to get cold.

Old men with glasses and A-typical suspenders are looking at him, not caring if he notices them looking at him. Caring that they're looking at him, he decides to divorce himself to show them. With no hands, he blows a kiss at one and licks his upper lip slowly in an erotic manner at another (with as little eye contact as possible). Sometimes, I swear, it's as if he's asking himself "what would Kurt do?" (wwkd).

27.2

Passing the bait shop, pickups, and ice-cream shop, he decides to waste gas over toward his grandma's house. She moved far from the nursery after the end of her forty years of marriage. And just so you know, this is not the house he lived in with her after his parent's divorce. Looking a tad hectic in the sagging left side of his two-faced complexion, he carefully swings the car into her subdivision.

Slowing turning into her street, he spots her yellow Cadillac sitting in the driveway. Not knowing why he's there in the first place, he turns around in a driveway, reaches down between his legs, and pulls up a white cup with an ass of gold (the ass containing the remains of his cooled off coffee). Pulling up to a stop sign, his wrist flickers as if in a demonic jest, pouring coffee over the whiskers under his chin and into the long sleeves of his white, long-johnish sweater. "Iiiiihh!" Damn brain-to-mouth flaws. He looks down on himself in disgust. Beat red from the luke warm coffee, he completes his elongated "u" and pulls out of her subdivision.

The high school is just down the winding street. He passes the old fellows' home then merges into the lines of teenage drivers, who are pulling out of the school now while its tractor beam is being reset by some old man. Driving by them, he enters the huge parking lot (for such a small school) and finds a far away space.

No students are recognized in the infrared of his ever still self-embarrassed face. He watches as they have some of them marching up and down a field and others running in circles. Some of the others remaining have taken to their cars for some sort of breather hole, thinking themselves as free if but in the breath of chilled air though unable to leave the place. The runaway with coffee soaking through his sweater stops to actually feel sorry for them. Standing at the doors, they meander slowly from side to side like cattle thankful to be lobotomized instead of inside the slaughter; slowly they sway, mildly laughing, frowning, repressing worries, and watching as the tan boy takes off his white sweater.

His bags are still at the house, but luckily there's a black, button up, long-sleeved, jean shirt wadded over the passenger seat. He put it there just in case he got cold. He throws his arms through the sleeves and buttons it up while shivering and finding this one girl, who's standing at the doors watching him. If she would only come over and take him in.... He would drive off angrily, dusting her behind. He has a woman, even if she isn't here ..or answering the phone.

He bolts back from the freezing silver buttons, as they just graze his skin. {Hope she didn't see that.} Not that it would matter though. He's got his woman. He doesn't need her or this place. He's been here before. This is the school he put a couple of quarters into back when he was a freshman; of course, now he's a senior, which is probably why he hasn't recognized a single face. Then a face comes to mind.

Somewhere downtown, past that fourteenth wonder of the world (the courthouse tree), and over the tracks sits an old friend's house. A friend he ate lunches with, played football with, tag with, rode bikes with, and crapped around the town with his other neighborhood friends with. He included him in with them since his first day of school. He probably wasn't one of the brighter friends he ever had, but that was a time when anything bright was a sore offense upon the sight. A blue starred reminder of the school he just came from - the shining spot of In. But of all of the friends he's had, he was the one who didn't seem to mind he had a bigger heart than the rest. That's something our favorite senior has tried to stay close to. Being a head can change its mind and all, a heart seems to be the one that'll last to the end.

27.3

Scaling down the twists and turns of a long snake-like road, the tread of tires beneath roll him by all of the beaten down dwellings that could barely pass for rural housing (from the outside at least). Independently, he drives on moderate to slow, checking out each one along the way. The house of his southern friend was white, he did remember. If that helps. There was an aqua green attachment to the side that acted as a kind of carport and a basketball hoop attached to that. And if all is well, the house should still look like that, and they should still live there, and it should still be white, ..right? Hell, it's only been three years.

{His house wasn't this far.} He turns into a huge bump – the exoskeleton of a driveway, hardened at the years gone by. Looking frantically at the curved road, there's no way to tell if a car is coming. Squinting and stretching his neck, he sets his neck, eyes, and body back to its original defaults and guns it out and into the opposite way he was just driving. Nothing for once. Traffic had been mildly busy on the way down the street. Looks like things might be looking up after all.

The gray car passes the same old man mowing his yard that looks already mowed. He pulls into a side street that quickly ends up as a dead end.

Turning around, he goes all the way back up to downtown before turning around - again. The conservative runaway has it in his head that he's going to turn into every side street down the damn road, so he can consider it covered. And here he goes. Nothing on Lori. Nothing on Elm or Kline. Nothing down this one on the left, so he drives across from it and heads down one on the right. Down around the long bend, he finds yet another "No Outlet" dressed in all black within bright yellow surroundings as if in morning; it must be a sign. "Shit." The sun is starting to set. He lifts up his headlights and heads back down to the main drag. "Screw the side streets."

The houses begin to look the same. White blurs in a darkening day. He passes the same cars, the same old man. Following the street with a will only to see it to the end out of stubbornness, he glances at a gutted out garage of a house. Eye-sick holes stretch from his frozen forehead to the shingles of the far-from-pure white house, as he passes it. "ChYah!" He sort of says something in thrill. Backing into the driveway, he finally puts it into park.

The runaway clears off the passenger's seat a little, just in case his southern friend takes a ride with him. He throws the tape case off of the seat and into the back. The hostile coffee cup is fine on the floor mat of the passenger's side. The freshman, who let himself go, finds his weakened eyes in the rear view mirror. He notices this sad "I-feel-sorry-for-you" look in them that he doesn't particularly feel at this time. Trying to turn it into a meaner mug, he squints his face and relaxes his eyes, reassembling to resemble a look of confidence (his new role: a politician with a hidden agenda). This way he doesn't look like he just committed a crime and is wanted by the police or something as foolish as all that. Running his fingers against his hair, he pushes the longer, wavy parts out of his face, resting the uncooperative strands behind the rears of his ears. Bits of strands immediately creep out and tickle the tinniest parts of his face, as he gets out of the car.

He walks over to the side of the house and hears a tv playing. "Now, I just hope he hasn't moved." Knock. Knock is knocked to the weak metal sidings of the screen door. Cartoon voices levitate, as a girl, maybe seven, opens the door to the stranger. "..Is umm.. your brother home?" She stares up at him blankly, animated elephants maybe tumbling in her head. The door opens wider. "Get out of the way, Siss. Oh! Hey man. How's it goin'?" The runaway can't help but smile for once today at the sight of a familiar face. "It's goin'." "Haven't seen you in awhile." "It has been awhile. I moved," he says as if he should know better. It's been three years. "Come on in."

"Want something to drink?" "Nah, that's okay." "Have you seen this?" He nods down to the television. {The Lion King?} "Yeah." "Yeah, my sister just bought it. It's pretty good." Slapped smack dab into the surreal, he finds himself actually sitting with them to watch a minute or so that feels like half an hour.

Well after he couldn't take anymore, "So how ya been?" His southern friend asks in pure politeness; eyes still to dusty glass. "Fine. Fine...... Been living up by the lake. I'm about three and a half hours north of you." All the things that can be said without thinking. "Oh yeah? Dang," he replies, dazed within his fascination with the animated boar.

They continue to watch that rat bastard movie, while the runaway tries not to watch them watching it too much. He fell asleep during this one at a theater in Virginia while sitting next to his brother and happy-to-see-her-sons' mother.

His mother blows into the room much as a thickly-wadded up piece of white-colored trash would have. "Who's your friend?" A nervous smile of teeth is fitted in our perspiring chops nice and smug. She smiles some caution back. "Oh, this is my friend. You've met him before. He moved a couple years ago." "Oh yeah? Where'd you move to?" "Up north by Chicago. It's nice. It's right by the lake." "Did you graduate yet, or do you still go to high school?" "I'm a senior. We're on spring break, so I thought I'd visit my Grandma and some friends." "Oh yeah? Where does your Grandma live?" "Over by the hospital." He replies, forgetting that she moved to the house by the high school. He sticks with his story though; changing it could result in some sort of rightful incrimination. She must really be into this story though, because she's opening up another chapter.

"Where at by the hospital?" "On Third St. It's a house on the corner." "What's her name?" {Damn, woman!!} "Helen," he responds simply. "Hmmmm. I have a friend that lives on 3rd. I don't believe I've ever met your Grandmother." There's an obligatory head shake being made here. "No. (-shake finishing-) That name just doesn't sound familiar. (-shake done, icy stare beginning-) What's the address?" {Oh, what the fuck?! Damn sunova-} "1402 E. Third St. It's a white house. ..Two-story." Next chapter.

"My friend lives right across from there! She lives at 1405! ..Huh. I thought a bunch of boys live over there. I see them playing there all the time." She speaks to him as if she were a let go member of the new Acquisition – perhaps banished to the New World's land of In; her black powdered wig, slouching to the already chosen side. Burn him!! "No. That's where my Grandma lives." "Huh."

"I've been there, mom! That's where his Grandma lives." "Oh. Well, I don't doubt him." Her big-boned eyes continue to search every part of his thin frame for the meat of him. "It might of been my cousins running around. They visit her all the time." The story ends the way it was originally intended: his way.

Two or three out of the four of them lean back into the movie. {Finally, back to the movie.}..........(song number)............. (pack of hyenas)........... (James Earl Jones in another rare voice-over)...... {"Run away!!"} to quote some not-so-nearly-as-brave-as-they-thought knights. "Come on." His southern friend finally takes the stand. "Sure." He follows his friend into his bedroom, where the door is shut and locked.

27.4

It's a pretty clean room for a high-schooler's. "Sorry 'bout my mom. She's kind of nosy sometimes." "Ahd.. didn't bother me." {Pinocchio ain't got nothing on her on his worst day.}

"So how ya been?" His southern friend sits on his bed and shoots hoops with an orange Styrofoam ball. "Not good, man. Not good." He slightly chokes on the "ood". Our verbal admittance sounds like an alcoholic finally admitting in front of bunches of strangers and himself that he has a problem. "I stole my brother's car and ran away from home." His friend's face turns into a perplexitous mix of understanding and sadness as he says "oh yeah? Dang." A tear falls for himself down his turned face.

The tired runaway, who somehow knows the seriousness of his situation somewhere deep within, sniffs up the heated snot. An "Uahhhh!" is brought out from the lower places within; this is done in order to regain some dignity for breaking down in front of another male. At least it went fast.

"I just need to get away from all of that for a little bit." "From what? What's wrong?" "Everything. Just.. everything. I'm sick of my life. I can't do it anymore. I can't stand to be around anyone. I need to get away from everything, so I can think!" "Yeah. I understand." If only he could.

"I need a job. You know of any place?" "Um, Noble Romans is hiring." "That's right. I saw their sign when I drove in. Does it pay good, you think?" "I don't know, but it's a job." "Yeah. That's true. Something's better than nothin'."

"Where ya stayin'?" He looks at his friend, who only an hour ago was merely an abandoned friend bordering on acquaintance. I say "abandoned" because our favorite freshman at the time never told him he was going to move. "At my Grandpa's house. He's on vacation in Florida till spring. That'll give me a few weeks to get a job and gather enough money to get a small apartment." {Of course I'm going to have to lie all over the application.}

Changing the fluctuation of conversation, "Who's that?" He points to a picture above the dresser. "That's my fiancé, my dad's x-woman's son's girlfriend's daughter." "Really? I'm with my dad's x-woman's son's girlfriend's daughter (!) – only the "x" is silent. Actually, we just got engaged a week or so ago too!" "Oh yeah?" "Huh. Isn't that odd? We're both engaged to our dad's woman's son's girlfriend's daughter."

"She lives out in Brown Town. It's about thirty or forty minutes away." "Hah! Mine lives about twenty or thirty minutes away! Wishagin City! Wow, this is weird." "Hm. Sucks. I only get ta see her every weekend or so." After a loss of yet another empathetic cheer, a former Scrabble champion is at a loss for words.

"..I really need a job. I don't have much money left." His abandoned friend digs into his pockets, while the oblivious runaway goes on to say, "There's no water at his house either, so I might end up using the locker rooms at school. No one would ask any questions, I bet. I used the showers at my school for a week, when we were out of water." "Here." His southern friend hands him a few bucks. It's all I got on me right now." Our king of the runaways is thrown not only by his gesture but by how little the amount is. "Naw, naw well.." He shoves the money into a jean pocket. "Thanks." He nods his head, unable to make eye contact; clearly the defeated male.

"Hey, you can take showers here! In the afternoons! I'll be the only one here." "..That'd be great." His very best southern friend moves his head closer and gives those cautious eyes that read like "Move in - I'm going to talk confidently now, so no one can hear us behind the closed door." "If something happens, like your Grandpa comes home and you need a place to sleep, my parents would probably let you sleep here." "Noooo. That's cool. Thanks a lot though, man. You're very cool for all of this." Some people are a little too nice for words - and too nice for themselves. But the runaway doesn't want anymore complications or, to say it short, anything to do with his mother.

"Come on. Let's go see about that application." "Oh yeah." The runaway's thin skull squirms as the thought penetrates.

The southern pair steps out from the screen door. His mother's by the side of the house doing what nickel job gardening work there is. "Mom! Can I go with my friend to help him get an application at Noble Romans?" She looks over in puzzles, forming a face of anger; a puzzle his brother and him could never find all the pieces to when they were kids, ironically when at their Grandpa's.

She looks the wholesome runaway up and down, much as an elderly man once did as he "greeted" his brother and him at a new church (they were wearing puffy, dark-colored red and blue Cavareches). Behold, the former trendsetter of southern In has returned. "No. Why don't you stay here." She shakes her head and faces it down to her dirty garden. All 17 years of him stands there looking shocked, of course; not fully understanding the mistake of his only southern acquaintance. This is the end of his friend.

"I gotta stay here." Eyes read like another secret, and he moves in again. "But remember what I said." "Hey," she yells up from her garden to her son. "Get over here!" "Yeah." The runaway shuts himself into the gray and turns himself the hell away.
28.0

The sun goes down on the moon's rise. Behind that, the skies pull up their black gowns before mourning. The same stars that flicker like candles of prayers above his loved ones are being blanketed over with a closing curtain of smothering smoke that drifts out from his bowed head. This haze inside his head pours discretely from the very holes in his face that he dreams of nothing more than to crawl into. It drifts out to the front of his car, then it spreads along the country roads and collects throughout the town in a way that the locals will probably be fooled into thinking it as fog.

An old wish of perhaps someone's first-seen star sits shivering in the car, parked in the parking lot of a poorer woman's grocery store. The ever Noble Romans have retreated, literally into the hills, from the clock worked strike of the Minute Hands. Time sits like he's waiting..... Waiting for it to get darker, before he goes all the way back to the nursery.

A chill blows out from between the two, puckered lips of a breeze (nature's natural queef). It brushes a hollow sound along the body of the car. He turns the battery (tape player) off and takes the key out to be placed onto the passenger's seat - a ring full of rings, which are unused in the process of a poorer man's engagement. A shopping cart's wheel is in high squeal from a shortening distance. He shrinks down in the driver's seat.

The shopping cart's pusher pushes the cart up to her car. Within her view, but not really, he taps his steering wheel while looking to the front door of the store. Then he looks to the center of his dashboard and gives just enough of a look of over-acted frustration to pass for a part in a silent picture. Within his super-peripheral vision, he catches her looking away from him to concentrate on her own business: Transporting Bags from the Bad Cart to Her Trunk, LP.

Unconsciously, he thinks about sex; I guess, because every male thinks about "it" so many seconds of the day, according to scientists and male gynecologists. When her car leaves, he reclines the driver's seat and lays back on his side. His bony knees hurt when they rest against each other, so he separates them (unable to put a blanket between).

The sky's embarrassed skin fades from dark to a broken street light's black. Bored with an anal paranoia, he goes for a drive using the {save-every-ounce-of} precious gas. Without being money drivin', the car carries all 121 pounds of him around on its lap. His head feels empty. There's no thought pattern. There's no thought. Everything is apart of this el o n gated daze. Example: when you see someone staring off in some direction but not focused on anything; there's a zombie-like look to their face, and you know they may be self-consciously eating their own brain during that moment. But he's not just doing nothing. He is the character in a daydream, as always; but in order to use the eyes within, he must shut down the cognitive portion of the ocular transmissions. To break it down: In a normal daydream, your body is frozen while your mind goes through the daydream that it's having. A body and mind cannot function together well during a daydream, as the mind is giving itself to the portion of you in your daydream. The body must stop so that the mind can use the body within the realms of the dream. But in his case, the only way to see this epic daydream through is for the body to help work it out, as the daydream that's now unfolding has somehow taken a turn from the inside out. He's driving aware that he's doing something of near biblical proportion in his life; but, as if he were in a daydream, he thinks it will all work itself out somehow by the time he wakes up. It's like a rubbery protective barrier, keeping him from what he's driven himself to. To realize it would be too devastating for the mind to figure out and handle. In consequence, he wouldn't be shocked or appalled at all if he woke up in a drooled mess, resting on his study hall desk.

Great flakes of snow fall sideways, like a tramp stopping his run with a stutter-stepping heel against his windshield. The wipers sweep them over the shark fin of dirt and white precipitation. He drives downtown and around where he used to do his paper route. Thicker wheels roll over the paved earth now. Jobless and a model of who not to grow up into for school children everywhere, his runaway eyes can only look at all of the headlights that pass by. Blue spots, unable to be focused upon, dance somewhere between his eyes and the brake lights ahead. He squints at the windshield of the next car that's following the dotted line towards him, still wondering if people can see his face when he drives by or if the headlights are too bright.

Steering somewhere beneath the blue stars, he gives it up and tries to flashback his life to some music in his car, like Stallone did in Rocky IV. This is somehow harder than it seems, but he forces some: his first kiss on that bus, sitting on the steps of the bridal store to get an answer from above, stepping onto a stage to read his first piece, high-stepping up onto a church table on a bet from his friends only to cut his head on the sprinkler in the ceiling. He grins a bit for a first as he continues on to nowhere, remembering the half hour arm-wrestling match and playing volleyball with those girls and his old church friend through the ends of the night. Then he straightens out his smile to the thoughts of when he told his friends about his parents' problems and that they were missing the last day of their beloved church; he can't help but remember when his father told them in the car about his leaving them; he shrinks his eyes to the seated cop as he's coming towards him. He pictures her a.. {!!!!!}

As if Real Time could suddenly slow down for its younger brother, Slow Motion, to catch up, their eyes meet and ask each other uncomfortable questions. Slowly passing each other like knights wrapped in too much metal to fight, the runaway on a fleeting whim decides it would be in his best interest to sport a full open-mouthed grin (complete with teeth). If that seems out of character to you for him, it is. Trying to act loonier than a wascally wabbit dancing around the gun, his orange, webbed foot is drawn to stomp the gas pedal to the off-centered mat.

{I just didn't see him!} He shivers and now begins to duck down. His nice warm stomach matches his freshly carved smile, glowing in orange on the inside. "Where the fuck!?!" {Quick turns, dumbass!} He remembers from his bike rides to the paper route that there's an alley leading up to the middle school on this street. If only he can remember where that sharp turn is.

While the rear view remains hypnotized on the police car T-ing the street, the mirr "There!!!!" The car brakes, backs up, and swerves right. The bumper lazily smacks the toughened tar, as it rolls up the inverted, steep slope of the alley. Instead of following the alley down along the school to the street, he calls an audible and swerves left. (To the alley's left is a small parking lot, directly across the backs of some residential houses and at the grassy entrance to the soccer/foot/base/kickball field.) He pulls up fast into the middle of the nearly empty parking lot. Lights already off. Keys out. He hides down toward the pedals.

"Oh God! Oh Jesus. Come on! Don't come this way!" This will either be real smart or the dumbest thing ever done by the hands of man; this, coming from a boy who used to always give up when playing tag because of the adrenaline running up behind the terror of being found.

In a pre-emptive strike, the runaway tries to prepare himself for what it's going to be like to go to jail (or "JDC"); that way it won't be as bad. {If some guy named Bubba comes up, you just go crazy on his ass.} His face, he means. {You can snap at any minute, and size doesn't matter. You're uncontrollable!! Remember third grade, all those guys tried to pin you down, and you wouldn't let them. They could barely move you, and do you know why?} Cause that girl you liked was watching. {Because when you want to, no one can take you down. .... And don't forget that hand thing!} When you twist their thumb as someone grabs you.

He hears the car race up the slope. There's only three other cars in the parking lot, and his brother's car is on the outside of them.

That's it. The ride's over. Didn't last a day. {My girlfriend lasted longer!} How embarrassing. Everyone will know that he lost. Got caught on the first night. A spotlight flashes through the windows above him in a sharp swooping manner. "Shit!!" He whispers his terror. Hands down in the sleeves, he hides his head in the back of his coat. For when that special someone walks up to the car to check it out, maybe he'll think no one's in there, not knowing that a little Rambo is hiding in the mud he calls a coat. He uses his mental powers: {There's no one in the car.} "These are not the droids you're looking for." {He's flying down towards the high school!} He builds a fast wall in front of the car that no one's in and pushes the cop car out of his mind and down the other way of the slope.

The police car crunches slowly over the gravel, of which there's more gravel in the parking lot than the alleyway. Motor gently revving --, he hears the small town's finest roll down the slope to the street in front of the school.

Like the stupid girl he's mocked when getting stalked by a jack knife killer, he picks his head up and peeks over the edge of the window to feel his heavy, dark blue leather slide off from his head, revealing the remains of the spotlight and the Caprice's red brake lights coasting down the slope. A piece of his latest pessimism is laughed out of shock. "Oh my gosh," he speaks aloud and thinks {Someone's watching over me. Damn!}

"Wheesheewwww!!" A couple of deep breaths jab into the gut of his grin. He doesn't have a sexy smile like some hunk with an ass so fine, part of it's in his chin; but when he does give one of his rare smiles, it's simply contagious. People know he's one of rare smiles. Maybe it's in the creases of his unused face. Not that it matters, because there's no one there to smile back. Not a friend or foe or soul to enjoy the successful escape with. What little wind there is simply dies down. It's just him, somehow fitting beneath the steering wheel and pinned against the seat. No God. No family. No friends. For the first time, he feels alone. For the first time, he is.

Very soft instrumental music about a boy born with scissors for hands plays, complements of his depleting car battery. His older brother's tape rolls over the wheels and journeys under its plastic shell to get the music smashed out of it for the runaway's sole comfort. A comfort of empathy. He leans the seat back in wonder if he was speeding or if he is reported as a runaway. His weak mind can't compress the tiny bit of information, containing the one face seen earlier that could possibly be the culprit.

Thoughts begin to depress. He tries to see how his future might pan out through the gift of imagination, but his mind is closed and is only opened to the present. It's too late to turn back. He's been gone too long. And in a four hour trip he couldn't begin to fathom an explanation. Couldn't say a relative died or he has terminal cancer, although he may morbidly wish someone did (that way he'd at least have a reason for all of this). He's resting against the prong of a fork that sticks as it sits at the cross roads of his sanity. Everyone around him is thinking of him, but no one can see him. He's in the calm amongst the storm, swirling around him and the life he knew. Everyone's watching the walls of their own rooms, as his dramatic climax unfolds. The later it gets, the drapes are closing; the credits due him have reached their run. Every day's a day where they could be getting over him, but he's been dragging it on. Making things worse. If only they knew, maybe they'd let him go. He wishes for nothing more than for no one to care. That'd make a hell of a more simplistic answer to the questions he's stopped asking. "................Jesus....."................... ".,......please kill..me......huwhuwhuhuw............. ..I can't live....no more."

A chin quivers under those sad words. Emotions spill uncontrollably over his nose and face for the first time since the endings of a divorce. Beginning to numb to each one before they go over, he breathes in inhaling chokes like a swaddled babe forgetting what they want to find a little comfort in their mother's arms. "Please. Please hi..help them....forget about me. ..I wanna die. Please kil meheeheuhhhh...... Kill Me!!" His fist crashes into the seat as hard as his body will let him. "RRrrrrhhhhhhhhh hhhhuuhuhuhuhu," he roars a shiver. "..kill me," he whispers a whisper to the heavens that are thickly falling throughout the lot, perhaps gathering to gain one more.

Face down against the seat, he weeps. Behind his tickling wet lashes, he sees only the backs of his eyelids, which continue to show its lost film of Darkness – for as far as the eye can see. Once in a great while, if their eyes are closed, a poor soul can actually feel the world spinning. Is he the only one who feels dizzy from its spins?

Wishes, that go along the lines of him never being born, slide sideways through the crack in the window. Everything is nothing to him. Words have no comprehension. Feelings are a punishment for being born in sin. His girlfriend can find another; his friends already have. Everyone in his life seems happy where they're at. And he's already prayed to Jesus to muddy the eyes of those who'd care to see – a diversion for them to not notice if he simply steps out. A new life to live or a death to give. Either way I'm sure he'd be happy. Anything but going back to where nothing changes. Where friends bloom and fade away. To another year of school after everyone else has graduated. {I don't think so.} A place where everyone would know that he's the waste. When the hell did he become the bad guy? The loser? The over hearer of gossip, naming him the creepy kid in the corner? There was no progression, just a sharp pain in the gut from that hard hitting day when everyone in his world found out just who he is and where he's at. His mother will turn to salt for all the times she'll look back on her baby, and his father will burst into mental flames. All of the "So where you going to college" people will point disgustedly at his back and mock in his muck. Where does a person go when they can't remember the last time they were so happy their face made a smile?

28.1

He rolls over the seat into a dizzy spell. Exhausted and emotionally drained, he sniffs back some of his run in and flips the key after pushing it in. The engine turns with the wheels out of the parking lot, down the slope, and back onto the street to follow the telephone wiring, still buzzing with little to no conversations about him, all the way down to the country roads.

The sky is clear for once, but he couldn't tell for the clouds that have fallen. Love is gone - love for lovers, love for life, the love to dream. Disguised voices call from the fields stretching around him, from the unmowed weeds that sway. "No." A runaway answers himself after asking the question of whether he should go back to his part of In and stay at a friend's house, namely the retired group leader's (the current multi-sexual, who was the first to be told about his parents). {Going to Grandpa's. Going to bed. It's been a long day.} He might even have a longer one tomorrow.

At his Grandpa's house, he lies all curled up, hearing only the tick-tock granny clock and his deep breaths that slow into sleep next to him. Nice warm blankets take everything but the head; the head covers two pillows stacked like a Shaggy sandwich. A nighttime daydream floats away, shifting his vision straight. He turns left at the little Indian sign.

The gray car blends into the clouds, as it rolls up and down the long hills. All the farm houses lose distance from each other and from the side of the road, as the further he goes the further the lighted houses seem to have been built from the road. Being as there's no absorption for the open fields, the clouds stretch out (as no one's looking) and fan out along the warped country roads. Brights don't help; all they do is highlight the cloud he's driving through. Lights are switched back to normal. He thinks about slowing down, but for some reason his foot won't let up. {I shouldn't be driving this fast.} He brown eyes find the sign, reading "Curve Ahead". "Shit."

The turned wheels carry the car straight towards the curve and the awaiting trees. His foot crashes into the brakes. The car slides through the bend of the long curve, where a huge tree stands unflinchingly in front of the vehicle with all the brakes. He flexes every muscle in his locking arms, preparing for t- "!!!!!(crash)!!!" Missiles of mud shower up towards the black gowns of the star lit sky. The shaken limbs of the remaining tree reach over the car that sits in its sink; overflown in mud, the dirty bottoms of a tire nestles in to what could pass on this night as the tree's own melted feet.

His strong grip over the steering wheel loosens. Deep breath. Put your head back in the driver's seat. Heart attacks the mind's carelessness for the tense feelings pulsing through his body. He thought he had enough control; he just lost it for a second. Maybe the clouds were finally going to carry him over, but he ruined it – like always.

Hair slowly falls into some previous places, as his moist eyes slip back into their sockets. The brown in them dims back in to show off a beaten house maybe sixty-eight feet away. The lights are on, but no one seems to be watching him through the windows. The wheels turn a different way; and in their reverse, he finds it's the way to nowhere.

Headlights are heading towards his dilemma. {Please don't be my uncle! Please don't be my fuckin' uncle's family!} A big truck (a given) with an older man slows to a stop. The runaway looks angrily behind and waves him on. The dumbfounded gentleman in faded blue suspenders just sits there staring with a perplexed look, puzzling over the questions behind his separating face. The man above the gut appears slightly fed up and full of insult, before he finally drives off down the road he should have already been down. "Thank you!" Red brake lights dissipate in the distance, disappearing into the fog and night.

The car grinds, flipping mud about. {Please!} He calms himself into some sort of sedated thinking, thinking maybe a form of meditation will raise his speeder up from the mud. (Funny how the movies can influence us without realizing it.) To his surprise maybe that was the ticket, because it then moved an inch, the inch went to a couple, and it was free. "I'm moving!! It's moving!"

He begins the long journey of trying to forget about taking a long walk or asking that house to use a phone to call a tow truck that he didn't have money for. He would've had to leave it and walk for miles to Grandpa's in a night run rampant with coyotes and hillbillies. Something's looking over him, be it a pair of pointed ears or a higher friend. The elated runaway waits a couple of seconds for the old guy to get a head start.... then continues toward his Grandpa's, driving only a bit slower than previously.

Those classic turns he's taken as an excited kid leads him to the gravel driveway of his darkened Xanadu. Once again, he parks behind the garage. This way it won't set off the alarm that was installed a decade ago to let his uncle know, in the privacy of his own home, when his runaway nephew had just pulled into his grandpa's again. Little bit of the smarts left in him.

Looking for any luggage he might need for the night that's not already inside, he then checks out the house again to make sure no one's there. No lights on and nothing in his hands to carry, he then slips himself back through that area between the bushes and the garage.

Lifting the statue, he feels around for the key.......(feeling around).......... "Shit." He pats his hand frantically over the dirt and living organisms that are catching a breeze and latching onto the fingers that are stuck to his nails. He roughly brushes his fingertips over his pants and goes back to feeling the damp brick. The shaky skin of his open palms scrape over the wet circle of where the statue hadn't been moved for the longest of times. There's nothing there. There's no fucking key! He pats down the dirty bottom of the angel statue again - nothing. The bricks making up the ground? Nothing. Cuticles scrape themselves through the slits of his jeans, letting his fingers frantically fumble through his tight pockets. There's no key - only lint.

Grabbing his key chain, he unbuttons the little, bat knife his Grandma gave him for Christmas and tries to pick the lock. The reasoning behind this could be a sinister riddle ripped directly from the pages of the Detective Comics. He has no idea what he's doing. All he's doing is scratching up the knob.

From outside, he looks in through the windows to see scared animals, no key, and the breezeway where he wants so badly to be. He checks another statue to make sure he didn't put it back under the wrong one. He was in a hurry. This movement finally triggers the infrared, which automatically clicks the outside light on.

Almost running to the bushes, he quickly realizes what happened (but could swear he sees people in the breezeway through the blinding light). {Damn light!} It's the same light his brother and he used to crawl around on the brick ground to see if they could make it to the door without triggering it. Once you made it to the door, you're usually golden. All it does is shoot bright light. That, nevertheless, bothers him. "Damn it!!" With the light still brightly shining in his face, paranoid ears get hard from all the excitement and detect a car's faint engine. Careful to make sure everything is how he left it, he then race-walks back to his darkened headlights.

Dirty fingers scrape through the insides of his car, as it tears through the dust n' clouds. Nothing. "I don't believe this." {I} "must've left it inside." There's no going to Sin Sea or anywhere else. His stuff is in there. He is fucked. He will have to get in that house. "Shit!"

The car tip-toes back by the incredible melting tree and rides over the road, bleeding long, black streaks. Feeling gutted and hung to a wall for everyone to see him in his worst terror, he finishes driving out of the country and back into town.
29.0

"-663." "Thank you." He stands outside of his car, below the bright light pole of the gas station. The heavens left his car gray and caked in chocolate-colored, mud flavorings, leaving him the few eyes of passing motorists and without a single candle to blow out. The surprise of him. Ring! {If she doesn't answer, there's no engagement.} -ing!! A game he plays with himself? {It's late. She's gotta be home.} Ring. .......Ring. .........Ring. ........Ring. ........Ring. ..........Ring. ..........Ring. ..........Ring. ..........Ring. ...........Ring. .........R- Knowing the disappointment, he lets the phone down easy.

Not sure what to do, he just sits there; the car door light fades back at him from the door that's half open. One tattered shoe is in his car; the other's still standing firmly on the pavement. The light acts as a spotlight for everyone to see the character actor, playing only the roles of himself, with no lines but every dialogue and sequence of every scene. On the run, he lifts his leg back in and shuts the door. He feels the door shaking in between the locks and opens it again, before he shuts it with more pull than he did in the last. Sitting there, he stops to think. {The nursery is too risky, Sin Sea's too far....}

Ready to sink down into defeat, the bumper of the car smacks the road, pulling him up the short, steep slope of the alley. With his lights now out, he fits into a middle school space that's a little further back than the last. He leaves the engine running for a minute to get some more heat, then he flips the key back and crawls into the backseat.

The runaway doesn't want to think, he just wants to sleep and worry about the situation he'll have for tomorrow. He blankets his coat over half of his body to hear some nickels and pennies fall out of a pocket. Feeling shy of change, the youngest man wrapped in gray closes his eyes to the hollow sounds of those wishing well.
30.0

Hearing a noise after some minutes, he opens them wide. There's nothing there under the buzz of the street light. Just some scattered raindrops that look like flashlights or falling stars, as they drip past the light, dripping into a dark oblivion that's caught in the framing of a box-cut glass eye. A softer pair stares at a drop that hangs with all the bending veins bulging out from its wet fingertips, before it falls, leaving pieces of itself in a straight, interrupted line along the dirty eye. One falls into an other, making the other fall with it; then they crash into another and another, baited to the name calling and falling right into the separating hands of the others.

Stopping there, the runaway steals the stale car air - lining them up in a succession of deep breaths in the hope he'll fall asleep. In the hope he'll dream a dream that would be so fantastic as to keep him from waking back into this place he's at. The seventh sheep counted upon stops just before the fence, draws up a deep breath, and pulls out a cigarette from within its wool, wondering "what the hell drove (him) this far." He tries counting like he did when he was six under the blue batch of jaw operators. The slit of eyes within the blew gave him gas instead of the needle, and that alone made him happy then - happy enough to remember it some decade later. He conked out around number five, unable to impress them with his extensive knowledge of the double digits. There's no one above him now. No one to take care of him, until he wakes up right. No one in the next room if he should need some comfort from the monsters, moving all about him in the night. All he wants now is rest. A rest from the country cop – arrest from his thoughts - a rest from this whole tiring day. ".......(static sounds)......" The tape will flip on its own, so that won't stop on him. It will stop at nothing, other than by his own hand. He'll be forced to put a stop to his only friend, if he's to ever start the car again. But if there's no heat, he might as well hear the angelic hummings of the crazy-haired boy, born with scissors for hands. Why must we put an end to everything we love?

The top of his head and the bottom of his tattered shoes push against the insides of the vehicle he's shriveled within. Pushed out from the lips is not a single line, if not for the screams of which can only be read behind. His eyelids drape over his brown eyes. Behind those pearls of peril lie a boy in a small bed daydreaming of the time when he'll be standing over children like him – the day he'll be in high school and then college, where he'll meet his wife (because that's where all adults meet their girl and boy friends for life). In the faded Bugs Bunny pajamas with cracking plastic feet sown in, he smiles an ever so precious and innocent one, stretching far behind the door that's opened just a crack. Just like his mom says, he's going to learn everything he can at his first day of school, so he can be a doctor and have a little less than Richie Rich (at least that's what his brother said). After college, he'll come home to his parents to tell them the good news about getting married, "ughh," well ..maybe not that. But everything that happened to them will be just like that for him, and they will always be there ..in the room just outside his doorway. Impervious giants with smiles and photos to show their mirroring progression of him - nailed to the walls, lining up the empty staircase. The very staircase his soon to be wife will be led up and taken to this very room, where she'll swell up into cute grins that will puff her swelling mouth over into an open-faced scream of laughter, when she stands with them to see his now grown body spilling over this tiny spotted mattress he once slept on as a kid. Almost giggling out loud, he covers his mouth and looks over to his sleeping wiser/older brother. The little boy rolls over, curls up, and closes his eyes, holding tightly onto big dreams and certain certainties once read to him by those who knew. The lids to his tiny browns open halfway, just in case his brother's awake and staring back. Swirling circles open in full to see his room is in the shape of a backseat...... He always did borrow his brother's things without giving them back.

He rolls in to a wide stare. The ceiling's dripping down. Coming in through the glass is a single show, where the black sky's the limit to the potential of a pole that stands perfectly still as it remains balancing wires, which are filled with voices that vibrate thoughts that are on anything but him. Years paste faces over his head. Edges of the faces stretch to meet the length. His knees are bent for his feet, unable to reach out with his hands anymore and feel nothing but seat. Hundreds of hanging raindrops reveal a single current photo of him inside of them, a photo of him looking up at them. A single light lit beside each in remembrance, courtesy of the towering post outside. Watching himself in over-rated numbers, he sees himself thinking, remembering where he's really at ..and what it took to get him there. The lessons from school are over. The myth of life is no fairy tale. Preachers and fathers can be reduced to mere human beings. Families are no better than the people who live in them. The fiancé, waiting in curlers and evening gown, never answered.

Lights no longer flash from the picture boxes, giving him what little living room there was. Not one person is taking a stand outside to think about calling the police. No crickets "cricket" to crawl irritatingly through the tiny hairs, creeping seductively on its hands and knees into the ears of his sleep. Fingers shiver as they push in, turn, and jiggle the ridged key out of the bones in the ignition's cheek. He lies back down with his hair shoved against the door. The elbow in his long-sleeved shirt bumps into the tough strip of leather, the size of a fifth of a fingernail in width, running in parallel strides from others like it down from the top to a bottom that hangs a little off his seat. The gray car cradles the thinning bones of an underfed senior, who curls into the feet of pushed away seat belt seat. The padded bench hovers over the vehicle's shadow, lighting up the pavement with colors darker than the night, as if it were a spotlight working in reverse, hiding him high from the specks of street lying jagged below. The hardened tar, shirting the earth beneath him, is a spot alone where billions have walked or stood or slept, as he is, from the beginning of life till now; but less than most of them is most likely unlike him. A whisper can be echoed for weeks through the halls of his soul, empty of any love, leaving only the bitterness panting through the cracked lips of a crazed fiend. Wishes die away leaving only wishless dreams. For the first time in his first and only life, he's lying down for the night without a soul knowing where he's at. And he doesn't care. If he does, he keeps it well hidden from everyone, especially himself. Security's been handcuffed to a lovers' separation. But he is free. A chill pours along every bone in his body at that pleasant thought. A chill like when he realizes there's constrictive socks choking his claustrophobic, bare feet. Then he comes to the realization that he's been wearing them most of the day; he just needs to put the icky, hard-to-stand feeling out of his mind, while he wiggles his cold toes, sweating for the withdrawal.

Thoughts and sleep shake hands with every vein in his skull throughout different times of the night. A very different side to this boy, who used to live in the name of naïveté, imagination, and a barrel full of silent laughs. He'd laugh even at the things that weren't funny just to take the tension away from a friend's, or eminently revealing stranger's, bad pun. It's been a couple of years since this boy's laughed from the gut or had a smile spitting out of his face for no apparent reason. He doesn't joke with people he loves or shine on those he hates anymore. He doesn't love or hate anymore. Your special personality that defines you hydes when happiness fades away. Between the teeth of the chipping gray lies the soon to be object of everyone's worry fading to hate. And if she's the one, perhaps he's been miserably late.

With darkness sitting on the town, an eye creaks open to witness a blur. Darker colors are then refocused on the spine-ridden, leather strips, running down the front of the backseat. Looking out of the window, it's far from morning. The heavens may have risen, but now we can barely see him for the thick of the night. He sits up and looks to the windshield from behind the front seats, as he would in his parents' car on the way to this town. The lights are out in every house within the glass. He lifts his leg over the armrest and pulls himself up into the driver's seat. Sitting there for a second, as if a seven year old sitting behind the wheel of a silently parked tractor, ten years quietly wake the engine.

Bits of sleep dirty his mouth and rip up see-through skin from the insides of his lip. Turning to cough, a head that continues to wear his stinking, stretching face gurgles up a thimble full of spit that had been collecting throughout his free parking. Living blue screens run his two 48 scenery through the creaky reels along both sides of his dazed head. It sits straight and lazily leaning toward the left atop of his generous neck. The fifth wheel steers the hard working, blue collar four into the gravel parking lot of the nursery. In the morning, he's going to have to ask his uncle for the key; then hopefully, he can load up and take off, probably head towards the Sin Sea.

Every minute's harder to believe than the last. Some things the mind has trouble accepting when they happen too fast (or letting go for that matter). In the vivid depression of his imagination, someone will turn around and say "Gottcha!" He hopes they'll all come out soon. He'll die watching the expressions that differ under each of their party hats and colorless balloons. ..It's too late for him. Every wish. Every dream. Every wish was but a dream. Every thought can't imagine himself reaching eighteen.
31.0

The earth salivates in waves, lusting for the heat that sometimes comes between itself and the reddened face to spill into all places blue – till darkness is no longer found in this: a ray. The sun won't rise; it simply sits in wait for the earth to come around and make its day. Not wanting the workers to see him sleeping in his car outside at this god-early morning or ending to the night, he takes off for the town, figuring to go to his uncle's house in a few hours to get the key. This way it might alleviate any suspicions from a city-folk nephew wanting to get into his Grandpa's house at the god-early morning of the day. (By god-early, I mean just before five.)

The car shoots up the hills and feels the fun spill down the curves, away from the growing child. An infection of rare nausea swishes around in his sick stomach, which gives more pain than its size. To his utter surprise he finds himself sipping the paper milk carton in the earliest opening of the Golden Arches he's ever participated in. Gotta love the early rise of the small town chains. He nibbles slowly and cautiously, watching everyone who comes in as if his mouth was as gummy as the rest of them.

Dolled up in that he's dummied down to accept his first Ring! from the gas station pay phone, he knows not so deep down that he won't ever take ano- Ring!........(the shivering, shrinking half man falls through another) Ring! .... .....(and yet falls for anot-) Ring! ....... ..(and yet an-) R- (-click-)

Mumbles gripe through his body as lost signals lose touch with his jaws, leaving the mouth partially agape. Half-mindedly not giving her much of a chance to answer, he finally gets something, "sorry", off from the inside of his lips and rips it a new one under his grinding shoe. He's not about to smoke that peace pipe. Respect for himself is at an all-time high (during this split second). She isn't even by a phone, when she knows it's at a time when a phone call will mean the most.

Shaking the poison out from his ear and scratching at the slit in his back, our seizure with the shaken spear turned to a mere walking cane is hardly scene for The cross/road at his back has begun to lean him into his final bow; an unfondly farewell to what's a head, going down from the weight of everything behind - finally doing him in.
32.0

Tiptoes tow tips of toes toward the front door to the den to try and get him in to get the key out from the mane hair, lined in lying lines drawn out from the lion's neck. He's already got no chance and no money; might as well go for the stash of clothes, in case he'll want to wear more than what's on his back. The key to locking up this nightmare may mean he'll have to wake himself in an even deeper, tighter, and hairier hole than he's already in.

Autopsic shoes lie torn open below the knees that wish to knock above his uncle's doormat. His finger, thinking life long partner to a fifth wheel, pushes for the ring instead. Heavy bootsteps thump loudly toward the door. Within the spreading crack stands his simple headed uncle. There's only one question here: {Does he know why you're here?}

"Hey, you're home." "Well, .. hay there back. How's it goin' fella?" A fairly delayed and somber tone from his usually up-tone, if but in monotone, uncle. "G..good. Didn't know if you'd be working or not." "Yeah, I just happened to step home for a minute.

"So what brings you way out here? Ya visiting Grandma, are ya?" "Actually, I'm on my way to Sin Sea to visit some friends. It's my spring break. Thought I'd stop by Grandpa's for a bit." "Oh. So.. you're on your way to Sin See, huh?" "Yeah, but the key's not under the statue at Grandpa's. Does he have a new place for it or could I borrow yours?" The figure of his uncle's face, impregnated with a mere question, straightens from the curved and complex. "I'll bring it right back." "Well, that's alright. I'll go with you." "..No. I don't wanna keep you from work." "No, that's okay." "....Yo-you're sure it's not a problem?" "Not at all. Let me get somethin', and we'll head out there."

Thus, a {shit} is squeezed like an ointment over the finger-like flesh reaching out from him, pointing away from this situation.

32.1

They walk in through the front of the breezeway, proper; little ears perk up between the beady eyes that take flight to the scratched up knob of last night. Paying that knob no mind, his uncle beats his boots to the misplaced rug beneath. His brother's ol' gun, shot from too many years of inattention, remains facing the corner still paying for its forced crimes against nature, yet still wearing its hardened coat of dirt that's remained through the ages. Everything is remorsefully buried, from the hiding spots and trails to the beloved dog that followed.

Boots step through the door and into a shiver of a home. Grandma's not in the kitchen; Grandpa's not out in the barn. The grandson heads into the remains of what was once a living room and sits straight into the recliner, which is far from being consumed with any kind of separation but will nevertheless always remain his Grandpa's match. Atop the stiff material, he answers in jesters to questions that he didn't listen to, while his uncle sits on the couch and goes on about nothing or something in his town-renowned, monotone voice. Sling Blade brought to the flesh.

There amongst the static of the fireplace, where overflown stockings used to chill and hang during the thick of holiday winter, the purpose of separating lips is finally made out. "I'm not going to lie to you. I know why you're here." Butterflies violently squirm to the scratch, as the shortened wick below his stomach is lit. An uncle – a boy, sitting in the man of his own childhood home, spills out some of the bottled up, caffinated feelings he has about when his parents got a divorce. The uncle, as solid as some of the trees he's planted, speaks in withering quivers. Emotions never seen before by the nephew sprinkle down to the dirt growing out from his uncle's face.

"And I'm forty-some years old. I can only imagine what it must be like for a (nod).. younger man of your age." Agreeing to disagree that something four years ago is why he's sitting here today, our favorite runaway throws the distant future of this moment to the day dreams. Rows of teeth viciously tear into his situation, shaking every shred of it, till they begin to stick to the walls for him to then begin to push-pin each and every one of them to be scene as a possible plan of escape. Sketched onto one of the plain plans is him flying for the door and driving into the Sin Sea. Another shows the pale head of his stick figure breaking down, peeling off the baby brown drips that drop into the sky-blue recliner below.

He sits there hearing the emotion slowly rebuild in his uncle, brick by broken down brick. He sits there staring at him .. with the door in an unfocused blur at the top corner of his left eye; a silent symbol within the moving composition. He sits - catching a word or most of a sentence. He sits there taking it in. He sits there. He sits. Silent . . aging.

"I don't think it has anything to do with the divorce," he explains when the lines shorten to his turn. The runaway blames most of the situation on school: pressures of work undone, absences built to a tower trying to stand in the sand, a lack of conce- {I wonder where this rat bastard buried Boots after he shot her}, -lity to peel back and see any foreseeable comfort in his skin. There might be a tinge of divorce in that, bordering on a touch, but for the most part- "Are you.. (farmer nod) ..on the drugs." His uncle sneaks it in - leaning into his unconscionable fixation with goatees and the devil's candy. "No!" The runaway's face reverts back to its natural color of Hellacious Red #5. This is his freak-in-uncle after all. Could he even know of the existence of drugs? "No. I don't take drugs at all," he says proudly.

"Your aunt and the boys saw you walking around the house when they drove by. Someone said that you were shaking and thought that you had been on some.. (down low – half nod) drugs." {Fuckers! I was probably shaking because I was fucking nervous! I'm a fucking runaway still on the fuckin' run! Who wouldn't be shaking a little bit?!!} "No, I've never taken any drugs, (fucker)." A mean grudge skins the pulsing bones he has to pick with whomever said that about him. "Oh, your girlfriend, we just talked about, said that you had.. (head nod) taken some drinks before you left." "Yeah, I drink sometimes, and I had a lot last night but.. that was last night. I think I'm over it by now," he says emphatically, saluting his belief in alcohol not being considered a drug.

Within the nice, long conversation, the nephew loosens up probably more than he should have, considering his uncle sure as hell did. They discuss how his dad wanted his uncle to forcefully take the keys from him. But he wasn't going to do that. He said that he believed a man should go his own way. And maybe that it's even good for him to take a time out to find yourself (and to soil your oats or something).

He goes on to sit as firm as an oak in his suggestion that he doesn't go anywhere; that the runaway should come to a stop, give him the keys, and stay at his home for as long as he needs. The runaway stands his ground in only one spot, where he sits to tell him he'd rather stay at his Grandpa's house. "I think we can arrange that. But you'd have to call him and ask him. Make sure it's okay with him." {Not a problem.} "But first, let's call your mother. She's really worried about you."

The x-pastor's son calls to find himself nodding on the phone at the blame being the sweet taste of alcohol and of course the dark side of his well-tanned father. He describes to her his school problems and indifference to everyone and their tried and true ways of recorded sanity; in the conversation, he states how he's going to stay at Grandpa's for awhile and work at the nursery with his uncle. His uncle: "There's something about nature and man. It's good to get your hands in the earth." His mom surprises him by saying she thinks that he did good, and that this is a very good idea. He should stay there as long as he wants. He's in "neat hands" over there. And all things said like a true divorcé.

After hearing his uncle call his mother by her first name, they drive back out to his uncle's together (in his uncle's truck this time, leaving his gray right of way behind). His aunt makes lunch after the sheriff calls. His uncle explains to the law officer that the boy's head, although screwed, is screwed on straight. He seems reasonable and turned into the right direction now. The sheriff explains to the mother's brother that he saw him driving around; and when he turned around to find him, he was gone. Thoughts of running from the law disconnect with the local call, as his uncle finishes in a civil salutation with the dim light bar of the law.

After the call from "downtown", the three of them tuck their feet beneath wooden legs. Sitting in an air of awkwardness, they stab through the easily found meat with metal implements and partake over the grotesque arrangement of a tree, taken down and brought back as an abstract testament to the scientific and innovational minds of man.

"Your brother's going to have a friend drive him to Grandpa's to pick up the car." "Oh really? Did he say who?" "No, they didn't say. They left about an hour ago. Do you want to stay here, or do you want me to take you back to the nursery?"

32.2

Frost crunches the grass under his tattered shoes, before he squats beside the lake at the nursery. Fingers dip in to cause a ripple. There's no cream-white ice to ceiling the underwater life sleeping with the fish. The dragonflies must be hibernating in their warm mists, counting zzz's in all the buzz that's a fly about the croaking of nearly everything green. Just when spring takes a step, winter comes back to hang around and chill. He walks over to the gazebo and sits down.

Why is it the space around us appears to be gone during the light of the day? There's only the gray or blue sky painted above. Seems to him that the time he wants space would be during the day and the time to reach for the skies would be when your head hits the pillow at night. Space only comes out at night. The sky's limit is the dusk.

The coldness of the air lassos a drip and yanks it over the hairy ground of an upper lip. His brain, trying so hard to pull up memories to depress, actually feels as numb as his folded up/pressed in bum. Between the crack of his lips, a sweet taste finds its way. He wipes under the red tip of his nose and walks back to the white house down the way.
33.0

In time, the long and short of it hands its minutes and hours to him by way of pointing sharply with unstuck arrows to where he is now within his grandpa's granddaddy clock. They spin around, never fully reaching the top of its center pin and falling out. The second hand ticks and tocks for so long that the ticks sound like tocks and the talk sucks like ticks. In a house, where pairs and pairs of black eye stares repeatedly walk into his sight, ears can be deceiving. Wide open eyes and tightened lips reveal the expressions of those that are caught in surprise that their lives are over. Faces forever seen at their ends hung in homemade "woulds" to see nothing in unblinking eyes but that which could have been - in this - the trapping of all irony: the living room.

In this house, where only man-made clocks are left to run, a stalled runaway stops to mount a disc in a boom'!' box, (a machine he brought without thinking he'd have ever hidden it in his grandpa's faded boxers). A dirty-lookin' indian is set to spin, where a wanted laser comes out blazin' red into the smooth grooves of familiar tunes; a favorite of the brothers - "pals". Feeling shot down, yet covered well in tight skin, is the hole that no one can see to look at him but has been slowly draining the life he should have lived.

Destined to wake the very dead, metal jaws unhinge to unleash a god-awful shriek up from beneath the lot, which conjures up a rise of unconquerable grins out from behind sown gums. The time has come. {Boy, will this be awkward.} Man, this is his brother.

The door creaks open. Awkward faces with awkward grins head into the living room. "Hey." He's pleasantly surprised when his pal then awkwardly shakes his hand. The two sit on the cardboard-soft couch, while our Tuesday morning skipper sticks to the striking match of his blue hot seat. "What is this?" His pal asks. A quick conversation about a hair-band-man gone solo and how this is actually tolerable for his pal: the hater of all things gone pop. "Why don't you come home?" His brother calmly set a blaze gone to hell out of two friends' relaxing banter.

"I like it here. I need to relax." "You can relax at home. This isn't home." "I don't think so. I'm just gonna stay here a few weeks ..maybe a month. I just need to get away from everything." "What's the problem?" With a hesitant laugh lifted up to the younger brother's breath, "You're acting like this is some sort of business deal." His brother happens to be wearing a suit; 25/50/10 says he came straight from the insurance office. His pal smiles to help out his weakened friend's first involvement of emotion. "What's the problem," he restates. The younger brother swallows, knowing he must grow back up into this conversation again.

"School's the main thing. I've skipped twenty-one days, now I can't catch up," he says while looking through his pal's eyes for a brief chance at catching a glimpse of empathy from a fellow alumni of the Hall of School-Cutters. "The school said they'd work with you." "No. I can't handle that right now. I just wanna stay here. (..long overgrown pause..) What's the difference?" "Cause we want you home. Dad said you can take as much time as you want, just come home." His brother stops to bring up some pause of his own. "He was up about all night." "Yeah. Me too." The runaway replies without sympathy.

"Where did you sleep?" "In the car," he replies expecting expressions constructed of sympathetic ears. No ears here, he stares off, unfocusing near the massive rattlesnake with shiny, black eyes, playing a wicked game of freeze tag. It sits in a stitched, sour grin within the bookshelf but beneath the sucking ticks of an aging childhood/grandfather clock.

Stick boys gain pot bellies for their talk has gone nowhere but to the phone on the desk at the end of the living room. Wires, strung like overfed strings over the streets of his present, state his name and very future through a voice that made him and sees him through the shooting electricity (of some crystal balls) suddenly appear in all of the places the son would only see himself as still out of place. "Dad says that you can stay at your pal's house and quit school if you really need to, as long as you just come home. .. .You can have all the time you want," the voice of his father translates through the only voice he'd ever care to listen to.

Our underfed teen looks up to his older brother to see a toughened sadness he hasn't seen since he accidentally hit him in the face with a snowball that had a rock in it. The runaway, who loves his brother apparently more than his infatuation with dirty sleep, feels the frigid feelings of the overwhelming sensations, balled up into a fetal position, roll through him. He hasn't cried but a time or two since he used up all the tears that came with a fourteen year old male. A.D.: there was that dry spell that left his ducts from any kind of water. He doesn't cry here either, but he does turn around though.

After the tears crawl back through the cuts in his soul to wither up and evaporate into the smells of a re-approaching emotion, he comes full circle only to fall in to giving a nod through the lines. His older brother with the longer, tied up hair hangs up the receiver.

"All right. Is there something you wanna do when we get back to town?" Reading his high strung friend by looking to the pictures, "Hey, Pulp Fiction's still showing at General Cinema. If we go now, maybe we'll make the last showing." Overall nods slowly begin to thin out the hard-to-swallow in, thickened air. "I'll call and get times, but then we gotta call mom." "Why?" "Because we should." They get the number from his brother's brain (or palm pilot with built-in air miles) and call for times, while sitting in the waiting wings is a mother faq'er. She starts from the top and goes right down the list.

"You're sure? The school said you could take the rest of the week off, and then you can go back to school on Monday ready to work hard. Why don't you just stay there for a few more days?" "I'm fine. I'd rather just go home. "What about your father?" "My pal said I could stay with him till everyone's cool." "Well, ..that's not much of a place to relax is it?" "Mom! I'm going home." There's a silence long enough to where forty years ago, someone would have hit the receiver a few times and asked "Hello?" "You're not going to drink or runaway again are you? I just don't wanna see this happen again." "Mom! No. It's not going to happen again."

"But you seemed like you really wanted to stay just a couple of hours ago. Why'd you change your mind? Was it your brother? Did seeing your brother change your mind?" "I don't know. I don't belong here. I just wanna go home, now. Get this crap over with." "You're sure? Maybe it'll be good for you to stay awhile. You could work with your uncle." "No, mom. I'll be fine. My stomach's sick. I just want to go home and get all this over with. Everyone seems to know where I'm coming from now, so that should make things a lot easier." "..I know. (-trying to accept-) Well, .. what about your uncle?" "Ah, fuck Carl! Let's go!" His smooth-looking brother shouts from behind him. The voice of their mother pauses to his pal laughing in the background.

Quiet breaths of a genuine laugh, for the first time in a long one, fall out from between his lips. It pours into the tiny, black holes of the receiver only to chuckle down into the Virginian home of their mother, who's going to school to become the pastor his dad used to be. "At least leave a note for him."

33.1

Hands scoop the luggage and calendar out from the hiding spots, while the two wait in the breezeway. With the vehicle packed, they walk outside.

"Any problems with the car?" His brother asks politely, but somehow comes off sounding like he used to when they'd watch Tom and Jerry and his mouth would be full of one of those plastic, Popsicle wrappers you'd suck yourself light-headed trying to get the last drops of juice out of. "Na." A {why would there be?} is reprimanded by remembrance of a tree. "Oh! It was really foggy out last night, and I flew off of the road into a bunch of mud! A foot further and I would've hit a tree! But it was just mud, so it should be fine." Again, sympathy is halted, as he comes to find out somehow he was the one who already ended the conversation.

While his pal insists that he ride with him, a face full of red rises with his brother from the bottom of his car. A quick discussion brews up drive-thru, gas, and a meeting place. After said discussion, a car and a beaten truck tear away from the gravel driveway into the country road by the house that's home to the heavy desk standing firmly beneath a note that reads, "Uncle, decided to go home. Thanks for your support."

33.2

Not much to say about the drive, except the near death experience about thirty minutes from their destination. It was snowing the further north they went, and his pal's truck slid sideways along the icy streets. It slid over into the on-coming lane of traffic. There weren't any cars coming in the other lane; otherwise, the book might've ended here (or ..had never been written?).

His car slid over that bad lane and headed towards a telephone pole off the side of the road. The returning runaway enjoys the it'd-be-better-than-them-handling-suicide situation by raising his arms like he's on a rollecoaster. "Whew! Wheeeeew hoo!" As they're spinning into the other lane, his friend turns to him and seriously suggests, "No. This isn't funny, man. Don't you see that telephone pole? We're headed towards it." But he says that so calmly that it seems hilarious to our suicidal grin, who now sits in a closed-lipped laugh beside him.

They stop half way in the wrong lane and half way in the frosty grass. Without a single headlight or two heading towards them, his pal backs the car up, and they carefully continue on, having shared one of the final touches of this particular tale, quickly turning into his own little legend of a fall.

After the flick of fiction, the defeated runaway, who partly accepted this whole coming home thing by staying at his pal's (to avoid going home), surprises them by changing his mind. "No. Let's just go home. Get this over with."

Their father bolts up in the midnight darkness of the apartment. They quietly shut the door behind them. The returned runaway slowly walks past his father, sitting up like a shadow in the folded-out love seat. His head follows the prodigal son past the walls and into the silence. The two go to bed, and three fall asleep.
34.0

"You sure?" "Yes!" In a familiar gray car, the brothers wait for their dad's woman's son's girlfriend's daughter to arrive. Sitting in tensions is the result of a tightened schedule. Not only do they have to make it to the returned runaway's haircut on time, but then they must catch the bus with Forrest Gump, who's waiting on reels. Other testiness could probably partly be because of her previous tardiness around his brother and partially because the prodigal son told his father this morning about his being partial to suicide and of his full intentions to drop out of high school. A final quarter being too much for our weary soul to spend. His father didn't complain about the runaway or his life-altering situation of being a high school dropout. He didn't say much of anything. There wasn't much to say. The kid had a long enough dick to fuck himself now, so probably the only thing left to do was the only thing left to give: space and time.

They pull up to the street to leave and end up holding for a second. The cock-eyed head of them, not ready to be shot down again, follows the tainted blue color of a car coming down the way. Within the peeling strips and chips of rustic metal turns the smiling, uncompressed head of a woman, namely his girlfriend's. His smile splits. Of the cracks in his lips, forty-seven of them are "I knew she'd make it," fifty-three of them are "please don't think we are leaving without you." The latter tugs control of the entire face.

They go off to the haircut, where he gets one of those I'm-changing-my-life-you-can-tell-cause-I'm-changing-my-hair haircuts that never work. The short look is almost in anyways. Then they go to see Forrest Gump on the screen, where it puts the chocolate in the box to the gayest day he's ever had with a girl and his brother to date.
35.0

A life spilt runs over some days and a few. The son of our weekday soaks his teeth in toothpaste. A brush here; a brush, brush there. He brushes once a day, but he brushes to the blood. Never had a cavity or braces, mind you. This is the first morning in the rest of his life. For this is the day he joins the lines of hung heads, marching themselves into the Curse of Adam. His dad insists that he do something if he's not going to high school. So in the packed red Geo for three, he takes the luxurious trip to the world of adults, to a place that's even further east of Eden: East Chicago.

Yes, a new abel citizen joins the rank ranks, reeking him into them and them into the family office of the busy intersection across from the treeless and greenless walls of Walgreens. And in that crummy office he's going to learn about Insurance policies, standing your ground with customers, making letterheads, trusting no one but each other, how to hear the blaring Mexican polka music from the restaurant in the next wall, endorsements, faxing, uninsured motorist and underinsured motorist, comprehensive and collision coverages, knowing filing procedures, interrupting one of the two blood workers for an answer on something he doesn't know, answering phones, not giving "quotes" until he's an agent, how to tilt a hat and strategically move a high-seated chair/stool to delay front entrance and window vision when taking a mandatory post-lunch nap, the true art of white out, receipts, liability limits, insurance cards that will come in the mail in thirty days with the policy, trash, eating lunch whenever he's hungry instead of at designated times, remembering "little things", yelling back, how black and finger-staining toner really is, accepting credit for something he's not sure he did, medical payments, SR-50's and SR-22's, reading when it's busy because no one asked him for help, how to end up feeling stupid in front of customers he never will nor would ever want to know, all types of personal auto coverages, declaration pages, applications, signatures, exclusion forms, certificates of compliances, putting down the time on anything that has to do with binding, ignoring people's accident stories, why there's an easily learnt motto "don't talk to the customers", putting his typing skills from the recently ended high school to use, why to never fax anything that has white out on it, why to never feed a paper with a staple in it through the copier, learning the time-consuming art of Ebonics and Spanglish "Speaky Spany?", how to run to the bathroom and gag (physically gag!) at people's lack of hygiene, how to watch a cockroach run along the spinning wheel of a c.d. player, how to ignore a mouse running across a light bulb tile above his head, remembering to give suckers to the kids, how to smile when you're beyond self-reproach, and these are just a few of the things involving the wonderful world of car insurance that await him. And for those of you who have done car insurance, brokering, or any of the things said above or in between, can I hear an Amen? Amen!!

Spit and bleeding, used toothpaste swishes back and forth against the cheeks in his mouth. Then our working class hero spits it all out and double spits for that last strand of drool to fall into the sink. He voluntarily slips into something more comfortable: his torn jeans (that Kurt would be proud of/or jealous of) complete with safety pins and slips his tearing to hell gray shoes over his bare feet. Checking out his terrible, barely-above-the-shoulder haircut in the mirror makes him grimace into deep pains. He's been out of high school only two weeks, and here he is already with the haircut of a 9 to 5'er. Oh well. At least there he's got more freedom.

Work is the release in the sex he's never had compared to school. With all the school work, homework, intriguing peer pressures, teachers, mental paranoia, everyone checking you out from gays to straights, opening to the chapter you didn't read, up to the minute trends of hair and clothes, tardies, times a best friend ignored you after you looked stupid in class, overwhelming sets of gills on the fish of the see, denial that the girl who always stares only at you has a boyfriend, remembering that you don't care, band music you only practiced at school that's going to be your solo in a day or two at the big concert, remembering what bands are cool and who's on the out, untucking your shirt to cover the flexing pant pocket, mean awkwardness in the men's shower now that the world's gone homophobic, math problems on this week's test that you didn't understand from the beginning of the year, Saturday classes, having to see and hear such monstrosities as school spirit and fashions of the week, sitting in the library alone during lunch, worrying about crossing the major streets on your bike right when school's out, hearing everyone talk about their big plans together for the weekend and for spring break, clicks, pointers and laughers, having to hear about others' sex capades with the girls you thought had a thing for you, having to be skinny or fat in a cruel world, egos, crushes, eye contact and exactly what the hell that means, sexual tensions and homophobic tendencies, befriending those less fortunate only to make you less fortunate, trying to keep the mystery to you, the legs that torture and the assholes that follow, being likable by the teacher but not a kiss ass, raising your hand to answer just enough times in a week to help with the days you don't know the answers, all the chances to be caught filling in the answers on the guy's pop quiz behind you, holding back your hand from the long curls draping over the top of your desk, and things such as these make work a slice of a totally different cursed fruit.
36.0

The jeans scattered all over his bedroom floor gather four more days of dust and lighter shades of blue, especially toward the knees. Pieces of cereal are frozen in terrors along the white tops of some breakfast bowls. Below, blue chunks of mold lie trapped but living on in an uncut film of milk. The beginnings of life bob up and down the open cans of pop that rot under the sun, which pushes its way past the drapes to pour shadows and organisms into his finished foods. A moving layer of chocolate undulates at the dirty bottom of an unopened container of pudding – a layer of vanilla lies thinning above; topping it off is a bad inch of yellow-tinted clear expirations, complete with floaters.

Breaking the fall for his legs are his feet, as they smack the tight carpet, probably leaving bruises in the floor. Sinking into the softening skin, a blue tone begins to rise within him, as he lies standing up even – pinned in and sinking down till the memory has fully sunk in. Tightening down around him, he looks to the light coming from the window screen to see nothing but the blue stars beginning to fade in and a plot that feels only too familiar to him.

{He sees himself holding his saxophone case with his girl/fiancé at his side. Together, they head down every step that requires a stare from each student pretending not to notice their lost lead saxophone player.

The teacher of his former Jazz band class is in mid-discussion with the lead percussion. The student stutter steps away from the teacher and gives him some "Hey, how-" SHH- "-'s it going?" -WWWWNNNNNNNN!! Sitting at the drums, a kid with the head of a fish (eyes bulging out of his skull and all breath a loss from his gaping mouth) looks up from the crashed symbol to the teacher. The teacher with the beard of steel, soaked in just enough Just For Men to appear black, slowly steers a stern look over to the gaping student, who is perhaps waiting for the flames of Hell to shoot out from his enflamed nostrils and completely engulf him.

"..I'm here," our retired senior responds in fashion, dressed with enough wisdom to fall somewhere between Yoda and a Tauntaun. The student, who shared the "hey" with him, walks out smiling cautiously – the bubbles from his head reading, "I hope he doesn't think I think he's weird or something for dropping out of high school. Because I think he's cool; I hope he thinks I think he's cool. I don't think any differently about those people at all."

"So you're skinnin' out, huh?! Had enough." The teacher says something that's not exactly in the pre-emptive painting of him and the words supposed to be spoken, which had been well drawn out in rough sketches and imprinted against the numb skull protecting his mind.

Finding the words, "Yeah. Sorry to l..ve you like .his. It.. I got a lotta things going on right now." "Yeah," the eyes above the metal beard appear to turn soft. The former sax lead humbles himself by hanging a fragile thought out into the air. "I'm getting help. ..Just a little mental breakdown there." "Yeah. It can happen to the best of us." The dropout looks up to him, feeling very shattered for breaking out the truth - but happens to find a little peace too. "That's a little more than a mental breakdown!" The teacher and the former student turn their stern attentions over to the blond then back to each other with each eye caught reading the other. In that glance, they both seem to know what happened, what will happen, and how all this is going to pan out (although perhaps a bit misread on what happened, if for the introduction of the female). I tend to believe a simple "good luck" was also in those eyes. "What do I do with the sax and music?"}

A dry head pulls its white, peeling skin out from the sink below the bathroom mirror, reflecting a shauk-full cheek to cheek mouth of morning breath. He unleashes his yellow teeth to a full-fledged smile of tartar and plaque in the only way he's ever seen. He shakes his head. His face was huge for only being an inch between the rim of the principal's glasses. In that portion of proportions, the only way others could have recognized him would have been if they kept up with the constant reconstruction of him, if he took that reflection of him to face value. {Feeling about as tall as an unshelled snail, he shook those over-populated veins, snaking around the brittle bones that could only be her hand.

"Now as principal here, I need to make sure you won't reconsider." Silence is his answer. "You know, your English teacher really likes you. And all of your teachers have told me that even with missing the exams and essays, you could still pass their classes and graduate, ..if you're willing to work at it." "What about my Business Law II teacher?" His Business Law II teacher was the teacher of his Accounting and Business Law II classes. When on the phone with his mom in The Green Isle, she told him that every teacher gave the thumb and grin up but one: his Business Law II teacher. Apparently, he was quite "hurt" by his skipping classes for reasons other than various long-lasting illnesses. The guy was very bright. He must've sniffed something up in the wind after, say, absence 11. Although cold, practically anal retentive in every way of over-practicality (scissors must be handed back handle first!), this teacher was somehow well liked by our silent student, who was sort of a caged pet of the well-rounded figure. For that ass to even attempt to throw a crow into the mouth of a boy about to wreck his world, should have been a crime in the form of some kind of child molestation. "Yeah, well," she looks down to the paperwork, "your Business Law II teacher and I don't see eye to eye on a lot of things.

"But I was informed you don't even need his classes to graduate. Just English, your math, and what's the other one? The hist-" "Econ." "Yes, Economics. It'll take some hard work though." "I'm sorry. But I really need to quit. At least for now." "I understand." She goes on to quietly fill out the paper-thin, legal-sized pages.

"If I decide later that I want to continue with the education and graduate, then.." "Then you could either take our summer school for the last semester you missed or we could send you on to Portage Adult Schools. And if they're all booked up, then we could send you somewhere else for a class or two. We can work it out. The important thing is whatever's best for you though. If you don't think you can continu-" "No, I don't." He shakes his head at the carpet. "- then quit. And if you want to continue in a month or two, then you'll have that option.

"I do suggest that you see one of our counselors. It's not mandatory, but I think it would be a good thing to do." "Yes, I was planning on it." "We have someone we often recommend who works with similar situations such as yours. Her name's Ms. Day. She works right across from the high school. We can set you up with an appointment, if you wish."} Dirty fingernails push through the stretching skin, which was used for self-lays or perfect shame in the faces that saw him walk into or out of school with his dad today. A daydream well dreamt breeds life and sees the character on top of the kicking feet, kicking themselves quietly into his standing shins.

He stands - shirt off, leaning over the bathroom sink. The Out-Meet flops around tailless, smearing up the rest of his morning.

Stepping over to his dad's bed, he finds the portable phone lying on the dark brown, jungle blanket. He sits onto the flattened tiger, getting on and off of revolving horseshit behind his well-punched out face. Known numbers breath-stroke through the phone lines, only to reach down with spreading feet for the ring of a Wishagin City phone. "Hello!"

"Well, I'm out." He says rather disparagingly. "Oohhhh. Well, it's for the best, like ya said." "Yeah. I know. It's still kind of depressing. Ya know?!" He tries ending it off on a high note but was unsuccessful. "I'll come over soon." "Good. When?" "About an hour or so. I still gotta drop off Polly." "Hhhh(sigh). All right. See you soon."

36.1

Shoes spin pedals down the sidewalks of unforeseen dreams. That old, faithful invention carries his wedgy/enema of a bike seat and him against the bitter breeze, under the light-colored clouds and above the streets. The sun's been hidden for most of winter. But on he goes. Eyes match the breeze, and they're both packed in filthy bags with loose handles ready to fall or take on this new journey of: Life of a High School Dropout.

An already useless reputation reasonably smashed into many rocks, just waiting to be picked up and stoned against his wishes (bye friends, by enemies, by word of mouth). Brakes scream wildly at the huge rug burning within the white calices, turning gray, atop the well-rounded, rubber toes that bend into themselves beneath.

He chains up the bike and walks over to Star Video. A tag with a number means that Natural Born Killers are once again coming home with him – thanks to a few of his first well-earned bucks. Pinning the tape case with his palm against the handle bar, he rides on.

Wonders are weary from all of the reactions relentlessly re-enacting to the first hearings of the destruction of his life. Class clowns are jumping up and down - their heads spinning round and round. The teachers of their fools cock their grins back and to the left. Relatives of long-last frown. Friends' faces depress and grow into a head of hair. Parents of his friends can finally push their own "Like-a-Son" out of the delicately vibrating lips and egregiously through the tunnels of wax; the same hips that apparently bore him out, turn out of that tunnel and face about with a fist-full of shout, screaming out the things they really thought as if he were really Like-a-Son of a bitch. They do a you-turn and drive away (any memory they have of him). Groups forget prayers. Something in the sky would forget to listen anyway.

He looks out of the drapes for one last time. Without a single headlight stabbing into the night, he slowly turns around and turns off the still, living room light.
37.0

Her every wish brushes a palm across her soft face, as they kiss and kiss under drops of glorious man-made rain. Pouting lips in use thin into a smile across from that dark-haired gentleman, who's transforming her in his mind into a well known moving picture of a long-haired model with a chest full of surprises. He smiles back, politely imagining what's beneath the wrapping of red and the glorious bounty of booty not to be left behind, when.. his sister's shakes in to mind. His eyes and cheeks mash up like he took in a bad bite. "What's wrong?" "Nothing." He smiles, recovering nicely, and pushes his sister off of the pink mattress still unmade in his mind. A wet dream wrings shower water out of her hair. He strokes the real strands, making her almost giggle with joy, while the wet dream steps the rest of the way out of the shower. Slut for strut, she's shut him into the glass that's seemingly reflective of the clear reception of those pining for him in his mind. He turns it down to a notch or four in order to not wake his brother. "Oooowe!! MMmmmmm.." He flips the channel.

{Hope he didn't hear that.} His body shutters at the thought, before he turns it from a twenty-four hour news station back to the free scramble of his scinemax channel. He feels guilty, but not a lot; it's mostly just gas. God must have laughed in devilish delight upon making the muscles that control the male's erections so close to the ones for the bowels. Why should he feel guilty? She's the one who ditched him last night. Supposedly her mom put a ban on her car ever since the trip to Missouri; and the car full of people she was in, again, wouldn't take her all the way to him.

Hearing the complex door swing open, he turns the channel, flips off the tv, and race-walks into his room as the 1a knob begins to jiggle behind him. He shuts the bedroom door and locks it in a single motion.

The fiancé bends down and wipes his clean fingers onto a used, white, bath towel. It peaks the mounds of clothes sifting between the crack in the brown door and the wall. He dips up into his bunk bed and drops right onto his back to stare at the ceiling. No one's called him in days: his old best friend, his other old church friend, his pal, no one. Do they all hate him? Has he gone too far and is now way out there? Is it all a coincidence?? {What the hell's wrong with me? I don't write. Don't work out. I feel just physically drained. Maybe there's something medically wrong with me. Maybe it's a tapeworm. They suck the energy right out of you, you know. That would explain the weird-looking, blister-like dot that's been on the ball of my foot for years.} He recalls one of the few fourth grade science lessons that stuck with him.

{Maybe I'm just really lazy or depressed ..or possessed. Maybe it's in my genes, like from a grandparent. Maybe my-} "Thunn." The television's turned on. {I turned it back to his news. ........ Maybe my time's just up.}

He thinks briefly about calling 1-800-Charter then daydreams about taking an insurance agent's gun and riding his bike out to the lake. {The sand and waves understand.} He wants someone, anyone, to be there and care so much that he starts to barely voluntarily shake. For the splitest of seconds he wonders where he's at, who he is, what his life is like, what he's doing; and then as quickly as it all left, it all comes back. And for a minute, he's sadder than he's ever been.
38.0

He runs quickly, as quick as his legs could possibly take him. He'll catch the man who stole the one he's pretty sure he's meant for. Shoes shoot up bits of ice into the re-gathering veins of air behind him. He's trucking/He's moving. Sweat glistens into a ball that hesitates .. then freefalls down the icy bumps of his neck. "Come here, mother fucker!" Almost there, he raises a stick and hits him in the back as hard as his finger will let him. The body slides across the frozen waters, while the dropout makes the player swing around to pick up the puck. He hits the button as fast as his thumb will let him, putting the Blackhawk down into a fast break situation. He moves left. He fakes right to sell the bill - and slaps it. The slap-shot comes to the right of the net; and yet somehow, unbeknownst to him and god, it deflects off of another well-placed pole and flies up toward the seein' end rows of the crowd. "What the hell?!" "Horse pitutee!" His pal yells. "That's craaup! That was goal!" Crank! The dropout body-checks a guy out of the rink. "Did you feel – that – huh!?" "Oh, dat nice, baabie!" He says looking from the rink to the Ring! The retired senior hits start and walks into the kitchen.

"Did you call the school?" His more than relaxed pal blurts from the floor beside him. A warm stomach slips into mouthfuls. {Oh – my –....} "I don't go to school anymore." He hears his friend imitating an orange-faced Sesame laugh. "Khee, khee, khee."

On a trick play, "it's me" is thrown from the receiver (call processed, seems she's unable to get her quarterback). Lining up in the neutral zone, the corners he takes are bewildered by the yellow flags and a running back running forward for a Y-cross to put the Y in his "hey," as they watch her make the play.. and the call.

"So what are you doing?" "Just hockin' with my friend." "Do you still have that movie?" "Uh, no. I returned it." "Why don't you get it again. I promise I'll be there this time. Ha." "Well, ..all right. That's coo." "You still wanna see it, right?" "Sure." "Well I do. Get it, and I'll pick you up. It'll be like a date." "All right. What time?"

38.1

With a pal shoved out of the house for the unproven mate, the fiancé waits till around six o' clock. And with a downed bowl of fruity cereal, he waits till around six ten. At around six twenty, he's still waiting. But at around six forty, there are headlights that aren't hers, so he's still waiting. It's about seven o' clock when she still didn't show up. He gets into the bathroom and drops his drawers.

He can hear the ocean coming up from a bowl just when nature dirties the water with its most unnatural form of coloration. This is done first so that when the feces is finally shat, it'll splash the piss water against his bending bum. This is one of those things that doesn't seem right to him, but it was the way he was taught when growing up. Must've been. "Go number one." And then what, "Now, go number two." It's in numerical order for shit's sake. It's the same as when he takes a shower: he soaps down his body first and then shampoos all the oily dirt and residue out of his hair, only to have it spill all over his just nicely washed and cleaned body. Why? Who knows. Maybe it's because after he took a bath as a kid, his mom would then wash his hair in the kitchen sink. I don't know. Maybe. It's possible. It's all repressed to him.

He grits his teeth and takes the seventeen year tradition's wrath against the spot where his legs meet, all the while sitting there as if he were the true inspiration behind The Thinker. "Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk," - the dreadful sounds of someone who just ran down the stairs. "Clink, clink!" She uses the extremely loud, heavy knocker, probably because she doesn't have a heavy pair of her own. "Shit!" He whispers to the lonely sights of the bathroom. For additional sounds, effects are put into words, "Kruee, kruee. Kruee, krueeee." He's a firm believer in being well wiped - no matter what. Well, he is!

Shutting the toilet lid without flushing makes him feel somewhat guilty but not embarrassed, when he answers the door with specks of water on his wrist. "Hey." "Hey." "You ready?" He scrapes his hands along the legs of his jeans. "Yeah. Where are we going, again?"

"How about here?" She points to a restaurant while pulling into the parking lot. "Uhhmm, sure." She laughs. It's an older looking, family restaurant that sits in the haunches of a downtown entrance to Wishagin City (off the highway, just past the adult toy store).

Quarters already down for the tip, he peeks over the booth behind him to see the crummy friends of hers she can't seem to take her eyes from. A curly-haired dingleberry places his index fingers against his thumbs and rubs them together in front of his chest. His mouth is wide open in teeth and slight, horny giggles. Eyes clint eastward from our unmade day to the punk, sitting in his trough of used slurps. The clear eyes of this perversion meets the dropout's; the corners of his juicy mouth spread.

His girl looks at the punk with eyelids 40% to a close and shakes her head wickedly west to east, of which her ruby red face shows yet another place he's never been too. Of mind and heart, she divorces the concentration from her fiancé and consummates a wed to the "naughty boy," breeding the shake behind our furious temples (his long hair still at a loss). The blinded fists of biblical rage crash into the anal secretion's face. Again and again. Blood rises to the surface at the scratching of this homicidal itch that drips along his neck, disappearing somewhere beneath his gritting teeth. ......{violence}.....

"You okay?" "..Yeah. Why not?" "You look a little angry. That's all." Smearing the red into the jeans within his head, our daydreamer shies away from the physical confrontation; things are much better under the wraps of his face. Besides, maybe he's not sure that that's what the other guy was doing. It's possible he was in the middle of another daydream or thought and didn't comprehend what was so clearly in his peripheral; or maybe he's more of a pussy than the one between the legs across from him. Because you know her bad ass boyfriend would do anything for her.

Loud (for them): "Why's that fucker keep lookin' at us?" "Shh. He's cool. He's just a dumbass." He watches her staring at him. "You," she points and whispers at the benched player, grinning through her half court game.

The meal rolls sour along the rigid curves of our retired senior's stomach. Death creeps in the nasal passages, denying any sort of flight within the thickening walls of himself. His own whisper crawls on dirty palms and rug-burning knees; clinched fingers rip its prying ribs open just to flash itself: "Chicken shit." He looks down rather sadly and closes his eyes. Eyelids lash up. Through circles of brown, you can see he had a nervous complex, panting in the night time shade. {Push the clutch in.} he thinks, trying to recall her previous sentence.

{What's the clutch?} "That pedal, right?" "Ya..yeah." She replies as if unbelieving the dropout's a moron on the subject. Pretty good, considering he was going to guess the stick to be the clutch. His foot smashes it and the brake. "Now, start it." Rrrrroooommmmmm! "Here. I'll put it in gear for you. The whole thing is timing. You gotta like time the clutch with the accelerator or else it'll die." "Well, maybe I shouldn't do this," he says featuring a little wide eyed. "I don't want to kill your car. You might need it." She laughs to build his humor before the downgrade, "Ha. You're so stupid."

Two cars remain seated to each side of her second home. He pulls it out. "Good!" He puts it in first gear to surprise her. The car bolts forward into a fatal motor attack, killing the car. "Owwww." He looks down to start it up again. Her rusty bumper glistens unattractively in the shiny bumper of a cherry red vehicle made in their own decade, which apparently is closer to them than may appear.

"Maybe you should back up." "No. They're eating anyways. They'd never get out in time to catch us." Her blue rust coughs up a nasty start. Heads face the young vehicle still seated in front of them that more than likely will be hit upon; and yes, he has no permit with him, (for if she were 21 or older). The clutch rises up to the roar of the accelerator. Tires burn four stacks of melting rubber. "Whoooom!" The car swings its partners violently round to the well tuned (if by sight) and sound, heavy metal. She screeches and covers her eyes with tight lids and sweaty hands. "Oh my god!!" She opens them to find her car is still driving, as it swerves wreckless through the parking lot.

"Hey, .. we made it!" It stops to a jerk at the exit to the restaurant. Hoping those wastes of sperm and eggs are watching anyway, the insurance salesman starts it up again and very nearly floors it, getting back onto the highway. "I can drive stick!" He just imagines what they should be saying in there: {"That guy's bad." "He just peeled out!"}

The usually packed highway of bumper to bumper between store to store is practically empty. Restaurant lights are out for the most part. It is late, but this is like it's four in the morning for deity's sake. It's perfect timing.

They cruise after curfew, controlled by the stick under the multi-talented dropout's grip. He shifts and shifts and grinds and shifts. Brakes crunch down, slowing down their moving seats. "Where are we fuckin' going!" Mallory slaps the backs of her hands against Mickey's chest. The thirdly rented new release is finally being seen by two eyes and heard by a third or fourth ear. Our favorite stick driver's Mallory has "fallen asleep" on top of his lap.

He strokes her hair and then a dangerously wicked thought is triggered. "Should I? O' man! This is crazy." He thinks, thinks, then purposely blinks. A young hand loses its conscience along the outside then.. meanders across the skin up her shirt. Teeth from a volatile snake bites into Mickey's ankle. Hallucinating from the poison, he sees all sorts of new things. He carries his dazed Mallory to a truck, while a pair of eyes slowly roll in.

She takes her fiancé's hand toward the stairway, turning off only the tv along the way. He can still hear the vcr running the end of his moving picture, while they step into her dark room.

The snow rests in gray strands along the outside sill of her window. He stayed the night at the girl's house before. For some reason, nothing seems that awkward about tonight other than his little adventure downstares. Wearing bare feet and jeans, he just slips and slides into the far side of her bed.

Setting her clock, she then stands at the side of the bed. She stands there forever it seems, seeming to look in thought (something his look seems to be out of) - her head seems to be facing him. His face heads up in a pure oblivion. "Well, ..get in." She stands stitched into the darkness. Then - the bottom half of her shadow sheds its darker color. He watches as it slides lightly down her thighs, ..down to her awaiting ankles, wading in a pool of darkness.
39.0

That mother fucker wakes that morning like he does the next few - not feeling any different, like he was told he would. Work is worked. Words are worded right in pieces he begins to write. Paycheck goes to cd's, late rental fees, and such those's as these. The forever couple goes out only a couple of times a week. So with his free time he gathers enough thoughts for them to be circling. Once and awhile, he takes himself out of them and gets dizzy from their spins. Thinking for the most part used to turn into daydreaming, but for now the thoughts remain the same as they came: exhausted and underweight. That mother's barely foreign-looking nose is the distinguishing trait in the looks of her face that graces his every other think. Things are fine when they do see each other even though a wet kiss for them is as often as a wet cue tip between the ear of this: the end days of grunge.

"Were you serious about getting married? Cause I was thinking it was a nice gesture and all, but I can't get married." And this, as they sit on his dad's folded-out love seat. "At least not now." A version of himself slams his fist down onto a knife, sitting blade up on the kitchen counter; the same version, different model, lets a maddenedly, genuine laugh dribble over his bottom lip out of relief.

"I've got Polly and all. It was a sweet gesture and everything, but I can't really think about marriage yet." She bends over to his bending head to show a smile and possibly some care in her eyes. "Sorry." {I never wanted to in the first place, you stupid b-} "That's cool. I really didn't want to in the first place. It just kinda happened. I don't remember what we were talking about, ..but i..it ..I don't know - made me say it or something. It just kinda happened." Our shyer from confrontation admits aloud. "Yeah, ..I kinda thought so. But I wasn't sure if you were serious or not. That's all."

"You know my mom comes to town in two days, right?" "Yeah. You've told me." She's the first to take the stand from the love seat and is physically seen to think in separated thoughts. "I really want you to meet her and for us all to do something." "I know. I'm looking forward to it."

39.1

"I can't stand losin'. I can- I can- I can't stand losin' you" stings as it plays through a downed car window this early-April day. After the incessant pacing to and from the putt-putt pay phone, they went ahead and played through anyway; his mind occupied the hole game. They've played every year, usually on Independence Day, ever since The Green Isle. There wasn't much to do there on the fourth. The parade consisted of tractors, lawn mowers, and people walking their dogs. You think I'm joking? Take a trip out to their town square on the 4th. On this ride though, he gets taken – taken for the imbecile who may never know why he's attractive to the unkind - taken back to that place beneath the earth, where a son could never shine.

Setting himself down onto the arm of a couch, he's finally alone and able to reflect. Not to be outdone by a mere girl, his mom's left him this evening to ponder the bomb: a total lack of connection she's hidden from him since birth. (Nothing physical, mind you; just in that he's always felt like a total stranger to her. That's all.) And what perfect timing. Just another thing to weigh down the thin man for a mother to dress the bones. Tears/admittance, and everyone feels better than him.

It's around eleven-twenty post meridian. He's been trying to call her all day. Leftover aggression has finally boiled over into a fizzling, easy to tear a-part heart. Not knowing where she's at or if something happened to her are contributions to his thought process tonight, along with the entire day that proceeded. Fingers are bent on wrapping over the wrist that stands behind the knuckles, which shriek in terror at the brain's impulsive command to have them crash into the arm of the couch or the wall behind him. The springs and such, inside of the folded-out love seat, echo the bad vibe. Some nerve cursing inside of a throb pretends to be ignored. Fingertips kiss the temples colliding into the aching muscles of his face. Veins bang the pulse of a tragic heart beneath his circling/massaging thumb. On the latter, he's seen the stars do that before – flickering into the mirror image that they could have once been on the other side of the screen.

He closes the window, stares at his Soloflex, and pictures himself asleep. When his mind's focus slips ajar, Ring. .. He lets it ring again to show disinterest and an I-have-other-things-to-do-and-better-people-to-worry-about approach, in case it is who he's almost certain it is. "Hello," he implies more as a declarative. "Heyeyeyey. What's up?"

"Where were you?" "I've been home and about. Why? Have you been tryin' to call?" "Well, yeah! I thought you wanted to meet my mom." "I did. I was home for a long time, all dressed up and everything, but you never called. So I got tired of waiting and went to someone's house." "....Are you high?" "Yeah. We're in my brother's room." "Who's we?" "Just me and my metal head, ..and Gi happened to stop by." "What? You mean your x-boyfriend?! Isn't he still trying to go back out with you?!" "No, no. He's completely over me. We're just friends now. Besides, my metal friend is here." "Get him out of there! Has he touched you?" "Well, ..we're all naked, so it's kinda hard not to brush up against each other." Butterflies crawl into their folds as an emotional flame burns throughout his blackened stomach, brushing over the tops of their shiny, bald, black heads.

"You're joking?" "No," she replies half matter of fact/half timidly, as if she just noticed there's no time to weather the storm but isn't sure if she'd like the rain anyway. "What the Hell?!!" "No one touched me. We were all under the covers in separate spots." "You just said that you were brushing up against each other!" "No/no. Well, ..yeah. Yes. Kinda. It's hard not to. It's a small room. But no one touched," softer and just for him, "my spots!" "I don't want anyone to see you naked!" "It's not like anything he's never seen before." "Oh, what the hell? Jus.. Just call me tomorrow when you're not so fucking high." "It's not a big deal!" "Okay, bye." "..B-" (-beep-)

The whole world spins, while he just stands there for some seconds, catching himself.......(head shaking).............................. He clutches his grip tight around the portable phone and heaves it as hard as he can against the wall in the closet. The battery cover comes off and hides into a pile of junk. The words he mumbles so vehemently again and again are "fucking bitch! Fucking Bitch."

He stares off, his face crunched in a slight mean exterior over a blankness almost pondered. The blankness in his brown eyes is that of disbelief, hurt, blinks of suicide, and confusion. All those feelings trying with all their might to be felt at the same time creates this blank stare behind his "fucking whore" mad glare. His soul can't decide which feeling it wants to feel. His mind has no decisions on which thought it wants to think, as the muscle along his left jawline twitches.
40.0

The high-pitched, almost echoless door knock of the apartment clanks twice. A caliced hand hesitantly reaches for the knob and pulls the door in to him. A girl with long hair, pouting lips, innocent green eyes, and thirty-six c, beneath her barely see through t, stares back as she stands at his doorway.

"I.. I'm sorry to intrude like this, but I happened to overhear your conversation through the vent. This may seem really inappropriate, but.. Well, is there anything I can do?" Overcome with emotion, he shakes his bowed head and turns away.

She heads in through the way anyway and stops him in his tracks. "Here." She wraps her arms around him. There, they hold each other lightly, slipped into a single piece of a whole nother picture. She wipes off the watery remains of a heavy heart or something, when her lips accidentally brush against his chin. Eyes remain avoided when their lips incidentally meet. Sitting on the folded-out love seat leads to them lying, where they were sitting. Hours of passion digress into talk and a movie on the Super Station, where his head ends up falling asleep on her lap.

An irritation around his wrists wakes his eyelids. Tight curls of hair brush up and down the middle of his waist. A pair of slim female palms slap against his chest. Smooth thighs bent at the knees are pinned along the muscular sides of his backside. Her tits, savagely hard at the nipples, bounce into the air with her movements. His arms try to move his hands but breed a heavy rug burn out from the corners of his wrists. Ropes are apparently tying him to something, as this strawberry blond beauty screams out in pure pleasure, a scream unable to be contained within her fragile rib cage. Other movie picture-perfect women slither up from the sides of his folded-out love, wearing next to nothing but the well-placed sheets he's under.

Tongues touch his toes; lips caress his thighs. Delicate hands roll up the female body that fucks, while flashes fall over him from picture-takers and the television that's already in progress. Reporter reporting: "The man's girlfriend, who apparently is his 'dad's woman's son's girlfriend's daughter', has apparently been torn to pieces by a group of younger women, who were apparently getting revenge for the recent high school dropout. Still, no one understands this sudden phenomenon of females, reportedly aged anywhere from 18 to their late twenties, who are stopping their lives to go to this apartment located within the small town.

"In schools and universities across the nation, these young women have been leaving their desks and their very jobs to drive into this state of his. And those, who don't have the money to get there, have polluted the highways by trying to hitch hike their way there. Highways going into the state, yet alone the town, have been literally flooded with traffic of up to eighty times their average daily estimates. It has even been reported that a few high profile actresses have been spotted at airports, as well as simply leaving in the middle of a shoot, answering no questions along their way, which is only presumed to be to this apartment.

"If you have a daughter or wife, please listen to this important message. The only thing that has helped to wake them from this zombie-like trance is.. Cold Water. So please, if you have or know of any young lady who fits this description, get them into a shower or tub of cold water immediately. Firehoses, sprinklers have also been effective. Please check on those nearest to you, and let's hope that this is only a tem..temporary phenomenon.

"We have Dr. Henry Zieglar from the Northeast Institute of Psychiatry in New York and Dr. William Washington from the Ladies of a Miracle Labs in D.C. Gentleman, welcome. (Heh heh.) This seems so ridiculous, ..it's hard to believe we're even discussing this." "Well, you know what Bob, you're absolutely right. (Smug chuckle)." "Some scientists are basing this on anything from the aligning of the planets to the melting of the polar ice caps to the terror of El Nino." "You're right. And some are saying it's the old Peter Piper tale. That this kid has placed a very similar spell.. but over the entire nation!" "And they do this without fighting and very little communication; other than of course the brutal slaying of who I guess was his girl, or should I say, x-girlfriend." "Ha." "Ha." "Ha ha."

"Yes, gentlemen. Some priests have been calling him the Anti-Christ, trying to find the right woman to bare his -uh- ..child. Every teenage boy and man for that matter is simply calling him the luckiest man to have ever lived! Which of these many possibilities do you think is the cause, or do you think it is simply a medical condition, such as a severe case of mass ovulation or-" Laughs around. "-some sort of ho.hohhormonal changes, that we have yet to uncover?" "Ugghhhhhh!" Another woman screams through a sound bite.

"..I'm not even erect," he boldly says aloud without anyone seeming to take notice but a glance and grin from the green-eyed girl. It's like every teenager's and grown man's dream naked and sweaty, dripping right down on top of him.

She bends over, bare breasts firm against his chest, and slips her tongue into his mouth. With his wrists and ankles bound, he's forced to take everything they do to him. Some tongues kiss his calves, some lips suck a finger or two; all of them touching, gripping, massaging the pieces and tender parts of him. She lifts her tongue slowly out of his mouth. A drip of warm spit falls over his cheek. Eyes awaken.

What day is it? Where am I? Who am I? What am I doing here? These are all asked and answered flat, with a couple seconds to spare. He wipes the drool from off his cheek. Surprised by this, he looks at the wet spot on his pillow. "I never drool. What the hell?" He whispers to himself after acknowledging to himself that it seems a little psycho to talk to yourself (even if no one will know/no but yourself).

He lies there for only ten minutes or so, which for a weekend is usually a good hour or so, before he shuffles his bony buns out of bed. A toothbrush swishes side to side in his chops. Somehow, like every morning, he spits a swish of paste and blood out from the new covert sting, operating in the exposed, yet tightened, skin that's stuck holding his teeth in.

Briefly, he thinks of shaving the goatee off of his face to get that ultimate life change thing going again. Passing on the previous idea, he warms up the water anyway, but just to clean himself up a tad. A shave here; a shave there. Hot water splashes over the bottom half of his face from out of his cupped hands. After toweling off, his face dissolves from worn to washed, as the Lon Chaney Jr. mug in reverse changes from a light pink of unprepared meat to the normal tanned, peach color.

With a Ring!, a pack of butterflies flutter their wings against the small holes of him, who is feeling every movement of them; wing to wing to wing to wing. They nibble and nod and curse their god, tightening up the all-weakening guts that enclose them. As far as the world of possible decisions for him, anyone who's anyone kills the one that buries a gun.

"Yeah." "...., .i!" The phone breaks up for the second, till he reluctantly pushes the bent antenna in with his finger. Static screams before it vanishes. "That was pretty crazy yesterday. Sorry I didn't get to meet your mom." "Are you high?" "No." "Good. I'm breaking up with you." ".......why? Cause I didn't meet your mom?!" "No! You were fucking smoking pot naked with your x!" ".....my metal friend was there. You can ask her if we did anything." "No. ..I'm breaking up with you.

"I don't want a girlfriend who's high all the time for one. You're addicted to the idea of it. And what kind of girlfriend smokes anything naked with their x-boyfriend and expects their present boyfriend to be fine with that? Who the hell thinks like that?! A slut. A fucking slut would think like that. I mean.. dropping your kid because you decided to get high. ..You've got some serious problems. And I don't want to deal with that.

"You're a fucking whore, and my heart ain't strong enough to deal with this shit every day - not when you're so far away. ..I can't. I won't. I deserve better than this. And more importantly, I deserve better than you." "......" "Now, if there's nothing more to say...... then ..bye." ". .bye." (-beep-)
41.0

Pulling his head out of the red-crusted sin, blood-shot eyes shoot themselves to the door to find it open. "Hey! What do you know, guy?" Unprinted sayings leave the oriental twenty standing in the wind, protected by only the wind resistance of his silver piercings and stiff shaved head; the sharp tips of all the little weapons encased in a pacifist's dulled up lead.

The owner remains standing in his stache and staring in a casual enthusiasm from behind the counter. The guy mumbles something and heads his skin straight for the old, ratty sofa in the back corner of the small café.

The dreamer wraps his fingers around the rest of the tucked in hair and drags the rest of a slimy face out from the closing hole in his head. The further back your head begins to think, the tighter the reflection can heal around your neck.

The dreamer rubs his thumb and ashes his friend. He looks down at the uneven legs of his stool (the only one of the three). Instead of making a change in front of the pairs of eyes turned to everyone but him, he remains seated before this storefront window and goes back to cleaning up the piece he's going to read down the street.

"-st said 'Whatever'!" Some stoned, staring bitches have been laughing continuously for half past his time there. "Hee haw! Hee haw! Hee haw! Hawawawawawawaw!" They kick and buck their teeth on the edge of plastic seats to when it's their well-placed lipstick's time to speak.

"Hey, girls. Keep it down. This poor guy's tryin' to study over here." They look to the cold froth simmered down in their tall drinks. "Sorrhe. It's her fawawlt!" Dollars of product open a face that shuffles any or all blame to its mirror image, as the owner walks over to the used stool.

"Sorry about that pack of hyenas over there. You wanna refill on that double cap?" "Sure." Standing over his shoulder, the owner pauses before asking, "What are you working on, or ..do you mind if I ask?" "No. Just some pieces I like to write." "Oh. Are they for a project or something?" "No. I don't go to college. I work. I just like to write." "Oh yeah? Pieces huh? What kind of pieces? Are they like poetry or something?" "No. They're more of a mix between short stories and poetry. People call it poetry, but I hate poetry. Whenever I think of poetry I think of 'Lo', 'Hark', and 'Come Hither'. So I call 'em pieces." "Well, that's ..different. I like that. That's good." "Thanks.

"Hey, I've got a lot of them now, I was thinking of making them into a book." "Sure! You come in here all the time. You can sell them here." Days of getting the perfect timing for the correct words in the perfect phrasing, and it's all for nothing. That couldn't have been easier than it seemed.

"Great." He's a little taken back at how quick it was. "Hey, I really appreciate it." "My pleasure. You just tell me when you're ready. I'll put 'em up. Maybe make a poster, put it in the window. It'll look sharp!" "Yeah!" "I'll get that refill for you." The writer ashes.

The bell rings, alerting the three of them to a short moustache in his thirties, who's wearing an army hat to cover his physical signs of male balding. "Hey, man. What's up?" The only one with Asian roots, who's staring off meanly to nowhere, gets up and leaves without answering back or ordering a thing.

The army hat follows the young man with the slanted eyes, as he passes by the windows and leaves him to stare at a wall. "What's wrong with him tonight?" "I don't know. He gets in these moods sometimes," the owner replies reluctantly, shaking his head.

Pretending that he cares, the young man in black turns his back to them and lodges his eyes back down at the piece he's going to read last tonight, from the beginning. "Remembering a Lived Poem:"

I'm tearing away bits of my spirit. Painting a picture with my pain. Painting it all inside of your body: through the veins, fingered on the inside skin, oiled down to your ring toes. You call it poetry. But you don't care.

I don't want her to know.

poem: I want to tear apart the sky and sleep under the shadows of the moon and stars and rip off my ears to silence the sound.

Refuse to take a promise off of my jeans.

The night she died, the angels roared as I quivered and fell to my knees.

Blood and vomit seeped out between the lips I kissed the day before.

My heart ripped open and it bled oceans of tears raining onto the roses on the cold floor, as our dreams tried to claw out of my stomach.

The angels watched him hold his girl for the last time

from out of the corner of his eye.

then they fell, rolled off his face, and shattered all around his knees.

My memories are bleeding. The blood holds hands.

The ocean waved good-bye to pain as it came back to crush into the sand.

"I'd say I hate you but I'd lie.

I'd say I love you but that wouldn't be saying 'good-bye'.

Now, every time I dream of you I cry.

,...........why did you want to die?

Did it hurt? Are you finally all right?

Am I talking to you or to the rose in my hand?

I said I'd love you always through forever,

but now I can't even say 'I love you.' I hope you understand.

bye."

"If you ever need anything.."—"Go Away."

"So how are you doing?"—"Just damned."

"It's not your fault."—"Why couldn't you have died?"

My heart's been torn out,

but I have some used scotch tape

A woman locks her car doors after she sees long hair fall over my face

And my tears are bruised....

...I was supposed to hurt the pain

be there even when the stars can't shine

and the clouds forget how to....

I take a little step outside of a tear

and smell a life outside of misery;

peel a bruised tear and see you

I stitch the holes of the tear

where I put my fingers through

Rather stay inside here and finish painting my pictures,

letting the dreams collide, crumbling to finally subside,

while I reminisce my love's suicide

I'm tearing away bits of my spirit. Painting a picture with my pain.

Painting it all inside of your body:....... Thanks."

In a swallow, he looks past the glaring lights to a few of the faces staring back at him from above their mechanical clapping. He gets off of the stool, brushes the palm sweat against his jeans, and takes a seat in the audience of about nineteen.

"Okay. Next, we've got – a fellow reader! ...... Is there a fellow reader out there?" "I'm coming!" She declares this while zigzagging through the dark room, scrunching between tables and the backs of chairs to reach the stage. "This fellow reader's going to read some poetry for us. It's just the night of poets tonight, I guess." The one who just left the stage screams out wildly and beats him to death with a chair within the cozy walls of his train-wrecked thought. He more or less hates the performances and has been there just to wait his turn - to talk. He knows that's wrong, so that's probably why he forces himself to sit there for a couple of more acts, programming his own hands to "clap" with the others.

Halfway through her three poem set (standard), he leaves. He owes it to himself after reading that difficult piece. A few weeks ago, it was the first piece he read in this place, and this was the first place he's read at since the Fret Haus (his first). That piece always gets a good response; it's probably his best one for the time being. Should be. It took him almost a year to write it; which is the strangest thing on paper, being that he started it before he went out with her.

He strolls past the talkers and smokers and lights himself up one, as he walks around the building to the street. Demons on tires roll pretty girls and f'm members over the road he crosses. Damn October breeze sweeps down the collar of his black, jean button shirt. Faces dazzle in the eyes stunted only by his long hair, as he leaves the street and sidewalk for the alley.

Following the alley brick road, he finds his little, red Geo, sitting in the small parking lot, which sits atop of the big parking lot - the lot that used to belong to his old hanging grounds: his family's church.

Sitting smashes the valid Driver's License in his back pocket against the bones in his butt (wallets being for the Wally Cleavers of the world), as he shuffles those back over to the Grateful Hearts. The underachiever finally achieved to get his license just a couple of months after his breakup, which was a month and a ½ before he moved back to the city of his parental discord (Pretty lil' Val Town).

Back on the shi(f)tty stool he likes for the spot, the unfiltered potty occasionally slipped into his mouth is held between his fingers, as he looks over the pieces he read tonight and goes through the performance in his head.

Interrupting this latest ritual are two assholes overly loosening behind him. The gas of them are causing him to light up, seeing nothing but the anger growing inside of him. The two guys are ripping on everything viciously like an "haR!" version of the two, old guys from the Muppets. Only the balcony should be closed; his show's over. {"Har-har-har-har-har!"}

Calling his mind back from a long night of two minute wandering, he recalls a mispronouncing here and there from being overly creative in the works or from when he got excited on the good parts. It's only been a few weeks. Stage presence only comes with experience, and he knows this. Fine tuning is never truly done, but for this night it is. He's going to work on a new piece. He just has to go over some of the thoughts he had for it, of which he happened to input into his brother's brain (a generous hand-me down). This'll be a first.

He opens up the little cp and pushes in the small keys, when snickering de-rails his train of thought. He looks into the storefront window in front of him: The pure darkness of his first kiss peer through a tightened pair of downward slants that seem to pierce through the reflection of a face unceremoniously lit with specks of rounded metal. Well below the darkened lines: "De, Du Du. De," in the best robotic vocals these downward slants have to offer (an imitation of Twinkie?).

The unbalanced writer, who's still shaking from his stirring read at the Front Porch, knows that they're putting him into the category he mocks and cherishes to hate the most: the rich and arrogant (the very cream of Pretty lil' Val). He shuts his gift, pays for the drink, and leaves.

During his never-going-back-there thoughts a-rant {In my own fucking café!!}, everything he even purposely put the slightest amount of faith into seemingly seems to soak through those white lashes beginning to open up in his back. Once again, the only things he can see are those things seen in sharp reflections behind him.

He hasn't been returning calls from the few people who wouldn't mind seeing him. He's found the nights of cards and hockey finally monotonous. He wants more. More from life. More from himself. He feels he's entitled to it. As far as love, he's done. He's just not meant for it. His life is boring without her, and thank God for that. Boredom is just what he needed to get back on the track of things, like finally getting his driver's license (18).

But now, in this boredom, he's finally beginning to figure out some things; answers that could never be found in the back of a book. He's finally able to find out what the hell happened to him and just who the hell he is because of it; but not through thinking, ..through writing.

And this was the place, the place the pieces of him were finally coming together. It was the only place he could exist in. Nobody bothered him to bitch about his room or stared till his long hair and torn jeans cut and mended his ashed butt out of there. No. The ones that were there were actually more related to him than any untamed head could have imagined. But not anymore. His new "home"... .has become just like the old ones.

41.1

He drives down streets and roads to nowhere. His stomach's a constant reminder of that feeling stupid feeling, which finally hit him in his private place: the home away from broken homes. Turning to somewhere, he takes the bypass to the highway and drives out of the city, past his old town, and on in to his final daze.

Fingernails dig into his torn jeans, which creep down into the skin of his thigh. The dying boy grinds his teeth. His jawline flexes. He shoves the fifth gear over and into third and skids the tires at the familiar turn in front of a little, white and red church. The road curves and swerves his seated self through a shortened forest, of which you can barely see the trees for the highway.

His car trucks through the streets of the Wishagin City; a city that hasn't seen his sights for around six months and has never seen him drive so legally. A thin reflection weaves in between cars of different shades of shadows, sharply turning through the breathable blackness of the night. Heading down the familiar turns once taken in his life, he finds himself pulling into her street. And there it is....................... ....... That he arrived here under his own, forced direction pales to the surrealism of seeing her old, blue car still sitting along the side of the road. .-. It's now clearly infested with the inflammations of rust.

The red lights match his red car that remains broke in this end of the dark street. Tires refuse to drip its grip of captured pebbles. Paranoid, he looks nervously from the windows to the door he's been more than welcomed in before.

Pictures of her and him just begin to roll, when a familiar stranger takes him away well before he was ready. {I don't want to go.} The growing boy who loves to hate thinks of the person he hates that he loved.

Fingers shake a cigarette ashless before the stoplight strung up for dead to send a message to those who take this soon-to-be haunted highway. Scenes of memories are plugged for the benefit of no one. They won't come, as hard as he tries. And he is trying; he wants to feel that pain. The pain is the only thing that makes him feel. He wants to peel himself away. He wants everything real to be a white lie. In the lie is where he wants to sit. In his sit is where he wants to die. Under the light burning red, he floors the car and turns into the on-coming traffic.

A sixteen-wheeler, ninety feet and gathering, barrels towards the tiny Geo braking hard. His clenching fists wrap around the steering wheel. "Come on!!!!" Like a curtain finally opening for him, automobiles make way for the many, screeching tires of the semi. It swerves into the passing lane, literally feet from his back bumper. "Kill me, you fuck!!!!" Our attempted suicide pushes the accelerator and revs it in the low gear. He hits the clutch and punches the stick into gear. "........kill me."

Un-cried tears sweat itches through his dry skin. The dreamer can only imagine the truck driver's face; as a van, that is now suddenly beside him, shows its faces that are separated from him by only glass and severed, white lines. Like tourists to a star, each member looks down to him in shock from the windows above. Then like a former father figure, it quickly shoots ahead.

Our favorite suicidal friend sobs his mind clear and dizzy. A shaky hand brushes his nose's loose snot into a smear across his cheek. He scratches his wet hand across his thinning jeans, while a black cherry burns its small hole into the seat.
42.0

Days flip over to reveal themselves the same as they were, only their long-time dates don't seem to match them anymore. After weeks of banning and head shrinking curses, he finds himself back in his home away, but during the early day of a Saturday. Lyrics skip in a repeat through his head. The answer's seen wading in the draining of his brain. His peripheral pays vivid attention to the misfit wannabes trying to figure out their great leader's answer; the leader is in the form of a fifteen year old, who is self-wrapped in a trentscoat and enough black makeup to arouse the spellbinding damnations of Wizzo the Magician. Nu-nee-nu-nee-kneeeeeew....

"I'm not sure what it's called. But I'm going to start smoking two packs a day, so I can get my voice to sound like that. That's what I'm after. Know what I mean?" The five or six look up to him in awe after he says, "The U.S. is more communist than any other nation on earth. You've got to register for the draft; you've got to go to twelve years of school.." "Thirteen (!) - if you count kindergarten." A young girl chimes in to her christ, who's centered within the self-torn, fishnet stockings and nipple rings hardened for knowledge. "Thirteen even," the dumbass of them acknowledges her wisdom of him.

As a 20-so guy sits on a stool next to the writer, the whole café seems to shake their heads and awe in amazement at the great piece of shit. Wandering aimlessly in his own smoke, our writer with the levitated pen tries to forget the dumbness in the air around him and focus over the piece he's working on.

"Sounds pretty naive." The guy beside him says the smartest thing he's heard all Saturday, which actually makes him grin very nearly into a full-fledged smile (a rarity). He cocks his neck and looks to his fellow stool sitter. "I was beginning to think that everyone in here thought like him." "No, not me. I don't think he has a clue what he's talking about." The son grins contagiously, making his first conversation fall in line; not caring if the five, remaining disciples of Robert Smith overhear them.

"What a dumbass," our bad ass dares aloud. The group stops chewing their cud for a minute -- then migrates outside. The hero of the café claps softly. Handing thoughts over the counter, "You know, I think only one of them ordered something." They give a courtesy laugh, mostly in relief that the owner is on their side. "A mocha, I believe.

"Next time they come in here, I'm going to kick them out unless they all order something. 'You don't order, you gotta leave'," the owner finishes adding in his two cents leftover from the tip jar.

42.1

"Die (!): the skin beneath your hair.

i don't care.

You want to see the skin of her heart tear.

Try to improve her face

buy: "Squeezing the ugly out of it."

i don't care, hear your shit.

Let me give you a tear to play with.

Smile gets beaten down with a shovel

by the Romantic that possesses your SWOL soul LEN.

^How did you feel when you cut out

a huge chunk of meat from your knee

What's wrong? just to watch it bleed

:Not afraid of death to hear if pain can still believe n

afraid of pain (shakes head) authenticity?^

You talk to yourself all the time but

only get to see you in mirrors.

n-sane tears {spinning rou and rou}

you get lost in the flames of your fears that [d n d n]

burn the skin within your head.

Well-crisped, ashed but still de@d.

I'm just some stoned demon that's wandered around over

3 days and forty nights within your hair.

you don't care....As long as something's there.

Kick or kiss the knees that constantly help your legs run from her.

spittin' on heart dirt to see if a love will grow

worms stare at you out of the curved roof of your own heart

and just shake their little heads.

u'r chasing your tail and your still right here

just a little bit dizzier than before.

SHEw sTORE Fake

Handy Whore False

I want some more immature love

The outside looks staticy through this window smeared with

the blood of clouds. Let the blood breed on your tongue.

the sex is so good it bangs a hole through your tongue

and births more shit in your head.

Kids look up during recess to stare at the grown man,

who's hitting himself in the head with a closed hand.

No one realizes he's just fighting mr. bastard man.

....Thanks."

The crowd jumps off of their seats and roar their appreciation for such a massively creative piece. Girls do that "Whew!" thing. Guys swell up with respect. People immediately rush up to the counter to ask for the tape recordings of the performance (if they made any of that rare moment of brilliance). An older woman from the crowd gets up and introduces herself to him outside, amongst his circle of smokers, as a publisher of a major book company. He looks to the bottom of a contract in the suite of a building that's high enough to where if you look out of the window you could actually see Jesus Christ Himself celebrating by turning all of the water into wine over finding a new biographer to replace the one sent to H- "What's that?"

The dreamer looks up from the little sofa to see his first café conversation from a few days ago. "It's uhh, this book I'm working on." He flips the pages. "No, that page right there?" He points at the one he spent an obsessive amount of time on. "It's all the pieces in the book on one page." He looks up.

"Really? Well, it looks really cool. Looks like artwork to me." "Oh yeah?" The writer's taken aback. {"Next is the original copy of his famous artwork from the book. His multi-talents had critics calling him the better Van Gough," a tour guide explains to a group of tourists in Chicago.} "Yeah. Trust me. I'm an artist myself. You could sell that." "Oh yeah? Well, I'm going to put it in the book somewhere. Maybe I'll make it the cover now. Thanks."

"You put that on the cover, and it'll sell. Some people 'll buy it for the artwork alone." "Really? You think it's that good?" "YeeIah." He says with his voice lost to a higher pitch and a noticeable big gulp.
43.0

Over the chess games and conversations through the weeks, he gets to know the artist a bit. They both happen to have Wednesdays off, and the artist lives behind the door that's beside the café. Actually, he's rooming with his favorite pair of downward slants (of whom he hasn't been bothered by since). Wednesday afternoons the two play chess, and the owner will always take over the plastic, green chair if one's not there. The insurance salesman, defensive-minded by nature (from age 14 and on: go figure), is surprisingly decent at it. He always beats the owner but meets a worthy opponent in the artist.

Our great procrastination put off the book for a bit in order to mingle with this new acquaintance and write some more pieces for it. He wrote three in one week, and now he's going over them at Grateful Hearts on this Wednesday night. Whichever one or ones the crowd likes tomorrow night, he'll be more inclined to use in the book. The café's empty but for three: him, a female worker, and a guy in his earliest of twenties (although you'd never think that young to look at him – maybe it's the pipe).

Below the long swallow of hair, he reads intensely over the three pieces, getting the pauses and expressions down, as well as mending the rough edges along the way. Concentration is intently upon interest, as words spill into longer sentences. The paragraphs breathe in, capturing every line and word, then out; and everything on the page seems like one big, black print from the hours of intense, full-faced squinting.

Sitting back and breathing in, his peeling lungs taste the pipe smoke that's been reeling into him for nearly an hour. He traces the smoke back to the pipe resting awkwardly casual in the hand of an early man, who is staring at nothing if not the very smoke he hath created. Within the curled frames of his wire-rimmed glasses, he appears to look non-judgmental, mellow, creative in his own right, and above all relaxed.

Our shy guy in the corner sighs, gets up from his hidden stool, and actually walks over to him! He has never initiated any conversation for all the months he's been coming here. But the place is practically empty, and this guy has an honest face behind his pipe and within the blue, furry helmet at his side.

"I'll give you three dollars to read these pieces and tell me what you think." He rummages through his pockets one by one. "You d hav t ay me an." "....Uh, what? A dollar per piece." The guy takes the pipe out of his mouth. "You don't have to pay me, man. I'll read 'em ." He says this very calmly. Words sink in. "Sure? ..Okay. Great. Here you go. There's some changes made on them, and this one (!) you need to try and read somewhat faster than the rest; so if you get confused or anything, just ask." "Uh k."

"What are you doing?" The lady worker stands in soapy hands before the saloon doors of the kitchen, still swinging behind her. She's wrapped in the tightened skin of her early twenties and goes to college down the streets (for those of you wanting a blurred vision of her description). She's not only pretty tall but pretty too, which makes him a little nervous. Which I think is what makes women nervous in general around him. Not a nervousness like "Is this guy a serial killer or going to rape me?"; it's an unfamiliarity of sexual tensions and such that spews from him like an odor, blurring their vision of him and numbing their responses to such sullen, deep-eyed stares. Unfortunately, the effects are immediate, but gladly they do begin to wear in time and once a familiar acquaintance has been afforded. ..Or it could just be the fucking scars.

"He's reading some pieces for me, helping me with any flaws and telling me which one he likes best.......You wanna help?" "Sure. I'll help." The tall girl says a tad enthusiastically, while wiping her hands off on a drying towel. The pipe smoker steps away from the sofa to lay two pieces beside the cash register, where she then leans over and begins to read.

Our sudden lack of confidence lights a stick and steps away. Tattered shoes begin to pace the tiled floor. {What if they don't like any of them? You should have never gotten out from the corner. What were you thinking? No. People like my stuff. I even got recognized at the mall, going up the es-} "I don't get it."...... Embarrassment is now read from eye through glass to eye. A gulp freefalls down the walls of his cheek. "It's not real. The guy dreams this up, that he gets into a car accident. I just k.. Y-you kind of have to hear it. It's more of a live piece than anything. I specifically wrote it for the stage."

The college girl plays on by hitting, "Yeahhhh. I didn't really care for that one either. This one's good though." "Which one?(!)" "The guy burning in the stove thing." "Yeah. That was actually called 'Sitting Pretty Hated'. You can read that one next if you want, ..(name?)-" ".a..," the pipe remains fitted within his teeth.

"This is my last piece tonight. It's one of the more personal pieces I've written. Umm, ..it's called Surrender to Die.

Looking through a dusty window,

i see a familiar, christian boy, who was praised

for saving dozens from the hell inside his everyone's head.

He even spoke in tongues and taught visions

from God and he was on his way to becoming a pastor

like his dad at least that's what the gossips said.

Now, He's covered in smoke and safety pins

and looks already dead.

There's a black tear that bleeds down his eye

but it ain't of joy or fear; he's bleeding for truth

I dust off this window

and realize it's a mirror......

Now, these people i knew

display their christian love by ignoring me or walking disgustedly away.

Not sure what I saved them from

or to what I really can't say.

All I know is that if heaven's going to be full of gossipy snobs

throw me in a stove and let me burn away

cause i'd choose their hell any day.

And if I'm dead

Don't resurrect me, jesus.

I'd rather stay this way

:Open-minded and free to move like you made me.

Not sure if there's a God out there or if some rebellin angels fell

Don't know why it would make us or if it believes in heaven or hell.

I've praised and cursed whatever made us

and didn't feel a pat on my back

or a lightning bolt up my ass.

Since I'm created with the ability of choice

I don't think It would make the human race

just so we could praise it

...according to its own book, that would be pretty vain.

And if it would throw people in eternal pain

just for bothering it,

we both must be sadomasochistic and clearly insane.

Not sure why I'm here

don't think I was evolved cause everyone looks like moving paint

..to me.

Maybe religion's just an escape

from the question that could tear anyone's head away.

It's like digging when you're out of dirt.

And you'd give anything for another shovel

but somehow don't realize it doesn't matter.

Everyone's looking through the same dusty window

in different places but in the same way.......I just dust my self off......

and walk away."

The pipe smoker's choice appears to have worked well over the audience. The writer in the kurdt-long hair has to wait for the decently long applause to die down just to say "thank you" and "For those of you that don't know, there's a great café on the corner of Washington and uhh.... the street the library's on.." "Jefferson!" The pipe smoker shouts out from the audience - his first time being there. "Jefferson. Thank you. It's called Grateful Hearts Café. They're open late, and they're really cool. So when you're done here, go on over there. Thanks."
44.0

Crappy classic rock picks erode behind his head, touching him as softly as a nice elevator song. Fragments of sweat filter through the skin to sit and develop into a bead that then rolls across the forehead. Well above the neck, lacing with familiarity, it trips over some natural growth and hangs onto the edge of a ledge to a hair-ridden hole. Fingers, too busy gripping a pen, dread waiting for the brain's signal. Skim in thought, he stops to wonder if the people sitting here are staring at his nostril in the hopes that they're coming back to their original conclusion: that his nose is runny.

It's not hot out; it's October, and he never sweats. Armpits soak the under arms of his sweater, that's blacked out from a heat stroke within the arms of his dark and handsome, midnight blue leather coat. A tickling drip dances down the breathing cage in a straight line, wetting itself into what will become an unsaid line of embarrassing, sweater hair along the way.

He sits. Shrinking black paper could as easily be the ticked off minutes of a turning clock that's been driven into that deadly dread of the time it will fall behind; slings and arrows point out these fears by sharply pointing to each of its nervous ticks. If time could watch every clock slowly lose track of it, it would still never lose a second; unlike the off 9 to 5'er, who sits in a fond daze. Smoke from many fine cigarettes wears his scratchy face. Looking up, there's tiny holes in the chalky tiles of the ceiling, but he can't see into the apartment above. He takes a deep breath with eyelids wanting to seal up his very sight. Looking over, a female spy falls out of position by modes of imitation and is immediately noticed. Knowing he's blowing their cover, he heads down to her anyway, putting them both in the eminent danger of laying all of their cards out for a game of Rummy.

His fellow reader is dark-haired, slightly short, and with just enough chub to model for a modern, if normal, Rockwell. She introduced herself to him a couple of weeks ago, even though they're already on a first-name basis from the constant introductions at the Front Porch. It's not like they're friends or anything now; just acquaintances who can get into meaningless conversations in their bored card games. "That's it." He steps toward the decent applause coming up from the huge gathering at the Front Porch.

"(female voice mumbling over the applause), over here!" Surprised that anyone would call out to him, yet alone threaten his anonymity, the dark poet worms his way through the seated crowd to the fellow reader's table and takes a seat next to another guy in his early 20's with glasses, only this one has a shaved head. Congratulations are bestowed upon him by way of the round table (the fellow reader and the rest of the high-schoolers), until it reaches the older guy beside him. "What'd you think?" The silent stranger, nearly painted in (to them), puts one hand over the other and acts like he's slitting his wrists. {"Hey, double cap! You got a phone call," the owner or perhaps the sexy barista shouts over the crowds of his café.

Everyone is packed in like sardines just standing around, waiting for a chair to open up. The dark stranger in the corner heads around the counter and picks off the phone from the owner/tall girl with the morphing face's hand (he's only seen her twice). He talks and listens and talks and listens and listens and listens and listens and hangs the phone up from his shaky grip. His eyes are filmed with enough footage for an unrated picture under the brim of his lowered hat. Slowly, he carries his jean-labeled can around the counter.

Words of sincerity spill from the owner's mustached mouth/a stroke of softened fingers rest along his back, but our bent head doesn't notice. The café continues on, as if he could ever stop it. Conversations are conversating. Games are being played. But the laughs slowly subside, as an apparent lady-beater shakes his woman with harsh words in front of all, dusting off his knuckles with every push of his breath. The yeller to the girl receives just enough flattened fingers in the mouth to rip the tongue in his head, as it smashes face-first onto the heart-tile floor.

Everyone's attention is now directed to the angry hero. Under a prep dew, the knocked-to-some-hour's blood excretes, puddling over one of the purple curves of the dirty tiles below. The big, grateful heart pumps a beat under the plastic, green tables and their crossing feet, as the stranger leaves the living chill in their dead silence.

Onto his knees, into his seat, dripping down to the floor mat, all the pieces of him gently fall apart from him \- with him. Burning nostrils and a bad tasting throat, tongue, and cheek brunt some, but definitely not all, of the shock and pain, which leaves him to share themselves with the near-sighted pair of damp jeans and the cheap interior of a Geo; this - just before its contents spew the writer out of one of its chosen red doors. Palms smack the street. Tears go down. On themselves, they twist into each other the way they were made: in see-through clothes and practically free. The beads of her bleed and blur, collecting themselves into a thin lace that loosens over his eyes, showing him some things only able to be scene on the inside. What's blurring up the outside for him to see the in, spills into themselves over the bumpy, bad skin of the street. Its dry and roughness pushes the red indentations into short-lived lives within the shins and knees under a wearing pair of noticeably thinning jeans. Hair swallows his bowed head.

Air jimmies itself into the flaps of A cold breath unwraps and lifts the folds of a voice box over For the air to reach, it bears down, picking up his sound out from its scotch-taped bottoms To shove it into the pushes of air, makes it trip, falling up the filthy walls of the unfiltered esophagus and blackened throat to roll gently off his tongue as: A Scream. A violently, unashamed and abashed scream. It bellows from his shaking soul to escape the walls by climbing into a climaxing leap as far as it can possibly go into the open clouds and sky.

The heads of the uneaten animals turn. Cars carrying curious drivers and passengers drive slower or wait a tad longer at the stoplights. The rubbery, hairless skin, clothing the star-lit sky, stretches down into a reach towards him. An indented, index finger pokes a hole through his scenery. Somewhere deep into the skinny, but large enough to be noticed as a whole, you can almost see him. If you squint or just imagine, you can see that he's now sitting sore in the booth of a Big Wheel.

Sunglasses stab the sun to bleed darkness over his bagging eyes. The waitress almost speaks aloud, before she twists the blinds. Without an ounce of curiosity, she pours more of his grounded beans into the brown mug and walks away. The life of a stunted growth silently spills down his damp cheeks and quivering, upper lip. A jagged, black circle slowly pulls the paper away from the long ash, hanging on a down curve over his "but..", to reveal to whomever's watching: his cigarette.

Places in his body ache unnoticeably from an unmoving, awkward position. However, desserts are not stressed enough to the fat man across the room. An elderly woman with a sag in her blouse tries to shift her gas, by way of her ass, away from her family and more towards a pair of high school sweethearts, who are oblivious to more than just their sharing of a moment. If only they could see the splinters unified into a single face of solid surprise, when its wooden thoughts come together to form the rancid realization that its sole existence is to take in the damning parts of the human body.

"What's wrong with that man!" A girl's soft shout is shunned by her mother's handed down, calm saying "Don't point, dear." "Ewwwww! What's that smell?" "Blah! Blit blown." Not bothering to wipe off the white and gray flakes from his neck, he continues to overhear others and then others. "I don't know what she'll do. Does it really matter?" - "-ay it might be a short winter. Started late October. Wh-" - "-es, I put the garage down. Why is it, every time we go out, you always have to as-" - "Oh! If only you knew (x2)."

Kneeling by way of sit within the torn down curtains of an orange booth, he hears them all; separate thoughts moving along in a fine succession of a single, long, audible drone, gathering nothing in their march but a sullen annoyance. At the far sides to locked eyes, the world continues to move – unapologetic and unable to slow down for the mere sight of him. He looks up his sunglasses to envision a moving blur, wearing the artist's denim jacket.

"What's wrong, man?" Right inside his throat, fists grind their bloody knuckles into each other; his pretty neck hides them well. A pen sprinkles out the last bits of its ink over a napkin, lying atop his shut notebook. The artist reads it without moving a lip. A quivering pair, folded into the face of the son, are slightly bitten from the pain. He looks away from the napkin that makes out the lightly penned letters, "My mom is dead."

And while the memories hold hands, sitting in the shade of glass, tears spit through the locked smile that's bending over the bottom half of a face well across the way. She gasps for a breath because of an undying laugh, brought on from apparently the funniest thing that has ever been told. Our rising anger remains seated in his spilt manner.

In the sides, splitting his very sight, corners remain cracked and spilling all that's damned over the piling bags of his eyes. This time, the hands release what has been (the handful) and don't bother. One ashes a cigarette; the other scrapes a gloc across his lower back and pours out from the brim of his jeans. His coat had his back. While eyes are still in capture, transfer, and comprehension, he carefully turns the barrel towards the tiny holes in the cream-colored sheets of all that's been written above.

Somewhere during the transfer, the artist's face appears lost and sure enough seems a good foot from his head. Pretty long hair (for the dark poet) hangs, as his whole body shakes in futile resistance to what's calling the shots behind his face. The back of his head meets the front.

The restaurant still jabbers in that split second...... Their tiny minds have to shut down their one thing to focus on an other for once. They focus on shifting their eyes toward the red gore, sifting horrifying horribles down the brown walls towering behind. Ear drums miss the off-beat of human stuffing that drips down the brown hair still hooked into the back of his previous head. Everything he had buried inside is finally opened up to the hard tile floor. ".......g..l....o.......c......."

People scream. Meals lose their steam. A baby screams at their screams. The artist's ears tickle before a sharp pain that comes only to be ignored. Unlike the artist's ears, the writer's presence (incapable of any bow for this - his last performance) is not to be denied. Everything, but his personality and who he is, is finally on display for local attention, as he slumps down in the corner of his restaurant.

Red dots map out a hidden picture of the artist's forehead. Tears fall through his nose as gew. An unnoticeably, involuntarily quivering hand dumps out of the ashtray only to follow the rest of the body to the unflinching floor. The ash tray spills sideways then follows the fingers by rolling over the table. It lands ash down on the hairy chest of his now itchy sweater.

A man yells fading gibber. People slow motion themselves closer and further. Smaller forms of people are pulled further into the dark. Sung: "So I can dieeee easy..... ohhh}h!" A lead plant pages its sweet leaves in to pull the son by the ears out of the sky within his head, swimming with everything but a plane.

"You can sit with us, you know." The nearly shaved bald mug of his earlier attacker tells the long-haired dreamer, who's looking through the pages of the pieces recited earlier; his bad postured back continuing to form a "C" over his butt that's shifting in his usual hard brown stool, messing up the creeping underwear that's been smashing down his package ever since he awkwardly sat down at the storefront window.

The boxers begin to slowly separate from his corners, as he stands and gives a quick shake. His tattered pair follows the poor soles of another, a couple of feet over to the tables, housing the bent-but-not-br-o-ken legs of his attacker and your normal list of regulars. A girl with short, red hair and the working worker remain at work on untangling some circles of metal that's more like a mind game than a puzzle. The rest of them remain a shortened eyelid from sleep during an ever-deep theological discussion. Author's note: it's about one twenty-one in the morning.

"Oh, come on! He's a freakin' pervert! 'Luke, at that speed, do you think you'll be able to pull out in time?'!" A bearded remark mocks. "George Lucas is not a pervert! You are," retorts the bitch of the bunch.

"Hey, what about in Empire? 'There's an awful lot of moisture in here'," the worker chimes in. Everyone laughs. "When did they say that?! Who said that?!" She seemingly barks up from behind a mouthful of teeth. The worker continues, "In Empire, when they landed in that huge monster. You know, the Millennium Falcon. Then they get out and the whytauns attack them." "Mynocks," the stranger of them corrects him by throwing his first two cents in – to be seen rolling down a valve of the Grateful Hearts.

"Star Wars has most of them," the attacker calls. "Yeah, the trash compactor scene." A pair of downward slants blasts a Bobba Fett head nod in his direction. Our scruffy-lookin' scoundrel, after raising his attacker, lowers his smug lips back down to his cold brown to sip away some of the static from his voice. "Something just moved past my leg!" A bearded remark imitates the timeless classic his own way, making way for the attacker. "Get in there, you big furry oaf! I don't care what you smell!" The café rips open, spilling laughter over the huge grateful heart. "Thahat's righight," he coughs out while bowing his head in laughter.

"But that's just coincidence," their lady dog chuckles. "Then why are you laughing?! What are you laughing at," the mouth below the downward slants jokes in a loud, accusing voice. The slow son figures out that it must be just his kidding personality.

"You know there's some things put in there on purpose. I mean 'Curse my metal body; I wasn't fast enough?' Come on." The worker enlightens the red head, who remains silent on the silver screen subject.

Behind the pipe with the fresh chewy marks, "The thantha-ha-ns. 'Ah thoughhaut they smhehled bad ahn the owhetside'," the pipe smoker follows his air chuckle into a full-fledged laugh. The widened eyes of a bearded remark circle down to his side, splitting as downward slants roll over the tables and onto the floor. – It's late.

Within the smoky walls of a small café, a high schooled head of short red leaves the brain teaser to the worker and the seven laughing like her. Taking her cue, our first impression tries to tap out of the fun. It's poor etiquette for the new guy to stick out like a sore thumb on the very night of his introduction. Two thumbs squeeze the corners of his eyes, rinsing a drop onto each thumb. "That's crazy," is mumbled under the dying laughter.

"Even Han Solo's name. Just add a "d" to Han and you get instant perversion. I mean, how much proof do you need?" The worker comments to the female dog of the quieted, getting-over-that-conversation room. "Okay," she barks. Although the downward slants and the one with those bearded remarks are the real ones harping her over the subject, the worker was probably just trying to flirt in.........(awkward silence for the raised voice)............

Turning to his attacker, "Do they always play Zeppelin in here?" The quiet writer helps everyone out by changing the subject. "Pretty much. That's all they play. Classic rock." "And sometimes Country when the owner's depressed," a bearded remark chimes in over the slide string.

Unrolling the list of regulars (in no significant order):

# ..a bearded remark....

An overly sarcastic cynic in his early twenties. His brutal sarcasm can only be related to the "Dice Man," (not in the sexist way, but in an-) either you find him funny or you hate him with a passion.

..downward slants..

Another 20-so with opinions galore and lots of metal in his face (for the mid-90's in the Mid-West). His sarcasm can best be related to a bearded remark's, only he's not as brutal or funny. His humor is more of an "I'm going to pick on you to find out something or to prove a point."

....worker....

Barista by night/high-schooler by day. Beetle-long hair and wire-framed glasses make up his face. Very friendly and the easiest person to get along with. Everybody likes this worker.

...lady dog.

Early twenties friend of that pipe smoker's. Just abrasive enough with those outside "the circle" to be considered a bitch to the commoner, as well as to some curves within the circle.

# .pipe smoker....

Proud Vw bus driving, calm-voiced, fuzzy helmet wearing guy (when he's got the top down on his bug). He's a well-bathed, 90's hippie, who likes to laugh and give sophisticated subtitle to friends' harsh ripping and de-ribbing of poor sons of bitches, both in and out of view. Oddly enough, he's probably the most like the writer in spirit.

# ..(attacker)..

Looks like Flea from the Chilly Peppers (but with glasses). He's low-voiced but when excited, shaves himself to a microscopic stub, and can strike at any moment with a brutal slaying at another's expense (Ex. In the line at a Burger King, a big guy in front of him orders the most fattening, super-sized meals on the menu and a Diet Coke. The sometimes silent stranger turns to his friend and yells "He ordered a - Diet - Coke!") Strangely enough, he has the biggest heart of them all in that he tries to make others who are down and out afford themselves a grin. He's a natural clown with a "fuck the rest of you" attitude; and of everyone who knows him, he's the first face they want to see.

You realize it's a piece about hope, right?" He finally asks his attacker from within the comfortable walls of his café. "Didn't you get that from it?"

"..Yeah. At the end, he doesn't do it or wishes that he hadn't or whatever, right?" He attempts a certain civility behind his stone cold face. "Yeah, the very end - last paragraph or two." "Well, I don't think most people really caught the ending; it's too short. I barely understood it. Meanwhile, the whole piece is.." He pretends he's slitting his wrists again, but this time with a given grin.

The writer stomps his offended nature unrecognizable, even to him. "Good. Great. This is the kind of feedback I've been looking for. Everyone else describes every piece in one word or so, which doesn't help me. They're afraid to offend me or something, except the guy smoking pipe over there." They both look to the smoker sitting quietly in the light, as he carefully refills his pipe.

"So what is it that you do?" His former attacker asks in a form of seemingly good sincerity. "I work in insurance." "What kind of insurance?" "Car." "Are you an agent or something?" "No, not yet. I just do typing and filing and crap." "Where at?" "East Chicago." "Oh, yeah. I work out that way most the time. I put down tiles and make things.. and crap," his attacker grins then continues. "But I'm thinking of going to clown college." He stares down the new guy for a sudden shift in facial expression but, for the son's sake, receives none.

"Oh, yeah? Where's that?" "Chicago, but it only lasts three weeks. It's something I've wanted to do for a really loooong time." In holding back his smirk, he begins to realize how badly his previous attacker seems to want this and how perfect he seems for it: from the shaved head to the almost humorous/always serious, Chevy-Chased face.

From sitting up in the store front, he knows this clown's shoes hang right across the one-way. In fact, just tonight he brought the dark dreamer out of his rot gut, give-me-a-reason-to-be suicidal mood and out of his stool to share some great laughs with some strangers, just so he wouldn't feel so strange in asking for who sells cigarettes this late. Isn't that the most important part of being a clown? A laugh is something the son has lacked for a very long time. Tonight, he's been given some. He's starting to like these people so much.. Only now he's got to make sure he doesn't relax so much that he opens himself up to show himself.

You see, the laughs come at a price, because now he's in a very vulnerable spot in his second home. Tonight, his long tenure of being that shadowed writer in the corner has come to an end. He's opened his mouth and sat under their dimly lit inspection. If all of a sudden they don't like what they hear or see (be it tonight or tomorrow), his days of the café would be numbered. Because no one wants to be around people that don't like you; and after tonight, he could never go back to being "that writer" in the corner again.
45.0

"Pizza? We didn't order any pizza!" "Weoh wech weahweh!" The crummy music sifts through the cracks in the door and mainly out the open window of the artist's upstairs apartment. The writer shivers and doesn't bother ringing the half-the-time working door bell. He just turns around and drags his feet to the Grateful Heart's deck {?}. Well, it's new to him, but it apparently had been there the whole time (considering the rough and splintered wear).

Thinking briefly of sitting down in the cold, bitter wind, he continues walking over the deck and around the corner to the insides of a mostly warmer café.

Fingers wrap over the familiar long-ways rectangular handle. He passes the hard stools among the pipe smoker, who sits between his side burns and curled frames, looking down with sheer precision into the folds of a dollar bill. The green and creamy white bill is filled to the gills beneath a thick line of tobacco.

He walks up to the sitting man, until he's just over the shoulder of his sweater. "That must be easier than it looks. Cause that looks really difficult," remarks the writer to the well-kept hippie with infinite soap-like pauses. "Well, - to do it right it is. - This is a pretty shitty job though. - You want this one?" The pipe smoker asks politely. "No, I couldn't. Not after all that work." The pipe smoker laughs barely more than slightly. "It's not work. It usually doesn't take that long. I just kind of f'd this one up. Go ahead.

"You ever had a rolled cigarette?" "No." "Try it out. Tell me what you think." {Pipe smoker's spit} slides briefly faster than {shut up!; he's doing something nice for you} down the curved, peach walls in his thoughts of a brain.

The gal with the short, red hair is playing Rummy against a fellow reader at one of the green tables. The owner's race-walking around the kitchen in the back, while the worker's doing what I'd guess you'd call working but is actually anxiously awaiting for his boss to get his crap and get the hell out. The army hat is talking to a tall high-schooler with rocker red hair that's wrapped into a ponytail and has been trotted down from the highlands. {"There can be only one!"} Breezing over the Queen lyrics to "Who wants to live forever", our virgin roller is hearing the crackle after the lighting of his first rolled cigarette.

An exhale later, "What do you think?" The writer with a limited vocabulary pauses between this breath. "I don't know. I'm still tasting my Camel." He honestly points to the cozy ashtray. In there, a non-filtered cigarette's burning rapidly, coughing up into the air its last ounce of papered breath. "(Little laugh). Yeah, I can imagine. What are those? Unfiltered?" "Is there another kind?

"Hey, this is tasting really good. What is it?" "Umm, just Captain Black. It's what I normally put in my pipe, but I'd only have enough for a couple of hits; so Iiiii'm - down to rolling paper actually." (For the more sophisticated Kirk-like lovers out there.) The pipe smoker has this very calm essence all around him, even coming out of him, making you feel at ease and laid back with him (like sitting back and smoking pipe with him).

"Did you get a pipe, yet?" "Yeah! It's right-" The writer unzips his thick coat and pulls the pipe out of a narrow pocket. "-in here. I got it at that antique store around the corner. The place you told me about." "Oh, good." "Four bucks!" The pipe smoker ignores him and inspects it by unscrewing the long shaft and blowing down one of the holes. "Not a bad, little pipe," the writer tones down the pride in his claim. "No," he says with just enough gusto to almost make it an exclamatory statement.

"You got some tobacco yet?" Our normally unfiltered friend digs up the pack from the pocket on the other side of his coat (hoping or thinking that the pipe would balance out the tobacco, so his coat wouldn't pick sides to hang with). "It's just the cheap stuff." He warns. "Really, just about all of the pouches they sell are decent.

"You won't be able to tell much of a difference cause you're just starting. Captain Black is a little more expensive, but I really like the taste. So for the most part, that's about all I smoke. But I'll also try different things." The pipe smoker digs his fingers into the cheap tobacco. Somebody, holding a bugle, dents out from the aqua green/blue package. "Let's try this out." The pipe smoker lights it up in the new pipe and takes a few puffs. "..Yeah, this pipe works pretty well."

"It makes a bubbling sound. Is that ju.." "It's just spit. That's why you might want to clean it out from time to time," the Bob Villa of the pipe smoking world. "How do I do that?" "Well, you could use a well-rounded safety pin for one thing. That's works pretty well."

Sucking himself nearly light-headed on the thin tip, "I can't get anything off of it." "You might want to blow in it; keeps the flame going. But I think that it's probably cashed by now, man. You want to learn how to roll a cigarette?" "Sure." "You got a dollar?" {He wants me to pay him to learn?} "Works best with a dollar bill. At least for me." "Oh." Friend to only Camels, he tries it but licks more of the paper than the very thin lickable line. Tobacco hangs out of both ends. As he yanks some out, more keeps coming.

Stepping away from her game, the gal under the short, red hair has a question that's more of a favor. "Can you roll me one of those?" "Here," the writer politally intrudes. "You can have this one. My first rolled cigarette." "You sure you don't wanna smoke it?" "Na, that's cool. Fire up." He lights it for her.

"Dude, you know you've got rolling paper, don't you?" Bob Villa strikes again. "How?" "It usually comes with the.." He pulls it out of the tobacco packet. "Yeah. Here you go." "Cool." The connoisseur of smoke rolls a few more for the practice, the pipe smoker, himself, and the red head.

The red head likes his pieces, as she's seen this familiar café sight read at the Front Porch before. Her dad owns the comic book shop down the streets; and yes, she is a high-schooler. No sexual tensions though anyway, as she simply has a very affable and presence-less personality, where they could talk about nothing for a couple of hours and then somehow find themselves in different parts of the room.

Far from the corners of his usual self, our center of attention now takes to puffing in his first pipe. "Thank you."

45.1

A massive applause follows; this was a very good set for him. Two of the three were new pieces too; one was actually a short story (another first for him). This is the night he had to do great; it's the night his books have gone on sale at his café. The aging lady of the Front Porch made his written life by wanting the books to sell at her place too. But like the writer told the crowd, "There's a café that a lot of us love, but they need more people. And I don't want to see it close, so it's the only place I'm selling this book I did. If you're interested, go ahead and stop by the café. It's called Grateful Hearts. It's on the corner of Washington and ..uhh...." "Jefferson!" The clown with no paint or pie on his face yells up from the audience. "Yeah. Thank-s. .you. Right next to Pet and Hobby. So when you're done here, go over there."

When it rains, it pours in the form of raindrops down the blurry, storefront window. The café seats one; this of course only being the great writer, who's back to his corner and pretending to be working on yet another piece.

One book was sold and that was early evening when he brought the books to Grateful Hearts. After his day of insurance, he brought around ten of them. The pages are all held together with safety pins and sowing string, of which the black and sky-blue colors are in knots and left dangling. The cover went through the realms of total perfectionism by its author; and I won't even mention what he had to go through to get the pages down inside. He took care in every single detail. Everything is set and precise exactly to his vision. It is his book.

Anyway, that first book was immediately bought by the owner. The writer offered to give it to him, but he insisted on paying and having him even autograph it for his girlfriend as a Christmas present. "No, no. She loves this stuff! You know, ..writings and crap." He then went on to stay and go over his fresh set then went to the Front Porch in a cigarette. After that great performance, he went back to the café to watch the books fly out like coffee-colored saucers. There's not too many books to make it look like it's not selling; there's not too little books to make sure they can read the fine print. Yet, not one book has sold tonight, and the café does not contain any more souls than the owner and what you could see of the writer - for all the smoke still coming out from him.

Unfiltered friends are lit and falling over each other in succinct succession. The pen slips in his loosening grip. Who knows where the hell the artist is. The bell rings for lost hope, as a pair of downward slants enter and march right past the books to their sofa in the back.

Eyes fall over an unnoticed, eerie resemblance of himself, sitting within a faded café in the middle of the darkened street. As if he could have made it to 18 and had a book of him selling in a café.

Headlights sail through part of the falling lake. It's November and raining, not to coin in a familiar song. Our recent high is so depressed he's smoking calmly. He's more upset about how he built it up, not just in his mind but to the owner. He all but ran into the home of a place all excited and telling the owner how good he did and how much business should be pulling in. "The place should be filling up!" / "I can't believe no one's bought a damn thing!"

"Well, it - just takes time, you know. It's the first night. Come on. It'll sell." "The price isn't too high, is it?" "You can't sell it any cheaper than that. You should be selling it for twice that much!" "That's just what all the supplies cost. I figured it out a bit ago. I'm only earning thirty-six cents for every book that's sold. That ain't even a cup of coffee!" "It's okay, man," a pair of downward slants turn up from the sofa.

The smoker sighs up some frustration. "It's all right. Just give it some time," the slants say in a softer voice before walking out of the café. The writer back in the corner relaxes, actually feeling comforted by what he just said. It's not often when he says anything to him.

"You know who read one of the books from front to back right after you dropped 'em off?" The down poet looks up, grinning out of his face. The owner points away from his smile to the door. "Why the hell didn't he buy a copy?" The smoker coughs a jest. "Why the hell doesn't he buy my coffee?"
46.0

"I love Jesus! I love Jesus!" The long, red hairs of a roped in ponytail ride up under the cowboy hat of a whisper-wired singer's voice, sung out of character and out of type in the mere hope of finding a laugh in sight. An intended listener leans into full view, spurned into some kind of response if for his satchel full of silent laughs. "I can't see how any of those bands can be genuine or original. I really don't," his friend helps out the singer, who left it all out there amidst the self-made audience of a Saturday morning café.

There, between the sideburns and heavyset frame of glassed eyes, continues the topic from out of a well-educated face. "They all sing about the same things just in different ways that are basically the same as well - in some ways." "Yeah," the red-haired cowboy agrees.

And then out from the involuntary audience and interrupting our well played chess game, a voice voices "There's some Christian bands that are genuine!" Sitting across a cross-legged girl, a pair of green eyes step up every stare that watch before they head down, as the girl's thoughts on theirs leak down through the plastic, green legs and into what it is they're now stepping in.

While it all soaks into them, the red-haired cowboy looks to his boots, letting his atheist friend have the conversation he got himself into (all for covering up his near embarrassment or shall I say his friend's lack of having an audible laugh).

"Well, ..I'm not saying that there's not any. I guess I used the wrong choice of words. I'm sure there's a few out there," he says a little taken by surprise. Had they been there, some downward slants or a bearded remark would have certainly made their opinions known, be it feelings hurt or not. A bit of blahs and "Well, you're obviously ..a Christian." The atheist timidly opens up the Pandora's box on the god-damning subject. "I believe in God, yes." :Theories of Evolution vs. Christianity go here:

The x-pastor's son listens intently on a conversation that's on the tip of his tongue, while he shoves a bishop into the pond. He's already decided never to get involved into conversations about politics or religion with anyone that's not blood or closer, actually even blood goes sometimes. Grabbing his pale horse by the mane, a scary, yet thrill, comes over him as he takes the thirty-two piece game. No one else watching, of course he must hang himself high for finally taking down the king, proving that his peter's a bigger cock for yet the third time. If only this wasn't the moment the girls were distracted.

The artist strikes up a new match, while our winner watches on; his pack already covered. He gets his conversation pieced together, just in case he gets pulled in. He fears briefly of being afraid that she'll drag the well-retired, pastor's son out of him and into this conversation; a girl who happens to have heard of his original origins all from reliable sources.

After the conversation, which came up just a hair shy of proving the existence of God, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you or anything." "No. You didn't offend me. You just said that there isn't any. That made me want to step in," she says as her insides harden itself into an egg-like crust on his face. From the atheist: "Yeah, I shouldn't say there isn't any. I should've watched my choice of words there."

"He's a tough, little shit isn't he." The owner describes disgustingly down to the artist, as our winner smiles wickedly at the pieces still set across the board. Beneath the smile and partially opened teeth, he's a little taken back on his owner's choice of words; but at the same time, he's happy to hear the girls heard this comment about the war-like domination of his chess play.

He happens to know the pair of green eyes, which struck up the conversation her way anyway. She's a friend of his old best friend's sister. She also has had a well-known, long time crush on his old best friend. The x-pastor's son's been playing street hockey with him and his pal and their church friends on Sundays. He's seen her show up to the basketball court and gawk at the jock before.

"Hey, did you hear about my old best friend?" He pulls a sympathy card and heaves it up above his head for his friend. "No." "He got a tooth knocked out playing a hockey game a couple of weeks ago." He exhales the smoke he decided to suck out from the corner of his mouth. This is done just to test her. If she gets irritated, he's followed the alternative lifestyle by pissing off a girl who just defended Christian music and all is still good; if she doesn't bat an eye, then the male will beat his chest in pure confusion. "Yeah. I heard about that." "..Oh." The male scratches out the sweater from his chest.

The café stops and listens (in and out of his mind) to him have a conversation as long as a paragraph with the girl. The girl.... This is the girl who, once when they were all sleeping downstairs in his best friend's house some new years ago, he actually prayed to God for - to give him a girl like her (or for one who's even half as pretty). He just wanted someone to hold and who could hold him back; someone who would know who he is and what he's been through. He stared at the small socks wrapped around her feet, peeking out from under the holy throw. The sophomore or junior moved his feet closer to hers like a "romantic", who has no idea that he's moving in for a rape. Somehow, some way in her sleep, even her socks shuffled some feet away from him. Soon later, it was a known fact that she was after his best friend the whole time.

"Who did it?" "I don't know. I wasn't there. I should have been, but I was watching the end of the Steeler game. When I showed up, they were still playing, and he was already gone. (Nervous laugh). Bunch of morons. Finally, I found him about an hour later looking for his tooth in the snow with his dad."

Instead of "Awe, poor him"-ing him, she actually leaks a bit of a laugh out from her lips. The old friend with only best of intentions faces the board game smiling. The artist gives a goofy grin and joins in as much as a stranger against the wall can. She looks at her friend, while holding a giggle that floats up into her eyes. "Thahahat's not funny," her laugh begins to subside. The girl straightens her smile. "No."

46.1

"A psycho might say he's impressed - with how many vowels there are in the word "b r e a s t" and how many breasts there are on a single chest. Coincidences are only a word for coined sentences. I am.." Finally free, he shuts the door quietly behind him and lights up papered sentences wrapped tightly between his lips. {Wannabe.}

He walks up the steps, past the ones like him. They stare or talk. He nods and walks. He wanted to read tonight but must've gotten there a little late; too many damn names on the list. By the time they would've gotten to him he would have been the last performer, performing more for himself than for the four or so leftovers, which include the help.

Tattered shoes shift across the busy street and step up into the little car he parked just past the alley (the lot above a former, formal life). In the car, he drives towards his house. His dad will probably be up watching tv; his brother's probably already asleep. Without nine/ten hours of sleep he supposedly has trouble functioning. Their dad's the same way if he doesn't get four or five hours of late night television in. The three of them work well together; and when they get home, it's separation for the remains of a broken family. You can only take "family" so far.

He drives over the tracks and up the town, passing the off-lit stores closed along the way. Past the numerous stoplights and into a newer subdivision, he pulls in and winds down the dirty curves of a deformed circle. Seeing his point of it, the last townhouse before the dead end on the dirty turn around quietly sits across its empty field. His light is on in his upstairs room; in the window next to his, his brother's light is out. Predictable. Downstairs, bits of light-blue light flicker out from the broken family room through the tightly held-in windows along the front door.

Turning around, he decides to spill over the ol' café for a night cap. Double or single shot of a milky latte, and he always seems to get a good sleep. (Ironically, the loner never goes single.)

"You don't know what a cumbelly is?!" The mouth below some darkened lines ask in surprise. Everyone looks up to see who it is. It's just the writer from the corner. They look back to their things without hesitation. He's one of the usuals. If it was anyone they didn't know, it would take awhile for the voices to build up again. "..No." "Oh my *o* !"

The insurance salesman with nothing but an alarm clock on his mind heads up to the worker, who's playing a game of chess with the army hat. "Double latte, please." Visibly disappointed, the worker sighs loudly (as if it were in jest); but with a "just kiddin'," he takes a smile behind the counter to make the drink, becoming his usual self.

On the verge of becoming the smoker, he gets out his pack to rack and sits on the sofa for once in one foul swoop, as no one else was sitting there. Hovering over the green chair in front of him is the smiling face of the only one of them who was almost the end of him. "She doesn't know what a cumbelly is!" Aside from the writer lighting his paper, there's about five of them at the plastic tables. "That's fascinating," the pipe smoker rolls in his two cents.

"Even! And there's your latte, sir!" The worker says happily enough for them to assume it must be a rewarding personality. "Aunk uu," the pipe smoker gets out to the worker with a bitten, coffee straw between his chops, as the underage worker, working past hours on a school night, tops off and over his mug.

"She doesn't know what a cumbelly is." "Yeah, we all know. So what is it," begs their four legs. "What do you mean 'what is it'?! I'm not gonna tell you!" Those downward slants lean back into an all-knowing grin, staring at her in disbelief as she stares at him, adding brick by thickened brick to their wall of sexual tension. "This is too funny." The opened, black lines get up to sit down onto the sofa beside our about-face from suicide, who's content with blowing away his new latte and sucking in his smokes.

Stale saxophone lungs suck more unfiltered smoke down into parts of his body he's never even seen. The smoke rolls along the cracking walls of thinning muscle; what isn't left staining is blown up, as quickly as it came down, out of the corner of his sticky, dry mouth.

"You know what it is, don't you?" Downward slants swivel over to our main character, who's been thinking for the great answer ever since he opened the door. "Yeah. My x has a huge one." He says very smoothly then releases the smoke next to a dying, downward slant.

This must've been a real hoot to him too, because he's still bent over laughing. "What did he say?" the pipe smoker asks. "I ahasked higghm if he knew what ohne was and he said 'Yeah, my x has a huge one'." He laughs.

The writer in a new corner, waiting for possibly others to laugh, tries to look cool for this moment of attention by taking a long hit out from between the wet paper portion of his cigarette. "That's not funny," the pipe smoker blows it. This immediately puts the writer to shame in embarrassing fashion, because those black lines were probably laughing just to make the guy in the corner feel apart. This in turn hurts him and makes the downward slants embarrassed for making a fool of himself by laughing hysterically, which, again, was probably done just to make the quiet guy feel good. For this effort, he is now dissed and at the fault of no one but the quiet guy's, who has done nothing but answer the question to the best of his ability.

"Well, ..it was the way he said it." He goes for the screen pass, putting some bite back into the half eaten pair on the sofa.
47.0

Some laughing and a couple of claps go here. He paces the stage. Maybe he's waiting for more applause; maybe he's stalling to remember the next part of his act. "You ever wo" -Tt- "-iere. You're a big boy now. You sh-" -Tt- "-st me, I know what I'm d-" -Tt- "-ow, you wanna get nuts!! Come on! Let's get n-" -Tt- "o" -Tt- "-way" -Tt- "a" -Tt- "-l be our walking reviews and talking p-" -Tt- "-soluetly adore-" -Tt- "-ike.. big sea pods!" -Tt- "-ir. C-" -Tt- "-is-" -Tt- "l" -Tt- "u" -Tt- "-pa!" -Tt- -shes the end of the gloc against the skull of a man lying beside her. His eyes are enraged with fury, and she is looking upon him as a creation would look upon its god. A morbid titillation flutters through her body. Maybe it's in his release of anger. Something she's never seen in him before. Being as she could never love him less, this could only turn her onto him even mor- (Knock-Knock.)

Hesitating to get off the couch after he was finally becoming engrossed in something, he finds himself at the door; and before he knows it, he's already opened it. Just as he thought. It's his old best friend ready to cancel their evening plans for s- "Hey, man. We're not doing cards. A bunch of us are going the town over to see Heat. Wanna come?" "..Naugh, man. I've already seen it. Plus, I got to feed my dad's woman's cat, and that's all the way out in the opposite direction. So there's no way I could make it if I wanted to. ..And I don't. Sorry." No need for apologies. He needed to add that. He's been looking forward to playing cards all day. It's New Year's Eve. He still likes to be around his old best friend. The problem is that he has a sister, and they have church friends. And when them and their friends gather round the wood stove, they come up with all sorts of ways to exclude him from the things they used to do. Granted there was a time when he was tired of all of that, thus the long nights of self-seclusion and writings in the café. But he also missed those times too, not to mention his last remaining friends. And New Year's Eve is still supposed to be New Year's Eve - a special occasion to find each other again and do the things they used to, if only for one night of the year.

"Oh. Well, maybe we can do something after." His old friend, who's actually younger than him, looks down. "Sure." Nodding with their open-mouthed stares, the five people huddling outside behind his old friend continue to listen in. Collected, they're like an old wreath meant to welcome warmth of the times that only remind him of something that's been hanging around too long to box up and find some place in the clutter to store inside. The son's known or seen them all. There's some girls in there, like his old friend's sister. "Well, do you mind if I use your phone, then?" {Ah ha. The real reason they came by.} "Sure. Come on in."

Invited in, these suckers move and talk as if they've never stopped living, leaving him more and more drained to find spots where he can stand out of their way. Gossip is worshiped along long grins and chapped, red lips; taking turns, he watches each spoke of their perfectly sounded spiel. And like dust on the wheel, once they get going, they leave him partly crushed and left drifting in the wind.. (alone).

47.1

Tires spin. They revolve around him. Below him. A small town is going to have at least one more person in it before the end of the year. Driving on only what he sees through the windows that surround him, he's actually surprised – surprised by how many houses have their lights on in a town this small and with nothing to do. People are still here! You'd think that everyone in town is gone and just left their lights on to fool a potential crook, but there's cars parked along other cars in front of these small houses, which all have a story to them. And, going by the dirty plates screwed in and gone by, why is every car from out of town!? People from other states have driven long ways to be with sub-par people in a town that has nowhere to go. And why? To form a circle and watch the square of people in a huge town, states away, drop an apple (which is fake none-the-less) an hour before midnight on the television.

It's a tradition to celebrate time; the very thing everyone, and I mean everyone, damns just before they die. Seconds before Minutes before Hours before Days before Weeks before Months before Year. Watches are still tickin'. Hands are always going, even before there were hands to make the hands that differentiate the hours from the minutes from the seconds. Time is always going. It never stops because things appear to be going slow. It has no feelings, no thoughts, or breath to breathe for existence. It simply is. And always will be. Whether we care or not. All the money and warheads in this spinning world with all of our blood, sweat, and tears couldn't touch a second of it. So why celebrate it? The very thing we feel that damns us? And for those that are sticklers for time and do celebrate this, shouldn't they only celebrate the turning of the year as the year is actually turning? This means at twelve o' clock a.m. with zero-zero seconds. Midnight, and ergo their holiday, is officially over the first second into midnight. By then, nothing's changing anymore, because it's already the new year. In which: kisses shouldn't last more than a second, there should only be one celebratory puff per cigar, enough time for one shot of champagne, and let's not even discuss sex. Females are out. And I guess if there was enough foreplay, then a few males would sadly be in (no pun intended). Really what it all is is the celebration of us keeping time. "YaY! We've kept time as a society for another full year!" On the flip side, there's the business world to think of. Take his job (insurance) for example. In the insurance world, almost every renewing policy will cease and begin at 12:01 A.M. That's because the new day doesn't legally begin until one minute in. And this is the same for almost everything in business, be it transportation or the stock market. And the last time I checked, keeping track of time is one of the most important things in business. SO in that regard, these morons have been celebrating every year one minute early. And you've also got the whole time zone thing, which I don't even want to get into, what with the apple dropping and such. The gist of it is, according to our legitimate business world (and the whole holiday being a celebration of our working ability to keep track of time), everyone has kissed, fucked, high-fived, and down the hatched a minute early; and three quarters of our country alone have done this an hour or more + the minute, cheering and reveling in their celebrations at, yes, ..the wrong time.

"Dumbasses."

47.2

"What? Here's food! ..Come on. - Come over here. ..Eat, man. Dumb butt." It looks to the processed meat, still in the shape of a can. The pussy rolls its tongue up, while it opens its mouth wide. {"So how was it?"} The imprint of a voice loosens a memory. He laughs a whisper to himself. {"Wh-what do you mean??" "How was it last night? ..The Fret Haus. Didn't you go?"} The memory makes itself seen, before he pushes it back by simply letting go.

The act of forgetting makes the muscles, within the circle of his thoughts, flex and push out, pushing anything loose back into place. Otherwise, you could get stuck on a particular memory, or the feelings during a memory, forever. It's kind of like the same process behind urinating or ejaculating; you have muscles within that control these functions, and you know how to work these muscles to suppress them. These feelings are not stored in your heart, as hearts have no feelings; they're muscles only used as metaphors because they pump blood (or life) to every part of your body; an organ for the making and breaking of love used by romantics only. But in actuality, every thought and feeling comes from your head (or.. your brain).

You see, there are muscles located within your brain that can pull or push visual images that were seen through your eyes. Each image you see is recorded in memory and/or discarded, based on the muscles you use to access them. If these muscles aren't used to keep them within an easy access, then they're pulled further and further back into harder accessibility and even to the points of no return. In "Reminiscing" (the search and use of recorded memories), the brain pulls what it's recorded into a place located in very close proximity to your central nerves. Thus, the physical reactions that can take place during your recall (tears, sweat, palpitations).

As far as losing memory (which is done regularly and throughout every tick of every second), this is not done by choice but by the lengths of time to which these muscles are used to access the particular memory and also by the strength of your muscles. The process of pushing these memories behind is called "Forgetting". And the more you're forgetting, the harder they're pushing; and the harder they push, the further back these memories will go.

The longer the length of time before they're accessed, the more substantial damage you're sure to find, as they're literally pushed further and further back. Just as the muscles in your body age, so do the muscles in your brain that control these thoughts and recollections. And as time grows on them, they will eventually weaken and sag, making memories nearly flood to the surface of your brain as you reach the very end. This "flooding over of memories" will leave very little to no room for your short-term memories; for the muscles that hold them in will be sagging, eerily "reminiscent" of the skin on your face.

He feels the humor of that situation all over again (blending the remains of seen images with superimpositions of himself in the middle of them). {Rrrreeeeeee! Rreeeeeeee!!} "Oh, ff-." He finds himself holding the first letter of a cuss word on the curled lips of his angst-ridden, band-damning, shrunken scowl.

He loses himself and steps out of the relived feeling to find himself alone and cussing out the air of an empty apartment (no differently than those mad men he's seen walking down the downtown streets of television, cussing up the friendly air out there). It's the way he deals with embarrassment; getting livid and throwing an involuntary, but controlled tantrum, because absolute strangers saw him humiliated. Maybe that's exactly how those "mad men" in the dim street lights deal with their anger; only when they're finished, there's no catharsis. Closing its mouth after its second yawn, the cat remains standing under the doorway.

He locks the door then locks his car door. Putting his foot down, the car and he still doesn't appear to be getting any closer to the clouds that look worn and spread out all along the night sky. There's not one star to wish upon, sitting up in what his sight gives him to be the top of the whole world. It was just last year he literally heard the year "changing," while he was sitting upon his thrown, ruling over the brownish-yellow underworld. And for the 2nd year in a row, there's no one expecting to see his underage face downin' brews or lockin' lips. There's nowhere he needs to be, but no party's missing a laugh. So everyone's lives must be going as planned - just a jar of Peach Keene to parched lips.

He watches the road from his old town turn to the (k)new, but you couldn't tell by looking only at the asphalt. Tires know no cities. Concrete gets laid just the same. He wouldn't drive without them. No one knows where all the streets connect to. If there's one, big monster they keep in the center of the earth, only to torture by beating the tar out of it, for its precious blood to pour up through the dirt and harden for the "now-now" expeditiousness that's in our nature; our not wanting to lose another second of our precious time.

Somewhere down the line, the hardened flow leads him to his unfamiliar Grateful Hearts. It's dressed in coats, packed out around his only love, to stop the flow. To top this off, no one looks familiar hanging out or standing side by side through the storefront window. Looks to be just a bunch of upper middle-schoolers (although he could be wrong, considering the high-schoolers these days are looking younger and younger to him).

Whoever's working can't even be seen through the feasting sardines, as he hangs a right at the corner. The artist's light is on upstairs, but it could also be the downward slants'; so it's enough to move along.

The turns in streets go nowhere. They lead him to nothing he looks forward to. But that's okay because he has all night. The night is his; time is not. Every minute on his car clock is full of minutes, if for the minutes of others.

Other people's love is in the air. Over-filled pickups screech their tires bald before the hang-drying stoplight; the black over one of its faces finally evaporates to reveal a light green. Radios blast through the plastic ears of the bubble gum/cigarette butt chewing, inwardly familiar female faces. A look and a "Woo! Woo!", as they shake their red cabooses and continue their cruise down the Five-Dollar Way. Shockingly, they did this without a spoken invitation but with a metaled pedal in order to avoid eye contacting embarrassment, arousing out from their past-down-from-the-ageless form of teenagous wooing. Slightly perked up for the second, he steers away anyway by veering left. What could he do? Catch up with them? Pull them over and open that can of partying found in every other alcoholic advertisement (AA)? He's sure they didn't think anything of him anyway – well, as sure as a guy can without that cocky part of him getting in the way. Just girls being girls.

A fist explodes into a palm due to frustration of the slightly weaving driver doing twenty-one in a twenty-five, which should be at least a thirty so they can do thirty-five comfortably. A stick man with a pale terd, curving down to his ankles, sits flat against a blue screen that's projected onto a bumper, still waiting for his picture to be taken by the drivers closing in on him.

The road rides them up, leading to nothing but more road. Sung: "It's the truuuuth. - Can't escaaAApe from – the common fooools. - If you hate soooomethin' – don't ya know yaaaa screwed. - It's not fo-" With a folded voice box, his pencil-less head pokes Swiss-Family mockeries through the sheetless but shitfull music, falling out the window and over the stickers from behind the next moron in front of him.

{Too bad ears have no remote or volume control}, even so I'm sure the mute button would always be jammed. As you know, you can never pick and choose which sounds you wish to hear, and only in sleep can you ignore some sounds. Although sometimes I bet they can influence which way the knife will swing in a dream. Our "non"-addictive depressant for the most part is still a product of the light sleepers. On those trips to Camp Tocumisa with his "forever" friends, he'd pry drifting eyes wide at a shift in the air, ready to foul the other cabin's plan of a wet revenge. And soon after, during his nights at home in bed, he'd swear to himself that he heard an intruder and would again only sleep in undulating flashes of shut eye, which would barely open above the thick blankets. The thicker the blankets, the more the padding against having a terrible water gun wound or stalker's ax ripping through.

Of course the older he got, the less credible his imagination became. Until the day came where he backed it into the perfect irony: he ignored it to death. So once he was well into high school, he did the impossible and actually caught up to all his missed sleep by sleeping in till two, one, or four in the weekend's afternoons. But even after all the catch-up, to this day he still wakes at the change in a thermometer; perhaps still waiting for the night his door will be kicked back into those carefree days again.

Nails are crucial to the fingers scratching his fingers. Between his teeth, a cigarette butts its tight ass in. Crackling of burning paper and fresh tobacco fill the empty spaces of his Geo with soundly places. Wheels roll their wearing tires in the monotonous direction. Crossing the railroad crossing, fingers wrap around the fifth wheel and jerk it right when the second lane begins. He brakes to swerve around their swerve then pushes it into third gear to get the car truckin'. Once a barely crawling stick man is now a seemingly unmoving speck of dirt on his little square mirror, which literally saves his life days at a time.

He calms down. His ears are told to turn their attention away from the stuffed nose. The massive, planet-covering body of oxygen, that gets breathed in by almost every living organism on earth, shares some of its -illions of strings of skin for him to breathe in. Blackened lungs suck a couple strings up into his left nostril. Girl strings scream in horror, as they watch their men get carried away into the dark hole of the night by scary-looking, hair-like creatures. "Hssssst!" It hisses, as he breathes in. "Hsssssst!"

The strings of skin could quite possibly come from the earth's core and are so vast that no one has ever seen them, except by maybe the dying or the vegetable people. It's kind of like the earth that spins so fast that you can't feel it or even see everything the world has to offer for all the moving flashes, as sometimes found when looking carefully into a strobe light. To my knowledge, there's never been a recording of any thin person flying off of it or someone suddenly becoming unconscious with the symptom being: the Spins of the Earth.

He ignores all of this, like always; unconsciously finding a normal breathing pattern to further his existence. He drives without seeing {"Fuck!!"} but recalls with little thinking. {She gets into the car and sits there for a few seconds. "Brake a nail?" "Oh my God. Did I just hit that car?"} He smiles while sliding down to a stoplight. {"Back up, and let's get the hell out of here!" "This is a piece, who unlike Jew here, I didn't write on the toilet. It's called Memoirs."} His grip tightens around the steering wheel. {Reeeeee!} "Fuckinndummsunnuva," the retired senior mutters. {"Are ya thinking with your thing?"} A grin is fought off but remains shining somewhere beneath his barely splitting lips. {"Well, what about tonight? I've got plans for us. It's Valentine's Day." "Oh, I'll be there tonight." "Have you ever smoked a cigarette?" "Stay away from her. She's bad." "She's your daughter." "I'd marry you." "Really?!" "Sh.. sure."} He shakes his head while pulling into the sub-division.

{"Oh, she's so hot!" "Hell yeah!" "That would hurt the guy too." "I don't know.." "Trust me. It does." "What about Carl?" "Fuck Carl!" "IwannadieIwannadie." "Pretty Woman?" "Well, ..get in." He stares up at her, as she just stands there stitched into the darkness.} He shuts the front door.

{"Push the clutch in." "What's the clutch?" "It's not like nothing he's never seen before." "Are you high?" "No." "Good. I'm breaking up with you." "....why?" "A slut. A fucking slut would think like that. You treat your kid like shit. You've got some serious problems. And I don't love you enough to want to deal with that. I can't. I won't. I deserve better than this. And more importantly I deserve better than you!" "...." "Now, if there's nothing more to say.. then.....}
48.0

"Wanna go to our group leader's house? There's a big party at his place." Their new group leader took over the vacated spot left by his old youth pastor when he moved to Sin Sea; this - shortly after our favorite pupil went to The Green Isle. The x-pastor's son never really trusted the new guy for some reason. He had the voice and aged look of an old smoker (or midnight toker) yet all the white teeth of a dental hygienist, gassing up this stupid grin on himself he could somehow hold longer than Batman's most deranged arch-villian.

Standing at the door, his face is more than read in the length of his pause by those in the waiting car behind his old best friend, but he doesn't seem to mind. "All right. Fine. Let me grab my coat. I'll follow you." "I can drive." "Yeah, but I'm not sure how long I'll want to stay."

Some people he knows and hasn't seen purposely for a very long time will be there, no doubt. Joy. More accurately, it will probably consist of the whole new crop - with a pair of familiar ears too, here or there. It's more of the type of people that will be there that he finds himself ill to stand. People who look down on smokers and anyone who slips out a cuss word, and then he has to hear about it (if with no ears than his eyes).

They try and preach to him the same lessons he's heard hundreds of times more than them/before they were "them", and they'll preach it a thousand times worse than he'd remember or he could reiterate back to them (if they'd actually care to listen instead of smearing their sticky opinions all over his hair and back). He could be a fucking pastor and past it a way they've never heard it before and have others faint when he walks by straight from the spirit within. But like his father before him, it's too late. The words only run together after awhile; separation this late in the game would only bring up pain.

Every single one of them think they know it all. The key to life that fits into the gate of eternal life after death. But just because you feel a bone in your hand doesn't mean it's a skeleton key you're rubbing or that there's even a lock in the gates above to stick it in.

Deeper within the group you have your leaders, and those are always in constant stiff competition over who God uses more. He knows this; he was at the top. There are so much good intentions from the core; but eventually they crumble to those with a rising intellectuality, because it comes off to them as fake. As well as it should be, because those at the top are shaking their hands and fluttering their lids on purpose to attract their holiest of attentions, instead of intentions. And they're getting "visions" from God so easily because it's whatever comes from the top of their heads. Anyone can tell a teenager that God told them that they're feeling confused.

And these teens do this, oddly enough, in order to attract the opposite sex for the most part. It's the way good, christian folk mate. The good girls fall for whatever they're around. And if they happen to constantly be in a religious environment on their social time (where guys are around), then these are the losers they are attracted to. After all, they've been told that men of God are hard to find, and that they will lead them in the right direction till the end of time and into the afterlife. Because God truly loves those whom It uses. And a girl would want to mate with a guy like this, because he is the best to lead her and their family into the highest house in the hills of all Heaven.

You see, when you boil it down, it's all about.... Vanity. The right to own it and the right to look fabulous. By being with a "man" who is looked upon by others as being "righteous" (more outgoing during the process of religion [or junior high courting]), she is not only in the hands of a good man; but because he's in the hands of God, she'll also be in the hands of God. And in God's Hands, nothing goes wrong. It's all for a purpose; a purpose which will be rewarded in Heaven by the boatload, running off of Esteem and Glory; and as it travels over the lake of fire, all of those who aren't with men of god or aren't ones themselves (like our smoker) will be looking up to them from below with envy, as they witness everything the "good" one has (much as the same way they are currently doing). So, of course, they're attracted to, yes, whoever this fool is that God appears to be using the most. Thus as it is written, this creates the competition. Which boy can lead her into one relationship under God into an indivisible, eternal glory?

If this sounds entirely stupid, it's not their fault. Most of them have parents who make them go every week, so they can be programmed to be just like them. They even hand out these programs every week before The Service. Inside them, they've got a listing of the songs that must be sung in order and while everyone is standing on two feet! Some of them even have words (actual sentences without song) that you must all say in unison. Anyone who fails to do this will be given god-damning stares from somewhere inside. They've also got the name of your programmer (which is usually the maker); this is sometimes on the cover, depending on how vain your programmer (or maker) is. There is a description of what is to be downloaded from the pulpit and installed before you leave. This is, of course, made and given to you directly from the programmer; as if anyone else knows how to make these things but a programmer (education is involved, you know). And in the book, they usually have your bill: what was paid last week and the number of units that acquired servicing. You do the math!

I mean, can they be any more bold and flagrantly obvious? Can their version of the Holy Ghost be any more visible? If it were, you'd only see the side of your face. And you can't show them where they're right and where they're wrong. It's all been written down. Interpretation is everything. You can't disagree with God very much now can you?

Now, the grown children only go for the social gathering, instead of the real reason intended, which was to encourage each other and see how God is working in their lives and what they can do to help make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate. Those on the outside of the circle are either having their mind set to spirituality and a true, unabashed relationship with Jesus Christ, or they are trying to figure out how the hell the system works and how it can best benefit them.

To boil things down to the rawness of it, it's the people this x-pastor's son is done being around. He knows the kinks, and he's still sick of what that place has become to him. It has nothing to do with love, other than the love of one's own self. It has nothing to do with encouragement of others without self-glorification (if for nothing else than for giving said encouragement in the company of others). It is a vile cesspool of plastic masks and the whoring of souls!! ...Can I get an amen?

He knows those people. Grateful Hearts is a safe haven from their constant babbling and self-building of Heaven. At least over there he can be himself and people won't care any less of him. He can smoke; he can speak with a free tongue; he can write without some wide-eyed Christianite pointing a finger down to him. There, everyone is no one. Just free souls interacting with one another upon leisure; or if you want, there's total solace too. It's as if there were a freedom that was handed down from some place above.

Where before, the "one body" thought it was also to have only one mind; one with an inability to process any new information and which has no memory of the term "free space". But at his home away are all sorts of minds that actually don't mind thinking apart from one another. Like they were all made special and have different thoughts on different things. No egos to soar to. Everyone is on the same ground, and that's the way they like it. Everyone is no one. If there's no one there, then they can lean back and soak up what is the normal flow of their Grateful Hearts.

Kicked and rolling emotionlessly past them into the darkened den is the darkest one of them inside and out. Out of the darkness and into the light are all of the lions, including his friends, lying and panting about the man-made rays shooting out from the wall. Looking into the light through their well-permed and stylized manes, beading eyes follow the black and white stripes of a.. {Billy Crystal?} ..down the court in their television. He can almost see an arm dunking on the screen from his seat in the kitchen, next to their living room.

He looks over their talking heads that aren't turning to smell the dark-blue, smoky, leather coat he just threw on top of the others, which are taking up the last spot on the couch. "HAAHAAAAAA!! Thet funy!" He somehow missed the kid in the high chair, sitting next to him in the darkened room.

A mother walks back into the kitchen. "Is that funny?!" She affords a motherly high tone for the kid, who's no longer the last one lacking attention, then she goes to refilling the snack bowls on the kitchen table even though there doesn't appear to be any snacks missing.

Within an arm's reach of the uneaten pretzel bowl, the last to lack attention looks at the girls sitting on the couch above the guys sitting at their feet. They lean forward and watch and laugh and point and spit and shout. "LlIIIIr dn!" The smoker of them looks over to the talking kid. "Agelreee hessi. Arrrr!"

The mother walks over from the sink and picks him up. "Is he bothering you? I'm sorry." "No." She puts him into a high chair at the end of the table anyway and slightly turns the kitchen lights up, while she goes back to serving the kings and queens of all that's the living room. But his eyes don't leave the switch. It's a dimmer (or a circular, light switch) like he's always wanted to have. In the ten houses that son's lived in, I don't think he's ever had a house that had one of the circle switches. If he had, it was in one of the ones that's still repressed in his memories; one where his mother still sings "Rise and Shine" and the father makes sure the lights are out before bed.

"Don't you wanna come in and watch the movie with us?" A familiar girl presents herself by kneeling down before him. "No. That's all right," he says with her looking up, eye-contacting him. "Well, you're going to go to our house later, aren't you? We're going to have a sleep over." She puts her hand next to him on the edge of the table. I guess the church went to hell after his family left, and Sex is god. This is basically his younger sister: sister of an old best friend/daughter of the x-song leader. And apparently she's bringing all the titillation of a wanna-fling sibling. "I don't know. I'll think about it." He looks down at her, holding the ground he's climbing out of.

She continues to stare up at him with wide open eyes and an inner course veering for him out from behind her locked-in, half grin. Behind a silky pair of hypnotically, circulating stares, she turns on only a déjà vu to his first girlfriend and the nearly demonic length of a longing stare, leading up to his first kiss. "Are you high?"

The sounds of her snapping out of it are inaudible next to her physically breaking off the last of what one was hoping to be a wooden stare. "No." Almost pissed off and not sure for which reason, he finishes her off, "Your eyes look glassy. That's all." He steps down from the missing stare. "Glassy?" She lets off a breath of a laugh, as she gets to her feet. "No. ..I'm not high." Beaten, she simply heads back to the living, leaving him with the kid in the dimly lit kitchen.

48.1

"What? Have you seen this?" He asks the only person who had the nerve to enter the dark kitchen and sit across from the stranger with the stranger story and the kid kidding them into thinking he's always quiet like this, who happens to be slouching down low in his high chair. "No. I just didn't really care to," replies the girl in the green eyes and previous protector of christian music everywhere. "Yeah, me neither." Looking over the table with shadows of all the things laid over it, she finds a deck of cards and begins to shuffle.

Below her green eyes, lips separate in a different way than anyone's ever did to say, "You wanna play something?" Cards fly, as she screws up the last bit of her master shuffle. "Smooth." She sweeps up the heart from across the table, as he picks up the club from off the floor. "I'm usually good at that." "I can tell.

"What can you play with two people?" "Um, ..can you play Rummy?" "No." "Spades?" "No." "Poker?" "Not really. No." "Do you know any card games?" Bullshit and Asshole would have been apropos. He grins to ear, retaining half of the full emotion. "I've played cards for years and years, but all I know is Euchre ..and War." He misses Hearts and 52 pickup. "Okay. Let's do War. What's high?" She confuses him. "Um, Joker. Right?" "How about spades." She speaks on a decrescendo like the lot of them, although she doesn't act like the lot she just abandoned. "Sounds good."

"Ten." "Jack," she sweeps his card away and begins what is to be her pile. "Eight." "A-" "Ahhhhhh!" The mother rushes into the dark room, where a Kodak moment appears to be developing before their eyes. "It's time for your bed, huh?" They look to the smiling toddler in the corner. "Sorry, guys." She addresses the low pair. "Oh, no problem. ..Ace." She continues to sweep another card away from him, as the mother pulls the toddler out of his high chair.

Not far into their game, a friend of his, who's actually a little more of a friend of his friends, came in to play. The girl seemed a little hesitant for some reason, but then his pal and another sniffed their way up to them. "What's going on," asks his old best friend, the x-song leader's son, and the one she had a year-long crush on. "I think we're going to play a game of Euchre or Hearts. Wanna get dealt into the black jack?" His pal asks. The kitchen light begins to brighten. "I'll just watch," the girl of his original game gets up to relinquish her seat. "No." She pauses, standing up even in the brown circles of his widened eyes. "Play," he finishes. "..All right."

It was the friend of his friends and the girl vs. his pal and the gal's former crush. The first one into the kitchen was now the first one to lose his seat, but he didn't mind. He just wanted to help her with a couple of hands (of which she does have more on her chest than the others); but instead, he stood there building his guts up to that level. By the time he was ready, his pal and old best friend were already in the barn.

{"You like her!" Some girl right next to him shouts into his third grade ears. "No I dont. Why wood you now that anyway?!" "Cuss your allways pulling her Pig Tayls!"} "All right. Game's over. I'm ready to play." He speaks after scratching over the flirtation part of his dry skin, that's still scarred for life.

Everyone seems to reconvene into the living room, as he takes back his seat. "Is everyone leaving?" "No, it's almost midnight. They're going to watch the ..thing.. fall," his pal sort of explains. "Oh. I thought it was almost eleven." His pal and her grin with him; the three of them now the remains of the brightly lit kitchen.

"I don't see the point in that kind of shhtuf." He almost slips in front of her. "Me neither," the girl echoes. "This is the first year that I decided I'm not going to make any resolutions. They never work. In fact, it's probably a jinx," states our respecter of the jinx. "Yeah, I never do those either. That's stupid." His pal agrees.

"Yeah, why do-" "10!" "-people have t-" "9!" "-o wait until New Year's-" "8!" "-anyway. If you-" "7!" "-'re going to stop smok-" "6!" "-ing or start working out or wha-" "5!!" "-tever, you should just do it or-" "4!" "-don't." "No kid-" "3!!" "-ding," his pal agrees with the girl nodding her head. "2!!!!" The girl runs into the backs of the semicircle around the television. His pal and him now share a separate grin. "1!!!!! Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!" "Woo Whooo!" "Nineteen Ninety-Six, bAbE!" Some dork has to spew out.

Trying to get over the excitement, his pal and him continue their two-player game of Bid Euchre. He watches as the girl slowly backs away from the circle.

48.2

Bodies are weak and giving in. Shaking hands stiffen from the meat to the bone. Lips shrink back, for some of the hard, white hits were to the head. Their faces could be showing skull for all they know. They can't feel them; not the skin that stretches beneath another's sliding, wet fist. Lips and ears are the only parts above the shoulders that sting. And the lot of them can feel the cold melting from their heated skin, dripping down from those numbing spots where they were hit to feel it squishing between what they could swear is no longer: their toes.

"Aaaaahharrgh!" Chewbecka roars. "It fell down my shirt!" She screams into the faces of the shivering, fragile temps. Grown down in age, the son and his best friend wraps the terrain nice and tight into balls to throw and release at will; and will chose to hit the girls this night. "We give!!" "We give." They come out from behind the trees. Bam! Bam! Joined by the friend of his friends, they fire a couple of no mercy ones in. "All right!!" Daughter of the x-song leader yells amidst the small ambush. "Thank you!" The sister steps into the footprints that lead back to her vehicle. The assailant turns around, grinning more evilly than the rest (for getting in a final blow and without defense); perhaps he was unleashing some of the pent up aggression felt towards those who still have what he had. Then it happened. Crack! Undropped and dropped drips pick up and scatter the spots of light in the night that hang in the balance of his little strip of sight; the rest is all black and crushed white. He stumbles and falls back first to the snowy earth below.

Blurry strings of light and dark make up what he thinks is the body of the green-eyed girl standing over him. "I'm sorhee hee," she laughs it up like a tickling hairball stuck in the bodice of a black cat. From the laugh, he now knows he's right. Bending over him, her glove (which surprised him at first, because he was expecting the gentle, chilled hand of a girl) brushes across his face, knocking away the bits of ice and snow from his closed peepers.

"M'ime maurry. Mim't mehn ma mit mu in mu mace." Her lips numb with his. "Mits maw might." He raises his hand to pat snow onto the top of her head. "Ahh!" She screams into a run of fun. Instead of enjoying the moment, he first thinks of this as a stereotypical charade. {That was really stupid putting snow on her head, but I couldn't think of anything better}, and {There's no reason for her to run. I wasn't gonna chase her.}

Losing his thoughts, he whips a snowball at her as she's hopping into her blue truck. The snowball hits where the top of the door would be if it were closed, but it's not. Snow sprays into the interior of the truck. Her nearly stone cold face appears to be holding back a hint of anger, while she slowly closes the door.

He calmly walks up to the window and smashes his backup ball against it. As he wipes it over the window, she rolls it down, defeating the purpose. "This is my dad's truck." The numbness seems to melt away from his red face. "Sorry. ..It's just water. It'll dry, you know."

"Where are we going?" Her head, ignoring the ignoramus, seems to be facing his pal, who's now standing beside him; as if, because he played along with her (and uncharacteristically), she now sees through him. "We're all going to his house. Just follow us." {I'm still here.} "It's right behind Costas, in case you get lost." He mutters more to his snowed-in tattered grays, before he hikes over to his car along the street in a chilling defeat.
49.0

The first one of them takes the tail of them. As you know, before him, there was no one. His parents came here from a fort the size of a city three hours east to make the place they found each other at. Without him, there's no them. They wouldn't even be known as "they"; they'd be in different parts of the city. But here he is, the one and original, and he's following them around the town as if he were particles left over from a previous life. Do they even know he's existing? Of course they know; that's what they're driving towards – back to his unadulterated house. Because of his parents' marriage, they've found each other; yet because of their divorce, they have a hangout for New Year's Eve. I guess one boy's hell is another's reason to turn up the music and smile, driving with reckless abandonment through town. Of all the finances that appeared in wicker baskets over the period of a few years, funny how his parents are the ones who continue to give and give and give to this place – this Pretty lil' Val Town.

But to be completely honest, I think he's taking the tail of them to follow her and make sure she doesn't get lost. Her: the girl whose feet curled and bended within her light socks, during his prayer at night to God to give him a girl who's just a quarter of everything that she seems to be. Just someone to hold, to say she's his - a girl who'll love him more than herself, and he'd be happy; and they'd be good for previous debts given unto him in the form of an ungodly and uncalled for divorce granted down to him from somewhere in Heaven above. And this: the two year anniversary of that New Year's Eve past, of which the next year and a month (or 13) he was headed down the dangerous roads to a Fret Haus with a gal who seemed indeed to be a quarter or less (and shy of any change) of the very girl he's now following on safer roads to his very place.

She's of course behind his old best friend, who's behind his pal and the friend of his friends, who's heading them down the twists of every turn. In a hard left, she takes the guts of them, following who the thinnest of them suspects to be the tightened chest of his old best friend. His suspicions are correct. And in that split second, the ass of them wants very badly to follow her; but he goes straight, letting his friend "have this one" (the déjà vu of an ancient conversation which lead to the namings of themselves and the church girl who danced for them in their little man screams at night).

Trying to feel happy for them, especially for his friend, he tries to smile. ~ A crooked grin splits on the corner of his head.

He doesn't want a relationship anyway. One more goes wrong and he knows he'll find himself worse off than before. And a stumble, even a step worse than that, would mean no more almost smiles or lop-sided grins; it'd mean ..no more nothing. And what's scary is that that would be just fine with him too; it has been for a while. After that woman's son's girlfriend's daughter, he's slowly regained some sanity and mellowness he's never known in him before. He still doesn't see much of anything to live for, but there doesn't appear to be any reason for death. Life is no longer a huge pain in his guts; it's just that there's nothing here to keep him either. The days are just days; time recording to let everyone know that things are aging, and that some things will never go back to being the way they were.

And as far as getting over them and into this day, writing and then saying the words that were within seems to be very helpful for him. This girl - she seems to bring something out of him too; something he's forgotten about; pieces of him buried deep in him that tried to surface before he pushed them back in to save a possible new friend ..when with them. This girl seems to be full of life and a great girl, a rare glimmer of green in the bunch.

But tonight, it was like (at least it should have been) making somewhat friends with his old best friend's up and coming girlfriend. And that's good, because when they do start going out he'll hardly ever see him again {or her}. And if his old friend does slip the palm over the phone to ask her if he can do something with him, she might be more inclined to nod instead of shake, because she knows him a little better and therefore wouldn't want to look bad to someone she knows and likes.

Winding down the way of the new division, the red Geo pulls up to the only vehicle parked along the side, his pal's parents' van.

49.1

"Shlllluupp. Shhhhhllup. Shhoooourlp. Shhhh Shh Shhhhhhhhhlllllllup." Spit swaps from the younger sister's mouth to her boyfriend's on his kitchen counter. {That was quick.}

Wisely skipping on the Dew, he goes back to the living room and carefully squeezes himself into a seat next to the Girl, who's sitting next to the friend of his friends, who's next to his old best friend, who's next to nothing. They're all scrunched together on an old love seat, watching Beastmaster on the Super Station.

His pal's already gone. It's been a known fact that he's going to Y-Wam tomorrow. It's like a Christian boarding house where every day's a retreat or church service or something. It's in Texas, and he's leaving really early in the morning (New Year's Day). He'll be there at least a year, I believe. And the friend of the friends, who's practically a good friend of ours is packing up for the Navy in a few months. This friend of the friends is the youngest of them all.

The very weird harmanic/harpsicordish-like music of a movie trailer grabs the attention of the gabbing gentlemen. The widened eye of a crazed Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis in a smock of the sick hold the sofa's attention amidst the hyenic ramblings coming up from the floor. Trailer pulling up to a close, the friend of the friends gets up for a well needed restroom break.

"That just looks too weird." –his old best friend. "Really?" Asks the green-eyed girl. "I think it looks really different. When did it say it's coming out?" "This Friday." Her card player saves the night with his fantastic eye/mind coordination and then pushes it further with, "He directed Time Bandits, you know." No one seems to have seen Time Bandits. "Aaa. I don't think so." – his old best friend.

Our moment of impulse turns to the girl in the green eyes, "Well, me and you will go then. Don't worry." "..Okay." Even though it's one of those "yeah, we'll have to do that one of these days," he can't help but smile at the nevertheless accepted invitation. The reddened eye of a downed man of parts glows back to life.

"We're going to the house now." The leader of an empty pack announces while holding the hand of what would appear to be a very nearly dumped boyfriend. "Come on. Let's go." The girls, all panting and black-eyed, get up off the floor and head on for the door. Looking back, the leader of the pack finds the prey that got away and a lone girl left. "You comin'?" As if these incredible creatures could communicate by the moving of their red lips. "Na. Go ahead. I'll catch up later." Lips agape without a drip of red falling through everything said. "..Alright," is finally pushed off from the standing stare. And with that, the door is shut, sealing them in with the last bit of cold air that was opened to them.

Still sardined and stuck into the couch (lucky to be uneaten), it's now just the friend of his friends, his old best friend, the girl, a pile of nerves next to the girl, and the Beastmaster.

Stories of the past are left beneath the dirt of them; and all of the loin-clothed mockeries one could stand are pointed to the screen, as they sit side by side by side by side. Here, sarcasm flows like the mighty dew from a mountain. Some of the remarks that are hilarious would be a flop the next morning, but they're all laughed the same way. Elbow to elbow; hip to hip, they seem to remember what it's like to be young and timeless again. It's as if time has gone back to the time when everything was just a couple of things. Or maybe time, itself, has decided to take a stand, taking in all the ticks it can for them to enjoy one night stretching into nights, where everything would be the way it should. A time where broken hands feel no minutes. No worries, no agenda, no dreams, or even memories. Everything is just the way he grew up to think it'd be, before the great disillusionment and before the turned-off sun finally remembers how to rise again (..if it ever can).

This could be the first New Year's Eve of many that they'll be together like this, or, of course, it could be the last. Leaning towards the latter on the thin and unsteady legs of pessimism, friendships are being rekindled anyway and some are sparked into something new. The beginning of a great end. They know this. And they care, but they don't. And when you're in the middle of something you don't even know will be a moment later, who does?

In the unintentional stroke of a black-faced clock and caffeined stitches, the four of them become as close as seamingly sown together, as they sit within the arms of a love seat \- their feet swaying into the stretching night. A frown drips a worn smile across his face. It falls like a string out of his mouth and spills a spot into a yearly washed pillow sheet.

50.0

A paper "but" dries into his puckering lips. They stick to kissing the very "but" it sucks smoke from. Eyes forget their many different positions on this to stick straight into the sockets, giving him enough time to unfocus on what once was a tearing, gray shoe. He shoves his bare foot into the sole of it and pushes them away from him and closer to the her in him.

From amidst the fallings and risings of a swirling green mist, all the swerving curves to a shapely figure form before a matching pair of strikingly lit eyes; they give the fallen heavens the lightest reflections of their ever-living shade. Flickering like the shadows of things that were within are the faded reflections of a life well-lived and living over beneath her feet. Reflecting in their reflections and in the light of their projections is the blooming of unformed images, like babies breath, breathing movements and fullness of breath into the unspeaking voices of things yet to come. These creatures of light that live around him in the night quickly act through the impending scenes of his life to be, as they slowly begin to creep up over the night falling from her. Glancing over them, he catches dots of skin that stretch into softened lines, moving with the breaths of the people who will be before his very eyes; creeping from the corner of a scene, he sees what could be his enlarged fingers playing with the strings of lightened hair, as they fall from the head of a face that seems to be scene throughout.

"But what abou-" She presses a finger firmly to his lips. Full lips part in half at the wettening seam to say "You wanna refill on that, hon?"

Relaxing the muscles in his hardly noticeable, flexing face, he turns in his orange booth. Ash stains, as it bounces down his blue jeans bent at the knees below a nearly forgotten kiss. Eyes fix on a standing location and await a completed transmission before recognition, for all the signals are in the midst of being given to the other places of him.

"Uuuu.." Instead of the regular way, his mouth opens a step slower then with a jerk in order to successfully rip an inch of skin from his dried, upper lip. {AUaww!!} "Ow." His face barely shrinks into a pain. The unfiltered cigarette, laughing its butt off, looks up at him while dangling from the very lower lip it puts its hole life and brownish/red stuffings into. "No thanks."

The emphysema pop forgets to scream in strict terror, as it falls into the flattened woods below. Scowling down to his dying cigarette, the dreamer pushes his thumb against the stinging skin. A waitress, well within her façade of a secret smile, turns her back on him and race-walks against what's probably a good laugh, as she crosses the swinging doors into the kitchen.

He lowers his thumb to shrink from the bright blood painting lightly over the lines in his thumb. Picked up, ashed tough, and left for dead in the black, claw-like gr- {fucker}, a refocusing attention pushes his pen hard into the stretched out paper. The writer looks back between the lines, forcibly unfocusing on the words within; searching for the bit of heaven that hath so previously befallen him.

Looking up, the eyes behind his brown pair discover a blackness ceiling his view. A thinning heaven apparently has already risen, as he finds it lying scattered into a near oblivion beneath the night; through the thin veil of what once seemed so real, the darkness proudly shows off its big balls of light and gases. But nothing green to be seen, .. ..and not a soul around but the one between.

Traces of what had been are scattered like puddles left over from someone's merciless rain. Stepping up to one and bending over, he sees his x reaching over to the passenger seat. Black jeans cover the legs of one that gets in; their shortened lengths reveal a once worn pair of un-matching socks. Looking over, her hand puts them in gear and steers them out of there and into something ne- Stepping into them, a pair of tattered grays drip the scenes of him, as they step out of the Big Wheel and into his small, red car.

He can't be thinking like this. As soon as his old best friend wakes up, he'll dig that crusty from the corner to see a new best friend; one that could be there {..that should be there..} in more ways than he's ever been.

You see, he loves his old friend and wishes him the best. They had some of the best times of his life. But of course that was before he woke with a chill and looked up from bed to see a seam in his parents' roof. And within the seam he seemed to see a deep and dark place, that breathed and grew of life anew. From the splitting seam came the gushes of rain, complete with the cords that held his suspense. And with the roof of all things stable, down came the very steeple of his lord and his people. The church ended with his parents. Leaders became x's; followers got their turn to circle round till all things owed were then due. Far from the hierarchy of wholly bullshit were those times he had with his friend; times before he was forced to explore on his own and ended up lost in all things found beneath the pieces of a broken home. (Of all the hand-in-hand church skipping and cards that were played, exploring was actually their strongest suit.)

Getting all the brakes as he heads down the Five-Dollar Way, these were the places his friend could never fake admittance into. Different paths for different people. Yeah, in hind sight, losing sight of where each other were was enough to make cousins of brothers, but you don't hate your blood for it. And the bottom line is that all of the jealousy and animosity towards him for having everything he used to and still should, paled to the love he still felt for his old best friend (be it thinning in the blood within).

A grateful heart maybe for the prayer that turned the others' darkened paths into his and a damning to the god that would allow anything like this to go down in the first place. A junior higher, sitting ages from all of them (including him), sits in his reflective numbing after all of the pain has left him of any feeling. {..She would be great.}

In the smoke of all things gone, he pulls up to the outside of a familiar storefront window. Watching.... Those inside are like him. They've been lost in the darkened things that knows no known color. New friends for a new time......{....................}

All of the things that were within, slowly scatter along the storefront like a fog that poured from him. Faintly lit tail lights are left blinking in their hind sight, as he's seen to be slowly fading from his grateful hearts.
51.0

It's the final seconds of the championship game. Whoever wins is going to the big bowl. There's only time for one more play, and Lord knows Harbaugh's giving a hail mary for that end zone. "Ready! - Set! – Set! ('-' trying to draw the yellow and black jerseys offsides) ---- Hike!"

Lloyd and Green try to wrangle through the writhing offensive line of the Colts, who are standing up tall on their hind legs frothing, fighting, slowly collapsing around their que. Finally, the ball is gone. Every head turns to the dry skin of a pig as it finally flies over the field of green. The brothers rise, hoping to make way for some sort of immaculate deflection, as if their entire lives depend on this skin being batted away from the hoof-like hands of these damning centaurs. "Come on!" A huge pile of Steelers and Colts jump into the air. Arms reaching from a blue and white jersey graze over the skin, beginning to tuck it in, when a hand reaches from the black and gold to bat the pig into the ground. No flag. No whistles. Game over. And only the "wU-hoooos" of certain brothers are to be heard over the metallic grindings of a closing steel curtain.

A loud smack pats down the earholes in the room, as the brothers' high-fiving, sweaty hands return to their sides, which return to their respective seats. For the first time in their conscious NFL lives, their team is finally going to the Super Bowl. (From birth, every mouth has to root for something, I guess.)

His old best friend, the next pastor's son, the friend of his friends, and whoever the other fair weather, or just socially obvious people are, get up from the love seat and carpeted areas, leaving the brothers from the same mother and another. "We're going to go to group. Wanna come?" "Maybe in a little bit. I wanna see the interviews and stuff." He tries to calm down.

"You coming?" They look down to the pair of green eyes still failing to turn up from the television. "Maybe in a little bit," she echoes an unpopular, yet surprising choice, stealing a steeler right the hell from his post game. The others seem to care less, as their host watches the front door shut behind them.

......(tv playing)..... {Well, this is awkward.} From the darkest corners of his face, he discretely watches in interrupted intervals as she remains sitting there on the other side of the love seat, simply staring at his players on the small screen. {Why is she staying? It's just me and my brother.} His brother shifts a bit in his kitchen chair. {I've never had a girl here before. Maybe she doesn't like group anymore either. Maybe she just wants to watch the post-game interviews. She was the only other one going for the Steelers. .. Yeah.} With that, his brother gets up and goes upstairs to his room {unable to draw in anymore of this suffocating sex air. I can't believe he'd miss this tho.. Oh, that's right.} He has a television upstairs.

The last guy left in the room diagrams the awkwardness of the situation within the curved, thick skull's walls. {This is so fuckin' awkward. How in the hell do I make her feel comfortable? Act normal. No, I don't want her to go. Don't look at her! Man, this is awkward. What do I do? x5} He picks up a bunch of pop cans and trash and throws them into the cans of trash in the garage.

As he sits down on the far side of the couch from her, he sits back into a good lean, acting like he couldn't be more at home. And after the seven minutes of silence, he pushes his limits to say, "Great game, huh?" to the female in his passenger seat. No need for them to take two cars if they're going to the group together. Through short conversations, he comes to find out that the girl with the green eyes lives just out of the subdivision and down a couple pairs of streets.

As they pull up to that church, the very one from our beginning but has since relocated across the Pretty lil' Val Town, "I don't really feel like going, do you?" She echoes the words he spoke to himself long ago through the caverns of his very soul. "Not at all. You wanna grab some coffee somewhere?" He asks. "Sure. How about that café where I saw you that one time?" "You remember that?" "Yeah," she laughs. "Sounds good to me."

What appear to be junior-highers, appearing to be high-schoolers, fill his ol' café to the brim. Those pre-madonna prime timers are even pouring out onto the deck. {Who even knew they had a damn deck?} They stand or sit, sucking cigarette smoke through their baby faces. High voices are pushed below that constant nervous look that sifts and shifts to every sound and movement in any and every space around them. Their widened eyes rotate back and forth, faster than any clock could care to time, fully stocked with the ticks of "Sex? – Sex? – Sex? – Sex?" (Actually, they're going through something our driver could barely say he made it through. They're in the dark rectum of life, and God be with them.)

"Okay. Let's pass on that." She speaks in hi-ditto. "I know this other place down the Five-Dollar Way." "Great. Where?" "Umm," his brain flips and turns and spins, "It's got a big tire out front in its sign.." "Big Wheel," her laugh rolls through the bull's eye. {..dumbass..} "Yeah." {I don't need anyone, so who cares if she likes me.} "I'm sorry. I've lived in this city my whole life."

Ignoring the lived game, "I've only been there a couple of times. Grateful Hearts will probably be closing soon, so I'll need another place to get my daily caffeine intake and smmouff." He leaves out the "smokes", kind of. "Yeah. Big Wheel's not a bad place. It's usually pretty dead. My parents used to take me there on Sundays when I was a kid."

{Just be yourself. If she's like you, great; if she's not, great. Who cares?} One more bad relationship and he knows where he'll be.

51.1

From the tilted opening of an orange mouth, a movable line of steaming coffee seems impetuously drawn to the bottom of his hardened mug. "You mind if I smoke?" Right off the bat, he steps down to where he believes she's at, to let her know that he's not like any of the others; and no longer hiding the burning question, he leaves it up to her to kill his curiosity – that clawing/head-butting question that's been begging to know if she is like one of them. "No. Not at all."

Caught off-guard by her darkened no. two in the oval, he leans back into a different sitting stance and sucks a big heave of smoke in to let her know that he can suck a big heave of smoke in. "My dad smokes. I used to smoke wh.." {Don't cough, dumbass!} screams within a steaming windpipe, while all the while he tries to listen and seductively blow the damning smoke out from the corner of his cracked lips. "-igher," she finishes the thought.

Nodding his head, he covers his tearing eyes by tilting the brown mug of freshly poured coffee into his lips. "That seems like such a long time ago, but I guess it was only a few years ago, huh?" Punishing himself for a flinch, he sips more coffee over his numbing tongue and is then forced to stare at the half glass of water sweating between them. (Handbook for the Male Species, Book 43, pages 61-62 – "Never admit to pain upon first impressions with a girl.")

Sucking in his rolled invitation to Chemo with honors, "It's not like I could do this around any of your friends, ..our friends really." He butts off the ashes from his offending, white stick. "Yeah. I could see how that would be a problem. Is that why you don't go to group? Because they don't let you be yourself, I mean." "Pretty much. That and I'm out of school, so my going there would be a little sad. But you're still in high school, right?" As if suffered a great defeat, "I'm a junior." "So that's perfectly fine for you. Me, I still have a history with that place I'd rather not go back to." "I don't blame you." {.. .Why would she say that?} He casually begins to wonder. Is it possible she's the one – the one who walked into his ripping sole and found herself falling through the white swirls of his cracking heel, catching her up to everything she missed in his life up to now? Or maybe she's just making conversation.

"Yeah, I mostly just go to group there; sometimes I'll go to the main service during the day, but that's about it. ..It's more of a social call." She grins a grin that's well reflected in his.

Losing himself in the dry streaks of the mostly wiped table, he seems willing to unearth some of the dirty feet still sinking into one of his deepest feelings. "No. I believe in God. I'm just not sure if I like Him." She takes note of the brown drips left to stain the inside of his already empty mug and generously tosses her common cents in. "Yeah, I'm pretty much the same way. You grow up believing about everything everyone tells you, then you get to a point where you see how these people are really living. They're in the world and living in it with the rest of them till Sundays, where they all of a sudden know your name and wanna pray for you. Pretty much all of them just seem so fake." "Well, ya gotta believe in somethin'. Even atheists believe in nothing and that's believing something." After a thought of nothing, she feels the stretching pause to reply. "That's true, I guess." Sometimes it pays to verbalize the right rehearsed verse for the apropos part of the topic.

One of the most used conversations with himself begins to unravel himself down to a little rant. "It's just that when you get into this organized religion, you have to deal more and more with the so-called, self-proclaimed Christians. They all think they know exactly the way it is, and if you cross them.. (no pun intended) look out." His eyes widen when he shakes his head, as if from personal experience. "I'd love to believe in something else, but I know better." A pair of green eyes flip up, just to make sure she's sitting across from who she thought she was.

On the other side of him, she continues to watch his brown eyes, as they remain locked onto an unfocused target. She sees that this is something inside of him that used to get him going but now simply looms in front of him on its back, unable to turn over, like a dead motor burnt up from the son set on driving this till he's finally deemed unfit to be behind his mind.

Coming out of the stall, he decides to "ride" it out a little further. "I think they're so uptight about it because they like to think they figured it all out; and when you question the same questions they're actually still pondering over within, then they get very defensive and upset. They don't want to think about that. They've already thought about it and have it all figured out. To question anything might threaten the two-hour commitment they have to dressing up and getting the God part of their week over with." "Yeah. That's right. You're right." Her partially widened eyes fall to the condiments; this is not who she thought she was sitting with after all.

As they stare off in what he could swear as being an uncomfortable silence, he begins to go over half of the things he just told her in his head and wishes to God he could have the chance to edit it all down into a simple conversation filler, instead of making the poor girl patronize his meaningless drivel. "So.. your dad used to be a pastor, huh?" Forcing back a smile is pointless as the same one is sure to come when their eyes meet. And it does.

She goes on to let him know that she's actually been listening. "But yeah, I bet there's only a couple of people per church that are sincere and truly are Christians. Everyone else just seems so fake." "Well, for things like group, it's all about the competition." "Exactly!" "Who leads or can say the better prayer. Look at who God is using more than you! And I've got visions for everyone!" She laughs. "That's right. That's exactly how it is." They share a similar grin in verbalizing the thoughts that had really been within. "They screwed us in the rearing. God takes a backseat to where they think we should take Him." "Yup," she mutters as she now unfocuses her eyes on a napkin dispenser.

"I don't want any part of it anymore," she confesses. "I've just recently been hanging a time or two with your old best friend's sister just out of sheer boredom." "Well, there's no sin in that." He laughs with her out of courtesy but smiles without any help.

"Is it the whole group thing why you don't hang out with them anymore, because you used to be at your old best friend's house all the time?" "Well, they're not really into that as much as others who go there. It's the others who go there that I wouldn't want to see. With my friends, it's just...., you know; every weekend it's video games, cards, or a movie. That just gets real boring week after week after week. And I've also kind of picked up this smoking thing." He racks his open pack.

"Are those non-filters?" "Only way to breathe." "Yeah, right into a respirator in your thirties." He silently laughs with her as much as a shy smoker can then catches her staring down at his twenty pack. "I saw you with those at the café that day. You go there often?" "I live there." He grins.

"I happened to just stop by Grateful Hearts the day they reopened actually." He continues, as he lights up again, "That's a pretty strange coincidence being as I never looked for places outside of my room before. But it was a Saturday, and I felt like leaving the house. I remembered there was that café on the corner by the library that had been there for years; I thought they had been open the whole time. It wasn't till I had been seated there for an hour or so when I overheard that they just opened that morning." "Wow, that is weird.

"Actually," she continues, "-they were closed for a year or so, because I had been there when it was under a different name." "Well it's closing for good now; I found out the owner's going to have to file for bankruptcy." "That's too bad." He sucks from his cigarette and leans into an eyebrow shrug. She goes on to eulogize, "You know, I always liked that place." "Me too. Actually," {should I?} "-that was the only place I was selling my book. I was hoping it would give them a little more business. But now.." He feels the gift of shame for leaning into his own horn. "You have a book?" Her green eyes perk up above her wettening red lips. "What kind of book?" {*Jack Pot*} "Well, most people would call it poetry, but it's really kind of like short stories written in a poetic format or something." He'd rather bite it and have her think he's a little fruity than fight it. Besides, it gets real tiring trying to explain it. "What's it called?" "Pieces."

"Well, I'd really like to read it," she says like she would really like to read it; the very "it" that's been banned from all remaining family members. "Yeah, it's only sold around nine copies," toot-toot "but it hasn't been on sale all that long." "That's not bad! That's actually really good for only selling it there." "Actually, the owner of Front Porch asked me to sell it there too, but I resisted for the café's sake. But now.." "Oh yeah. I'm sure you could sell a lot more at the Front Porch. That place is pretty popular."

Feeling bad for leaning on his horn, he decides to pull back into a full-fledged lean and look away, leaving them in an awkward silence. Her last statement was actually more like an invitation to continue the topic; but there's only a limited amount of time he can talk about himself, before the hairs on his chest begin to grow and he turns into one of those monstrous beings he hates. So his only refuge within the stopped wheel is to leave her sitting in the dust. And for nothing more than her-

"Looks like you have some friends there now." Spoke starts spinning. "Where's that? Grateful Hearts?" As she nods and looks to her open cups of cream, her light skin nearly shows the pinkened embarrassment she feels for his failure to put on a public display of self-love. As if she should have known better.

"Yeah, but they're not too. You know? They're like.. good acquaintances." Thinking of all of her high school "friends", she begins to ration out the ones he seems to be describing to her. "They're not judgmental. None of them are. They just don't care, which is great. That's exactly the type of people I need to be around right now." His self-confessions continue with, "I don't trust anyone anymore. That's the only way to protect yourself from getting hurt." She nods to the floor, floored from him letting himself be so widely opened for display – to her.

"Yeah. I don't have any friends. I should start going over there." "What about the girls you came with tonight?" "You kidding me? They ditched me back in Chicago for some guys we barely knew." "What?" "They left me in a clothing store in downtown Chicago." "You're kidding?" "No." "What the hell? I can't believe they did that." "Well, they did." "What a bunch of bitches." "Yeah. ..Little bitches." They share another quiet laugh.

"How'd you get back?" "The next pastor's son found me." "Oh, good. Did he beat the crap out of those guys?" "No, no." "He didn't? I would have! ..Sons of bitches. What's wrong with him? I'd have kicked the shit out of them if I was there." She looks down smiling, but he is actually stunned and enraged by this; he didn't fathom those church girls could be that cruel. Leaving a girl alone in a department store in downtown Chicago and at night.. Something about that is just inhuman. {Poor girl.}

"I could use some more coffee," she breaks the silence. "Looks like you could to. Where the hell is she?" She further proves her potential badness by using the H-word and tries to spot the waitress through a slanted pair of green eyes. With her head turned, he does a quick spotting of the bra line that's been indenting through her long-sleeved, gray shirt over the course of the night. Her head faces back to him. Brown in green. "You got a girlfriend?"

"No. ..I'm still trying to get over a bad relationship. I've got no intentions of going out with someone again for a very long time." Those words couldn't ring any truer to him. "What about you?" "No. (Obligatory head bow in obvious look back.) I'm getting over a bad one myself."

She tells him about her last boyfriends' flirtatious habits and how they were all cheating on her, as far as cheating can be for a high school relationship. He told her about his dad's woman's son's girlfriend's daughter, about the runaway, and dropping out of high school. She already heard that he's not looking to pick her up. Might as well be completely honest from the start; and if she doesn't flinch and still desires to be near him knowing everything, then she might be a friend. If not, he's sure this will be a one-time thing anyway.

"I said some pretty awful things, and that was it. ..I didn't find out till a week or two later.." What sounds like an ended line is actually halted to the crossing of a risen emotion. This is the thing, the very thing that was never taken to his lips, though it had been said enough to change everything he ever was into yet another person he should never be. "The day after I broke up with her, she took a whole bottle of ....some sort of pills. I don't know what they were." Through the peripheral, she appears a little startled, while his mind morphs her to look more "Get me out of here."

"Did she make it?" "Yeah. Her x-boyfriend, ..she called him. So the very guy, who used to beat her and tell her what to where/wear, carried her to his bike and drove her to the hospital." His unfocused eyes rest on his side of the table. "They pumped her stomach, and she made it. So.. he was the big fuckin' hero......What a hero. What a real fuckin' hero." He pulls his head out from the stare, takes out a cigarette, and lights up his third.

"You're still here?" She seems to look at him with care in her eyes. "After all that, I figured you'd be gone." "Well, ..I'm not like that." The last of the butterflies stop to listen, before they find themselves soaked into the rising smoke.

"I guess I felt a little responsible." "It's not your fault. You didn't put those pills in her mouth." His "I guess" is muttered without a full conviction. "She was just looking for attention; otherwise, she wouldn't have called anyone." "..I know."

Searching the room for more sympathy, his eyes only find the blackened pair of a staring deer; its head hangs all the same. The diners remain vigilant over their steaming plates, perhaps sensing that animals in the very walls around them are watching; if only they knew they were already stuffed.

"When did all that happen?" "Early April of this.. well, last year. The anniversary of a famous suicide, who happened to be successful."

"Huh. That's right. I guess that was a year ago." The girl with the green eyes recalls his hero with the torn head as if he were an afterthought.

"Supposedly she tried to call me after she took 'em, but I wasn't home. So she called that Gi instead. My dad's woman's son called my dad when we were at work to tell him what happened, but he never told me." He slowly realizes as he says, "I might have never found out if I hadn't called her a couple of weeks later."

She looks back for the waitress and then at the empty coffee mug. He remains in his uncomfortable hunch, warming up those hardened feelings for the light hanging from his lips. "It all seems like some crummy movie. Something I saw late one night, only somehow I happen to be one of the characters. If that makes any sense." A light brown drip slides down the front of his mug. "You know?" She solemnly nods, as if she wouldn't know but understands. "If I saw her today, ..I'm not sure how I'd react.

"Maybe it's the same way as when someone sees a star, especially when you're not looking for 'em. You're minding your own business, into your normal routine, and then suddenly there they are. You're not sure if what your seeing is really real or if you're somewhere still sitting in front of a screen. You know what I mean?" There's a stretching pause before she comes up with an answer. "Yeah, ..my life's been pretty boring." Then she seems to laugh in embarrassment of her own life.

Behind a courteous grin, he feels embarrassed for her embarrassment and places a bet with himself that there's either a story to her somewhere she must have missed or a good one that's soon to come.
52.0

"S-speaky spaney?" "No," he shakes his head as he so often does. "We've got one guy that does, but he's busy right now. Can I help you?" "Ss..s. Speaky spaney?" The man under the hat and smell looks down and takes a step back. "I..I wait for hym." He points to the older gentleman working in the office, sometimes under the apparent name of "yur daddy". East Chicago is probably over seventy percent his panic, considering his dad is the only one of the broken family business who speaks Spanish.

A good truck-full of dem don't even speak much English, if any. Most of them come straight up from Texas or from Mexico. And some are sweet. They'll call you things like "mi frend", which certainly isn't bad; just seems to him to be a tad naïve in that "friend" is taken in American English to be a much stronger word. So to him, someone calling everyone his "friend" shows a weakness that is both sweet and endearing in that it makes him feel pity for the poor people still smiling to him as they lower themselves down to their seat. All of the people who must have taken and are taking advantage of this disadvantaged society all because of a simple cultural indifference to the name and haphazard labeling of the word "friend".

Maybe "friend" was just translated to them wrong. Maybe they think it means "sir" or "soon to be mild acquaintance" if but professionally; or maybe they think that if the agents think they're friends then they'll give them the best auto insurance rate. I suppose none of it's really a possibility.

After the forty minute drive, our nine to five, working class hero arrives at home this Monday evening. Monday Night Football again is a no show and will be for the months following the Super Bowl, which is to be presented for all in his home next Sunday. {Oh Baby!} You've got to understand that, before the divorce, the super bowl parties he threw were legendary. And this, finally, not only will be presented with his very own team, but he will be the one unveiling for his newly found friends what could very well be the beginning of those times again. He's missed those times. The times when that pair drove him from place to place, taking him to his friends/from his friends and back home to where everything's safe. He's beginning to find those friends again, as their moving back to Pretty lil' Val Town seems partly to blame. Part of his recent hosting honors have been due to his successful new year's bashing and his being the only one of them without a pair. Little pleasures from the pain.

Leaving his shoes on, he meanders upstairs, thus completing the after work ritual. He pushes the door hard, which pushes the piling stack of worn-to-filth clothes closer to the wall that fades in its off whites. Sucking a small gut in, he can fit through the opening.

While he's kicking the pile to the wall and opening the door wider, there's a ring. {Crap.} He's got to go all the way downstairs again. Or does he? Who would be calling him? The friends of yesteryear on plans for next Sunday? Not likely. His pal for gaming? Likely. Telemarketer? Highly Likely. Oh well/{Oh hell}.

"Aello?" "Hi!" {A girl excited to call here? There's only one answer to it: she dialed the wrong number.} "Hey." "You know who this is?" "Y-yeah. (-quick rundown of girls recently seen-) You're the girl with the green eyes," he disguises his voice with a touch of omnipotence. "You seem surprised." She apparently sees right through the apparition, as if she has a sixth sense for smelling bullshit. "I'm sorry. I just haven't had a girl call here in a long time." "Oh." {That's right. I'm pathetic.}

With a menacing awkward silence looming in the local distance, she goes on to show him how to have a conversation with a girl over this electronic telephone system – something along the lines of, "How are you?" "Good. I just got home. Right when I stepped in the door the phone rang." "Oh, I'm sorry." "No! Nothing to be sorry about. I just thought it was weird, that's all." {Why do I have to be such an idiot?}

"I'm going to Grateful Hearts. Just wanted to see if you were going. Maybe we could meet there." "Yeah. I was just going to grab a quick bite to eat here, and then I was going to go over there." "Great. Well, I'll see you there then." "Yeah. I'll be there soon." The dial tone wakes him before he was ready for it. Thumb pushes "phone".

{What does she want with me? Did we really hit it off at Big Wheel? Must have, if she's actually found my number to call me back for more. Seems like a dream. How could I have been that charming the whole night? What did I tell her?! I told her I was a dropout, that I drove the last girl I went out with to suicide, all while smoking half a pack of non-filters.} A laugh sneaks out from between his lips like a belch from a dog's tightened lips.

Spinning the wheel, he pulls up to the "-others will be towed at owner's expense-" sign. {Why would she wanna be with me?}

A hand grips the all too familiar handle and pulls the white streaks of the glass door his way to reveal the worker and a fellow reader sitting at a table; another usual with glasses and long red hair is playing chess against the army hat. But there, between the arms of the sofa, sits the green-eyed girl with her butt and feet planted firmly into the cushions. Casually, she looks up from the pages of his "Pieces."

52.1

"Two Twelve Monkeys for the seven." A girl stitches a fake smile above her chin, as she hands them the tickets. Paying makes him feel the gentleman, as he opens the door for her to step ahead of him.

Opening the door to his driver for the evening, he saw his skin slightly redden in the rounded reflections of her cool green eyes. Standing within her delicately placed makeup and within the drifting aroma of her lip wettening perfume stood the thin man in his thinning jeans that were torn up each leg in a pair of places. Safety pins dangled off from one another, blackened string fell from their knots, a penciled-in star shown faded in the left side of his blue-jeaned thigh, and a black buttoned-up shirt hung out from the small of his waist. Kurt may be the death of him yet.

Needless to say, awkwardness fought them all the way to and from the theater to the café. Helping the fight though are the raised eyebrows of the artist, as the strange pair of them tries to explain the movie to him over steaming cups of coffee and Magic Wok value meals. A pair of tattered gray shoes block the dim lights from reflecting in her black heels.

52.2

"Don't do this to impress me." He jumps into a late conversation on this early Saturday morn. A bearded remark, the artist, the worker, and the clown are surrounding her like sharks on green chairs. Saliva blends into the open waters over their kill, and their eyes turn in below the sinking fins. If only she takes the hook, maybe they'll feel a little less guilty for shortening their own lives.

"These boneheads couldn't care less about you. Think before you light." He rolls his good advice with a sarcasm that's only paper-thin. "Yeah. I wanna do it." "AlrIght!" He gives his dad's warning voice. Come to think of it, it would turn him on (her smoking his cigarette - not his dad's warning voice).

"......I can't feel anything. Am I even inhaling, cause I can't feel anything? Can you tell? Am I even inhaling it?" No laughs are laughed, and a new smoker breathes life into the old. He watches with eyes turning in as she slowly begins to blend into him.
53.0

{I'm the bad guy? -Yes, you're the bad guy. Stay away from her. She's 17 and looking to turn. You know the age. Complete vulnerability to different ways of life. Who wants to be their parents? Individuality and all that shit. You bring her something different. Something that others around her don't seem to have. You're the bad guy. Whatever you do, she'll do. You smoke/she'll smoke. You write/she'll write. You Grateful Heart/she'll Grateful Heart. It's a never-ending cycle. The point is that as much as you like to think you hate God and are a rebel bad ass, you're actually one of the few who has an actual working conscience still intact through the years and purposely kept near the surface. You care about her. You see her for how you were and for where she thinks she wants to be. But you know what's down that road. You know all too well where it leads to: you're running up to her door to find her red for loving you.} "I'll be damned to let that happen again." {That's right. Damned. –Thursday night'll be the third time this week. She wants to see you at the Front Porch.} "I'll show myself alright." {I am the bad guy.}

bad-bye

Excuse me, let me wipe this smile off of my face

I didn't know that a dead body in your sink would

make you sad

The madman'still mad

I didn't mean to act glad

My laugh expels drool

And I'd feel embarrassed

but I know I'm a fool

just licking the gum off of the bottom of this stool as I'm pushing safety pins

through my toenails- (just to make sure the nails stay on)

The pain sticks around for days but later it's all Gone and my

toenails will be forever stuck to my toes (thanks to me)

but no one has to no

I like to stare at the snow

and wish they will all fall black so they will cover everything

and no one could go outside-

-cause they'd get lost- And I wouldn't have to talk to my boss

I could just stay home

and sleep or watch wings on tv all day and eat my skin

Just wandering why the snow can't bleed if it's cold like me

I can't run I think I know where

Someone tied my feet together my new face came

My tongue's stapled to my cheek from

I'd ask God out but it probably don't date geeks

They think I'm going to die cause I'm sac-religious

They're right and my breath stinks

51Spandex squeezes tight

as i walk up to the pulpit

6My nads are bulging out of a hole

7Pastorman shakes his head

4I feel the tension and the righteous stares

but I'm at a loss 8I thought It only matters what's within.

Those people aren't suppose to judge cause they will also be judged,

so I think everyone in 10God's room

is committing a sin.

People pick up my heart for four bucks and say "That's cool."

Trapped in thousands of thoughts as I nod my head

If my blood's only worth four bucks and a complement,

you can have my fuckin' veins for six

Think I feel sick. Want to take a chair and fuck up.

About to think I'm insane, but I'm really mad

It Look into my eyes and tell me that you love me

I'll say "Hearts are just organs, so there's no such thing as love."

But you feel something for me. It's probably just gas.

Smell your butt-crack, I'll take you out to a movie, and everyone'll be alllll right!

Propose and marry and screw and have and kids and they and grow and we and die no thanks ~ I love my Pain !!!!!!!

We're doing just fine!!

We watch Wings alone get up drink some grateful hearts

and go to bed go to work go home watch Wings alone 2x 3x

Think I'll stick to this cycle. Cause at least I can't hurt anyone

Don't think I can hurt my self

Think I'll put down this purple pen and go to sleep in this chair,

but I can't cause I'm still here..stuck.............stuck in the first place.

Where the old people get sick as they eat off of the muddy crust of my curved heart.

But I don't care about that right now.

Just want their faces dripping through my peeling fingers

as I'm pushing a safety-pin into my toenail (just to make sure it stays on).

I wonder if it's safe to drive angry,

to drive on empty,

as I drive through an empty puddle.. of madness

"Not too many people have brought a nice date to an open mike just to tell everyone he wants nothing to do with her." The artist puts the piece down on his futon.

"She's not my date. We're just, you know, friends. But tha iHHHHm! ..use me.....was pretty cool." He finishes clearing his throat from the winter wind that's still wound up inside the cracks of him. "It got a great applause, and a couple of the regulars were laughing too." "I bet. Did she say anything about it?" "Just that she got a lot of stares for some reason. But I wasn't writing about her." The writer gleets a lie planned for someone else out from between the gap in his teeth all over the artist's carpet. (The tightened pair of downward slants just moved out, supposedly he wasn't paying his share of the rent.)

The artist stares at the moron the writer's pretending to be and grins for the good acquaintance who lies somewhere beneath. "What?" He smiles back. "Well, I hope she's more understanding about your work than you think."

53.1

"Not my guys. They're on a mission! But unbeknownst to them, they ain't makin' it! ....Ha. 'We've been double-crossed! Fall back! Fall back! Nohooooo!' Haw. Haugh.

"The front line smashes into the latex; their tails all stab through each other and sh@+. Heh heh. 'Rrraaaaaahhhhcckkkke..ehh'!" (-funny scream and dying noise.) A different camera's view shows a couple laughing to show you it's funny. "Any still alive sit there for half a minute then get pulled out, see the world as we do for a second, then fall into watery graves with their own brothers and sisters. Or just brothers I should say. For sisters, there's like what.. one egg flushing every month. But brothers, heh heh. There's like millions rockin' their way to the slaughter house any time you make 'em. They're like 'Hey, what's goin' on? Who-!' They're done shot up to their graves." Close up of a laughing lady at a darkened table.

"Usually, there's only one or two that make it, and then they're what make you and me. Special idn't it? But no, I love my wi-" -tzzt- He takes her heel off, as she remains smiling against the wall of the staircase. "And you aren't anything!" "Hey, one drink and I-" -tzzt- "-'s got him pinned! Wait!" Timed music plays. A tall man in a black cloak walks up to the ring. "It's the Un-" -tzzt- "-ke a little worm on a big fishin' hook. Well, boy! Your mot-" -tzzt- "-ese baptists are stupid! Stupid! Stup-" -tzzt- Que Sailor music. {"I kept getting a lot of stares for some reason."} He lifts up the torn, bent metal of the train track and holds it up with all the might of his huge forearms, as the train choo choos over him into safety. -tzzt- "-m telling you, as I sit and breathe that's our Faye!" {"I'm sure I'll see you this week; but if not, I'll be here Thursday," she smiles a smile meant just for him even though they're in a crowd.}

She's been making a special appearance in every thought thunk in his mind. From her body to what appears to be her soul, she's everything he's ever wanted. A girl he once even prayed to God for, so long ago though it seems - for everything that happened since. She's pure, gorgeous, and somehow turning into his friend. A friend that's dared to cross from the old church into the smoky realms of his bleak in black afterlife. She can co-exist in both worlds just like him! Most have the lungs for one, but few have the self-made slits in their neck for the other.

{No one deserves her.} Yet everywhere they go, he's seen them try. He's seen the sharks and the wolves. They all circle their prey that one way. Staring at the legs beneath the skirt or the meat within the shirt. Their eyes, like their lungs, only work one way. They see something they just want to fuck and fuck just to get themselves away.....Maybe he should save her.

Images of her perfected presence presses into the lighter side of his turning brown eyes, as he pictures her sitting next to him and shutters at the feeling: this is where he wants her to be. All of the white lines he's been feeding himself with, that hardened over time, begin to fall lightly line by line like pieces of silk to coat the bottom of his scarred stomach (ugly lives cracking up at the thought that things could ever turn up).

In a wavering determination, he watches while his feet seem to be quickly taking him up the staircase. Surprising himself with every move, he heads down the stairs holding a new, green notebook (first one without any spiral). Unsure of where he's going, he opens the front door only knowing he's going to write or ruin the piece of his life.
54.0

Stars fill the sky like skin fills the pours. People sit in machines that travel them over the hard-ridden streets. Headlights glare the way. Somewhere a couple unfolds the first of their formula diapers. In many places all over the earth, thousands are experiencing their first kiss. Not to mention: a husband can't be trusted, a "blind!" boy's waking in terror only to find his eyes are crusted over, someone's sweating their purchase in line while they hold a yellow box away from the customers that's behind, a mother's finally seeing her beautiful baby dripping with slime for her first time, the baby's seeing swirls of light form moving creatures that seem to match the voices heard only in echo before, a loved one's swerving into lights to avoid a darting creature of the night, a family plans for the biggest shock the living can have, an artist smiles at the thought of a new idea, an animal's throat is cut to drain the red from a future dinner plate, someone is working very late to hold their career together, newlyweds are about to have their first fight, an x-preacher's son is sitting on a stool under hot lights (the mere focus of strangers and the only cause of their dead silence). "..doesn't blow away. Thank you."

Girls are smiling/Applause is bigger than normal. He knows if he looks at a pair of green eyes, sitting next to a dreaded empty chair, he'll turn to stone, forgetting even who he is; so instead his eyes do a quick half-sweep of the front rows. And of course even in this quick sweep they pan right into hers, as she remains sitting at a table in the corner of the great darkness beyond the lights.

Staring at him with the others, they wait for the next words he'll say when the hands finally stop hitting themselves. The dark writer sitting in the lights smiles nervously, "I can't end on that piece, so ..let's see what else I got here." He fumbles his shaky hands over to the out-planned piece and reads a bad rendition of his "Surrender to Die".

After the tough read, the crowd gave a weak applause but seemed to make a way for him to reach his seat, as if no one would question the shouted words, "dead man walking!" The host went back to the mike and simply announced the next one on the list. Fading from the way he pictured it, it was as if he had never been born or vanished into the dark corner of the room, because no eyes were on him anymore, including the girl with the green eyes. She was in full conversation with this huge, flamingly gay high-schooler, who had a pink braid in his hair and kept a neon green lunch box on the table.

The top of the seat moves when he places his fingers on it; forever cursed to have the one chair with a shortened leg. Sitting down, he finds a piece there waiting for him. Did he forget to take one up with him? Nope. This one's not his. He can tell even in the darkness by the decisions of the fonts.

He looks to her, who remains in conversation with the huge, self-forced slurrer. Not sure whether to read it or act cool and just fold it into his back pocket, he decides he's supposed to read it. Holding a piece of the green-eyed girl, he finds similar sentiments to the ones he just dissected from his body and hung out to dry over the marked up floorboards of the stage.

Looking to her for some kind of feedback, he's forced to watch her ignore him, as she remains fully committed to her blond conversation, even in her body language. The piece is from her, right? He thought it had her name on it, but he is reading by candlelight. No- he knows. While she remains in conversation, he gets up halfway through the next person's set and heads past the crowd to the outside.

The winter breeze in the night sky is perfect; he was dying in there. He whips out a cheap cigar and lights it. Maybe she's followed him; maybe she hasn't. {Did that piece say what I thought it did?} He doesn't dare pull it out of his pocket to re-read it; there's too many smokers who could catch a whiff of it, and she might also burst through that door at any second.....Any second at all.

Halfway through the cigar, she walked out to him and simply said that she was ready to go. Heading across the street and into the parking lot of his former life (the church), they got into his car so he could take her to hers; it remained parked in the lot they use for Grateful Hearts. On the way there, there wasn't any discussion but for some small talk – not a wink, all-knowing glance, nothing. It was as if he hadn't just poured his heart out for everyone to see that he was in love with his new friend, the girl with the green eyes.

{Am I supposed to say something?} He thinks to himself while wiping the tickle out of his nose. What a strange night – a strange surreal night this is. This is the night he went in front of everyone and potentially ruined a half year's reputation of himself, and the only thing he seems to feel right now are the grooves of the long underwear pressing into his sweaty skin. {Sigh} as he pulls up to a tow away sign.

He looks to her as she gets out of the car. {Of course.} He gets out. As he walks her over to her car, the back of his hand brushes over his wearing jeans. Finally, he finds her green eyes in his browns.

".......I'd kiss you but I smell like smoke." She smiles and looks away, as he walks up to get her door. Their eyes meet and part in record numbers. Should he kiss her anyway? {Does she want me to?} Their faces come within inches, as she slips through the open car door.

He shuts her in. Returning grins through an opening sheet of glass, "I'll see you tomorrow." He nods and watches her smiling face turn away once again, as her car pulls back, crunching over the thinly packed snow. The red of her brake lights highlight the exhaust like infrared heat in the winter wind fanning into his unflinching face. Oblivious to things of the world, he simply remains standing in the black smoke, watching in a near awe as his girl with the green eyes turns into the empty, white road.

"The year after I first called you dear:

The time I said on stage, 'I don't know if I can read this one.' The very good cup of coffee you bought me at Ed Debevick's 'This is your birthday song! Your song is not long!' When you, I, the artist, and his girl skipped the rest of that clown's ballet The dozen roses on the kitchen table with a Valentine's piece safety-pinned to the wrapping (also a necklace and some rings) 'I'd kiss you but I smell like smoke' When you read Goosebumps to me in the truck on Halloween Playing tag in the streets with the drywaller and the artist Miniature golf: you, me, and my brother all tied for first (sorry mom) When you kicked my ass at my own video game at the mall The night I cut my hair off The spinning ride at the fair that made us sick and the mostly broken, fifteen second spook house (chk,chk,chk,chk, Bah!) Watching my team lose the Super Bowl Every time we put a mattress in the back of the truck and went to the drive-in The amazing coat full of Christmas Eve rings and things at Bob Evans When my grips slipped and I fell from the bridge right in front of you just after you said 'I won't let you go!' When you tried my unfiltered cigarette When we were sitting with the artist and drywaller at Big Wheel and I pretended there was something in my eye; and the artist's look when creamer squirted all over the table When they tried to kick me off the stage at Steller's Playing cards and chess at Grateful Hearts When you bought me a controller and said the rest is in the car Teaching you how to drive stick with my Geo (ahh!) When you made me go on the Shuttle rollecoaster that hung upside down at Great America The roses that led up every single stair to the bathtub, which was filled with bubble bath, candles, and a three page piece of mine taped to the wall on top of some flower wrapping; sparkling, white grape juice was in ice in the sink and the eighteenth rose on the toilet 'Is it okay if I smoke in front of you' The margaritas that the artist made for us Seeing a friend's laughing face and looking over to catch you take in the biggest hit of pot ever taken from a tobacco pipe The Baby-Sitter Crasher *ee*er-***er The crumbling of metal, and our Geo was dead; ..frosties dripped down the backseat (this - all because I couldn't take my eyes from the fishnet stalkings of the town's first Manson wannabe) Paper football, thumb-wrestling, staring contests in restaurants Cab rides from Hell Our first double date with the artist and his girl; we watched Deliverance (that was our last double date with anyone) Lighting sparklers in the back of my truck The shooting star seen over the lake the night Grateful Hearts closed (I was the only one that missed it - looking at your feet) Prying apart my truck from an elderly man's car with a crowbar (we were out of gas and he was trying to push it for us till we got stuck) Damn Toll Booth cracked my windshield on the way to Hades (turned out there was change in my pocket the whole time) Hanna's Root Beer Drive-In Slow dancing in the lake, on your home-coming dance floor during Y.M.C.A., and inside the closed Grateful Hearts turning into Electric Shadow (an internet café?) When you made me into a woman and we went to the artist and the drywaller's Halloween party (which was their last anything together) Every time a person coughed really loud in a restaurant, and we made fun of them by pulling out a cigarette and smoking The witch of Dewey driving an inch in front of our Geo, making me smoke a cigar into a stub while driving backwards 'You can kiss me if you want to' Holding you as Tori sang 'Over the Rainbow' six rows in front of us Parking in parks, swinging at night over the snow under the stars, making out on the Merry Go Round, and being kicked off from the school swings by the bright lights of the law Our first body shot Moving stuff out of your old house all day, then your dad saying 'I'll buy you both a pop!' The long sleigh ride along the streets of Chicago Ms. Pac Man and a long New Year's Eve kiss from 96 to 97 Every rose or flower I've ever given you or left on your windshield All the times you smiled and have that sparkle in your eyes Anytime you said 'I love you' and made me crumble inside Right now, It's time to say 'You've paid me in minutes for the years I've had stolen I pray to God some day you'll be my wife You gave me a kiss, came true my every wish, and created a new breath for me to take in life.............. . .... .................. Happy One Year Anniversary."
55.0

Slowly, she lowers the book from the water welling up to the green in her eyes, knowing he'd accept no less. This is it. This is what he's been working on for the past seven years. It better be everything he built up and more. This is one of the very reasons he took her from her family in "In" and moved them to this god-forsaken desert. Sure it was the screenplays at first, but when that never panned out he turned back to this: his gold. The book he started just before their third year of dating. Now that they've been married over five years and have a little girl, this book is what's suppose to take him from his meaningless, un-supporting job to be the "great acorn" upon which their fortunes will sprout. And this is it. This is it, all right.

Her face ready, she lethargically scoots to the edge of the unmade bed and stands up to her feet, feeling the sores that come with all the stretching cracks of lying for hours upon hours. And to think there's more than one way to lie. Maybe she needs to read it again? No time. He's right there.. in the next room,....waiting.

Her reaction to this is what he's been imagining for over seven years. There's no way she could top the winning one. The one that won out to be reenacted in her face every time he was just about to give it all up. The late, long nights and wasted weekends he worked on this, never again to be replaced, had been cutting into the first year of their marriage like a wedding knife ever since he announced he had been secretly writing it. He came into the living room like he had been carrying on a hidden affair his pressing conscience had been meaning to tell her about. The fear and worry in his face is something she might never be able to drown out. He thought he could write it, finish it, and give her the hardbound copy over a nice dinner during their honeymoon or perhaps a little after. The little after turned into hundreds of handwritten pages all needing to be transcribed into the computer and in need of heavy editing. The editing stopped at a hundred. And while he tormented himself over weeks to find the reasons of why he couldn't finish it, he came to the realization that he needed to take it into an entirely different direction. The direction took them to the desert and left him a burnout.

The reasons for all the sand can be firmly placed on no less than the greatest movie of all time. You see, he had always loved movies, the older the better. Half of what he says is from them. And when the American Film Institute made their best list, he took to watching a good handful of them. And one in particular led to the renting of more films by the same director; soon he was even reading (if one can imagine, him reading) a biography on him. So later, after marriage and in his writing slump, while he was watching some grips throw a sled into the flames, he happened to be going over the troubled life of the director. And as the creative mind works best when left alone, an idea came to him on how to write the greatest biopic of all time.

Beginning to work six days a week and feeling the novel idea hopeless for lack of immediate availability, he went on a tear of reading and writing what would be his first screenplay: the life of Orson Welles. In just three months, it was finished. Surprised at how quick it took and expecting the others to be written just as easily and within the same time frame, he went on to his next one. And a pair of years later, he had four of them yet not one response from all the desert letters and faxes but some "return to senders".

Apparently, no one wanted to read anything from an insurance agent in the flat lands of Indiana. So amidst their house-hunting, as their three years of marriage and apartment living was coming to term, his light feet timidly stepped into yet another living room to tell her that they were leaving.

Straight ahead of her, hanging on the wall, she finds an aged and unmatched version of herself to the naturally flawless siren found in the pages of his mind. Her eyes seem to be the only thing she recognizes from the descriptions of her now in print for everyone to see, and even they are not what they seem to be. "I still think they're blue."

It's been nine years since she was that young. The vibrant, voluptuous vixen sees her hair thin and disheveled, a blemish near the very center of her cheek, not to mention the lightning bolt-like stretch marks that remain forever burnt into her sides. "Is this how he sees me?"

Wondering if he heard the bed squeak from when she got to her feet, she softly steps into the creaks of the carpeting and cringes her way to the restroom. She turns up the dimmer switch to find even more flaws in her that the bright lights seem to turn up. Cringing now from the pain of the light, as compared to the lowly lit light of the Grateful Hearts' lamp in the bedroom, she dims it down to halfway. Thank God for the dimmer. Nearly all lights in the desert lands have them; it's a way for the power company to save on power and to shift blame to the consumers during massive black outs.

Powder to the blemish, eyeliner to distract from the bags beneath her eyes, lipstick to hide the cracks in her lips and to show off the curves of them still curving after the years (but used in moderation so he thinks this is how she normally looks after hours of reading in bed), and a touch of rouge to bring up that girl he fell for once so long ago it seems. All of that and that girl will still be missing till her blue/green eyes meets his.

Through all of it, she's still in love with him, though love is an emotion certainly not felt all of the time. Leaving her family and friends for his dreams, which more than likely have already broken, was the hardest part of her life - let alone their marriage. She took it upon herself to work for him at first, so he could continue to write and take his chance at selling his dreams. Emasculation unwrapped the man and robbed him nearly of all pride and whatever dignity was left of him whenever he could take it upon himself to look into her eyes. The desert took its toll on him, on her, and them. Unmerciful waves of heat and sun that bring all of your ambitions and dreams to the surface only to leave you tired and dry, cracking up without any punch line but the splitting, white lines left hung out to dry somewhere inside. It was rough all right.

Where was she during that time? The girl in the book who took a broken boy and made him the man to be by her side? She could handle anything. Practically a character most would say isn't based on a real life. But she is. And there she is - staring back at her, blinking when she blinks, breathing with her every breath, standing willing and waiting to do anything at her beck and call. She has total control of her ..if not all of the time.

Left alone and rotting in the desert lands, this time something had to come around to save them. Who knew it would be something that would come from her and come from him? The birth of their baby girl brought life anew. There were flowers and love notes reminiscent of their first year together. Every time he came home from work there were smiles waiting for him, even waiting to come out from him. No matter how bad his day had been or how much time he felt was lost to the nine hour shift, she finally saw the happiness that came forth from him every time he bent down to stare his daughter in the eyes, which right now is a mixture of his brown and her blue/greens. Their marriage, and relationship in general, was as strong as it had ever been ..and still is. And now he's finally finished his book.

She looks over to the manuscript resting on the bed. If anything, she's the hero of it. She went in there under impossible odds and pulled him through. The book is nearly a tribute to her and her many adversities to save a hopeless, hell bent boy who was scorned with an identity crises and all the sexual ambiguities passed on from the breakup of his parents' marriage. She's a hero. And this book is a "thank you" note inscribed to her, if not to God Himself for granting a humble prayer. What was it? To give him someone who was half of what she seemed to be? That sounds about right. God and her ..in that order.

She smiles to herself and then the tears begin to come all on their own. Perfect. She steps into the rising fragrance of her freshly sprayed perfume, dims the light down to off, and heads toward the bedroom door. On second thought, she turns around and picks up the manuscript from off of the bed. "This is probably his second child," she grins to herself and then opens up the bedroom door.
56.0

Light flashes from the television, the only thing lit in the dark room. The broken music of a baby swing on low batteries beats the television for the sounds of the living room. With her knees folded and her hands bent down to her sides, as if in the midst of a manicure, their little girl sleeps swaying back n' forth. Stepping further out into the room and turning the corner, she finds her husband curled up in the fetal position on his fully reclined recliner; his Steelers blanket covering everything but his head and feet.

Admiring her family, who always seem like a moving photo to her, she quietly steps up to his chair. Looking back at the television, she sees another one of his favorite movies playing. He wanted to be watching his favorite movie while she was finishing it, but he was never sure which night she would finish it, so on finishes his fourth favorite, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. "I know; I have a list," is what he'd say. He made a list of his fifty favorites once when he was sick; she always told him he was a dork because of it, so he'd egg her on any time one of the fifty was mentioned. (One of those little, running jokes shared between spouses, I guess.)

In order to be reminiscent of his second favorite, which she noticed had been on the other evening, she slowly leans down to kiss him while he sleeps. On that way down, she finds a smile stretching slightly in his face - still the light sleeper. She kisses him anyway. Sitting up into a stretch, he asks the seven year question "So, ..what'd you think?"

Realizing the tears have played her for false and have already dried up, she's forced to use the alternative. A smile lights up the green glowing in her eyes, as she gives him a hug. "Ohhhhhhhh!"

"No really." He breaks off the hug. "It was great. It was really great. I can't believe you wrote that!" He nods and looks off blankly towards the television. "So it was you. I had a feeling it was going to be about you. I just didn't know to what extent or in what context. You said it was going to be extremely poetic, like that uh.. Paradise Lost; so I didn't know what to expect." "Well, anyone that knows me.. It was kind of the next logical step from the pieces, which were of course mostly about me." "Yeah, I guess that's true." "The whole point of them was a way to express those feelings within myself that had no closure or way to go. And they were great, but they were kind of temporary solutions. The book.. Over the long course of writing it, I really discovered the places within myself and found all of the broken parts and was able to see both sides of what was once connected. You know?" She nods without much thought left to her head. The book did take a lot out of her. "If that makes any sense," he ties the rest of his thoughts into a small bow for her.

"It was great. It could really hit home with a lot of people." He nods and carefully lowers the legs of his recliner, avoiding as many squeaks as possible but still manages to gather a few. "Ah," their little girl shrinks her forehead in her sleep, showing anger at her near wakedness. Her risen arm slowly falls back to her side.

They look to each other in exhausted grin at having avoided a near wrath. "So, what else?" "Uh," she tries to continue. "What was bad about it?" "Nothing. I liked the whole thing. I really did." "Come on. There's got to be something." "It's a lot to absorb. It was really pretty intense reading. Like you said, you put a lot into every line; that's why it took me so long to finish."

He looks back to the screen to find the couple running from the town of changed friends and family. "I don't want anyone else to read it until it's published. That will make it look more official. You're the only one I know that's read my screenplays. I even gave them signed copies." "I know." "And even you didn't read the third one." "You wouldn't let me." "That's cause it's too late. It's got to be rewritten." "See?"

Shaking his head, no matter how still it would seem to the untrained eye, he finishes kicking another thin layer of dirt back over the red hatchet, as he watches the couple in the screen find a cave to hide in.

"Finding a publisher is my next task. I'm just happy it's finally finished." "I know. I'm so happy for you!" He avoids the happiness in her eyes by staring into the light.

"So," unable to suppress the moment he's been looking forward to, "give me some specifics. What didn't you like; what did you like? Were there any surprises?" "I liked it all. I really did." "Was the style annoying and choppy or did it kind of seem like a continuation of the pieces?" "Yeah, it did. It really was kind of the next great step. I would probably be able to get into it more after a night's sleep. It was pretty intense."

"What did you think of the ending?" "You mean the note you wrote me? That was a good touch." "I told you it was going to be a happy ending. Probably my first, ..other than the Orson script." "No kidding. Although, there's some things in there I wouldn't want others to read." "I know, but it's real. You don't have to apologize for your life to anyone." "No, I know." "If you want me to take something out.." "No, no. It's all right. If you're out there, I'm out there."

Watching her in his peripheral as he's watched none other, he notices a hesitation in her manner, as she continues to stand. "What?" "What? Nothing." "Anything else come to mind?" "No. Well, I was a little surprised you didn't end with the closing of Grateful Hearts." "That was one of my many original intentions. What with the shooting star on the beach and running into my x at 711." "That was also the night we parked at your old high school and you told me I have a beautiful back." "Yup. That was right before the beach. See, I managed to keep some moments private. ..It was a magical time, all right."

Both of them seem to pause in a mutual fond recollection, as the couple on the screen pry up some loose floorboards to hide under. "I don't know," he continues, "it just felt like the right ending." "Yeah. No, it was good! I think you made a good decision." "If I was to continue on, there would have been a two week lapse, the Super Bowl thing, and it was a very intense time in my life. It would have gone into serious introspective moments with him, while he's surrounded by his friends and the girl, who's supposed to be the next chapter. ..I just think it would have been a tough read, and a happy ending would have been too sudden from pages and pages of self-doubt and melancholy."

"That's true, I guess." "So I had it all culminate into the first time they knew they had feelings for one another, and that they were going to be together." "They..," she smiles. "We."

She lays the manuscript on his lap. "It's yours." She picks it back up, not wanting to upset him on this night. He can be a little sensitive when it comes to his writings, especially this one. And she has a feeling, he's already on the verge with how many times he keeps going back to this en- "And I was tired of writing it. Seven years. Seven years! That's a long fuckin' time." "I know. ..I know, honey."

She gives him another hug and heads into the kitchen, setting the manuscript on the table along the way. Sitting in his chair, he stares blankly at the hero in the screen, as he wakes his love from her deep sleep, only to find out she's now one of them. "Honey, one of us needs to go to the store. I thought we have enough formula, but we don't." Anger beginning to slowly seethe out from the quiet man in the chair, but all that comes to his head is "Seven years.." For seven years he gave himself so fully, so implicitly to those pages she left casually on the kitchen table. "Casually on the kitchen table," he thinks to himself. "How could she do that? She's suppose to be the only one in this whole god-forsaken, fucked up world who would never leave him (no, his soul \- his very soul!) sitting amongst an array display of opened bills and used grocery bags, not to mention the various baby things like the unscrewed off top of apparently the last of the nipple cream.

"How could she do that to me? – Doesn't she love me? – If she doesn't, then truly no one does. – No one cares about me. – No one ever did, ..unless it was for some sort of selfish reason. – Do people only do things for the return?" "Did you want to go, or should I?" She asks from the running water in the kitchen sink. "I'll go." "What the fuck's going on? – Who is she? – Where am I? – Is this really happening? – I mean could this really happen? – What the hell?" "Hun, you need to kind of go now, before she wakes up." "All right."

He gets to his feet to see the baby begin to turn her head. "No one cares about me. Not even my daughter. – All she cares about is being burped, fed, and having her diaper changed. Anyone could do that. – That really puts it in perspective. Truth in its most natural state of being. All we want is what we want. – Want, want, want. – No one truly cares about anybody, unless they get something out of it ..even with love. That's the truth of it." "I'm sorry for making you run out like this," she steps out from the kitchen while drying her hands.

"We'll talk more when you get back." She widens her eyes to show a certain sparkle. "I'm really proud of you." He simply nods, unimpressed, and gets his keys from off the rack by the door. "What's wrong?" With reservation, he quickly looks up to her eyes and then back away. "Nothing." She knows. The depression's beginning to grow on him. And the damnation of it is that she knows there's nothing she can do.

"Like I said, we'll talk when you get back." She kisses his turned face, as he opens the door. "Uhh..hh," the baby starts to wake. He nods to her, slips his feet in his sandals, and looks to his home (or just another "a part meant" for him), as his wife tends to their baby in the swing. Then, like a stranger in the wrong door, he slips out through the crack, careful not to let the cat out.
57.0

Standing eerily in the dark are rows of palm trees. No colors can be seen for their distance in the night, but the tall shapes of them are unmistakable. Long, thin bodies below the heads of them, which have somehow seemed to explode out from within. Their thick, locked-in leaves never seem to fall, though they sharply point in every single direction. If they had minds, maybe that's the way they were thinking at the time when their minds could mind no more. Something within.. Nature's way of a self-destruction button afforded in every single one of them for the time, if it should come, for when they have risen to the point where they could no longer see or feel themselves extend. Reaching closer and closer to the stars, their dreams, when the unbearable must come. That unmistakable thing inside of them that had always been saying, from the very beginning, that dreams are never meant to leave the head. Everything inside of them, the things that got them to grow and grow, that took them from the very depths of the flat lands to this place - this point of no return. What was the point of it? Lost, and dead from the top down, they're now seen to point in every direction but the one they were made for. Fascination comes only with the tips of the leaves instead of the height of their strong journeys.

The desert trees slowly move from the corner of his windshield to the very top of his slightly rolled down passenger window. Claustrophobia hits a little too close to home for him. Through the self-made cracks in the window, the rise and falls of the ocean can be heard in him. Purer than any music, he listens without listening, as his finger has already pushed in the power of his dashboard. If only ears had a volume to them. He'd have an easier time sleeping; that's for sure. A selection for traffic only and he'd be all set. No waves, no hum of the street lights, no tires screeching in the distance, ..nothing.

The perfect time for a cigarette (if he hadn't quit a few years ago) goes out the crack in the window, as the palm trees reach the far side of his passenger window and eventually fall out of view. He needs complete silence, for his mind is going in every direction. Like a pole inside the back of a scarecrow, he sits inseparably from the driver's seat; his shirt ridden up into a crease that's like a knot in his back, but he won't move. He shifts only the automatic engine with his foot, not his eyes from the road or his back from the seat. It's as if they're a part of him or he a part of them.

Looking ahead while hanging a right, he follows the turn of the windshield in what will be his new view of the moment; his eyes like a near blind man's, never leaving the glass. Trapped inside of his mesh of metal and glass, he remains forever seated but without his arms folded over his chest. Working is never over, be it at life or death. Pulling into the crosshairs of a brightly red-lit Target sign, it strikes him odd at how carts are parked and rolling in different places all over the lot, when there's cart returns in nearly every row. "Are we really that busy with ourselves," is just another thought to a new direction of thinking, fighting with all of the others inside of him.

Slowly, he parks the sedan with the baby seat up along the long barrier of an empty cart return then turns off the engine.....silence..... as far as that goes. He just needs to wait a minute, before he subjects himself to the unnecessarily bright lights of the superstore. "It's too much." It can be a little too much for a dreary soul. Perhaps, only if eyes had their own tint. An inner dial to tone down the tidy whites and delusional smiles with all their jagged-edged overbites. You know, there was a time when he felt like this all of the time..

"Just another parking lot." He shakes it off and opens the door into the outside. The edge of the car door smashes into the metal railing of the cart return. Unable to care any less, he shuts the door and locks it with his key-chain. His truck, the old stick shift, was traded in for this: the four-door, family car. "Least it's not a mini van," he's thinks as he does every time he leaves it.

Walking through the always perfect weather of a city on the coast, he heads straight for the large bulls-eye, illuminating in bright red above him. Without hesitation but with a great bit of regret, the man with his many thoughts walks through its sliding doors.

Clinting his eyes, he wishes he had known about the formula before the grocery store around the corner from them had closed. All of the stores out here close early. It's a whole new world compared to the mid-west. Life is all about work back there; here, a more passive and worriless society rules. "Has to do with the weather." Back where he used to be, everyone was submerged in the humidity, the erratic winds, rains, and a full three months of snow, slush, sleet, hail, icy driving, and shoveling up of the weather (in more ways than one). Here, it's always ..perfect.

"Perfect." He's forced to stand and watch as some kids, oblivious that the store has more people than themselves walking around, run into him. "Get over here!" Their mother yells from her cart. To think, ..this will be him soon. Assuming what appears to be just another role in his life, he finds his aisle and hesitantly strolls though, as if erroneously crediting himself None - the Wiser.

Passing the diapers, he looks over the many cans and canisters of formula. There's those with iron, with low iron; there's some for the lacto intolerant, the premature babies; there's the soy-based, milk-based, hypoaller.. "something"; there's some that can even be added to breast milk. His hand waves over the different kinds as if he were letting his fingers read for once or as if he were a pastor praying over an evil house. Finding the biggest one without the sub names, he grabs it and quietly thanks God to himself for having a healthy baby.

God, to himself, is his dearest and most trusted friend, if in times of distress. Church, as it is called, very nearly ruined the relationship he had with his God, whom he listens to a lot more than the finding days of his book. The elders (olders), ushers, and/or various church personnel treated him not only as if he had accosted a disease from the divorce of his parents, but as if he were planning to spread the very form of contagion amongst the churchgoers whenever he was to appear. Love is dreadful; love is unblind. But here in the desert, far the hell away from them (and churches of any kind), he's seemed to have found It once again ..if on his own terms this time.

Like a man on a mission, he marches out of the aisle and towards the closest number that's lit up. Trading paper for power, he steps on through the sliding doors and into a sigh beneath the moonlit sky. Thinking back, he can't remember the last time he saw his breath. In the desert here, hardened water doesn't appear out of the thin air to fill into the cracks of his closed car door or to provide a thickened coat for the windshield wipers that lie in wait, waiting for the day the curse of Adam will come back to them with a vengeance. The humidity doesn't rise up from the drifting steams of Hell in the end of July to pull each heavy breath out from you, leaving you with no drive but 100% perspiration (the clear humility that you're second to the ancient bones stacked within, speaking to you through the burning joints). There's not a breath to be seen, because there's no weather to speak of really. No weather he can sink his feet into.

Setting the can on the seat beside him, he closes back up the car door. As if these were the things winning the fight and full annexation of his mind: formulas and the weather. This is the moment he built up more than any other, and here he is sitting by himself in the empty parking lot of a superstore. Have things really changed that much?

"THINK!" He sits alone, in what would be unfeeling feelings if it weren't for the involuntary quivering of his hands. What is wrong with him?

"You remember what happened before." His widened eyes stare out towards the empty parking lot, as if he were cast willingly under the hypnotism of a self-driven madman. "The last time you felt like this.. Would anyone even notice if you were gone?" Slowly, his head shakes to the questions voiced in himself to himself. "The baby would still be fed. You know in your heart she'd find someone else. Someone who has an actual job and could give her the house she's always wanted. Someone who doesn't chase what's in their head, taking a whole family down with them. The worst kind of person."

Daring his eyes to find himself in the rear view, they do but briefly before he mutters to his lips, "the worst kind of person." As if you are your eyes ..or could even be found in the color of them.

"What makes me so different from my father?" Uncreative thoughts and responsible reason strip him down to who he once was and whom it appears he will always be. "You know how this story is going to end. Not the way you wrote it: in your best shorthanded knock on wood. The preemptive strike to the day you'll be leaving them. In one way or another.. By decisions or death, it's no matter. It is not going to end like the picture-perfect picture. Grandparents together in a house, finding their first years all over again till the bittersweet end. No. Everything you have you owe to what has been taken from you. And payback will be the biggest bitch of it all. The sad day you finally realized you're just like them."

If he were more than a few years younger, that line of thinking would have ended with a fist in the palm or a palm to the wheel. But all he can do is sit as he physically feels the rage of the well-foughten back feelings emerge into the overwhelming sensations of a rising depression.

"Why did you even go out with her to begin with? You knew you'd be the end of her. Now you've got another one; innocents just living their lives, unwittingly waiting for the day to be called up to your 'office'. If only they knew the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The end pieces of a broken branch will always match up to the same family tree."

While his lip bends up and their corners begin to sag, he can't help but find the crying face of his precious daughter somewhere in his own. Overwhelmed for the moment, he tries to hold down the fighting feelings to find more of the pertinent questions to ask of the sick, mad doctor trapped within.

"How long really would it take them to get over me? What do I do? What do I have that they would miss? What makes me so different from anyone else?" The car sits unmovable, unresponsive; every light and function only to be triggered by the switches within. "You're just a car costing someone a light.

"Am I the one who took a girl, the most gorgeous girl from outside/within, from the boy who was meant for her? My old best friend – my new. Have I done them both wrong? Thinking of what I want? ..Am I the bad guy?

"Maybe I was never meant to make eighteen. Too scared to pull the trigger or find a hole to die away in. Maybe it wasn't God. Maybe it was the devil who saved me from his fiery grips so I would burn up my part of God's green earth, consuming those meant for each other along the way. Could be that's why I haven't shaved off this stupid goatee since I was seventeen. It comes with the costume.

"That's right you're here to damn others. Like my father before me. Maybe my black glove's on back order. ..You're no rebel. Once the lightning strikes, you'll curl up on your side and fold. You had your pain, and now you're scared to death of it. Look at you! It's changed your whole way of thinking."

"Why am I even thinking like this? Why the hell is that book so important?" "I don't know. Maybe it's as trivial as a 'dear diary'." "You don't know, I don't know."

"Maybe it's a big 'thank you' note to God for delivering you from his followers. Maybe it's to thank her for loving a dropout like yourself. Maybe it's something so vain as to say you're proud of yourself for what you've been through and where you are today." "But others have gone through so much worse." "But that's not your story. This is." "That's why I get a little unreasonable when the only person I expect to care about it tosses it on the kitchen table." "You shouldn't expect anything from anyone. Don't you remember how things were taken from you before? And she didn't toss it." "Oh, that's right. The moment I take anything for granted, it's gone. That can be for love, parents, a truck.. No wonder I'm so paranoid. I have to believe at all times of my life that everything can be taken away from me or else it will be. I must be the most neurotic man alive who actually passes for a normal human being." "A bit theatric now, aren't we?"

"What! It's happened before." "When - besides the whole parents thing you've beaten into the ground?" "As any child should be able to!" "So there's nothing else, is there? That's your big grumble with life." "I drove a girl into near suicide." "It was for show! Why else did she call someone right after?" "..Afraid of the pain?" "I swear, sometimes it's like we're two people. She wanted everyone to see her, dummy. Just as you did, when you reached your point of no return. She had no intention on dying. Just as you had no intention on walking the earth like Bruce Banner or Jules for the rest of your teenage years. It was done so she could tell someone that she took those pills. A taken action for reactions." "I guess."

"You wish it was for something else, don't you? You'd like to believe it was all your fault, because then it would follow the pattern. It's easier for you to point the finger in the mirror than to take someone aside and get it all out." "Whatever." "You know what you have?" "What," a declarative thought. "A persecution complex.

"You're just like the man in your first script. Everything and everyone is out to get you. You think everyone is looking at you, talking bad about you; and complete strangers mind YOU! You think the world's out to get you, when it would have been spinning the whole time with or without you." "Preferably without." "You're not thinking of that again?" "I don't want to screw up two lives, maybe even more." "And if you left now, and by choice no less, that wouldn't do it?" "They'd thank me later." "Like you're thanking your parents for their divorce?" "......(death)..."

"You remember how hard it is to pull that trigger? Your mind won't let you. It knows, and it doesn't care what you're feeling. It holds all of the strings, and ain't nothing going to pull anything that will squeeze an end to it. So forget about it." "-" "And I'm sure all of the other ways are the same! You'd have to be doped up/drugged up just to have a chance at it, and that would just take too much effort for a shy man without a friend in this wasteland. But you know what? You have a wife and daughter who do love you and would miss you very much if you were gone. If for nothing else, they need you for the formula sitting on the seat beside you." "Ex-" "Shut up! You're getting to be.. No. You are pathetic. You beg to God for someone to love you, and It simply hands you her in spades. And right when you're ready to leave her because of a bad case of geographic indifference, you receive the greatest gift of your life: your little girl. Now, you've finally finished the book, the thing that's meant more to you than life itself; and you're complaining once again about something! What is it now?! You think God owes you for taking your parents, don't you?" "I did pray a little p-" "Shut that hell up!! You're no longer a child! That's why you never hear anything anymore! You have everything you need in this world.

"Don't you know if everything you have should suddenly fall away from you for the spins of the earth, you'd still have a gift no one can take from you? It sits barely shaken and ticks within the wrappings of you! It was given to you so you could work out these feelings and all of the rest of them to come. It's been with you the whole time - made especially for you. It's your way to understand who you are, and it can help you make the wrong things right. That is your gift! The way for you to escape the mistakes of others and the trappings of life."

"No shit. I know all of this; that's why I'm stuck in a meaningless job, lost in the dream that won't seem to go away." "Maybe it's not for anyone else. Maybe it's your promised land: the place you could have had, and still might when you're gone, but for now can only see glimpses of. Maybe it's just another Rosebud out of reach, and your uncultivated lot in life is the curse of Adam. But you know, there's only one way to find out." "And take them down that road with me?" "She loves you." "I love her more than that. I love them enough to remember where that road leaves off." "You don't know that's where it goes." "I know I love them more than he loved us."

"You loved that family life, I know. The whole stability thing they brought to the dining room table. Well, guess what? Now, you have your own. And they came from your choices, your decisions in life this time. One is even made from the pieces of you! From your daydreaming to your passions to your sensitivity to your reactions at life, right down to the brown eyes that turn within. She's your greatest piece yet!"

"I'm a dropout, a runaway.. I've taken someone from who she loves. I pushed a girl through the cotton to the bottom of the pills. I bring sadness where I go. He's in my gut, the wrinkles in my eyes.. My very skin is turning into his. I need to leave, ..before she'll remember me. Once again it's now or never."

"If you left them right now, their lives would fall apart. It may be that she'll find someone later. But it may be someone who knows everything. Someone who doesn't ask these questions. Someone who wouldn't treat your girl right because of the pieces of you always being read through her. That's something no one could ever match! And if that happened, that would be all your fault too. Could you live with that? Could you die knowing that?" "If I stay.. . I don't want to ever put her in my shoes. They're a tattered, thin pair that you can feel with every step."

"Look at yourself for once. You have a wife whose favorite sound of the day is hearing you come through the door. You have a daughter who's made in your image - from outside/within. She's already here, and she needs you to continue to carry her, as no one else would, up the hills and through the woods, until she finds the one who wants to walk beside her. And where do you think you're taking them? Oh no. Believe you me, a dream in the blue is meant to be followed not left up a head. No, you're not heading down that road. And more importantly, you could never take them down that road.

"You see, the sins of the father are only spots in the sun. You – You are a dreamer of dreams. The pieces make the sun rise in the picture till all of the light is done."

Copyright © 2005 Mike Cruz

